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The Priest as Instrument of Christ1*
Thomas Joseph White, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, DC

BY VIRTUE OF THE SACRAMENTof Holy Orders, the Catholic

priest is someone who—in his very person as a limited, vulnerable, fallen
human being—is conformed to Christ the High Priest in a very unique
sort of way. Most minimally, the Lord commits for the entire history of
the life of a priest to render himself present sacramentally to the world
through all of that person’s ecclesial-sacramental actions. Wherever the
sacraments are celebrated with the intention to do that which the Church
intends, Christ will become present and his grace will be accorded to the
faithful. That is the mere minimum foundation of priestly instrumentality, already quite exalted. More maximally, Christ promises to grant the
grace of personal sanctification to the priest precisely in and through his
work of charity on behalf of the life of the Church, that is to say, in his
actions of priestly work. Here the promise is conditional: sanctification
occurs only if the priest cooperates faithfully with the providence of God,
to build up the body of Christ, in a life of faith, hope, and charity. And
this life of sanctification admits of degrees. There are degrees of priestly
holiness and charity. There is no zenith here because the priest can be
indefinitely conformed more and more profoundly to the measure of the
charity of the heart of Christ. So if the sacramental promise is most fun* This reflection was originally given at The Priest as Disciple of Christ & Alter Chris-

tus conference for Catholic priests, hosted by the Cathedral of the Incarnation in
Nashville, TN, July 8–10, 2014, cosponsored by the Diocese of Nashville and the
Thomistic Institute, Dominican House of Studies, Washington, DC.

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damental, the sanctification promise is most ultimate. And most priests,
all priests in some real sense, live somewhere between these two promises: the promise of sacramental efficacy and the promise of sanctification
of priestly action. However, through both his sacramental actions and
the charity of his sanctifying conformity to Christ, the priest becomes a
privileged instrument of Christ. This occurs despite and sometimes even
in the midst of the human limitations, weaknesses or general fallenness
of the priest. It is this mystery that I would like to address here. What
does it mean to say that the priest is an instrument of Christ? I will try
to do this in three short parts. First, what are the things that priests are
utterly relative to, or depend upon, for their instrumentality? Second,
what is the grace of sacramental instrumentality even if the priest is a
sinner, what Thomas Aquinas calls the “wicked priest”?1 This is not a
morbid question. It shows us just to what extent God is committed to the
Church, and thus even to us as his ministers. Third, what is the grace of
instrumentality in full blossom? What does it mean for Christ to inhabit
the priest, to act through him, to shine in the world, like the light of the
monstrance: for Christ to speak and act, as the God-man, in and through
his instrument the priest, in and through the very personality of the minister of Christ?
I
We should begin by stating the obvious, not only because it is true, but
also because it is deeply consoling. The priest is utterly relative to two
other forms of instrumentality, the instrumentality of Christ and that of
the sacraments. The primary instrument of grace in the cosmos is the
sacred humanity of Jesus. God is the primal source of grace: all grace
comes from God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son as
man, however, in his humanity is a true instrument of grace. Just as
the musician plays music through the violin, so God gives us grace in
and through his sacred humanity. How so? Principally through the human intellect and will of Christ. The Lord in his human soul, knows
us, and loves us, with a human mind and a human heart. He himself as
man possesses a plenitude of grace, and he constantly wills to give the
Church the graces he distributes to us. All of the illuminations given
1

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (ST) III, q. 82, a.5.

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to the Church, all the graces of charity and the infused virtues that we
find in her saints, all participation in the gifts of the Holy Spirit: these
all come from God, principally, but also instrumentally from Christ as
man. The humanity of Jesus is like an everlasting font of living water,
the source from which the grace of God flows forth continually into the
life of the Church, and out to the world, to all human beings, for whom
Christ died.
The second instrumentality is that of the sacraments. We know this
well: God has promised to work in the sacraments as causes of grace,
and they convey grace ex opere operato, from the very working of the
sacraments themselves, so long as the minister has the intention to do
what the Church does when she celebrates these sacraments. Consider a
sacrament that is not intrinsically dependent upon the priesthood, like
baptism. The Church confesses that through the pouring of water upon
the head and the pronunciation of the Trinitarian formula, spiritual regeneration is conveyed effectively, by which the stain of original sin is
removed from the soul of the newly baptized person, and the life of
grace is communicated. The baptized are incorporated into the mystical
body of Christ. Thus baptism saves. Thomas Aquinas speaks of the sacred humanity of Christ as a conjoined instrument (because it is united
to the eternal Word) and of the sacraments, such as baptism, as separated instruments. God communicates grace to us simultaneously through
the humanity of the Lord and through the sacramental economy. Or put
more simply, Christ himself works through the sacraments to convey his
grace to us in and through visible signs.
Why begin with all this? Because it is presupposed to the priesthood and without it nothing the Catholic priest does would make any
sense. The ordained priest is entirely relative to Christ, the High Priest,
savior of the human race, and source of grace that alone can save. It is
always only his priesthood, his sacrifice, his seven sacraments through
which he is the principal agent, working in his Church both visibly and
invisibly. Here is the remarkable thing: the gift has already been given.
Our redemption has already been obtained, objectively, in the death and
Resurrection of the Lord. The Church has already been instituted, as
have the sacraments. And there is no worldly power, human or angelic
that can dissolve that mystery that will continue to be until the end of
time, and indeed for all eternity. What all this means is that the respon-

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sibility of the ministerial priest is quite real and quite grave. Indeed the
stakes could not be higher. Priests are concerned with the salvation of
the world. Indeed, they are bound up with it. And yet, this responsibility
of the ministerial priest to be an instrument of God, is also entirely relative. He is entirely relative to the living presence and activity of Christ,
who has already overcome the world (Jn 16:33) by the mystery of his
Cross, and who is present and alive in his Church and in the seven sacraments, from now until the end of time. This is consoling to us, or at
least, it can and should be. The basis for seeing rightly what it means
for a priest to be an instrument of Christ is to see that the priesthood
is founded on the Rock who is the Son of God. “Behold, I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world” (Mt 28:20).
II
Second, we should treat of sacramental instrumentality as the most basic form of priestly work. This follows from what has been said. Christ
promised to the Church in perpetuity his presence and activity, especially in the sacramental economy, and the minister of the sacraments
is primarily the priest. It would almost be theologically sufficient to say
that the priest exists for the sacraments. He is the unique confector of
the Most Holy Eucharist who offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and
the delegated representative of the bishop in confession and confirmation. He alone can give the sacrament of anointing. He is the ordinary
minister of baptism and even if he is not the minister of marriage, which
is confected by the two spouses, he is the guardian of this sacrament and
its teacher, in whose presence and with whose blessing the couple must
consent to their sacramental union in faith.
In short, then, the sacramental work of the priest is fundamental
to the spiritual life of the world. We could say that the place or visible
site at which the life of Christ touches the world is the Eucharist above
all because the glorified Christ is present there substantially. But in another way, we could say that it is the priest that is the living place where
the grace of Christ is present in the world. He is, as in the Chesterton
poem, a kind of beast of burden, the donkey of the passion narratives,
bearing Christ on his way to Golgotha and the Resurrection, through

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the winding roads of this world.12 To encounter the priest on the road is
to encounter Christ, always and everywhere present to his Church. The
people of God know that. Much of what we may take for clericalism or
exaggerated respect for priests is in fact a form of piety that is not about
priests as individuals, but about Christ in priests. It is not based upon
human merits, or even the sanctity of any particular priest but exists
absolutely in spite of all this. In the priesthood, the people of God sense
the sheer grace of God: his unfailing choice to remain active in priests
on behalf of the whole Church, in all things, despite all things, and for
all time. The people of God are thankful for this above all, and they are
right to be. After all, priests themselves know this. As sinners in need of
forgiveness and salvation, as those who seek to find God and to be consoled by him, priests themselves profit from this sacramental presence
just as much as others.
When Aquinas speaks about the sacrament of holy orders, like all
western medieval theologians, he divides the sacrament into three parts,
the sacramentum tantum, the res et sacramentum and the res tantum: the
sign itself, the reality and the sign, and the reality itself.23 The sign itself
is the laying on of hands. From the time of the Gospels, including in the
Acts of the Apostles (6:6, 8:17) and the First Letter to Timothy (4:14)
we find references to the laying-on of hands, and this gesture continued throughout the history of the ancient Church. Already the medieval
sacramental theologians realized the historical diversity of prayers of
consecration and ordination. Accordingly they argue typically that the
laying on of hands is the “matter” of the sacrament, of “divine right,” instituted in the apostolic age, while the invocation of the Holy Spirit is the
2

G. K. Chesterton, “The Donkey,” in The Collected Poems of G.K. Chesterton (London:
Cecil Palmer, 1927), 297: “When fishes flew and forests walked / And figs grew upon
thorn / Some moment when the moon was blood / Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry / And ears like errant wings, / The devil’s
walking parody / On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth, / Of ancient crooked will; / Starve, scourge, deride me: /
I am dumb, I keep my secret still.’
Fools! For I also had my hour; / One far fierce hour and sweet: / There was a shout
about my ears, / And palms before my feet.”
3
Thomas Aquinas, IV Sent. d. 24, q. 1, a. 1, qua. 1–3. See also Gilles Emery, “The
Ecclesial Fruit of the Eucharist According to Thomas Aquinas,” Nova et Vetera (English) 2 (2004): 43–60.

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“form” of the sacrament, a verbal act of “ecclesial right” that is subject to
diverse formulations down through time and across the distinct of rites
of the Church.
The res et sacramentum is that which is communicated primarily
by the sign of the laying on of hands: that is to say the character of the
priesthood, that marks the soul of the priest irrevocably. We posit a
character because the priest is never reordained. Whether after serious
sin or apostasy, if a priest returns to the life of grace, the sacrament is
never repeated. At ordination a change has occurred once and for all
that is the condition for the exercise of the ministry. However, one can of
course be ordained a priest and still remain fundamentally inattentive to
the vocation to the priesthood, whether in small or great ways. After all,
there are priests who remain ordained but who forsake the faith entirely.
The character of the priesthood, then, is something fundamental and
necessary, but it is certainly not everything.
And so the third category: the res tantum. For Aquinas, this term
signifies not the essence or formal cause of the priesthood, even though
the Latin suggests this (“the reality itself ”). Rather, it is something like
the purpose or final cause of the sacrament. The priest who has the character is formally or essentially ordained, whether he lives in the grace of
Christ or not, but when he lives in the grace of God and seeks sanctification through the regular activities of the priesthood, then he lives out the
priesthood as a work of grace. In sanctifying others, he is himself sanctified. This is the res tantum, or the sanctifying activity of the priesthood.
So in effect we can draw a parallel. I’ve distinguished the sacramental instrumentality of the priest that is fundamental, which never abates,
if you like, and the sanctifying instrumentality of the priest who acts in
the person of Christ not only for the sanctification of others, but in such
a way as to live profoundly within the grace of Christ. This distinction
corresponds in a way to the res et sacramentum, or the character of holy
orders, and to the res tantum, or the sanctifying grace of holy orders. It
is one thing to be always an instrument of Christ as a minister of the
sacraments. It is another to be an instrument of Christ by living in his
grace and charity, ever more deeply. The two are of course meant to go
together, and it is this relationship that we are trying to consider more
profoundly. It is helpful, however, to think first about the mere sacramental instrumentality that God guarantees the Church, even in what

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Thomas Aquinas calls the wicked priest. We do not like thinking about
this: the sheer commitment of God to work sacramentally even through
the priest who is not in a state of grace. However, it helps us understand
what the character of the priesthood is in its ineffaceable nature. In a
sense, it is a deeply consoling truth, because it allows us to see that God
is closer to priests than they are to themselves in the order of grace . . .
that he is intent to work through all things in the life of the Church even
to the point of the scandal of giving grace through the medium of sinful
and limited human beings. Such is the love of Christ crucified, alive in
the Church, victorious in her despite everything, in all times and places.
When he discusses the character of holy orders, Aquinas argues that
it is not first and foremost a mark or quality left upon the moral agency
of the soul. That is to say, the priest does not become a better person
morally by the simple fact that he is ordained. The character is a quality of the spiritual soul, but it does not immediately modify the will or
the heart. This is a sensible affirmation: the heart of the priest is not
irrevocably improved once and for all by ordination. Rather, Aquinas
argues, the character is given primarily into the intellect.14 The reason the
priest acquires a new power, or capacity, is to act in accord with Christ’s
wishes, especially in performing the Church’s sacramental rites. If and
when the priest does what the Church intends to do in the sacramental
economy, he becomes de facto an instrument of Christ, through which
the grace of God is conveyed to the world, through the medium of his
priestly action.
Aquinas’s view is anticlimactic, and not very romantic, for all the
reasons that we have stated, but it is marked by a fundamental realism.
God is minimally committed to work through a validly ordained priest
always, no matter his degree of sanctity. This is worth recalling spiritually as a point of humility. It is not primarily the priest’s work. Priests are
coworkers with the Lord, who always takes the initiative before them
and whose mission they serve. Priests did not invent the priesthood and
they cannot innovate in regard to it, but this lack of originality is also
their true deliverance. Priests give grace to others, because they first receive it from Christ: “What do you have that you have not received?”
(1 Cor 4:7). Nothing, says St. Paul. But also, once a priest has accepted
4

ST III, q. 62, aa. 3–5.

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truly to receive all that he has, what can he then receive? Everything:
God himself and all things in God. And the greatest of these things is
the Eucharistic sacrifice, in which priests are privileged to participate by
being conformed to the image of the Son. If humility is the foundation
of truthfulness in the moral life, then this foundation for the priest is
very noble. Priests are called upon to acquire the noble humility of those
who receive from God the ultimate gift: to participate in the offering of
Christ himself.
III
This leads us to our third and last subject, the instrumentality of sanctification, the living out of the res tantum or sanctifying grace of the
sacrament of Holy Orders. This is what it really means for the priest
to be a living instrument of Christ, but it is also the most complicated
of topics. For we are really speaking about priestly holiness, and it has
several elements. Notice that all the elements I will name are something
distinct from the character of holy orders. All of them contribute to the
sanctification of the priest.
First, for the priest to become holy in Christ, the priesthood must
be exercised in a state of grace. If the priest is alive in faith, hope, and
charity then all of his priestly acts contribute in some way not only to
the sanctification of others, but also to his own inward conformity to the
mystery of Christ. This process takes place in the darkness of faith and is
a mystery largely hidden from our plain sight, but it is real nonetheless.
Under the veil of faith, Christ dwells in a special way within the priest
who lives in charity, in friendship with Jesus. This living grace can of
course grow, and it takes on diverse forms in the diverse virtues of the
priest: his faith, hope, and charity, his truthfulness, zeal, justice, affability, religious devotion, endurance, temperance, simplicity of life, and so
on. The Holy Spirit gives his gifts diversely, and some are conformed
to Christ more particularly in one domain than in another, but each
person is called to be conformed inwardly to Christ more and more
perfectly throughout the course of his life.
Second, the priest is a person of communion, who is engrafted into
the larger life of the whole Church. The most concrete sign of this is his
communion with the bishop of his diocese, who grants him the faculties

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to hear confessions and absolve sins, without which all confessions are
invalid. The jurisdiction of the bishop granted to the priest permits the
priest to become holy, to live out the mystery of his priesthood by hearing confessions and absolving sins. This shows that the priest can only
exercise his ministry in a way that is sanctifying if he remains deeply
grounded in the communion of the Church, as a coworker and steward
of the bishop.
Third, we must add theological learning, and the capacity to teach
the faith. The priest is first and foremost a servant of the sacraments,
but he is also a teacher and a catechist, who has the privilege to preach
and instruct. This capacity is not received formally from the character
of holy orders as such, but has to be cultivated, in cooperation with the
Holy Spirit, and thus the traditional importance given in the Church to
seminary formation and theological education. Evidently, the teaching
of the priest takes place primarily in the pulpit or the classrooms of a
parish, but it also transpires in the confessional and in daily pastoral advice. The teaching of Christ illumines the human mind with knowledge
of the supernatural mysteries of the faith, but it can also be employed to
encourage the penitent, to rebuke gently a person who is errant, to give
perspective to a person who is in trial. The priest as a teacher seeks to
shine a ray of supernatural light upon every human situation, taking it
up into consideration under the light of the Cross and the Resurrection
of the Lord.
Last and relatedly, the priest is called upon to be a person of prudence or good counsel. It is amazing just how much of priestly life is
about this: giving advice about how to live wisely in day-to-day affairs.
The priest advises, often in ordinary situations, about how to live well
for Christ, as a Christian, in the midst of the secular world. Often he
also advises in very delicate matters, where one is called upon to apply absolute principles to complex cases. By developing his evangelical
prudence, the priest becomes a kind of moral lamp or light of Christ,
who seeks to advise others with the true counsel of the Holy Spirit,
to help each person avoid evil and tend toward the good. We could
put it more simply by saying that the priest is a person who seeks to
teach people to grow in charity and holiness, and to be faithful to the
truth of Christ in their concrete lives. For this, he needs to be a man of
sound practical wisdom.

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All of this, grace and virtue, communion with the Church, teaching
and pastoral prudence: it is all distinct from the character of holy orders
as such. One can be ordained and lack all of it, but if a person is ordained, he should first have acquired some of it, to some degree. The life
of each priest entails a progressive tending toward perfection in all these
domains, according to one’s state in life and the form of ministry one
is called to particularly. Some are confessors, some are pastors, some
are teachers, and others are responsible for the administration of the
Church’s daily life. All priests do at least a little of everything, however,
and it is in doing so that they are called upon to be sanctified as human
beings alive in Christ, through whom Christ is active and present in the
world in his holiness and his truth.
When we start to consider all of this together, then, we can see more
clearly the mystery of the holiness of the priest as a sanctifying instrument of Christ. The grace and virtues of Christ are alive in him. The
teaching of Christ is alive in him. The practical wisdom of Christ is alive
in him. The living unity of the Church and her communion is embodied in him and in his action with the bishop. In all this, the priest acts
mysteriously as a discrete but real presence of Christ in the world. Jesus
suggests a kind of organic continuity between himself and the Christian,
one that can apply in a particular way to the priest: “I am the vine; you
are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much
fruit” (Jn 15:5). Notice, of course, that the fruitfulness is Christ’s.
To be sure, this presence of Christ in the priest is not a substantial
presence, like that of the Eucharist. In being the graced instrument of
Christ, the priest does not become Christ personally. They remain two
distinct persons. The Lord is the eternal Son made man, the priest a
mere creature and a sinner redeemed by Christ. His limits and faults
are only too evident. Instead, we might say that the presence is operative
instead of substantial: the Lord acts in and through the priest, but he
acts habitually, operating through him upon others continually, in truth,
charity, and mercy. This presence is quasi-personal. That is to say, the
personality of the living Christ can come to invade or inspire the personality of the priest, as the truth and love of Christ shine more deeply in the mind and heart of the priest. He then becomes progressively
holier by assimilating himself and his own personality more and more
entirely to the mission of Christ for others in this world. “It is no longer I

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who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). “He must increase, and
I must decrease” (Jn 3:30).
This transformation, to the extent that it takes place, does not destroy the personality of the priest. It is meant to liberate him, to fulfill
him, actually. His inner life of sanctification, no matter how modest or
hidden, is meant to become a habitual presence of the holiness of Christ
personally present in the midst of the world. The priest is a kind of window, as it were, where the light of Jesus’s own personality shines out into
the darkness and calls human souls to union with God.
Bearing this responsibility is an overwhelming burden for each
priest, to be sure, and sometimes a kind of crushing one. Part of him
would rather not hear about it. He is not capable of bearing the weight
of Christ in the world. And yet, because of his ordination, this sense of
weight does not desist. When does one really stop being a priest? There
is no real evasion of the task, even though it can frequently seem like
something that is utterly beyond any human being to aspire to. But this
same responsibility is also a kind of liberation. It gives the life of each
priest the deepest, most consequential meaning, in the darkness of faith;
to be at the perpetual service of the Cross of Christ, the Cross of the
Lord, the redemption of the world.
Believing in this requires great patience for a multitude of reasons,
not least because it requires each priest to struggle against the darkness
that is within himself and to believe in the power of God progressively
to transform us. As St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, the Christian must
believe that he or she can be transformed (Eph 4:22–24, 31–32): “Put off
your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt . . . be renewed in the spirit of your minds, put on the new nature,
created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness . . .
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put
away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
The scandal of the priesthood is in this way, both like and unlike the
scandal of the Eucharist. In the case of the Eucharist, the transformation
is immediate and total: Hoc est corpus meum. The bread and wine are
transformed entirely into the body and blood under the appearances or
properties of bread and wine that remain. The darkness of faith is clearly
felt. We know Christ is present but cannot see or touch him under the

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appearances of his glorified flesh. That is a profound mystery, but it is
one we become habituated to, that we live with. The deeper difficulty or
scandal, if one may be allowed to speak this way, is with the silence of
the Eucharist. Christ is truly present, but he is present in silence, in the
midst of warfare, political persecutions, deadly storms and fires, secular
indifference, profanation and a plethora of other acts of physical and
spiritual violence. Why does he not change the world? Or, rather, why
does he change the world every day in such a profound way, but seemingly only in this way? Clearly the answer can only be related to the
mystery of faith that the Eucharist does not abolish, but deepens by its
presence and its silence. This faith finds its resolution in the eschaton,
toward which we are on pilgrimage, for which the Eucharist nourishes
us, like bread in the wilderness.
The priesthood is different. Here the transformation is not immediate or entire. It takes place slowly, and not without great struggle. Also
in contrast, the scandal does not stem from the seeming silence or inactivity of this sacrament. The priest is active in the midst of history. He
is able to be present in the midst of war or disease, violent persecution
or physical disaster, and of course to accompany Christians through the
experience of death. And in the midst of all this, he is able to cast the
light of Christ, the ray of truth, in his words and his charity and his mercy. He is able to bring Christ into the midst of the world in an amazing
way. However, he does so in and through the weakness of his own person. That is the trial of this sacrament. The priest is not transformed as
the elements of the Eucharist are. He is transformed as another believer,
who struggles to persevere in the night of this world in faith, and hope,
and charity. He gives absolution, ex opere operato, infallibly, we might
say, by the words of absolution. And yet he remains himself a sinner,
subject to the same weaknesses, called to the same profound and lasting
conversion. If the priest is a monstrance of light, he is a more dynamic
and unstable sort of monstrance: a work in progress, in which the clarity
of the truth is meant to shine over time, more and more brightly. In the
saints who are priests, we see this light conquer.
Why does God will such a mystery for his Church? We can think of
many reasons, but here I will offer only one. It pertains to the pedagogy
of mercy. By having such profound mercy on a poor human being so
as to make him a priest, God gives us an unerring sense of the depths

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of his love for the whole human race, as he seeks to find friends even
among sinners, and as he communicates the mystery of the Beloved Son
to the world through the medium of ordinary human beings. In short,
the scandal in question is a scandal above all of mercy, and of the encouragement of God who chooses imperfect human beings as priests,
precisely because he wills that we, the Church, might believe in the vehement love of Christ.
Thus priests are called to be instruments of Christ: each one another
Christ, alter Christus, in the midst of this world that is complex, and
with the terrible complexity and limitation that is within each ordained
minister. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Yes, Lord, we are weak, but your grace is powerful and victorious, and in you alone can we find the fullness of life, and
lasting peace. “In the world you have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I
have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
This grace of Jesus is the seed of eternity, growing up silently in the
heart of this world, sprouting up in the hearts and minds of Christ’s
priests, expressed in their everyday words and actions, as disciples of
Christ who communicate his presence out into the world. St. Leo the
Great famously writes in his oft-cited Christmas homily, “Oh, Christian
remember your dignity . . . Remember the Head and Body of which you
are a member!”15 And so we should say similarly “Oh priest, acknowledge
what you are, another Christ, an instrument of the Lord, a living tabernacle of the presence of Jesus in your very person.” This is the greatest challenge but it is also the great dignity and privilege to which each
Catholic priest is called. May the Lord make good in us that work that
N&V
he has begun. Amen.

5

Leo the Great, “Sermon 21, On the Feast of the Nativity,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 12, ed. P. Schaff and H. Wace , trans. C.L. Feltoe (Buffalo, NY: Christian
Literature, 1895), 1.

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Dismantling the Cross
Patricia Snow
New Haven, CT

IN AUGUST 2009,the year Pope Benedict XVI designated The Year

of the Priest, I attended Mass on a Saturday evening in a small, comfortable parish on the coast of Maine. The Mass was the popular Vigil
Mass that fulfills a Catholic’s Sunday obligation. The Gospel, the same
for all the weekend Masses, was Mark’s story of the rich young man. In
Mark’s telling, a young man kneels before Jesus and asks what he must
do to inherit eternal life. Jesus reminds him of the commandments,
which the young man claims to observe, and then Jesus, looking at him
with love, says, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have and give to
the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
The young man’s face falls and he goes away sad, because he has many
possessions (Mk 10:17–22).
“So how are we to understand this Gospel?” the priest asked in his
homily that followed the reading of the Gospel, as the congregation of
year-round residents and vacationing visitors settled in the pews.
“Does it mean that you should run out and sell your nice houses on
the coast of Maine and give the money to the poor?”
The question was faintly satirical; the answer, no, of course not. No,
what Jesus was asking, the priest went on to say, was that each of us give
up whatever in our lives comes between us and him: our bad temper,
for example, or an addiction to sweets.
The following day, visiting family further south, I attended Mass
again, in a different parish. The same Gospel was read and another ser-

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mon was preached, this one about the excessive greed and materialism
that led to the collapse of the financial markets the summer before.
When I returned to Connecticut from Maine, I asked friends in
neighboring parishes about the sermons they had heard preached the
previous weekend. All the sermons recounted to me were tailored to the
laity; none took the words of Jesus at face value. In Benedict’s Year of
the Priest, no one mentioned the possibility of a priestly vocation. No
one mentioned the countless men and women in former ages, who, as
if to compensate and console Jesus for his loss of the rich young man,
responded to Mark’s Gospel by leaving everything and following him.
No one mentioned Antony of the Desert, the father of Western monasticism, who, on hearing Matthew’s version of the same Gospel, did precisely what the priest in Maine gently lampooned: he went out immediately
and gave away his inheritance, devoting himself from then on, in the
words of St. Athanasius, “to the discipline rather than the household.”1
I
God is the fullness of truth. In him, seeming opposites hold together:
the demands of justice and mercy; the mysteries of suffering and healing; his omniscience and our free will. Whereas we, with our short perspectives, see contradictions everywhere, God sees from afar. Where
we are partial and confused, he is whole and, in a sense, simple. To
borrow a category from physics, God is a unified field.
Sometimes a passage of Scripture or the swift intuition of a saint
gives us an intimation of the divine simultaneity. “Work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you” (Phil
2:12–13). “It is because [God] is just that ‘he is . . . abundant in mercy,
for he knows our frailty, he remembers we are only dust.’”2 At graced
moments in our lives, we may suddenly realize that seemingly opposed
forces have, in fact, furthered a single end; or grasp the mercy of the
law, that has lovingly condescended to our frailty.
More commonly, in what we might call ordinary time, the truth
1

St. Athanasius, The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, trans. Robert C.
Gregg (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), 6.
2
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, General Correspondence, vol. 2, trans. John Clarke, O.C.D.
(Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1988), 1093. From a letter to P. Adolphe Roulland, dated May 9, 1897.

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that the Catholic Church exists to convey comes to us piecemeal and
incrementally. In the liturgical year, as the seasons and feasts revolve,
the Church holds before our eyes different exemplars of the faith, different pieces of revelation and chapters of the Christian story. The Church
celebrates not only Christmas and Easter, but also Christ’s Baptism and
Ascension, Pentecost, the Feast of All Souls, the Feast of Christ’s Body
and Blood, and so on. One saint’s charism is the mystery of the Trinity;
another’s, Christ’s hidden years in Nazareth. Popes, like saints, succeed
one another in history, build on one another’s legacies, qualify or expand one another’s teachings. After John Paul II, in Assisi, dramatized
the ecumenical dimension of faith, Benedict XVI, at Regensburg, distinguished Christianity from Islam. When Francis was elected pope,
he immediately drew attention to the other sins that, in the language of
Scripture, cry to heaven for judgment: not only murder and sodomy,
but also oppressing the poor, neglecting the widow and orphan, and
denying the worker a just wage.3 Like a many-faceted ball over a dance
floor, the Church, in time, reflects to the observant Catholic the whole
of divine revelation, never lingering too long on any one part of the
story, or stressing one truth of faith at the expense of another.4
This is the ideal. Realistically, the ordered unfolding of the liturgy
aside, life in the Church has never been a balanced or a stately progression. Not for nothing did G. K. Chesterton compare the Church to a reeling chariot, veering this way and that, barely skirting disaster. Great saints
(recall Thérèse of Lisieux’s childhood pronouncement, “I choose all!”),
graced moments, and golden ages aside, the history of the Church is the
history of a people continually struggling with the difficulty of holding
seemingly contradictory truths in suspension. It is the history of a people continually tempted by heresy, which precisely stresses one truth of
faith at the expense of another and simplifies, not by integration, but by
3
4

Catechism of the Catholic Church (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994), §1867.
Romano Guardini, The Spirit of the Liturgy (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 23–24. “If
a prayer . . . stresses any one mystery of faith in an exclusive or an excessive manner, in the end it will adequately satisfy none but those who are of a corresponding
temperament, and even the latter will eventually become conscious of their need of
truth in its entirety. For instance, if a prayer deals exclusively with God’s mercy, it
will not ultimately satisfy even a delicate and tender piety, because this truth calls for
its complement—the fact of God’s justice and majesty.”

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subtraction. (Christ’s divinity must go, or his humanity; predestination
or man’s free will.) So dualistic are man’s temptations, and so ready is he
to distinguish oppositions even where none exist, Satan, in his undertakings, frequently begins by carving up the good. (You, be concerned for the
poor, and you, for the unborn.) The struggle for the whole truth—both for
the capacious mysteries protected by dogmas and for every kind of fruitful synthesis in ordinary life—is perennial in the Church. She proceeds,
not in a straight line, but by digressions and corrections, near shipwrecks
and counterreformations large and small. Not only does she sometimes
stress one truth of faith at the expense of another, she sometimes does so
interminably, in long languishings more reminiscent of a swamped ship
than a swift chariot. The harsh effects of Jansenism, for example, lingered
for generations, the Church seemingly adrift in the long darkness of a
polar winter, until finally, the wind of the Spirit rising in the persons of
SS. Thérèse and Faustina, she turned and shipped slowly back in the direction of light and mercy.
Complicating matters further, all truths are not equal. It would not
be enough even for the Church to grant all truths equal time and hold
them in perfect balance. Rather, she must discern and express the right
relationships among different truths, some of which are foundational
and eternal, while others are ordered to foundational truths, either as
consequences that follow from them, or as means to their end.
It is the great foundational truths of the faith that must be preserved
at all cost: the truth of God’s salvific love for all men, for example, to
which the truth of the moral law is ordered. Apart from God’s saving
love, the moral law is everywhere rejected as too hard, just as suffering
not understood as ordered to final healing is increasingly rejected as
well. When foundational truths falter, truths ordered to them also falter, and the whole edifice can come down, in Pope Francis’s words, “like
a house of cards.”5
II
Generally speaking, there are two principal vocations in the life of the
Catholic Church: marriage, on the one hand, and celibate priesthood
5

Pope Francis, “A Big Heart Open to God,” interview by Antonio Spadaro, S.J., America,
September 30, 2013.

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and religious life on the other. Both, as it happens, are expressions of
conjugal love. In the normal calling of marriage, an individual binds
himself for life to another human being. In the exceptional calling of
priesthood or religious life, an individual binds himself eternally to God.
The fruitful life of the Church has always depended upon a healthy
interaction between these two states of life. In truly Catholic periods or
cultures, an equilibrium has been established between them, whereby
the family bears children some of whom are called to religion, and religious life in turn justifies and sanctifies the family.6 In Willa Cather’s
Shadows on the Rock, a novel about Catholic Quebec in the seventeenth
century, a young domestic heroine whose love of order and cleanliness
is such that she cannot sleep in a dirty bed, is balanced in the world
of the novel by a beautiful ascetic in a church in Montreal, walled up
behind the Blessed Sacrament with a stone for a pillow. Like the French
ships in the novel that convey to the Canadian colonies “everything to
comfort the body and soul,” the capacious hold of the Church enfolds
both vocations.7 Neither Shaker nor Protestant, the Church affirms
both women’s choices, just as the young heroine of the novel is enamored of her alter ego in Montreal, and the recluse, in her turn, prays for
her brothers and sisters in the world, night and day.
Still, this mutual dependency and reciprocal respect notwithstanding, in the whole history of the Church the choice for celibacy has
always been understood to be objectively higher than the choice for
marriage, because the celibate anticipates in his flesh the world of the
future resurrection.8 Rather than pass through the intermediate state of
earthly marriage, the priest or religious steps outside the bounds of ordinary life and begins to live, in advance, the nuptial realities of heaven.
Contrary to popular impressions, the documents of Vatican II did
not break with this traditional understanding. The same documents
that resoundingly affirm marriage continue to assign to celibacy an
“eminent” position, one “always . . . held in particular honor in the
Church.” In the language of Lumen Gentium, the religious, by his pro6

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Two Sisters in the Spirit (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
1992), 118.
7
Willa Cather, Shadows on the Rock (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), 209.
8
Familiaris Consortio (1981) §16.

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fession, seeks “more abundant fruit” from the grace of his baptism; is
“more intimately consecrated to divine service”; and “more fully manifests to all believers the presence of heavenly goods already possessed
here below” (emphasis mine).9 In St. John Chrysostom’s formulation,
“It is something better than what is admitted to be good that is the most
excellent good,”10 a conclusion echoed by John Paul II in his exhortation Familiaris Consortio, where he also concludes that, “Virginity,
or celibacy, by liberating the human heart in a unique way . . . bears
witness that the Kingdom of God is that pearl of great price which is
preferred to every other value no matter how great. ”11
Put another way, the Catholic view of human life and history is
never circular but always teleological, always “straining forward,” in the
words of St. Paul, “to what lies ahead” (Phil 3:13). Catholic family life
is not ordered to itself, but to what is future and ultimate: life with God
and his saints in heaven. Catholic families do not bear children simply
so that their children may bear children, and so on. They bear children
for God. For people like St. Thérèse’s parents, Louis and Zélie Martin,
all of whose living children ended their lives as religious, “It would be
just as senseless and unchristian for a family to be shut in on itself as
for a believer in the Old Testament to reject its fulfillment in the New.”12
Few families in the history of the Church have risen to the level
of the Martins in this regard. But whether acted upon or not, whether
explicit or implicit, there was a consensus in Christendom as to the
direction and meaning of human life. In a time of late puberty and
high mortality, a time before Viagra and estrogen therapy, there were
few illusions about the duration of either sexuality or marriage, and a
general acknowledgment that, soon enough, everyone would be obedient, celibate, and poor. While the vast majority of people in those days
chose marriage in the first place, if they survived it they were less likely
than our contemporaries to choose it again. Even before death intervened in a marriage, a small minority of spouses separated by mutual
agreement and entered monasteries. Many more widows and widowers
9

Lumen Gentium (1964) §42, 44.
John Chrysostom, Virginity, X: PG 48:540.
11
FC, §16.
12
Von Balthasar, Two Sisters in the Spirit, 118.
10

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did the same. Marriage was not regarded as a treadmill to be endlessly
resumed, but as a passing phase of life, even as everyone, married or
not, was passing from earth to heaven, where “they neither marry nor
are given in marriage” (Mt 22:30). In the view of St. Ignatius, marriage
was so provisional a state it was scarcely deserving of a vow, “for it
must be remembered that a vow deals with matters that lead us closer
to evangelical perfection . . . and whatever tends to withdraw us from
perfection may not be made the object of a vow, for example, a business
career, the married state, and so forth.”13
The great novel of this view of human life is Kristin Lavransdatter,
a three-volume saga of medieval Norway by Sigrid Undset. Late in the
novel, when the widowed heroine is settled in a monastery after many
years in the world, she ponders the sisterhood she has finally joined:
When, after this hour of prayer, Kristin went back through the
dormitory and saw the sisters sleeping two and two on sacks of
straw in their beds, clad in the habits which they never put off,
she thought how much unlike she must be to these women, who
from their youth up had done naught but serve their Maker.
The world was a master whom ‘twas not easy to fly, when once
one had yielded to its dominion. Ay, and in sooth she had not
fled the world—she had been cast out, as a hard master drives a
worn-out servant from his door—and now she had been taken
in here, as a merciful lord takes in an old serving-maid and of
his mercy gives her a little work, while he shelters and feeds the
worn-out, friendless old creature.14
Of course, in the view of the human community, intent on its own survival, it is one thing when an old person leaves the world for religion, and
quite another when a young person, and someone’s heir, does the same.
13

St. Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. Louis J. Puhl, S.J.
(Chicago: Loyola Press, 1951), 157–58. The reader who bristles at St. Ignatius’s account
of marriage might remember that, in Ignatius’s day, most marriages lasted until death,
suggesting that what holds a marriage together more effectively than a promise or a vow
is the health of the larger faith traditions in which individual marriages are embedded.
14
Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter, vol. 3, The Cross (New York: Vintage Books,
1987), 369.

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In the abstract or the case of someone else’s child, Christendom conceded
the superiority of celibacy, but when the Franciscans or Dominicans came
to town families famously locked up their sons. Humanity is ordered to
fecundity and Nature fights for her rights, “pleads her cause with prodigious eloquence, with a terrible power of seduction.”15 Like the Israelites
in the Old Testament who insisted on a visible King (1 Sam 8), Nature demands physical intercourse and blood heirs, and fiercely resists any prioritizing of God over human beings or future over earthly goods. Thus even
the most saintly celibates, in their youth, met with scandalized16 resistance
and hostility. It is easy to forget, for example, now that St. Thérèse’s cult is
secure, what the neighbors were thinking and saying as one after another
the Martin girls left their widowed father for the convent. When Thérèse
was finally canonized and her family’s dreams realized, Céline, Thérèse’s
sister, recalled “the humiliations that had been our lot and that of our dear
father: relatives distancing themselves from us, apologizing for being part
of our family; friends and acquaintances who said among themselves:
‘What good was his piety?’”17
It is easy to forget, too, that hostility to celibacy can afflict the saint
interiorly as well as exteriorly. St Francis was not only stoned in the
street, but also taunted by internal accusers. We think of him as having
made one definitive act of renunciation when he stripped himself in
the town square, but a close reading of his life suggests a long struggle, painfully waged.18 As he said sardonically toward the end of his

15

Raïssa Maritain, Raïssa’s Journal (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1974), 55.
If the word “scandal” always implies a betrayed ideal, in this case the betrayed ideal
is Nature and natural relationships.
17
Stephane-Joseph Piat, O.F.M., Celine (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 112.
18
See, for example, the story of Francis’s snow family in St. Francis of Assisi: Writings
and Early Biographies, ed. Marion A. Habig (Quincy: Franciscan Press, 1991) 458–59.
“But when he saw the temptation did not leave him in spite of the scourging . . . he
went out into the garden and cast himself naked into the deep pile of snow. Then
gathering handfuls of snow, he made from it seven lumps like balls. And setting them
before him, he began to speak to his body: ‘Behold,’ he said, ‘this large one is your
wife; these four are your two sons and your two daughters; the other two are your
servant and your maid, whom you must have to serve you. Hurry . . . and clothe them
all, for they are dying of cold. But if caring for them in so many ways troubles you, be
solicitous for serving God alone.’”
16

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life, “Don’t canonize me too quickly. I am perfectly capable of fathering
a child.”19
But once the struggle was over, and the miracles and answered
prayers began to appear, then the celibate in those days was reclaimed
by the human family, because he had proven himself fertile after all.
Then resistance gave way to acceptance, and acceptance to passionate acclaim. Then everyone wanted a piece of the saint. Then everyone
wanted access to his body and his prayers, as the one who was coldly
spurned for choosing heavenly over earthly goods, was joyfully embraced for bringing heavenly goods to earth.
In Shadows on the Rock, Cather traces this trajectory in the life of
the recluse in Montreal. On the far side of her parents’ anguish, her
fiancé’s grief and her own suffering, the recluse emerges in the novel as
a binding force in Catholic Canada, a treasure held in common. After
angels repair her spinning wheel in her upper room in Montreal, the
story travels across country:
By many a fireside the story of Jeanne Le Ber’s spinning-wheel
was told and retold with loving exaggeration during that severe
winter. The word of her visit from the angels went abroad over
snow-burdened Canada to the remote parishes. Wherever it
went, it brought pleasure, as if the recluse herself had sent to all
those families whom she did not know some living beauty. . . .20
There is another celibate in Cather’s novel who trades in living beauty,
who is also an intermediary who brings heavenly goods to earth. If the
recluse’s vocation is extraordinary, the vocation of the priest is ordinary.
But one meaning of ordinary is quotidian, and whereas miracles of the
recluse’s sort are rare, the priest works his miracles daily. Every day, in
the confessional, he forgives sin. Every day, on the altar, he brings God
to earth as food. In the character of Bishop Laval—in his height and
his great age, his legendary charity and formidable endurance—Cather
gives the reader an icon of the dogged, indispensable vocation of the
19

Julien Green, The Life and Times of Francis of Assisi, trans. Peter Heinegg (New York:
Harper and Row, 1985), 194.
20
Cather, Shadows on the Rock, 136–37.

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priest. If the recluse in her atelier is literally raised above the common
lot, the old Bishop in his daily work is literally on the ground with his
flock. But his vocation, too, is vertical in its orientation. His vocation,
too, reaches to heaven. The paradigmatic image in the novel of the old
man at work is the image of him ringing the church bell before dawn,
calling the working people to Mass: “Many good people who did not
want to go to Mass at all, when they heard that hoarse, frosty bell clanging out under the black sky . . . groaned and went to the church. Because they thought of the old Bishop at the end of the bell-rope, and
because his will was stronger than theirs.”21
Both the recluse and the priest, by their sacrifices and prayers, knit
together the human family. But it is on the renunciations of the priest
especially that the spiritual life of the laity depends. In the Catholic
view, the life of Christ has passed into his sacraments,22 and only the
priest can effect the sacraments that guarantee Christ’s life to Christ’s
body. The spiritual health of Catholic people depends absolutely on
certain individuals choosing the vertical orientation of celibate priesthood over the horizontal orientation of marriage. Married life in the
Church is never equal to priesthood and religious life but always dependent on them, as the horizontal of the cross hangs on the vertical.
Earthly marriage is never an absolute, but always an intermediate vocation, ordered to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb as a means to an end.
The recluse in her upper room, the old Bishop hanging on the bell-rope
that disappears over his head—these are examples of individuals who
have vowed themselves to God above all, and who then hand down to
those below what they receive from above.
III
We have been speaking of the traditional ordering of the Church’s life;
her traditional understanding of the relationship between her lay and
religious vocations. Today, has this understanding changed?
From the outside, the Church looks much the same. Before an outsider or non-Catholic knows anything of the Church’s life, before he
attends a Mass or sees the inside of a confessional, he is aware of this
21
22

Ibid, 74.
St. Leo the Great, Sermo 74, 2: PL 54, 398.

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man or woman, this priest or that nun, whom he perhaps passes in the
street, and who then becomes the face of the Church for him.
If he is like most outsiders, he will be wary of this face, or sign,
that he connects, correctly, with celibacy. He may be uncomfortable
or repelled by the sign, or he may be attracted to it or impressed by it,
but in any case, for him the priest or nun will be decisively Catholic.
Inside the Church, asked what is most important to Catholicism, the
practicing Catholic will probably answer, the Eucharist. But the outsider, without having read a word of theology, is most keenly aware of the
priest, who in fact makes the Eucharist possible.
Or our outsider may encounter the Church in so-called Catholic literature, where again the Church’s traditional views will be communicated to
him. Either he will read about priests or nuns (e.g., The Diary of a Country
Priest, In This House of Brede, Morte d’Urban, Mariette in Ecstasy), or he
will read about a love between a man and a woman that gives way before a greater love (e.g., The End of the Affair, Brideshead Revisited, Kristin
Lavransdatter). These latter novels—so different from the novels of Jane
Austen!—might well have affixed to their frontispieces as a warning Paul
Claudel’s axiom, “God promises by his creatures but only fulfills by himself,”23 or François Mauriac’s baleful observation, “Today, after so many
centuries, [Christ] is still there . . . just as we know him in the Gospels,
with his inordinate demands, separating man from woman and woman
from man, destroying the human couple to the scandal of many.”24
Protestant novels, primarily concerned as they are with familial
and social arrangements and the individual’s place in them, ordinarily
end with marriage. But the Catholic novel, whose proper subject matter
is the relationship of the individual to God, can only be finally consummated outside the bounds of the novel and even of life itself, which explains both why so few Catholic novels are entirely successful, and why
so many end with death.25 The emphasis in Catholic literature is never
23

Paul Claudel, quoted in Bernard Bro, The Little Way, trans. Alan Neame (London:
Darton, Longman and Todd, 1997), 108.
24
François Mauriac, The Son of Man, trans. Bernard Murchland (Cleveland, OH:
World Publishing, 1960), 72.
25
For example, Viper’s Tangle, Diary of a Country Priest, The Power and the Glory, Kristen Lavransdatter. Despite her Catholic sympathies, Willa Cather was not Catholic,
and Shadows on the Rock, ending as it does with earthly marriage, is not a quintes-

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on social consolidation and earthly marriage. Rather, the true Catholic
note is a note of rupture and transcendence, rupture and implied restoration on a higher level, goods for which religious life—real people
making real sacrifices with an eye to eternity—stand surety.
Even in non-Catholic, equivocally Catholic, or anti-Catholic literature or films, if the Catholic Church comes into the story, priests and
religious represent her, reinforcing for our outsider the Church’s traditional ordering of her internal life. Always it is the exceptional calling
of the priest or the nun, or the even more exceptional calling of the
priest who is also an exorcist, that stands for the Church, in a kind of
metonymy. The author’s attitude to Catholicism may be melodramatic
and hostile (Henry James’s The American), sardonic and world-weary (Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory), or conspiracy-minded
and debunking of Catholic claims (anything by Dan Brown), but in every case the author’s fascination with Catholic priesthood and religious
life is self-evident.
The media, too, turns out to be obsessed with priests and nuns,
whether railing against them (Pope Benedict, abusive priests) or fawning over them (Pope Francis, liberal American nuns, Mother Teresa).
Even the sexual abuse scandals in the Church, and the media’s preoccupation with them, evince the Church’s traditional claims, testifying
as they do to the tremendous importance of the Catholic priesthood,
for good or ill.
From all of this evidence, either consciously or unconsciously
our outsider will conclude that the celibate vocations are the key to
the Catholic Church. It follows that if he decides to become a Catholic himself, it will be religious life that has attracted him, otherwise
he would be content to become, or remain a Protestant. Put another way, he desires something more than baptism and matrimony, the
only sacraments Christendom agrees can be effected without a priest.
He may have ideas of becoming a priest or a religious himself. Or he
may feel the need for the strengthening that confirmation promises,
or the mysterious food of the Eucharist. Perhaps something weighs on
sentially Catholic novel. But in Death Comes for the Archbishop Cather struck the
pure Catholic note, ending the novel not only with the physical death of the Archbishop, but also with his deathbed memories of his earlier death to the world, when
he and his close friend left everything—family and country—to follow Christ.

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his conscience that he has been unable privately to shake off; or he has
had experience of evil, experience that has shaken and defiled him, and
harbors a hope that a priest may be able to help him.
On the other hand, it may not be a specific sacrament but a whole
way of life that attracts him, an attitude to life different from what he
has encountered elsewhere. On the deepest level, a person comes to
the Catholic Church because he is disappointed with everything else.
Work, family life, other religious communions have not sufficed. Our
convert may have been abused in his natural family, or betrayed in a
marriage, but even if his relationships have been harmonious and his
work in the world successful, he begins to feel that the horizon of his
life is simply too low. Dimly, he begins to understand that natural affections, not ordered to eternal realities, are doomed. And so he finds
himself attracted to the idealism and higher horizon of Catholic religious life. He hears the silence and the gales of laughter coming from
behind convent walls, or he witnesses the serene, life-giving fatherhood
of a holy priest, and he wants to be part of a church that has such vocations in its midst. If he is married, he begins to suspect that his marriage cannot stand on its own, but needs the bracing vertical of celibate
priesthood and religious life to keep it true. If he is single, for whatever
reason, he hopes to discover his life’s true meaning in the Church, the
Church that has never held up marriage between a man and a woman
as the highest good.
In brief, whatever his situation, he wants his life ordered to what is
greater. He wants a larger context for his private projects and relationships. And he wants peace, the peace that the world cannot give, and
expects to find it in the Church that has always prioritized the contemplative over the active life.26
IV
So our outsider becomes a Catholic. And in the Church of the late
twentieth and early twenty-first century, what does he find?
Certainly, the priest is still there, celebrating Mass, baptizing ba26

See, for example, “The Primacy of Contemplation in Faith,” in von Balthasar, Who
Is a Christian? (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), 80–85, or “The Primacy of the
Logos over the Ethos,” in Guardini, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 85–95.

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bies, presiding at marriages. If our convert needs to be baptized, a priest
will baptize him. If he was previously baptized as a Protestant, a priest
will hear his confession, a priest or bishop will confirm him, and he will
receive Eucharist consecrated by the same priest or bishop. And in the
reception of the sacraments—in the sacrament of baptism most dramatically but in the other sacraments as well—the convert will receive,
together with an entirely new or reinvigorated life, an indelible impression of the generative power of the Catholic priest. From this point on,
he will be able to attest to it from his own experience: the priest, at his
ordination, receives potency of a supernatural kind, capable of generating and sustaining new men and women, who live by the power of
Christ, who has redeemed them.
Still, however momentous the changes wrought by the sacraments
of initiation, and however powerful the convert’s impression of the part
played by the priest, soon enough, as he perseveres in his new life, he
begins to understand that in the Church at large the center of gravity—or at least the perceived center of gravity—has shifted away from
the ministerial priesthood. What he previously understood in the abstract—that thousands of priests were laicized in the aftermath of Vatican II, seminaries emptied and monasteries collapsed—he now begins
to understand in the concrete, in the plain fact that in many parts of
the country there simply are not enough priests. And even where there
are enough priests, he notices that their sacramental importance has
been deemphasized, and distance introduced between them and their
parishioners.
For example, after he consecrates the Eucharist, the priest in many
parishes sits to one side while lay people distribute the sacrament to
other lay people who, in turn, communicate themselves.
As for the sacrament of penance, in many parts of the country it
has all but died out. One hour a week in most parishes is all the time
allotted to confession, and even then, there is often nobody there. The
consensus seems to be that the general confession in the Mass is sufficient; personal confession to a priest is no longer necessary.
Then, too, because the laity can distribute the Eucharist, they often
carry it to the sick, where again, a traditional opportunity for confession—not to mention reception of the sacrament of the anointing of
the sick—is lost. And as cremation becomes commonplace and even

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many Catholics scatter remains, a growing number of Catholics is deciding to dispense with a funeral Mass altogether, denying the priest
even that last, traditional opportunity to exercise his ministry.
As for exorcism—a particular competency of a specially trained
priest—many archdioceses no longer have an exorcist on staff. All of
which leads one to wonder whether the priesthood is presently deemphasized because there are not enough priests, or if there are not
enough priests in part because their ministry is increasingly deemphasized. It should be admitted, too, that there are priests who cooperate
in their own marginalization: by refusing to visit the dying at night, for
example, or to hear a confession outside the scheduled hour.
Meanwhile the laity, the state to which so many priests and religious reverted in the wake of the Council, is everywhere in the ascendant. If the priest’s job description has shrunk, opportunities for the
laity have expanded. The year 1987 was explicitly dedicated to the laity,
but all the years since Vatican II could properly be called the Era of the
Laity, when, in a pronounced and compensating swerve of Chesterton’s
chariot, the laity are said to have come into their own. They are the true
Church of God, this line of reasoning goes; the ordained ministers are
simply the supporting cast. It is the active apostolates that matter; contemplative life is disappearing because it has been outgrown. Accordingly, the emphasis is no longer on the priesthood per se but on “the
priesthood of all believers”; no longer on literal poverty but on “detachment”; no longer on virginity but on “chastity according to one’s station
in life.” Marriage especially has been elevated in the Church’s preaching to a point where even well-formed Catholics now believe that it
is equivalent to priesthood and religious life. Scriptures that challenge
this view are either shrugged off (“Jesus didn’t mean that”) or reinterpreted, and then applied in a spiritual or metaphorical sense to the laity.
At the same time, there has been a strong push to identify and canonize more lay and married saints, as if the small number of married
saints relative to the number of canonized celibates were a function of
prejudice rather than the fruit of an underlying truth. Among young
intellectual Catholics, John Paul II’s Theology of the Body continues to
be in vogue, at least those parts of it that line up with contemporary
pieties. And as marriage and family life have been increasingly romanticized, the question is increasingly asked whether priests should not be

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allowed to marry, too, and the physical privileges of marriage universally enjoyed. Everywhere, in brief, the emphasis in the Church is increasingly on natural rather than supernatural relationships, in a shift
that amounts to a kind of supersessionism in reverse, as the natural or
blood family, as in Judaism, comes to the fore.
It was in this Church, influenced both by Protestantism and the
secular culture and ideologically primed for a final shrugging off of the
priest, that the news of the clerical sexual abuse scandals surfaced. It
was at this point, at the very end of the century Pope Leo XIII foresaw
would be dire for the Church, that we learned that, devastating as was
the vast exodus of priests and nuns after the Council, the real problem
was not those who left but a small percentage of those who stayed, like
Judas, who stayed with Jesus even when many of Jesus’s other disciples
fell away (Jn 6:60–71), in order to deliver the death blow from within.
In the chaos that followed, as waves of disbelief, fury and grief
swept through the Church, the surrounding culture, smelling blood,
moved in for the kill. Now it could be openly expressed: hatred for the
Catholic Church and her celibate hierarchy. Now the traditional script
in which the celibate is belatedly vindicated by the holy fruits of his life
could be torn up and replaced by a script that says that celibacy ends in
depravity and asceticism does not have to be affirmed at all.
In this script, celibacy is not an ideal but an abomination. It is not
a harmless anachronism but an occasion and even a cause of sin. No
one can be celibate, not even Jesus himself. The sexual fantasies that
tempted Jesus in Martin Scorsese’s 1988 film The Last Temptation of
Christ, Dan Brown’s 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code treats as historical
facts, suspensefully unearthed; and by 2013, in Mark Adano’s opera The
Gospel of Mary Magdalene, sex between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is
simply a ho-hum given, with the Magdalene Jesus’s teacher rather than
the other was around (Rabboni!), as she initiates him into the mysteries
of carnal love.
As for Jesus’s mother, the original celibate27 and contemplative in the
Christian tradition—the one who, standing in the breach, delivered to
27

“But before the annunciation of her election, this woman called to the most exalted maternity had not wanted marriage and motherhood for herself; and this was
against every tradition of her people.” Edith Stein, Essays on Women, trans. Freda
Mary Oben (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1987, 1996), 198.

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the world the Christ she conceived from above—she, too, must be pulled
down. If celibacy is the problem, Mary especially must be defamed, and
the Annunciation repudiated, because it was at the Annunciation, the
hinge on which history turns, that a new principle of generation entered
the world. In the past, when the Church was in disgrace, Mary was given a pass, but no longer. Now the blasphemies enumerated in the First
Saturday Devotions from Fatima—Blasphemies against the Immaculate
Conception, Blasphemies against [Mary’s] virginity, and so on—take on
flesh. If the blasphemers hesitate to attack Mary directly, indirect methods serve. If she is not credible as a villain, perhaps she may be credible
as a victim. The Irish writer Calvin Tobin’s strategy, in his 2013 play and
novel The Testament of Mary, is to have Mary desacralize herself. In her
own words, in her “testimony,” she dismantles both her own reputation
and Christianity’s. As she tells it, there was no Virgin Birth or Incarnation. There was no Resurrection. The disciples made it all up, for gain.
They pressured and manipulated her, harassed and tormented her. Her
contempt for these imaginary disciples is Tobin’s own contempt for contemporary Irish priests, just as Thomas Cromwell’s attitude to English
monks and nuns in Hilary Mantel’s novels Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring
Up the Bodies (2012), is Mantel’s own attitude to Catholic celibacy, expressed through the character of Cromwell.28
In these widespread contemporary attacks on the Church, vituperative outrage and blanket condemnations are the rule. In Peter Matthiessen’s 2014 novel In Paradise, for example, it is taken for granted that Pius
XII and the Vatican were responsible for the Holocaust. In the 2013 film
Philomena, a layperson—Philomena herself, an unwed mother of a gay
son—can be holy, but no priest or nun. Celibates, by this point, by definition are monsters of hypocrisy and enemies of natural life.
On the other hand, Hilary Mantel, being a greater artist, plays a
deeper game. In her acclaimed novels about Henry VIII’s England,
Thomas More is her villain, as much for his hair shirt as his orthodoxy, and Thomas Cromwell is her hero, the man who pulled down
England’s monasteries. But outrage and self-righteous indignation are
not Cromwell’s style. As Mantel conceives him, Cromwell is the future:
28

See Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies (New York: Henry Holt, 2012), esp. 41–47,
and Mantel’s memoir, Giving Up the Ghost (New York: Henry Holt, 2003).

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the reasonable, practical, thoroughly secular man, the man in whom
the religious impulse is finally dead. The passions of religion—the zeal
of the reformers; the anguished scruples of More; even the attenuated
orthodoxy of the king—leave him cold. Even contempt is too strong a
word for his attitude to religion and those still deceived by it. As the
revelations of clerical sin in our own day finally cease to shock, and anger and disbelief give way to disgust and contempt, Mantel, as Thomas
Cromwell, proposes indifference as the last word, the final nail in the
coffin of Catholic Christianity.
And the Church’s response to all of this?
Because of the guilt of the few, she has been largely silent before her
accusers. As the scandals have unfolded, she has scarcely attempted to
defend celibacy; instead, she has circled the wagons around marriage.
Sometimes it seems as if all the idealism formerly attached to priesthood and religious life has now been transferred to marriage and the
natural family. In my parish, the pews that emptied after the scandals
have gradually filled up with large, home-schooling families. New rituals have appeared: a children’s offering at the offertory; a final blessing for children too young to receive Holy Communion. Mother’s Day
and Father’s Day have become red-letter days in the Church, and not
only weddings but even some proposals of marriage are undertaken
with a pious solemnity formerly reserved for religious professions. And
whereas St. Ignatius deemed marriage scarcely deserving of a vow, now,
on a regular basis, married couples are invited to stand and renew their
marriage vows en masse, in a ritual uncomfortably reminiscent of the
mass weddings of Sun Myung Moon.
And still there is virtually no preaching on priesthood or religious
life. There is talk of natural family planning more than of Jesus’s supernatural family, “born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the
will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:13). In the past, on Holy Thursday, the
pastor washed the feet of other priests and lay brothers, witnessing to
the truth that Jesus washed the feet of men who had left everything to
follow him. Now, on Holy Thursday, he washes the feet of married men.
In the short run, it does no harm and possibly much good to try
to strengthen monogamous, lifelong marriage, but to think that this is
the answer to the Church’s problems is to think as man thinks, rather
than as God thinks. In the long run, if the vertical to which the hori-

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zontal relationship of marriage is ordered comes down, not only marriage but the Gospel itself will fall. When the Church stresses relationships between creatures more than the relationship of the individual to
God—when she treats marriage as an end rather than as a seedbed for
vocations—the Gospel message itself is compromised. The hard Paschal truths at the core of Christianity—the truth that the natural family
is never fully commensurate with Christ’s new family; the truth that a
man’s enemies will be members of his own household (Mt 10:36) and
that in order to be Christ’s disciple he must hate, not only father and
mother, wife and children, but also his own life (Lk 14:26)—are suppressed. And in the atmosphere of tribalism, human respect, and sentimentality that ensues, an illusion of human sufficiency creeps in, an
illusion that, in our human strength, we can meet one another’s needs.
Recently I heard a sermon preached on the parable of the wise and
foolish virgins. In Matthew’s parable, ten virgins go with their lamps to
meet a bridegroom. The five wise virgins have oil for their lamps; the
five foolish have none. When the bridegroom is near, the foolish ask
the wise for oil, but the wise refuse them. Looking for oil elsewhere, the
foolish are shut out from the feast. When they return and knock, the
bridegroom says, “I do not know you” (Mt 25:1–13).
The meaning of the parable is clear enough. It is about the vertical
dimension of the Christian life: the primacy of the individual’s relationship to God and the limitations and final inadequacy of human
relationships. The virgins who hold on to their oil are not condemned
by Jesus; on the contrary, he calls them wise. The foolish show their
foolishness both in their delinquency and in their attempt to get oil
from the others. The “oil” that lights our human lamps—our fundamental fuel, if you will—comes from God. Like the oil of chrism in the
sacrament of baptism, it signifies sanctifying grace, the gift of the Holy
Spirit. This gift of grace we can receive only from God, either directly in
prayer, or sacramentally, through his chosen ministers. We can neither
give it to others, nor receive it from them. Moreover, the high virtue
of charity—“willing good to someone,” in Aquinas’s formulation—
demands that we tell this truth.29 To attempt, instead, to do what the
foolish demand of us—to try to be “nice,” in other words—or to make
29

Summa theologiae I, q. 20, a. 2.

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foolish demands ourselves, avails nothing. But the preacher, influenced
I dare say by current trends in the Church, offered his own interpretation. “Here’s what I think,” he said. “They should have shared.”30
V
For Catholics like myself, who at some point in our lives escaped to the
Catholic Church from the low horizon of Protestantism, these are discouraging times. It is disheartening to say the least to see the Church so
infiltrated by the surrounding culture and so demoralized by the recent
scandals that she is in danger of rejecting in her own life what is most
decisively Catholic, and selling “for the sake of the mess of pottage of
external Apostolic satisfaction” her deepest mysteries and highest privileges.31 To extend our earlier metaphors, Chesterton’s chariot by this
point has careened so far in one direction it has all but toppled over,
and the ship that formerly drifted too close to the pole is now stuck in
the doldrums of the equator, and in danger of corrupting there in the
uninterrupted heat and light.
Ideally, in the Church’s life, there is a continual interplay between
marriage and celibacy, sensuality and asceticism, like the interplay in
the Creation between heat and cold, day and night, light and darkness,
and so on, all of which rhythmic oppositions, in their alternating times
and seasons, bless the Lord (Dn 3:57–88). Even within marriage itself
there were seasons of feasting and fasting, indulgence and abstinence,
just as in the Church’s traditional attitude to marriage there was idealism but also a healthy skepticism, romance but also a bracing note
of sardonic realism (“better to marry than burn”) that paradoxically
served marriage well. In fact, it was by downplaying earthly marriage
and ordering it to what was greater and eternal that the Church ensured
marriage’s health, tamped down unrealistic expectations and avoided
placing on marriage a weight greater than it was intended to bear.
In our relational lives there is only one absolute good, and that is
30

Traditional commentators (Origen, Hilary) have identified what cannot be shared
in this parable with a person’s good works, following Matthew 5:16: “Let your light
so shine before men that they may see your good works. . . .” Yet it is not light that
the wise virgins refuse to share, but the oil that makes light possible. As oil generates
light, so God’s grace fuels good works.
31
Von Balthasar, Who Is a Christian?, 85.

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our relationship to God, a good denied to no one, lay or religious, who
seeks it, prioritizes it, sacrifices for it, holds fast to it. Relative goods, on
the other hand—including health and success, marriage and children—
man cannot demand. God dispenses relative goods as he sees fit, in order to help man find his way to the final good of eternal life with him.
But in our culture, and increasingly in the Church itself, marriage
is not regarded as a means but an end; it is not considered a relative but
an absolute good, and therefore a right. The usual solution or sequel to
widowhood or divorce in our day is not a late religious vocation or a
salubrious solitude, but more marriage, or more venery in Roger Angell’s phrase in a recent essay in The New Yorker: “More venery. More
love; more closeness; more sex and romance. Bring it back, no matter
what, no matter how old we are.”32 In a climate like this—a climate for
which the Church bears a certain responsibility, given her abuse of the
grace of celibacy and her disproportionate enthusiasm for marriage—
what does the Church say to homosexual persons who wish to marry?
What does she say, for that matter, to the invalidly remarried who want
to receive Eucharist and are dumbfounded by the suggestion that they
forego sexual relations in order to do so? Should we be surprised that in
a culture that so privileges marriage over celibacy, many Catholics now
assume that the Eucharist is ordered to marriage rather than the other
way around—that the choice for marriage is primary, in other words,
and the Eucharist simply a secondary enhancement?
Once marriage is understood to be an absolute good and a right,
it is very difficult to explain why, in certain circumstances, the goods
of marriage have to be set aside. When the Church herself does not
value celibacy at its true value, it is all but impossible to recommend
celibacy to others. The less robust and exemplary the celibate example
in the Church, the more the idea spreads that the choice for God costs
nothing. The less celibacy is apprehended and lived as a grace, the more
it begins to be thought of as a punishment.
In the long run, undervaluing celibacy is a suicidal path for the
Church. But already certain individuals suffer grave harm from the
depreciation. For the individual, nothing is more important than the
32

Roger Angell, “This Old Man: Life in the Nineties,” New Yorker, February 17 & 24,
2014, 65.

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choice of vocation. Nothing is more important than that he find his
true path in life, the path that God has marked out for him. When
a vocation is correctly discerned, even its most formidable challenges
can be met; when mistaken, even its ordinary burdens may prove hard
to bear. Accordingly, one of the most important responsibilities of the
Church is to help individuals discern their vocations. But in a time like
the present, when at best an equivalency is assumed between marriage
and celibacy, and at worst, celibacy is implicitly or even explicitly devalued, what happens to the individual who is actually called to celibate
priesthood or religious life? How is his capacity to respond to God’s
call—especially the call to sacrifice sexual goods—affected by a widespread insinuation that such a sacrifice is unnecessary, that there is no
special benefit to celibacy, and as far as sanctity goes, as good a result
can be had from marriage?
At this point, we have entered what von Balthasar calls “the zone
of the ambivalent,” in which people offer to God things good in themselves, but not the things God has actually asked of them. Such evasions are perennial temptations for the Christian. Indeed, one could
paint the whole history of Christianity as “the history of all the things
[Christians] offer to God as substitutes in order to escape the act of
real faith.”33 But the question here is whether the Church in our day is
enabling and even encouraging such evasions, by not telling the whole
truth about vocations.34
VI
In the past, in Christian cultures, there was a paradigmatic movement
33
34

Von Balthasar, Who Is a Christian?, 76.
Inevitably, evasions lead to evasions, as one lie necessitates another. Among Catholics who have missed or evaded a vocation to celibacy, some will become especially
vehement proponents of marriage and lay life, even to the point of resenting the
celibate hierarchy. In his A Short Primer for Unsettled Laymen (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985), von Balthasar notes the appearance after Vatican II of an “intermediate state” in the Church, the state of the lay male theologian. “Without doubt,
there were true laymen among them who wanted to give . . . service to the Church.
But there were certainly just as many who would in earlier times have decided to
become priests, and who for this reason often enough harbored resentments against
the clerical state and perpetuated its sociological and, as far as possible, theological
secularization” (12).

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that one could trace—in the collective psyche if not across actual terrain—from the world to the monastery. In our time, the paradigmatic
movement has been from the monastery to the world. Following the
general migration in the Church, various novels and memoirs have
followed individuals from religion to lay life: Cathryn Hulme’s 1956
novel The Nun’s Story, for example; or Karen Armstrong’s 1981 memoir
Through the Narrow Gate; or Colum McCann’s 2009 novel Let the Great
World Spin, in which a male character who has taken religious vows
is eventually brought to bed by a woman. On the face of it, these are
narratives that reject the austerities of religion. But on a deeper level
they turn out to be spiritual tragedies, their predominant note not one
of triumphalism, but of sadness.35 Even in a culture like our own, in
which the propaganda runs all one way, the ideals of religious life, like
the virgin martyrs themselves, turn out to be hard to kill.
In the treasury of the Catholic Church, the whole truth abides. All
truth has been entrusted to the Church, according to Jesus’s promise
(Jn 16:13). Whether or not a given truth finds expression in a particular time or place is not finally important. What is important is that
neglected truths remain in the Church’s treasury, like recessive genes,
waiting for favorable conditions or an auspicious hour in which to express themselves.
The wait may be long. Blessed John Henry Newman, in an 1850
sermon on the occasion of the restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy in
England, described a wait of three hundred years. But when the three
hundred years were over, “the Church came forth not changed in aspect
or voice, as calm and keen, as vigorous and as well-furnished as when
[the prison doors] closed on her.”36
35

“Never,” Karen Armstrong writes about her last days in the convent, “had the ideal
seemed more beautiful than it did now I was outside it all, waiting for my dispensation. . . . Kneeling there that day, fighting with my tears, I knew [that] always some
part of me, perhaps the deepest part . . . would love this ideal and mourn its loss. In
one sense, vows or no vows, I should be a nun all my life.” Through the Narrow Gate
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), 360. Even an author like Colum McCann, who
evinces little interest in formal religion, kills off his lapsed Jesuit immediately after
he sleeps with a woman, as if admitting the impossibility of his reverting to lay life.
Let the Great World Spin (New York: Random House, 2009).
36
Bl. John Henry Newman, “Christ upon the Water,” in Favorite Newman Sermons, ed.
Daniel M. O’Connell, S.J. (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1932), 82.

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In the Church’s treasury, along with other neglected truths, the
truth of the preeminence of her celibate vocations is still there. It is
there in the relevant Church documents, for anyone and everyone to
read. It is there in Catholic literature and in the example and writings
of the saints. It is there in the story of Jane de Chantal, who famously
stepped over her own son on her way to founding the Visitation Order, or the example of Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, who, like many
others in the Church’s history, took a vow of celibacy during their marriage.37 It is there in the sensus fidei, or “supernatural sense of faith” of
the whole people of God, under the guidance of which the laity in our
day beatified by acclamation (Santo subito!), not lay or married people
as the Congregation for the Causes of Saints might have preferred,38
but John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a celibate priest and a
celibate nun.
Meanwhile, popes are still teaching, still expounding, in fresh ways,
the age-old truths of Christianity. In his first Jesus of Nazareth volume,
Pope Benedict XVI engaged in dialogue with a certain Jacob Neusner,
a Jewish scholar and rabbi who, in his own book, A Rabbi Talks with
Jesus, imagined himself a contemporary and interlocutor of Jesus who
ultimately rejects Christianity on account of certain things Jesus says.
Among other sayings of Jesus, Neusner rejects those that threaten the
natural family: for example, “I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother” (Mt 10:35), or “Whoever does
the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and moth37

Raïssa Maritain, in her Journal, describes the struggle to ascend from one level of life
to another:

What must be removed from human love . . . is not the love itself: no, what
must be suppressed, or rather surpassed, is the limits of the heart. Hence the
suffering—in this effort to go beyond our narrow limits. For in these limits, in
our limits, is our human joy.
But we have to go beyond these limits of the heart; we have, under the action
of grace and through the travail of the soul, to leave our bounded heart for
the boundless heart of God. . . . It is only when one has accepted this death
that one enters, resurrected, into the boundless heart of God with all that one
loves, with all the spoils of love . . . (239).
38
When it became clear, as the Year of the Laity drew to a close, that the campaign to
identify more lay and married saints had borne little fruit, some members of the
Congregation in Rome blamed the laity. See Kenneth Woodward’s conversation with
Fr. Peter Gumpel in Making Saints (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 343–44.

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er” (Mt 10:50). According to Neusner, Jesus would have him break the
commandments—the fourth commandment, in these cases, to honor
father and mother—and by placing the family in jeopardy, threatens
the very foundation of Israel.39
In his response to Neusner, Benedict does not apologize for these
controversial scriptures, which, as we have seen, discomfit many contemporary Catholics as well as Jews. Instead, he reaffirms and rehabilitates them as fundamental to Christianity. Ostensibly arguing with
Neusner, Benedict speaks to the whole Church, reminding her “to pay
careful attention to the connection between transcendence and fulfillment,” and arguing that while it is true that following Jesus does initially break up the social order of Israel, as in every age it can break up
natural relationships and blood families, Jesus’s goal is not destruction.
On the contrary, his goal is to reconstitute the family of Israel on a new
and universal level, to bring the God of Israel to the nations:
The vehicle of this universalization is the new family, whose
only admission requirement is communion with Jesus, communion in God’s will. . . . Communion with [Jesus] is filial
communion with the Father—it is yes to the fourth commandment on a new level, the highest level. It is entry into the family
of those who call God Father. . . .40
For anyone who has suffered from tribalism of any kind—from the terrible things sometimes done in the name of the family—Jesus’s promise
of a new family, that lives under a new sign, is one of the most enduring
attractions of Christianity.
Finally and most consistently, the truth about the evangelical counsels is there in the scriptures themselves, proclaimed every day at Mass,
as the cycles of readings require. Year in and year out, whether convenient or inconvenient, whether faithfully expounded or passed over in
embarrassment, the relevant scriptures are read—“Follow me, and let
the dead bury their own dead” (Mt 8:22); “It is well . . . to remain sin39

Jacob Neusner, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press,
2000), 35–72.
40
Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 117, 120. For
Benedict’s whole response to Neusner, see 99–122.

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gle” (1 Cor 7:8); “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have and give to
the poor” (Mk 10:21)—and men and women respond, in diminishing
numbers for many years, but now again in greater strength. The Dominican Order in particular is experiencing a surge in vocations, and
on a recent Sunday in my parish a newly ordained Dominican priest
preached unapologetically about the priesthood—about its greatness,
surpassing other calls—and in the pews there was an electric silence,
even a tearful silence, as this neglected truth, hidden away for many
years, came out of the Church’s treasury unchanged.
Relative to the laity, priests and religious will always be few, even
where vocations increase. It is inevitable that they be few, because the
demands placed on the celibate are beyond the reach of most men. “As
regards the common body of men, Christianity is human in the sense
that it accepts men in their weakness and inconstancy and also in their
nature attached to natural goods.”41 Yet it is on the example of the few
that the rest of the Church depends: for the sacraments, in the case of
the priest, but also for a visible witness to the contemplative foundation
of every Christian existence.42 We live in a world where Freudian ideas
still hold sway, including the idea that religion is a sublimation of sex.
The celibate, by his example, proposes a truth exactly opposite: that every other love, every lesser love, is a sublimated form of the love of God.
In the greatest saints, these sublimated forms fade away into the
mysterious, unmediated brightness of God himself. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was not a philosopher like John Paul II or a lawyer like Thomas More; he was not a teacher like Elizabeth Anne Seton or a subtle
theologian like Thérèse of Lisieux. He was a priest, an alter Christus
even to the wounds in his hands, feet and side; most at home on the
altar, saying Mass, or in the confessional, forgiving sin. Coarse and unsophisticated as he was, in his person the vertical of the cross—the love
of God above all created things—was manifest. Writing to a friend after
a visit to San Giovanni Rotondo monastery, Don Giuseppe De Luca, an
Italian historian of Christian spirituality, shared his dazed impressions
of the wounded friar:

41
42

Maritain, Raïssa’s Journal, 369.
Von Balthasar, Who Is a Christian?, 84.

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Padre Pio, dear Papini, is a sickly, ignorant Capuchin, very
much the crude Southerner. And yet (bear in mind that besides
making confession to him, I also dined with him and we spent
a great deal of time together), and yet—God is with him, that
fearful God that we glimpse in revery and which he has in his
soul, unbearably hot, and in his flesh, which trembles constantly, wounded, sometimes more, sometimes less . . . as if battered
by ever more powerful gales. I truly saw the holy there, holiness
not of action but of passion. . . . Although he is a man of very
meager intelligence, he offered me two or three words that I
have never found on the lips of other men, and not even (and
this is harder to admit) in the books of the Church. There is
nothing of ordinary spirituality about him, nor is there anything extraordinarily miraculous, stunning, or showy; there is
merely intelligentia spiritualis, a free gift from God. And there
is a passion, even a human passion, for God, dear Papini, that is
so beautiful, so ravishingly sweet that I can’t tell you. The love of
woman and the love of ideas are nothing by comparison, they
are things that do not go beyond a certain point, whether near
or far. While the love of God, how I do not know, burns, and
the more it burns the more it finds to burn. I have the absolute
certain sensation that God and man have met in this person.43

N&V

43

Sergio Luzzatto, Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age, trans. Frederika
Randall (New York: Henry Holt, 2010), 182–83.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 365-377

365

The Sex Life of Mary and Joseph
John C. Cavadini
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN

I WONDER IF ANY OF YOUhave ever seen the film Bambi Meets

Godzilla? If so, you know that it opens, as most movies do, with a long
series of credits, naming everyone who purportedly had anything to do
with the film, including Bambi’s hairstylist, as we see Bambi dreamily
walking through a spring meadow. When the credits are over, a huge,
fashionably monstrous leg with a clawed foot steps massively and carelessly into the set while the music simultaneously thunders one single
chord. It happens so fast, we do not even see Bambi disappear—end
of movie. Perhaps, in like manner, the title of this essay might lead one
to believe that after a few preliminary observations and teasers, the
monstrous foot of tradition will ensure that the glimmers of seemingly humane and enlightened sympathy for Mary and especially for poor
Joseph, her “most chaste spouse,” will be stamped out as decisively as
Bambi was stamped out by Godzilla. Joseph and Mary did not have sex.
End of essay. Mary and Joseph’s hairstylist, John Cavadini.
In fact, this article does begin from the traditional conviction,
shared both by Orthodox and Catholics, that Mary is “ever virgin,” and
so that, in at least the most obvious sense, Mary and Joseph did not
have a sex life. But is that really the end of the story? For contemporary people, especially contemporary Catholics who have gained, since
the Second Vatican Council, a renewed appreciation for the goodness
of sex within marriage, the traditional answer seems incomprehensible
and offensive, and perhaps in voicing their scruples these Catholics are

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echoing some of the worries that have prompted some (though not all)
Protestants to leave the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity behind.
Everyone, of course, accepts as Scriptural the virginal conception of Jesus. But why, then, could not Joseph and Mary have had a normal sex
life after that, the line of questioning goes. The scriptural evidence is
actually inconclusive taken on its own. Catholics and Orthodox have
thus allowed the traditional conviction to guide them, and, as noted,
this essay accepts this decision, and yet goes on to try to “understand”
what traditional faith “believes,” in a way that aspires to give the traditional doctrine some purchase in the imagination of contemporary
questioners. Is this tradition to be reduced to a now outmoded ascetic
sensitivity stemming from the fourth century, so that all it amounts to
is, to one degree or another, a negative assessment of marriage, and one
that we have outgrown? And, even if Mary and Joseph did not have sex,
does this mean they did not in any sense of the phrase have a “sex life?”
As far as sex is concerned, were they simply partners in the joint renunciation of sex, like two ascetics toughing it out side by side, with the
conception, birth, nurturing, and growth of the Incarnate Word thrown
in as a kind of interesting sideshow giving their interesting first-time
experiment something to do together to distract them from their strict
ascetic regime? Can one even ask these questions? Having done so already, it would seem possible. And, having asked them, trying to answer
them might prove a source of insight to people—perhaps all of us, to
some unspoken extent—who may worry that the doctrine carries no intrinsic merit worth considering now that, like a hapless fourth-century
Bambi, it has met with the potent and formidable Godzilla of modern
sensibilities about sex. In trying to answer the question of the sex life of
Mary and Joseph, I present something even more tentative than most of
my first-time airings of an idea.
To begin in the East, in his Homilies on the Gospel of Luke, Origen
considers the perpetual virginity of Mary already a settled point of doctrine, fully consistent with the biblical testimony (see Homily 7.4). He
also points out that the reason Mary was frightened by the greeting of
the angel, “Hail, full of grace,” is that she, as a good student of the law,
knew that this form of address was unprecedented in Scripture (Homily
6.7), in other words, Origen is pointing out that Mary’s participation
in grace is unique, and this conviction continues in both Eastern and

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Western Christianity, a grace of sinlessness in the East, and Immaculate Conception in the West. For Origen, however, the uniqueness of
Mary is not isolated from her marriage to Joseph. His comments on her
uniqueness come immediately after a discussion of the divine dispensation, which committed the Incarnation to a woman who was already
betrothed. In Origen’s reading, then, the marriage of Mary and Joseph
is not accidental to the divine plan, but part of it, and so itself becomes
theologically significant. It is not Teresa of Avila, but Origen, who first
makes the mystery of St. Joseph and his marriage to Mary an intrinsic
part of the mystery of the Incarnation. I found, Origen reports, an elegant statement in the letter of a martyr—I mean Ignatius, the second
bishop of Antioch after Peter. During a persecution, he fought against
wild animals at Rome. He states, “Mary’s virginity escaped the notice of
the ruler of this age.” It escaped his notice, Origen continues, because of
Joseph, and because of their wedding.
Origen continues to ponder the mystery of St. Joseph, pointing out
that it is because he is the husband of Mary that the devil does not suspect that the Savior “had taken on a body.” Origen connects the mystery of St. Joseph with Paul’s reference in 1 Corinthians 2:6–8, where,
as Origen reports, Paul comments that “We speak wisdom among the
perfect, but not the wisdom of this age or the wisdom of the rulers of
this age. They are being destroyed. We speak God’s wisdom, hidden in
a mystery. None of the rulers of this age knows it. If they had known
it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.” The marriage of
Mary and Joseph is thus an intrinsic part of God’s Wisdom, an intrinsic
part of the logic of the Incarnation, which is the logic of God’s philanthropia, a logic of foolishness, invisible to the ruling powers because it is,
to them, foolishness and not wisdom. Origen invites us to contemplate
the marriage of Joseph and Mary as an outcropping, one might say, of
this foolishness.
Before citing 1 Corinthians, Origen had commented that without
the presence of Joseph, the rulers of this age might have suspected a
more than human origin for Jesus. They would not then have killed him,
but this is more than a clever ruse where Joseph is a mere placeholder to keep up appearances. Origen explicitly comments that the devil,
in tempting Jesus, did not know who he was, and that Jesus does not
reveal his identity to him, implying that that itself is part of the temp-

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tation, to reveal his identity prematurely, and to conquer on the basis
of an identity claim alone. (Had they known his identity, the rulers of
this world would not have crucified the Lord of Glory, and presumably
would not have tempted him either.) But this is not how the philanthropia of God, revealed and enacted in the Incarnation, conquers the
devil. He does not pull rank—that is a temptation—but rather he lives
and grows, struggles and wrestles with the temptations that season all
human souls in Origen’s theology. In fact, he is, to use an expression
from the Contra Celsum, the “Great Wrestler,” who defeats the rulers of
this age not by exempting himself from temptation but by taking it on at
its largest dimension, conquering not by the abstract power of rank and
identity, but by giving that up, the largest claim on rank and identity that
anyone has, for a real fight. St. Joseph is very much a part of the wrestling. In the Contra Celsum, Celsus mocks Jesus as an inadequate God
not because the father of the god could not take proper care of him as an
infant, but rather because he had to be taken into Egypt lest he be murdered. Origen comments, in effect, that the Incarnation is not a myth,
in which God enters human history as other than a true historical agent
in a truly historical narrative. God does not, by a vulgar display of the
miraculous, pull rank and impede the free will of those who would kill
Jesus. The mystery remains “hidden.” Origen paints an icon, as it were,
of the flight to Egypt, allowing us to contemplate the awesomeness of
the Great Wrestler, even as a baby. St. Joseph brings the family to Egypt,
participating in the wrestling of the Great Wrestler, not just vacantly
acting as a placeholder but as an active agent of God’s wisdom, hidden
in a mystery. Returning to the homilies on Luke, this time no. 11, Origen
pictures someone in his congregation asking, “Evangelist, how does this
narrative help me? How does it help me to know that the first census of
the entire world was made under Caesar Augustus; and that among all
these people the name of Joseph, with Mary who was espoused to him
and pregnant, was included; and that, before the census was finished,
Jesus was born?” Origen answers the question:
To one who looks more carefully, a mystery seems to be conveyed. It is significant that Christ should have been recorded in
the census of the whole world. He was registered with the world
for the census, and offers the world communion with himself.

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After this census, he could enroll those from the whole world in
the book of the living (Rev. 20.15 and Phil. 4.3) with himself (11.6).
Far from using his divine identity or pedigree as a trump card, Jesus accepts and wills his identity as Joseph’s son, Joseph espoused to Mary, as
his entry into true solidarity with all of us, the locus of his communion
in wrestling. Commenting still later in the homilies (17.1):
Luke . . . clearly handed down to us that Jesus was the son of
a virgin, and was not conceived by human seed. But Luke has
also attested that Joseph was his father when he said, And his
father and mother were astonished by the things that were being
said about him (Lk. 2.33). Therefore, what reason was there that
Luke should call him a father when he was not a father? Anyone
who is content with a simple explanation will say, “The Holy
Spirit honored Joseph with the name of father because he had
reared Jesus.” But one who looks for a more profound explanation can say that the Lord’s genealogy extends from David to Joseph. Lest the naming of Joseph, who was not the Savior’s father,
should appear to be pointless, he is called the Lord’s father, to
give him his place in the genealogy. Thus his father and mother
were astonished by the things that were being said about him—
both by the angel and by the great number of the heavenly army,
as well as by the shepherds.
It is Jesus’s identity as the son of Joseph that permits him to be enrolled
as in the line of David, as in an authentic human line of descent, not in
a way that reduces him to that descent, but in a way that catches all of
our lines of descent up into his descent, such that his wrestling lifts us all
with him into the most authentic genealogy, that created by the philanthropia of God. The paternity of Joseph is the identity by which Jesus
accepts us into his genealogy. Nor is this feature of Joseph’s paternity of
Jesus separate from his identity as Mary’s husband. Jesus, Origen notes,
wills his subjection to Joseph and to Mary, and Joseph, for his part,
knows that Jesus is greater than he, so exercises his power over Jesus in
all humility (Homily 20.5). Without calling it “the holy family,” Origen
paints an icon of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph where the identities are all

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functions of the mystery of God’s self-emptying philanthropic love, and,
contemplating the family, we find ourselves contemplating that mystery.
As noted above, Origen regards the perpetual virginity of Mary as
settled doctrine in the Homilies on Luke, as well as in the Commentary
on Matthew (10.17), where he comments that the brothers and sisters of
Jesus mentioned in Matthew are not the children of Mary and Joseph.
Mary and Joseph are the parents, and biblically so designated, of Jesus
only. Nothing else would make sense as Origen has laid it out, because it
is by refusing to conquer Satan by revealing his identity as only begotten
of the Father, but by emptying that identity into hiddenness, into his
identity as Joseph’s son, into his place in the genealogy of Joseph, that
he catches all of our genealogies up into true life, the Book of Life. The
paternity of Joseph, as husband of Mary, is extended to us, even more,
I would argue, than the maternity of Mary is extended to us, at least as
far as Origen’s thinking goes. This is true only because of the uniqueness
of the grace extended to Mary in the Incarnation, and because Joseph is
her husband. Mary is the link with our flesh, and Joseph is the link with
our identities, as these are caught up and configured in communion
with Christ. In that sense, as the bearers of a transfigured identity in
Christ, we learn what the paternity of Joseph is to us and he immediately
becomes close to us. To put this still another way, because Origen explicitly regards the marriage of Mary and Joseph as an intrinsic part of the
mystery of the Incarnation, it means their marriage is in one sense no
longer private. It is “open” to all of us. It is not the start of a private family, but one where the hiddenness of Christ’s identity as son of Joseph is
completely constitutive of the married life of Mary and Joseph, which is
thus completely turned outward toward all people equally. The marriage
of Mary and Joseph is already full of children, and for Mary and Joseph
to have had sex and begun their own private family, as it were, would be
to in some sense decrease the scope of their married life—in their case
and in theirs alone. We can all call Joseph “Dad,” and will do so the more
we are caught up into the human genealogy of Christ’s philanthropia.
Can we say more? It would be stretching the text of Origen perhaps,
but is there any basis of thinking further say about the marital intimacy
of Mary and Joseph given Origen’s groundwork? If Origen is in some
way painting an icon of the Holy Family as a mode of contemplating the
mystery of divine philanthropia, perhaps we can look to the iconograph-

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ic tradition of the East both to help, and to purify, our imagination. I am
thinking in particular of the icon of the Nativity, which features both
Mary and Joseph but each in their own way. Mary and the baby are the
center of attention, but Joseph is always present in the lower left-hand
corner, looking concerned, and talking to a seemingly wise old man. He
represents worldly wisdom and as such, the devil. He is tempting Joseph
with the thought that there is and can be no such thing as a virginal
conception and birth, that such things are absurd.
The icon thus invokes a passage from the Gospel of Matthew on
which Origen’s commentary is, unfortunately, lost. Joseph received his
own annunciation but, unlike Mary’s, no permission was asked of him
though they are betrothed. Number one cause of possible resentment.
Then the seemingly absolute contradiction of “conception/birth” and
“virginal.” These hard “secrets” were, as Origen pointed out according
to St. Ignatius of Antioch, hidden from the Prince of this World from
eternity. Here he is, tempting Joseph, sure that these things cannot happen. Because he is so convinced, it is proof that these are mysteries of
profound love. The devil does not believe in love. It is “foolishness” and
so is “hidden” from him. Wouldn’t this be the supreme challenge to a
marriage? Requiring not just Mary to hold these things in her heart, but
Joseph to believe what the angel has revealed and to accept that it is a
fait accompli and that Mary has a higher allegiance? And yet in his trust
in God Joseph reveals he has a higher allegiance too. Their shared higher allegiance, exchanged over the sharing of the most intimate secrets
proper only to husband and wife, define them as husband and wife and
in their shared love and trust the “secrets” hidden from all eternity remain hidden, precisely as marital intimacy. This marriage, we can see in
the icon, and we would expect from Origen’s homilies, was not exempt
from the wrestling, temptations, and struggles that all married couples
endure, though in this case, as directly occasioned by the divine philanthropia that is the essence of “foolishness,” they are even greater, as the
icon depicts. The devil never understands marital intimacy anyway, seeing only pragmatic alliances of one sort or another—if he could have, he
would never have crucified the Lord of glory.
So much for our imaginative work on an Eastern insight into the
intimacy of Mary and Joseph. What about the West? Any hope of sex
there? The patristic West is, if anything, even more adamant than the

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East about the perpetual virginity of Mary. Because Catholics and some
Protestants disagree about the value of these traditions and how they are
to be received into contemporary faith, however, I do not want to begin
with the texts in Augustine that are rather well known in any event,
because it is not my purpose in this essay to make a claim about these
disagreements so much as to understand the Catholic position. For this,
I begin with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, an advance
beyond Augustine, but one that makes no sense, precisely as such, without the specifically Augustinian doctrine of original sin (and this is, I
believe, the basis for potential East-West agreement on this point of
Marian doctrine).
So, here goes. We grant the virginal conception of Jesus. No biblical
Christian that I know of believes this insults the mystery of marriage.
The Incarnation cannot come from the world. Karl Rahner, among others, has ably explained this aspect of the Incarnation in his little book,
The Mother of the Lord. To put it in Origen’s terms, the Incarnation does
not come from the genealogy of Joseph, but instead lifts it up. To put it
in Augustinian terms, the Incarnation is the most signal and complete
act of grace, a sovereignly free act of God, and so it must be initiated by
God. Everything else really flows from this.
The Immaculate Conception—meaning that Mary, redeemed from
the moment of her conception, does not have the taint of Original Sin—
is the correlate grace ensuring that creation, in the person of Mary, participates in the act of God’s grace freely with no external pressure coming from the greatness of God’s stature and the persuasiveness of his
almighty power, not to mention his inherent charming character (no
kidding—it is what Jeremiah complained about: “You seduced me, and I
was seduced”). Mary must be free from the passions of fear and ambitio
saeculi if she is to truly say “yes” in a way that admits of no suspicion of
sexual harassment or rape, even divine date rape, in this relationship in
which the power dynamic is so evidently uneven. As such, the doctrine
really is the correlate of the idea that the Incarnation is the supreme act
of God’s grace. This act would be no true grace if it destroys, co-opts
or takes over created agency, but only if such agency is freed. In other
words, this doctrine flows from, and supports, with the most tender and
loving intuition of the Church, the doctrine of the virginal conception
of Jesus as an act of God’s grace on behalf of all people. It is, as it were,

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the original spousal contract between God and human being, henceforth giving virginity a spousal form and at the same time revealing the
deepest meaning of spousal love as free and utterly complete self-gift,
empowering and engendering other self-giving. It is not the myth of a
god sleeping with a human virgin. It is not rape disguised as a marriage.
As we have already mentioned, Scripture is not conclusive on
whether Mary and Joseph had sex after the birth of Jesus, but tradition
weighs in here and supplies the datum of faith that, in fact, they did not.
In trying to understand what this means, let us try to conceive what we
mean by the opposite situation, that is, that Mary and Joseph did have
sex after the birth of Jesus. What would it mean for us if Joseph and
Mary had sex? I believe that this way of asking the question is more likely to generate insight on the basis of the Western theological charism.
Again, taking as our starting point the traditional belief and contemplating the mystery revealed in the spirit of trying to “understand” it
(which really means trying to love it better), let us try to conceive the opposite scenario. Here St. Augustine is a help, for, in the City of God, Book
14, he conducts a thought experiment about what sex between unfallen
spouses would have been like. It actually does not look that interesting,
but in a way, that is Augustine’s point, to expose the appalling lack of
imagination we bring to the topic. Whether or not one agrees with his
specific suggestion about sex in paradise, his main contribution here is
to teach that sex could have taken place in paradise before the Fall, but
that it is impossible for us to imagine it now, because what he calls “lust”
intervenes and blocks our imagination. All of the signifiers that are used
to indicate “sex” are configured by the fallen sexual desire that Augustine calls lust and that is all a fallen creature can feel. One cannot talk
about sex without arousing the passions in some way, and one cannot
use the words referring to sex without lust intervening in some way. This
is a topic I tried to cover in an earlier essay.
So—what would it mean for Joseph and Mary to have sex? We cannot imagine this. More specifically, the question would be what would
it mean for Mary to have sex, as someone exempt from the passions of
original sin? It is not something we can imagine. We do not know what
it means. We do not know what we are saying when we say that surely
Mary had sex and what’s wrong with it—she was married, after all, and
Joseph, if not unfallen, was a reasonable facsimile, a “just,” righteous

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man, so they must have had beautiful sex. The question “What’s wrong
with it?” however, presumes we know what “it” is in this case. But Augustine’s insight is that we do not, and our every attempt to imagine it
will only and inevitably distort it, for all we can do is imagine it on the
basis of our own experience, in which, however beautiful sex in marriage may be, it is always to some degree ambiguous, to some degree
opaque, to some degree “lustful” in the Augustinian sense, to some degree always tempting us away from fidelity as well as forming fidelity
and the like. Mary having sex is a blank in the imagination, if we accept
the doctrine of original sin. And to have sex with Joseph, “righteous”
but not redeemed from the moment of his conception, adds to the confusion. Can a fallen and an unfallen person engage in the very activity
that creates human community? Are the children fallen or unfallen?
Does Mary fall, then, in having sex with Joseph? Or, does she somehow
redeem his sexuality? But that is the work of Christ, not of Mary, to redeem any aspect of our being.
Sex and marriage are themselves difficult mysteries to contemplate
despite the true joy that accompanies them. They are in themselves
complex. One effect of “lust” as Augustine sees it is to turn sex into a
“work” about which one can (at the crudest end) brag, or (at the more
sophisticated end) imagine you are getting “good at it.” What is “it?”
What are you getting good at? This imagines sex primarily as a skill that
one masters. This is “lust” in its most laundered and seemingly acceptable form. Instead of receiving a gift, I get “good” at a skill, something I
can just as easily read about in the comedies of Terence in Augustine’s
world, or at the supermarket checkout stands in ours.
So we could begin to imagine that Joseph and Mary, especially
Mary, did it better than we can. That is what unfallen sex means. They
do it better. They are better at it. They are at the top of the competition
of sexual ability. Now the pressure is on! Sex is a “work.” If I do it right,
I can take pride in my accomplishment and the sacrament will work for
me! Works righteousness, works righteousness, works righteousness!
Anxiety sets in. Compared to Mary’s and Joseph’s, my sex is not holy
enough, is not sacramental enough, is not blissful enough, is not expert
enough, is not self-forgetful enough, is not good enough. What would
it mean to have to contemplate unfallen sex in this world from the perspective of fallenness? To think of Mary having sex is already to have

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fallen into a works righteousness mode and to have rejected the grace
of the Incarnation, and the correlate grace of the Immaculate Conception. Contemplating a true act of unfallen sex in a fallen world would
be contemplating something that is not recognizably human to us. Paradoxically enough, it is that, and not the perpetual virginity of Mary,
that would take the fun out of sex, spoil its beauty for us, insult sex as
we know it, because it would turn sex into a “work,” an unattainably
righteous “work”—the only way we can imagine unfallen sex, and so
the only way we can try to imitate it. An act of unfallen sex in our world
would break the structure of sex as we know it. It would be an act of
violence to our world, not a loving, saving intervention.
The loving, saving intervention is “silent”—“how silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given,” to quote the Christmas carol. It does
not in a direct way intrude the unfallen economy into the fallen, as a
kind of competition and contempt. The openly unfallen, directly side by
side with the fallen, is contempt, not love; is competition, not invitation;
is bullying, not tenderness. Instead, this all happens “silently,” to use St.
Ignatius’s image, taken over by the hymn, that is, “sacramentally.” Christ
takes on the likeness of sinful flesh and by this means he marries us, not
a better version of us had we not fallen, but us, where we are, here in
this world—how beautiful, he still loved us, he did not care, he married
us anyway in the most complete and supreme act of lavish un-self-centeredness, as foolish as any act of sex is, in fact the very form of “foolishness,” which is grace, the Incarnation. And within that sacramental
economy, the economy of foolishness, sex is possible again as itself—not
in a way that is parallel to the sacramental economy.
Incorporation of fallen human beings into a society that is being redeemed, that is in via, on pilgrimage, the Church, the officially “foolish”
society—this incorporation is the place where sexuality is reformed and
transformed and its essence as stupidly foolish self-gift—not a “work” of
self-justifying righteousness—is revealed. The possibility of being sacramentally configured to the supreme act of self-giving, of espousal, is
given in baptism and then especially in the Eucharist. “How silently,
how silently the wondrous gift is given!” Mary is “redeemed” from the
moment of her conception, not created anew apart from Christ. It is not
Mary, therefore, who renews marriage. Mary is not presented to us as
a parallel economy, an immaculate version of our own lives to which

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we have no access, but as the first and most perfect fruit of grace and
configuration to the one economy of redemption. Mary is the bridal
chamber, in an Augustinian idiom, the fully free created response to the
supreme grace, and incorporation into the Church means incorporation, too, into that fully free response, sacramentally, and not by trying
to emulate something perfect as a “work” of our own. There is no shortcut. There is no unfallen sex. There is the beauty of the spousal love of
Christ, forming the human community of man and wife and lifting it
into a supernatural reality that provides its heart and was intended to
be its heart all along. Grace builds on nature, but that means, in a fallen
world, grace heals, transforms, and transfigures nature so that it is most
fully itself in God.
Contemplating marriage is contemplating complexity and difficulty,
joy, sorrow, and so on. Contemplating the marriage of Joseph and Mary
is to retain, in an unutterable act of tenderness, this contemplation of
marriage as just that, complex, difficult, joyful, sometimes sorrowful.
In this, our Western meditation merges with our Eastern one. To contemplate the marriage of Joseph and Mary as without sex is to retain the
“difficulty” of the mystery of marriage. To regard them as having had
sex, or to regard this as essentially a question of no consequence one
way or the other, is to give up on the density of marriage, its difficulty
and hence also its joys, the joys of a gift given and received in all of
the fearsome and ineffable and so therefore intimate dimensions of gift
giving. What further gift could be required of St. Joseph than to accept
that his wife, his legal wife, is pregnant without his being consulted, even
if it is God? What further gift could be required of Mary, with respect
to Joseph, than that she present him with the Incarnate Word as their
child and that she entrust Joseph with his person and her own, not to
take pride in him as a personal possession and a “work” of theirs, but
to share between them as the most beautiful and supreme gift there is?
“How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given!” This silence is
the substance of the married intimacy of Mary and Joseph, is the depth
of intimacy, the “secret” kept from the Prince of Darkness from all eternity, according to St. Ignatius of Antioch, transforming their married
intimacy, once again, into something more deeply private and personal
even than sex, and yet as such something open and available to everyone, the most open marriage of all.

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377

What would sex mean in this situation? In an Augustinian vocabulary, it would be a signifier without a signified. Mary’s fiat is a perfect
configuration to the “foolishness” of the Gospel, a perfect and perfectly
loving self-forgetfulness, more “foolish” and more ridiculous than any
act of sex could be. She and Joseph share that gift as married love. The
bond between a fallen and an unfallen creature is called, not “sex between Mary and Joseph” but the Church. It is not Joseph’s marriage to
Mary, but rather the union of both of them with the Incarnate Word,
which for them, and for them alone, is a bond in a special way, a unique
participation in the grace of the Incarnation, one that obviates sex and
makes of it a sign without a signified because that which it normally
signifies in a marriage, the spousal love of Christ and the Church, is
replaced by the Word himself in person, and the intimate sharing of the
trust, deeper than that required of any normal marriage, which constitutes the sharing of this gift, transfiguring the marriage of Joseph and
Mary into a bond so solid that it is entirely hospitable to anyone and everyone else. This does not destroy the beauty of sex for the rest of us, but
preserves it from the horrors of a narrow works righteousness that uses
sex to achieve a kind of spiritual mastery and a separate return to the
unfallen, paradisiacal condition. In this one case, sex, as a sign without
a signified, would be an abuse of sex and the renunciation of it a loving preservation of it for the rest of us. Did Mary and Joseph have sex?
Thankfully not. Did they have the specifically sexual intimacy proper
to man and wife, a “sex life,” as we so infelicitously call it sometimes?
N&V
Assuredly yes.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 379-398

379

Did Mary Die?
Newman on Sin, Death, and Mary’s Mortality1*
Paul J. Griffiths

Duke University Divinity School
Durham, NC

DID MARY DIEat the end of her earthly life? In asking this question, I take for granted the dogma of the assumption, as defined and
promulgated by Pius XII in 1950. With that dogma in mind, if the answer to the question is yes, then Mary, like all other human creatures,
was mortal, and died, and her dead body was assumed into heaven,
there to live again after being rejoined with her separated soul. If the
answer is no, then she was not subject to the burden of mortality, and
her living flesh was assumed directly into heaven. On the former view
there was, for a time, a Marian corpse and a Marian separated soul;
on the latter view there was neither. I should like to know which of
these answers is right (they are contradictories, so there is no third
option—not, at least, if the dogma is assumed), or more likely to be
right; and in suggesting which is to be preferred, I use John Henry
Newman as my principal interlocutor, who made some interesting,
and even shocking, observations on the question, as he did on many
other mariological topics.
* Ancestors of this essay were presented at a colloquium on Mary at the University of

Dayton in Ohio in February 2013, and as an invited lecture at Duquesne University
in Pittsburgh under the auspices of the National Institute for Newman Studies in
April 2013. I am grateful to Matthew Levering for organizing the former occasion,
to Kevin Mongrain for the latter, and to participants in both for usefully provocative
questions and discussion.

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The question may seem beyond our capacity to answer. Scripture
says nothing explicitly about it, and there is no defined church doctrine that speaks directly to it—the definition of the dogma leaves it
open, as we shall see. It may also seem arcane. Certainly it has not been
of central importance for the Church’s speculative theologians. Nevertheless, it does have its importance, both in Newman’s thought and
for the Church at large. Addressing it brings clarity about the relation
between sin and death, and there is no doubt that the proper construal
of that relation is of central importance to the grammar of Christian
thought. Is it the case, as the mainstream Catholic tradition has long
asserted, that the presence of sin, whether inherited or performed, is
both necessary and sufficient for the fact of death—that without sin
there is no death, and that with sin death is inevitable? Or, perhaps,
are there other causes for death, causes independent of sin? Questions
of this sort, about death and about death’s attendants and servants,
are of central importance to any theological anthropology, and are,
too, of existential significance to most of us. If thinking about Mary’s
mortality can shed light on these matters, that is a good reason for
engaging in it.
One more preliminary. For Christian theologians, as also for most
people, the question about why we die is not sufficiently answered by
describing and analyzing the biological facts about aging. Certainly
we age, but saying so, and explaining what aging consists in at the cellular and subcellular levels, does not answer the question about why
we die. It only moves that question back a stage, leaving unanswered
the more fundamental questions about why the aging process is as it
is, and about why there is an aging process at all. These questions are
especially pressing for Christians because for us death is always an
occasion for lament. It’s the principal sign that things are not as they
should be. We know, with depth and passion, that we were not made
to die, and that there is therefore something deeply disordered about
the fact that we do. Thinking about the question of Mary’s death may
help us understand death’s lamentableness better.
I begin by discussing something Newman did not know about,
as it occurred sixty years after his death. I mean the definition of the

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dogma of Mary’s assumption into heaven.1 It is uncontroversial that
this definition does not answer the question of this essay, but it is nevertheless important to show briefly that this is the case, and why.
Mary Immaculate, the ever-virgin Mother of God, was assumed
body and soul into heavenly glory when the course of her earthly life
was completed—“Immaculatam Deiparam semper Virginem Mariam,
expleto terrestris vitae cursu, fuisse corpore et anima ad caelestem gloriam assumptam” (Munificentissimus Deus §44). That is what the dogmatic definition of the assumption explicitly states. The formulation is
neutral with respect to the question of Mary’s death. To speak of the
completion (expletio) of her life, its fullness or consummation or satisfaction, might indicate death. Life can be completed or brought to an
end by death, and ordinarily, for human creatures, it is; death is where
such lives find their end. But expletio leaves open the possibility that life
might be completed in other ways. The word, verb and noun, indicates
the attainment of an end in a purely formal way, without any substantive
suggestion as to what the end might be. We might paraphrase: when
everything Mary needed to do here below was done, she was at once
assumed bodily into heaven. Whether dying was something she needed
to do is neither affirmed nor denied by the dogmatic definition.
The rationale for the dogmatic claim about Mary’s bodily assumption given most often in Munificentissimus Deus is that it is a settled
part of Christian thought about Mary that her flesh is exempt from
corruption, which is to say the rotting ordinarily consequent upon
death understood as the separation of soul from body. The assumption of her body into heaven guarantees the impossibility of this, for
there is no corruption there. There are ancient affirmations of the incorruptibility of Mary’s flesh in the Christian tradition, as there also
are about the dead bodies or body parts of some other saints. This element of Mariology, then, is a settled part of Catholic faith and practice.
Mary’s flesh does not decay—is incorrupt—and is unlike all other flesh
in having been taken into heaven without having to wait upon the
general resurrection. Mary’s flesh, assumed incorrupt, is established
1

I refer to the Latin text of Munificentissimus Deus given at www.vatican.va. That text does
not include sectional numbers; I take those from the English version given at the same
Web site.

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in heaven as the precursor or forerunner of what the flesh of each of us
will eventually be. But whereas our flesh will have had its corruption
and dispersal overcome because we will have died and rotted or had
our flesh otherwise consumed, Mary’s entered upon its heavenly state
without need for any such overcoming because it had never undergone corruption and dispersal in the first place.
But this formulation of the sense of the dogmatic definition, and
of the traditions underlying and informing it, leaves the speculative
question of this essay unanswered. On a mortalist reading of the definition, according to which Mary did die before her body was assumed,
the difference between her and us has to do not with death but with
corruption, for Mary differs from us in death only in that her dead
flesh does not rot and is taken into heaven before the general resurrection. This has been the view of the vast majority of Catholic theologians who have addressed this topic; it is also the position most often
taken or implied by devotional literature and liturgical practice. Immortalism—the view that Mary did not die and was assumed alive,
with body and soul unseparated—has been a minority view, but by no
means one without defenders. The text of the dogmatic definition is
largely, and by intent, neutral on the question. But it does have, or can
plausibly be read to have, a slight bias toward immortalism.
Munificentissimus makes a strong connection between Mary’s assumption and her immaculate conception. She won a complete victory
over sin by means of her immaculate conception (immaculata conceptione sua peccatum devicit, §5), we are told, and it is because of this
that her flesh was not subject to the usual law of corruption, and that
she did not have to wait for its redemption. The heart of the matter,
Pius XII writes, and what the faithful already believe most firmly, is
that Mary was never liable to the corruption of the grave (sepulcri corruptioni obnoxium fuisse numquam, §14). By contrast, the faithful do
not find it difficult to believe that she died (ex hac vita decessisse, §14),
and Munificentissimus quotes the Sacramentum Gregorianum, which
explicitly says that she did (sancta Dei Genitrix mortem subiit temporalem, §17). Most of the liturgical, theological, and homiletical precedents quoted and discussed in Munificentissimus, however, have to do
not with whether Mary died before her flesh was assumed, but rather
with the appropriateness of the idea that her flesh was not subject to

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corruption. Sometimes, this convenientia, this elegance of fit, is said to
be with Mary’s perpetual virginity: just as her body’s integrity was not
broken in conceiving and giving birth to Jesus, so her fleshly integrity
was not corrupted in the passage from life here below to life eternal
(§§21, 32, 34). Sometimes it is in terms of intimacy with and likeness
to the dead flesh of Jesus, which was also not subject to corruption
(§§21–22). Sometimes it is in terms of the Ark of the Covenant’s incorruptibility as a type of the incorruptibility of Mary’s flesh (§26). And
sometimes it is in terms of the unlikelihood that the risen Jesus would
wish to be apart from his mother in body as well as in soul (§38).
This does not exhaust the reasons Pius gives for the view that Mary’s
body was assumed incorrupt into heaven. Most of the reasons have
nothing to say to the question of her mortality. Some do rather strongly suggest immortalism, however, as with Albert the Great’s claim that
Mary was exempt from the fourfold curse laid on Eve, which includes
that of death (§30). In this line too is Pius’s own claim, mentioning the
Protevangelium of James as precedent, that calling Mary the second
Eve implies that Mary overcame not only sin but also death (§39). But
others among the reasons given and precedents cited rather strongly
suggest that Mary did die. In this line is Francis de Sales’s claim that
any good son would bring his mother back to life if he could (§38), or
Alphonsus Liguori’s that Jesus did not wish to have his mother’s body
corrupted after her death (“Iesus Mariae corpus post mortem corrumpi
noluit,” §38).
When Munificentissimus ends its review of precedent and Pius begins to write in his own voice, all the formulations are carefully neutral about whether Mary’s soul was ever separated from her body. The
text says that Mary arrived at a complete victory over sin and death
(“plenissimam deventurum erat victoriam de peccato ac de morte,” §40),
and then that these two (sin and death) are always conjoined in Paul’s
writing (“semper in gentium Apostoli scriptis inter se copulantur,” §40).
If a victory over sin, then also one over death—which suggests immortalism, even if without quite implying it. And, even in the wording of
the solemn definition itself (although the phrase “when the course of
her earthly life was completed” is equally friendly to mortalism and
immortalism), the phrase “[she] was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” is rather more friendly to immortalism. It suggests that

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there had been no separation of Mary’s body from her soul, that when
she was assumed into heaven it was with body and soul still together,
and therefore that when she was assumed she was still living. This last
point about the wording of the solemn definition is not often made; I
make it because one of the characteristics of those lives of Mary that do
assert and describe her death is that they accentuate the fact that her
soul ascended before her body was assumed—and therefore that soul
and body were not assumed together, as they would have been had she
been still alive. This distinction can be seen, with baroque detail, in the
life of Mary attributed to Maximus the Confessor,12 and in many other
such lives. On a mortalist view, it is odd to speak of Mary’s assumption
as pertaining to her body and soul together, for on that view they must
have been separate when the body was assumed, and therefore were not
assumed together. On an immortalist view, it is not in the least odd to
write in this way. That is the principal reason why, on the surface of the
text, the solemn definition is marginally more friendly to immortalism
than to mortalism.
About Munificentissimus Deus, then, we can say that some among
the authorities and precedents it cites are clear that Mary died before
being assumed; that some, though fewer, imply strongly that she did
not; and that others are neutral. Pius’s own dogmatic definition, while
slightly more friendly to immortalism, is finally uncommitted on the
question. Since 1950, there has been no significant development of
doctrine on the topic.23 The Church therefore has no dogmatic position
on the question before us. Discussion of it remains properly within the
scope of speculative theology.34
2

This work has been recently translated and studied by Stephen Shoemaker, The Life
of the Virgin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012).
3
Lumen Gentium §§52–69 essentially repeats the position, and almost the phraseology, of Munificentissimus Deus on this question. But note also Lumen Gentium §56,
which deploys the Eve/Mary typology in ways that emphasize Mary’s victory over
death; and §53, which emphasizes that Mary is one with all human beings in their
need for salvation. In the 1992 Catechism, Lumen Gentium §59 is quoted without
much expansion, though there it is also written that Mary’s assumption is a “singular participation in her Son’s resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of
other Christians” (§966), which may, but need not, be read to imply her death. No
position is explicitly taken in any of these sources.
4
The most thoroughgoing speculative contribution to the question of Mary’s mortality to date remains Martin Jugie’s La mort et l’assomption de la Sainte Vierge, étude

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With this reading of Munificentissimus Deus in mind, what about
Newman’s position on Mary’s mortality?
Newman’s thought about Mary is ordered first and most fundamentally around the idea of convenientia. This is not a word he uses
much, but the English words he does use—aptness, appropriateness,
fitness, fittingness, congruity, and so on—are all expressive of this fundamental and ancient idea. For example, a homily preached in 1849,
on or close to the Feast of the Assumption, is titled (by Newman) “On
the Fitness of the Glories of Mary,”15 and the entire homily is patterned
around the idea of fitness: that is to say, the beautiful appropriateness
that Mary should have had the privileges granted to her and merited
by her. “Nothing,” Newman writes, “is too high for her to whom God
owes His human life.”26 That is, once it is known that Mary is Theotokos/
Deipara, which is to say the mother of the Lord, then the development
of Marian doctrine proceeds in considerable part by assessing whether
this or that claim about her is apt to her status as such—whether the
claim in question can, with the right degree of beautiful appropriateness or elegant fittingness, be made of her. Two additional formulations of this working principle from the same homily are: “no limits
but those proper to a creature can be assigned to the sanctity of Mary”
and “Mary must surpass all the saints; the very fact that certain privileges are known to have been theirs persuades us, almost from the
necessity of the case, that she had the same and higher.”37
These claims can be usefully glossed in the following way. First,
negatively, the attribution of a privilege to Mary is inapt if it cannot
belong to a creature, but only to the Lord. Second, positively, if a privhistorico-doctrinale (Rome: Biblioteca Vaticana, 1944). There was considerable interest in and writing about this topic in the 1940s and 1950s, in preparation for and
response to the 1950 dogmatic definition, and there is little doubt that Jugie’s work
was especially influential on both the phraseology and the arguments of Munificentissimus Deus. There has been little discussion of the matter since the Second
Vatican Council.
5
I have used the text given in Philip Boyce, ed., Mary: The Virgin Mary in the Life
and Writings of John Henry Newman (Leominster: Gracewing, 2001), 149–66. In
the discussion of Newman that follows, I have benefited considerably from Nicholas
Gregoris’s “The Daughter of Eve Unfallen”: Mary in the Theology and Spirituality of
John Henry Newman (Mt. Pocono, PA: Newman House Press, 2003).
6
Boyce, Mary, 152.
7
Ibid., 159–60.

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ilege contributes to the holiness of a human creature, then it is apt to
attribute it to Mary, and in maximal degree if it permits a maximum.
And third, as a partial specification of the second, positive claim, if we
know some among the saints to have possessed a particular privilege,
then it is apt to attribute that privilege also to Mary, but in surpassing
degree. Newman’s thought about Mary, then, proceeds along two axes,
one to do with creaturehood and the other to do with holiness. Mary
is a creature, and nothing must be said of her or offered to her that
stands in tension with such an understanding. And Mary’s status as
Deipara requires that she be, among creatures, first in holiness. Mary
is not, in Newman’s view, constituted as God’s mother solely by her
assent to the offer made by Gabriel at the annunciation; rather, that
offer is made because she is holy, because she is a creature uniquely
fitted by her holiness to conceive and bear the Lord. This is something
Newman writes repeatedly, most often in the context of defending the
dogma of the Immaculate Conception to Anglicans, and for obvious
reasons. In the Letter to Pusey, and occasionally in the letters and sermons, Newman strongly emphasizes Mary’s avoidance even of venial
sin during the course of her life, in addition to underscoring, in accord
with the dogmatic definition of 1854, that she was conceived immaculately, without the stain of original or inherited sin.18 Mary’s holiness,
unsurpassable among creatures, the condition that makes it apt for
Gabriel to come to her, and makes it possible for her to assent to what
he offers, is then typically understood by Newman in terms of her
sinlessness from the moment of her conception onward. This is what
makes her fit to be Deipara, the Lord’s mother. Her assent to Gabriel is
an outflow or effect of this more fundamental reality.
The second organizing principle of Newman’s thought about Mary,
evident in both his Catholic and his Anglican periods, is typological:
she is the second Eve, or, as he sometimes puts it more dramatically, she is a “daughter of Eve unfallen,”29 being as Eve’s offspring would
have been had Eve not fallen. This particular typology Newman un8

See, for example, “Our Lady in the Gospel,” a homily preached in 1848, and thus
before the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception. In this homily, Trent’s
Decree on Justification, Canon 23, is cited. Boyce, Mary, 170.
9
From the Letter to Pusey, in Boyce, Mary, 226.

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derstands to be the “rudimental” teaching of the Fathers,1 0 by which he
means that it was, for them, the trope around which all others orbit.
This way of thinking about Mary yields some additional rules for discerning the appropriateness of this or that claim about Mary. So, for
instance, Newman writes that “we are able, by the position and office
of Eve in our fall, to determine the position and office of Mary in our
restoration”;211 “as Eve co-operated in effecting a great evil, Mary co-operated in effecting a much greater good”;312 and, quoting Jerome, much
more pithily, “death by Eve, life by Mary.”413
This typology is handled imaginatively and variously by Newman, as also by the Fathers on whom he draws. The two most common themes in it are those of sin and death. Eve was the first among
humans to sin; Mary the first among humans to be sinless. Eve’s sin
brought death into the world for humans; Mary’s sinlessness, under
the triple aspect of having been conceived immaculately, of being free
from all personal sins, venial or mortal, and of withholding nothing in
her assent to Gabriel, was the condition of the possibility of removing
death for humans.
The pattern of Newman’s thought about Mary’s death, in particular, shows that he is a convinced mortalist; for him, it is clear that
Mary died, and that therefore it was her dead though incorrupt flesh
that was assumed into heaven. Consider the following passage, from
the above-mentioned homily of 1849, “On the Fitness of the Glories
of Mary.”
She [Mary] died, then, as we hold, because even our Lord and
Saviour dies; she died, as she suffered, because she was in this
world, because she was in a state of things in which suffering
and death are the rule. She lived under their external sway; and
as she obeyed Caesar by coming for enrolment to Bethlehem,
so did she, when God willed it, yield to the tyranny of death,
and was dissolved into soul and body, as well as others. But
10

Boyce, Mary, 208.
Ibid.
12
Ibid., 213.
13
Ibid., 218. Newman is quoting and ornamenting Jerome’s letter to Eustochia 22.21,
from the Patrologia Latina, vol. 22, cols. 407–8.
11

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388

though she died as well as others, she died not as others die; for
through the merits of her Son, by whom she was what she was,
by the grace of Christ which in her had anticipated sin, which
had filled her with light which had purified her flesh from all
defilement, she was also saved from disease and malady, and all
that weakens and decays the bodily frame. Original sin had not
been found in her, by the wear of her senses, and the waste of
her frame, and the decrepitude of years, propagating death. She
died, but her death was a mere fact, not an effect; and when it
was over, it ceased to be. She died that she might live, she died
as a matter of form or (as I may call it) an observance, in order
to fulfil, what is called, the debt of nature—not primarily for
herself or because of sin, but to submit herself to her condition,
to glorify God, to do what her Son did; not however as her Son
and Savior, with any suffering for any special end; not with a
martyr’s death, for her martyrdom had been in living; not as
an atonement, for man could not make it and One had made
it, and made it for all; but in order to finish her course and to
receive her crown.1 4
Newman provides in this passage one fundamental reason for Mary’s
mortality: it is that all human persons, including Jesus Christ, are under
the tyranny of death, and Mary, being of course a human person, is as
much under that tyranny as the rest of us. She is mortal, and so she dies.
But then the qualifications: her death was not in any way linked to bodily disease or damage and involved no suffering; it was, rather, Newman
strikingly writes, “a matter of form,” a “mere fact” by means of which she
acknowledges and submits to her creaturely condition and to the “debt
of nature” that goes with it, and thereby glorifies God. By death she finishes her course (a phrase very like that in the dogmatic definition) and
then, after her assumption, receives her crown.
Newman’s way of talking about Mary’s death explicitly separates
it from old age or bodily decay and from any kind of suffering. The
sufferings that Mary does undergo are all, in his view, responsive to
and participant in the sufferings of Jesus, and because her death is a
14

Ibid., 161–62.

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moment of preparation for reunion with the one who is now ascended
and beyond all suffering, it can involve no suffering for her. All this
is consonant with one of the principal rationales for the definition of
the dogma, which is to separate Mary from all fleshly corruption. But
Newman’s view goes further. Not only is she separate from fleshly corruption after death, but also before. While living, she does not age and
is not subject to the kinds of sickness and damage that come from the
ordinary decay of the body—as he writes, “she was also saved from
disease and malady, and all that weakens and decays the bodily frame.
Original sin had not been found in her, by the wear of her senses,
and the waste of her frame, and the decrepitude of years, propagating
death.” The decay of the body produced by age is here attributed directly to original sin, certainly as necessary condition, and probably
also as sufficient. When such sin is absent, as it was in Mary, its consequences are therefore also absent.
This is a striking and unusual understanding of Mary’s flesh. She is
a human creature, conceived like others by the sexual intercourse of a
man and a woman. She grows to maturity as others do. She conceives
and bears Jesus, and in that way becomes the mother of the Lord. But
then her flesh neither decays nor ages. It remains as it was at whatever
age decay would have begun. The long Western tradition has often
speculated about the risen flesh of the saints in just these terms: Augustine is typical when he writes that those resurrected bodies will be
as if their possessors were about thirty years old, that being an age at
which growth to maturity is complete and decay has not yet set in, an
age, that is, at which the body is what it should be. In Newman’s view,
Mary’s flesh during her earthly life is in every significant respect like
that of those resurrected to eternal life. She was already, even in this
devastated world before her assumption, as we hope to be in the life of
the world to come.
This position seems strongly to suggest immortalism. If she does
not age, then why should she die? Excepting violence from without,
we humans die because of sickness or age, and Newman explicitly excludes those from Mary’s flesh. But in the passage before us he immediately goes on to affirm that she did die, even if in a manner very
different from our deaths. Her death is “a mere fact, not an effect”—
not effected, that is, by sickness or age; it is a “matter of form” or, “an

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observance, in order to fulfil, what is called, the debt of nature.” That
last phrase, about the debt of nature, is an epigrammatic summary
of the view that mortality is constitutive of human creaturehood, and
therefore also of the view that mortality has nothing necessarily to do
with sin, for from that, in all its kinds, Mary is completely free. What
exactly does Newman mean by it? And how, following his own mariological method, does it exhibit convenientia to say that Mary is subject
to death, and that this state of affairs explains why she dies?
Another passage, this one from the Letter to Pusey, is helpful in
considering these questions.
We consider that in Adam she [Mary] died, as others; that she
was included, together with the whole race, in Adam’s sentence;
that she incurred his debt, as we do; but that, for the sake of
Him who was to redeem her and us upon the Cross, to her the
debt was remitted by anticipation, on her the sentence was not
carried out, except indeed as regards her natural death, for she
died when her time came, as others.
Here the language of debt is also used, and in a more familiar way: the
debt incurred by Adam is one that entails death, and for Mary it is remitted, “except indeed as regards her natural death, for she died when
her time came, as others.” But this is puzzling. If, as the language of
the passage suggests, the debitum is the usual one of sin/death, and if
Mary is by grace and holiness sinless, and has therefore had that debt
remitted, why must she die? Is the natural necessity of her death, the
fact of her mortality, now separate from the debitum? Or is it that the
greater part of the burden of the debt has to do with sin, and that only
a remainder, the part that yields the body’s death, is left to Mary? The
latter seems the most natural reading of what Newman writes in this
passage, and something like it must be right: because he wishes to say
that Mary was mortal and died, and that she was free from every kind of
sin, he must postulate a reason for death, which has nothing to do with
sin. It remains unclear what this reason might be: what debt remains
to Mary if she has been entirely cleared of the weight of sin? Newman’s
pattern of reasoning here has a structure evident, and perhaps unavoidable, among those who wish to affirm both Mary’s mortality, and her

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untrammelled freedom from sin. It shows the need to find some reason
for death other than sin.
In a letter written in 1865 to J. R. Rhode, a Catholic barrister with
whom Newman exchanged a number of letters on theological questions in the 1850s and 1860s, Newman comments on the passage from
the Letter to Pusey just discussed:
What I have said in my Letter [to Pusey] was but a matter of
fact, viz. that the Decree of 1854 [on the Immaculate Conception] did not deny that our Lady was under the debitum—that
no Catholic was called to deny it—that I did not deny it—that
Suarez, the greatest theological authority of these latter times,
affirmed it.
I did not say that every Catholic was obliged to affirm—or that
there was not a certain particular sense of the word in which
divines, such as Viva and your own Jesuit author, considered
that they were at liberty to deny it.
For myself, such subtleties, touch neither my heart nor my
reason. They don’t seem to me to add one atom of honour to
our Lady—they do but deprive her Son of subjects. I do but
associate them with the loss of souls. It would not lead me to
say with a clearer conscience, “Per te, Virgo, sim defensus, in
die judicii,” to have the misgiving within me, that by my officious zeal for her honour, I had prevented my brethren from
submitting to the Catholic Church, and enjoying the blessings
of Catholic communion.1 5
Rhode had questioned Newman’s view that Mary was under a natural
debitum, and thus mortal, and had quoted various authorities in support
of the opposite, immortalist view. Newman’s reply makes four points:
first, that he does not regard it as a settled matter of Catholic doctrine
that Mary died; there are authorities on both sides of the question, and
no dogma to settle it. The 1854 definition of the immaculate conception
15

John Henry Newman, Letters and Diaries, vol. 22, ed. Charles Dessain (London:
Nelson, 1972), 225.

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Paul J. Griffiths

requires no position on Mary’s mortality and thus no position on the
debitum. This is also true of the 1950 definition of the assumption. Second, he writes that to be mortal is necessary for being a subject of Jesus,
for, we might say, being saved by Jesus from death. Denying the natural
debt, and thus also Mary’s mortality, seems to Newman to do nothing
other than “deprive her Son of [a] subject.” Newman does not say more
in this letter about why this is, but it is a common theme elsewhere in
his writing that what Jesus liberates us from is, above all, death, and,
therefore (we can assume), that if a particular creature is not mortal, she
does not, because of her immortality, need to be saved by Jesus, and is
therefore in that sense not his subject.
But this view—and it is repeated often by other defenders of
Mary’s mortality—sits uneasily with what we have seen in the passage
discussed above from the 1849 homily on the fitness of the glories of
Mary, where Newman writes explicitly that Mary is redeemed by Jesus
anticipatorily, proleptically as we might say. He makes the same point
more briefly in the Letter to Pusey, as we have seen. If that is so, and
it is difficult to see how else to construe the dogma of the immaculate
conception, Mary is so conceived as a matter of gift, by participation
in the only redemptive gift there is; there can be no other way in which
the burden of sin is removed from human creatures. Therefore Mary’s
immortality would in no way call into question her status as a subject
of Jesus, in need of redemption by him, as Newman suggests in this
letter to Rhode. It would mean, rather, that her redemption is brought
about differently in the temporal order than is ours, but not by any
separation of her from Jesus’s redemptive work. There is an internal
tension here in Newman’s mariological thought: he offers in this letter
a reason for Mary’s mortality, the necessity of which he had already removed by what he wrote in the 1849 homily and in the Letter to Pusey.
To return to the letter to Rhode. Newman writes there that there
is no settled dogma on the question of Mary’s mortality, and that suggesting her immortality removes her from Jesus’s redemptive work.
This second point is buttressed by a third, which is that denying mortality to Mary does not “add one atom of honour” to her. Newman
does not say why not, and given his Mariological method, it is far from
clear why it would not. If she is the daughter of Eve unfallen, and if

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“nothing . . . is too high for her to whom God owes His human life,”1 6
then why would not affirming that she did not die do her honor, while
still keeping her firmly within the bounds of creaturehood? Death, after all, as Newman so often writes, is the central element in what has
been brought about by the primordial cataclysm of the fall. Its absence
does not call creaturehood into question, as the examples of the angels
and of Adam and Eve unfallen show.
The last significant point made in the letter to Rhode is that affirming immortality of Mary, or even engaging in discussion of the
matter, would, Newman thinks, provide a barrier to Anglicans who
might otherwise become Catholic. And he does not wish to have
this burden on his conscience. To advocate, or seriously to consider,
Mary’s immortality would be “officious zeal for her honour,” that is,
both unnecessary and overweening. Newman therefore rejects it. This
is the strongest motivation behind Newman’s mortalism with respect
to Mary. He is deeply aware of the barriers to Catholicism that Marian
doctrine, usually misunderstood though it was, provided his Anglican
contemporaries and peers. Addressing that matter is among the main
burdens of the Letter to Pusey. And he seems to think that affirming
Mary’s assumption without death would be a barrier very difficult to
get over. He is no doubt right. But it is surely no greater a barrier than
his own speculation that Mary’s exemption from decay and corruption
extended to her life here below. Is it likely that an ageless Mary was
easier for Pusey to swallow than a deathless one?
The comments in the letter to Rhode strongly suggest that Newman takes mortality to provide intimacy with Jesus by showing Mary
subject to what Jesus underwent himself and what he liberates us
from—namely, death—and by having her participate, like all mortals,
in his death. They also show that he takes affirming immortality of
Mary to be unnecessary, that is, to provide her no additional dignity.
And, crucially, he does not want to be held responsible for preventing
non-Catholics from becoming Catholic by addressing such Mariological subtleties as her possible immortality.
Matters are further complicated by Newman’s notes for a homily
delivered on the Feast of the Assumption. The year to which the hom16

Boyce, Mary, 152.

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Paul J. Griffiths

ily belongs is not definitely known, but was probably the late 1840s
or early 1850s, not far distant in time from the homily on the fitness
of Mary’s glories (1849), of which we have the full text. As a Catholic homilist after the late 1840s, Newman appears ordinarily to have
preached extemporaneously, having before him only notes and outlines, some of which survive. I provide the notes for this particular
homily in full, in order to give a sense of its structure
INTROD.—Question.—Whether this feast, [the Assumption, is]
not inconsistent with the Immaculate Conception; for why should
our Lady die if she did not inherit Adam’s sin? 2. Answer.—Because she was under the laws of fallen Nature, and inherited its
evils, except so far as sin [is concerned]. Thus our Blessed Lord
[suffered fatigue, pain and death]. Thus she had not perfect
knowledge from the first. She had need of shelter, clothing, etc.,
not in a garden [as our first parents were]. 3. Hence, since all men
die, she died. Our Lord died. 4. Yet even as regards the body, our
Lord observed a special dispensation about her. Hence she was
not only protected from diseases, but from torture, wounds, etc.
5. It was becoming that she who was inviolata, intemerata, should
have no wound. 6. The difference between men and women as
to warfare. The women protected and sit at home. How many a
wife, or sister or daughter, suffers in mind, and you hear them
say, “O that I were a man!” And they suffer in soul, [as the] saints
about the cross [who were] not martyrs [suffered]. And hence
Mary had a sword through her [heart]. Mental pains, like bodily.
And this her pain. 7. And hence she brings before us the remarkable instance of a soul suffering, yet not the body. 8. She lived
therefore to the full age of human kind. [In this she was] different
from our Lord. 9. What a picture this puts before us! Fancy her
thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, looking still so beautiful and young, not
fading, more heavenly every year; so that she grew in beauty, and
the soul always grew in grace and merit. 10. And then, fancy the
increased pain at the absence of Christ, [for she lived] fifteen or
sixteen years without Him! 11. On the long life and waiting of the
antediluvian patriarchs—Jacob’s “I have waited for Thy salvation,
O Lord”; Moses; Daniel; the souls in Limbo Patrum like Mary,

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though the time [of her waiting] shorter. It was like purgatory,
waiting for Christ’s face; except with merit and not for sin. 12.
Hence [it is] not wonderful [that] it is a pious belief that she died
from love. This alone could kill that body. It was a contest between
body and soul. The body so strong, the soul so desirous to see
God. No disease could kill that body. What killed it? The soul,
that it might get to heaven. 13. (1) By languishing; (2) by striving to get loose. 14. Hence [it was] fitting that, when she did get
loose, her Son should not let the body be so overmatched and
overcome, but at once that the soul had got the victory, He raised
up the body without corruption. 15. Our Advocate in heaven.17
Newman repeats here many of the themes already discussed. He assumes
Mary’s mortality: that provides the question around which the homily is
ordered (§1), which is exactly why Mary died. The first answer given is
that she died because all creatures die, including her son (§§2–3). This is
immediately qualified by the claim that Mary’s body was, though mortal,
invulnerable: she did not age or suffer from illness, and could not have
been killed by wounds (§§4–5). The suffering she did undergo was of the
heart only, and Newman connects this point to the fact that she was a
woman (§§6–7). She lives on after Christ’s death for “fifteen or sixteen
years,” by which time, following the traditional approximate chronology,
she is in her sixties, and suffers purgatorially during those years while
waiting to be reunited with him (§§8–11). But how then does she come
to die, if her body has not aged and if she is invulnerable to all the usual
causes of death? Newman’s answer is quite remarkable. It is that her soul
killed her body in a love suicide (§§12–13): Mary is, at last, so eager to see
her risen and ascended son that she kills herself in order to do so.
This is an outlandish speculation. The idea that Mary had to kill
herself, to cease to exist as a person (for that is what the death of the
body means), in order that her soul might be freed for the vision of the
Lord, lacks any kind of convenientia. It is an ugly thing, not something
the Church ought predicate of our Blessed Mother. She is what Eve was
and should have remained, which is to say the mother of all the living;
and this speculation makes her a direct cause of her own death. It is
easy enough to see why Newman’s thought should have moved in this
direction, however. It is one way, perhaps in the end the only remotely

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Paul J. Griffiths

plausible way, of dealing with the tension between affirming Mary’s
exemption from disease and decay in this life, and thinking that she
died. Newman is not a fearful thinker, and here, as often, he fearlessly
follows the trajectory of his thought to its conclusion, even when that
conclusion is almost certainly wrong.
In light of this discussion it is easy enough to conclude, first, that
Newman does not present an entirely consistent understanding of
Mary’s mortality. His extravagant speculation about her suicide cannot stand easily with the talk of natural death and the debitum found
in the texts discussed earlier in this essay. What the speculative position in the sermon notes does show, as do the dismissive comments
about mariological subtleties, is that Newman is not terribly interested
in giving a speculative-theological account of why Mary is mortal. He
takes her mortality as a majority view, patristic, medieval, and modern, and he is quite right to do so. He affirms it in accord with that
majority, as a datum of the tradition. But he cannot see how to account
for it. The difficulty is especially sharp for him because of the force of
his affirmation of the Eve-Mary typology. The nexus between sin and
death is deep and powerful in that typology, and to take it in the direction that Newman does, is almost ineluctably to be led in the direction
of understanding Mary as Eve would have been had she not fallen.
And that means immortal, not mortal. On the other side, apart from
the weight of the tradition, there is only the inchoate sense that if Mary
does not die she is not as intimate with Jesus as she would otherwise
have been; and that if we say that Mary does not die, we must also say
that she was not saved from death by him, not brought into eternal life
by dying and rising with him. But this is not remotely probative: it is
easily dealt with, as the dogma of the immaculate conception implies,
by saying that her salvation is brought about proleptically by the work
of Jesus, and thus that she does not need to die in order to participate
in it just as she does not need to sin in order to participate in the deliverance from sin brought about by Jesus.
What might Newman have said about Mary’s mortality if he had
not been so concerned about throwing up unnecessary barriers to potential Anglican converts? If he had not been so impatient with mariological subtleties, and if he had known that the dogmatic definition
of the assumption would leave open the question of Mary’s death? He

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might have said that Mary did not die; that her soul was never separated from her body; and that the fundamental reason for this is that
she had already been redeemed from sin and death by the grace of
the most holy Trinity at work in her immaculate conception and her
separation thereafter from all sin—that this is exactly the mode of her
redemption. Newman’s consistent emphasis on Mary’s holiness as condition for her status as Mother of God, rather than as consequent upon
the fiat that initiated her motherhood, fits very well with this view.
And this version of immortalism makes sense, as well, of the deep
link between sin and death, and the oddity—the lack of convenientia—
of speaking, as Newman does, of a natural death-debt that has nothing to do with sin. There is no strong speculative or dogmatic reason
why there ought to be any such natural debitum independent of sin,
and Newman provides no explanation. And, lastly, to gloss Newman’s
outlandish speculation in the sermon notes, I should think that Mary
would have been eager to have in heaven the kind of relation she had
here below with Jesus, which was a deeply personal one. The ascent
of her soul to heaven would not have provided this, for a separated
soul, as the Catholic tradition is virtually unanimous in asserting, is
not, properly speaking, a human person. The fullness of the beatific
vision for humans—and thus also for Mary—requires flesh; the “soul
so desirous to see God,” if confident of its entry into eternal life and
its freedom from death’s necessity, as Mary on Newman’s account was,
would be content to await its assumption together with its otherwise
immortal body, rather than to separate itself from that body with an
eager but fatal force.
This is the furthest limit of mariological speculation. The constructive way forward is to consider more fully what a Mary who did
not die shows us about our own fleshliness and our own subjection to
sin, and about the nature of the relation between sin, death, and the
flesh more generally considered.
Newman should have the last word. The quotation below is from
his meditation on Mary as Rosa Mystica. It sits well with immortalism,
and it is beautiful.
Excepting her [Mary], the fairest rose in the paradise of God
has had upon it blight, and has had the risk of canker-worm

Paul J. Griffiths

398

and locust. All but Mary; she from the first was perfect in her
sweetness and her beautifulness, and at length when the angel
Gabriel had to come to her, he found her “full of grace,” which
had, from her good use of it, accumulated in her from the first
N&V
moment of her being.1 8

18

Boyce, Mary, 373.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 399-418

399

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
into Heaven:
Faith, Dogma, and Eschatology
Reinhard Hütter

Duke University Divinity School
Durham, NC

Introduction

I WOULD LIKE TO INVITEthe esteemed readers of this essay to
enter into a “what if ” thought experiment.1 What if we were to bracket
for the duration of reading this article a notion of “faith” we might have
encountered in recent Catholic theology, a notion of a “faith” that all
people hold at least implicitly in virtue of our purportedly universally
graced existence, a nonthematic faith in transcendence, meaning, and
goodness, a faith that in light of the state of the world is always paired
with doubt, a faith that can at best be solidified into a strong opinion,
maybe even into a conviction, but that remains always tentative and always open to revision in light of possible new and conflicting evidences
1

Versions of this essay were delivered as lectures on April 28, 2013, at the Monastery
of Our Lady of Grace, North Guilford, CT, and much earlier, on September 27, 2008,
at a Symposium on Mariology at the University of Dallas in Dallas, TX. I remember
with deep gratitude the hospitality my colleagues and I enjoyed at the Cistercian
Monastery, the instructive conversations on Mariology with Fr. Roch Kereszty, O.
Cist., and then Abbot Denis Farkasfalvy, O.Cist., as well as with my co-symposiasts
John Cavadini, Paul J. Griffiths, and Bruce Marshall. I am indebted to the substantive
feedback I received from Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., feedback I attempted to
integrate into the article as fully as possible, and for comments and suggestions from
the Dominican Nuns and, last but not least, from Nancy Heitzenrater Hütter.

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Reinhard Hütter

or simply more compelling alternatives. What if we were to bracket this
all too widespread notion of faith, the faith of the seeker, the faith based
on the measure of our own private judgment? What if instead we had
a dream? What if we were to dream that faith in all of its aspects was
a gift given directly from God to each one of us personally? What if
we were to dream that faith was based on a testimony that ultimately
comes from God and that we believe to come from God and therefore
are able to hold with absolute certainty because we believe God? What if
this faith were to contain distinct truths communicated by God by way
of entrusted messengers whom we believe because we believe them to
be God’s messengers entrusted by God with the testimony that conveys
distinct truths about God? What if this faith were part and parcel of
our friendship with God, a friendship enabled, initiated, and ensured by
God, such that the knowledge conveyed by faith were always inherently
part of the personal friendship initiated by God and indeed inherently
part of an inchoate union with God? What if faith were “the substance
of things hoped for; the proof of things not seen” (Heb 11:1), so that
“through faith, in a tentative way, or as we might say ‘in embryo’—and
thus according to the ‘substance’—there [were] already present in us the
things that are hoped for: a whole, true life”?2 What if—lest this faith become wayward and ossified—God had appointed guardians of the faith
that would allow it to grow and to remain faithful to the truth conveyed
by God? And what if the faith itself were certain about these guardians
of the faith and certain that God would guide these guardians through
the Holy Spirit? Would it not be most appropriate to call such a faith, a
faith that has its origin and end in God, a faith that is a gift from God
and anchored in God’s truthfulness—divine faith?3
Because the dreaming goes so well, let us go on for a moment and
ask, what if a contemporary theologian had put this matter into a compelling contemporary theological idiom. For example, the following way:
The sole objectivity of the faith is the subjectivity of the Church.
For the objectivity of the faith is guaranteed by the Spirit of
2
3

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi §7.
For a more detailed discussion of “divine faith,” see my recent article “What Is Faith?
The Theocentric, Unitive, and Eschatologically Inchoative Character of Divine
Faith,” Nova et Vetera (English) 11, no. 2 (2013): 317–40.

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401

God, who judges everything, but is judged by nobody. This
Spirit, however, is present in the Church as her subjectivity and
nowhere else present [as such]. One cannot want to apply the
final measure oneself. The final measure, insofar as it is tangible at all, is the Church from that moment on that the Spirit of
Truth has united Himself with her, and with me, the individual
only insofar as I stand in the Church and insofar as I have handed over my faith into hers. . . . Because [the Church] in freedom
overpowered by the Spirit, is always the obedient servant of the
truth—in this way alone, but in this way also unconditionally, is
[the Church] the one who rules over our faith. . . . Faith is faith
that hears the Church and believes in the Church.4
Let us continue our dream. What if this theologian were Karl Rahner
and what if he had written these words in the opening pages of a book
on the dogma of the Assumption, a book that he never published during
his life? And what if he were to recommend the following attitude for
approaching theologically the mystery of the assumption of the Blessed
Virgin? Consider again the Karl Rahner from 1951:
What is the right beginning for our endeavor to understand
what the Church proclaims about the Holy Virgin and her eternal destiny? The humble reverence (Ehrfurcht) in face of the
mystery of God, a reverence in which the human being does
not make himself the measure of truth, and the unconditional
faith in relationship to the Church and her teaching and in the
Church as the necessary medium of our own understanding of
the faith, a faith that is the measure for everything else and that
can be measured only by itself and no other criteria.5
4

Karl Rahner, Maria, Mutter des Herrn: Mariologische Studien, vol. 9, Sämtliche Werke
(Freiburg: Herder, 2004), 13–14 (my translation). The quotation is taken from Karl
Rahner’s 1951 monograph Assumptio Beatae Mariae Virginis, which was published
for the first time only in the posthumous edition of his complete works. For detailed
information about the reasons for this delayed publication, see Regina Pacis Meyer’s
instructive introduction to the volume (xi–lv). I am indebted to Fr. Richard Schenk,
O.P., for having brought to my attention Karl Rahner’s “hidden” Mariological treatise.
5
Ibid., 18 (my translation).

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Reinhard Hütter

What if we were to assume this framework of divine faith? Equipped
with the reverence Rahner recommends, we would encounter the following as a teaching of the faith that makes divine faith explicit in one
specific regard: “We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely
revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin
Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed
body and soul into heavenly glory.” Thus states the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as it was defined and promulgated
by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950, in the Apostolic Constitution
Munificentissimus Deus.6 The dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin into heaven, body and soul, expresses a truth integral to the divine faith we have come presently to assume. The truth made explicit
and specified (we could also say “defined”) in the dogma belongs to the
essence of divine faith; it is an article of this faith as much as the articles
specified in the Apostolic and the Nicene Creed, that is, among others,
that God is triune, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God incarnate, that he
was raised from the dead on the third day and ascended into heaven. All
of these truths and numerous others are divinely revealed and therefore
integral to divine faith.7
6

“Pronunciamus, declaramus et definimus divinitus revelatum dogma esse: Immaculatam Deiparam semper Virginem Mariam, expleto terrestris vitae cursu, fuisse
corpore et anima ad caelestem gloriam assumptam” (DH 3903; Heinrich Denzinger,
Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals,
43rd ed., ed. Peter Hünermann [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010], 809).
7
Unsurprisingly, therefore, Munificentissimus Deus clearly states: “Hence, if anyone,
which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or call into doubt that which We have
defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic
faith” (“Quamobrem, si quis, quod Deus advertat, id vel negare, vel in dubium vocare
voluntarie ausus fuerit, quod a Nobis definitum est, noverit se a divina ac catholica fide
prorsus defecisse [DH 3904]). For further clarification, see “Doctrinal Commentary
on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei,” issued by the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith on June 29, 1998. In paragraph 11, the commentary states: “To
the truths of the first paragraph belong the articles of the faith of the Creed, the various Christological dogmas and Marian dogmas; the doctrine of the institution of the
sacraments by Christ and their efficacy with regard to grace; the doctrine of the real
and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the sacrificial nature of the eucharistic celebration; the foundation of the Church by the will of Christ; the doctrine
on the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff; the doctrine on the existence of
original sin; the doctrine on the immortality of the spiritual soul and on the immediate
recompense after death; the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts; the doctrine
on the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being.”

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In the following theological meditation I am going to be true to the
thought experiment and presuppose the truth of the dogma as integral
to the divine faith we presently assume “as if.” Given divine faith, I will
explore the truth itself that the dogma conveys. I will first consider the
antecedent revealed truths that give rise to the Church’s faith in the assumption of the Blessed Virgin into heaven. These antecedent revealed
truths afford divine faith an indispensable understanding of the surpassing theological fittingness of her assumption. Of course, God’s omnipotence makes it possible for God to assume any human being into
heaven, body and soul—presupposing in this counterfactual, of course,
that the instantaneous sanctification of this person by operative grace
would be a necessary entailment of such an act of divine omnipotence.
Fittingness, convenientia, however, assumes that God orders all the
works of salvation wisely and that divine faith is enabled by God to trace
the wisdom of such ordering and to praise the beauty of such wisdom.
By way of interpreting a brief meditation by Thomas Aquinas I will suggest how the assumption of the Blessed Virgin roots theologically in her
plenitude of grace and in her divine motherhood.
Given the assumption of the Blessed Virgin into heaven, I will then
consider, albeit only briefly, the most salient ecclesiological and eschatological consequences of this revealed truth of divine faith. As the dogmatic theologian Louis Bouyer states in his important book The Seat of
Wisdom, “her Assumption is the pledge of the glory Christ will give to
his Spouse, as he has already given it to his Mother.”8
Gratia plena—Deipara—Assumpta
Let us consider Thomas Aquinas’s theological meditation on the angel’s
salutation Ave, gratia plena, a piece Thomas composed in the year 1269.
The work falls into the early part of Thomas’s second Parisian regency,
the period during which he commenced and completed the enormous
Secunda Pars of the Summa theologiae (ST).9 In this brief but never8

Louis Bouyer, The Seat of Wisdom: An Essay on the Place of the Virgin Mary in Christian Theology, trans. A. V. Littledale (New York: Pantheon, 1962), 202.
9
Thomas Aquinas, “In salutationem angelicam vulgo ‘Ave Maria’ expositio” (1269),
Opuscula Theologica, vol. II (Turin: Marietti, 1954), 239–41. Translated into English as The Angelic Salutation, trans. Joseph B. Collins (New York: Wagner, 1939).
Concerning the exact date on which Thomas delivered this sermon, see the instruc-

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Reinhard Hütter

theless rich theological meditation on the angel’s salutation, Thomas
demonstrates well how the Church’s faith moves from the Virgin Mary’s
plenitude of grace to her divine motherhood and from her divine motherhood to her assumption into heaven. Thomas’s brief treatise is rooted
in a thoroughly theological reading of the Sacred Scriptures and thus
helps us see that the Church’s faith in the assumption of the Blessed
Virgin arises from the witness of the Sacred Scriptures. For Thomas’s
theological meditation allows us to understand the assumption immediately in relationship to the plenitude of grace residing in the Blessed
Virgin and in relationship to her divine motherhood, two truths shining
forth from the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. To put it differently:
Given the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, a truth solemnly
defined on December 8, 1854, by Pope Pius IX in the Bull Ineffabilis, her
assumption does indeed follow as a fitting consequence in the economy
of salvation. However, we would seriously misunderstand the Church’s
faith in the assumption of the Blessed Virgin into heaven if in hindsight
we were to reduce this truth of divine faith to a mere necessary entailment of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Rather, it is important for a full appreciation of the meaning of the assumption to realize
and remember that the truth of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s assumption
into heaven is a direct consequence of the witness of the Gospel of Luke
itself, namely, a witness of the plenitude of grace that resides in her and
a witness of her divine motherhood.
As is well known, Thomas did not teach the immaculate conception
of the Virgin Mary in her mother’s womb. Rather, at a time when a vative commentary and notes provided by Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., in Saint Thomas
d’Aquin, Somme Theologique. Le Verbe Incarné en ses mystères. Tome 1: L’entrée du
Christ en ce monde (ST III, qq. 27–34) (Paris: Cerf, 2003), 363; Recherches thomasiennes: Études revues et augmentées (Paris: Vrin, 2000), 285n4. Torrell provides a
French translation in Le Verbe Incarné, 363–70. Also important findings by Torrell
are the appendix “S. Thomas et la vierge Marie,” 340–53, esp. 368n1, and the “notes
explicatives,” esp. 264–68. For recent treatments of Thomas’s Mariology, see T. A.
Mullaney, O.P., “Mary Immaculate in the Writings of St. Thomas,” The Thomist 17
(1954): 433–68; Daniel Ols, O.P., “La Bienheureuse Vierge Marie selon saint Thomas,” in Littera Sensus Sententia: Studi in onore del Prof. Clemente J. Vansteenkiste, O.P.,
ed. Abelardo Lobato, O.P. (Milan: Massimo, 1991), 435–53; and Aidan Nichols, O.P.,
“The Mariology of St. Thomas,” in Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction, ed.
Thomas G. Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating, and John P. Yocum (London: T&T Clark,
2004), 241–60.

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riety of theological positions were still explored and defended, Thomas
taught the perfect sanctification of the Blessed Virgin in her mother’s
womb immediately after the ensoulment (which Thomas assumed—
based on the best scientific theory of his day—did not occur right at
conception). Ironically, from the hindsight of the development of doctrine, it is this particular trait of Thomas’s Mariology that lends special
significance to his brief treatise. For it allows us to attend to the direct
theological relationship between the plenitude of grace present in the Blessed Virgin and her divine maternity, on the one side, and her assumption
into heaven, body and soul, on the other side. In short, Thomas’s meditation allows us—in hindsight, after the promulgation of the dogma of
the Immaculate Conception in the bull Ineffabilis Deus on December 8,
1854—to realize that, indeed, her immaculate conception is for the sake
of her divine maternity, while her assumption is a culmination of both
of these prior graces.10
How does Thomas proceed in his brief meditation? First, he points
out something contemporary readers of Scripture would most likely fail
to notice, namely, that wherever in the Sacred Scriptures angels encounter human beings it is never the angel who greets and expresses reverence to the human being—with the sole exception of the Annunciation.
Thomas gives three reasons why it is improper, under normal circumstances, for angels to express reverence to humans, but why it is quite
proper and decent for human beings to do so in regard to angels.
First, angels surpass human beings in ontological dignity. For angels
have a spiritual and incorruptible nature while humans have a corruptible one. Second, angels are of the utmost familiarity with God and, in
addition, are God’s assistants in the order of providence as well as in
10

For a detailed elaboration of the preeminence of the divine maternity and of the
predestination of the Blessed Virgin to divine maternity as the final cause of her
immaculate conception (Christ’s salvific death on the Cross being the meritorious
cause) and as the root cause, the principle, that comes to full realization first in her
association with Christ’s suffering and death and then also her eternal association
with Christ in his perfect victory, see the unjustly forgotten Mariology by Reginald
Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Mother of The Saviour and Our Interior Life, trans.
Bernard J. Kelly, C.S.Sp. (Dublin: Golden Eagle), 1949.

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the economy of salvation, while human beings, due to sin, are in and
of themselves unrelated to and far removed from God. Third, and most
importantly, angels enjoy the surpassing splendor of divine grace; they
participate in the divine light itself to the highest degree. It is for this reason, Thomas surmises, that an angel always appears with light. Human
beings, however, even if they participate in the light of grace, do so only
to a small degree and in a somewhat obscure manner. Now, according
to the Gospel of Luke, the angel indeed explicitly greets the Virgin Mary
and pays her reverence. And this is the case, Thomas argues, because the
Blessed Virgin exceeds the angel in at least three regards.
First, she exceeds the angel in the degree of grace, for the plenitude
of grace indicates a maximum of perfection that the Holy Scriptures
attest nowhere about any angel.11 Thomas regards this truth to be established simply on the basis of the witness that the literal sense of the
Holy Scriptures affords. According to Thomas, the plenitude of grace
is of surpassing significance and constitutes the fundamental principle
of Mariology. The plenitude of grace pertains, first, to the soul of the
Blessed Virgin such that she is enabled perfectly to do good and avoid
sin, and, second, to her body, in that the overflow (redundantia) of grace
from her soul to her body enables her to give birth to the Son of God.12
Finally, the plenitude of grace pertains, third, to the restitution (refusio) of grace in all human beings. Thomas emphasizes in this important
third aspect of her plenitude of grace that the Virgin Mary is the only

11

By way of a handy summary, we can turn for one brief moment to the Summa theologiae, where Thomas in the third part considers the Mother of God in the proper
theological context of Christology. Here is his argument why she indeed received in
the womb the plenitude of grace: “In every genus, the nearer a thing is to the principle, the greater the part which it has in the effect of that principle, whence Dionysius
says (Coel. Hier. iv) that angels, being nearer to God, have a greater share than men,
in the effects of the Divine goodness. Now Christ is the principle of grace, authoritatively as to his Godhead, instrumentally as to His humanity: whence (Jn 1:17) it
is written: Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. But the Blessed Virgin Mary was
nearest to Christ in His humanity: because He received His human nature from her.
Therefore it was due to her to receive a greater fulness of grace than others” (ST III,
q. 27, a. 5).
12
Thomas Aquinas, “In salutationem angelicam vulgo ‘Ave Maria’ expositio” (Marietti
no. 1115–17).

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other person apart from Christ (considered in his humanity) to receive
grace for every other human being.13
Second, the Blessed Virgin exceeds the angel in divine familiarity.
The angel expresses this in the sentence “The Lord is with you.” And
this, Thomas points out, is the case in three utterly unique ways: First of
all, Father and Son together have a familiarity with her in a way different
from any other creature, angel or human: “The child to be born of you
will be called holy, the Son of God” (Lk 1:35b; RSV). Moreover, due to
being in her womb, God the Son has a familiarity with the Blessed Virgin, indeed as a son, while he has familiarity with the angel only as Lord
but not as Son. In short, while God is the angel’s Lord, God is also the
13

Ibid. (no. 1118). Nota bene: The Blessed Virgin did not receive this grace simply as
a passive instrument of the Holy Spirit, but precisely as a human person, endowed
with a principle of agency and of cooperation with God’s grace. Being full of grace
allows her to perform an act of perfect freedom, the freedom of realizing the surpassing good God enables her by grace to realize: “Behold, I am the handmaid of
the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38; RSV). And therefore the
Blessed Virgin merited the grace for every other human being. Lest the charge of an
undue exaltation of the Virgin Mary be put at the feet of Thomas Aquinas (and the
whole preconciliar Mariology, for that matter), let me emphasize that the Blessed
Virgin merited de congruo proprie (congruously) what Jesus merited de condigno (in
strict justice). Thomas explains how such meriting de congruo is based on friendship
with God: “One may merit the first grace for another congruously: because [a person] in grace fulfills God’s will, and it is congruous and in harmony with friendship
that God should fulfill [that person’s] desire for the salvation of another, although
sometimes there may be an impediment on the part of him whose salvation the just
[person] desires” (ST I-II, q. 114, a. 6). In reference to this passage, Garrigou-Lagrange offers a pertinent and indeed famous example: “In this way, a good christian
[sic] mother, for example, can by her good works, her love of God and of her neighbour, merit the conversion of her son de congruo proprie. St. Monica obtained the
conversion of St. Augustine by that kind of merit as well as by her prayers: ‘The son
of many tears,’ said St Ambrose, ‘could not be lost.’” Mother of The Saviour, 180–81.
Because the Mother of God, due to her plenitude of grace, has the highest degree
possible for a human being of friendship with God, she merits de congruo proprie in
virtue of the rights of friendship (in iure amicabili), the grace for every human being.
See Pope St. Pius X’s Encyclical Letter Ad diem illum from February 2, 1904, for a
magisterial confirmation of the Blessed Virgin as mediatrix of grace: “We are . . . very
far from attributing to the Mother of God a productive power of grace—a power that
belongs to God alone. Yet, since Mary carries it over all in holiness and union with
Christ and has been associated by Christ in the work of redemption, she merits for
us de congruo [in a congruous manner], in the language of the theologians, what
Christ merits for us de condigno [in a condign manner], and she is the supreme
minister of the distribution of graces” (DH 3371).

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Virgin Mary’s Son.14 This single circumstance makes her indeed the single most important creature of the whole universe. And finally, the Holy
Spirit has familiarity with her because he overshadows her and hence
dwells in her as in the temple. Consequently, according to Thomas, God
has greater familiarity with the Virgin Mary than with any angel, because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the whole Trinity, is with her. And so
the angel rightly expresses reverence to the Blessed Virgin. For she is the
mother of the Lord, mater Domini, hence Domina, and therefore worthy
of surpassing reverence.
But the Blessed Virgin not only exceeds the angel in plenitude of
grace and in familiarity with God. Rather, and this is the third aspect,
Thomas emphasizes that she exceeds the angel also in regard to purity.
After having received the plenitude of grace, the Virgin Mary is free
from any form of sin (original, mortal, and venial) and in that of similar
purity as the angel, but different from the angel, she is also—in virtue of
her divine maternity—the source of purity in others. Hence her purity
surpasses that of the most pure and holy creature, the angel.
At this juncture we need to halt for a moment and recapitulate in
order to appreciate the full import of Thomas’s brief account so far. The
triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, abides with the Virgin Mary
in an utterly singular way and hence has familiarity with her to a degree
that exceeds God’s familiarity with any other creature. To put it differently, according to the witness of the Sacred Scriptures, as divine faith
receives it under the guidance of the Church’s teaching and as Thomas
understands it through the medium of divine faith, the Blessed Virgin
holds that very place of singularity in the universe that according to the
erroneous assumptions of the adoptionist Christological heresy Jesus
holds. Jesus was not a human person adopted by God and elevated to
the highest level of adoptive divinity possible for a creature—as was held
by ancient adoptionism long ago and was held in recent times and still
is held in present times by strands of liberal Protestantism and Catholic
Modernism. Rather, the Blessed Virgin was the distinct human person
chosen by God for divine maternity and because of it was eventually
14

Indeed, as Thomas emphasizes in the Summa theologiae, the Virgin Mary is the
mother of the person of the Son—the person of the Son being the Incarnate Logos
(ST III, q. 35, a. 4 co., ad 2 and 3).

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409

assumed, body and soul, into the glory of heaven. The principle gratia
plena constitutes her whole existence from beginning to end. Mary is
the most fully divinized human person from the moment of her coming
into existence, as the particular human being she is, to her glorification
in heaven. While Thomas has no particular reason to state the matter
in the context of his interpretation of the angelic salutation, in an ecumenical post-Reformation setting it is important, however, to mention
explicitly that the Catholic Church recognizes the privilege of the Virgin Mary’s preservation from original sin and her existence gratia plena
in light of the merits of Christ, just as analogically she is associated in
prayer in the mystery of the Cross, only because of the merits of her Son
and in dependence upon them.
Now we are prepared to turn to the section of Thomas’s meditation
where the assumption is mentioned—indeed very briefly, but completely as a matter of fact, not at all as something that is up for debate
or in need of an elaborate theological defense or justification. Due to
the fullness of grace residing in her, the Blessed Virgin Mary was free
from any stain of sin. For this very reason she was also preserved from
the curse of sin. Thomas only briefly gestures to the curses of Genesis
3:16–19. Interestingly, he does not distinguish between the curses applying to the man and those applying to the woman. For Thomas states
that in every regard the curse of sin was not going to affect her. There
is first Genesis 3:16a: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children” (RSV). Contrary to this curse,
Thomas in accord with the received tradition states that the Blessed
Virgin conceives the Son of God without loss of her virginity (sine
corruptione), bears him in consolation (in solatione), and gives birth
to him in joy (in gaudio). She is, second, preserved from having to
eat bread in the sweat of her face (Gen 3:19) because, according to St.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, virgins are released from the solicitude of this
world and are free for God alone. And finally and most importantly,
the Blessed Virgin is preserved from the common destiny of humanity to have to return to the dust. “And from this,” Thomas states, “the
Blessed Virgin was preserved, because of her bodily assumption into
heaven. For we believe that after her death she was raised up again and

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borne to heaven.”15 He concludes by citing Psalm 132(131):8: “Arise,
O Lord, and go to thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy might”
(RSV). Because Christ’s humanity, in virtue of divine election and predestination, is the all-sufficient and hence all-powerful instrument of
human salvation and because Christ receives his humanity from the
Blessed Virgin, she can indeed rightly be considered the ark of God’s
might. And if indeed she is the latter she must be preserved from all
stains of sin, original, mortal, and venial. For otherwise she could not
be the ark in which the Spirit of God dwells. At this point it should at
least be mentioned that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of
the Blessed Virgin does provide greater clarity. For the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception allows a more penetrating theological understanding of the fact that, like every other human being after the fall,
the Virgin Mary incurred the debt of original sin.16 However, unlike
every other human being after the fall, she was preserved from incurring the stain of original sin from the first instance of her existence. To put the matter differently: The grace of the Blessed Virgin is
not “Adamic,” it is not a grace “stretching forth” so to speak from the
state of original righteousness to the Virgin Mary. Rather, her grace
is “Christic.” Unlike every other human being after the fall, she is free
from sin in virtue of her immaculate conception, but like every other
human being after the fall and like the human nature of Christ, she is
subject to imperfections and has the capacity to suffer and die. She is
plena gratia and sinless, but in complete conformity with the suffering
and death of Christ by whom her grace is merited. Precisely because
15

Thomas Aquinas, “In salutationem angelicam vulgo ‘Ave Maria’ expositio” (Marietti
no. 1123): “Et ab hac immunis fuit Beata Virgo, quia cum corpore assumpta est in
caelum. Credimus enim quod post mortem resuscitata fuerit, et portata in caelum.
Psal. CXXXI, 8: ‘Surge, Domine, in requiem tuam; tu, et arca sanctificationis tuae.’”
For the theologically delicate question of whether the Blessed Virgin underwent
death, see note 17 below.
16
Arguably, this is what Thomas intends to maintain in ST III, q. 27, a. 5, ad 2, where
he holds that if some human being after the fall had not contracted original sin, “this
would be derogatory to the dignity of Christ, by reason of His being the universal
Saviour of all.” It is here that Thomas does not make the distinction between the
debt of original sin that indeed pertains to all human beings (and that distinguishes
Christ also from Mary and makes him also her savior) from incurring the stain
(from which Mary was preserved in virtue the merits of Jesus Christ the Saviour of
the human race).

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411

her grace is Christ-conforming, it leads her into an exemplary union
with the paschal mystery.
What does it mean to be preserved from the consequences of original sin? Original humanity before the fall was not preserved naturally
from death. Rather, like other composite creatures due to a composite
nature, the human being is in principle vulnerable to decomposition
and corruption. Hence the preservation of original humanity from natural death was a fortification that original humanity received as part of
the gifts of original righteousness and sanctifying grace. Due to preservation, growth, and perseverance in sanctifying grace, at the eventual
point of natural death there would have occurred a transference, body
and soul, into heaven. If the plenitude of grace that the Virgin Mary
received exceeded that of the angel, and if her familiarity with God
also exceeded the one the angel has with God, she must in both exceed
original humanity or at least not lack anything in regard to anything
that original humanity had received in the state of original righteousness. That means first and foremost that the consequences of the fall,
the withdrawal of original sanctifying grace and the destruction of the
state of original righteousness do not apply to her. Hence what was taken from original humanity and has been superabundantly restored and
surpassed by Christ’s salvific death and resurrection is already realized
in and for the Blessed Virgin.17
17

Unfortunately, I am not able to include into this meditation a proper treatment of
the Blessed Virgin’s conformity to the Cross, a treatment necessary, it seems to me,
to approach rightly the theologically delicate question of whether the Mother of God
underwent death. As is well known, an older Eastern tradition holds that she died,
while a more recent Western tradition holds that she underwent a kind of exaltation
to God without death in an ecstatic spiritual love. As a brief substitute for a proper
treatment, I shall adduce two theological authorities, the former having been the
teacher and doctoral advisor of the latter. First I shall turn again to Garrigou-Lagrange’s Mother of The Saviour, a superb preconciliar Mariology that incidentally
is fully compatible with the Mariology of the Second Vatican Council and that, according to my understanding advances an interpretation of the death of the Blessed
Virgin that succeeds in synthesizing the central concerns of the Eastern and the
Western traditions: “Man was not made immortal at the beginning otherwise than
by a special privilege. The Incarnate Word willed to take passible flesh. Mary’s flesh
was passible too. Thus the deaths of Jesus and Mary were consequences of the inherent weakness of human nature left to itself and unsustained by any preternatural gift.
Jesus, however, mastered death by accepting it for our salvation. Mary united herself
to Him in His death, making for us the sacrifice of His life in the most generous mar-

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Maria Assumpta: Realized Anticipation of the Church’s End
On the basis of what has been said so far it might seem as if the assumption of the Blessed Virgin would separate her most radically from us:
the Virgin Mary highly exalted, body and soul in the glory of God and
perfectly conformed to Christ, her son. What does the Blessed Virgin
have to do with us and what, in turn, we with her? Do not the unique
privileges of the Mother of God separate her categorically from us?18
Continuing our thought experiment that divine faith indeed obtains, at
least three theological conclusions are to be drawn.
First, in the Blessed Virgin, assumed body and soul into heaven, the
economy of salvation is present as completed, as having already reached
its telos in one human person. This is first and foremost the case—as
elaborated in the first part—because of the Blessed Virgin’s singular retyrdom of heart the world has ever known after that of Our Saviour. And when, later
on, the hour of her own death arrived, the sacrifice of her life had been already made.
It remained but to renew it in that most perfect form which tradition speaks of as
death of love, a death, that is to say, in which the soul dies not simply in grace or in
God’s love, but of a calm and supremely strong love which draws the soul, now ripe
for heaven, away from the body to be united to God in immediate and eternal vision.
Mary’s last moments are described by St. John Damascene in the words ‘She died an
extremely peaceful death’” (Mother of The Saviour, 135–36). The second theological
authority I shall adduce is Pope St. John Paul II, who addressed the question in his
general audience of June 25, 1997: “It is true that in revelation death is present as a
punishment for sin. However, the fact that the Church proclaims Mary free from
original sin by a unique divine privilege does not lead to the conclusion that she
also received physical immortality. The Mother is not superior to the Son who underwent death, giving it a new meaning and changing it into a means of salvation.
Involved in Christ’s redemptive work and associated in his saving sacrifice, Mary
was able to share in his suffering and death for the sake of humanity’s redemption.
What Severus of Antioch says about Christ also applies to her: ‘Without a preliminary death, how could the resurrection have taken place?’ . . . To share in Christ’s
resurrection, Mary had first to share in his death. . . . Whatever from the physical
point of view was the organic, biological cause of the end of her bodily life, it can
be said that for Mary the passage from this life to the next was the full development
of grace in glory, so that no death can ever be so fittingly described as a ‘dormition’
as hers” (Pope John Paul II, Theotókos—Woman, Mother, Disciple: A Catechesis on
Mary, Mother of God [Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2000], 201–2).
18
For a lucid and profound theological treatment that completely diffuses this concern
that is often put on the threshold of what some regard as a troubling “high Mariology” reflective of a purported “fulfillment theology,” see Thomas Joseph White, O.P.,
“The Virgin Mary and the Church: The Marian Exemplarity of Ecclesial Faith,” Nova
et Vetera (English) 11, no. 2 (2013): 375–405.

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413

lation to Christ as Mother of God. This unique relation is integral to
the incarnation of the Word of God and reaches its perfection in the
everlasting presence, body and soul, of the mother with her Son in the
eternal glory of God. One of the great Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, a convert from Lutheranism and now somewhat unjustly
forgotten, put the matter succinctly in The Seat of Wisdom, published
about ten years after the promulgation of the dogma of the Assumption,
but still before the Second Vatican Council. The passage merits being
quoted in full:
Each one of these souls, these living members of Christ and his
Spouse who make but one flesh in one and the same Spirit, will
remain distinct, all the more so in that each brings its own indispensable element to the harmony of universal charity. But,
if there is one distinguished forever from all the rest by a role,
a quality, a gift of grace of incomparable excellence, it is Mary
herself. For Mary will forever remain the person through whom
the Word was born in the world, and the one through whom
his Spouse was born for him, by means of his death. Mary will
ever express within Christ’s Spouse, the Church, what, in her,
transcends even the quality of Spouse, namely, divine Motherhood. This incomparable dignity, which, in and for the Church,
belongs personally to Mary alone, will be invested with so great
splendour because it shows forth the greatest condescension of
grace, the most amazing token of the divine love for the creature, namely, the kenosis of the eternal Son who made his creature child of God.
In this way, Mary is the realization in a single person, at the
centre and, we might say, the culmination of history, of all that
is most noble and perfect to be realised by the whole world at
the end of history. All the graces given to each person, just as,
before her, they led up to the grace which was hers, so, from
now on, flow from her. In her grace as Mother of God, she is
full of grace in an absolute sense. She prefigures, and, as it were,
pre-contains all the graces the Church will ever receive; and the
supreme grace, uniquely transcendent, of mother of grace itself

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in its divine source, belongs to the Church and testifies, within
it, to its quality of Spouse, only because it belongs for ever to
Mary, the first and surpassing realisation of the Church whose
collective personality is realised only in individual persons.19
The Blessed Virgin lives already now the fulfillment of human life in the
beatific vision, united in love with God for which human beings were originally created and toward which they were ordered by original righteousness and elevated by sanctifying grace. The final end of humanity and the
ensuing perfect happiness are realized in the Blessed Virgin Mary—the
complete embodied human perfection united by intellect and will with
God. The present life of the Mother of God in heaven is infinitely more
real than ours, a life of surpassing completion and perfection, a life without the imperfections of sin, natural evil, the fallibility and corruptibility
of material substances, of contingency, and of death, but in virtue of the
participation in the divine life, a life of infinite compassion and mercy—
all of this fully human in personal, embodied identity.
Second, Maria Assumpta is the anticipated Eschaton in history. Together with Christ the head of the Church, she as one fully belonging to
the Church already now constitutes the transhistorical perfection of the
Church. This is at least what the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council
teach. Consider section 63 of Lumen Gentium:
The blessed Virgin, through the gift and office of the divine motherhood which unites her with the Son the redeemer, and by reason of her singular graces and gifts, is also intimately united to the
church: the mother of God is the type of the church, as already St.
Ambrose used to teach, that is to say, in the order of faith, hope,
and charity and perfect union with Christ. For in the mystery of the
church, which is also rightly called mother and virgin, the blessed
virgin Mary has taken precedence, providing in a pre-eminent and
singular manner the exemplar both as virgin and as mother.20
19

Bouyer, Seat of Wisdom, 200–201. The English translation appeared first in England
in 1960.
20
Norman P. Tanner, S.J., ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 2, Trent–Vatican
II (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 896.

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415

Consider, furthermore, the date of the dogma’s promulgation: Instead of
being promulgated on August 15, the ancient feast day of the Assumption,
the dogma was promulgated on November 1, the feast day of All Saints. I
take the theological significance of this remarkable circumstance to be the
following: While in virtue of her divine motherhood being the first and
foremost of the communion of saints, the Virgin Mary does as such belong inherently to the communion of saints. For she is, after all, a human
person, a creature, all the way down. Hence her assumption, body and
soul, into heaven pertains profoundly to the whole communion of saints.
Again, Louis Bouyer puts the matter into succinct theological terms:
Just as in Mary was first effected that perfect union with Christ
on the Cross that the whole Church is to realise in the course
of its history, so the perfect union with Christ in glory was also
accomplished in Mary, as soon as her earthly history was ended,
as it will be accomplished for the whole Church at the end of all
history. . . .
Christ’s Ascension does not mean that he has left us to our present condition, since he has gone only to prepare a place for us,
that where he is we also may be; no more does Mary’s Assumption mean her separation from us. As her Son is represented in
the epistle to the Hebrews as semper vivens ad interpellandum
pro nobis (7:23), so she remains, as the constant belief of the
Church assures us, at his side, the interceder par excellence. Already, her blessedness is perfect, present, as she is, with God
who has placed in her his delight. But, more than ever, the contemplative prayer which raises her above the angels, in the bliss
of an eternal Eucharist, carries an irresistible intercession, on
her part, that sinners, all of us countless children of hers, may
come to be united with her Son.21
Not only has Christ, the head of the Church, arisen from the dead and
sits in glory at the right hand of the Father, but also the one who is his
mother, and by transference of Christ under the Cross, the mother of
21

Bouyer, Seat of Wisdom, 201–3.

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all his followers, has already been assumed, body and soul, into heaven.
And for this reason the whole communion of the saints, the whole body
of Christ is already anchored in the glory of God, not only in the head,
the risen Christ—which is the absolute conditio sine qua non—but also
already in one, who like the rest of the elect relies completely on the infinite merits of Christ’s salvific sacrifice of charity on the Cross.
Third, if the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed into heaven, soul
and body, heaven must be part of creation and must have the extension of at least two human bodies. The resurrection body is a glorified,
incorruptible body, but it is still a body and hence has spatial extension, circumscription, and position. Some Lutheran theologians in the
Reformation period taught the ubiquity of Christ’s body. According to
their ontological interpretation of the communicatio idiomatum, Christ’s
body is taken to be omnipresent as Christ’s divine nature is omnipresent qua divine substance. Rejecting, in addition, the traditional belief in
the assumption of the Mother of God into heaven, body and soul, and
assuming simultaneously the “sleep of the soul” allowed them to forego
the affirmation of a created heaven. It also meant that there was no ecclesial inchoatio of an already obtaining eschatological reality.
Mary’s assumption, soul and body, entails on the contrary, the reality of created heaven, of an eschatological presence and not just a promised future that might obtain for God in the eternal nunc of the divine
midday but not yet for the ecclesia militans on earth. Rather, created
heaven is a reality already in the world in which the ecclesia militans
struggles on. Hence the complete remaking of the cosmos, the new
heavens and the new earth, has begun with Christ’s resurrection and
ascension into heaven but has continued into the life of the Church in
and through the assumption of the Blessed Virgin. The Church exists
on earth, in purgatory, and already in heaven, the created heaven—and
in the case of the Blessed Mother, soul and body, in the eschatological
perfection of glory. The time of the Church is always already fulfilled
eschatological time, fulfilled in head and body, fulfilled in Christ and in
his mother. Fulfillment does not mean completion and perfection, but
a concrete inchoatio, the beginning of the completion and of the perfection. The ecclesia militans still struggles; there will be failures, betrayals,
persecutions in the ecclesia militans as there have been, but the ecclesia
triumphans already is in place in eschatological perfection and comple-

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven

417

tion in her most eminent member who constantly intercedes for all the
other members of the body of Christ on earth and in purgatory.
I have begun this article with a memorable theological statement by
Karl Rahner. I shall end it with an equally memorable theological statement from his older brother, Hugo Rahner. It is to be found in his small
but important book Our Lady and the Church:
Our Lady’s Assumption, the final history of the body of the
woman who gave birth to God is . . . not so much an exception
to the rule, but much more a fulfilling in advance of what is
promised to the whole Mystical Body of Christ. And, moreover,
it is not only promised, but in a sense already realized. . . . When
the Church celebrates the Assumption, she is celebrating her
own final glory.22
Conclusion
What Christ has accomplished for the sake of all humanity, he has already fulfilled comprehensively for his mother, who under the cross has
become our mother and through her assumption, body and soul, into
heaven has become the eschatological icon of the Church where she reveals to the Church, the mystical body of Christ, the Church’s own final
end. In Mary, in whom all of faithful Israel is gathered, and who in virtue
of her divine maternity is the first of Christ’s body, the Church already
is anchored in heaven, and heaven is reaching into the ecclesia militans.
The stunningly beautiful Baroque churches of my home area in Franconia, Germany, embody this vision in the vertical continuity between
the ecclesia militans at worship in the nave and, as depicted on the walls
as various apostles, martyrs, saints, and bishops, and as depicted on the
ceiling paintings, the ecclesia triumphans, being simultaneously with
the ecclesia militans at worship, eternally glorifying the Blessed Trinity.
The ecclesia militans opens up vertically right into heaven and when the
faithful look up to the ceiling they see heaven open and closest to the
risen Christ they see the Mother of God in heavenly glory. In virtue of
the divine faith they have, the faithful understand perfectly well that the
22

Hugo Rahner, S.J., Our Lady and the Church, trans. Sebastian Bullough, O.P. (Bethesda, MD: Zaccheus Press, 2004 [1961]), 123–24, 128.

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open heaven depicted on the ceiling is not one of a future to come but
of a present that here and now impacts the ecclesia militans down below.
And so it would be most natural for the faithful to join St. Gabriel and
St. Elisabeth in greeting the Holy Mother and simultaneously asking her
for her prayer: “Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”
With this prayer we have reached the end of the “what if ” thought
experiment. It is time to wake up from our dreaming and face again our
cold, gray, and drab world in which we might (always haunted by doubt)
dare the wager of faith based on a nonthematic existential prompting.
Or at least this is what the profoundly secularized simulacrum of faith,
the well-camouflaged comprehensive rule of private judgments in matters of revealed religion, would want us to believe. But what if we have
no good reason to entertain the preceding reflections as a “what if ”
thought experiment of a hypothetically supposed divine faith? What if
divine faith is indeed the only faith worth having? What if sacred theology is inherently bound to and fed, illumined and guided by divine
faith? What if this theology is the only theology worth doing? For after
all, as Spe Salvi emphasizes, “in embryo there are already present in us
the things that are hoped for: a whole, true life.”23 And having received
the very substance of a whole, true life in divine faith, must it not be
similar to what Psalm 126 expresses: “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream” (Ps 126:1; RSV)? N&V

23

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe salvi, §7.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 419-439

419

Look on the Faith of Your Church:
Mary’s Assent and the Task of Theology1*
Bruce D. Marshall

Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX

HERE I WOULD LIKE TO REFLECTbriefly on the task of Christian theology—that is, Christian teaching, Christian doctrine—by
thinking about Mary, the mother of Jesus, as Scripture and Catholic
worship present her to us. Mary is, perhaps unexpectedly, the model
theologian. In order to see how, we need to think about Mary’s faith, and
the relationship of her faith to our own. Thus my title: “Mary’s Assent”—
that is, the faith of Mary—“and the Task of Theology.”
I
In the communion liturgy of the Mass, between the doxological
conclusion of the Our Father and the kiss of peace, the celebrant offers
the following prayer for peace, eliciting the congregation’s assent:

* An earlier and different version of this article appeared in Doxology: A Journal of

Worship 29 (2012): I.1–I.16, http://www.theorderofsaintluke.com/ojs/index.php/
Doxology/index. In October 2011, it was my inaugural lecture as Lehman Professor of Christian Doctrine at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist
University. Audiences at the University of Dallas, Loyola University in Maryland,
and the University of Dayton have also heard it. I am grateful for the many helpful
comments I received on all of these occasions.

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	Lord Jesus Christ,
who said to your Apostles:
Peace I leave you, my peace I give you,
look not on our sins,
but on the faith of your Church,
and graciously grant her peace and unity
in accordance with your will.21
Here I will focus on a single petition from this prayer: “Look not on
our sins, but on the faith of your Church.” How is it that the faith of the
Church draws the gaze of Christ, sacramentally present before us, away
from our sins? Answering this question will help us understand, I think,
the importance of Mary—not just of a doctrine about her, but of her
person and presence—for the task of Christian theology.
The question itself needs, perhaps, a bit of explanation. How can we,
the Church’s members, appeal to the Church’s faith in order to deflect
the Lord’s judgment on our sins? The Church’s faith is, after all, our own
faith, to the extent that we are her members. In appealing to the Lord to
look on the Church’s faith we are therefore asking him, in some sense,
to have regard for our own faith. But is our faith, individually or collectively, of such worth that it entitles us to ask Christ to look away from
our sins? Surely we have to admit that our faith cannot bear this burden.
It is weak, inadequate, and prone to fail. Our faith, it seems, should not
prompt us to say, “Look not on our sins,” but rather to say, like Peter by
the lake of Gennesaret, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord”
(Lk 5:8). Yet this prayer is offered at every Mass in the confidence that
it will be heard.
The prayer itself is medieval in origin, first entering the western rite
through German sacramentaries in the eleventh century.32 Originally it
1

Following the translation in the new third English edition of the Roman Missal. In
the Latin of the 2002 Typica: “Dómine Iesu Christe, qui dixísti Apóstolis tuis: Pacem
relínquo vobis, pacem meam do vobis: ne respícias peccáta nostra, sed fidem Ecclésiae tuae; eámque secúndum voluntátem tuam pacificáre et coadunáre dignéris. Qui
vivis et regnas in saecula saeculórum.”
2
So Josef Andreas Jungmann, S.J., Missarum Sollemnia: Eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe, vol. 2, 4th ed. (Vienna: Verlag Herder, 1958), 411. Translated into English
as The Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 2 (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1955), 330. It replaced
an earlier prayer for peace based on a Greek model and worded quite differently.

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was said sub secreto by the celebrant, and so differed in one important
way from the prayer with which we are now familiar. The priest asked
that the Lord not look upon his own sins (ne respicias peccata mea), without the congregation’s amen. With the advent of the novus ordo this petition for peace became a public prayer, and accordingly the celebrant now
asks Christ to look away not just from his own sins, but from the sins of
all those gathered around the altar, for the sake of the Church’s faith.
Commenting on the original, private form of the prayer, the great
Catholic liturgical scholar Josef Andreas Jungmann interprets ne respicias peccata mea as follows: “Appealing to [Christ’s] promise of peace
(Jn 14:27), the priest begs the Lord not to look upon his sins, but rather
upon the faithful attitude of the people gathered in church.”43 This is no
doubt right as far as it goes, and can easily be extended to the later public
form of the prayer. Each of us now openly asks Christ to look away from
our individual failings, and to look at the faith of the whole gathered
community instead. No doubt we have all taken heart from the faith
of others present with us at worship, confident that their manifest trust
in the Lord will make good our own lack in his eyes. That we can and
should do, but on reflection it poses a problem. Those around us also
pray, “Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church,” which
suggests that they too are aware of their shortcomings, and are looking
to the faith of others—including our own—for support. Our common
petition that the Lord look not on our sins evidently creates a precarious
situation, where one bruised reed leans uncertainly upon another.
For this reason it seems unwise to limit the ecclesia of whom our
prayer speaks to the visibly gathered local assembly. The Church upon
whose faith we ask the Lord to look is surely the whole community,
the one universal Church to the limits of her extension across time and
space. So an earlier Catholic commentator on the prayers of the Mass,
Nikolaus Gihr, suggests, also commenting on the traditional private
3

Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, 2.411 (Mass of the Roman Rite, 2.331; unless otherwise noted, though, this and all other translations are my own). Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, 411n55, supports this interpretation (Roman Rite, 331n56) by reference to the prayer near the beginning of the Roman Canon, “You know how firmly
we believe in you” (quorum tibi fides cognita est), which includes a specific reference
to “all of us gathered here” (omnium circumstantium). One may reasonably ask,
however, why either prayer should be taken as referring only to the local assembly.

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form of the prayer. The priest, he argues (and so, by extension, each of
us), entreats the Lord not to look upon himself, an unworthy servant of
the Church, “but rather upon the holiness and worthiness of his beloved
bride, the Church.”54 The “bride,” of course, is not the local community
as such, but the one holy catholic and apostolic Church, whose reality
undergirds, includes, and transcends that of every local assembly. She is
the community, embracing all who belong to Christ in every time and
place, upon whose holiness and worthiness we ask the Lord to look.
Non-Catholics present at Mass may naturally wonder whether they
are included within the “Church” of all times and places whose faith
this prayer lifts up. Do we ask Christ Jesus, now substantially present
on the altar in his body and blood, to look upon their faith, or only that
of Catholics?
To whom, or what, the term “Church” refers when modified by the
creedal adjectives “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic” remains deeply
contested among Christians. Here we may simply observe that as uttered by the community to whose liturgy it belongs, the term “Church”
in the petition “look . . . on the faith of your Church” refers first of all to
the Catholic Church, united as a visible society across time and space
in communion with the See of Peter. According to Catholic teaching,
though, the faith of the Church can also exist outside of this visible communion, in greater or lesser degree. Outside the Catholic Church, just
as within her visible boundaries, faith is inextricably linked to baptism;
it is fundamentally a baptismal gift. Together, baptism and faith would
seem to be the most basic among the “many elements of sanctification
and of truth” that the Catholic Church recognizes as present “outside
its visible confines.”65 All who believe and are baptized, even those who
belong to communities retaining little of the sacramental practice and
ancient ordering of ministry essential to the Catholic Church, have been
“incorporated into Christ,” and are put by their baptism and their faith
in Christ “in some real, though imperfect, communion with the Cath4

Nikolaus Gihr, Das heilige Meßopfer, dogmatisch, liturgisch und ascetisch erklärt, 6th
ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 1897), 679. Translated into English as The Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass: Dogmatically, Liturgically, and Ascetically Explained (St. Louis: B. Herder,
1902), 722. Similarly Valentin Thalhofer, Handbuch der katholischen Liturgik, vol. 2,
2nd revised edn., ed. Ludwig Eisenhofer (Freiburg: Herder, 1912), 212.
5
In the language of Lumen Gentium §8.

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olic Church.” For this reason “the Catholic Church accepts them with
respect and affection as brothers.”76
All of this suggests that in the Eucharist the Catholic Church does
ask her Lord to look upon the faith of all who believe in him, and not
only of Catholics, or merely of those Catholics present at the local Eucharistic assembly. Their faith is weak and imperfect, but ours is too, if
not in just the same way.87 When we entreat the Lord to look upon the
faith of his Church, we expect his gaze to take in all those among whom
this faith is found, in whatever degree.
At the same time, the baptismal faith that effects a real communion
of all who receive it with the Catholic Church aims, by its very nature as
Christ’s gift to his Church, at the visible perfection of that communion.
Together with the rest of the “elements of truth and sanctification” present outside the Catholic Church, baptism and faith “are gifts belonging
to the Church of Christ,” that is, to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic
Church of the Creed, which “subsists in the Catholic Church.”98 For this
reason baptism and faith, wherever they are found, “are forces impelling
towards Catholic unity.”109 That is: full visible communion with the Catholic Church is the baptismal vocation of every Christian. Just because
baptism into Christ really takes place outside the Catholic Church, and
faith in him is genuinely present there, every baptized believer is drawn
by the nature of what she has received into the fullness of life in Christ
that “subsists” in the Catholic Church.
All of this suggests that when we implore Jesus to look on the faith
of his Church, we are asking him to look especially at the faith of those
who cling most closely to him, and not simply at the numberless frail
believers like ourselves across space and time, or at the humble band visibly gathered with us for the Eucharist. Those who cling most closely to
Christ are his saints, whose faith the Church herself celebrates through6

The quoted phrases are from Unitatis Redintegratio §3; cf. Lumen Gentium §15.
Like the faith of non-Catholic Christians, that of Catholics is prone to waver in
depth and devotion. Their faith is thus likely to be intensively imperfect. Normally,
however (viz., barring an impairment deliberately introduced by the believer himself, in particular the explicit denial of an article of faith), the faith of Catholics is extensively complete—it embraces “all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches,
and proclaims to be revealed by God.”
8
Lumen Gentium §8; cf. Unitatis redintegratio §4.
9
Lumen Gentium §8.
7

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out the year. So when we say, “Look not on our sins, but on the faith
of your Church,” we are leaning on the faith of the saints, trusting that
Christ will have regard for our union with them in love, and not for the
weakness of our own faith.
This too is surely right as far as it goes, and it goes much farther
than the suggestion that the “Church” upon which we ask Christ to
look is no more than the local assembly. In my own case these words
from the Mass often call to mind St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who faithfully
embraced the darkness of her last year, when heaven was closed to
her.110 This she accepted in love as a trial from God and a share in the
dying of Jesus, for the sake of those who “really have no faith” and
struggle to live without God.1211 Or the words of the Mass bring to mind
Edith Stein, St. Teresa Blessed by the Cross, who went to her death at
Auschwitz consoling countless terrified companions, in an unearthly
repose of soul. The magnitude of her faith in the goodness of God
gave St. Teresa a fortitude, as Fr. Robert Barron has observed, which
exceeded any earthly courage.1312 In calling upon Christ to look upon
the faith of his Church we are asking, one could say, for a share in the
faith of these holy women.
And so we should. Yet a striking feature of the faith of the saints,
repeatedly evinced in the accounts we have of their lives, is to be far
more acutely aware of their sins than most of us, whose sins are usually
far more grave. Think again of St. Thérèse, whose extraordinary purity of life is just what prompts her to recognize the seriousness of her
own sins, however small, and to say with the prophet, “all our justice
10

“For me the veil of faith is no longer a veil, it is a wall that rises all the way to the
heavens and covers the starry firmament.” Sainte Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus et de la
Sainte-Face, Œuvres completes (Paris: Éditions du Cerf & Desclée de Brouwer, 1998),
244 (Ms. C, 7vº). Translated into English as Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St.
Thérèse of Lisieux, 3rd ed., trans. John Clarke, O.C.D. (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1996), 214.
11
“During the exceedingly joyous days of Easter [April 1896] Jesus made me to feel
that there really are souls who have no faith . . . He permitted my soul to be invaded
by the thickest darkness, and the thought of heaven, once so sweet for me, was no
longer anything but a subject of combat and torment.” Sainte Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus et de la Sainte-Face, Œuvres completes, 241 (Ms. C, 5vº) (Story of a Soul, 211).
12
Cf. Robert Barron, The Priority of Christ: Towards a Postliberal Catholicism (Grand
Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2007), 281–97.

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is stained in your eyes” (cf. Is 64:6).143 The saints’ awareness of sin extends, of course, to their own faith, to the recognition of its weakness
and inadequacy. The earnestness with which they pray, “Look not on
our sins, but on the faith of your Church,” is not diminished by the
magnitude and depth of their own faith. On the contrary: the saints
realize, far more than we of lesser holiness, how much they too rely on
the faith of the Church.
So whose faith is it, then, upon which we beseech the Lord to look,
if not that of the visible assembly or even of the saints in their earthly
pilgrimage? Naturally, that faith is Mary’s. She is the bride upon whose
holiness and worthiness saint and sinner alike hope the Lord will look.
Upon her alone was placed the most stringent demand God ever made
of a creature, calling upon her to be conformed to God in body and soul
so totally that his only-begotten could take flesh from her and dwell
in her womb. Yet she, alone among all creatures, simply accepted the
purpose God had for her, this most stringent purpose, holding back
nothing. “Blessed is she who believed that what was said to her from the
Lord”—this, of all things—“would be fulfilled” (Lk 1:45).
Scripture, it might be objected, actually proposes to us the faith of
Abraham as the chief model for our own, rather than the faith of Mary.
It was Abraham, after all, who “in hope believed against hope” (cf. Rom
4:18–22), and who was reckoned righteous before God, as we will be
reckoned with him, on account of this faith (thus Rom 4:3, 5, 12 and Gal
3:6–7; cf. Gn 15:6).
The importance of Mary’s faith, I think, is not chiefly that it serves
as a model for our own (on which more momentarily). But in any case
Abraham’s faith surely needs to be understood as a type of Mary’s, as the
initial and formative instance of the uniquely Israelite faith that finds
its perfection in Mary’s fiat. Abraham’s is the faith that looks forward to
Christ still to come, and longs for his intimate presence, which is precisely what Mary’s faith not only receives, but realizes or brings about.
Being reckoned as righteous on account of having a faith like Abraham’s
is not, moreover, quite the same thing as asking the Lord to look on that
faith in order that we may receive him in the Eucharist. We who make
13

Sainte Thérèse de l’Enfant-Jésus et de la Sainte-Face, Œuvres completes, 963 (Offrande à l’Amour Miséricordieux) (Story of a Soul, 277).

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this prayer of the Mass our own—“look not on our sins but on the faith
of your Church”—hope that ours is the faith of Abraham, yet it turns
out not to be our own faith upon which we can confidently ask the Lord
to look.
II
Mary, then, is the one perfectly faithful creature, the one creature whose
consent of mind and heart to God wholly corresponds to God’s entire
purpose for her. A standard thought about Mary, surely, but how does it
answer the question before us? We want to know who, precisely, is the
subject of that faith we offer up to the Lord in the confidence that it will
draw his gaze away from our sin. It turns out to be Mary’s faith, and hers
alone out of all the members of the Church. But clearly this appeal to
Mary’s faith answers our question only if her faith is somehow, here and
now, the Church’s faith. After all, we do not pray “Look on Mary’s faith,”
but “look on the faith of your Church.” How, then, is Mary’s faith at the
same time the faith of the Church?
It will not quite do, I think, to answer this question by appeal to
Mary as the chief model of faith for the whole Church. She is that, of
course. But simply to observe that the faith of the whole Church is to be
like Mary’s, that the faith of every Christian must conform to this model,
is not yet to say that the faith of the Church is the same as Mary’s. After
all, the faith of every member of the Church, if it really is true faith—a
gift of grace and not simply an opinion formed in accordance with our
own will—is at least in some degree like Mary’s. And it is just this faith,
the faith of all the Church’s members save Mary herself, which is, so we
have suggested, inadequate to be the faith invoked by our prayer at the
Eucharist. Simply to have a faith to some extent like Mary’s is not, by
itself, to have a faith upon which we can pray to the Lord to look, rather
than upon our sins. Such a faith, it seems, must in some sense be nothing
other than the faith uniquely Mary’s, yet at the same time genuinely our
own, that of the Church and not simply of Mary as a single individual.
We can get some traction on how the faith of Mary might also be
the faith of the Church by thinking about other cases where the action
of one member of the Church genuinely counts as the action of another,
in virtue of a bond that unites—makes into one—all those who belong

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427

to Christ. One such case is baptism, especially the baptism of infants.
How is it that the Church can baptize infants, when faith is necessary
for the efficacious reception of baptism—baptism is the sacramentum
fidei—and infants can have no faith of their own? The baptism of those
incapable of a personal act of faith has not posed theological questions
only for those who rejected it. On the contrary, the Catholic tradition
has always assumed that faith is necessary for baptism, and then tried
to understand the baptism of infants, and others incapable of faith, on
that assumption.
Reflecting on some passages in Augustine, Thomas Aquinas answers this question by arguing that infants actually do have a faith that
belongs to them, even though they themselves make no act of faith. The
Church’s faith is in reality also their faith, and suffices for their effective
reception of baptism. This illustrates a basic fact about the life of the
Church, which shows up elsewhere as well. The act of one member can
benefit another, not simply as the intended result of the act (as when one
Christian gives another something to eat), but because one member’s
act is itself shared with another, and so can rightly count as belonging to
both. This is the Holy Spirit’s doing, naturally. Since it is the Holy Spirit
who unites in Christ all who belong to him, it is the Holy Spirit who
determines what constitutes, or counts as, a single agent, an acting unit,
when it comes to the members of Christ’s body. Thus, with regard to the
baptism of infants and others incapable of the act of faith, “The faith
of others, indeed of the whole Church, benefits the infant through the
action of the Holy Spirit, the one who unites the Church and shares the
goods of one [member] with another.”1415
In the case of Mary and the Church the relationship is, of course,
reversed. Here the faith of one is for the good of all, rather than the
faith of the whole Church being for the good of one. But the underlying pneumatological principle is the same. The Holy Spirit unites the
Church, makes the Church one, in such a way that the whole Church
has a share in Mary’s faith. Her faith, while utterly her own act, belongs
to the whole Church. For just this reason, the Church’s sinful members
14

“Fides autem unius, immo totius Ecclesiae, parvulo prodest per operationem spiritus sancti, qui unit Ecclesiam et bona unius alteri communicat.” Summa theologiae
(ST) III, q. 68, a. 9, ad 2.

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can always pray together, “Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your
Church,” and be confident that the Lord will hear our prayer.
The idea that the Church’s act of faith is identical with Mary’s is,
to be sure, a strong claim, which goes beyond the notion that what the
Church believes explicitly Mary already believes implicitly (such that,
e.g., were she to be confronted with the Nicene Creed and to understand it she would immediately and fully assent to it). This strong claim
suggests a parallel with Eucharistic sacrifice, alongside the one with baptism already sketched out. Not only is what the Church offers on the
altar of sacrifice the very same as what Christ himself offered once for
all in the upper room and on the cross (his own body and blood); the
Church’s act of offering is identical with Christ’s unique sacrificial act.
This identity of the Church’s present offering with Christ’s unrepeatable
oblation comes about because the Church’s Eucharist is itself a sharing
in the eternal high priesthood of Christ. Apart from this ecclesial participation in Christ’s own priesthood, there is no Eucharist. Thus the
Church’s act of offering is identical with Christ’s once for all sacrificial
act because Christ’s own act both takes place once for all in the past, and
continues, by way of his eternal priesthood, into the present.1615
How best to understand this teaching is a knotty and much-debated
problem.1715 For the moment, though, we can simply note a twofold parallel between the Church’s sacrifice and the Church’s faith.
15

See Trent’s Decree on Eucharistic Sacrifice, ch. 2: “In the divine sacrifice which is carried out in the Mass, one and the same Christ is contained and bloodlessly sacrificed
(immolatur), who on the altar of the cross ‘once for all bloodily offered (obtulit) himself ’ (Heb 9:14, 27) . . . The victim is one and the same, now offering [offerens; not just:
“offered”] by the ministry of the priests who then offered himself on the cross, with
only the manner of offering being different” (DH 1743, my emphasis). DH = Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum: A Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and
Declarations of the Catholic Church, 43rd ed., ed. Peter Hünermann (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2012). See also Leo XIII, Caritatis Studium §10 (1898): after Christ’s
ascension, “the very same sacrifice is continued in the Eucharistic sacrifice . . . the sacrifice once for all completed on the cross takes place perpetually and perennially” (DH
3339). Cf. Aquinas, expressing a medieval commonplace: “The sacrifice which is daily
offered in the Church is not another from the sacrifice which Christ himself offered,
but its commemoration” (ST III, q. 22, a. 3, ad 2).
16
These debates began in earnest in the late Middle Ages, gathered considerable momentum in the wake of Protestant criticisms of the Mass, and continued with vigor
up to the eve of Vatican II. They presuppose the correctness of Catholic teaching on
Eucharistic sacrifice, especially that of the Council of Trent, and seek to understand

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429

First of all, in both cases the very same act that takes place in the
past (semel, just once) also takes place in the present: the cross, Mary’s
fiat. Second, it does so by way of a present act of the Church herself: the
Eucharistic offering, believing submission in love to what God teaches.
In each of these respects the Eucharistic sacrifice is actually a closer parallel to the Church’s faith than the baptism of infants, since the Church’s
faith, like her offering, can be understood as a present act that participates in an entirely sufficient act in the past, while the infant undertakes
no act, yet can be said to share the Church’s faith.
Infant baptism no doubt remains the more accessible parallel to the
Church’s participation in Mary’s faith, not only because faith is the specific act in play, but because the faith in which the infant (presently)
shares is primarily the present act of the Church at his baptism. Infant
baptism, in other words, does not yet raise the difficult speculative problem of how a past act and a present act can be the same. Concern with
this problem has been central to the long tradition of theological reflection on Eucharistic sacrifice, especially as it sought to understand how
the Church’s offering in the Mass (her act) does not add to or repeat, but
makes present, Jesus’s once for all offering (his act) in the Upper Room

how what is thus taught, can be. By contrast, recent theological discussions of sacrifice sometimes oppose not only the idea that the Church offers a sacrifice to God
in the Eucharist—specifically what Trent calls a propitiatory sacrifice, a sacrifice for
sins (see DH 1743, 1753)—but that Christ offered one on the Cross. Thus, for example, Louis-Marie Chauvet’s suggestion that to believe in a God who will accept, let
alone demand, such sacrifice manifests a psychic derangement that only Freud can
set right. Symbole et sacrament: Une relecture sacramentelle de l’existence chrétienne
(Paris: Cerf, 1987), 322; Symbol and Sacrament, trans. Patrick Madigan & Madeline
Beaumont (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), 315. If suggestions of this sort
were correct, they would eliminate the parallel I am suggesting, viz., the Church’s act
of faith : Mary’s act of faith :: the Church’s Eucharistic act of sacrifice : Christ’s act
of sacrifice. But they would not eliminate the need to understand how the Church’s
act in the Eucharist and Christ’s act for our salvation (however characterized) are in
some way the same, and thus that a pertinent parallel obtains between Christ’s act
and Mary’s. For a penetrating criticism of recent suggestions that we need to play
off what we receive from God as gift in the Eucharist against what we there offer to
God in sacrifice, see Michon M. Matthiesen, Sacrifice as Gift: Eucharist, Grace, and
Contemplative Prayer in Maurice de la Taille (Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America Press, 2013); see also my essay, “Debt, Punishment, and Payment: A
Meditation on the Cross, in Light of St. Anselm,” Nova et Vetera (English) 9, no. 1
(2011): 163–81.

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and on the cross.1817 Making good the strong claim that the Church’s faith
is always a participation in Mary’s own means coming to grips with a
cognate speculative difficulty.
In some respects the relation of Mary’s faith to the Church’s faith
seems, in fact, even more difficult to understand than the relation of
Christ’s sacrifice to the Church’s sacrifice. Both are, I have suggested,
relationships of identity by participation, and both pose an especially
acute problem of identity across time: how can a past act be participated
in at any present moment? When it comes to the Eucharistic sacrifice
this problem can be addressed, in part, by reference to the eternal (and
thus supra-temporal) priesthood of Christ.1918 Since Mary is a pure creature and not a divine person (albeit a person identical with the flesh he
has become), it may not be possible to make the same sort of appeal to
supra-temporality in her case. Even if we can, however, it remains the
case that Christ is eternally a priest, as he was on the cross, and so can
undertake his priestly act even now, whereas Mary once believed, but
now, in glory, presumably no longer does—faith has given way to sight.2019
We cannot, therefore, participate in a present act of faith on Mary’s part,
as we do (at least in a sense) in a present act offering on Christ’s part. The
problem of the identity of past and present act thus seems even more
perplexing in Mary’s case than in that of Christ himself.
St. Louis Marie de Montfort makes a suggestion about how to approach this puzzling speculative problem, joined to a strong statement
of the conviction that our faith here and now is a participation in Mary’s
own act of faith, indeed a gift, in its own way, from Mary herself. “Mary
will share her faith with you. Her faith on earth was stronger than that of
17

DH 1740: The Mass is that act of the Church “by which the bloody sacrifice enacted
once for all on the cross is made present, and the memory of it abides until the end
of time” (sacrificium, quo cruentum illud semel in cruce peragendum repraesentaretur
eiusque memoria in finem usque saeculi permaneret).
18
See DH 1740, 1743, and note 15 above.
19
Presumably, that is, in light of 1 Cor 13:9–12, 2 Cor 5:6–7, and Catholic doctrine
on the beatific vision, especially the Constitution Benedictus Deus of Benedict XII
(1336): “the vision and enjoyment of the divine essence do away with the acts of faith
and hope in [the blessed], insofar as faith and hope are theological virtues” (visio
huiusmodi divinae esentiae eiusque fruitio actus fidei et spei in eis evacuant, prout fides et spes proprie theologicae sunt virtutes; DH 1001). This was common theological
teaching well before Benedict XII; see ST I-II, q. 67, a. 3; II-II, q. 4, a. 4, ad 1.

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all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and saints. Now that she is reigning
in heaven she no longer has this faith, since she sees everything clearly in God by the light of glory. However, with the consent of almighty
God she did not lose it when entering heaven. She has preserved it for
her faithful servants in the Church Militant.”2120 St. Louis Marie’s remark
could reasonably be taken to mean that while the beatific vision is incompatible with faith in the normal order of things, Mary, enjoying the
visio, nonetheless retains her “invincible faith” by a special privilege of
almighty God.221 We could then understand ourselves as sharing Mary’s
past faith in a manner genuinely resembling our participation in Christ’s
once-for-all high priestly sacrifice, namely by way of its present, glorified, reality. As often happens, this suggestion eases one speculative
problem but raises another, namely to understand how faith could be at
all compatible with the immediate vision of God and the cognitive perfection that vision brings about.2322 For present purposes, though, we can
leave the speculative questions where they are, and return to the issue
with which we began.
III
What does any of this have to do with the question of what theology is
and how we should go about it? How, in other words, does it give substance to the idea with which we began, that Mary is the model for the
theologian and for all theology?
If what I have said so far is on the right track, then we believe, the
whole Church believes, only because Mary has believed. Our faith is
20

St. Louis Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 214, following
the translation in God Alone: The Collected Writings of St. Louis Marie de Montfort
(Bay Shore, NY: Montfort, 1988), 358. I am grateful to Gloria Dodd for pointing out
this passage to me.
21
As she was conceived without sin “by a singular grace and privilege of almighty
God” (DH 2803). The phrase “invincible faith” is from St. Louis Marie de Montfort,
True Devotion, no. 34 (God Alone, 299).
22
Perhaps motivated by this worry, the English editors of True Devotion seem a bit
scandalized by what St. Louis Marie says here (God Alone, 391n361) and urge that
it be taken to mean simply that the Holy Spirit, delighting in Mary’s earthly faith,
fashions our faith (and other virtues) in the present after the pattern of her own in
the past. Should we go this route (whether in the interpretation of St. Louis Marie or
in our treatment of the speculative matter) we return to the question of how Mary’s
past act of faith can be our act in the present.

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not only like hers, but dependent on hers. It is, in other words, a participation in hers. The deeper our faith gets, the stronger it gets—the
more like hers it gets—the more, not the less, dependent does it become
upon her faith.
Now theology is faith seeking understanding. This idea, typically
(and rightly) associated with Anselm, is already explicit in Augustine.
More precisely, Augustine insists on the necessity of faith for understanding, and to the extent that theology is a quest for understanding, it presupposes faith regarding what one seeks to understand. In just this way
he approaches Jesus’s seemingly brusque words to Mary, “Woman, what
do you have to do with me? My hour is not yet come” (Jn 2:4). Puzzled by
this, we may think it unfitting, even impossible, that Jesus would speak to
his mother in this way. But this is to make faith depend on understanding, by treating our own puzzlement or even offense at the passage as a
barrier to trust in the Gospel narratives. Augustine comments: “If you
ask why he responded to his mother in this way, let him explain it who
understands it. However let the one who does not yet understand nonetheless believe with all firmness that he did respond in this way, precisely
to his mother. By this reverence one will also merit to understand why he
responded thus, if in prayer he knocks at the door of truth and does not
approach in an argumentative spirit (non rixando accedat).”2423
“Faith seeking understanding” is not the only way to think about
what theology is. But whatever else theology may be, it is at least this.
According to this ancient Christian idea, the act and disposition of faith
are required in order to understand the content of faith. Faith is needed
in order to search out, however inadequately, the fathomless mysteries God has made known to those who believe. Especially instructive
on this point is 1 Corinthians 2:6–16. God has genuinely opened up to
us the mysteries of his own life—“the deep things of God” (as the KJV
nicely renders 2:10) are, in Christ, no longer hidden from us. So we can23

Augustine, Tractatus in Iohannis Evangelio VIII, 7, in Bibliothèque Augustinienne 71,
ed. M.-F. Berrouard (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1969), 484. Translated into English as
Homilies on the Gospel of John 1–40: The Works of St. Augustine III/12, trans. Edmund
Hill, O.P., ed. Allen Fitzgerald, O.S.A. (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2009), 175.
Or, more generally, Tractatus XL, 9: “We believe in order that we may know; we do
not know in order that we may believe” (BA 73a, 320; Homilies 1–40, 602). For further
texts, see BA 71, 895, no. 60. Augustine gives his solution to this interpretive problem
in Tractatus VIII, 9 (BA 71, 490–94; Homilies 1–40, 177–79).

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not take refuge in the thought, true as far as it goes (thus Job), that the
mysteries of God are too deep for us. God has revealed them to us, and
we are summoned to search them out. “Now we have received not the
spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God” (2:12). We can aspire to this
understanding only in the faith the Holy Spirit gives. Only the Spirit of
God, who is naturally at home among the deep things of God, can lead
us into those depths. And so, by faith, he does, even if we cannot yet,
under the epistemic conditions of this life, see clearly in the luminous
deep where the Spirit leads us (cf. 1 Cor 13:12). The stronger and deeper
our faith, then, the more deeply we will be able to understand.
Our act and attitude of faith, we have suggested, are always a share
in Mary’s own, and thus are dependent on her. Since theology is, at minimum, faith seeking understanding, we need this act and attitude to be
theologians. So we can understand the Christian mysteries at all—we
can be theologians at all—only by having a share in Mary’s faith. And
the more like Mary we become, the more we depend on her, the more
we will understand. We can be theologians at all only in fide Mariae,
and we will be better theologians, more serviceable to Christ and his
Church, just to the extent that we think, speak, and write in Maria.
What then is Mary’s faith? Not, for the present, what does she believe in, but what is her attitude, her act and disposition? If the forgoing
is right, we will need to answer this question in order to say, or at least
begin to say, what we ought to be doing when we try to theologize. Here
the gospel of the annunciation is quite instructive.
Luke’s Gospel juxtaposes the annunciation to Mary with an annunciation to Zechariah. The stories are strikingly similar. The angel Gabriel
appears to each and makes a startling and awesome announcement, in
song. Each is troubled by the announcement, and asks a question. The
questions seem quite similar: “How can I know this?” (Zechariah, Lk
1:18), and “How can this be?” (Mary, Lk 1:34). Each of them, moreover,
gives a reason for the question. Zechariah: I am old. Mary: I am a virgin.
Yet Zechariah’s question is met with rebuke and punishment, Mary’s
with an answer, and praise. Zechariah’s question, as the angel explicitly
tells him, signals unbelief, while Mary’s prepares the way for the perfect
act of faith. What is the difference between Zechariah’s question and
Mary’s, such that the one stems from unbelief, the other from faith?

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The only apparent difference between the two is that Zechariah asks
how he can know whether what the angel has said is really true, while Mary
never doubts the truth of his announcement, extraordinary though it is,
but simply wants to understand it. Zechariah is evidently unwilling to believe God’s Word until he receives an explanation of how it fits with a state
of affairs that seems to render it impossible. For this he is struck dumb.
This difference between Zechariah’s question and Mary’s has often
been noticed. “The angel,” St. Augustine observes, “saw that in the words
of Zechariah there was no faith, but doubt and despair, and he condemned his unbelief by taking away his voice.”2524 Mary, he goes on to say,
“did not doubt the power of God” by which the great thing the angel
announced to her would be accomplished, “but sought the manner of it,
how it would come to pass…Because the angel saw that she asked, but
did not doubt, he did not refuse to instruct her.”2625
Similarly, and with characteristic eloquence, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, in a letter repudiating what he sees as the rationalistic excesses
of Abelard: “Mary is praised because she forestalled reason by faith,
Zechariah is punished because he tempted faith by reason.”2726 And Bl.
John Henry Newman, a little less than three years before he became a
Catholic: “there is one grace of which the Evangelists make [the Blessed Virgin] the pattern, in a few simple sentences,—of Faith. Zacharias
questioned the Angel’s message, but ‘Mary said, Behold the handmaid
of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.’” Elizabeth later praises
Mary’s faith, Newman suggests (“Blessed is she that believed . . . those
things which were told her from the Lord”), “with an apparent allusion
to the contrast thus exhibited between her own highly-favoured husband, righteous Zacharias, and the still more highly-favoured Mary.”2827
24

Augustine, Sermo 291.5; PL 38, 1318. English: Sermons 273–305A: The Works of St.
Augustine III/8, 134.
25
PL 38, 1318–19.
26
“Laudatur Maria, quod rationem praevenit fide, et punitur Zacharias quod fidem
ratione tentavit.” Epistola 190.1; Sancti Bernardi opera VIII, ed. J. Leclercq and H. M.
Rochais (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1977), 18. For an English version, see Life
and Works of Saint Bernard, 2nd ed., vol. 2, ed. Jean Mabillon, trans. Samuel J. Eales
(London: John Hodges, 1889), 566. Bruno Scott James’s The Letters of St. Bernard of
Clairvaux is more recent, but does not include this letter.
27
John Henry Newman, University Sermons XV.1, ed. James David Earnest and Gerard
Tracey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 211 (p. 312 of the 1871 edition).

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We who hope to be theologians ought to follow these three great
Christian teachers in weighing the difference between Zechariah’s question and Mary’s, and what then happens to each of them. I am tempted
to say that any theologian should be struck dumb who thinks he needs
to offer an epistemological justification for talking about the Christian
mysteries before he is actually willing to do so. But that would not be
quite right. There can surely be an epistemology that stems from faith
rather than being a precondition for it.2928
Zechariah’s problem is that he asks his question in order to believe,
not because he believes. What St. Thomas says of faith in general—in
particular of faith’s relationship to reason—applies paradigmatically to
Zechariah: “Human reason brought into relationship with the truths of
faith can be related to the will of the believer in two ways. It can come
first, as when someone does not have a will, or a ready will, to believe,
unless human reason is brought in. When human reason is introduced
in this way, it diminishes the value [meritum] of faith.”3029 Zechariah clearly wants to believe the angel’s mysterious announcement, but he wants
to believe it on his own terms, in terms of what he already knows (or
thinks he knows). He wants to master the mystery proclaimed to him by
the angel, to control it, to take it by force. Rixando accedat: he approaches the divine mystery presented to him in a quarrelsome and argumentative spirit. So does much of our theologizing. That sort of attempt at
theology—into which all of us fall—does not spring from faith. It does
not spring from a share in Mary’s assent, her faith in God’s Word.
Two features of Mary’s assent to the annunciation of the Lord call
for our particular attention if we wish to do theology in Maria, and not
in the spirit of Zechariah. She listens to the announcement, and she
ponders what is said to her.
Mary listens to the words of the angel, not simply in the sense that
she pays attention (Zechariah did the same), but in the sense that she
trusts the angel and believes that what he says, is true. Her question
makes it clear that she listens with assent, and not, like Zechariah, with
28

See, for example, the massive “theological theory of knowledge” (theologische
Erkenntnislehre) with which Matthias Joseph Scheeben begins his Handbuch der
katholischen Dogmatik.
29
ST II-II, q. 2, a. 10, c (my emphasis).

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skeptical hesitation. The Greek underlines this point. Πῶς ἔσται τοῦτο,
Mary asks the angel (Lk 1:34). Not “How can this be?” as the standard
American Catholic translation (the NAB) has it, but “How will this be?”
Or, in the Vulgate’s (correct) rendering, “How will this happen?” (quomodo fiet istud). Mary embraces the announcement that she will bear a
son, never doubting that what God’s angel has told her will come to pass.
Troubling, indeed incomprehensible, though it may be, she presumes
that the announcement is true. Otherwise it would be senseless to ask
how it will happen.
For theology, the correlate to Mary’s assent is what Paul Griffiths has
recently called “doctrinal discovery.”3130 Catholic theology aims at nothing
less than a speculative apprehension, to the extent that it can have one,
of the deep things of God. But it does not begin with speculation. It
begins by accepting what the deep things of God actually are. Before
the theologian can ask the distinguishing question of all theology—how
can this be?—he must know of “this.” He must know what is, when it
comes to nothing less than the deep things of God and God’s works. By
no amount of speculative ingenuity will he find this out on his own. He
needs to be told what the deep things of God are, and the sign and instrument God has designed for this purpose is the Church, the Church
that not only believes, but teaches. Theology begins, as Mary began, by
listening with attentive assent to what God says on the lips of his appointed messenger. It begins by discovering what Catholic doctrine is,
and how it bears on the subject at hand.
Practiced in Maria and not in Zaccharia theology is, as Griffiths
puts it, “a discourse responsive to authority.”3231 It can only work with what
God gives it, with the gift—the donum, the given—of an announcement
that comes to it from without concerning God’s depths and his deeds.
Theology must begin with this given, a gift the theologian does not give
but can only receive. This gift has been given, and continues to be given anew. The theologian may therefore discover it, indeed it daily lies
ready to hand, all about him in the Church. The gift may thrust itself
upon him, unbidden and perhaps unwelcome. Whether discovered or
30

Paul J. Griffiths, “Theological Disagreement: What It Is and How to Do It,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 69 (2014): 23–36; here: 26, 31.
31
Ibid., 31.

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437

imposed, the Church’s authoritative teaching may be troubling, and it
will surely, at least to begin with, exceed our understanding. In any case
it is beyond the power of theology and theologians to determine what
the gift will be. We can begin only by listening with faith, and not in an
argumentative spirit.
Mary not only listens, she ponders what she hears. Her question
itself already makes this plain, though Luke goes on to speak explicitly
of Mary “pondering” what she hears and sees concerning her son (Lk
2:19; cf. 2:51). By moving from believing what she hears to wondering
about it, Mary becomes the model not only for all who have faith, but for
theologians in particular. Mary asks her question because she believes
what the angel says, and wants to understand it. She questions the angel
not in order to master the mystery God opens up to her, but to search
it out, to appreciate it more. Mary thus embodies the other half of what
Thomas says about faith’s relationship to reason: “Human reason can be
related to the will of the believer in another way, namely when it comes
after [the will to believe]. For when a human being has a will ready to
believe, she loves the truth she believes, embraces it, and thinks about it
to see if any reasons can be found for it. Related to the will in this way,
human reason does not exclude the value [meritum] of faith, but is a
sign of greater value [meriti].”332
Mary’s question is born of her ready will to believe, from the very
receiving of the truth that is spoken to her, and from the love of it. Faith
and reason, believing and questioning, no doubt belong together. But
the reasoning that springs from faith is of a different order from the
reasoning that wants to set its own conditions for what can be believed.
Mary asks her question not in order to shape the mystery according to
her own judgment, but to be shaped more deeply by it. Her faith, Newman points out, “did not end in a mere acquiescence in Divine providences and revelations: as the text inform us, she ‘pondered’ them . . .
Thus St. Mary is our pattern of Faith, both in the reception and in the
study of Divine Truth. She does not think it enough to accept, she dwells
upon it . . . not enough to submit the Reason, she reasons upon it; not
indeed reasoning first, and believing afterwards, with Zacharias, yet first
believing without reasoning, next from love and reverence, reasoning
32

ST II-II, q. 2, a. 10, c.

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after believing. And thus she symbolizes to us, not only the faith of the
unlearned, but of the doctors of the Church also.”3433
Strikingly, Mary not only believes what is proclaimed to her by God’s
messenger, she is troubled by it. We need not be troubled by what we believe in order to question it. We may question what we believe simply
because we believe it, in the hope of understanding it better (questioning is thus the breath of life for the traditional enterprise of faith seeking
understanding—scholastic theology—even when, as often happens, the
fact of the matter is not in dispute). But being troubled is a particular
incentive to question, and so it is with Mary.
Mary is troubled by what she hears from the angel; it poses a great
difficulty for her. More than one, in fact. She is a virgin; she has given
herself wholly over to the God of Israel in this way. How will she have
a son, as God’s angel announces that she will? Before that, though, she
is troubled by the very fact that the angel makes this announcement to
her at all. The angel tells her that she is full of grace, that God is with her,
that she has found favor with God, that she will conceive in her womb
and herself give birth to “the Son of the Most High” (Lk 1:32) in fulfillment of all God’s promises to Israel. St. Thomas comments: “The Blessed
Virgin had explicit faith that the incarnation would come to pass. But
since she was humble, she did not think that she would be the one called
to something so high (non tam alta de se sapiebat). So she had to be instructed about it.”3534 And the instruction was greatly troubling.
Mary is troubled, but she does not take the difficulty the angel’s message creates for her as a pretext for approaching the angel in an argumentative spirit. Non rixando accedat. Instead of arguing she ponders,
turning over in her heart the truth she believes, troubling though it is,
and asking the angel just the question that will lead to understanding.
Mary surely questions so that she may cease being troubled, but not in
order to believe what troubles her. She does not ponder instead of being
troubled, turning over in her heart and seeking to understand only what
fails to cause her any trouble. She ponders while being troubled, indeed
because she is troubled, wholly confident that the one who announced
the great difficulty to her can also clear it up. In this way Mary realizes
33
34

Newman, University Sermons XV.2–3, 211–12 (pp. 312–13 in the 1871 edition).
ST III, q. 30, a. 1, ad 2.

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what Newman calls “that loving inquisitiveness which is the life of the
Schola . . . her words to the Archangel, ‘How shall this be?’ show that
there is a questioning in matters revealed to us compatible with the fullest and most absolute faith.”3635
Mary is greatly troubled by what God teaches her with unbidden
authority. Even so, she has no desire at all to take this fathomless mystery—the mystery of the incarnation—by force. She desires only to receive it, to wait upon it, to ponder it in her heart, to be conformed to it.
Whatever else theology is and does, the theologian must be one with
Mary at just this point. Our theology must spring from her faith, and in
just this way from the faith of the Church—that faith upon which alone
N&V
we can ask the Lord to look.

35

John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (London:
Pickering, 1878; reprint, Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1968), 337.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 441-458

441

Marriage as Friendship:
Aquinas’s View in Light of His Account of Self-Love
Anthony T. Flood

North Dakota State University
Fargo, ND

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS’S VIEWSon marriage often elicit strong
negative reactions owing to his insistence that wives, because of a lesser
possession of reason, are naturally subjected to their husbands and not vice
versa.1 These reactions might lead one to shun and dismiss his account altogether. But we find some contemporary thinkers who, while concerned
about the above issue, extol the virtues of his account. For instance, McCluskey criticizes his view of women as inferior to men but praises him
“for recognizing even a flawed notion of equality and friendship within
marriage. His theory contains resources useful to feminists in addressing
the many problems posed by traditional conceptions of marriage.”2
1

Aquinas wishes to maintain a certain kind of equality between husband and wife, yet
because of the husband’s greater share of reason, the wife is to be subjected to him in
various matters. “Subjection is twofold. One is servile, by virtue of which a superior
makes use of a subject for his own benefit; and this kind of subjection began after
sin. There is another kind of subjection, which is called economic or civil, whereby
the superior makes use of his subjects for their own benefit and good; and this kind
of subjection existed even before sin. For good order would have been wanting in
the human family if some were not governed by others wiser than themselves. So
by such a kind of subjection woman is naturally subject to man, because in man
the discretion of reason predominates.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, trans.
Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1948), I,
q. 92, a. 1, ad 2.
2
Colleen McCluskey, “An Unequal Relationship between Equals: Thomas Aquinas on
Marriage,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 24, no. 1 (2007): 1–18, 14. Peter Kwas-

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Anthony T. Flood

Picking up where her conclusion leaves off, I argue that Aquinas’s
notion that “there seems to be the greatest friendship between husband
and wife,”3 particularly when understood in light of his accounts of
proper self-love and self-friendship, provides both a relevant account of
marriage and a compelling defense of the necessity of its indivisibility.
Moreover, Peter Kwasniewski points out that Aquinas is not recognized
as a “towering giant” on the subject of marriage, though we can learn
from him nonetheless; Kwasniewski contends where there is originality,
it lies with the theological dimension of marriage as a sacrament.4 I hope
my analysis gives justification to an even stronger claim, namely, that
Aquinas’s marital doctrines when joined with those of proper self-love
should be treated as original and provocative. I focus on marriage as a
natural union, though my conclusions have the same implications for
marriage as a sacrament.
I begin with an overview of Aquinas’s account of the general nature and key properties of friendship. The second section analyzes what
Aquinas means by proper self-love and what I mean by “self-friendship.”
The third section addresses the key texts from Aquinas that pertain to
his understanding of marriage as friendship. The fourth section examines those texts in light of the considerations from the first two sections,
explaining how self-friendship provides the basis for how to relate and
give one’s self to one’s spouse. The final section examines the distinct
kind of union present within marriage relative to other forms of friendship and how Aquinas connects this union to indivisibility.

niewski criticizes her analysis as reductionist, arguing that she and other “modern
commentators tend to be blinded by a preoccupation with his purported sexism
and thereby fail to see the nobility of his conception of spousal love, which is apparent only when one adopts a properly theological hermeneutic.” “St. Thomas on the
Grandeur and Limitations of Marriage,” Nova et Vetera (English) 10, no. 2 (2012):
415–36, 422n43. This accusation, at least as directed to McCluskey, is unfair. One,
we do find statements by Aquinas, as in the passage above, that clearly indicate a
substantive inequality between women and men, regardless of what other claims he
makes, and two, McCluskey does see nobility in his account and commends him for
the positive elements.
3
Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, trans. Vernon J. Bourke (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1956), III, ch. 123, 6.
4
Kwasniewski, “St. Thomas on the Grandeur and Limitations of Marriage,” 416.

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Love and Friendship
The key characteristic of friendship that pertains to marriage is the
desirable union between persons that it fosters. Moreover, as friendship
is a kind of love, let us begin with an analysis of the kinds of unions present in any love relationship and then turn to how these are manifested
in friendship. Christopher Malloy offers a helpful analytical summary of
the three kinds of union relevant to Aquinas’s notion of love: union of
similitude, union of affection, and the union of possession.
Love is the second of these unions—union of affection. Love
depends on the first union, and it impels (through desire) towards the last union, in which it rests (by delight).The union
of similitude is the fittingness or compatibility of one thing for
another, without which love is not possible. . . . So, both union
of similitude and cognitive recognition of that similitude are
necessary conditions for love. Hence, the union of similitude
precedes love.5
The union of similitude is the metaphysical foundation for love. There
exist good objects that a person apprehends as fitting objects of love.
The union of affection is the desire for a given good. Aquinas elaborates
on the nature of this union by noting that love involves complacency
(complacentia) for an apprehended good. The union of affection is the
“pleasant affective affinity”6 for the perceived object. When the lover
possesses the object, he obtains the union of possession, which causes
delight and joy.
These three unions apply to any fully developed love relationship.
As Aquinas indicates in the following passage, friendship is a particular
kind of love, with unique characteristics and, as we will see, a unique
realization of the different unions, particularly the union of possession.
We find four words referring in a way, to the same thing: viz,
5

Christopher J. Malloy, “Thomas on the Order of Love and Desire,” The Thomist 71,
no. 1 (2007): 65–87, 68.
6
Sherwin’s translation of complacentia. Michael Sherwin, O.P., By Knowledge and by
Love: Charity and Knowledge in the Moral Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press of America, 2005), 70.

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Anthony T. Flood

love (amor), dilection (dilectio), charity (caritas) and friendship
(amicitia). They differ, however, in this, that friendship, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. viii. 5), is like a habit, whereas love
and dilection are expressed by way of act or passion; and charity
can be taken in either way. Moreover these three express act in
different ways. For love has a wider signification than the others, since every dilection or charity is love, but not vice versa.
Because dilection implies, in addition to love, a choice (electionem) made beforehand, as the very word denotes: and therefore
dilection is not in the concupiscible power, but only in the will,
and only in the rational nature.—Charity denotes, in addition
to love, a certain perfection of love.7
Dilection is rational love. The will choosing the good as apprehended by
the intellect constitutes an act of love. Concerning the next name for love,
friendship (amicitia) is a kind of habit that forms from dilections directed
to the beloved and vice versa. Aquinas contrasts the love of friendship
(amor amicitiae) with the love of concupiscence (amor concupiscentiae).
As the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii. 4), to love is to wish good to
someone. Hence the movement of love has a two-fold tendency:
towards the good which a man wishes to someone,—to himself
or another, and towards that to which he wishes some good.
Accordingly, man has love of concupiscence towards the good
that he wishes to another, and love of friendship, towards him
to whom he wishes good.8
The lover wills and seeks the good for the perfection of the beloved. Moreover, as Aquinas indicates, friendship is not reducible to a given act of
dilection, but rather it is “kind of habit.” In friendship proper, the lover
possesses a stable disposition inclined toward the good of the beloved.
Aquinas develops his account of the love of friendship by characterizing five of its essential properties.

7
8

Summa theologiae (ST) I-II, q. 26, a. 3, resp.
ST I-II, q. 26, a. 4, resp.

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Every friend wishes his friend to be and to live; secondly, he
desires good things for him; thirdly, he does good things to
him; fourthly, he takes pleasure in his company; fifthly, he is
of one mind with him, rejoicing and sorrowing in almost the
same things.9
In a complete friendship,10 then, we find the following elements: through
the union of similitude perceived by his intellect, the lover loves, or has
a union of affection with or complacency for the beloved. Through this
love, he achieves the union of possession with the beloved, which causes delight and joy. In terms of the particular properties of friendship,
the lover wills, first and foremost, an ongoing union of possession with
him. The lover also wills the continued existence of and goods for the
beloved. The next property proceeds from such willing; it is the desire
to actively seek the good for the sake of the beloved. Rounding out the
properties, we find an emphasis on the more passive aspects of friendship: The lover enjoys the beloved’s presence and mind. All of these relations are reciprocated by the beloved as friendship is mutual.
Proper Self-Love and Self-Friendship
I first developed my basic arguments concerning how we should understand Aquinas’s notion of proper self-love in “Aquinas on Subjectivity:
A Response to Crosby.”11 More recently, in the first chapter of The Root
of Friendship,12 I give a revised and much more extensive argumentative
analysis concerning the nature of proper self-love, its fully actualized
form as self-friendship, and the role it performs in the life of a person.
I will present a much briefer version of that latter analysis here. In ba9

ST II-II, q. 25, a. 7, resp. For an excellent analysis of these five marks in Aquinas, see
Daniel Schwartz, Aquinas on Friendship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
10
Aquinas follows Aristotle in distinguishing three kinds of friendship: a friendship
of usefulness, a friendship of pleasure, and a virtuous or complete friendship. My
comments on friendship pertain to the full form found in complete friendship. See
ST I-II, q. 26, a. 4, resp.
11
Anthony T. Flood, “Aquinas on Subjectivity: A Response to Crosby,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84, no. 1 (2010): 69–83.
12
Anthony T. Flood, The Root of Friendship: Self-Love and Self-Governance in Aquinas
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014).

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sic terms, I contend that Aquinas’s account of proper self-love constitutes an account of a person’s ongoing self-experience—subjectivity for
short—and self-love forms the template for how a person relates (or fails
to relates) to others in friendship.
Turning to the Summa theologiae, Aquinas states:
Love of self is common to all, in one way; in another way it is
proper to the good; in a third way, it is proper to the wicked. For
it is common to all for each one to love what he thinks himself
to be. Now a man is said to be a thing, in two ways: first, in respect of his substance and nature, and, this way all think themselves to be what they are, that is, composed of soul and body. In
this way too, all men, both good and wicked, love themselves, in
so far as they love their own preservation.13
It is common self-love that I contend constitutes the basis for subjectivity. Common self-love that is directed to the true good of the person
I call “proper self-love,” with “self-friendship” being the full actualization of proper self-love and so named owing to Aquinas’s use of Aristotle’s statement that “the defining features of friendship that are found
in friendships to one’s neighbors would seem to be derived from features of friendship toward oneself ”14 as his departure point. Improper
self-love perverts the relation of common self-love away from the true
good of the person and leads to both an undesirable self-experience
and the inability to establish true friendships with others. In the following passage, Aquinas expands upon the notions of proper self-love and
self-friendship:
We must hold that, properly speaking, a man is not a friend to
himself, but something more than a friend, since friendship implies union, for Dionysius says (Div Nom. iv) that “love is a unitive force,” whereas a man is one with himself which is more
than being united to another. Hence, just as unity is the principle
13
14

ST II-II, q. 25, a. 7, resp.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 2nd ed., trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett, 1999), IX, ch. 4 (1166a).

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of union, so the love with which a man loves himself is the form
and root of friendship. For if we have friendship with others it
is because we do unto them as we do unto ourselves, hence we
read in Ethic. ix. 4, 8, that “the origin of friendly relations with
others lies in our relations to ourselves.”15
We find Aquinas positing an essential relationship between self-friendship and friendship, or more generally, between the way in which each
person relates to himself and how he relates to others. Love-based
self-relations are structurally prior to love-based relations between people, as self-love is the form (forma) and root (radix) of friendship.
We saw in the previous section Aquinas’s list of the five essential
properties of friendship. We will now find Aquinas, first in his Scriptum super libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi and then in the Summa
theologiae, articulating the key connections between those properties
of friendship to their source in the more fundamental self-relations of
self-friendship. In the Scriptum super Sententiis, he states:
For since love in a certain way unites lover to beloved, the lover
therefore stands to the beloved as if to himself or to that which concerns his perfection. But to himself and to that which belongs to
him, he stands in the following ways. First, he wishes whatever concerns his perfection to be present to him; and therefore love includes
longing for the beloved, by which the beloved’s presence is desired.
Second, in his affections a man turns other things back to himself
and seeks for himself whatever goods are expedient for him; and
so far as this is done for the beloved, love includes the benevolence
by which someone desires good things for the beloved. Third, the
things a man desires for himself he actually acquires for himself by
acting; and insofar as this activity is exercised toward another, love
includes beneficence. Fourth, to the accomplishment of whatever
seems good in his sight, he gives his full consent; and insofar as this
attitude comes to be toward a friend, love includes concord by which

15

ST II-II, q. 25, a. 4, resp. The italics are mine, and I have used quotation marks to
indicate what was italicized in this translation.

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Anthony T. Flood

someone consents to things as they seem [good] to his friend.16
In the Summa, he echoes and develops this account, adding the
following:
In this way the good love themselves, as to the inward man, because they wish the preservation thereof in its integrity, they desire good things for him, namely spiritual goods, indeed they do
their best to obtain them, and they take pleasure in entering into
their own hearts, because they find there good thoughts in the
present, the memory of past good, and the hope of future good,
all of which are sources of pleasure. Likewise they experience no
clashing of wills, since their whole soul tends to one thing.17
The relations a person has to himself are the basis of his friendship with
others, or in terms of the principle elucidated by Aquinas earlier, “just
as unity is the principle of union, so the love with which a man loves
himself is the form and root of friendship.”18
As I have maintained in my earlier analyses on this subject, the
relationship between self-friendship and friendship gives us a second
methodological source—in addition to his direct comments—for understanding the nature of self-friendship. The second method uses what
I term the primacy of self-love principle. The principle states that because
friendship derives from self-friendship, anything that is known about
friendship can be predicated, mutatis mutandis, of self-friendship. We
learn from the general application of this principle that Aquinas’s account of the person includes a foundational role for subjectivity. Given that the experience of friendship includes the conscious experience
of the beloved, and an intimate experience at that, then self-friendship
must involve the conscious experience of oneself. Moreover, the metaphysical bases of the union of similitude and the union of possession
16

Thomas Aquinas, On Love and Charity: Readings from the “Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard,” trans. Peter Kwasniewski, Thomas Bolin, O.S.B., and Joseph
Bolin (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), III, d. 27, q. 2,
a.1.
17
ST II-II, q. 25, a. 7, resp.
18
ST II-II, q. 25, a. 4, resp.

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grounding self-love are uniquely strong, relative to other love unions.
Aquinas states that “there is a union which causes love; and this is substantial union, as regards the love with which one loves oneself.”19
Friendship between two people can never be metaphysically inseparable, but such inseparability is foundational to self-friendship. Because
there is greater union between oneself versus between oneself and another, then the experience of self-friendship must be more intense and
complete than the experience of another in friendship. I contend the
experience simply is what contemporary thinkers tend to term “subjectivity”—the ongoing conscious experience of oneself as the subject of
thoughts, experiences, and actions that in turn serves as the anchor or
subjective pole for one’s experience of anything else.
We can define self-friendship as the full actualization of a person’s
immanent love that is directed toward oneself as subject or person.
Drawing on the two texts above, we find that there are at least five essential properties connected to such love. The first is the self-relation of
self-preservation of one’s interior life. The second and third properties
are the desiring and seeking of goods that contribute to one’s own flourishing, with an emphasis on enriching one’s interior life. The fourth and
fifth properties relate to the experiential dimension of self-experience:
the delight and pleasure produced by entering into one’s heart and the
internal peace and concord that comes from internal unity. When selflove is properly actualized in this manner, a person has the ability to
relate to others in friendship, insofar as he will love and relate to the
beloved as he loves and relates to himself. While a person cannot attain
the unity with another that he has with himself, through the love of
friendship, he can achieve a union of mutual possession that can be the
source of great joy and delight.
Aquinas on Marriage
We find Aquinas’s most mature writings on marriage in his Summa contra gentiles (SCG), as the questions on marriage in part III of the Summa
theologiae are taken from the Scriptum super Sententiis. Kwasniewski
notes, however, that Aquinas does not substantially develop his doctrines on marriage over time; hence his texts can readily be cited “side by
19

ST I-II, q. 28, a. 1, ad 2.

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side.”20 In terms of the Scriptum super Sententiis and the Summa contra
gentiles, we find in the former an emphasis on marriage as a sacrament,
while in the latter, Aquinas concentrates on the natural dimensions of
marriage. As my arguments in the next two sections pertain to the natural dimension, I draw primarily from the Summa contra gentiles.
In SCG III, ch. 122, he argues that matrimony is a natural state for
human beings. The most basic implication of the status “natural” is that
marriage is not sinful. More directly and importantly, such status entails
that marriage is a good for human nature and the human individual; it is
something that, in principle, contributes to human flourishing. For his
primary argument for the goodness of marriage in this context, he draws
from the nature of human procreation and care of offspring. Raising children requires significant time and resources and a lasting, healthy relationship between the mother and father promotes such to an end.
The following chapter, 123, contains both desirable and undesirable elements in terms of a suitable contemporary account of marriage.
As mentioned at the onset, I focus on the aspects of his account that
are most relevant and compelling to current philosophical discussions,
namely, marriage as the greatest friendship and the associated notion
of indissolubility, and therefore do not attend to those aspects of his
account tied to women as inferior to men. Moreover, I do not see any
essential connections that his considered views on woman have on the
notions of friendship and indivisibility, and therefore we can separate
them without injury to the latter. McCluskey notes that if there is an essential connection, it runs the other way; if Aquinas extended his notion
of equality to its logical conclusion, he would have revised his view that
men are superior to women.21
In SCG III, ch. 123, Aquinas states the following:
Furthermore, the greater that friendship is, the more solid
and long-lasting will it be. Now, there seems to be the greatest
friendship between husband and wife, for they are united not
only in the act of fleshly union, which produces gentle associ20
21

Kwasniewski, “St. Thomas on the Grandeur and Limitations of Marriage,” 416.
“It is a pity that Aquinas himself did not recognize the implications of his own theory, for it would have enabled him to challenge the many inequalities that women of
his own time faced.” McCluskey, “An Unequal Relationship,” 14.

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451

ation even among beasts, but also in partnership of the whole
range of domestic activity. Consequently, as an indication of
this, man must even “leave his father and mother” for the sake
of his wife, as is said in Genesis (2:24). Therefore, it is fitting for
matrimony to be completely indissoluble (indissolubile).22
Marriage includes not just friendship between the spouses but the greatest of friendships. In the next two sections, I will expand on this notion in light of the considerations in the first two sections. Notice in
the passage above, Aquinas uses the notion of marriage as the greatest
friendship as the key premise in his argument for the indivisibility of
marriage. He adds in paragraph 8 that indivisibility, in turn, provides a
framework conducive to good actions on the part of both spouses. The
knowledge of the indissoluble commitment contributes to greater faithfulness and greater solicitude between them.
In chapter 124, he employs the notion of friendship as a reason
against having multiple spouses. Friendship presupposes equality between the friends. If a man had several wives “it would not be lawful . . .
for the friendship of wife for husband would not be free, but somewhat
servile.”23 Moreover, strong, intimate friendships are possible only with
a few people. “Therefore, if a wife has but one husband, but the husband
has several wives, the friendship will not be equal on both sides. So, the
friendship will not be free, but servile in some way.”24 From considerations of both equality and the relative exclusivity of complete friendships, Aquinas concludes the marriage ought to be between two and
only two people. In any other arrangement, the nature of friendship is
violated and one of the spouses is left disadvantaged.
From the above texts, it is clear that the nature of friendship sets
many of the parameters of Aquinas’s account of marriage. Consequently, the better we understand his notion of friendship, the better understanding we are bound to have of his notion of marriage. Let us turn,
then, to a consideration of marital friendship in light of his notions of
self-friendship and friendship between persons.
22

SCG III, ch. 123, 6.
SCG III, ch. 124, 4.
24
SCG III, ch. 124, 5.
23

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Anthony T. Flood

Self-Friendship, Friendship, and Marriage
Friendship is the mutual, habitual love relationship between two persons who desire and seek the good for the sake of the other, enjoy each
other’s presence, and cooperate in various activities by seeking the same
sorts of things. Friendship derives from self-friendship, which is the
basic love a person has for himself that constitutes the ongoing conscious experience of himself as a subject/person. If a person loves himself properly—that is, if he wills to and seeks for himself the goods that
are perfective of personal being and enjoys his own inner life—then he
is in a position to relate to another in a healthy manner and enjoy the
beloved’s inner life to the extent possible within friendship. Conversely,
if self-love becomes corrupted through selfishness25 and pride, then he
will lack the ability to form true friendships.
The first significant application of the relation between self-friendship and friendship to marriage consists of the necessity of proper selflove to a healthy and properly actualized state of marriage. An essential
feature of marriage is friendship, and, stronger still, it is the greatest
friendship possible between human beings. Therefore, if proper selflove is foundational for the possibility of friendship, then a fortiori it is
foundational for the marriage relationship. The first set of reasons why

25

Given Aquinas’s insistence on the foundational role of self-love, we might be tempted
to think that he reduces all love to selfishness; to do so would be a mistake. As Thomas
M. Osborne notes, “The love of friendship intends the good of another for itself, and
not for the lover. It might be objected that all love of creatures is for the useful (commodum) and consequently all friendship must be a form of self-love. Thomas replies
that although the object of love of friendship might be useful to the lover, this usefulness is not the intent of the love [In II Sent., d. 3, q. 4, ad 3]. In another text, Thomas
argues that according to the highest form of friendship, the friend would be loved even
if it were possible that such love were not beneficial to the lover . . . Friendship does not
twist the love of a friend back to self-love [In III Sent., d. 29, q. 1, a. 4, ad 2].” The Love
of Self and the Love of God in Thirteenth-Century Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 2005), 109. Also see Rose Mary (Lemmons) Hayden, “The Paradox
of Aquinas’s Altruism: From Self-Love to Love of Others,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 63 (1989): 72–83; Ultimate Normative Foundations: The Case for Aquinas’s Personalist Natural Law (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books,
2011), 161; David Gallagher, “The Desire for Beatitude and the Love of Friendship in
Thomas Aquinas,” Mediaeval Studies 58 (1996): 1–47; “Thomas Aquinas on Self-Love
as the Basis for Love of Others,” Acta Philosophica 8 (1999): 23–44; and Terrance Irwin,
The Development of Ethics, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), section 341.

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453

this is the case has to do with the first three properties of self-friendship
and friendship.
Through self-friendship, a person desires the continued existence of
a pleasant inner or interior life. To accomplish this end, he wills to himself the goods (and the knowledge relevant to determining the status of
such goods) and uses his abilities to secure those goods for himself. We
have already seen Aquinas’s comments that indicate self-love is prior to
and guides the love of friendship. Hence we can safely conclude that a
spouse loves his beloved properly by using his own antecedent self-relations as a template for how he should relate to the beloved, in terms of
the activity of willing and seeking goods.
A second significant role that self-friendship performs in relation to
friendship and especially marriage pertains to the “gift of self ” dimension
of any friendship. I developed this notion in a previous essay26 in terms
only of friendship and not marriage, but the idea has a singular relation
to marriage as the greatest friendship. The gist of my position revolves
around the notion that if friendship involves a gift of one’s self to the beloved, then the giver must be a gift worth giving. What I mean by this is
that if a person expects the beloved to receive him as a good, then he is
rationally committed to thinking he is good. In turn, if he considers himself a good, then he ought to love himself properly, a love that involves that
above process of further actualizing his goodness. The question, then, is
whether Aquinas contends friendship includes a gift of self.
Michael Waldstein offers a comparative analysis of Aquinas and
Wojtyła on this point and, I think, effectively demonstrates that Aquinas
does indeed construe friendship in this sort of way.27 He cites Aquinas’s
Super Ioannem to flesh out this property of ecstasy or going outside of
oneself. In the Super Ioannem, Aquinas states the following:
Love is twofold, namely, love of friendship and love of concupiscence, but they differ. In the love of concupiscence we draw
to ourselves what is outside of us when by that very love we
love things other than ourselves inasmuch as they are useful or
26

Anthony T. Flood, “Love of Self as the Condition for a Gift of Self in Aquinas,” Journal of Thomistic Personalism 2 (2011): 1–13.
27
Michael Waldstein, “John Paul II and St. Thomas on Love and the Trinity (First and
Second Part),” Anthropotes 18 (2002): 113–38, 269–86.

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delightful to us. In the love of friendship, on the other hand, it
is the other way around, because we draw ourselves to what is
outside. For, to those whom we love in that love we are related
to as ourselves, communicating ourselves to them in some way.28
A person gives himself by communicating what he is to the beloved;
he makes a gift of himself for the beloved. Waldstein maintains that as
this relation is reciprocal or mutual, friends enter into a communion
with one another. He notes that this dimension pertains to any complete
friendship but has a special realization in spousal love.
St. Thomas seems to state a general rule that applies not only
to God, but to love in general: “To give oneself is an indication
of great love.” It must be granted that some kinds of friendship
primarily involve cooperation in a common work and sharing
in a common good rather than the enjoyment of one another as
a concupiscible good. Such enjoyment of one another as a good
is clearest in spousal love. Still, a certain self-communication,
St. Thomas claims, is an essential aspect of the love of friendship
in general. It follows that, when this love is mutually known and
accepted, and when a shared life is built up, one can speak of a
gift of self in some sense in all friendships. In giving the gift of
himself through the love of friendship each friend becomes for
the other a good to be enjoyed.29
If a person does not love himself, it would be odd that he considers
himself a good thing to give or communicate to someone else. However, experience reveals few people who simply dislike their own being.
Aquinas is well aware of this and has a more sophisticated analysis of
deformations relevant to self-giving/communicating.
As we saw in the passage quoted in the second section, Aquinas contends that all people love themselves in some way, but many love themselves
improperly or wickedly. He continues on in that text by stating the following:
28

Super Ioannem, Chapter 15, Lecture 4, Marietta #2036. Found in and translated by
Waldstein, “John Paul II and St. Thomas on Love and the Trinity,” 129.
29
Waldstein, “John Paul II and St. Thomas on Love and the Trinity,” 131. The included
citation is from Super Ioan., ad 3:16.

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Secondly, a man is said to be something in respect of some
predominance, as the sovereign of a state is spoken of as being
the state, and so, what the sovereign does, the state is said to
do. In this way, all do not think themselves to be what they are.
For the reasoning mind is the predominant part of man, while
the sensitive and corporeal nature takes the second place, the
former of which the Apostle calls the inward man, and the latter, the outward man (2 Cor. iv. 16). Now the good look upon
their rational nature or the inward man as being the chief
thing in them, wherefore in this way they think themselves to
be what they are. On the other hand, the wicked reckon their
sensitive and corporeal nature, or the outer man, to hold the
first place. Wherefore, since they know not themselves aright,
they do not love themselves aright, but love what they think
themselves to be. But the good know themselves truly, and
therefore truly love themselves.30
Because of wicked self-love a person does not relate to his own goodness in an appropriate manner. Aquinas adds in this response that this
negative dynamism, in turn, leads to an impoverished and miserable
self-experience and interior life. Thus wicked self-love creates a double
roadblock to friendship in general and marriage in particular. First, a
wicked man does not know how to relate to others in love because he
cannot even relate to himself properly. Second, he would not know what
to do with a person who gives herself to the wicked man in love. Because
of his improper self-love, he would only be able to relate to the other as
he does to himself. He could love the corporeal nature of the other in
a love of concupiscence, but he could not love the person, particularly
that person’s interior life, with a love of friendship. Appropriately developed spousal love depends upon both proper self-giving to the beloved
and proper receiving of the beloved, and both proper self-giving and
proper receiving depend upon proper self-love.

30

ST II-II, q. 25, a. 7, resp.

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456

The Marital Union
In Aquinas’s account of marriage as the greatest kind of friendship,
the last aspect that I wish to consider is the special kind of union found
in marriage. All friendship involves union with another to some degree
and that union is structurally dependent on the unity of self-love. Aquinas affirms this is the passage quoted in section two when he states the
following:
We must hold that, properly speaking, a man is not a friend to
himself, but something more than a friend, since friendship implies union, for Dionysius says (Div Nom. iv) that “love is a unitive force,” whereas a man is one with himself which is more
than being united to another. Hence, just as unity is the principle
of union, so the love with which a man loves himself is the form
and root of friendship.31
The point is reinforced by a passage that appears earlier in the Summa
theologiae:
As to be one is better than to be united, so there is more oneness
in love which is directed to self than in love which unites one to
others. Dionysius used the terms uniting and binding in order
to show the derivation of love from self to things outside self; as
uniting is derived from unity.32
The love of friendship follows the general pattern of all love as a desire
for union of possession with the object of that love, which in the case of
friendship is the beloved person.
In the Scriptum super Sententiis, he makes the following observation
concerning the extent of this union desired and achievable in a complete
friendship:
For by the fact that love transforms the lover into the beloved,
it makes the lover enter into the interior of the beloved and vice
31
32

ST II-II, q. 25, a. 4, resp.
ST I, q. 60, a. 3, ad 2.

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457

versa, so that nothing of the beloved remains not united to the
lover, just as the form reaches to the innermost recesses of that
which it informs and vice versa. Thus, the lover in a way penetrates into the beloved, and so love is called “piercing”; for to
come into the innermost recesses of a thing by dividing it is
characteristic of something piercing.33
In essence, the love of friendship seeks the greatest union possible between lover and beloved. In a real sense, a person wants the experience
of unity or oneness that he has with himself with others in friendship,
and an analogous, though inferior, experience is possible, provided the
lover and beloved love each other appropriately. Aquinas’s elucidation of
these points can be quite abstract, as we would expect in a philosophical
account, but the general idea is concrete. In friendship, we enjoy the life
of the other person and vice versa; we share with one another, to the
extent possible, all of those things that make us the individual persons
that we are.
Marriage as a kind of friendship possesses all of these characteristics. Because Aquinas construes marriage as the greatest of friendships, however, we should expect some further characteristic or mode
of possessing one or more characteristics to be distinct. We find both in
marriage, namely, in the fittingness of its indissolubility or indivisibility.
Indivisibility is unique to marriage and intensifies the other aspects of
friendship. It is the one thing that allows for the union of mutual possession to approximate in the greatest way possible to the substantial unity
of self-love and the full actualization of interior self-possession found in
self-friendship. Because self-love is based on substantial oneness, there
exists a continual conjunction of the union of similitude and the union
of possession. The metaphysical inseparability of these two unions allows for the full depths of personal subjectivity. No relationship between
two persons can achieve the same unity because of the unnecessary conjunction of the unions of similitude and possession. But indissolubility
performs the role in marriage that metaphysical inseparability plays in
self-friendship. It creates the framework and foundation for the natural dynamism of proper self-love giving of itself to another, seeking the
33

In III Sent. d. 27, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4. See also ST I-II, q. 28, a. 2, resp.

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Anthony T. Flood

good for the other, enjoying the other, and, ultimately, allowing for a
complete co-union or communion with the other. It is because of the
unity of proper self-love that we can understand role of and justification
for indivisibility.
In nonspousal friendships, the shared lives can be intense and, indeed, through these relationships, persons are mutually bound to each
other in a willed manner. In all of these kinds of unions, however, there
is the possibility that one or both of the persons can end the friendship,
and that possibility creates a natural limit to the extent of the union
possible. In marriage, the only limiting characteristic is death. Therefore, when we say “the two become one” in marriage, Aquinas suggests
that we are not speaking purely metaphorically. The union of marriage,
if fostered by both spouses relating to each other in the appropriate
ways discussed in the previous section, comes as close to metaphysical
oneness or unity as possible. Marital union, or the union of possession
obtained through the greatest and indivisible friendship, encompasses
sexual union, the union of cooperation in the raising of children, and,
most generally, the union of interior lives unreservedly shared by one
another. Aquinas contends that this intense union is something naturally desirable for human beings, and I think most people would find this
contention reasonable. Indivisibility, along with proper self-love, is the
condition for its obtainment.
In conclusion, while I think it is understandable why many contemporary thinkers have reservations concerning Aquinas’s account of
marriage, we should not let those reservations become an impediment
to benefiting from what his account has to offer. His notion of marriage
as the greatest kind of friendship is original, illuminating, and insightful, particularly when we understand it in light of his general accounts
of friendship and proper self-love. In marriage, it is incumbent on both
spouses to strive to have proper self-love and self-friendship. By doing
so, the respective unity of each person’s inner life becomes the basis of
and condition for the greatest union possible between persons—a union
whose indivisibility receives its intelligibility from the metaphysical inseparability of self-love, and a union that contributes to the flourishing
N&V
of both spouses.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 459-487

459

Catechesis and Moral Theology:
Toward a Renewed Understanding
of Christian Experience1*
John Grabowski

Catholic University of America
Washington, DC

Introduction

WHILE DIFFERENT IN MANY RESPECTS,the fields of moral
theology and catechetics do have significant shared concerns because
both of these theological disciplines have to do with the intersection of
truth and life. Moral theology has to do with the way in which we live
in light of what we profess about God. Catechesis is the handing on of
the truth of the Christian faith in a way that produces life in those who
receive it. At the heart of this intersection between truth and life is “the
mystery of Christ.”21
*

This essay was first given as a lecture at the Intellectual Tasks of the New Evangelization Conference sponsored by the USCCB on September 14, 2013. I am grateful
to many of those present for helpful feedback and suggestions on its content. I am
particularly indebted to David Long, Cabrini Pak, Siobhan Benitez Riley, and Brett
Smith for helpful comments on later drafts of the article.
1
The phrase is used to describe the catechetical task by Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic
Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae (1979): “The primary and essential object of catechesis
is, to use an expression dear to St. Paul, and also to contemporary theology, ‘the mystery
of Christ’” (§5). Another way to understand this is to see the four pillars of the Catechism
of the Catholic Church as an interconnected whole with the Person of Christ as its dynamic center. One can make a further distinction between the ministry of catechesis and
the study of effective means to engage in it or the discipline of catechetics.

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But the effort to understand this intersection of truth and life raises
for us the question of experience, which seems to be a burning issue—
perhaps the burning issue—in both of these areas of theology. What is
the nature of Christian experience or, perhaps more broadly, human
experience and what is its role in passing on the faith or in reflecting
on its moral requirements? How do we discern the difference between
distorted and authentic accounts of experience in these endeavors? The
recent history of both moral theology and catechesis and the controversies within them raise such questions and indicate something of their
gravity and pressing nature. In what follows I will argue that a recovery
of the centrality of the encounter with Christ for Christian moral teaching and catechesis is the key to understanding the place of authentic
Christian experience within these disciplines.
My argument will proceed in a number of steps. First, I will offer a
rather compressed overview of the history of Catholic moral theology
and catechesis in the modern period, focusing on some important parallels between them. Next, I will examine the way in which both of these
theological disciplines have come to focus on experience as a central
category and some of the questions and problems that this has produced
within them. I will then argue for the need to refocus these theological endeavors on the encounter of the human person with Christ, utilizing documents such as Gaudium et Spes (GS), Catechesi Tradendae,
and Veritatis Splendor. The final section will consider something of the
contribution of this Christological focus, drawing on the thought of St.
Augustine as a particularly fruitful resource for understanding the role
of experience within the theological endeavor.
A Parallel History
The Post-Reformation Context
Even a cursory examination of the history of what came to be called
Catholic moral theology and catechesis in the modern period reveals
some striking parallels—in no small part because of the common historical and intellectual context in which these disciplines functioned.
The Council of Trent, confronting the challenge of the multiple Reformations dividing the Western Church, sought to respond through the
adoption of a kind of battle posture and a new focus on uniformity of

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461

practice, teaching, and action.32 For the first time in its history the Catholic Church established seminaries so that clergy would receive a minimum of theological and pastoral education. It was Trent’s recommendation that in seminary courses, moral topics be treated separately from
dogmatic ones (in order to better prepare future confessors) that gave
impetus to the birth of moral theology as a separate discipline.43
The impact of the Council on the Church was a lasting one. Just
three years after the close of the council (1566), a universal catechism
was produced that came to be known as “the Catechism of the Council
of Trent.”54 This work would serve as the basis for catechetical instruction
and as the model for local catechisms for centuries. In the emerging
science of moral theology, the aftermath of Trent saw the birth of a new
genre—the manuals of moral theology. Many of these works purported to be modeled on the secunda pars of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa
theologiae (ST)—yet in many cases they bore the imprint of the fourteenth-century revival of nominalist thought, which was foreign to the
thought world of St. Thomas and produced a different conception of the
moral life.65 According to Servais Pinckaers, O.P., in his incisive account
of the history of Catholic moral teaching, many of the manualists “read
Thomas through nominalist lenses” leading them to construct a “morality of obligation” focused on the dialectic of law and freedom rather
than a morality of happiness realized through virtue. This influence gave
2

On the multiplicity of “Reformations” in the sixteenth century, see David Bentley
Hart, The Story of Christianity (London: Quercus Press, 2012), 190–93. On the “battle posture” adopted by the Catholic Church at Trent, see Timothy O’Connell, Principles for a Catholic Morality, rev. ed. (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1990), 18–19.
3
On the “separateness” of moral theology after Trent, see O’Connell, Principles for
a Catholic Morality, 18; and John Mahoney, S.J., The Making of Moral Theology: A
Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition (New York: Oxford, 1987), 24. Mahoney emphasizes the impact of auricular confession on the development of Catholic moral teaching from the early Church to the modern period (cf. 1–36). See also John
Gallagher, Time Past, Time Future: An Historical Study of Catholic Moral Theology
(Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1990), 33–34.
4
See Mahoney, Making of Moral Theology, 24.
5
For an overview of the emergence of the manuals and their history see Gallagher,
Time Past, 29–47. For a summary of their content, see 48–97. On the impact of
nominalism on the manuals and an incisive analysis of the differences between their
moral teaching and that of St. Thomas, see Servais Pinckaers, O.P., The Sources of
Christian Ethics, trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 254–79, 327–99.

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them a voluntarist cast that, when brought into contact with changing
economic systems and the issues generated by the contact of Europe
with the New World, helped spawn the competing systems of casuistry
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.76
Yet this insular world of the post-Tridentine Catholic Church was
not wholly immune from the encroachments of the modern world. The
rationalism of the Enlightenment, the impact of scientific thinking and
empiricist methodology, and the legacy of positivist thought, all left an
imprint on the neo-scholastic Catholic thought of the modern period.87
Revelation was often conceived as a deposit of truths, understood and
elaborated propositionally by the authority of the Church to be consigned
to memory through catechetical memorization. Catholic moral teaching
bore the same tendencies toward objectivism and authoritarianism with
the added focus on law and its application through a case-based casuistry.98
Impulses toward Renewal
In the twentieth century it became increasingly clear to many Catholic
theologians that this insular thought world was in need of significant
renewal. The tonic offered by these forms of catechetical instruction or
moral teaching had become insipid and stale. Alongside the impulses
6

For a summary of this casuistry and its basic principles, see Gallagher, Time Past,
98–122. For a more contextual and sympathetic overview of modern casuistry, see
the essays collected by James F. Keenan, S.J., and Thomas Shannon, The Context of
Casuistry (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1995). For a critique of
the “morality of obligation” that the manuals embody and the competing moral systems that they spawned (even a gentle critique of the equiprobabilism of St. Alfonsus
Liguori), see Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics, 266–77. Cf. Romanus Cessario,
O.P., An Introduction to Moral Theology, Catholic Moral Thought Series (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 229–42.
7
See, for example, the fine study of Gerald McCool, Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Century: The Quest for a Unitary Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1977);
and Joseph Ratzinger, “The Renewal of Moral Theology: Perspectives of Vatican II
and Veritatis splendor,” Communio 32 (2005): 357–68 (see esp. 358).
8
David Bohr mentions objectivism, legalism, rationalism, and authoritarianism as
tendencies of what he describes as the “classical worldview.” See his Catholic Moral
Tradition: In Christ a New Creation, rev. ed. (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor
Press, 1999), 81–87. I would argue that these are apt descriptions of neo-scholastic
moral theology—the effort to apply it to scholastic theologians such as St. Thomas
can be effectively challenged (and has been by scholars such as Pinckaers, on whom
Bohr relies).

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463

toward renewal seen in biblical studies and liturgical theology, the field
of catechetics also saw the stirrings of such renewal in the early twentieth century.109 The approach to catechesis that focused on a rote memorization of doctrine (enshrined in the United States in the Baltimore
Catechism) came to be seen by many as inadequate. Hence Johannes
Hofinger, one of the key figures of the catechetical renewal in the mid to
late twentieth century, would remark retrospectively:
Let us recall the lengthy, difficult and pictureless catechisms of
those days, splendid models no doubt of precise formulation of
the Church’s doctrine, but equally splendid models of a completely unpsychological presentation of that doctrine. To make
matters worse, children were generally required to learn these
unchildlike catechisms by heart, word for word. We do not need
to say that the result in many cases was mere mechanical memorizing of texts, the meaning of which was often grasped in part
or perhaps not at all; and that these memorized texts offered the
well-meaning, but helpless, child next to no nourishment for
his religious life.110
This perceived inadequacy would give birth to a renewal movement that
proceeded in three phases. In the words of Bernard Marthaler,
Up to the present the modern catechetical movement has evolved
though three more or less distinct stages. The first began with a quest
to find a more effective method than the one then in use and then
gradually evolved into a second phase, which was more concerned
9

I am indebted in this brief overview of the history of the catechetical movement
to the outstanding analysis provided by Brian Pedraza, “Reform and Renewal in
Catechesis: The Council, the Catechism, and the New Evangelization,” Josephinum
Journal of Theology 19, no. 1 (2012): 141–71.
10
Johannes Hofinger and Francis J. Buckley, The Good News and Its Proclamation: Post
Vatican II Edition of the Art of Teaching Christian Doctrine (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 3–4. Other authors were more caustic, referring to
the approach as a “catechetical straight-jacket.” The phrase is that of Gerard Sloyan,
Speaking of Religious Education (New York: Herder, 1968), 16. Still others would describe it as embodying a “minimalistic and legalistic view of the Catholic faith” that
was “authoritarian and fear-centered.” See Mary Perkins Ryan, “The Identity Crisis
of Religious Education,” Living Light 5, no. 4 (1968–69): 6–18; here 8.

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with content than method. And most recently, the third phase sees
catechetics broadening its ken to include a variety of educational
ministries and instructional strategies.1211
The first phase, centered in Germany, has come to be called the Munich
Method. Drawing on the insights of educational psychology, this approach used stories (frequently drawn from Scripture), the highlighting
of particular doctrinal points contained in such stories, and then considered their application to the life of the hearer.1312 The second phase,
drawing more directly on the renewal underway in biblical, liturgical,
and patristic studies, focused on the proclamation of Jesus Christ as
the heart of catechesis.1413 This kerygmatic approach saw the encounter
with the Person of Christ mediated through scripture and the liturgy as
the unifying center of catechesis too often fragmented between doctrinal assent and Christian living. The high watermark of this phase was
reached in the first of the catechetical study weeks at Eichstätt in 1960.1514
But this new focus on content over method also had its critics. It
seemed to some that the old neo-scholastic doctrinal catechesis had
been replaced by an equally narrow emphasis on Scripture.1615 This mere11

Berard Marthaler, “The Modern Catechetical Movement in Roman Catholicism:
Issues and Personalities,” in Sourcebook for Modern Catechetics, vol. 1, ed. Michael
Warren (Winona, MN: St. Mary’s Press, 1983), 276.
12
The approach was based on the psychological research of Johann Friedrich Herbart.
See ibid., 276. Something like this approach can be seen in the popular American
Christian book and video series aimed at children known as “Veggie Tales.”
13
One of the key figures in this phase of the movement, Josef Andreas Jungmann,
was best known as a scholar of liturgy. His work Die Frohbotschaft und unsere
Glaubensverkündigung (Regensburg: Freidrich Puster, 1936), edited and published
in English as The Good News Yesterday and Today, trans. William A. Huesman (New
York: Sadlier, 1962), and the reaction to it helped to launch this second phase. In
this, his work can be understood as part of the emphasis on ressourcement that preceded the Second Vatican Council. See Michael Warren, “Jungmann and the Kergymatic Theology Controversy,” in Sourcebook for Modern Catechetics, 194; and Mary
C. Boys, Biblical Interpretation in Religious Education: A Study of the Kerygmatic Era
(Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1980).
14
On the significance of this meeting, see Marthaler, “Modern Catechetical Movement,” 280. The papers collected and published by Jungmann’s student Johannes
Hofinger bear witness to the broad acceptance of the kerygmatic approach. See
Teaching All Nations: A Symposium on Modern Catechetics, ed. Johannes Hofinger,
trans. Clifford Howell (New York: Herder, 1961).
15
On this see Alfonso Nebrada, Kerygma in Crisis (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1965).

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465

ly served to replace “old scholasticism with the new biblicism.”1716 This
sense, coinciding with the teaching of Second Vatican Council, led at
subsequent study weeks (held at Bangkok [1962], Manilla [1967], and
Medellin [1968]) to the decisive shift to the third phase—a focus on
human experience as the heart and locus of catechesis. Drawing on the
developmental psychology of Jean Piaget, this approach saw experience
as the key to learning and hence turned to the experience of the subjects
of catechesis with its individual and cultural particularity.1817 Catechesis
was now aimed at helping those who took part in it draw out the presence of God from within their own experience and concrete social situation. This emphasis on personal experience and inculturation would at
Medellin be joined to a focus on liberating praxis from a then-emerging
theology of liberation.1918 For many, this anthropological and experiential
turn was simply following the trajectory of Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes.
By comparison, moral theology was something of a late bloomer in
terms of the theological renewal of the twentieth century, but here too
the impact of new biblical scholarship and the subsequent interpretation of the council played important roles. The insights of biblical scholarship began to be utilized by influential moral theologians such as the
Redemptorist Bernard Häring in Germany.2019 When Häring and Jesuit
16

The phrase is that of José M. Calle, “Catechesis for the Seventies Part II,” Teaching All
Nations 7 (1970): 94. On this, see also Kenneth Barker, who argues that the kerygmatic worldview remained essentially “supernaturalist.” See his Religious Education,
Catechesis, and Freedom (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1981), 62.
17
See Marthaler, “Modern Catechetical Movement,” 279; and Boys, Biblical Interpretation in Religious Education, 213–14.
18
On the importance of inculturation as emphasized at the Bangkok study week, see
Nebrada, “East Asian Study Week,” 45; and [author unnamed] “The Implications
of Vatican II for the Mission in Asia,” in Teaching All Nations 4 (1967): 320–21. On
Medellin’s emphasis on liberating praxis, see Francis Houtart, “Reflections in the
New Thinking in Latin America,” in The Medellin Papers, ed. Johannes Sheridan and
Terrance Hofinger (Quezon City: East Asian Pastoral Institute, 1969), 72–73; and
Marthaler, Catechetics in Context: Notes and Comments on the General Catechetical
Directory Issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1973), 13.
19
Häring’s three-volume work Gesetz Christ (1954) represents an effort to combine the insights of biblical scholarship with the standard pre–Vatican II genre of a moral manual.
The work was translated into English as The Law of Christ: Moral Theology for Priests and
Laity, 3 vols., trans. Edwin G. Kaiser (Westminster, MD: Edwin Newman Press, 1961).

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Joseph Fuchs took teaching posts in Rome, they brought with them these
new approaches to the discipline, ensuring the further dissemination of
these ideas.2120 Such early work in the field and the awareness it created undoubtedly was behind the statement in the council’s Decree on
Priestly Formation that moral theology needed “livelier contact with the
mystery of Christ” and that it should be “more thoroughly nourished by
scriptural teaching.”221 This summons was given further impetus by the
robust affirmation of Dei Verbum that the study of sacred scripture is
“the soul of sacred theology.”2322 This coupled with the council’s employment of an inductive approach to engagement with the modern world
in GS would seem to parallel the biblical and experiential turns in the
catechetical movement albeit in less developed form.
The New Primacy of Experience
The shift to experience in the third phase of the catechetical movement
that reached “a high-water mark” at Medellin and then was widely diffused in catechetical programs in the 1970s and 80s can be seen as part
of a process of change that spanned much of the twentieth century.2423 This
change was a kind of fermentation that produced a new mixture that then
permeated the Church—a slow chemical reaction that changed the catechetical “solution” in significant ways. In spite of its broad influence and
acceptance, this process of change was occasionally punctuated by rumbling reactions in the form of words of warning on the part of Church
authority or by participants in the renewal themselves. Such rumblings
came to a head in the controversy over the Catechism of the Catholic
Church (CCC). By contrast, the field of moral theology after the council
produced far more volatile compounds and as a result was wracked by an
ongoing series of explosive debates and sharp confrontations at the heart
of which was the effort to incorporate the turn to experience in new ways.
20

See O’Connell, Principles for a Catholic Morality, 21; and Bohr, Catholic Moral Tradition, 73.
21
Second Vatican Council, Decree on Priestly Formation, Optatum Totius (1965) §16.
22
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum (1965) §24.
23
The phrase is that of Mary Charles Bryce, “Evolution of Catechesis from the Catholic
Reformation to the Present,” in A Faithful Church: Issues in the History of Catechesis,
ed. John H. Westerhoff III and O. C. Edwards Jr. (Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow,
1981), 228.

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467

In the aftermath of the council there was some impetus for the
promulgation of a new universal catechism; however, many bishops
countered that in the face of growing theological and cultural diversity such a project was impracticable and undesirable—at least at that
moment in time.2524 The publication of the General Catechetical Directory (GCD) can be understood as something of a compromise solution
in this debate.2625 The GCD affirms many of the insights of the renewal
and its various stages that preceded it, reconnecting the presentation of
doctrine to the person of Jesus Christ consciously appropriated in the
faith experience of adults.2726 However, it also contains some significant
words of warning. Describing a kind of catechetical “crisis” facing the
Church, the GCD warns on the one hand against those who oppose the
movement of renewal altogether speaking of: “those who are unable to
understand the depth of the proposed renewal, as though the issue here
were merely one of eliminating ignorance of the doctrine which must be
taught.” On the other hand, the document also warns against tendencies
recognizable in the third stage, pointing to “those who are inclined to
reduce the Gospel message to the consequences it has in men’s temporal
existence.”2827 Pope Paul VI would reiterate a similar warning four years
later in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi.2928
24

A new universal catechism was championed in particular by Bishop Pierre Marie
Laconte of France, who saw it as part of the unfinished business of Vatican I. Others
pushed for a directory, however, which would be adapted to local and individual
situations. See Marthaler, Catechesis in Context, xvi–xviii. Joseph Ratzinger, who
would oversee the production of the CCC some decades later, also opposed a universal catechism immediately after the Council. He writes: “In 1966 the full extent
of the problem had simply not become visible; that a process of fermentation had
just begun which could lead only gradually to the clarifications necessary for a new
common word.” See Joseph Ratzinger and Christoph Schönborn, Introduction to
the Catechism of the Catholic Church (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995), 12.
25
The directory was promulgated by the Sacred Congregation for Clergy on April 11, 1971.
For an overview of the GCD and its teaching see Marthaler, Catechesis in Context.
26
Cf. GCD §20, 26, and 74. The shift as the primary objects of catechetical ministry from
children to adults is itself a significant one, highlighting the gains of the renewal that
preceded it. See Anne Marie Mongoven, “The Directories as Symbols of Catechetical
Renewal,” in The Echo Within: Emerging Issues in Religious Education, eds. Catherine
Dooley and Mary Collins (Allen, TX: Thomas More Publishing, 1997), 135.
27
GCD, §9.
28
“We must not ignore the fact that many, even generous Christians who are sensitive
to the dramatic questions involved in the problem of liberation, in their wish to

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John Grabowski

The opposing assessments of both the needs of the Church and the
trajectory of the third phase of the catechetical renewal came to a head
in the controversy over Pope John Paul II’s promulgation of the CCC,
which first appeared in 1993. Opponents of the project saw it as a retreat
from the work of the catechetical movement and the renewal it engendered, especially the embrace of the particularity of human experience,
pluralism, and liberating praxis.3029 Its defenders saw it as an effort to integrate the whole of the Church’s tradition with the insights of the modern
catechetical movement (particularly the reconnection with scripture
and the renewed focus on the Person of Christ) and as a corrective to
some of the excesses of the third stage.3130 The slow chemical burn ignited
in the third phase finally boiled over in full blown divisive controversy.
Even before this controversy erupted, the great catechetical scholar
Johannes Hofinger sought to point a way forward for the catechetical
movement. In an essay published in 1984 (the year of his death), Hofinger gave his own assessment of the renewal to date, describing the third
commit the Church to the liberation effort are frequently tempted to reduce her
mission to the dimensions of a simply temporal project. They would reduce her
aims to a man-centered goal; the salvation of which she is the messenger would be
reduced to material well-being. Her activity, forgetful of all spiritual and religious
preoccupation, would become initiatives of the political or social order. But if this
were so, the Church would lose her fundamental meaning. Her message of liberation
would no longer have any originality and would easily be open to monopolization
and manipulation by ideological systems and political parties. She would have no
more authority to proclaim freedom as in the name of God. This is why we have
wished to emphasize, in the same address at the opening of the Synod, ‘the need to
restate clearly the specifically religious finality of evangelization. This latter would
lose its reason for existence if it were to diverge from the religious axis that guides
it: the kingdom of God, before anything else, in its fully theological meaning.’” Pope
Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) §32.
29
Interestingly, the universal catechism faced criticism from its inception. At the time
of its announcement the international journal Concilium devoted an entire issue to
criticizing the very concept (see vol. 204 [1989]). The criticism continued after the
appearance of the text. See, for example, the generally critical essays contained in the
volume Introducing the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Traditional Themes and
Contemporary Issues, ed. Berard J. Marthaler (New York: Paulist, 1994).
30
See, for example, Avery Dulles, S.J., “The Challenge of Catechism,” First Things
49 (1995): 46–53; and Joseph Ratzinger, “Handing on the Faith and the Sources
of Faith,” in Joseph Ratzinger, Dermott J. Ryan, Godfried Danneels, and Francis
Marcharski, Handing on Faith in an Age of Disbelief, trans. Michael J. Miller (San
Francisco: Ignatius, 2006), 15. Ratzinger’s essay was originally delivered as a lecture
in 1983.

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phase as a kind of “eulogy” to the movement that itself needed to be
transcended in “a fourth phase still to come.”3231 He likened the movement’s work and their stages to the construction of a building. The pioneers of the first stage laid the foundation on which the kerygmatic
approach erected walls. The anthropological and experiential turn of the
third phase produced a roof but left it lying on the ground next to the
structure. The phase still to come must raise this roof and set it on the
walls of the structure—experience must be reconnected with doctrine
and the Person of Christ.332
The recent history of moral theology shows it to be even more
combustible than catechetics, but once again it has been the notion
of experience that has provided much of the fuel for the controversy.
As is well known, it was only the intervention of Pope Paul VI and his
expansion of the study commission created by his predecessor John
XXIII that enabled the fathers of the Second Vatican Council to avoid
being sidetracked by the emerging and contentious debate over oral
contraception (“the Pill”).3433 On this commission it was both the failure
of traditional neo-scholastic natural law arguments often heavily colored by physicalism (itself a fruit of nominalism) as well as the voices
of lay members drawing on their own experience, which tipped a majority of members to advocate for a revision of the traditional teaching.3534 Revisionist thinkers often pointed to the experience of couples
31

Johannes Hofinger, “Looking Backward and Forward: Journey of Catechesis,”
The Living Light 20 (1984): 348–57, here 355. On the significance of these remarks,
see Pedraza, “Reform and Renewal in Catechesis,” 27–28.
32
Ibid., 356. Elsewhere he would write: “By the time [the GCD] and the National Catechetical Directory of Catholics in the United States appeared, religious education
had been unfavorably influenced by formidable waves of secularism and an unwillingness to accept the normative directions of the Church.” Johannes Hofinger, “The
Catechetical Sputnik,” in Modern Masters of Religious Education, ed. Marlene Mayr
(Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press, 1983), 32.
33
See William H. Shannon, The Lively Debate: Response to Humanae vitae (New York:
Sheed & Ward, 1970), 46–50, 52–54; and John T. Noonan, Contraception: A History
of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, enlarged ed. (Cambridge:
Belknap Press, 1986), 469–71.
34
Journalist Robert McClory emphasizes the experiential testimony of lay members
of the commission in his Turning Point: The Inside Story of the Papal Birth Control
Commission, & How Humanae Vitae Changed the Life of Patty Crowley and the Future of the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1995).

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whom they had counseled as causing them to rethink the traditional
teaching.3635
After the unexpected reaffirmation of the teaching by Pope Paul
VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae, the ensuing firestorm of debate
spawned whole new moral methodologies that sought, among other things, to provide justification for the judgment of individuals and
couples who on the basis of their consciences and experience rejected
the norm proposed by the Pope. Modern Catholic proportionalism
with its elaborate weighing of the balance of premoral goods or evils
in the human act considered in its totality was a sophisticated elaboration of a basis for just such an individual and experiential approach
to moral reasoning. In many ways it represents a reprise of the casebased moral reasoning of the manuals in the new context of the ongoing critique of the encyclical, but instead of privileging the opinions
of authorities in the resolution of conflict cases, that weight was now
given to individual conscience in the concreteness of the situation.3736
Other less widely imitated revisionist methodologies would also give
35

Charles Curran provides an example, though he makes the argument differently at
different points in his career. In his early work before the encyclical he cites the difficulty experienced by couples struggling to live according to the Church’s teaching.
See, for example, “Family Planning,” in Christian Morality Today: The Renewal of
Moral Theology (Notre Dame, IN: Fides, 1966), 47–64, esp. 47–48. In his later work
he points to the example of John R. Cavanagh, a member of the papal birth control
commission who was influenced by survey results of couples who had negative experiences of “rhythm” as well as his own experience as a psychiatrist, which moved
him to advocate for a change in the teaching. See “Theory and Practice; Faith and
Reason: A Case Study of John R. Cavanagh,” in Critical Concerns in Moral Theology
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 203–32, esp. 221–24. Curran also begins to utilize social scientific data to ground his advocacy for “pastoral
solutions” to difficulties posed by Church teaching. See his “The Pastoral Minister,
the Moral Demands of Discipleship and the Conscience of the Believer,” in Critical
Concerns in Moral Theology, 233–56.
36
For some of the historical parallels between modern casuistry and this approach, see
Thomas Shannon, “Method in Ethics: A Scotist Contribution,” in Context of Casuistry,
3–24, esp. 3–4. For a sympathetic historical account of the genesis of this method as
a whole, see Bernard Hoose, Proportionalism: The American Debate and Its European
Roots (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1987). For incisive critiques of
the method as modern casuistry, see Servais Pinckaers, O.P., “La question des actes
intrinsèquement mauvais et le ‘proportionalisme,’” Revue thomiste 83 (1982): 181–212;
and Christopher Kaczor, Proportionalism and the Natural Law Tradition (Washington,
DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011).

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new weight to the concept of experience—for example, the effort to
understand human sexual activity in descriptive/experiential categories in the infamous 1977 C.T.S.A. report.3837
However, the herald and bellwether of the new role of experience in
Catholic moral theology in the United States has been Charles Curran.
This can be seen in a number of ways. First, in formulating his own
methodology to ground a critical stance toward Humanae Vitae, he outlined a “relational responsibility” approach to the moral life (his own
blending of Niebuhrian ethics, American pragmatism, and an eclectic
borrowing of proportionalist terminology from his close collaborator
Richard McCormick, S.J., and others).3938 Second, Curran has long been at
the forefront of the argument that Catholic Social Teaching around the
time of the council underwent a methodological shift from a deductive
and classicist approach in its moral reasoning to a historically conscious,
inductive, and experiential approach.4039 The shift is sometimes attributed
to John XXIII in Pacem in Terris but more frequently to the council’s
Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes. The same shift has not occurred
in Catholic sexual and biomedical ethics, leaving the Church’s teaching
in a “schizophrenic” state vacillating between conflicting worldviews

37

See Anthony Kosnick et al., Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic
Thought (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1977). The work argued that the tradition criteria
for evaluating sex should be broadened from “unitive and procreative” to “creative
and integrative,” with the understanding that these categories entailed that sexual
expression must be self-liberating, other-enriching, honest, faithful, socially responsible, life-serving, and joyous (see esp. 86–95). Critics of the work pointed out that
such fuzzy experiential criteria could not effectively rule out any form of sexual expression with the possible exception of bestiality. Cf. James Burtchaell, The Giving
and Taking of Life: Essays Ethical (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
1989), 288.
38
For largely sympathetic overviews and analyses of Curran’s thought and its development, see the essays collected in A Call to Fidelity: On the Moral Theology of Charles
E. Curran, Moral Traditions Series, ed. James J. Walter, Timothy O’Connell, and
Thomas Shannon (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2002).
39
For an overview and critique of Curran’s position and its widespread impact, see
John S. Grabowski and Michael Naughton, “Catholic Sexual or Social Teaching: Inconsistent or Organic?” The Thomist 57 (1993): 555–78. For a more recent version
of Curran’s argument, see his Catholic Social Teaching 1891–Present: A Historical,
Theological and Ethical Analysis (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press,
2002), esp. 23–37, 53–96.

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and methodologies.4140 Third, in his work as a historian and commentator
on the field, Curran has called attention to the recent adoption by many
Catholic moralists of the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” of sources for ethical
reasoning: experience, Scripture, tradition, and reason. This approach
characterizes the work of prominent revisionist scholars such as Lisa
Sowle Cahill, Margaret Farley, Todd Salzmann, Michael Lawler, and, in
his current work, Curran himself.4241
The listing of experience in the first position among these sources
is not an accident. It is, both implicitly and in some cases explicitly, the
dominant source, being used at times as a “trump” to scripture or the
Church’s tradition on particular points such as the approval of sexual activity on the part of certain same-sex couples. There is some divergence
among these moralists as to whether experience is best understood
through social scientific study and data (Cahill)4342 or personal and even
anecdotal experience (Farley)443 or some mixture of them (Salzmann and
40

For conflicting views on the “schizophrenia,” see John S. Grabowski and Michael
Naughton, “Doctrinal Development: Does It Apply to Family and Sex,” Commonweal 124, no. 13 (1997): 18–20, and the reply by Charles Curran in ibid., 20.
41
See Charles Curran, Catholic Moral Tradition Today: A Synthesis (Washington, DC:
Georgetown University Press, 1999), 48. Cf. Michael G. Lawler and Todd Salzman,
“Human Experience and Catholic Moral Theology,” Irish Theological Quarterly 76
(2011): 35–56.
42
See, for example, her somewhat complex argument in Sex, Gender, and Christian
Ethics, New Studies in Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996). Cahill draws primarily on social scientific research to ascertain “goods” integral to human flourishing (46–72); views sexual orientation (and the body more
generally) as largely socially constructed (97–102); and, finding biblical condemnations of homosexual activity to be ambiguous and inconclusive (156–60), she
opts to give more weight to the biblical themes of compassion and solidarity with
the marginalized. All of this means that incorporating homosexual people with the
Christian community “does not necessarily denigrate the ideals of virginity . . . of
faithful, mutual heterosexual marriage” (158), especially when their experience can
be understood as conducive to their human flourishing (as measured through social
scientific criteria).
43
See Margaret Farley, R.S.M., Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics
(New York: Continuum, 2008). Like Cahill, Farley sees Scripture and tradition as
ambiguous and inconclusive as sources for a contemporary evaluation of same-sex
relationships (273–80). But while she finds that the sciences contribute useful information to understanding the reality of sexual orientation and preference, she finds
them inconclusive for formulating a moral evaluation (280–86). She therefore turns
to experience to determine whether such activity can conduce to human flourishing.
And by experience she specifies that she means “primarily the testimony of women

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473

Lawler).4544 It is this methodology in which experience is given pride of
place and the conclusions it has generated, which has occasioned public
negative evaluations of recent works in sexual ethics by Church authorities.4645 The category of experience thus continues to be the fuel that ignites explosive public controversy in Catholic moral theology.
My contention is that the fundamental flaw in such works is not that
they engage experience, but that they misrepresent its place in the theological endeavor. By exaggerating its importance and using it to “trump”
Scripture, tradition, or moral norms grounded in reason’s apprehension
of human nature, experience is given an exaggerated and even distorted
importance. Experience becomes the primary locus theogicus overriding and reshaping the other sources. Furthermore, there does not seem
to be adequate recognition of the fact that human experience is itself
distorted and wounded by the presence and effects of sin in the human
person and in the world around him or her. Authentic Christian experience is not an independent source standing outside of the tradition—it
is the fruit of the encounter with the person of Christ. Hence to address
the questions and controversies that experience has generated in the
histories of both catechetics and moral theology, we need to refocus the
theological endeavor on this transforming encounter. This is, in fact, the
path to renewal marked out in the teaching of the council itself and in
subsequent documents that continue its trajectory.
and men whose sexual preference is for others of the same sex” (286–88; here 286).
See Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler, The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Anthropology, Moral Traditions Series (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press,
2008), 228–29. Other scholars point to accounts of experience embedded in literature or art. For the former, see Anna Marie Vigen, “Conclusion,” in God, Science, Sex
and Gender: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Christian Ethics, ed. Patricia Beatiie
Jung and Anna Marie Vigen (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 240.
For the latter, see John Corvino, What’s Wrong with Homosexuality? (New York: Oxford, University Press 2013), 16.
45
The works in question are Farley’s Just Love and Salzman and Lawler’s Sexual Person. On September 15, 2010, the USCCB Committee on Doctrine issued a public
statement calling attention to problems of both method and conclusions in Salzman
and Lawler’s text (including but not limited to those on same-sex relationships).
Two years later on June 4, 2012, the C.D.F. published a notification on Farley’s book,
citing both general and specific problems in the work. For the text of the notification, see http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/
rc_con_cfaith_doc_20120330_nota-farley_en.html.
44

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The Encounter with Christ as the Heart of the Church and Theology
In differing ways both Pope John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict
XVI have sought to focus the attention of the Church and its intellectual
endeavors on the encounter with the Person of Christ, which is at the heart
of Christian life. In so doing they saw themselves as carrying forward and
implementing the renewal begun at the Second Vatican Council. This focus has become programmatic in the pontificate of Pope Francis.4746
In his apostolic exhortation Catechesi Tradendae given at the beginning of his pontificate (1979), Pope John Paul II pointed to Christ as the
heart of the ministry of catechesis:
at the heart of catechesis we find, in essence, a Person, the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, “the only Son from the Father . . . full
of grace and truth,” who suffered and died for us and who now,
after rising, is living with us forever. It is Jesus who is “the way,
and the truth, and the life,” and Christian living consists in following Christ, the sequela Christi . . . Accordingly, the definitive
aim of catechesis is to put people not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy, with Jesus Christ: only He can lead us to
the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life
of the Holy Trinity.4847
The ministry of catechesis exists to put the Church and its members in
conscious contact—“in communion”—with the Person of Jesus Christ.
We can debate how well the CCC and its various parts accomplish this,
but this is undoubtedly its aim as John Paul II would indicate in the
constitution that promulgated it.4948
46

Thus in the first major document of his pontificate, which was largely his own, he
wrote: “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter
them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this
invitation is not meant for him or her, since ‘no one is excluded from the joy brought
by the Lord.’” Pope Francis, Apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (2013) §3,
citing Pope Paul VI, Apostolic exhortation, Gaudete in Domino (1975) §22.
47
Catechesi Tradendae §5.
48
See John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution, Fidei Depositum (1992) §2: “In reading
the Catechism of the Catholic Church we can perceive the wondrous unity of the
mystery of God, his saving will, as well as the central place of Jesus Christ, the on-

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Some fourteen years later, addressing the even more tumultuous
field of moral theology in the first chapter of his encyclical letter Veritatis
Splendor, John Paul II would restate the import of this personal encounter in even more sweeping and (literally) dramatic terms. The problem
is that most commentators on the document, fixating on the technical
analysis of controversial issues in its second chapter (particularly the
negative evaluation of proportionalism’s appeal to individual conscience
and the experience of action in its concreteness to override absolute moral norms) have virtually ignored the genuinely revolutionary character of
this teaching. This neglect is equally evident by both revisionist critics of
the document as well as many of its traditionalist defenders.5049
Commenting on the encounter between Christ and the Rich Young
man of Matthew 19, John Paul sees him as a type of “every person, who
consciously or not, approaches Christ the Redeemer of man and questions
him about morality.”5150 He is thus identified as a type of “Adam”—a John
Q. Everyman who wrestles with the nature of the moral good and questions about the ultimate purpose of life. Readers are thus encouraged to
identify themselves with the figure of the Young Man and to hear Jesus’s
words as addressed to the questions arising within their own hearts.5251
The pope draws upon his own early work as playwright to invite readers
of the encyclical to hear themselves addressed by Christ as participants
in an existential drama.
ly-begotten Son of God, sent by the Father, made man in the womb of the Blessed
Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be our Saviour. Having died and
risen, Christ is always present in his Church, especially in the sacraments; he is the
source of our faith, the model of Christian conduct and the Teacher of our prayer.”
Reflecting on the CCC, Joseph Ratzinger observes that writing the third part “was
no doubt the most difficult” and that “it does not claim to offer the only possible or
even the best systematic formulation of moral theology.” See his “Is the Catechism
of the Catholic Church Up-to Date?” in On the Way to Jesus Christ (San Francisco:
Ignatius, 2005), 140–63; here 159.
49
See the overview of the debate and the literature in John S. Grabowski, “The Luminous Excess of the Acting Person: Assessing the Impact of Pope John Paul II on
American Catholic Moral Theology,” Journal of Moral Theology 1, no. 1 (2012): 116–
47, esp. 136–44. Parts of the following two paragraphs are adapted from that essay
(see 141–42).
50
Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter, Veritatis splendor (1993) §7.
51
This chapter of Matthew’s Gospel serves “as a useful guide for listening once more in
a lively and direct way to [Jesus’] . . . moral teaching.” Veritatis Splendor §6 (emphasis
in original).

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In John Paul II’s presentation of this drama, which unfolds on the
stage of the Gospel account, the reference to the commandments serve
not to articulate a law-centered morality as some critics alleged, but to
highlight the invitation to discipleship as a gift of grace. The commandments themselves are reflective of God’s covenantal invitation to humanity, but “not even the most rigorous observance of the commandments,
succeeds in ‘fulfilling’ the Law.”5352 Instead, human beings still find themselves enslaved to the power of sin that makes God’s law appear as an alien
intrusion upon their autonomy.5453 The Young Man, like Adam after his Fall,
is unable to respond on his own volition—he finds himself impotent in the
face of a call to perfection that requires “maturity in self-giving”—itself
a gift of grace.554 Discipleship requires not merely outward conformity of
behavior but an interior transformation of the person mediated through
the Church’s sacramental worship, which provides the “source and power”
of the gift of self in love in union with Christ’s own Eucharistic self-gift.5655
Following Jesus is therefore not exterior imitation based on moral rules,
but the communication of a new interior life in Christ lived through the
Holy Spirit who is Himself the “new law” of Christian life.5756 It is this transforming encounter that bestows the happiness that the Young Man seeks.5857
Oliver O’Donovan was one of the few commentators on the document who recognized the genuinely transformative character of its
first chapter: “Not everyone has appreciated its innovative strength as
a programme for moral theology . . . in these pages which shape the
moral discourse of the Church as an evangelical proclamation.”5958 Veritatis Splendor is indeed revolutionary for the discipline of moral theol52

Ibid., §11.
Cf. ibid., §17–18.
54
Cf. ibid., §17.
55
Ibid., §21.
56
See ibid., §24, echoing the teaching of St. Thomas in ST I-II, q. 106, a. 1. On this
theme of transformation in the document (issued on the Feast of the Transfiguration), see J. A. DiNoia, O.P., “The Moral Life as Transfigured Life,” in Veritatis splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology (Princeton, NJ: Scepter, 1999), 1–10.
57
On the eudaimonism of the document, see Livio Melina, “The Desire for Happiness and the Commandments in the First Chapter of Veritatis Splendor,” in Veritatis
splendor and the Renewal of Moral Theology, 143–60.
58
“A Summons to Reality,” in Considering Veritatis Splendor, ed. John Wilkins (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1994), 41–45; here 42. Cf. the assessment of Lorenzo Albacete, “The
Relevance of Christ or the sequela Christi,” Communio 21 (1994): 255.
53

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ogy—and for theology generally—in at least three distinct ways. First,
this invitation to discipleship is not addressed to an elite few (the traditional Catholic understanding), but to all. The universal call to holiness
reaffirmed at Vatican II is here rearticulated through the dramatic call
to the perfection of discipleship given to the Young Man.6059 Second, the
purpose of the Church’s life and mission is refocused on this encounter: “In order to make this ‘encounter’ with Christ possible, God willed
his Church.”6160 Some of the implications of this sweeping statement have
begun to take shape in the current ministry and teaching of Pope Francis.6261 Third, and most directly pertinent to the concern of this study, is
that the encounter with the Person of Christ is made the hermeneutical
key to understand experience—both human and Christian. Christ reveals the contents of the human heart to those who encounter him—the
experience of impotence in the face of the struggle with sin, himself as
the concrete fulfillment of the hunger for happiness and love, and the
liberating freedom of the grace-empowered “yes” of discipleship.
I would argue that this evangelical and Christological turn of Veritatis Splendor is an effort to reconnect with and extend the trajectory
for renewal mapped out in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes.
In an essay written shortly before his election as pope, Joseph Ratzinger
describes Veritatis Splendor as an effort to reconnect with the council’s
great themes of Scripture, Christology, and human reason. The efforts
to implement the biblical dimension of this renewal were stymied by a
variety of factors: the complexity of contemporary problems that seem
to go beyond the resources of scriptural wisdom, the diversity and difficulty of biblical materials themselves, and the ecumenical context in the
Bible was read and applied to ethical matters.6362
On his elevation to the Chair of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI continued
59

“The invitation, ‘go sell your possessions and give money to the poor,’ and the promise ‘you will have treasure in heaven,’ are meant for everyone, because they bring out
the full meaning of the commandment of love of neighbor, just as the invitation
which follows, ‘Come follow me,’ is the new, specific form of the commandment of
love of God.”Veritatis Splendor §18 (emphasis in original).
60
Ibid., §7.
61
It is certainly apparent in his Apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. See note 47
above.
62
See Ratzinger, “Renewal of Moral Theology,” 359–62. To this list might be added the
bitterly divisive controversy of the birth control debate in the Church.

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to focus the Church on the Person of Christ and on the council’s program of renewal. In the beginning of his first encyclical, Pope Benedict
wrote: “We have come to believe in God’s love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is
not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with
an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” For Benedict, however, a proper hermeneutic of tradition was an
integral part of this program of renewal.6463 In his first Christmas address
to the Roman curia he contrasted a “hermeneutic of discontinuity and
rupture” with one of “reform and renewal.” Of the former, he said:
The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church.
It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express
the true spirit of the Council. It claims that they are the result of
compromises in which, to reach unanimity, it was found necessary to keep and reconfirm many old things that are now pointless. However, the true spirit of the Council is not to be found in
these compromises but instead in the impulses toward the new
that are contained in the texts.6564
By contrast, Pope Benedict described the hermeneutic of reform and
renewal as follows:
Here I shall cite only John XXIII’s well-known words, which
unequivocally express this hermeneutic when he says that the
Council wishes “to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral,
without any attenuation or distortion.” And he continues: “Our
duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were
concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with
an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us” . . . It is necessary that “adherence to all the teach63
64

Deus Caritas Est (2005) §1 (emphasis in original).
Pope Benedict XVI, “Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia
Offering Them His Christmas Greetings,” December 22, 2005). From http://www.
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_
xvi_spe_20051222_roman-curia_en.html.

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ing of the Church in its entirety and preciseness” . . . be presented in “faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine,
which, however, should be studied and expounded through the
methods of research and through the literary forms of modern
thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of
faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another” . . . retaining the same meaning and message.66
In other words, the updating in light of contemporary questions and experience for which the council called (aggiornamento) cannot be separated from its program of returning to the sources of faith (ressourcement).67
It is true that the Pastoral Constitution offers for the first time in a
conciliar document an extended treatment of human person and his or
her experience in the modern world.68 The very complexity of modern
life, the advancements of human science and technology, render the human person increasingly opaque to him or herself. In analyzing and addressing this problem anthropology becomes “the Archimedean point”
and unifying center of the document.69 Yet if anthropology is the starting point and hinge of the Pastoral Constitution, Christology is the key
to its understanding of the human person. In a famous text the council
fathers write:
The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does
the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a
figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ,
the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father
and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his
supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all
the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown.7069
66

Ibid.
Marcellino D’Ambrosio observes that ressourcement and aggiornamento were “inextricably intertwined” in la nouvelle théologie, which preceded the Council. See his
essay “Ressourcement Theology, aggiornamento, and the Hermeneutics of Tradition,”
Communio 18 (1991): 530–55.
68
On the novelty of GS in this regard, see Walter Kasper, “The Theological Anthropology of Gaudium et spes,” Communio 23 (1996): 129–40, esp. 129.
69
The term is that of ibid., 133–34.
69
GS, §22, The citation is from The Documents of Vatican II, 220. Walter Kasper calls
67

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Even the widely hailed inductive approach to “reading the signs of the
times” is put in the eschatological and Christological framework of the
Gospel’s use of the phrase.7170 While the final text of GS does not invoke
Matthew 16:1–4, it retains its meaning: “To carry out such a task the
Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and
of interpreting them in the light of the gospel.”7271
It is thus possible to read the first chapter of Veritatis Splendor as
a commentary and elaboration of the teaching of GS no. 22 as to how
“Christ reveals us to ourselves.”7372 Included in this revelation is an illumination of both the person’s interior life (“the heart”)—its hungers,
aspirations, and darkness—and the world in which the person lives—a
world also comprised of both lights and shadows. Experience—both
human and Christian—is neither wholly good or bad but it is fundamentally opaque without the light of Christ.
Authentic Christian experience is born from the life-changing encounter of the human person with Jesus Christ. It is first and foremost a
fruit of this encounter—not an autonomous higher vantage from which
to critique the sources through which this encounter is mediated (Scripture and the liturgical worship of the Church).7473 Neither should it be
this statement “the standard and short form of the Pastoral Constitution.” Kasper,
“Theological Anthropology of Gaudium et spes,” 137.
70
The phrase “signs of the times” was first used by John XXIII in Humanae Salutis
(1961) referencing Mt 16:1–4. Early drafts of GS equated the phrase with the Roman
phrase vox temporis, vox dei—an understanding at odds with the Christological and
eschatological overtones of Mt 16:1–4.
71
GS, §4 (emphasis added). The original Latin text reads: “Ad tale munus exsequendum, per omne tempus Ecclesiae officium incumbit signa temporum perscrutandi
et sub Evangelii luce interpretandi.” The citation is from http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_lt.html.
72
It bears remembering that this text was a hermeneutical key to the teaching of Pope
John Paul II as a whole and that Karol Wojtyla was one of the authors of GS.
73
Aidan Nichols makes the point forcefully: “I can never appeal to Christian experience against that Church in order to deny its common faith or disparage its common
life. To appeal away from the Church would be to cut off the branch on which I am
sitting, to cut myself off from the source of experience I am claiming, to commit
epistemological suicide. Experience is only an aid to discernment; it is not itself the
living source of enlightenment in Christian theology.” The Shape of Catholic Theology: An Introduction to Its Sources, Principles, and History (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), 246.

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481

conceived as an independent and coequal source alongside of Scripture,
tradition, and reason.7574 And such experience does not simply emerge
spontaneously from within persons and communities—even those engaged in the noble struggle for justice and human dignity. Instead, as the
fruit of the encounter with the Redeemer of the human race, experience
can be likened to the “matter” of the theological enterprise to which
revelation corresponds as its form.
Confession, Conversion, and Healing:
Insights from the Doctor of Grace
Understanding Christian experience as the fruit of the encounter with the
Person of Christ is neither a return to some form of ancient Gnosticism nor
a species of modern fideism.7675 In many ways it marks a recovery of early
Christianity’s understanding of the relationship of Christ to the world and
to humanity. It is not accidental that the Christological anthropology of
GS has deep biblical and patristic roots as it reflects the renewal of patristic studies that flowered in the ressourcement prior to the council.776
A very brief consideration of the thought of one particularly important Western patristic author can serve to illustrate the point—St.
Augustine of Hippo. Augustine’s Confessions, written a few years after
his ordination as a bishop, offers a uniquely Christian autobiographical
74

Both Wesley himself and subsequent generations of Methodist teachers were clear
that Scripture was the ruling source in this quadrilateral—in Scripture Christian
faith is revealed and then subsequently illumined by tradition brought to life in the
experience of the believer and finally confirmed by reason. On this, see the essays in
W. Stephen Gunter, Scott Jones, Ted Campbell, Rebekah Miles, and Randy Maddox,
Wesley and the Quadrilateral: Renewing the Conversation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon,
1997).
75
In this I disagree with the assessment of Lisa Sowle Cahill, who raised the specter of
fideism in her reaction to Veritatis Splendor, warning of “its confessional and even
fideist mode which pulls the rug out from under the Church’s moral theologian’s
credibility as advocates of the human and the common goods.” See “Veritatis Splendor,” Commonweal 120, no. 14 (1993): 15–16.
76
In terms of such roots one could point to the Pauline notion of Christ as the Second
Adam, or the New Testament’s understanding of Christ as the image of God. Such
notions are developed in the thought of fathers such as Irenaeus, Athanasius, and
Gregory Nazianzus, among others. In the case of Gregory, scholars have argued that
his experience of Christ is a key to the whole of his Christology. See Andrew Hofer,
O.P., Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus, Oxford Early Christian
Studies (New York: Oxford University, 2013).

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reflection on this encounter in a style accessible to the classical tastes of
late Roman culture.7877 His shocking (to his contemporaries) discussion
of his vices and the sway that they exercised over his mind and will as
he wandered far from God the source of truth and happiness, the breakthroughs of truth in his restless search culminating in the dramatic tolle
lege moment in the garden of Milan, and the liberating illumination of
his conversion and baptism offer a kind of phenomenology of the hermeneutic function of the encounter with Christ described above.
In this phenomenology, “confession” becomes a key to healing and
renewal. Reviewing the sins of his past life, Augustine says that “the recalling of my wicked ways is bitter in my memory but I do it so that you
may be sweet to me.”7978 His vicious actions had forged for him “a chain
to hold me prisoner.” He continues, “By servitude to passion, habit is
formed, and habit to which there is no resistance becomes necessity.
By these links, as it were, connected one to another . . . a harsh bondage held me under restraint.”8079 Like the Prodigal son of the Gospel he
wandered far from God and in so doing lost himself.8180 Conversely, in
finding God Augustine finds himself because God is “more inward than
my most inward part.”8281 Yet this interior has depths that are ultimately
impenetrable to human introspection. In his long prayer, he confesses the inscrutability of his own heart and motives: “How does it come
about that the various kinds of love are felt in a single soul with different
degrees of weight . . . Man is a vast deep, whose hairs you, Lord, have
numbered . . . Yet it is easier to count his hairs than the passions and
emotions of his heart.”8382
77

For an overview of the Confessions in their historical and literary context, see Peter
Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkley: University of California Press,
2001), esp. 151–75. Brown vacillates between characterizing the work as conventional and iconoclastic in terms of Roman and Christian literary antecedents.
78
Confessions, II, I, 1. The citation is from the translation by Henry Chadwick for Oxford’s World’s Classics Series (1992; revised edition; New York: Oxford University,
2008), 24. All citations are to this version.
79
Confessions, VIII, v, 10 (p. 140).
80
The biblical prodigal son is a recurring allusion in the narrative of the Confessions.
See II, x, 18; III, vi, 11; IV xvi, 30; V, xii, 22.
81
Confessions, III, vi, 11 (p. 43). The original is intimior intimo meo. In this vein, Brown
describes the Confessions as a “manifesto of the inner world.” See Augustine of Hippo,
161.
82
Confessions, IV, xiv, 22 (p. 66).

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His encounter with Christ liberated him, like Lazarus from the
tomb, from the “pile of bad habits” under which he lay dead, but he
would still have to “come out” and “accuse . . . [himself] . . . in confession.”8483 But even then the human heart remains frail and inscrutable so
Augustine begs the source of this healing and transforming grace: “grant
what you command, and command what you will.”8584 Even as a bishop,
Augustine regards himself as a convalescent receiving therapy.8685 It is this
knowledge of himself gained from his own experience of struggle, failure, and progressive healing, that leads the bishop of Hippo to frequently describe Christ as the divine physician: “The Lord, though, like an experienced doctor, knew better what was going on in the sick man, than
the sick man himself. Doctors do for the indispositions of bodies what
the Lord can also do for the indisposition of souls.”8786 The hospital used
by this Divine Doctor is the Church: “Let us, the wounded, entreat the
physician, let us be carried to the inn to be healed . . . therefore Brothers,
in this time the Church too, in which the wounded man is healed, is the
inn of the traveler.”88 The scriptures provide the convalescing Christian
with the grammar to describe his or her experience of captivity, release,
and transformation by grace. They are also the means by which the Divine Physician imparts healing through the medium of human words.89
83

Serm. 67, 2. The citation is from The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the
21st Century, Sermons III (51-98), trans. Edmund Hill, O.P., ed. John Rotelle, O.S.A.
(New York: New City, 1993), 216.
84
Confessions, X, xxix, 40 (p. 202). Brown notes that this prayerful refrain was one of
the things that shocked Pelagius in his reading of the Confessions (see Augustine of
Hippo, 173).
85
Brown points us to book X in this regard: “For the insistence on treatment by ‘confession’ has followed Augustine into his present life. The amazing book ten of the
Confessions is not the affirmation of a cured man; it is the self-portrait of a convalescent.” See Augustine of Hippo, 170–71.
86
Serm., 229O. The citation is from The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the
21st Century, Sermons III/6 (184–229Z), trans. Edmund Hill, O.P., ed. John Rotelle,
O.S.A. (New York: New City, 1993), 323. For other instances in which Augustine
describes salvation in medical terms, see Serm. 229E (ibid., 283); Confessions VII,
xx, 26; X, xxx, 42; De doctrina christiana 1, 27; 4, 95; Enchiridion 3.11; 22.81; 23. 92;
32.121; De nuptiis, bk. 2, 9. III; 38. XXIII.
87
Tractates on the Gospel of John, 41.13.2. The citation is from Saint Augustine Tractates
on the Gospel of John 28–54, trans. John W. Rettig (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 148–49.
88
“With Augustine we find the roots of a genuinely scriptural form of pragmatism

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The Psalms do this in a particular way as they describe the full range
of human experience and emotion and because they are the prayer of
Christ himself in the members of his body.90 The ministry of catechesis
aims to penetrate both the hearts and minds of those it forms with the
grammar and reality of this graced experience.91
To use a contemporary example of a similar understanding of this
kind of engagement with experience, one can consult the recovery literature of present-day twelve-step programs. The experience of addiction
to a particular behavior or substance brings the person to an awareness
of his or her own powerlessness, often described as “hitting bottom.”
Having accepted the reality of this hopeless situation, the person then
makes a decision to turn his or her life over to the care and power of
a loving God—what the Christian might describe as a “conversion.”
The new reality imparted by this psychic change is not an end in itself; instead it must be reinforced by a series of practices that develop
new habits of living and interaction and deepen the person’s ongoing
dependence on God. The literature of the program in which the person
is engaged provides a grammar to describe an experience that is at once
individual and shared—both the experience of the hopelessness of addiction and the grace of recovery.
The theology of the Doctor of Grace, particularly his formulation of
the doctrine of original sin, makes clear that this is the human condition
generally. Human beings are all fallen in Adam, infected by the restless
burning of the disordered forms of concupiscentia that drive us to seek
our happiness in creatures when our hearts are only satisfied by their Creaimed at healing the world through the Word.” C. C. Pecknold, Transforming Postliberal Theology: George Lindbeck, Pragmatism and Scripture (New York: T&T Clark,
2005), 60. For an overview of Augustine’s view of Scripture, see Tarmo Toom, “Augustine on Scripture,” in The T&T Clark Companion to Augustine and Modern Theology, ed. C. C. Pecknold and Tarmo Toom (London: T&T Clark, 2013), 75–90.
89
See Confessions IX, xi, 8–11. On this, see Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 171–72, esp.
254: “The Psalms were the record of the emotions of Christ and His members. Just
as he had taken on human flesh, so Christ had, opened himself to human feeling.”
Others have pointed to the Gospel’s portrayal of Christ as making the prayer of the
Psalms his own. See the outstanding study by Mary Healy, “The Hermeneutic of
Jesus,” Communio 37 (2010): 477–95.
90
For an excellent and in-depth overview of Augustine’s understanding of the ministry
of catechesis, see William Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate (Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 1995).

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485

ator.9291 The experience of such fallen creatures is a perilous foundation for
the search for truth, subject as it is to the vicissitudes of darkened minds,
warring hearts, and interior depths that exceed the person’s own ability
to plumb. Even the convalescent Christian—“the recovering sinner”—following the transforming encounter with Christ must continue to habituate
him or herself to the healing effects of grace made available in the Church
and its sacraments and use the literature and language of the community
(i.e., the scriptures) to learn to rightly evaluate and characterize personal
experience both past and present.9392 Appeals to the category of experience
in theology—whether in catechetics or moral theology—must be subject
to this sober form of Christian realism that Augustine exemplifies. Thus
the recovery of Christian experience depends in many respects upon understanding it as an experience of recovery.9493
91

Cf. Confessions I, i, 1. Augustine follows 1 Jn 2:15–16 in describing a threefold disorder within the fallen human being: “Do not love the world or the things of the
world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is
in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from
the Father but is from the world” (New American Bible). For the Bishop of Hippo,
baptism removes the guilt of original sin but not the disorder created by it (cf. De
nuptiis bk. 1, 25. XXIII; 28. XXV). The “concupiscence of the flesh” (concupiscentia
carnis) may be utilized “without fault” in marriage when directed to the good of the
procreation of children (cf. De Bono conjugali 6). In the prelapsarian state, sexual
desire would have been ordered because it would have been governed by the will
(see De nuptiis bk. 2, 59. XXXV; De civitate dei bk. 14, 10, 15–19). For an excellent
overview of Augustine’s complex views of sexual desire, see John Cavadini, “Feeling
Right: Augustine on the Passions and Sexual Desire,” Augustinian Studies 36, no. 1
(2005): 195–217.
92
This is an example of what it means to hold that experience provides the “matter”
of theological reflection to which revelation gives form. Nichols argues that experience and the magisterium are the “aids” to understanding the sources of theology
such as Scripture and tradition. The first of these he characterizes as “situated at the
subjective pole of ecclesial life” and the second at its “objective pole,” but both are
thoroughly ecclesial. See Nichols, Shape of Catholic Theology, 235–47; here 235.
93
Others have drawn upon Augustine’s powerful account of the enslaving power of
habit and the impotence of the human will to consider addiction and recovery from
a Christian theological perspective. See, for example, the study of Christopher C. H.
Cook, Alcohol, Addiction and Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2006). As to whether Augustine’s own account of his struggle with his sexual
habits in book VIII of the Confessions should be considered as a depiction of a sexual
addiction, I hesitate to make such a characterization at the distance of some sixteen
centuries of a remarkably vivid writer whose cultural and scientific understanding
of these realities is different from our own.

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Conclusion
This study has argued that an adequate response to the questions of experience generated by developments and controversies within the fields
of moral theology and catechetics depends upon the recovery of the encounter with the Person of Christ as the source for these disciplines and
for understanding the place of authentic Christian experience within
them. Negatively, this encounter serves to reveal the distorted and sinful
elements within human experience—both individual and social. Without the light of Christ, manifestations of evil often lay unrecognized in
the morass of unreflective personal motivation, the impulse of habit, the
blur of ordinary social interchange, or the shadows cast by structures of
sin within a fallen world. Positively, this encounter serves to transform
and enlarge the horizon in which this experience is understood and to
provide a shared grammar in which the experience of healing and transformation can be expressed in the life of the Christian community.
These theological disciplines take part in this critical and constructive task that flow from this encounter at the heart of the Church’s life.
Moral theology serves both to identify actions, attitudes, and structures
that are antithetical to the life of the Christian community and to help to
discern individual and communal practices that foster and reinforce its
participation in the life of grace. Additionally, it also serves to critically
engage new questions that arise as a result of social, economic, or technological developments. Catechetics too has a critical function in reflecting on and discerning effective from ineffective catechetical methods. The ministry of catechesis itself serves to mediate the encounter
with Christ that is at the source of the Church’s life through the handing
on of the Gospel.9594 Through reflection on Scripture, it also helps to provide the language and categories in which this transformative encounter
can be understood, expressed, and refined.
The experience engaged in these fields of theological study and ministry is neither independent of the transforming encounter with Christ
at the heart of the Church nor of the sources that mediate it—Scripture,
tradition, and the liturgy. This experience rather is the fruit of this en94

“Catechesis is nothing other than the process of transmitting the Gospel, as the
Christian community has received it, understands it, celebrates it, lives it and communicates it in many ways” (General Directory for Catechesis §105).

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487

counter and is given shape and expression by the shared grammar of
revealed truth and through the praxis of the community. Reason certainly plays a vital role in the theological endeavor, but reason itself is
in need of the healing work of grace in order to function rightly and the
light of faith to grasp the full measure of truth. It may be the case that
something like the four sources of Wesley’s quadrilateral of authority
can be understood to function within Catholic theology, but only if it is
clear that they are not of equal weight.9695 In particular, to give experience
pride of place is to risk distorting the reality of the condition of fallen
humanity and the healing work of Christ’s redemption.
As St. Augustine reminds us, the Church can thus be likened to a
hospital where the Great Physician himself treats convalescent members
with the medicine of the Gospel and the sacraments.9796 It is precisely this
healing encounter with Christ that the Church seeks to offer in the great
effort of our time—the New Evangelization.9897
N&V

95

The weight given to these sources by Wesley himself as identified by contemporary
scholars of Methodism (see note 74 above) seems congruent with the understanding
argued here.
96
One thinks here not only of Augustine’s frequent use of this medicinal image noted
above, but of the remarks of Pope Francis in his September 2013 interview, comparing the Church to a “field hospital” in which the wounded are treated. See the Zenit
story “Pope Gives In-Depth Interview to Jesuit Journal,” http://www.zenit.org/en/
articles/pope-gives-in-depth-interview-to-jesuit-journal.
97
Cf. Pope Francis: “The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus.
Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and
loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew. In this Exhortation I wish to encourage the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this
joy, while pointing out new paths for the Church’s journey in years to come.” Evangelii
Gaudium §1.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 489-514

489

A Promise to Keep:
Which Bond, Whose Fidelity?1*
Stephan Kampowski

Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family
Rome, Italy

Introduction

“ONE OUGHT NOT TO UNDERSTAND THIS TEACHING[of
the indissoluble bond] as a kind of metaphysical hypostasis beside or
over the personal love of the spouses.”21 These are the words pronounced
by Cardinal Walter Kasper before the Extraordinary Consistory in February 2014 with which he warns against thinking of the marital bond as
having an ontological status of its own apart from the love of the people
who are bound by it. For him, attributing too much metaphysical weight
to the bond may confuse the debate on the question of granting some
form of ecclesial recognition to those living in a second union while
their spouse is still alive.32
Now the bond, whatever its ontological status, is created by the
spouses’ marital promises. Hence, if we want to understand what kind
of consistency is proper to the bond, we should begin with a discussion
*

First published in Anthropotes 30 (2014): 187–215. Reprinted here with kind permission.
1
Walter Kasper, The Gospel of the Family, trans. William Madges (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2014), 16.
2
This is, all of Kasper’s protestations notwithstanding, the main issue of the Cardinal’s
speech and of the subsequent booklet in which the speech was published together
with some added material.

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of what is involved in promising in general and then, more in particular,
in promising marital fidelity. In what follows, we will begin by looking at
the thought of some highly influential philosophers on the matter, hoping
to learn from them, but also wishing to see the roots of some extremely
significant conceptual errors on the matter that are prone also to obscure
the question of the nature of the marital bond. In due course we will ask
the following questions: What is a promise? Does a promise oblige, and
if yes, why? Why do we promise? To whom or what do we pledge fidelity
when we promise? What is specific to the marital promise?
The Promise as a Social Convention in Hume and Hobbes
For David Hume to make a promise and to be faithful to it is not a
“natural virtue.”43 The word “natural” here will have to be understood in
its contrast to “social” or “conventional.” Indeed, “a promise wou’d not be
intelligible, before human conventions had established it; and . . . even if it
were intelligible, it wou’d not be attended with any moral obligation.”54 The
institution of promising exists in a given society because undoubtedly
promises are useful and advantageous for it. Hume gives the example of
organizing an imminent harvest. If my crops are ripe today and yours
will be tomorrow and none of us has enough capacity to do the harvest
just by ourselves, then I will ask you to help me today and promise you
that I will help you tomorrow.65 Given that in Hume’s anthropology human beings are essentially egoistic, there is little hope you would help
me just out of fellow feeling: “Men being naturally selfish, or endow’d
only with a confin’d generosity, they are not easily induced to perform
any action for the interest of strangers, except with a view to some reciprocal advantage, which they had no hope of obtaining but by such a
performance.”76 You will only help me today if you can rest assured that I

3

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 333: “There is naturally no inclination to observe promises, distinct from a sense of their obligation; it follows, that fidelity is no
natural virtue, and that promises have no force, antecedent to human conventions.”
4
Ibid., 331.
5
Cf. ibid., 334.
6
Ibid., 333.

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491

will help you tomorrow. Without the institution of promising, you will
not help me, nor will I help you, and both of us will lose our harvests.87
We see that it is no doubt useful to promise. According to this account, the purpose of the institution of promising is to make people do
what we want them to do without having to use force or deceit. It is a
function of the interested commerce of humankind, which is also why
for Hume we do not promise to people who are close to us, but only to
acquaintances or strangers, that is, to people to whom we do not sense
naturally any inclination to do good. It seems that for Hume, there is
no need to promise anything to the members of our family or to our
friends, given that we will do good to them spontaneously.98
Why do promises oblige for Hume? The obligation is solely due to
the sanction attached to not maintaining one’s word, which is simply
this: one will no longer be able to profit from the institution of promising in the future. “When a man says he promises any thing, he in effect
expresses a resolution of performing it; and along with that, by making
use of this form of words, subjects himself to the penalty of never being
trusted again in case of failure.”109 People who fail to keep their promises
will no longer be able to convince others that it is in their interest to help
them and thus they will be left without assistance when they need it. It
is hence not immoral not to keep a promise; it is rather imprudent and
little intelligent. One will only hurt oneself, at least in the long run.
Thomas Hobbes’s approach to promising is similar. For him, too, the
promise is a creation of society aiming at its benefit. Unlike Hume, however, he does not leave the sanction for breaking a promise simply with
the risk of not being trusted in the future. Given that the institution of
promising is of paramount importance for the state, Leviathan imposes
7

Ibid., 334.
Cf. ibid., 335: “Tho’ this self-interested commerce of man begins to take place, and
to predominate in society, it does not entirely abolish the more generous and noble
intercourse of friendship and good offices. I may still do services to such persons as I
love, and am more particularly acquainted with, without any prospect of advantage;
and they may make me a return in the same manner, without any view but that of
recompensing my past services. In order, therefore, to distinguish those two different sorts of commerce, the interested and the disinterested, there is a certain form of
words invented for the former, by which we bind ourselves to the performance of any
action” (original emphasis).
9
Ibid. (original emphasis).
8

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the obligation created by a promise with the concrete threat of punishment: “Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength
to secure a man at all.”110 Why do I promise? Again, to make people do
what I want them to do. Why do I keep my promises? Because otherwise
I will have to pay a fine or be put to jail.
Why do we mention these two accounts here? It seems that this
legalistic understanding of promising as social convention is still with
us today much more than we may think. Here a promise is something
completely impersonal. The one to whom the promise is made never enters into the picture. A promise has nothing to do with love of the other.
The fidelity, if such it is, involved in promising here is but a fidelity to the
institution of promising, and ultimately only to the utility of this institution. From this perspective, it becomes difficult to see how a society’s
competent authority could not dispense someone of any and all promises made, given that the obligatory nature of these promises resides solely
in the threat of sanction imposed by precisely this authority.
The “bond” created by the promise is an external obligation imposed by society for the sake of its general and impersonal benefit but,
in given cases, this bond or this obligation—however good for society—
may be to the detriment of the individual, who, by promising perhaps
did not manage to obtain the benefit he or she had hoped for and that
was the motive of the promise in the first place. Hence it would only
seem humane in these cases for the competent authority to release such
a one from the bond or obligation created by the promise.
The Promise as Fidelity to Oneself in Kant and Nietzsche
The following two accounts of promising seem to be diametrically opposed to the previous ones. In Kant and Nietzsche one gets the idea that
society is not needed at all for there to exist promises. For Kant, while
it is perhaps not all that clear why we promise in the first place, it is
evident that the obligation to keep our promises derives from an application of the categorical imperative with its universalizability principle:
“I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my

10

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), II.17, 117.

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493

maxim should become a universal law.”1211 While prior to reflecting about
it, I could feel tempted to get myself out of trouble by means of a promise I do not intend to keep, I could not well want lying to become the
law of the land. Such a custom would be unreasonable, amounting to
abolishing the institution of promising.1312 Thus we can say that for Kant
the obligation to keep my word derives from reason’s necessity not to
contradict itself, which means that the fidelity implied in promising is
ultimately a fidelity to myself as rational agent.
It is true that Kant’s confidence in his universalizability principle
seems to be exaggerated. It may at times serve as a heuristic principle
and thus amount to no more than the common sense question: What
would happen if everyone did this? As ultimate foundation of morality,
however, it may well be wanting. Its greatest weakness is that it cannot
answer the question of motivation: Why should I want to be rational,
or consistent with myself, which for Kant would be the same as to be
moral and just? This problem was raised by a poet like Walt Whitman
who famously wrote: “I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict
myself; I am large, I contain multitudes.”1413 But also a philosopher and
contemporary follower of Kant’s, like Jürgen Habermas, shows that he is
quite aware of this issue.1514
Further, as Alasdair MacIntyre points out, the universalizability
principle already encounters grave difficulties on a much more obvious
level. MacIntyre argues, and it seems rightly so, that “it is very easy to
11

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 15 (original emphasis).
12
Cf. ibid.: “To inform myself in the shortest and yet infallible way about the answer
to this problem, whether a lying promise is in conformity with duty, I ask myself:
would I indeed be content that my maxim (to get myself out of difficulties by a false
promise) should hold as a universal law (for myself as well as for others) . . . ? Then I
soon become aware that I could indeed will the lie, but by no means a universal law
to lie; for in accordance with such a law there would properly be no promises at all.”
13
Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” in Leaves of Grass (New York: Viking Penguin,
1959), 85.
14
Cf. Jürgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003),
4: “Moral insights effectively bind the will only when they are embedded in an ethical self-understanding that joins the concern about one’s own well-being with the
interest in justice. Deontological theories after Kant may be very good at explaining
how to ground and apply moral norms; but they still are unable to answer the question of why we should be moral at all” (original emphasis).

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see that many immoral and trivial non-moral maxims are vindicated
by Kant’s test quite as convincingly—in some cases more convincingly—than the moral maxims which Kant aspires to uphold. So ‘Keep all
your promises throughout your entire life except one,’ ‘Persecute all
those who hold false religious beliefs’ and ‘Always eat mussels on Mondays in March’ will all pass Kant’s test, for all can be consistently universalized.”1615 The foundation of the moral obligation for promise keeping
would hence seem a little thin in Kant.
What perhaps weighs still heavier is an element his account shares
with that of Hume and Hobbes: the person to whom the promise is
made is rather disregarded. Promising is not an intersubjective reality
and has nothing to do with the love of the other. While for Hume and
Hobbes the obligation created by the promise resides in the relation between individual and State, in Kant this obligation is based on the relation of the rational agent with him- or herself. For Kant a promise is an
intrasubjective reality.
This last point holds true also for Nietzsche, which is why we have
grouped him together with Kant here. In his The Genealogy of Morals,
Nietzsche dedicates a substantive section to the question of “breeding . . .
an animal which is entitled to make promises,”1716 suggesting that the capacity to promise can function as the specific difference of the human being
with respect to the animals1817 and presenting it as a privilege rather than a
duty. To be able to give one’s word as something that can be trusted is a
major accomplishment of the will. It is here that we have the case of the
sovereign individual, who has “his own independent, enduring will, the
man who is entitled to make promises. And in him we find a proud consciousness, tense in every muscle, of what has finally been achieved here,
of what has become incarnate in him—a special consciousness of power

15

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd ed. (New York:
Bloomsbury, 2013), 54.
16
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, trans. Douglas Smith (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998), 39.
17
Cf. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1998), 245: “Nietzsche, in his extraordinary sensibility to moral phenomena,
and despite his modern prejudice to see the source of all power in the will power of
the isolated individual, saw in the faculty of promises (the ‘memory of the will,’ as he
called it) the very distinction which marks off human from animal life.”

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and freedom.”1918 The “liberated man, who is really entitled to make promises, this master of free will,” is the “the owner of an enduring, indestructible will.”2019 What distinguishes him from other people is that he “gives
his word as something which can be relied on, because he knows himself
strong enough to uphold it even against accidents, even ‘against fate.’”2120
For Nietzsche the promise is “the memory of the will,”221 and it is in the
will that we find both the reason for making promises and the reason for
keeping them. We are motivated to promise inasmuch as it is a splendid
occasion to exercise our power—which for Nietzsche is why we do everything we do. The obligation to keep our promises derives from our desire
for greatness and sovereignty. To break one’s promise means to be servile,
weak, and nonsovereign, dependent on the whims of circumstance and
changing passion. In other words, it is a question of honor.
Indeed, the capacity to promise reveals much about the human
being’s personhood as someone who possesses himself and is, as such,
able to anticipate his future.2322 Someone who were to say, “Yesterday I
promised you to do this and that, but so what? Today I’m someone else,”
would simply disappear as a person. Thus Robert Spaemann can place
the foundation and guarantee of the promise in the person him- or herself: “By speaking and demanding to be understood, one has engaged
in the same personal relation that is presumed in each separate act of
promising. The question of how to secure the promise no longer arises.
The final security is the refusal to pose the question, a refusal already
made when human begins recognize each other, and claim recognition
from each other, as persons. The person is a promise,”2423 so that someone
18

Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals, 41 (original emphasis).
Ibid. (original emphasis).
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., 40.
22
Cf. Robert Spaemann, Persons: The Difference between “Someone” and “Something,”
trans. Oliver O’Donovan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 223–24: “The
practice of promising throws a shaft of light on what it is to be a person . . . When we
make an actual promise in history . . . we rise above our normal immersion in the
stream of time. We do not leave it to the course of events to decide what we shall do
at a given point in the future, nor do we leave it to whatever attitude or state of mind,
wishes or priorities we may happen to have at that time.”
23
Ibid., 223. For a clarification of the suggestive idea that the person is a promise, cf.
Robert Spaemann and Holger Zaborowski, “An Animal That Can Promise and Forgive,” Communio 34 (2007): 515: “We are natural beings like other living things that
19

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Stephan Kampowski

who is not wont to keep his promises “degrades himself, degrades the
promise that he, as a person, is.”2524
The question of promising is indeed intimately bound up with the
issue of personal identity as Paul Ricoeur quite insightfully points out:
“We can understand two different things by identity. One is the permanence of an immutable substance which time does not affect. . . .
But there is another model of identity, one presupposed by our previous
model of the promise. . . . The problem of the promise is precisely that
of maintaining a self in the face of what Proust called the vicissitudes
of the heart.”2625 Hence we may say that Nietzsche is getting at something
profoundly true: at least part of the reason we promise is to maintain our
identity in time and part of the reason of its obligatory nature is truly
our honor, a fidelity to ourselves.
And yet here, too, we have to ask ourselves about the role, if any, of
the person to whom the promise is made. What is his or her importance?
As Ricoeur himself points out: “The obligation to maintain one’s self in
keeping one’s promises is in danger of solidifying into the Stoic rigidity
of simple constancy, if it is not permeated by the desire to respond to
an expectation, even to a request coming from another.”2726 Nietzsche’s
approach would entirely seem to fall under this criticism, since here it
does not seem to matter to whom the promise is made. Incidentally, as
Gabriel Marcel incisively explains, on this account it does not even seem
important what is being promised:
To make it a point of honour to fulfil a commitment what else is
this but putting an accent on the supra-temporal identity of the
subject who contracts it and carries it out? And so I am brought
to think that this identity has a validity in itself, whatever the
content of my promise may be. This identity is the one importhave wishes and desires and pleasure and fear and dread, and at the same time, we are
beings that can relate themselves to this nature. Within this relation lies the promise
that the person is, that a being, which can also feel a duty toward another, then also
fulfills this duty—for that we have no guarantee; but rather, this is a promise.”
24
Spaemann and Zaborowski, “An Animal That Can Promise,” 516.
25
Paul Ricoeur, “Approaching the Human Person,” Ethical Perspectives (1999): 53.
26
Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994), 267.

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ant thing to maintain, however absurd the particular commitment may appear, to the eyes of a spectator, through my rashness or weakness in undertaking it.2827
In this context, then, Marcel sees the great danger of confusing fidelity with pride: “A fidelity to another of which I was myself the ground,
the spring, and the centre . . . would expose . . . the lie at the heart of
that existence which it shapes.”2928 This lie consists in “the contention that
fidelity, despite appearances, is never more than a mode of pride and
self-regard,” and it “unquestionably robs of their distinctive character
the loftiest experiences that men think they have known.”3029
If what is at stake in promising is simply a fidelity to myself in terms
of a desire for self-consistency as in Kant, or in terms of a sense of honor
as in Nietzsche, then it is I myself who can also dispense myself from
my promise. Others could come to my aid by trying to help me see that
keeping a word once given has now become unreasonable given the new
circumstances. They could tell me to swallow my pride, admit my failure, and go on with my life.
The Promise as Intersubjective Reality
in Aquinas, Marcel, and Ricoeur
A Commitment to the Other
It is truly curious how the philosophers we have mentioned above, while
taking into account important and valid aspects of promising, were
nonetheless able to disregard its probably most important characteristic: a promise is inherently a promise to someone. Even Paul Ricoeur
thinks that “it is easy to overlook” what he calls the “dyadic structure of
promising,” and he surmises that perhaps “Kant contributed to this by
his treatment of the false promise as an inner contradiction to a maxim
in which a person involves only himself or herself.”3130 But is it truly so
27

Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having, trans. Katharine Farrer (Westminster: Dacre
Press, 1949), 53.
28
Ibid., 54.
29
Ibid., 53.
30
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 266.

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difficult to see that it is not fear of punishment (Hobbes) or of disadvantage (Hume) or of self-contradiction (Kant) or of the admittance of
weakness (Nietzsche) but rather love of the other that is at the basis of
the obligatory nature of promises? In this very sense Ricoeur continues:
“It is, in truth, at the very first stage, that of firm intention, that the other
is implied: a commitment that did not involve doing something that the
other could choose or prefer would not be more than a silly wager.”3231
Fidelity to one’s word is fidelity to the one to whom one has given it, and
this not for fear but for love of him or her. Not even Guy Mansini, in his
Promising and the Good—a work that is otherwise extremely helpful—
quite managed to get himself to say this. Rather, his main thesis is that
the binding nature of promises derives from the good that one promises
to the other.332 The more this thesis is sustained by examples, the more
improbable it becomes, at least if taken literally. Thus he writes: “The
obligation to go to the post office on someone’s behalf comes from the
good of doing just that thing.”3433 Is the purported fact that going to the
post office is a good really the reason for why one should keep one’s
promise to do so on someone else’s behalf? How could going to the post
office be a good in the first place if it were not a good for someone? It
seem that it is the other, to whom we have made a pledge and who now
relies on us, who is the primary reason for why we should keep our
promises. It is a question of fidelity to him or her. Here Gabriel Marcel
really seems to get at the heart of what is at stake in giving one’s word:
There is no commitment purely from my own side; it always implies that the other being has a hold over me. All commitment
is a response. A one-sided commitment would not only be rash
but could be blamed as pride. The notion of pride, indeed, plays
a part of paramount importance in this discussion. It seems to
me that it is essential to show that pride cannot be the principle
upon which fidelity rests. As I see it, and despite appearances to
31

Ibid., 267.
Guy Mansini, Promising and the Good (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2005), x: “The obligation to keep promises is not an artifact of the will of the
one who promises. . . . The source of the obligation to fidelity to promises is chiefly
the good promised.”
33
Ibid., 38.
32

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499

the contrary, fidelity is never fidelity to one’s self, but is referred
to what I called the hold the other being has over us.3534
Fidelity to one’s word is fidelity to someone else, to a friend to the beloved; it is a response to someone. In promising, then, I am not primarily bound by society, the state, my logic, or my honor, though all these
surely enter in various degrees, but I am bound to the other, in whom I
have raised expectations and who now relies on me.
Why We Promise
Why do we promise, then? For St. Thomas there is more than one answer, but the first and foremost reason is that we promise to others for
their good: “We promise something to a man for his own profit; since
it profits him that we should be of service to him, and that we should at
first assure him of the future fulfilment of that service.”3635 Here we need to
underline that the Angelic Doctor’s anthropological presuppositions are
very different from those of Hume’s, for instance. For the British empiricist all human beings are naturally selfish. For St. Thomas, in contrast,
“it is natural to all men to love each other.”3736 With this he does not mean
that people are not capable of hatred or selfishness; it just means that it is
these latter that need explanation and not love and benevolence, which
are natural and spontaneous. Now “love consists especially in this, that
the lover wills the good for his loved one.”3837 Not only the thing promised,
but already the promise itself is already a good, inasmuch as it virtually
contains within it the thing promised, which is “why we thank not only
a giver, but also one who promises to give.”3938 Promises are among the
goods we wish for the people we love.
In which way is a promise, already prior to its actual fulfillment, a
good for the beloved? According to Hannah Arendt, promises estab34

Marcel, Being and Having, 46.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (ST) II-II, q. 88, a. 4.
36
Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles (SCG) III, ch. 117.
37
SCG III, ch. 90.
38
Cf. ST II-II, q. 88, a. 5, ad 2: “He who promises something gives it already in as far as
he binds himself to give it: even as a thing is said to be made when its cause is made,
because the effect is contained virtually in its cause. This is why we thank not only a
giver, but also one who promises to give.”
35

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lish “islands of certainty in an ocean of uncertainty.”4039 Through promises
people can coordinate their activity. It is true: promises are useful for the
individual and for society. We can imagine a match between two soccer
teams. In one team, players have agreed to play on certain positions:
one promised to guard the goal, others committed to defensive tasks,
again others agreed to play in midfield or forward positions. In the other team, the players were not able to agree on their positions. No one
wanted to make a commitment to the other to cover a certain area, so
they will leave things up to the way each player feels at the moment. As
a result, they end up entering the field even without an assigned goalie.
If we suppose that all the players on both teams have similar individual
capacities, then there will be no question as to which team will win.
As Hannah Arendt keeps insisting, in order to achieve anything significant in life, people have to act together.4140 They can act together, only if
they are bound together by mutual promises. Thus people benefit from
promises collectively the moment they enter into a common endeavor.
But already simply as an individual someone receiving a promise
earns a decisive advantage as it will be possible “to rely on its performance, so as to be able to presume upon it safely in his or her own plans
for action.”4241 Anyone who has ever needed to organize an event will
know the difference between a collaborator who responds to a request
for a particular kind of aid with the words, “If I get a chance, perhaps I
will do it,” and one who says, “I will be there, and I will do it.” Only the
latter words are a real help. Only here the person responsible can consider the task done, stop looking for someone to whom to delegate it,
and attend to other duties. The promise is the good that the lover wills
for the beloved. We promise because we love.
As much as we love the other, we may still consider whether a promise is an adequate good to give him or her. Is it morally licit to promise?
39

Arendt, Human Condition, 244.
Cf. ibid., 244–45: “We mentioned before the power generated when people gather
together and ‘act in concert’ . . . The force that keeps them together . . . is the force
of mutual promise or contract. . . . The sovereignty of a body of people bound and
kept together, not by an identical will which somehow magically inspires them all,
but by an agreed purpose for which alone the promises are valid and binding, shows
itself quite clearly in its unquestioned superiority over those who are completely
free, unbound by any promises and unkept by any purpose.”
41
Spaemann, Persons, 225.
40

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501

St. Thomas poses himself the objection that our freedom is the greatest
good that God has given to us, and it would seem to be inappropriate
deliberately to deprive ourselves of it by placing our will under necessity.4342 Gabriel Marcel even goes so far as to raise the question whether
there is not a sense in which every promise is a lie:
At the moment of my commitment, I either (1) arbitrarily assume
a constancy in my feelings which it is not really in my power to
establish, or (2) I accept in advance that I shall have to carry out,
at a given moment, an action which will in no way reflect my
state of mind when I do carry it out. In the first case I am lying to
myself, in the second I consent in advance to lie to someone else.443
I have no power over how I will feel tomorrow. If I tell a friend today
that I will come to visit him tomorrow, because today that seems to me
a good thing, I may betray my friend if tomorrow the visit no longer
appears good to me and I no longer feel like it. If I go anyway, I will be
insincere; if I do not go at all, I will have gone against my word, but the
promise, to the extent that it implied not only an exterior behavior but
a personal involvement, will be broken in any case, if not by my omission, then by my insincerity.
Furthermore, given that I am constantly changing, by promising
perhaps I betray my future self, the person that I am becoming of whom
I do not know yet whether he should then want to be burdened by the
commitments I make for him now.4544 Again, the question is raised, “Can
a commitment exist that is not a betrayal?”4645
42

Cf. ST II-II, q. 88, a. 4, obj. 1: “It would seem that it is not expedient to take vows. It
is not expedient to anyone to deprive himself of the good that God has given him.
Now one of the greatest goods that God has given man is liberty whereof he seems
to be deprived by the necessity implicated in a vow.”
43
Marcel, Being and Having, 50. Cf. also Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 267–68, where
this passage is discussed.
44
Cf. Marcel, Being and Having, 51: “Is there, then, such a thing as a basic fidelity, a
primal bond, which I break every time I make a vow . . . ? This primal bond can only
be what some people have taught me to call fidelity to myself. Myself, they will say,
is what I betray when I so bind myself. Myself: not my being but my becoming; not
what I am today but what I shall perhaps be tomorrow.”
46
Ibid.

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We have presented these two objections together because they can
be responded to by a single fundamental consideration, which at the
same time highlights another important reason for why we promise. To
begin with, let us have a look at the response St. Thomas gives to his objection, a response that has not lost anything of its pertinence along the
centuries. By promising we do not lose our freedom, but we actualize it.
Freedom is freedom for the good, and the firmer the will is fixed on the
good, the freer it is. Aquinas points to the fact that God and the saints
cannot sin, but this does not amount to a reduction of freedom but to its
perfection.4746 Now by promising we give firmness to our will,4847 which is
also one of the reasons why according to the Angelic Doctor an act done
because of a vow or promise is better than the same act done without
a prior binding of the will. In the former case the good is willed more
firmly: “A vow fixes the will on the good immovably and to do anything
of a will that is fixed on the good belongs to the perfection of virtue.”4948
Here Thomas looks not only at the actual performance of an act but
also at its genesis. An act born of a virtuous disposition is performed
with more stability, joy, and ease than the same act done without such
an active disposition, though from the outside it may be difficult to detect who is truly courageous and who is simply acting as a courageous
person would do; who is truly temperate and who is merely continent.
Likewise, an act that is generated by a promise is performed with greater
stability, with a firmer will, and hence it is more virtuous. Here we see
that Nietzsche’s account is not all wrong: being able to promise is an
excellence, a virtue, it bespeaks a oneness with oneself, to the point that
Paul Ricoeur makes of the promise a paradigm for personal identity as
we have seen above.5049
It is as if to the objection that Marcel puts to himself, namely, that
46

Cf. ST II-II, q. 88, a. 4, ad 1: “Even as one’s liberty is not lessened by one being unable
to sin, so, too, the necessity resulting from a will firmly fixed to good does not lessen
the liberty, as instanced in God and the blessed.”
47
Cf. ST II-II, q. 88, a. 4: “By vowing we fix our wills immovably on that which it is
expedient to do.”
48
ST II-II, q. 88, a. 6.
49
Cf. Ricoeur, “Approaching the Human Person,” 53. Cf. also Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 118: “When we speak of ourselves, we in fact have available to us two models
of permanence in time which can be summed up in two expressions that are at once
descriptive and emblematic: character and keeping one’s word.”

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I must not promise because I do not know who I will be tomorrow, St.
Thomas along with Ricoeur would answer that I must promise so that
I will know who I will be tomorrow. A promise is what allows me to
maintain my personal identity over time; it is the way in which I relate to
that part of my life that exists in the mode of anticipation of the future. A
promise strengthens the will, it gives unity to the moral subject. As Robert Spaemann puts it, its goal is virtue, the capacity to rely on oneself.5150
The Reasons for the Binding Power of Promises
Why, then, on this account, do promises bind? Paul Ricoeur can think of
three reasons. There is indeed such a thing as my personal honor, which
consists in maintaining a recognizable identity over time: “To keep a
promise is to sustain oneself within the identity of one who today speaks
and tomorrow will do. This sustaining oneself announces an esteem of
self.”5251 By breaking a promise, I implicitly say that I am no longer the
same now as I was then. I become invisible as a person, a being capable of owning and leading his life over time and become reduced to a
Lockean self, who is but an accumulation of instances without inherent
unity or continuity.
But there is, of course, also the other to whom the promise is made,
who has a rightful expectation of me to do as I said, who relies on me:
“One always makes a promise to someone . . . it is because someone is
counting on me and expecting me to keep my promise that I feel that I am
connected.”5352 To make a promise that I do not intend to keep or of which
I do not know how I will be able to keep it, is to do him violence.5354 It is an
act of injustice. A false or broken promise is not only a thing between me
and an impersonal society, nor just a matter between me and myself, but
first of all an issue between me and the other and of the love that governs
interhuman relationships.
50

Cf. Spaemann, Persons, 225: “The purpose of this effort is what we call ‘virtue’: conditioning one’s nature to reliable self-determination, integrating the various impulses with the goal of actually achieving what one wishes to achieve. What is at stake is
the ability to rely on oneself.”
51
Ricoeur, “Approaching the Human Person,” 50.
52
Ibid.
53
Cf. Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 266: “The false promise is a figure of the evil of violence in the use of language, on the plane of interlocution (or of communication).”

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Third, for Ricoeur there is the respect I owe to the institution of language, which binds me to others and allows me to communicate: “The
obligation to keep one’s promise is equivalent to the obligation to preserve the institution of language to the extent that language rests on the
confidence everyone has in everyone else’s word.”554 Language is oriented
to truth; its purpose is to reveal reality, to be the “house of being.”5655 It
may not be a coincidence that in many languages the expression “to give
one’s word” is a synonym for “promising.” By speaking, by saying a word
to others, we promise them reality. Hence Erik Erikson can say, “A spoken word is a pact.”5756 Indeed, the word binds us to being and binds us to
each other. Such is our innate trust in the affirmative power of the word,
that says and affirms reality, that for the human mind it is much easier
to understand affirmations than it is to understand negations and that
our spontaneous attitude toward anything said or written is to believe it.
Suspicion and mistrust are always secondary phenomena. Inasmuch as
we are beings who “have the word,”5857 the institution of language mediates our access to reality, it allows us not only to relate to others, but it is
also at the very foundation of our spiritual life, allowing for our thought
to be actualized. Romano Guardini formulates it in these terms:
Man by his nature is in a dialogue. His mental life is ordained
to be in communication. . . . Language is not only the means by
which we communicate conclusions, but mental life and activity
are carried on in the process of speech. . . . Language is not a system of signs by means of which two monads exchange ideas but
it is the very realm of consciousness in which every man lives.5958
Thus we see why the institution of language deserves to be respected, why promises are not to be taken lightly, and why they are bind54

Ricoeur, “Approaching the Human Person,” 50.
Cf. Martin Heidegger, Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), 254.
56
Erik H. Erikson, “The Problem of Ego Identity,” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 4 (1956): 70.
57
Cf. Aristotle, Politics I, ch. 1 (1253a10): “Man alone of the animals is furnished with
the faculty of language” (λόγον δὲ μόνον ἄνθρωπος ἔχει τῶν ζῴων).
58
Romano Guardini, The World and the Person, trans. Stella Lange (Chicago: Henry
Regnery, 1965), 130.
55

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ing. While Ricoeur’s appeal to the institution of language echoes a bit
Hume’s and Hobbes’s appeal to society, inasmuch as language is a social
reality, what the French thinker is trying to get at goes much beyond
the concerns of the British philosophers. What is at stake is not simply
a social convention but the very possibility of having conventions in the
first place, that is, the possibility itself of forming a society, of entering
into relationship with oneself and with others.
On this account, then, which takes into consideration the dyadic
structure of promising—that is, the basic fact that promises are to someone—what is the nature of the bond? The bond would seem to reside in
or even be the relationship between the one who gives and the one who
receives the promise. The obligation is to the other; we are obliged to the
other because we love him or her, love being the reason we made our
promise in the first place. It is the same love for the other that was the
reason for making our promise that is now the reason for our keeping it.
This is certainly evident in our dealings with our family and friends.
But how is this applicable to social interactions, such as contracts, which
are forms of promises given also to strangers? Even here this account is
valid if by love we do not understand a romantic feeling but the fundamental benevolence that governs the interaction between a person and
his fellowmen. Again, “it is natural to all men to love each other,”6059 that
is, to wish each other well. St. Thomas could say such a thing because
he believed that the human person’s greatest good was not an individual
private good, but a common good.6160 My greatest good is precisely not
just my good, but our good. If you are well, we are well, and then I am
truly well only if we are well. Why should I still honor my part of the
terms of a contract when the other has already fulfilled his and I got
what I wanted? It is for the sake of the other’s good that I do it, a good
that can motivate me as much as my own. This is what Robert Spaemann
gets at when he writes, “At one time the concept of love was thought
59
60

SCG III, ch. 117.
St. Thomas argues that inasmuch as God is the common good of the universe, it is
natural for a rational creature to love God more than it loves itself. Cf. ST I, q. 60, a.
5: “Since God is the universal good, and under this good both man and angel and
all creatures are comprised, because every creature in regard to its entire being naturally belongs to God, it follows that from natural love angel and man alike love God
before themselves and with a greater love.”

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of as a metamorphosis of self-interests, as the self-transcendence of a
rational being, on account of which the reality of the other in its own
teleology immediately became a motive of action.”6261 He then continues
by referring to Leibniz’s profound definition of benevolence: “Delectatio
in felicitate alterius, ‘Joy in the happiness of others.’”6362
Dispensations
Under which conditions, then, can one be dispensed from one’s promises? If keeping one’s promise is primarily an act of fidelity not to the state,
nor to oneself, but to the other, then it is the other who can normally
dispense. Dispensation may be asked for on account of new, supervening circumstances that make fulfilling one’s promise significantly more
difficult or cause it to collide with unforeseen new obligations. At times,
we even dispense ourselves, when the other is not at hand or when he
unreasonably insists on the fulfillment of a promise given under completely different circumstances. As Spaemann puts it, “Of course, there
are promises from which we excuse ourselves on the ground of urgent
necessity that imposes duties inconsistent with them.”6463 If I am heading
for a dinner appointment and on the way become witness of an accident, suddenly finding myself called upon to aid the people involved in
it, I can reasonably count on the others to dispense me from my promise
to be at a certain place at a certain time. Without entering into a casuistry, however, we can insist, with Spaemann that one thing can never be
the ground for a dispensation: “It can never be a reason for non-performance that the promiser simply asserts that he has changed his mind.”6564
Given that, as Ricoeur puts it, a promise is a redoubled intention: “the
intention not to change my intention,”665 the not changing one’s mind was
exactly the content of the promise.

61

Robert Spaemann, Happiness and Benevolence, trans. Jeremiah L. Alberg (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 78.
62
Ibid. Cf. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Codex Iuris Gentium (Praefatio) (1693),” in Political Writings, ed. Patrick Riley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 171.
63
Spaemann, Persons, 226.
64
Ibid.
65
Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 268.

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The Marital Promise and Other “Life Promises”
In the following section, we will ask ourselves what is special about the
marital promise. Doing so, we will also touch upon what Guy Mansini
aptly calls “life promises” in general.6766
The Specificity of the Marital Promises: Forming a Community of Destiny
For Spaemann, what distinguishes a marital promise from other promises is that their irrevocability is part of the content of what is being
promised, with the result that here two people form a “community of
destiny.”6867 What makes us request dispensations of our promises, and
what makes us gladly grant these if we are being asked for them, are the
strides of fate: new, unforeseeable circumstances that change the whole
context in which a promise was made. Now the marital promise is a
promise by which the spouses tell each other: whatever may happen,
whatever destiny holds in store for us, I pledge my fidelity to you, in
sickness or health, for better or worse. Thus, by the very intention of the
promise, the spouses give each other an unconditional pledge. By saying,
“in good times and in bad . . . until death do us part” the spouses promise each other not to ask to be dispensed nor to dispense each other.
The nature of the marital promise is such that it radically changes
the spouses’ relationship. Its idea is that it is capable of turning strangers
into kin. Even if husband and wife were mutually to agree on dispensing
each other from their marital vows, this could not be done, inasmuch
as their vows have instituted between them a relation of kinship that is
no longer in their power to change.6968 The case is similar to that of a father and a son who wanted to dispense each other from their father-son
relationship. They would be attempting the impossible. The kinship
established by the biological fact of generation ensures that the father
66

Cf. Mansini, Promising and the Good, 71–83, 137–44.
Cf. Spaemann, Persons, 228, where the English translation speaks of a “lifelong
sharing of destinies.” The original German, however, indeed speaks of a “lifelong
community of destiny,” a lebenslange Schicksalsgemeinschaft. Robert Spaemann,
Personen: Versuche über den Unterschied zwischen “etwas” und “jemand” (Stuttgart:
Klett-Cotta, 1996), 243.
68
Scott Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s
Saving Promises (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009).
67

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Stephan Kampowski

remains the father, the son remains the son. And this is true even if the
kinship is established by the legal act of adoption. The idea of marriage
is that a marital promise can establish kinship as well, so that Adam,
after having been led to Eve, can say in all truth: “This at last is bone of
my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gn 2:23), which means saying precisely
“She is my kin.”
How is it possible to make such a promise? Can one truly build a
common life in the face of fate? Often things happen in life that are
completely out of our power: illness, infertility, economic difficulties,
problems with the children. In this situation—called the general human
condition—how is it possible to promise one’s life, including also what
one will want in the future, and not just the authenticity of one’s emotions, including only what one feels in the present?
Here Robert Spaemann offers us a profound reflection when he suggests that by exchanging the marital vows, the spouses do not simply
commit to hang on to their promise with an iron will, even if they should
come to feel differently, even if they should come to regret their choice
and change their minds.7069 Rather, the marital promise implies the promise to do everything in one’s power to prevent coming into situations
that would incline one to reconsider one’s commitment to the other.
While our feelings are not under our immediate control, our day-to-day
decisions are. It is by the big and small choices we make every day that
we develop our character and personality. We are constantly changing,
and our choices are a major factor in this process. According to Spaemann, then, the marital promises imply not viewing “the growth of one’s
personality as an independent variable that may or may not turn out to
be compatible in some degree with the growth of the other’s personality.”7170 Thus the question “What effect will such and such a choice have on
the relationship with my spouse?” will become the decisive criterion for
any decision that a married person will have to make. By assuming the
69

Spaemann, Persons, 226–27: “Marriage is no ordinary promise to perform something, which one can still go through with when one has no mind to, or no longer
feels the special interest that inclined one to the promise in the first place. With the
marriage vow two people tie their fortunes together irrevocably—or that, at any rate,
is what the vow intends. This promise could hardly be kept if one were in fact to
change one’s mind fundamentally.”
70
Ibid., 227.

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509

married state, a person freely renounces the privilege of making choices
solely on the basis of personal preference. If, as a single person, I live in
Rome and get a job offer in the United States, the only question I need
to ask is whether I would like the job or not. If I am married, I will also
need to ask my wife if she wants to move with me, and if not, what it
would mean for our relationship to leave her in another country and
come home to her just once a month. These are the kind of choices that
are entirely entrusted to our freedom and that make our marriages work
out or fail.
In the journey of a common life, however, there will always be some
things that truly just happen, events that are completely unrelated to our
prior choices and for which we carry no responsibility at all. But even
here a married couple is not entirely at the mercy of fate. While by definition we cannot choose what merely happens, we can always choose
how to respond to it. As Spaemann writes, “Marriage is predicated on
the capacity of persons to create a structure for their life that is independent of unforeseen occurrences, delivering themselves from the control
of chance by deciding once and for all in advance how such occurrences
will be dealt with.”7271 Being married means that some options one would
otherwise have to react to a blow of fate are closed. However, no longer
having all the theoretical options open does not mean one is no longer
free. It just means that one’s range of options has become delimited.7372 But
one could not possibly have actualized all the options anyway. Here the
married person is not in a situation that is qualitatively different from
the general human predicament: the moment we walk through one
door, we close all the others. As Maurice Blondel convincingly points
out, “we do not go forward, we do not learn, we do not enrich ourselves
except by closing off for ourselves all roads but one and by impoverishing ourselves of all that we might have known or gained otherwise. . . .

71
72

Ibid., 228.
Cf. ibid., 227: “At every stage of one’s growth one is aware of the meaning it has for
the other and for the other’s growth. This is a very considerable restriction of our
room to manoeuvre, but it is not a restriction of our freedom. For we could not in any
case exhaust the whole range of possibilities. With every possibility we choose, we
cancel others. If we do not wish to pay that price, we can never grasp the possibilities
we have, and so never actually realize freedom” (original emphasis).

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I must commit myself under the pain of losing everything.”7473 Freedom
is given to be given, and only by being given is it actualized. By wanting
to keep all options open, we do not choose anything. But then soon
enough all the options we had or thought we had will close themselves
off just by themselves.
Life Promises in the Face of Death
The same holds true for the other kind of promises that are for life: religious vows or the promise of priestly celibacy. Here, too, people give
definitive shape to their lives, by closing off all other roads but one; here,
too, they have to deliberately cultivate their vocation, asking themselves
how their individual small choices and bigger projects will impact their
attitude toward their state of life. By making a life promise, whether it be
making a marital promise, taking religious vows or promising priestly
celibacy, we intend to dispose of our entire future, look at our life as a
whole and thus, as Mansini rightly points out, already anticipate death.7574
A culture in which people increasingly do not believe in eternal life
and tend to think of death as total annihilation, the thought of death can
only be frightening and paralyzing and will thus be avoided at all costs.
Said the other way around: If I am unable to face the thought of death,
then I will also be unable to look at my life as a whole and hence be unable to make a life promise.7675 I will be unable to promise “until death do
us part” and be much prone to see my life as a succession of unrelated
events without any inherent unity.
According to some authors, our present culture has fallen prey to a
“chronological atomism,” that is, “an understanding of life as composed

73

Maurice Blondel, Action (1893): Essay on a Critique of Life and a Science of Practice,
trans. Oliva Blanchette (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), 4.
74
Mansini, Promising and the Good, 76: “To promise something for life makes us contemplate death. When we marry, we contemplate the death of ourselves and our
spouses. Priestly or religious promising also has us look forward to death.”
75
Cf. ibid.: “If we are a people who cannot face death, as is commonly alleged, then we
must also be a people who cannot face promising for life. Now, the passing of Christianity makes it harder for us to keep death daily before our eyes, since we think of
it as personal annihilation. . . . If it really is true that I cannot look squarely at death,
however, then I cannot really make a life promise.”

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511

of interchangeable and essentially identical units of time.”776 Forgetting
that there is a life cycle may lead to bizarre situations. Thus at one point
Max Scheler recounts his strange encounter with an elderly man who
behaved as if he were eighteen years old.7877 His was a case of a clinically
attested mental illness. And yet many of our contemporaries live in an
analogous way without literally having a mental problem. Their difficulty rather lies in their tendency to see life like a random sum of disparate
parts, while instead life is more like a symphony, where each part, precisely in its difference from all the others, is related in a meaningful and
quasi-necessary way to the whole, making the whole beautiful.7978
Life Promises in a Vision of Fruitfulness
We would like to suggest that it is not only our contemporaries’ intolerance of the thought of death that accounts for their inability to promise
their lives. As Guy Mansini aptly puts it, “What is the same in marriage
vows, priestly celibacy, and religious chastity . . . is that they all bear on
the body and the sexuality of the body. Life promises, which look toward death, are dispositions of the procreative power that looks beyond
it.”8079 On the natural level, the response to our mortality is our fruitfulness,8180 and it is no accident that life promises, in which we regard our
lives as a whole, would dispose precisely of our capacity to be fruitful.
While death is the end of life in the one sense of “end” (i.e., when it’s
over), fruitfulness is the end of life in the other sense (i.e., what gives
76

The President’s Council on Bioethics, Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit
of Happiness (New York: Regan Books, 2003), 185.
77
Cf. Max Scheler, “Repentance and Rebirth,” in On the Eternal in Man (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2010), 45: “In a German lunatic asylum, some years ago, I
came across an old man of seventy who was experiencing his entire environment
on the plane of development reached in his nineteenth year. That doesn’t mean that
the man was still lost amid the actual objects making up his world when he was
a boy of eighteen, that he saw his home of those days, with its attendant people,
streets, towns, etc. No, he saw, heard and experienced nothing but what was going on
around him in the room, but he lived it all as the boy of eighteen he once was, with
all that boy’s individual and general impulses and ambitions, hopes and fears.”
78
Cf. President’s Council on Bioethics, Beyond Therapy, 185.
79
Mansini, Promising and the Good, 139.
80
Cf. Leon Kass, Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics
(San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002), 273: “Children and their education . . . are
life’s—and wisdom’s—answer to mortality.”

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meaning to it). It is not only if we shun the thought of death, but also if
we no longer perceive an aim or end to give meaning to our lives that we
will not be able to see our lives as a whole and to commit our entire lives
in a promise. In other words, to be able to promise our lives, we need
the sense of having a goal, a mission, a call to some kind of fruitfulness.
As Pope Francis beautifully puts it, “Promising love for ever is possible
when we perceive a plan bigger than our own ideas and undertakings,
a plan which sustains us and enables us to surrender our future entirely
to the one we love.”8281
The problem with contemporary culture that makes it so difficult
for people to promise is that essentially they have lost the idea of love’s
fruitfulness. Jesus tells his disciples what we are entitled to believe he
tells every human being: I “appointed you to go and bear fruit that will
remain” (Jn 15:16). Any composite reality derives its unity from its end
or aim. Life can have a unity only if it has a purpose, an end, or goal.
Jesus tells us that this purpose is fruitfulness, and prior to the modern
age his words would have been self-evident to any reader or listener.
There is more to life than just living. If there is nothing we desire more
than living, then soon enough we will begin to loathe living. There is
hardly anything that people desire more in their lives than a mission,
something to live and possibly to die for.
Until recently it was very clear to people that this noble striving was
naturally related to the family. Recognizing oneself as a son or daughter
one appreciates and accepts the original gift of life. Responding in gratitude to the gift of life that one has freely received, one becomes aware
of a calling to pass this life on in love: to become husband and wife who
together are called to become father and mother.8382 For most people it is
in the family that they begin to live for others, that they begin to respond
to their innate vocation to a common life lived in a love that is fruitful.
81
82

Francis, Encyclical Letter Lumen Fidei, June 29, 2013, §52.
Cf. Benedict XVI, Address to Participants in the Meeting Promoted by the Pontifical
John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, Friday, May 13, 2011: “It is
in the family that the human person discovers that he or she is not in a relationship
as an autonomous person, but as a child, spouse or parent, whose identity is founded
in being called to love, to receive from others and to give him or herself to others.”
Cf. also Livio Melina, Building a Culture of the Family: The Language of Love (Staten
Island, NY: Society of St. Paul–Alba House, 2011), 17–19.

A Promise to Keep: Which Bond, Whose Fidelity?

513

Love’s fruitfulness then confirms the marital bond and is itself a reason
for its indissolubility, inasmuch as the bond is oriented to being objectified in the common children, who for their deepest identity depend on
the permanence of the relationship from which they spring.
Also, for those who receive the call to continence for the sake of
the kingdom, this fundamental structure remains intact. They too are
called to fruitfulness. It is not only the pleasures of intercourse that they
renounce for the Kingdom. They also renounce their earthly fruitfulness: to have a family and to have children of their own. Jesus’s promise
to them is a superabundant recompense precisely for this renunciation;
theirs will be an abounding spiritual fruitfulness: “Amen, I say to you,
there is no one who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents
or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive an
overabundant return in this present age and eternal life in the age to
come” (Lk 18:29). It is thus the question of fruitfulness, and with this
the question of life’s meaningfulness, that is at stake when it comes to
life promises.
Conclusion
Let us briefly return to the question with which we have started. What
meaning could it have to think of the marital bond “as a kind of metaphysical hypostasis beside or over the personal love of the spouses”?8483 It
will have little sense if we understand the promise that brings about this
bond as a mere social convention (Hume) or as the expression of a will
to be faithful to oneself (Nietzsche). Inasmuch, however, as a promise is
essentially a pledge of fidelity to the other (Ricoeur, Marcel), it has the
capacity of radically transforming a relationship.
The marital promise is by its very terms an unconditional pledge
of fidelity. As such it turns a conditional relationship of friendship into
an unconditional relationship of kinship: two friends become family.
Without being something abstract floating in a Platonic heaven of ideas,
the bond is still more than the personal love of the spouses understood
in terms of their subjective feelings and affections. It is a particular kind
of relationship that needs to be understood in a way that is analogous
to other family relationships like fatherhood or motherhood. Whatever
83

Kasper, Gospel of the Family, 16.

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Stephan Kampowski

a man may happen to feel for his son, whether he loves him or disowns
him, he is still the father. Fatherhood is unconditional and independent
of the personal love a father feels for his son. The same holds for all other
family relationships. The bond between two people is their relationship,
and the relationship is more than the personal affection that two people
feel for each other; it is indeed an objective reality. There is a bond that
is created by descent, and there is a bond created by promises.
And of course this is all about personal love, but one, to be sure,
that is greater than mere sentiment. It is this personal love that is the
reason for the exchange of the promises; this love desires to commit
itself, to pledge itself for all days to come. In this sense, then, it is true:
the marital bond cannot be thought of apart from the spouses’ personal
love, inasmuch as the bond is the objectification of this love. It is a form,
a stability, an “institution” that love gives to itself. This stable, unconditional relationship is the fruit of a love that has committed itself, and we
can say that it is a relationship of love, quite independent of the spouses’
subsequent personal, subjective feelings of affection.
Finally, there is indeed and most certainly a way in which the marital bond is metaphysically hypostatized in a quite literal way, insofar
as this bond is ordered to fruitfulness in the flesh. We can say that the
common children are the objectification of the bond, its “hypostasis” or
metaphysical substance, just as we can call the children the incarnation
of their parents’ love. The marital promises create a particular bond that
institutes an objective relationship that is independent of the spouses’
subjective feelings and that is—precisely in its permanence—a relationN&V
ship of fruitful love.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 515-544

515

Profiles of Courage
Angela McKay Knobel
Catholic University of America
Washington, DC

ALTHOUGH AQUINAS CLEARLY ASSERTSthat there are in-

fused versions of the Aristotelian acquired virtues and that it is these
infused virtues which are virtues in the truest sense, he says little about
how the two different sets of virtues are related. Does the Christian, in
Aquinas’s view, somehow possess and cultivate both types of virtue? Or
does he believe that the acquired virtues are only relevant in the moral
life of the pagan, so that the only virtues that are significant in the Christian moral life are the infused virtues? Even after centuries of Thomist
scholarship, these questions and others like them remain the subject of
controversy.1 In my view, it is unlikely that such questions can be resolved solely by appeal to Aquinas’s general remarks about the virtues.
Aquinas simply says too little about how he envisions the relationship
between the infused and acquired virtues and uses language too vaguely
for these and other interpretive questions to be definitively resolved.
Given the ambiguity of Aquinas’s general treatment of the virtues,
one possible alternative is to seek some clarity in Aquinas’s detailed
1

For a summary of the different accounts of the relationship between the infused
and acquired virtues, see Angela Knobel, “Two Theories of Christian Virtue,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84, no. 4 (2010): 599–618; Marcus Christoph,
“Justice as an Infused Virtue in the Secunda Secundae and Its Implications for Understanding the Moral Life” (PhD diss., University of Fribourg, 2011); and Robert
Coerver, The Quality of Facility in the Moral Virtues (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1946).

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Angela McKay Knobel

discussions of the individual virtues in the secunda secundae. If it can
be shown that Aquinas devotes the majority of his account to discussions of the infused virtues and not to their acquired counterparts,
this will be evidence that Aquinas did not envision a significant role
for the cultivation of acquired virtues in the Christian moral life. On
the other hand, if it can be shown that significant portions of the secunda secundae are devoted to Christian’s cultivation of the acquired
virtues, this will be evidence for the opposite view. Although I have
argued elsewhere that there are significant indications that Aquinas’s
secunda secundae may be largely devoted to a discussion of the infused
moral virtues and not to their acquired counterparts,2 I also think that
the possibility of proving this decisively is small. While some aspects
of Aquinas’s secunda secundae do imply a preoccupation with infused
virtue, Aquinas’s language remains vague, and it is consequently difficult to determine whether his discussion of a given virtue is intended
to be a discussion of an infused virtue or of its acquired counterpart.
If my hypothesis is correct and these interpretive questions cannot
be definitively resolved, then contemporary scholars must approach
questions about the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues from a different angle. Instead of attempting to definitively prove
what Aquinas’s position was, they must instead ask whether one interpretation makes better sense of Aquinas’s fundamental philosophical
and theological commitments than another, and whether a proposed
interpretation makes sense in its own right: is a given account of the
relationship between the infused and acquired virtues philosophically
and theologically coherent?
In this article, using a recent debate over the proper interpretation
of Aquinas’s secunda secundae treatment of fortitude as a test case, I argue that Aquinas’s secunda secundae discussions of virtue in fact do little to definitively settle questions about his view of the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues. In her “Power Made Perfect in
Weakness,” Rebecca Konyndyk De Young argues that Aquinas’s secunda
secundae treatment of fortitude demonstrates an almost exclusive pre-

2

Angela McKay, “The Infused and Acquired Virtues in Aquinas’ Moral Philosophy”
(PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 2004).

Profiles of Courage

517

occupation with infused, rather than acquired courage.3 In De Young’s
view, then, Aquinas’s secunda secundae discussion of virtue supports
those who claim that all the Christian’s virtues are infused virtues. In his
“Aquinas on Battlefield Courage,” on the other hand, Gregory Reichberg
argues that Aquinas’s secunda secundae treatment of fortitude contains
descriptions of both infused courage and of Christian acquired courage.4
As such, he argues that it supports a more traditional interpretation of
Aquinas’s moral theory. I argue that neither interpretation is definitive,
for two reasons. First, both scholars base their interpretation of fortitude
on fundamentally different assumptions about how Aquinas’s more general distinction between infused and acquired virtue is to be understood.
Consequently, it is impossible—at least within the confines of Aquinas’s
treatment of fortitude alone—to adjudicate between the two views. Reichberg and De Young, therefore, should either focus on defending their
fundamental assumptions or make the case for their respective interpretations on the basis of features unique to Aquinas’s account of fortitude.
This, however, gives rise to a second problem. Although both scholars
argue that aspects unique to Aquinas’s account of fortitude support their
position, examination of the cited texts shows that they are simply inconclusive. The test case of fortitude, I argue, suggests that it may be more
productive to approach questions about the relationship between the
infused and acquired virtues from a different angle. Instead of attempting to determine what Aquinas’s position actually was, it may be more
productive to ask whether a given account (1) is able to accommodate
Aquinas’s fundamental philosophical and theological commitments and
whether (2) it makes sense in its own right.
3

Rebecca Konyndyk De Young, “Power Made Perfect in Weakness: Aquinas’s Transformation of the Virtue of Courage,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 11 (2003):
147–80. Although De Young does not explicitly characterize her argument in this
way, this is how Reichberg interprets it, and I think he is right to do so.
4
Gregory Reichberg, “Aquinas on Battlefield Courage,” The Thomist 74 (2010): 337–
68. This interpretation of Aquinas’s secunda secundae treatment of fortitude is not
unique to Reichberg. Lee Yearley and Craig Titus offer similar interpretations. See
Lee Yearley, “The Nature-Grace Question in the Context of Fortitude,” Thomist 35
(October 1971): 557–79; Craig Titus, Resilience and the Virtue of Fortitude (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006). Because Reichberg makes
the most explicit effort to tie his interpretation to the text, and because he directly
addresses De Young’s interpretation, I have chosen to focus on his argument.

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Angela McKay Knobel

This article has three parts. In the first, I explain briefly why Aquinas’s account of the relationship between the infused and acquired virtue has been and continues to be the subject of controversy. In the second part, using the recent debate over the proper interpretation of Aquinas’s secunda secundae fortitude as a test case, I argue that it is unlikely
that a definitive answer to this interpretive question can be found in his
detailed treatments of the individual virtues in the secunda secundae.
I conclude with some remarks about the ramifications that Aquinas’s
vagueness has for modern interpreters.
Relating the Virtues
Thomas Aquinas makes a clear distinction between the infused virtues,
which order man to supernatural beatitude, and the acquired virtues,
which order man to the good of the present life.5 Although Aquinas
makes this distinction in a number of texts, and although he also asserts a number of central differences between the infused and acquired
virtues,6 his view of the relationship between these two very different
sets of virtues remains unclear. Because Aquinas asserts that the infused
and acquired virtues order man to different ends, and because all those
in a state of grace are ordered to the end of supernatural beatitude, it
might initially seem that any virtuous act performed by an individual in
a state of grace is an act of infused virtue. However, while some scholars
do attribute such a position to Aquinas, others maintain that Aquinas
believes that those in a state of grace can and should cultivate both acquired and infused virtues.7 Neither account, however, is decisive. First,
the most common versions of each interpretation are not only problem5

See, for instance, Aquinas, Scriptum super sententiis (hereafter In Sent.) III, d. 33, q.
1, a. 2, qa. 3; Summa theologiae (hereafter ST) I-II, q. 63, aa. 3–4; and Quaestiones
disputatae de virtutibus in communis (hereafter De virtutibus) a. 10.
6
Aquinas argues that the infused and acquired virtues not only produce acts proportionate to different ends but also come to be and depart differently, seek a different
mean, and confer a different kind of facility in action. See, for instance, Aquinas, In
III Sent. d. 33, q. 1, a. 2, qa. 4; ST I-II, q. 63, a. 4; De virtutibus a. 10; and Quaestiones
dispuatatae de virtutibus cardinalibus (hereafter De virtutibus cardinalibus) a. 5.
7
For a fuller discussion of these positions and a list of scholars who ascribe to them,
see Angela Knobel, “Two Theories of Christian Virtue” and “Can the Infused and
Acquired Virtues Coexist in the Christian Moral Life?” American Philosophical
Quarterly 84 (2010): 599–618.

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519

atic in their own right but also fail to accommodate some of Aquinas’s
most central claims about the infused and acquired virtues.8 Second,
although scholars on both sides cite a number of different texts as evidence that Aquinas ascribed to a certain view of the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues, I have argued elsewhere that
these texts do not in fact establish the claims they ostensibly prove.9
Given the ambiguities of Aquinas’s general treatment of virtue, one
alternative is to seek some clarity about Aquinas’s view of the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues in the detailed descriptions of the individual virtues that he offers in his secunda secundae. If
one can establish that Aquinas is exclusively preoccupied with describing infused virtues and not their acquired counterparts, then this will be
significant evidence that Aquinas believed that the only virtues relevant
to the Christian moral life are infused virtues. On the other hand, if
one can show that Aquinas devotes a significant portion of this text to
a discussion of the Christian’s acquired virtues, this will be evidence for
the opposite view. Although a number of scholars believe that Aquinas’s
secunda secundae accounts of virtue are clearly devoted to one type of
virtue or the other, I argue in what follows that—at least in the case of
courage—Aquinas’s position is far from obvious.10
Two Accounts of Courage
In recent essays, Rebecca Konyndyk De Young and Gregory Reichberg
offer drastically different interpretations of Aquinas’s secunda secundae
account of courage. While De Young believes that Aquinas is almost
exclusively focused on infused courage in this text, Reichberg argues
that Aquinas is demonstrably concerned to describe both infused and
acquired courage. In this section, I examine the respective interpreta8

See Knobel, “Two Theories of Christian Virtue” and “Can the Infused and Acquired
Virtues Coexist?”
9
Angela McKay Knobel, “Relating Aquinas’s Infused and Acquired Virtues: Some
Problematic Texts for a Common Interpretation,” Nova et Vetera (English) 9 (2011):
411–31.
10
Reneé Mirkes, for instance, simply asserts that—with the exception of the questions
devoted to faith, hope, and love—Aquinas’s entire secunda secundae is devoted to
descriptions of acquired moral virtue. See Reneé Mirkes, “Aquinas’s Doctrine of
Moral Virtue and Its Significance for Theories of Facility,” The Thomist 61, no. 2
(1997): 189–218.

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Angela McKay Knobel

tions of Reichberg and De Young, and argue that Aquinas’s text does not
definitively support either interpretation, for two reasons. First, both
scholars rely heavily on assumptions that go beyond any claim explicitly
made by Aquinas. Second, Aquinas’s secunda secundae treatment of fortitude proves far less than either scholar claims.
Two Foundational Assumptions
Although Reichberg and De Young offer two different readings of Aquinas’s account of fortitude, only a small portion of their disagreement has
to do with the details of his secunda secundae account of fortitude itself.
To the contrary, as I show in what follows, each scholar makes a different
assumption about how Aquinas’s basic distinction between the infused
and acquired virtues is to be understood. These conflicting assumptions,
more than anything specific to Aquinas’s description of the virtue of
courage, are the real source of their disagreement. Because De Young
assumes that any virtue “ordered and directed” by charity is necessarily an infused virtue, she believes that Aquinas’s assertions about the
close connection between charity and courage are evidence of his preoccupation with infused courage. Reichberg, on the other hand, makes
a different assumption, namely, that one can perform acts compatible
with one’s order to supernatural beatitude that are nonetheless ordered
to a natural, rather than supernatural, end. On the basis of this latter
assumption, he sees accounts of both acquired and infused courage in
Aquinas’s secunda secundae account of fortitude. My aim in this section
is not to argue that either foundational assumption is correct, but to
show that it is these foundational assumptions, not anything specific to
Aquinas’s secunda secundae treatment of fortitude itself, that drive the
respective interpretations offered by De Young and Reichberg.
De Young’s Interpretation
In her “Power Made Perfect in Weakness: Aquinas’s Transformation of
the Virtue of Courage,” Rebecca Konyndyk De Young argues that Aquinas transforms Aristotelian acquired courage—a courage that finds its
highest expression on the battlefield—into an account of a thoroughly
Christian, infused courage, a courage that finds its highest expression in

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Christian martyrdom.11 Whether or not such a claim is controversial depends on the details of De Young’s argument. If De Young merely wishes
to remind her readers that Aquinas recognizes a form of courage—infused courage—that transcends Aristotelian acquired courage, and that
it is infused virtues that are at the core of Aquinas’s moral theory, then
her reminder, while welcome and beneficial, is not particularly controversial. Few scholars familiar with Aquinas’s account of virtue would
deny that Aquinas posits infused courage, and many would willingly
characterize the infused virtues as “transformations” of their acquired
counterparts.12 Similarly, it is unlikely that any scholar familiar with
Aquinas’s writings on the virtues would deny that the infused virtues
are both at the core of Aquinas’s moral theory and—in his view—the
only “true” virtues.13 De Young might, however, have a far more specific
and controversial thesis in mind. For instance, if De Young intends to
claim not merely that for Aquinas the truest and most complete virtue
is infused virtue but that Aquinas recognized no virtues that were not
infused virtues, then her claim will be a controversial one. Though I
think it unlikely that De Young would make such a claim, I argue in
what follows that she does seem committed to a more moderate but still
controversial assumption about how Aquinas’s understands the distinction between infused and acquired virtues, namely, that for Aquinas any
good act performed by an individual in a state of grace is necessarily an
act of infused virtue.14
De Young offers three main arguments in support of her claim that
Aquinas thoroughly transforms Aristotelian courage. Two of her argu11

De Young, “Power Made Perfect in Weakness,” 150.
Even scholars who take different positions on Aquinas’s view of the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues describe the infused virtues in this way. See,
for instance, Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans.
L. K. Shook (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 349; Romanus
Cessario, O.P., The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 108; and Eberhard Schockenhoff, “The Theological
Virtue of Charity,” in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Stephen Pope (Washington, DC:
Georgetown University Press, 2002), 251.
13
Aquinas explicitly says as much, arguing that infused virtue is the only virtue that is
virtue simpliciter perfectae. See, for instance, Aquinas, De virtutibus cardinalibus, a. 2.
14
This latter interpretation, unlike the former, can still accommodate a role for the
acquired virtues: it simply maintains that they are only relevant in the pagan moral
life. The former interpretation would deny them altogether.
12

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Angela McKay Knobel

ments—which focus on the privileged place Aquinas allots to endurance
and martyrdom—have specifically to do with the details of Aquinas’s
account of courage, and consequently I examine these in a later section.
De Young’s first argument, however, has to do with the connections that
Aquinas draws between courage and charity. Although Aquinas does
indeed draw close connections between charity and courage, the significance that De Young attaches to this connection reveals that her interpretation of Aquinas is based on an important assumption.
De Young argues that the close connection that Aquinas draws between courage and charity is indicative of the extent to which he transforms Aristotelian courage. She makes two comments that are particularly important for our purposes. First, De Young seems to imply that—
at least for Aquinas—there can be no courage apart from charity. De
Young rightly points out that Aquinas emphasizes the interconnectedness of courage and charity. One cannot, De Young argues, understand
Aquinas’s account of courage without understanding the role that charity plays in it: “Charity’s role as source, end, and commanding virtue is
essential for understanding the nature of courage. In a given action, the
two work together in this way: the cardinal virtue functions as the ‘eliciting’ virtue, and, as such, is responsible for the proximate motive and end
of the act. Charity, however, functions as the ‘commanding’ virtue, setting the ultimate motive and end of the action.”15 For De Young, then, it
is no accident that Aquinas begins the secunda secundae by treating the
virtues of faith, hope, and charity: it is charity that makes courage and
the other virtues what they are. Courage for Aquinas is not just about
standing firm in the face of danger; it is about standing firm in danger
for the appropriate reason, and the appropriate reason is supernatural
beatitude: “To see courage as merely requiring facing death stalwartly
would be to miss its main point . . . in its most perfect form, courage
points beyond itself both to charity as its source and to charity’s end as
its goal.”16 In support of this claim, De Young cites texts where Aquinas
points to faith and charity as the virtues courage is ordered to.17
While one could read the assertions above as a denial that there can
15

De Young, “Power Made Perfect in Weakness,” 151.
Ibid., 152.
17
Ibid.
16

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523

be any courage at all apart from charity, I would be hesitant to ascribe
such an interpretation to De Young. Although she does claim that charity is the source of courage, she does not say that charity is the source of
all courage, but instead that charity is the source of courage in its most
perfect form. It would be premature, therefore, to claim that De Young
thinks that Aquinas denies the very possibility of acquired courage. De
Young does, however, seem to make a different assumption, namely, that
any courageous act guided by charity is necessarily an act of infused
virtue. For De Young, the close connection between charity and courage
is evidence that Aquinas’s treatment of courage is a treatment of infused
courage and not a treatment of its acquired counterpart. Because courage is informed by and directed to charity, she argues, courage is necessarily an infused virtue. Indeed, De Young even goes so far as to claim
that Aquinas defines courage as an infused virtue from the very outset
of his discussion of courage: “From the beginning [Aquinas] defined
courage as being informed by and directed toward charity, as an infused
virtue.”18 In support of this claim, De Young cites the first article of question 124 of the secunda secundae, a question that—tellingly—has to do
with martyrdom, not with the general definition of courage.19
Even if it would be premature to claim that De Young’s Aquinas denies the very possibility of acquired virtue, she does seem to make an
important assumption about his view of the role of infused virtue in
the Christian life. As the previous quote reveals, De Young believes that
“being informed by and directed toward charity” and being “an infused
virtue” are interchangeable descriptions. Insofar as we can assert that a
virtue is informed by and directed toward charity, we can assert that it is
an infused virtue. While such a claim, if correct, certainly would seem to
imply that Aquinas’s entire secunda secundae account of courage is an account of infused virtue, it is also a claim that many scholars would resist.
At first glance, Aquinas’s more basic distinction between infused
and acquired virtue implies something like De Young’s account. Infused
and acquired virtues are distinguished by their end. Thus acts ordered
to supernatural beatitude are acts of infused virtue, while acts ordered
to man’s natural good are acts of acquired virtue. Because Aquinas says
18
19

Ibid., 178.
Ibid.

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Angela McKay Knobel

that courage is guided by charity, he must be speaking of courage that
is ordered to supernatural beatitude and hence of infused courage. If
this is how Aquinas intends his basic distinction between infused and
acquired courage to play out, then De Young is clearly correct: Aquinas’s entire discussion of courage is a discussion of infused courage.
This point, however, is by no means obvious. As we saw in the previous
section, many scholars well aware of Aquinas’s basic distinction would
deny that any act ordered to supernatural beatitude is necessarily an act
of infused virtue.
Thus, while De Young’s line of reasoning is clear, it will be convincing only to those who ascribe to her interpretation of Aquinas’s basic
distinction between infused and acquired virtue. While some scholars do share her interpretation, others would resist it. One can find
any number of scholars who insist that Aquinas believed the Christian
should cultivate acquired virtues and who would nonetheless agree that
the Christian’s acquired virtues are guided and informed by charity. For
such scholars, the close connection that Aquinas draws between charity
and courage will not be terribly significant, and it certainly will not be
evidence that he is exclusively preoccupied with infused courage.
Reichberg’s Interpretation
In his “Aquinas on Battlefield Courage,” Gregory Reichberg criticizes
what he calls the “substitution accounts” of fortitude offered by scholars
such as De Young: accounts, that is to say, that claim Aquinas’s “main
purpose in writing question 123 was to substitute the ancient Greco-Roman admiration for military heroism with a Christian focus on martyrdom.”20 Reichberg argues that it is mistaken to characterize Aquinas’s
secunda secundae account of fortitude—as De Young does—as “almost
exclusively” concerned with infused courage.21 Aquinas, Reichberg argues, does not simply substitute infused courage for acquired and martyrdom for glorious deaths on the battlefield but is instead attentive to
both infused and acquired courage and “to the various relations that
can exist between these two modalities—acquired and infused—of for20
21

Reichberg, “Aquinas on Battlefield Courage,” 337.
Ibid., 337–38, esp. n4.

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525

titude.”22 It is clear, then, that Reichberg wishes to argue that Aquinas
recognizes acquired fortitude and that he wishes to argue that acquired
fortitude plays an important role in Aquinas’s secunda secundae account
of courage. It is less clear, however, just what role Reichberg believes
Aquinas ascribes to acquired fortitude.
Given his general criticism of De Young, it seems to me that Reichberg could wish to advance one of two theses about the role Aquinas
envisioned for acquired fortitude. As we saw in the previous section,
De Young claims that any act guided and directed by charity is an act
of infused virtue. Consequently, the Christian’s courageous actions—
insofar as they are guided and directed by charity, are acts of infused
virtue. Under such an account, any good action the Christian performs
is an act of infused virtue. While a significant number of scholars find
such an interpretation compelling, this is by no means an uncontroversial claim, and it is by no means the traditional reading of Aquinas. As
I noted above, many scholars would argue that the Christian can and
should cultivate acquired virtues: that is to say, that he can perform acts
that are both compatible with his order to supernatural beatitude and
directed by charity but are nonetheless acts of acquired, not infused,
virtue. When Reichberg argues that Aquinas allots an important place
to acquired courage, then, he may mean to advance the thesis that:
1. Aquinas allots an important place to the cultivation of acquired
courage within the Christian moral life.
If this is Reichberg’s goal, then he will need to show that Aquinas’s secunda secundae account of fortitude indicates that the Christian ordered
to supernatural beatitude sometimes cultivates acquired courage and
sometimes cultivates infused courage.
As we also saw in the previous section, however, De Young also
might seem to advance an even stronger thesis, namely, that there cannot be courage—or indeed any virtue at all—apart from charity. Such a
claim, if true, would seem to mean that those apart from grace cannot
possess any virtue at all, let alone courage. It could be, then, that Reichberg merely wants to attack this lesser claim, and to show that:
22

Ibid., 338.

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Angela McKay Knobel

2. Aquinas posits a role for acquired virtue insofar as he recognizes
it as an important component of the pagan moral life, even though all
Christian courage is infused courage.
If this is all Reichberg wishes to establish, then he would agree with a
significant portion of De Young’s account, namely, her claim that that
every virtuous act the Christian performs is an act of infused virtue: he
would merely wish to insist that Aquinas believes that acquired virtue
is important in its own right—insofar as it is a component of the pagan
moral life—and that it should not be disregarded altogether. If so, his
task is a relatively simple one, but his criticism of De Young is considerably diminished. It is relatively easy to show that Aquinas recognizes
the importance of acquired virtue, and—as I noted in the previous section—it is unlikely that De Young meant to deny that Aquinas did not
even recognize the possibility of pagan acquired virtue. The more likely
and more charitable reading of her claim would understand it as an assertion that the forms of courage that really matter cannot exist apart
from charity. I also do not think, however, that Reichberg merely wishes
to advance thesis 2. As I argue in what follows, there is strong evidence
that Reichberg intends to advance thesis 1.
Reichberg’s stated aim is to show—against “substitution” accounts
that claim Aquinas is predominately preoccupied with infused fortitude—that Aquinas is attentive not just to the infused fortitude exhibited by the martyr, but also to the kind of fortitude exhibited by the
solider in battle, a fortitude that is the exemplar of acquired courage:
Despite Aquinas’s obvious interest in highlighting martyrdom
as the highest instantiation of fortitude, he does not discredit
the value of battlefield courage within the Christian life of virtue. On the contrary, he elaborates a two-stage theory in which
military heroism is put forward as the exemplar of acquired fortitude, while martyrdom is praised as the paradigm of infused
fortitude. Having embraced the principle “grace perfects nature,” Aquinas is attentive to the various relations that can exist
between these two modalities—acquired and infused—of fortitude. On the one hand, the heroism of soldiers provides him
with a natural basis for understanding the supernatural forti-

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527

tude of holy martyrs. On the other hand, he recognizes how infused fortitude can find expression in military deeds, such that
death on the battlefield will sometimes count as martyrdom.23
Reichberg, then, states that (1) he wishes to show that Aquinas believed
“battlefield” courage to be an important part of the Christian life of virtue and (2) the heroic acts that occur on the battlefield are the exemplar
of acquired courage. Instances of martyrdom can occur on the battlefield, as Reichberg acknowledges, and hence infused fortitude certainly
can “find expression in military deeds,” but such deaths are by implication the exception rather than the norm, let alone the paradigm of military courage.24 If battlefield courage comprises an important subset of
Christian courage, and if battlefield heroics are the paradigm of acquired
courage, then Reichberg would seem to be committed to the thesis that
Aquinas believed the Christian can and should cultivate acquired virtues, specifically acquired courage. The fact that one can perform acts of
infused courage on the battlefield is evidence that Aquinas is “attentive
to the various relations that can exist between these two modalities—acquired and infused—of fortitude,” but Reichberg hardly seems to think
that instances of bravery on the battlefield are typically instances of infused virtue. This implication is borne out by Reichberg’s explanation of
what has to occur in order for a soldier to perform an act of martyrdom.
As I show in what follows, under Reichberg’s interpretation acts of infused virtue can only occur in highly specific circumstances.
As Reichberg interprets Aquinas’s secunda secundae account of
courage, some but not all courageous acts performed on the battlefield
are acts of martyrdom. In response to the argument that faith must be
the sole reason for martyrdom, because otherwise we would celebrate
those who die in just wars as martyrs, Aquinas argues that a willingness
23
24

Ibid., 338.
One reason why Reichberg’s quote is ambiguous is that he does not sufficiently distinguish between infused courage and its paradigmatic act. If one can perform acts
of infused courage that are not acts of martyrdom (and I argue in what follows that
one certainly can), then it is possible that soldiers could exhibit infused courage even
when their acts do not meet the criteria of martyrdom. Reichberg, however, does not
make this distinction and seems to refer to every courageous act ordered to supernatural beatitude as an act of martyrdom. I discuss this point in more detail below.

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Angela McKay Knobel

to face death for the sake of any genuine good can be an instance of
martyrdom so long as the good question is referred to God.25 Although
this text would initially seem to support those who claim that any good
act performed by one ordered to supernatural beatitude is an act of infused virtue, Reichberg interprets it rather differently, arguing that other
texts found in the Scriptum Super Sententiis and in the tertia pars help
to clarify Aquinas’s meaning here. In these latter texts, Aquinas argues
that when an individual dies for the common good without relating his
death to Christ, he does not merit a martyr’s reward. When he does refer his death to Christ, he does merit a martyr’s reward.26 Aquinas also
offers an example of such deaths, contrasting one who merely seeks to
defend his country with one who seeks to defend his country from those
who would destroy the faith.27 Reichberg’s interpretation of this text is
crucial, for it is indicative of his more general understanding of the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues. When someone dies
for his country without explicitly referring his act to God, Reichberg
argues, his act will not count as an act of martyrdom. He will only have
performed an act of martyrdom when the reference to the divine good
is explicit:
Two different scenarios are entertained in this text. On the one
hand, someone can willingly die for his country . . . prescinding
from any ulterior ordination to the transcendent divine good.
This may well be a virtuous death—compatible with the faith
and charity—but it falls short of the special honor signified by
the ecclesial title “martyr,” since in this instance death is under25

ST II-II, q. 124, a. 5, ad. 3: “Quia tamen bonum humane potest effici divinum, ut
si referatur in Deum; potest esse quodcumque bonum humanum martyrii causa
secundum quod in Deum refertur.”
26
In IV Sent. d. 49, a. 5, a. 3, qa. 2, ad. 11: “Ad undecimum dicendum, quod etiam
bonum increatum excedit omne bonum creatum; unde quicumque finis creatus,
sive sit bonum commune, sive bonum privatum, non potest actui tantam bonitatem
praestare quantam finis increatus; cum scilicet aliquid propter Deum agitur: et ideo
cum quis propter bonum commune non relatum ad Christum mortem sustinet, aureolam non meretur; sed si hoc referatur ad Christum, aureolam merebitur, et martyr erit; utpote si rempublicam defendat ab hostium impugnatione qui fidem Christi
corrumpere moliuntur, et in tali defensione mortem sustineat.”
27
Ibid.

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529

gone for a temporal, not a transcendent end. On the other hand,
one’s country can bear reference to a transcendent end insofar
as the temporal common good includes the public practice of
religion . . . Should one die in the process, this death will count
as martyrdom.28
Thus even those who are ordered to supernatural beatitude and who
perform acts compatible with that order only perform acts that have
supernatural beatitude as their end under highly specific circumstances,
namely, when they do not “prescind” from it. When they do “prescind,”
then their good acts have the civic good, not supernatural beatitude, as
their end.29
Though Reichberg’s aim in the argument described above is to show
that the Christian’s death on the battlefield only counts as an instance of
martyrdom in certain highly specific circumstances, the argument he
offers actually amounts to an argument that the Christian’s death on the
battlefield only counts as an instance of infused virtue in certain highly
specific circumstances. Reichberg distinguishes acts of infused and acquired virtue according to the ends they are ordered to: acts of acquired
virtue have the civic good as their end, while acts of infused virtue have
the divine good as their end.30 It is the difference in end, moreover, that
leads Reichberg to argue that the soldier’s courageous actions are not
typically acts of martyrdom. He argues that the soldier’s courageous
acts are typically not acts of martyrdom because they are—in the typical
case—performed for the civic and not the divine good. Because Reichberg argues that these acts cannot be acts of martyrdom because they
have the end of acquired and not the end of infused virtue, it must be
his position that such acts are not acts of infused virtue at all. Such a
28

Reichberg, “Aquinas on Battlefield Courage,” 362–63.
The details of how this “prescinding” occurs are unclear. Reichberg’s examples seem to
imply that one only prescinds in highly specific situations, situations where the divine
good is somehow the explicit goal of the act, such as when one fights infidels or refuses
to offer a judgment that denies a truth of the faith. Such a position would not make
sense, however, as one can clearly fight infidels for purposes other than the divine
good, and one can clearly seek mundane goals with the divine good in mind. The most
charitable interpretation, then, would be to say that Reichberg believes that whether
one “prescinds” depends on the explicit intentions one has when one acts.
30
Reichberg, “Aquinas on Battlefield Courage,” 344, esp. n24.
29

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Angela McKay Knobel

claim is based on crucial assumption, however, an assumption that goes
far beyond anything in Aquinas’s secunda secundae account of fortitude.
While Aquinas does reiterate his basic distinction between infused
and acquired virtue, and while he does say that the infused act of martyrdom only occurs when one suffers death for the sake of the divine good,
he never makes claims that necessitate the account described above. One
can only interpret the texts above in the way that Reichberg does if one
brings additional assumptions about the relationship between infused
and acquired virtue to bear. In the texts examined thus far, Aquinas has
only distinguished infused and acquired courage according to the end
that each seeks and distinguished acts that are referred to supernatural
beatitude from those that are not. What he does assert does nothing to
conclusively demonstrate that he shares the position advocated by Reichberg and others, namely, that some of the Christian’s meritorious good
acts prescind from any order to supernatural beatitude, and he has certainly not said that when the Christian performs such acts he cultivates
acquired virtues. Those who wish to defend the opposite position could
easily argue that any good Christian act is necessarily “referred” to supernatural beatitude insofar as any good Christian act has supernatural beatitude as its ultimate end. To this point, then, Reichberg has not shown
that Aquinas’s account of fortitude provides evidence for his theory of
the relationship between infused and acquired virtue. He has merely read
Aquinas’s account of fortitude in a way that reflects his presuppositions.
If one is to show that Aquinas’s secunda secundae account of fortitude
provides concrete evidence for a given theory of the relationship between
the infused and acquired virtues, one must show that something specific
to the secunda secundae account itself sheds light on Aquinas’s view of
the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues.
Aquinas’s Secunda Secundae Account of Fortitude
In the preceding section I argued that Reichberg and De Young’s different interpretations of Aquinas’s secunda secundae treatment of fortitude
are partially derived from two different understandings of Aquinas’s
fundamental distinction between infused and acquired virtue. The important question for our purposes, however, is whether anything specific to Aquinas’s account of fortitude explicitly places him in one in-

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531

terpretive camp or the other. To put the point differently, is there something about Aquinas’s secunda secundae treatment of fortitude itself
that indicates that all Christian courage is infused courage—something
that would support De Young’s interpretation—or that the Christian
cultivates both infused and acquired courage—something that would
support Reichberg’s interpretation? Both Reichberg and De Young argue that such indications can be found. De Young argues that Aquinas’s
privileging of endurance and of martyrdom as the highest instantiation
of it is indicative of his focus on infused courage. Reichberg, on the other hand, argues that Aquinas explicitly contrasts the respective roles of
the Christian’s infused and acquired courage. In what follows I examine
both claims and argue that neither succeeds.
Endurance and Infused Courage
For De Young, the privileged place that Aquinas allots to endurance is
indicative of a significant departure from Aristotle. Under an Aristotelian account of courage, De Young argues, the paradigmatic activity
of courage is found in the sort of overt acts of aggression found on the
battlefield.31 The martyrdom upheld by Aquinas, however, is essentially
passive, a reaction to the aggression of others rather than an act of aggression in its own right.32 Indeed, De Young even goes so far as to speculate that Aquinas did not think it possible for one to perform an act of
aggression ordered to the divine good.33 If acquired courage is primarily
about aggression and infused courage primarily about endurance, and
if Aquinas describes a virtue that is primarily about endurance, then De
Young will have a compelling argument: Aquinas’s account of courage
certainly will seem to be an account of infused courage. In what follows,
however, I want to examine whether this actually is the case. I argue that
there is little evidence that Aquinas believes acquired virtue to be more
concerned with aggression than infused courage is, and little evidence
31

De Young, “Power Made Perfect in Weakness,” 159: “Throughout history, ideally
courageous acts were and are typically acts of military daring: the soldiers who receive medals are those who for example, went back into heavy fire . . . All of Aristotle’s examples of courage, both true and false, follow the military model of facing
death on the battlefield.”
32
Ibid., 160.
33
Ibid., 167, esp. n88.

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Angela McKay Knobel

that he believes infused courage has less to do with acts of aggression
than acquired courage does. To the contrary, Aquinas’s account implies
that any form of courage would involve the same degree of both. Aquinas certainly does privilege endurance, but there is every reason to think
it would receive the same primacy of place in both infused and acquired
forms of that virtue.
Aquinas claims that courage has two features, namely, endurance
and attack. He also claims that the principal act of courage is endurance.34
Aquinas explains that this is because courage—as Aristotle tells us—has
more to with suppressing fear than with controlling daring. Dangerous
situations are themselves a check on daring, but they increase fear, and
hence fear is more difficult to control than daring.35 Because attack has
to do with courage insofar as courage regulates daring and endurance
insofar as courage controls or suppresses fear, endurance has to do with
the more difficult aspect of courage. Thus courage’s main task has to
with suppressing fear, or standing one’s ground in the face of danger.36
It is important to note that nothing in this preliminary account of
the respective roles of endurance and attack indicates that the two operate independently of each other. Different aspects of the same situation
might require both the suppression of fear and the regulation of daring.
The soldier charging into open fire needs the virtues associated with
endurance every bit as much as he needs those associated with attack,
especially because Aquinas tells us that attack has to do with future evils
34

ST II-II, q. 123, a. 6: “Respondeo dicendum quod, sicut supra dictum est, et philosophus dicit, in III Ethic., fortitudo magis est circa timores reprimendos quam
circa audacias moderandas. Difficilius enim est timorem reprimere quam audaciam moderari, eo quod ipsum periculum, quod est obiectum audaciae et timoris, de
se confert aliquid ad repressionem audaciae, sed operatur ad augmentum timoris.
Aggredi autem pertinet ad fortitudinem secundum quod moderatur audaciam, sed
sustinere sequitur repressionem timoris. Et ideo principalior actus est fortitudinis
sustinere, idest immobiliter sistere in periculis, quam aggredi.”
35
Ibid. “Difficilius enim est timorem reprimere quam audaciam moderari, eo quod
ipsum periculum, quod est obiectum audaciae et timoris, de se confert aliquid ad
repressionem audaciae, sed operatur ad augmentum timoris. Aggredi autem pertinet ad fortitudinem secundum quod moderatur audaciam, sed sustinere sequitur
repressionem timoris. Et ideo principalior actus est fortitudinis sustinere, idest immobiliter sistere in periculis, quam aggredi.”
36
Ibid: “Et ideo principalior actus est fortitudinis sustinere, idest immobiliter sistere in
periculis, quam aggredi.”

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and endurance with present ones. Moreover, even in what we typically
consider overt acts of aggression, such as an army storming the ramparts, there is good reason to think that—according to Aquinas’s criterion—courage would still have more to do with endurance than with
attack. Courage has more to do with endurance than attack because daring is more easily controlled than fear. The very acts of aggression that
are paradigmatic of military courage are themselves evidence of this.
Those rushing into a hail of bullets need little help to keep their daring
in check. The bullets themselves provide the necessary check on daring. They likely need a great deal of help, however, to keep from being
overcome by fear; to endure present difficulties, which in this case occur
in the form of a rain of bullets. This is what endurance provides, and
it would seem as important on the battlefield as anywhere else. Thus,
although Aquinas privileges endurance over attack, there is thus far no
reason to take this as an indication of a preoccupation with acts of passivity rather than acts of aggression.
That endurance and attack both play essential roles in any form of
the virtue of courage is further apparent in Aquinas’s description of the
“parts” of courage. When Aquinas offers a description of a given virtue,
he typically offers a description of the virtue in general and then follows
that description with an account of the “parts” of the virtue in question.
The “parts” of a virtue can be subjective, integral, or potential. Aquinas
defines the different “parts” of virtue in his treatment of prudence, and
he consistently refers back to those definitions in his treatment of the
other cardinal virtues. A virtue’s integral parts are those virtues whose
combined acts give rise to the successful performance of that virtue. The
integral parts are to the virtue itself, says Aquinas, as the roof, walls, and
foundation are to a building.37 A virtue’s subjective parts are the different species of the virtue.38 A virtue’s potential parts, finally, are those
virtues not identical to the virtue in question, but closely allied to it in
some way.39 Aquinas appeals to these divisions in his treatment of the
37

ST II-II, q. 48, a. 1: “Tribus ergo modis possunt assignari partes alicui virtuti. Uno
modo, ad similitudinem partium integralium, ut scilicet illa dicantur esse partes virtutis alicuius quae necesse est concurrere ad perfectum actum virtutis illius.”
38
Ibid. “Partes autem subiectivae virtutis dicuntur species eius diversae.” Importantly,
Aquinas does not believe that courage has any subjective parts.
39
Ibid. “Partes autem potentiales alicuius virtutis dicuntur virtutes adiunctae quae

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Angela McKay Knobel

cardinal virtue of courage, and his discussion is general enough to be
applicable to either infused or acquired virtue.
While Aquinas argues that courage does not have any subjective
parts, he argues that it has both integral and potential parts. Courage
does not have any subjective parts, Aquinas claims, because—unlike
prudence—courage can have only one object. Thus, although there can
be specifically different kinds of prudence, there cannot be specifically
different kinds of courage.40 Courage does, however, have integral parts,
which Aquinas again defines as those virtues which coincide in the virtue of fortitude.41 Aquinas lists four integral parts of courage, two that
have to do with attack—confidence (or magnanimity) and daring—and
two that have to do with endurance—patience and perseverance. In
matters having to do with the danger of death, these four virtues are
integral parts of courage, and courage cannot exist without these virtues
any more than a house can exist without a foundation or a roof. In other
matters, however, they are potential parts of courage.
Aquinas’s claim that all four integral parts coincide in the courageous act is borne out still further in his more detailed account of each
part of courage. Magnificence strengthens the mind for the performance of some difficult task.42 When the “difficult task” involves mortal danger, then, magnificence will coincide with courage and hence be
an integral part of it. Magnificence only constitutes a separate virtue
when the “difficult task” in which one remains steadfast is something
ordinantur ad aliquos secundarios actus vel materias, quasi non habentes totam potentiam principalis virtutis.”
40
ST II-II, q. 128, a. 1: “Respondeo dicendum quod, sicut supra dictum est, alicuius
virtutis possunt esse triplices partes, scilicet subiectivae, integrales et potentiales.
Fortitudini autem, secundum quod est specialis virtus, non possunt assignari partes
subiectivae, eo quod non dividitur in multas virtutes specie differentes, quia est circa
materiam valde specialem.”
41
Ibid. “Assignantur autem ei partes quasi integrales, et potentiales, integrales quidem
secundum ea quae oportet concurrere ad actum fortitudinis; potentiales autem secundum quod ea quae fortitudo observat circa difficillima, scilicet circa pericula
mortis, aliquae aliae virtutes observant circa quasdam alias materias minus difficiles;
quae quidem virtutes adiunguntur fortitudini sicut secundariae principali.”
42
ST II-II, q. 129, a. 5: “Praecipue tamen hoc laudatur in virtutibus quae in aliquod
arduum tendunt, in quibus difficillimum est firmitatem servare. Et ideo quanto difficilius est in aliquo arduo firmiter se habere, tanto principalior est virtus quae circa
illud firmitatem praestat animo.”

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535

far easier, namely, the acquisition of goods.43 Depending on the task at
hand, then, magnificence will either be indistinguishable from courage
or a potential part of it. Magnanimity, similarly, is the virtue through
which one has the confidence to pursue some difficult good. If the good
is difficult insofar as it involves the danger of death, then courage and
magnanimity are indistinguishable. If the difficult good is something
else, however, magnanimity will be a virtue that is different from, albeit
importantly similar to, courage.44 Aquinas makes the same distinctions
with respect to patience and perseverance.45 In each case, he argues that
the part only constitutes a separate virtue in those cases which do not
involve mortal danger.
Aquinas’s account of the integral parts of courage is important for
our purposes, because it indicates that it would be mistaken to associate any form of courage exclusively with one part over another. Does
a soldier charging into enemy fire exhibit the virtues associated with
attack? He surely exhibits both the requisite confidence and the requisite
strength of mind, but there is every reason to maintain that he exhibits
patience and perseverance as well. It takes a great deal of perseverance
to keep from running in the opposite direction when bullets are flying
overhead, and if—as Aquinas claims—it is patience that allows one to
“endure hardship without dejection,” then there is good reason to think
he would exhibit patience as well. Nor is it clear that only those with
Christian preoccupations would think the soldier’s patience and perseverance more laudable than his ability to confidently take on a difficult
task. The doing is always more difficult than the imagining.
Aquinas’s account of courage thus implies that courage cannot exist
without the virtues associated with attack any more than it can exist
without the virtues associated with endurance. It is not the case that
some forms of the virtue of courage have to do exclusively with attack
43

Ibid. “Difficilius autem est firmiter se habere in periculis mortis, in quibus confirmat animum fortitudo, quam in maximis bonis sperandis vel adipiscendis, ad quae
confirmat animum magnanimitas, quia sicut homo maxime diligit vitam suam, ita
maxime refugit mortis pericula.”
44
Ibid. “Sic ergo patet quod magnanimitas convenit cum fortitudine inquantum confirmat animum circa aliquid arduum, deficit autem ab ea in hoc quod firmat animum in eo circa quod facilius est firmitatem servare. Unde magnanimitas ponitur
pars fortitudinis, quia adiungitur ei sicut secundaria principali.”
45
See ST II-II, q. 136, a. 4; q. 137, a. 2.

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Angela McKay Knobel

and others with endurance: any form of courage requires both attack
and endurance. Of these, courage has more to do with the virtues associated with endurance because they involve something more difficult:
the right regulation of one’s fears. There is no reason to think, though,
that infused courage has any more to do with the virtues associated
with endurance or any less to do with the virtues associated with attack
than acquired virtue does. An example can help to illustrate this point.
Thomas Moore’s martyrdom is widely acknowledged, and his martyrdom, at least according to both Reichberg and De Young, was an act of
infused courage. Yet if his martyrdom was an act of infused courage,
surely all the acts that led up to his martyrdom—his decision to accept
the post of Lord Chancellor, his decision to refuse the king’s demand for
an annulment, his continued defiance even when threatened by imprisonment and death—were acts of infused courage as well. They certainly
are under De Young’s account because they are acts of courage that are
guided by charity. They would be even under the more complicated division proposed by Reichberg, as they have to do with something specifically concerned with matters of the faith and because Moore’s defiance
was clearly motivated by his religious commitments. Yet although all of
these seem to have been acts of infused virtue, only some of them seem
to have more to do with endurance than attack. Some of these struggles
clearly had to do with patience and perseverance, the virtues associated
with endurance: Moore had to endure imprisonment and other indignities, and even, eventually, death. Moore’s biographers also depict other
important struggles equally central to Moore’s courage, however, which
seem to have more to do with the virtues associated with attack than
those associated with endurance. Peter Ackroyd, for instance, tells us
that Moore wrestled mightily with the question of whether or not it was
morally right for him to oppose his king, with the question of whether
his stance was one that it was moral to take.46 In spite of these doubts,
Moore eventually decided that his was morally required to oppose his
king, and he determined to do so even though he knew his opposition
might result in his death. These aspects of Moore’s struggle, I submit,
have more to do with attack than with endurance. The ability to recognize which battles one ought to engage in, for instance, is something
46

Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More (New York: Doubleday, 1998).

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537

associated with attack. Yet Moore had to exhibit this aspect of courage
in order to defy his king. Another important feature of courage, and one
that also has more to do with attack than with endurance, has to do with
the confidence one needs in order to engage in certain battles. These
abilities are surely as important for infused courage as they are for its
acquired counterparts, and they were certainly both necessary antecedents of Moore’s eventual martyrdom.
If the interpretation I offered above is correct, then the privileged
place that Aquinas allots to endurance and even to martyrdom need not
be taken as any indication of an exclusive focus on infused, rather than
acquired, courage. Courage is inextricably bound up with the virtues
having to do with both endurance and attack, and even if it has more
to do with the former than the latter, the latter remains as important
for the martyr as it is for the soldier. There is one text, however, which
might seem to call the account I have offered thus far into question. In
ST II-II, q. 124, a. 2, ad. 3, Aquinas appears to maintain that the martyr
exhibits only endurance. Because martyrdom is the paradigmatic act of
infused virtue and martyrdom—according to this text—only involves
endurance, one might conclude that infused virtue is exclusively concerned with endurance. Even Reichberg takes this possibility seriously.47
Reichberg, in fact, even goes so far as to claim—apparently on the basis
of this text—that Christ’s courage consisted only in endurance.48 In what
follows, however, I argue that such a conclusion is unwarranted.
ST II-II, q. 124, a. 2, ad 3
The second article of question 124 of the secunda secundae asks whether
martyrdom is an act of courage. The third objection notes that in any
virtuous act, it is the governing virtue that is principally praised. Because the martyr is praised for his endurance, martyrdom is an act of the
virtue of endurance and not an act of the virtue of courage.49 Aquinas
47

See De Young, “Power Made Perfect in Weakness,” and Reichberg, “Aquinas on Battlefield Courage,” 363.
48
Reichberg, “Aquinas on Battlefield Courage,” 351.
49
ST II-II, q. 124, a. 2, obj. 3: “Praeterea, Augustinus dicit, in quodam sermone de
sancto Cypriano, facile est martyrem celebrando venerari, magnum vero fidem eius
et patientiam imitari. Sed in unoquoque actu virtutis praecipue laudabilis redditur
virtus cuius est actus. Ergo martyrium magis est actus patientiae quam fortitudinis.”

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Angela McKay Knobel

responds by reasserting his initial claim: endurance is the more praiseworthy of the two acts that courage involves, and it is to endurance, not
to aggression, that martyrdom pertains. With this said, Aquinas also
praises the martyr’s patience. The patience of the martyr is praised along
with his courage, says Aquinas, because it ministers to the principle act
of martyrdom, which is endurance.50
While Aquinas certainly does tie martyrdom to endurance in the
above text, I see no reason to conclude that infused courage consists
only in endurance or that it is more concerned with endurance than its
acquired counterpart would be. Two points are noteworthy here. First,
Aquinas is responding to an objector who claims that martyrdom is an
act of endurance, not an act of courage. Because Aquinas is responding
to this position, and Aquinas insists in his response that martyrdom is
an act of courage and not simply an act of endurance, it is unlikely that
he means to affirm the objector’s central claim, let alone that he thinks
that all infused courage consists only in endurance. Second, however
we understand Aquinas’s remarks here, it seems that we must interpret
them in a manner that is compatible with Aquinas’s more foundational description of courage. As we saw above, in those foundational remarks, Aquinas claimed that the virtues associated with endurance and
attack—patience, perseverance, magnanimity and magnificence—were
potential parts of courage, related to it as the foundation and walls to a
house. This more foundational description implies that courage is never
identical with a single part, any more than a house is identical to one of
its walls. Certain aspects or instances of courage may have more to do
with one potential part than another, and certain of those parts may be
more central than others, but none of them are insignificant.
How, then, are we to interpret Aquinas’s reply? An important preliminary step, I think, is to distinguish between the act of infused virtue
more generally and the paradigmatic act of infused virtue. If courage
is about the pursuit of a difficult good, then it stands to reason that the
paradigmatic act of courage would consist in those acts that involve the
50

ST II-II, q. 124, a. 2, ad 3: “Ad tertium dicendum quod, sicut dictum est, principalior
actus fortitudinis est sustinere, ad quem pertinet martyrium; non autem ad secundarium actum eius, qui est aggredi. Et quia patientia deservit fortitudini ex parte actus
principalis qui est sustinere, inde est etiam quod concomitanter in martyribus patientia commendatur.”

Profiles of Courage

539

greatest difficulty and the greatest good. Such acts, by Aquinas’s own
account, will be those acts that require the greatest endurance and are
performed for the sake of the greatest good. But one can concede this
without negating the importance of daring and without maintaining
that daring is somehow a less important feature of infused courage than
of acquired courage. Even if martyrdom is the highest act of infused
courage, it need not be the case that every act of infused courage is an
act of martyrdom or even an act of endurance.
Evidence for this interpretation can be found in the fifth article of
Aquinas’s Quaestiones disputatae de virtutibus cardinalibus. In the context
of examining whether or not the acquired virtues remain in heaven, Aquinas considers whether and how one and the same virtue might give rise
to different acts. So long as the end the virtue pursues remains the same,
one and the same virtue will produce different actions in different circumstances.51 Thus, says Aquinas, fortitude produces one sort of action before
battle, another during, and still another afterward, yet the same virtue is
present throughout.52 Although Aquinas offers this example in the context
of explaining why the infused virtues remain in heaven and the acquired
do not, his example is relevant for present purposes insofar as it illustrates
why not every instance of infused courage need consist primarily in an act
of endurance. What sort of action a virtue produces will depend on the
situation. Sometimes—such as when one is contemplating whether or not
to engage in a dangerous course of action—the courageous act will consist
more of daring than anything else. Sometimes—such as when one has
already committed to a course of action—the courageous act will consist
in enduring the trails associated with it.
A Contrast between Infused and Acquired Courage?
If De Young sees an explicit focus on infused virtue in Aquinas’s secunda
51

Aquinas, De virtutibus cardinalibus, a. 4: “Ubi vero ultimum virtutis differt specie (si
tamen sub eadem serie motus continetur, ut scilicet ab uno perveniatur in aliud), est
quidem actus differens specie, sed virtus est eadem; sicut fortitudinis actus ad aliud
ultimum derivatur ante praelium, et ad aliud in ipso praelio, et ad aliud in triumpho:
unde alius specie actus est accedere ad bellum, et alius in praelio fortiter stare, et
alius iterum de adepta victoria gaudere; et eadem fortitudo est; sicut etiam eiusdem
potentiae actus est amare, desiderare et gaudere.”
52
Ibid.

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Angela McKay Knobel

secundae account of courage, Reichberg sees direct textual evidence of
an explicit contrast between the respective activities of infused and acquired courage. Although much of Reichberg’s interpretation of Aquinas’s
secunda secundae treatment of fortitude seems to hinge on his more basic
interpretation of Aquinas’s general distinction between infused and acquired virtue, he also points to a text where he believes Aquinas describes
the different roles of infused and acquired courage in the Christian moral
life. In ST II-II, q. 123, a. 8, in the context of addressing the question of
whether or not the brave man delights in his act, Aquinas draws a distinction between spiritual and physical pleasure. The eighth article of question 123 asks whether the brave man takes delight in his actions. Aquinas
responds by distinguishing the delight of the body—the delight that follows from physical contact—from the delight of the soul—the delight that
results from conscious awareness in the soul.53 Only the latter, Aquinas
argues, follows the exercise of virtue. When one endures hardships with
full awareness of what one is doing, one has a cause for delight in the
latter sense, and a cause for grief in both the latter and the former sense.
One has cause for delight, because one’s soul delights in the act of virtue
and its end.54 When one ponders the loss of life and bodily pain that the
act involves, however, one’s soul also has cause for grief.55 One likewise
experiences bodily grief insofar as one experiences physical pain. Extreme
physical pain, moreover, can cause it to be the case that one does not feel
(sentiri) the soul’s delight in the act of virtue. Aquinas notes one exception
to this latter claim: in some cases God’s grace so uplifts the soul to the
divine good in which it delights that it does not feel the physical pain that

53

ST II-II, q. 123, a. 8: “Respondeo dicendum quod sicut supra dictum est, cum de
passionibus ageretur, duplex est delectatio, una quidem corporalis, quae consequitur tactum corporalem; alia autem animalis, quae consequitur apprehensionem animae.”
54
Ibid. “Et haec proprie consequitur opera virtutum, quia in eis consideratur bonum
rationis. Principalis vero actus fortitudinis est sustinere aliqua tristia secundum apprehensionem animae, puta quod homo amittit corporalem vitam (quam virtuosus
amat, non solum inquantum est quoddam bonum naturale, sed etiam inquantum
est necessaria ad opera virtutum) et quae ad eam pertinent, et iterum sustinere aliqua dolorosa secundum tactum corporis, puta vulnera et flagella.”
55
Ibid. “Et ideo fortis ex una parte habet unde delectetur, scilicet secundum delectationem animalem, scilicet de ipso actu virtutis et de fine eius.”

Profiles of Courage

541

afflicts it.56 In support of this assertion, Aquinas offers the example of the
martyr Tiberius, who reportedly claimed that walking over burning coals
felt like walking on rose petals.57 In other cases, however, courage simply
ensures that physical pains do not overcome reason. Such individuals are
said to act virtuously insofar as they put the good of virtue before bodily
life. Conscious delight is not expected; it is enough that they are not overcome by sadness.58
Reichberg believes that the above text should be read as offering a
distinction between the respective acts of infused and acquired virtue.
Acquired courage can only overcome the spiritual sorrow that arises from
the performance of the courageous act. It does not overcome the physical
aspects of that sorrow. For Reichberg, this indicates that acquired courage
has more to do with helping one face death than with helping one endure
great physical pain: “On this basis, Aquinas concludes that the habit of
acquired fortitude is more effective in enabling a person to hold fast in the
face of death than in resisting acute bodily pain.”59 Because God’s grace
can enable one to delight even in the face of acute physical pain, on the
other hand, Reichberg believes that infused fortitude allows one to deal
more effectively with this latter sort of difficulty: “By contrast, infused fortitude is effective even in the latter respect, since ‘by a copious assistance
of God’s grace,’ enabling the martyr to ‘delight in divine things,’ the pleasure of virtue is reinforced to the point where it can overcome extreme
corporeal pain.”60 It is difficult to make the case, however, that the text
described above supports Reichberg’s interpretation.
Although Aquinas certainly does contrast the kind of delight that
56

Ibid. “Ex alia vero parte habet unde doleat, et animaliter, dum considerat amissionem propriae vitae, et corporaliter.”
57
Ibid. “Nisi forte propter superabundantem Dei gratiam, quae fortius elevat animam
ad divina, in quibus delectatur, quam a corporalibus poenis afficiatur; sicut beatus
Tiburtius, cum super carbones incensos nudis plantis incederet, dixit quod videbatur sibi super roseos flores ambulare.”
58
Ibid. “Facit tamen virtus fortitudinis ut ratio non absorbeatur a corporalibus doloribus. Tristitiam autem animalem superat delectatio virtutis, inquantum homo
praefert bonum virtutis corporali vitae et quibuscumque ad eam pertinentibus. Et
ideo philosophus dicit, in III Ethic., quod a forti non requiritur ut delectetur, quasi
delectationem sentiens, sed sufficit quod non tristetur.”
59
Reichberg, “Aquinas on Battlefield Courage,” 366.
60
Ibid.

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Angela McKay Knobel

God makes possible through his direct divine intervention with the
kind of delight made possible by the virtue of courage, there is no reason to think that Aquinas intends to draw a contrast between the kind
of delight that is present in the respective acts of infused and acquired
courage. In the first place, it is not at all clear that Aquinas intends to
contrast infused and acquired virtue in this text. If such a contrast is
intended, then the implication is that infused virtue diminishes or even
overcomes physical pain in a way that acquired virtue does not. However, Aquinas gives us no reason to think—either here or elsewhere—that
infused virtue in general lessens acute physical pain. To the contrary,
Aquinas is often at pains to stipulate that infused virtue does far less
than acquired virtue in this regard, at least with respect to contrary dispositions.61 More importantly, if infused virtue assists action by diminishing one’s experience of physical pain and if every act of martyrdom
is an act of infused virtue, this would seem to diminish the magnitude
of the martyr’s act. If Tiberius’s painless walk across the coals is a typical instance of action that stems from the infused virtue of martyrdom,
then martyrdom doesn’t seem so difficult after all, or else to always entail a miraculous incident of an extraordinary kind. But Aquinas clearly
distinguishes “gratuitous” or miraculous graces from sanctifying graces,
and infused virtues are clearly sanctifying graces, not miraculous ones.62
Because Aquinas makes no mention of infused and acquired virtue
in the above text, and the text itself is concerned with a question that
is in principle distinct from both infused and acquired virtue, it seems
more reasonable to interpret the example of Tiberius as an example of
divine intervention of a miraculous kind rather than as the typical activity of infused virtue.
Conclusion
If the arguments offered above are correct, neither De Young nor Reichberg offers definitive proof for their respective interpretations of Aqui61

The infused virtues, for instance, do not drive out one’s vicious desires in the way that
the acquired virtues do. To the contrary, previous vicious dispositions remain even
after the infusion of grace; Aquinas argues that those who have infused virtues have
the strength they need to resist such desires. See De virtutibus in communis, a. 10.
62
ST I-II, q. 111, a. 1, a. 5. My thanks to Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., for pointing
out these texts to me.

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543

nas’s account of fortitude. Although I am sympathetic with De Young’s
broader understanding of Aquinas, and although I have argued elsewhere that there are at least some more global indications that Aquinas
might understand fortitude in the way that De Young claims he does,63
I am inclined to think that the prospects for conclusively deciding the
issue—either on the basis of Aquinas’s more general distinction between
infused and acquired virtue or on the basis of the more detailed accounts
of virtue found in the secunda secundae are dim. Aquinas simply says
too little, and what little he does say is too general. It is entirely possible,
in fact, that Aquinas simply did not have a well worked out theory of
the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues. Where does
this leave us? The most productive method might be to take a different
approach altogether. Perhaps instead of trying to prove what Aquinas
thought, we should focus instead on the question of what a moral theory stands to gain or lose from the interpretations in question. Does one
interpretation make more sense than the other, either in its own right or
as an interpretation of Aquinas?
Although Aquinas says little about how the infused and acquired
virtues are related, there are some fundamental theses that any genuinely Thomistic account of the relationship between the infused and
acquired virtues must accommodate. Aquinas is clear, for instance,
that grace does not destroy nature but rather perfects it. Given this, it is
doubtful that he would ascribe to any theory of the relationship between
the infused and acquired virtues that either minimized the contribution
of nature on the one hand or created a sharp dualism between nature
and grace on the other. While theses such as these do not determine
in advance the position one must take on the respective roles of the
infused and acquired virtues, they do provide helpful guideposts that
any proposed theory must accommodate. Such a guidepost also poses
an important problem for the respective interpretations of fortitude offered by Reichberg and De Young. Reichberg, by overemphasizing the
natural virtues, seems to diminish the role of the infused virtues. The
63

See McKay, “Infused and Acquired Virtues.” With respect to fortitude in particular, I
argue that Aquinas’s discussion of the integral parts of fortitude appear to be discussions of infused rather than acquired virtue. If the virtues that coincide in any act of
fortitude are infused, then this would seem to imply that Aquinas believes fortitude
itself to be an infused virtue.

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Angela McKay Knobel

infused virtues become, on his account, something that are operative
only in highly specific situations, while the bulk of the Christian moral
life seems to consist in the activity of the acquired virtues. De Young,
on the other hand, overemphasizes not only the infused virtues, but the
distance between the respective activities of the infused and acquired
virtues. The natural virtues described by Aristotle, on her account, not
only become irrelevant, but are not even substantially analogous to the
infused virtues. While I am sympathetic to the view that the Christian’s
sole focus should be on infused virtue, I think it is likely that the parallels between the two types of virtue are closer than De Young implies.

N&V

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 545-583

545

The Vocation to Marriage and Related Observations
on Christian Discernment
Tobias Nathe
Athenaeum of Ohio
Cincinnati, OH

ONE MAY BE SURPRISED TO LEARNthat the term “vocation” as
the Magisterium of the Catholic Church has applied it to marriage is of
relatively recent origin. It was not until the mid-1960s, when the Council Fathers of Vatican II addressed the matter in three documents, that
the most common, permanent state of life was referred to as a vocation.1
Marriage had always been understood as a natural path to human flourishing but not a personal calling in its own right.2 Given the amount
of ink spilled on this vocation in the last fifty years, not to mention the
public lectures and online dating sites devoted to helping one find one’s
spouse, it is notable that the Magisterium has had little to say about a
1

See the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church Lumen Gentium (November 21, 1964) §35, Decree on the Apostolate of
the Laity Apostolicam Actuositatem (November 18, 1965) §2f, and Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes (December 7, 1965)
§47–49, 52.
2
That there is a “natural vocation to marriage,” as I have termed it, or the desire written in the human heart to unite with a person of the opposite sex in the bond of marriage, is not our lead consideration here, but rather the personal call in the Christian
dispensation to be espoused sacramentally. That being said, the natural vocation to
marriage will concern us here as well insofar as it countenances something of the
Christian vocation to love. See the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) §1603:
“The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they
came from the hand of the Creator.”

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Tobias Nathe

vocation to marriage.3 Certainly there is a vocation to holiness for those
3

There are five instances in John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation on the Role of the
Christian Family in the Modern World Familiaris Consortio (November 22, 1981)
where the former pope explicitly refers to a vocation to marriage: “The Church once
again feels the pressing need to proclaim the Gospel, that is the ‘good news,’ to all
people without exception, in particular to those who are called to marriage and are
preparing for it” §3; “the acceptance of purely civil marriage in contradiction to the
vocation of the baptized to ‘be married in the Lord’” §7; “[Engaged couples] come to
recognize and freely accept their vocation to follow Christ and to serve the Kingdom
of God in the married state” §51; “God, who called the couple to marriage, continues to call them in marriage” §51; “Also necessary, especially for Christians, is solid
spiritual and catechetical formation that will show that marriage is a true vocation
and mission, without excluding the possibility of the total gift of self to God in the
vocation to the priestly or religious life” §66. These texts are cited in David Crawford, Marriage and the Sequela Christi: A Study on Marriage as a State of Perfection
in Light of Henri de Lubac’s Theology of Nature and Grace (Rome: Lateran University
Press, 2004), 79. Aside from these references from the same exhortation, however,
the magisterial discourse on the subject is almost nonexistent. Interestingly, Ramon
Garcia de Haro asserts that Gaudium et Spes speaks of a “‘vocation to marriage,’ an
expression repeatedly adopted in the following numbers (49 to 52).” Marriage and
Family in the Documents of the Magisterium, trans. William E. May (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 1993), 216. In fact, the expression appears only once in Gaudium et
Spes and this in reference to Christian widows retaining their “call to marriage” (in
continuitate vocationis coniugalis), which refers to the vocation they had been in,
not necessarily what they had originally been called to (see §48). Another instance
of a putative magisterial call to marriage is recorded by John Paul II in his Apostolic
Letter to the Youth of the World on the Occasion of the International Youth Year
Delecti Amici (March 31, 1985) §10: “When Christ says ‘Follow me,’ his call can
mean: ‘I call you to still another love’; but very often it means: ‘Follow me,’ follow
me who am the Bridegroom of the Church who is my bride; come, you too become
the bridegroom of your bride, you too become the bride of your spouse. Both of
you become sharers in that mystery, that Sacrament, which the Letter to the Ephesians says is something great: great ‘in reference to Christ and the Church’” (cf. Eph
5:32). Notice that the marital vocation is not clearly regarded as a call to the state
of marriage in this letter, for the quotation implies that the bridegroom and bride
already have a bride and spouse, respectively. These matters being considered, Karol
Wojtyła’s personal writings and less authoritative allocutions as pope convey, as does
Familiaris Consortio, that he believed there to be a divine vocation to marriage. See
Karol Wojtyła’s, Love and Responsibility, 2nd ed., trans. H. T. Willetts (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 1993), 256; John Paul II’s General Audience on April 21, 1982; his
Homily (December 15, 1994); and, above all, his Address to the Members of the
Schönstatt Family Association (April 17, 1998), which I reference later in this essay.
See also John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body,
trans. Michael Waldstein (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1986, 2006), 190, 453
for additional references. Benedict XVI’s clearest statements on the matter appear
to come from his Message to the Youth of the World on the Occasion of the 22nd
World Youth Day (January 27, 2007): “Do not hesitate to respond generously to the

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547

seeking marriage and those already in the nuptial state, but the notion
that certain people are called to the state of Christian matrimony stands
in need of critical development.4 Does Jesus call certain people to marry,
just as he calls others to the priesthood and religious life?5 Yes, I want to
say, there is truly a specifically Christian vocation to marriage.
Relying heavily on the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar and St. John
Paul II, I would like to explore the vocation-to-marriage theme within
the framework of a developed understanding of the call of Christian
Lord’s call, for Christian matrimony is truly and wholly a vocation in the Church,”
and his Message on the Occasion of the 25th World Youth Day (March 28, 2010):
“I also invite those who feel called to marriage to embrace this vocation with faith,
working to lay a solid foundation for a love that is great, faithful and receptive to the
gift of life. This vocation is a treasure and grace for society and for the Church.” Pope
Francis contributes to the theme in the following manner: “What is matrimony? It
is a true and proper vocation, as are the priesthood and religious life. Two Christians
who marry have recognized in their history of love the call of the Lord, the vocation
of two, male and female, to become only one flesh, only one life. And the Sacrament
of Matrimony envelops this love with the grace of God. . . . The family is the vocation that God has written in man’s and woman’s nature, but there is another vocation that is complementary to marriage: the call to celibacy and to virginity for the
Kingdom of Heaven.” Francis’s Address to Young People in Assisi, October 7, 2013,
http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/francis-address-to-young-people-in-assisi. By this
last statement, is Francis suggesting that the marital vocation is simply natural and
common to all? This would not appear to be the case when considering his most
recent remarks on the matter: “Marriage responds to a specific vocation and must
be considered as a consecration (cf. Gaudium et spes, 48; Familiaris consortio, 56).”
General Audience on the Sacrament of Marriage, April 2, 2014, http://www.zenit.
org/en/articles/on-the-sacrament-of-marriage. Apart from these examples, however, there is a noticeable dearth in magisterial discourse on the subject. Among John
Paul II’s messages on the world day of prayer for vocations given each year from
1979 to 2005, only two mention marriage, and both in reference to the vocation
spouses are already in rather than to that which they might be called. Benedict XVI,
for his part, did not allude to marriage in his yearly messages concerning vocations,
while Francis has taken a general tack thus far, concentrating on the vocation to love
for all persons.
4
One of the few texts that examines this question in detail is Joseph Bolin’s Paths to
Love: The Discernment of Vocation According to the Teaching of Aquinas, Ignatius,
and Pope John Paul II (Seattle: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2008).
I am indebted to Bolin for many of the references given in this essay. See also Hans
Urs von Balthasar, The Christian State of Life, trans. Sr. Mary Francis McCarthy (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983), which will be cited amply herein.
5
Still others are called to profess the vows of consecrated life while remaining in the
world. See Pius XII’s Apostolic Constitution on Secular Institutes Provida Mater Ecclesia (February 2, 1947).

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discipleship. There are many points worth considering when discerning
how to better follow Jesus on the way of love, but perhaps those which
this essay addresses have not been sufficiently considered together. It is
my claim that none of the matters of vocational discernment presented here, including the formal primacy of consecration, the notion that
baptism represents a kind of betrothal stage for persons, and the call to
“come” to the evangelical counsels or “go” to marriage, can be adequately understood apart from the others. To see their integration and regard
them well is to have a better knowledge base not only for one’s personal
discernment, but also for all those one might influence, such as one’s
parish, one’s friends, or one’s children.
This essay is presented in two related parts: (1) the call of Christian discipleship and (2) the vocation to marriage. The first part, as one
might imagine, is considerably longer and more varied. Here I treat both
the spirit of the evangelical counsels and spousal love as integrating elements of all Christian vocations. I examine where these elements come
from in baptism, what they entail, and by implication what they mean
for discerning a particular state in life as one’s divine calling.6 It is my
hope that the contextual components of this first part will help to indicate my central thesis: Jesus does indeed invite persons in a particular,
specialized way to marry in the Church, not unlike he calls others to
some form of consecrated celibacy.
The Call of Christian Discipleship
A Truth of Baptism
Let us begin by examining an essential truth of baptism. In this foundational sacrament something happens to the very being of the initiate that transforms all that is natural and personal within him: he dies
to himself and rises again with new life in Christ (see Rom 6:3–11).7
6

An appendix at the end of this essay sketches various models for Christian discernment posed by von Balthasar, John Paul II, and me. It may be helpful to turn to it at
different junctures of the argument.
7
All Scripture references are taken from the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. “Having become a member of the Church, the person baptized belongs no
longer to himself, but to him who died and rose for us.” CCC §1269. For ease of use

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The new Christian has made a complete offering of himself by sharing
in Christ’s death and thereby becoming, in principle, completely disponible to whatever our Lord may desire of him. Simply by virtue of the
sacrament and its promises, Christian discipleship involves renouncing
the threefold concupiscence transmitted in original sin—the lust of the
flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (cf. 1 Jn 2:16)8—and with
it, I will argue, any prerogatives one might have in life, such as the right
to marry or remain single.9 For the Christian as Christian, as a follower
while still connoting the truth that we are all united in “man” (adam in Hebrew),
masculine pronouns will often be used in this essay to denote both sexes. The implications of baptism are of course the same for females.
8
This is not to say that concupiscence does not remain in the Christian, even in the
most holy of us, but only that baptism signifies a death to all inordinate desires. “We
know that our old self was crucified with him [in baptism] so that the sinful body
might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom 6:6; cf. Eph
4:22–24 et al). John Paul II indicates a most apt remedy for the threefold concupiscence in the profession of the evangelical counsels: “If, in accordance with Tradition,
the profession of the evangelical counsels is centered on the three points of chastity,
poverty and obedience, this usage seems to emphasize sufficiently clearly their importance as key elements and in a certain sense as a ‘summing up’ of the entire economy
of salvation. . . . ‘The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life’ are
present deep within man as the inheritance of original sin, as a result of which the
relationship with the world, created by God and given to man to be ruled by him
(cf. Gen 1:28), was disfigured in man’s heart in many ways. In the economy of the
Redemption the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience constitute
the most efficacious means for transforming in man’s heart this relationship with “the
world. . . . In the context of these words taken from the first letter of St. John, it is easy
to see the extreme importance of the three evangelical counsels in the whole economy of Redemption. For evangelical chastity helps us to transform in our interior life
everything that arises from the lust of the flesh; evangelical poverty, everything that is
born from the lust of the eyes; and evangelical obedience enables us wholly to reform
that which in the human heart proceeds from the pride of life.” Apostolic Exhortation
to Men and Women Religious on the Their Consecration in Light of the Mystery of
Redemption Redemptionis Donum (March 25, 1984) §9. Original emphases.
9
This interpretation aligns well with Peter J. Elliot’s remarks in What God Has
Joined . . . The Sacramentality of Marriage (New York: Alba House, 1990), 67: “The
baptized still enjoy the ‘natural right to marry,’ but their baptismal consent makes
their matrimonial consent the consent of Christ and his Church, an ecclesial consent—hence subject to the higher morality of the Kingdom and the archetype
for that new life of selfless agape, the ‘great mystery.’” Cf. Leo XIII, Encyclical on
Capital and Labor Rerum Novarum (May 15, 1891) §12, on the natural right to
marry. While one may not then wish to accede fully to the following claims of St.
Alphonsus Liguori, getting married when called to consecrated celibacy is surely
not a response of Christian discipleship. “To enter into any state of life the divine

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of Christ, all that one possesses and endeavors to do or become has been
laid at the feet of Jesus to be given back or not as a transformed element
of one’s personal mission. The quintessential model of Christian discipleship, the Blessed Virgin Mary, reminds us of this truth when responding to the Archangel Gabriel at the annunciation of the Lord: “Let
it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38) and also when mediating
the first miracle of Jesus: “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5).10 The call
of Christian discipleship in its root meaning involves entering into the
metaphysical reality of baptism in a moral way, in a way like Mary, so as
to be entirely ready to do whatever the Lord may ask.
The reader may object by claiming that baptism involves death to sin
(Rom 6:10–11), not death to one’s prerogatives. The natural inclination
to marry is a good thing! What kind of God would want his followers, all
of them, to die to a desire that he has written within us at creation? Some
immediate distinctions are necessary here. Death to one’s prerogatives
in life as a necessary step of Christian discipleship does not involve
death to the natural desire to commune with a person of the opposite
sex nor, indeed, “the natural vocation to marriage” so defined as the
only morally legitimate expression of this inclination. Rather baptism
involves renouncing one’s will as a preemptive disposition for doing the
Lord’s bidding in his time and in his way. Baptism is a complete immersion. It is a true crucifixion of the old self (Rom 6:6).11 If we have died
to our old ways, we should be ready to live according to Christ’s call in
whatever fashion he should choose. The Christian call given in baptism
is divine, but not for all that alienating to human nature. Human nature
becomes transformed by the grace of baptism, ready to be realized in
unexpected ways according to the divine call within. What happens to
the natural vocation to marriage then? As with the natural desire for sex,
it remains for all persons; but the prerogative to choose this path (or any
vocation is necessary. For without this, if it is not impossible, it is at least most
difficult to satisfy the obligations of that state and to be saved. . . . Our eternal salvation depends principally on the choice of our state.” Selva de materie predicabili,
Ch. 10, Opera di S. Alfonso Maria de Liguori, vol. 3 (Torino: Marietti, 1880), 78, as
cited in Bolin, Paths of Love, 54.
10
Similar statements of loving submission can be found throughout sacred Scripture.
11
In only nine brief verses on baptism, St. Paul mentions death, burial, or crucifixion
a total of fifteen times, clearly emphasizing the totality of the deed done. See Rom
6:3–11.

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551

path) precisely as one’s vocation in life has been de facto surrendered,
to be taken up again (or not) at the Lord’s bidding.12 In short, we have
become new creatures in Christ and are expected to act according to his
will (cf. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Eph 2:15, 4:14; Col 3:10).13
The Spirit of the Counsels
Another manner of expressing the radicalness of the call of discipleship
or, we could just as easily say, the radicalness of the call to love incumbent upon all Christians (see Jn 13:34–35, 15:12–17),14 is to indicate its
inextricable link to the spirit of consecrated life. It is in the evangelical
counsels—poverty, chastity, and obedience—as the Church’s tradition
has frequently conveyed, that one best responds to Christ’s summons
to “be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).15 This is
because living the counsels implies holding nothing back for oneself in
order to share more deeply in Christ’s own self-offering for others. It
means making a spiritual holocaust of all that might stand in the path
of accomplishing God’s will, in God’s time, and in God’s way. While the
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are determined, as Balthasar
tells us, by a “qualitative, special, differentiated call” to certain individu-

12

As I understand it, this is an ontological implication of baptism. If true, it remains
for the Christian to morally appropriate his vocation in life in accord with this grace.
The question here then is not whether Christians commonly surrender their prerogatives to God, but whether they should be encouraged to do so.
13
It is not as if one called to consecrated life has two vocations, a natural one to marriage and a supernatural one to the evangelical counsels. The natural vocation to
commune with a person of the opposite sex has been renounced by the celibate in its
common physical form as copulation, but not in its purified form as giving oneself
away in loving communion. Analogously, the person called to Christian marriage
does not possess two different calls to marriage, one divine and one human. The human vocation has been assumed into one Christian vocation through grace without
eradicating any of its natural eros.
14
Because everyone is meant to follow Christ, the call to love extends to all persons.
See John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio §11: “Love is . . . the fundamental and innate
vocation of every human being.”
15
Beginning with the following statement of Jesus himself—“If you would be perfect,
go, sell what you possess and give to the poor . . . and come, follow me” (Mt 19:21)—
Catholic theologians have often described the vowed life of poverty, chastity, and
obedience as “the state of perfection.” For a rather thorough summary of this teaching, see Wojtyła, Love and Responsibility, 258.

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als,16 clearly the spirit of the counsels is meant for everyone.17 Balthasar
makes the connection between the vocation of every Christian to the
“perfection of love”18 and the spirit of the counsels when he observes,19
“The ‘spirit’ of the evangelical counsels is quite simply the spirit of the
Church; the one who lives with the mind of the Church lives with the
mind of agape.”20
It is logical that the spirit of the counsels should permeate the
entire life of the Church, rising up from the roots; even when
Christians have possessions, determine themselves, marry, they
must do so in the spirit of self-renouncing love: they must possess as if they had no possessions, dispose as if only God were
disposing, be married as though they were not married (1 Cor
7:29–31).21

16

Balthasar, Christian State of Life, 148.
As John Paul II writes, “the call to perfection belongs to the very essence of the Christian vocation.” Redemptionis Donum, 4.
18
Balthasar, Christian State of Life, 9–10 et al. Cf. Lumen Gentium §39–40 and John
Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Consecrated Life and Its Mission
in the Church and the World Vita Consecrata (March 25, 1996) §30, inter alia.
19
Perhaps more than anyone in the history of the Church to date, Balthasar examines
the evangelical counsels as they pertain to the call to perfect love. For an exhaustive
list of his original works on the counsels, see The Laity and the Life of the Counsels:
The Church’s Mission in the World, trans. Brian McNeil, C.R.V., with D. C. Schindler
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 285–88.
20
Ibid., 201.
21
Ibid., 242. The Swiss priest is aided in his argument by the Gospel account of the
rich young man who comes to Jesus bearing the claim that he follows the commandments given during Moses’s time. Jesus says to him, “If you would be perfect,
go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven;
and come, follow me” (Mt 19:21). If this is what it means to be perfect, then love
requires the disponibility enlisted in the evangelical counsels. Such is why the state
of living the counsels is commonly referred to as “the state of perfection.” But if we
are all called to “be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48), then in
some way each of us is called to live the counsels as integral to the perfection of love.
For arguments to this effect, see in particular David S. Crawford’s work on the states
of life: “Christian Community and the States of Life: A Reflection on the Anthropological Significance of Virginity and Marriage,” Communio 29 (2002): 344; “Love,
Action, and Vows as ‘Inner Form’ of the Moral Life,” Communio 32 (2005): 295–312;
Marriage and the Sequela Christi; and “Of Spouses, the Real World, and the ‘Where’
of Christian Marriage,” Communio 33 (2006): 100–116.
17

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In his apostolic exhortation on the consecrated life, Vita Consecrata, John
Paul II affirms Balthasar’s understanding of the counsels in his own way:
In the Church’s tradition religious profession is considered to
be a special and fruitful deepening of the consecration received in
Baptism, inasmuch as it is the means by which the close union
with Christ already begun in Baptism develops in the gift of a
fuller, more explicit and authentic configuration to him through
the profession of the evangelical counsels. This further consecration, however, differs in a special way from baptismal consecration, of which it is not a necessary consequence. In fact, all
those reborn in Christ are called to live out, with the strength
which is the Spirit’s gift, the chastity appropriate to their state
of life, obedience to God and to the Church, and a reasonable
detachment from material possessions: for all are called to holiness, which consists in the perfection of love.22
In the initial point of departure for the Christian, the sacrament of baptism, the former pope finds both the spirit of the counsels, which are
advantageous for all persons because all are called to be holy, as well as
the basis for another consecration to take hold, that is, the state of the
counsels as such. This latter consecration requires its own specific call.
Both of these points, the universal efficacy of the spirit of the counsels and the personal call to the state of the counsels, are important to
understand for our analysis of the vocation to marriage because they
shed light on the “default position” for people discerning their calling
in life. Beginning with baptism, all Christians are called to imbibe the
spirit of the counsels to such a degree that they will be entirely ready to
do the Lord’s bidding and advance in the perfection of love, as Balthasar
and John Paul have conveyed. The first stage of vocational discernment
therefore involves living the spirit of consecrated life according to whatever familial, social, and professional path one finds oneself.23 If it is lived
22

John Paul II, Vita Consecrata §30. Original emphasis. Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical on
the Splendor of Truth Veritatis Splendor (August 6, 1993) §16–21.
23
On a still more individual level, the “path one finds oneself in” should also be a response to a call. Germain Grisez and Russell Shaw call this the “personal vocation”
as distinguishable from the vocation to Christian discipleship and the vocation to a

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well, it follows that one will be increasingly receptive to the guidance of
the Holy Spirit and, in turn, increasingly receptive to the possibility of
being led to a “further consecration,” the state of poverty, chastity, and
obedience. The possibility of being called to consecrated life, to “a fuller,
more explicit and authentic configuration” to Christ, logically implies
two additional directives: (1) not all Christians are called to this state
and (2) whatever path a person finds himself in will be informed by the
“fuller” state to the extent that it is lived as an authentic expression of the
basic Christian call.24
Spousal Love
Earlier in Vita Consecrata, John Paul describes the inclusion of the
counsels in the Christian way of life in a slightly different but equally
significant way: “the consecrated life is at the very heart of the Church as a
decisive element for her mission, because it ‘manifests the inner nature
of the Christian calling’ and the striving of the whole Church as Bride
toward union with her one Spouse.”25 Notice that John Paul resists the
idea of confining consecrated life to a personal discipline or work of
mortification, even though he does not deny this dimension. Instead, he
highlights the fact that the counsels are at the root of the call of Christian discipleship to spousal love. In a word, consecration is meant to be
lived for another. This manner of describing consecrated life within the
auspice of spousal love was proposed earlier by the pope in a message
he gave during his Wednesday audiences on the theology of the body:

state in life. Personal Vocation: God Calls Everyone by Name (Huntington, IN: Our
Sunday Visitor), 2003. A review of the book has been written by Nicholas C. LundMolfese in Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly 27 (2004), http://lundmolfese.
com/nicholas/texts/personalvocationreview.html. Cf. Nicholas C. Lund-Molfese,
“The Christian Duty of Discerning, Accepting and Faithfully Living a Personal Vocation,” American Journal of Jurisprudence 46 (2001), http://www.lundmolfese.com/
nicholas/texts/grisezonvocation.html.
24
“The profession of the evangelical counsels . . . appears as a sign which can and ought
to attract all the members of the Church to an effective and prompt fulfillment of
the duties of their Christian vocation.” Lumen Gentium §44. Such is the basis for the
formal primacy of consecrated life to be considered at the end of this first part.
25
John Paul II, Vita Consecrata §3. Original emphasis.

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Continence “for the kingdom of heaven” . . . has become in the
experience of the disciples and followers of Christ an act of
particular response to the love of the Divine Bridegroom, and
therefore acquired the meaning of an act of spousal love, that is,
of a spousal gift of self with the end of answering in a particular
way the Redeemer’s spousal love; a gift of self understood as a
renunciation, but realized above all out of love.26
Rather than vanquishing the natural desire (eros) to commune with
a person of the opposite sex, John Paul implies that baptism and the
spirit of the counsels it engenders serve as the foundation for remedying any disorders latent in eros by transforming them in Christian love
(agape).27 If he is correct, then persons discerning a particular state of
life are called to be completely ready to do whatever the Lord may ask
of them, live in a spirit of poverty, chastity, and obedience so as to remain united to Christ and deepen their own loving responsiveness to
the Spirit within, and give of themselves in a manner consistent with
“the Redeemer’s spousal love.”
What defines such spousal love?
The analogy of the love of spouses (or spousal love) seems to emphasize above all the aspect of God’s gift of himself to man who is
chosen “from ages” in Christ (literally, his gift of self to “Israel,” to
the “Church”); a gift that in its essential character, or as gift, total
(or, rather, “radical”) and irrevocable. . . . In this way the analogy
26

John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, 437. Original emphases. John Paul
II advances the theme of virginity’s inner ordination to spousal love throughout Vita
Consecrata, in Redemptionis Donum §11, and in his Apostolic Letter on the Dignity
and Vocation of Women Mulieris Dignitatem (August 15, 1988) §20–21, inter alia.
“One cannot correctly understand virginity—a woman’s consecration in virginity—
without referring to spousal love. It is through this kind of love that a person becomes a
gift for the other. Moreover, a man’s consecration in priestly celibacy or in the religious
state is to be understood analogously.” Mulieris Dignitatem §20. Original emphases.
27
This transformation of eros by agape does not abolish the former love, but rather orients it to its proper fulfillment within and under, so to speak, specifically Christian
love. See Benedict XVI, Encyclical on Christian Love Deus Caritas Est (December
25, 2005) §7–17.

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of spousal love indicates the “radical” character of grace: of the
whole order of created grace.28
By understanding spousal love as the complete giving of oneself over
to another in love and applicable to “the whole order of created grace,”
John Paul illustrates that whatever vocation the Christian is called to
will necessitate a “total . . . and irrevocable gift” of oneself. To love someone completely and forever is evidently what it means to live the perfection of love, the vocation proper to all persons.
Two Specific Ways to Realize the Vocation of Love
Granting that all persons are called, in the Christian dispensation, to
give of themselves in the manner noted above, are there any states of
life besides consecration that habituate this love? In perhaps his most
famous teaching on the states of life, John Paul testifies that
Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing
the vocation of the human person, in its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy. Either one is, in its own proper
form, an actuation of the truth of man, of his being “created in
the image of God.”29
The pope suggests that if one wishes to follow the call of Christian discipleship and live in the perfection of love, he has essentially two paths
to discern: sacramental marriage or consecrated celibacy. It is only in
the complete gift-of-self in spousal love to Christ directly, or to Christ
through one’s spouse, that one can become spent in the manner of love
made complete, as Christ to his Heavenly Father or Christ to the Church
(to extend the analogies), because only here do the ways themselves express one’s holding nothing back for oneself.30 The single life, on the other
28

John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, 501. Original emphases.
John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio §11; cf. §16: “Marriage and virginity or celibacy
are two ways of expressing and living the one mystery of the covenant of God with
His people.”
30
This is not to say, of course, that either marriage or celibacy relinquishes its direct object
of love, which for a married person is his or her spouse and for a consecrated celibate
is Jesus. Rather, consecrated and married persons each participate in the Redeemer’s
29

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hand, is “on the way” toward a full gift of self in either of the “two specific ways.”31 Of course, a single person who has yet to be incarnated in
his particular chosen state can be just as holy as another in marriage or
consecrated celibacy. The point here, however, is that the baptismal state
of single people is not per se characterized by the advanced spousal love
to which all Christians are called.32 The reason for this distinction is that
marriage and celibacy alone are recognizable for their exclusive and irrevocable love. By being covenanted to one’s spouse in the sacrament of
matrimony or by being vowed to direct union with Christ in holy virginity or celibacy,33 persons are elevated to states objectively characterized by
the special, communal love of God. While the single life of the baptized
shares in the same reality of the particular states, it cannot be said to meet
the characteristic marks of perfect love to the same degree.34
spousal love in different ways owing to the intelligibility of their respective states.
Balthasar avers: “No one would think of setting up, in addition to the married state
and the state of election, a separate third state [as destiny] for those men who remain
single in the world. Because of the multitude of human destinies, particularly after
the Fall and its consequences, there will, of course, always be destinies that cannot
be subsumed under the usual, more general, forms: There will be those who because
of some illness of soul or body are not suited for marriage and thus find themselves
compelled to live unmarried in the world; perhaps also those who want to remain
true to a love for another person that cannot be realized on this earth; or those who
belong in the state of election but for some exterior reason—such as the care of someone close to them—cannot enter it. But no teaching about the states of life can be
constructed on the basis of these exceptions, which, given the limitless variety and
contingencies of human destinies, cannot fail to exist.” Christian State of Life, 236–37.
32
That baptism already signifies one’s spousal love of Christ is not in dispute. As stated
in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The entire Christian life bears the mark of
the spousal love of Christ and the Church. Already Baptism, the entry into the People of God, is a nuptial mystery; it is so to speak the nuptial bath which precedes the
wedding feast, the Eucharist. Christian marriage in its turn becomes an efficacious
sign, the sacrament of the covenant of Christ and the Church. Since it signifies and
communicates grace, marriage between baptized persons is a true sacrament of the
New Covenant.” CCC §1617. But John Paul II is indicating that the universal call to
perfect love summons us to seek a still deeper intimation of spousal love in one of
the “two specific ways.”
33
Perhaps it is more apt to consider priests (and all other consecrated men) acting in
persona Christi and therefore espoused to the feminine Church rather than Christ.
See Eph 5:23–32 and Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Women Priests? A Marian Church in
a Fatherless and Motherless Culture,” Communio 22 (1995): 164–70.
34
Certainly this is a difficult teaching for many who have entered the twilight of their
lives without discerning a particular calling in life. More likely, such persons have
thought they were called to marriage or the consecrated life as John Paul has taught,
31

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We can furthermore see how the internal orders of virginity and
marriage are related ontologically insofar as the states proceed from the
sacrament of baptism and are inclusive of the spirit of the counsels and
spousal love, as noted above. This means that married persons can look
to the consecrated state as a model for the life of the counsels, and consecrated persons can regard the married state to better recognize their
own calling to spousal love.35 By delineating “two specific ways” to perfect love, John Paul is securing the notion that marriage and celibacy are
both structurally disposed to orient persons to total self-giving in view
of and in participation with “the Redeemer’s spousal love.”36
Balthasar would surely agree with this line of reasoning because he
thinks the new commandment of Christ to love as he has loved us
is the canon for every Christian love, including marital love
and fidelity. Indeed, it is only because Christ bestowed anew
from above upon the mystery of physical fecundity the infinitely deeper mystery of the spiritual fecundity of faith, hope and
but the means for living in one of these states has escaped them. Those in such a
(albeit painful) quandary might consider living a consecrated life in the world, that
is, making some combination of the public vows in their own habitat. The larger
point, however, is that the state and not the person of the baptized is lacking in the
perfection of love. Christians who, through no fault of their own, have not entered
a permanent state of life have committed no sin; they are surely capable of living
saintly lives by the grace of baptism.
35
“This is also the basis of a specific convergence between the virginity of the unmarried
woman and the motherhood of the married woman. This convergence moves not
only from motherhood towards virginity, as emphasized above; it also moves from
virginity towards marriage, the form of woman’s vocation in which she becomes a
mother by giving birth to her children. The starting point of this second analogy is
the meaning of marriage. A woman is ‘married’ either through the sacrament of marriage or spiritually through marriage to Christ. In both cases marriage signifies the
‘sincere gift of the person’ of the bride to the groom. In this way, one can say that the
profile of marriage is found spiritually in virginity. And does not physical motherhood also have to be a spiritual motherhood, in order to respond to the whole truth
about the human being who is a unity of body and spirit? Thus there exist many
reasons for discerning in these two different paths—the two different vocations of
women—a profound complementarity, and even a profound union within a person’s
being.” John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem §21. See ibid. §17–22. Cf. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio §16. David Crawford considers virginity and marriage “mutually
disclosing and interiorly related.” Marriage and the Sequela Christi, 296.
36
John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, 437.

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love and, with it, the spirit of poverty, chastity and obedience that
marriage can be raised within the Christian Church to the dignity of a sacrament. It can be so only by sharing in the spirit of
Christ on the Cross.37
The Swiss priest draws a compelling conclusion:
Hence Christian marriage cannot be understood if it is regarded primarily as a natural institution with a particular form of
natural love that was later “raised” by the sacrament in the state
of grace. It must be interpreted a priori from above, in terms
of the Christian act that established it as marriage—the act of
living Christian faith that always includes love and hope and in
which marriage vows are exchanged.38
Perhaps this last quotation will cause the reader some consternation.
Does not the Church’s definition of the sacrament of marriage as recorded in canon law and confirmed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church
depict marriage as a “covenant between baptized persons [which] has
been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament”?39 While
true, it is important to recognize the difference between this statement
and Balthasar’s depiction above. Balthasar is intimating that Christian
marriage, which is made possible only by the irrevocable consent of
baptized persons, is not reducible to the natural institution of marriage;
nor should it be considered this way. Because baptism raises persons to
divine Sonship by grace and faith, those contracting marriage within the
basic Christian state already live “from above,” upon the mountain of
the Lord as it were. While the sacrament of marriage “has been raised”
and, as such, is an elevated state, this does not mean that Christians
37

Balthasar, Christian State of Life, 244. Original emphasis.
Ibid., 229. The origin and purpose of Christian marriage is supernatural, he writes.
39
Emphasis added. “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered
toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this
covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity
of a sacrament.” Code of Canon Law (1983), can. 1055; CCC §1601; see also Leo
XIII, Encyclical on Christian Marriage Arcanum (February 10, 1880) §9 and Gaudium et Spes §48.
38

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consent to this sacrament from a place marked only by nature or by a
nature yet transformed by grace. The bond they are consenting to is an
elevated one firstly because it is formed by the consent of two Christians. Although the sacrament of matrimony brings an additional grace,
an additional elevation, to the individual state of baptized persons, this
added grace emboldens an already graced state, not a mere natural love.
To follow the metaphor, the sacrament of marriage does not raise two
persons from the wilderness to the Lord’s mountain;40 it raises two persons who are already upon the mountain, further up the ascent.41
Balthasar is here providing a critical insight for interpreting the difference Christ makes in vocational discernment. It is imperative to see
that the natural yearning for marriage as pronounced at the dawn of creation: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen 1:28; cf. Gen 2:24)
is not a sufficient criterion for discerning a state of life in the Christian
dispensation. As St. Augustine of Hippo recognized, the command to “Be
fruitful and multiply” was also given to the fish and birds (Gen 1:22), and
presumably all other animals without the cognitive faculty, which is to
say the command corresponds in the most literal sense to an inclination
inscribed in the nature of living things to propagate their own species.42
This desire in its most basic sense remains even for those in consecrated
life and those in heaven.43 In fact, it cannot be separated from one’s humanity any more than the natural desire to safeguard one’s life or eat or
sleep. The natural vocation to marriage, because it pertains to everyone,
cannot therefore be the deciding factor in discerning a specifically Christian vocation in life. We must consider instead how baptized persons
should discern their vocation from their elevated state, from their state
of Marian disponibility informed by the spirit of the evangelical counsels
and oriented to the complete and forever giving (and receiving) of “the
40

This is what baptism does.
“The baptized man and woman who enter Marriage are agents of Christ, already
raised to the supernatural order and empowered to act for a supernatural end.” Elliot, What God Has Joined, 66.
42
St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, vol. 1, trans. John Hammond Taylor,
S.J. (New York: Newman Press, 1982), 89. On the natural inclinations, see St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (ST) I-II, q. 94, a. 2.
43
Especially in heaven, the natural desire for sex is completely transformed by agape.
Even still, the desire is reordered, not obliterated.
41

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561

Redeemer’s spousal love.”44 While the natural vocation to marriage has
not been nullified by the basic Christian call to love as Christ has loved
us (Jn 13:34; Eph 5:2), nor does it exist apart from or in opposition to this
call on a kind of parallel track. The natural vocation to marriage, properly
understood, is either assumed into the call of Christian matrimony or
reordered to spiritual communion in the call to consecrated celibacy. In
neither case, after one dies to self in baptism and becomes willing to let
Jesus make demands on one’s life, does the natural vocation to marriage
have “pride of place” in Christian discernment.
Baptism as an Analogue of Betrothal45
How then might we better identify this basic Christian state of discernment relative to the “two specific ways”? In light of our observations
thus far on the call of Christian discipleship taking shape in either the
sacrament of matrimony or consecrated celibacy, both of which assimilate the spirit of the counsels and spousal love in different ways, it is evident that the baptized state of single people is a kind of betrothal stage
for such persons. It is a form of betrothal insofar as it comprises a waiting period marked by continence, and poverty and obedience at least
spiritually, while also being ordered to spousal love. As such, the basic
Christian state of life includes the spirit of both “specific ways” in itself,
while not being either state materially. Consecration and the sacrament
of marriage proceed from this “already-not yet” state as from a third way
that is formally inclusive of them. Of course this third way is not a destiny

44

While the full exposition of this consideration will take the better part of this essay, at this point the reader should have a sense of the different form discernment
takes for one who has given his life over to Christ as distinct from one who relies
simply on his natural resources. For the Christian as Christian, Marian disponibility—recognizable in the vowed life of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and oriented
to the complete and forever giving (and receiving) of spousal love—is the determinative attitude of vocational discernment.
45
By proposing baptism as an analogue of betrothal or a kind of betrothal, I do not
mean to suggest that the fundamental sacrament of grace bears all of the characteristic marks of ancient Israelite betrothal or an engagement period today. Rather, I am
suggesting that the logic that is inclusive of the ethea of consecration and spousal
love is consistent in all kinds of betrothal, the state of the baptized single person
being one such instance.

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in itself; it is a state of initiation and preparation, not completion.46 It is
also not a path to which some persons are called and others not. It is not
a “qualitative, special, differentiated call” as Balthasar identifies the consecrated life. Rather, all persons are called to baptism—the fundamental
state of disponible, ready love.
Identifying the baptismal state as a kind of betrothal to God and
others in him is fitting also in light of Mary and Joseph’s marriage, which
is characterized not only by spousal love, but also by poverty and chastity, and even obedience in the specific sense considering their responses
to God’s messengers (see Lk 1:35–38; Mt 1:20–24, 2:13–14). Mary was in
fact betrothed when she conceived the Son of God (Mt 1:18; Lk 1:27).47
Because the Holy Family represents the “icon and model of every human family,”48 Mary and Joseph’s chaste yet fruitful love is programmatic
in some sense for all people.49 Again, their state was one of marriage and
family life, but it was also inclusive of the evangelical counsels in such a
way as to enfold both “specific ways” in itself.50 Their relationship thus
46

The claim here (at least initially) is rather academic—the way or state itself of baptism-betrothal is not a state of completion. Pastorally and in practice, many find it
difficult to enter either of the specific ways of perfection for one reason or another.
My argument does not dispute this reality. It does, however, give evidence to the fact
that the universal call to perfect love entails the sincere attempt to give oneself over
in love totally and forever, meaning that a person in the so-called “betrothal period”
of Christian discipleship should be on the lookout for a way to consecrate him or
herself to the Lord, directly in celibacy or indirectly in Christian marriage.
47
It should be noted that betrothal (‘araś) in ancient Israel was the first stage of marriage, not simply a promise to marry. Contractually, Mary and Joseph’s betrothal included all of the elements of marriage save for cohabitation-consummation.
See the Jewish Encyclopedia Website, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3229-betrothal, with relevant citations. Cf. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its
Life and Institutions (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), 32–34.
48
John Paul II, Letter to Families Gratissimam Sane (February 2, 1994) §23.
49
Marc Cardinal Ouellet is convinced that Mary and Joseph’s relationship “lacked none
of the requisites for a true marriage.” Citing St. Augustine of Hippo, he writes, “In
these parents of Christ all of the goods of marriage were realized: offspring (proles),
faithfulness (fides) and the bond (sacramentum).” Augustine, De nuptiis et concupiscentia I.13.11 in PL 44.421, as cited in Ouellet, Divine Likeness: Toward a Trinitarian
Anthropology of the Family (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 118.
50
“This mutual spousal love, to be completely ‘fairest love,’ requires that [Joseph]
should take Mary and her Son into his own house in Nazareth. Joseph obeys the
divine message and does all that he had been commanded (cf. Mt 1:24). And so,
thanks also to Joseph, the mystery of the Incarnation and, together with it, the mystery of the Holy Family, come to be profoundly inscribed in the spousal love of husband

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appears as analogous to the betrothal form of baptism; in fact, their relationship bears divine fruit precisely when it is identified as betrothal.51
Of course, Mary and Joseph’s marriage was not a waiting period, like the
baptismal state, for another more particular state, but the fact that their
relationship was neither typical of marriage nor celibacy in the Christian dispensation and yet was inclusive of both of these paths suggests
they lived their life in an analogous form of betrothal.52
The evidence for the basic Christian state as a form of betrothal receives another commendation in view of heaven where an analogous
instance of the triune logic of consecration-betrothal-marriage is apparent. In heaven, persons “neither marry nor are given in marriage”
(Mk 12:25), nor are they poor or subject to a religious superior. This
does not mean that the spirit of poverty and obedience, as marks of the
perfection of love, are not manifested in God’s immediate presence in
exemplary fashion. That is just the point though—neither spousal love
and wife and, in an indirect way, in the genealogy of every human family. What Saint
Paul will call the ‘great mystery’ found its most lofty expression in the Holy Family.
Thus the family truly takes its place at the very heart of the New Covenant.” John Paul
II, Gratissimam Sane §20. Original emphases.
51
While I have identified a so-called “third state” in the Christian dispensation, like
Balthasar, I do not think we should confuse this state with one of the specific ways
Christians are called to as destiny, because the perfection of love to which all are
called is characterized by the complete and irrevocable marks of spousal love. “Care
must be exercised that these borderline forms [of potentially belonging to the state
of election or marriage for reasons beyond one’s control or prudential means] . . . do
not lead to the belief that a kind of ‘third state’ between the married state and the state
of election is normal and even to be striven for. If such a ‘third state’ were actually
recognized as valid, it would seriously endanger the Christian radicalism of both the
Christian married state and the Christian state of election.” Balthasar, Christian State
of Life, 237–38. Original emphasis.
52
To anticipate a possible response—“But they were married!”—I reply: “But they were
consecrated celibates!” Both are true—which is why we can recognize the betrothal
quality of their state. Betrothal must not be placed in opposition to marriage or celibacy, but rather seen as a form of life integral to both. On the “small t” tradition that
Joseph and Mary were consecrated to the Lord prior to their betrothal and marriage,
see such works as Ronald F. Hock, The Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas (Salem,
OR: Polebridge Press, 1996), in particular the Gospel of James (A.D. 120), Maraia
Cecilia Baij, O.S.B., The Life of St. Joseph, trans. Hubert J. Mark (No city given: Mr.
Hubert Joseph Mark, 1996), and Maria Valtorta, The Poem of the Man-God, vol. 1,
trans. Nicandro Piccozi (Isola del Liri Frosinone, Italy: Centro Editorale Valtortiano,
1986). As something of an aficionado of narrative private revelation, I can testify that
I have not encountered the contrary position.

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nor consecration is lived in the eschaton as we know it, and yet they are
surely present and endemic to the lives of the saints. Even the religious
vow of chastity would seem to be present yet different in heaven insofar as the spousal relationship with Christ, which specifies it would be
opened up in the best possible manner to include his mystical body.53
Because we are not then speaking of marriage or consecration in heaven
in the fashion lived now, but rather a state that includes the ethos of
both, it may be helpful to consider eternal betrothal as an expression of
the heavenly state. Something of this is captured by the prophet Hosea
when writing of God’s relationship with his people: “And I will betroth
you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord (Hos 2:19–20).”54
It would of course be presumptuous and eisegetical to draw from
this passage the conclusion that the saints must therefore be betrothed
to Christ and others in heaven, and yet, in light of the fact that the
saints are no longer bound in matrimony or religious life, it certainly seems credible to postulate (eternal) betrothal as an apt analogue of
their state. This explanation also seems fitting in view of baptism and
the relationship between Mary and Joseph, as previously described. In
each case—the basic Christian state, the exemplary Christian state, and
the eschatological Christian state—the formal interrelation of celibacy
and marriage is apparent in a third way typical of betrothal. Indeed, if
the triune logic of consecration, betrothal, and marriage is apparent in
even one of the states just noted, must it not also hold for all three states
considering the inalterable character of human nature?
In point of fact, the analogue of betrothal as a third state inclusive
of consecration and marriage is descriptive also of the prelapsarian relationship of Adam and Eve, which suggests it is naturally archetypical. Adam and Eve were married in the Garden of Eden, as expressed
53

“Spousal love—with its maternal potential hidden in the heart of the woman as a
virginal bride—when joined to Christ, the Redeemer of each and every person, is
also predisposed to being open to each and every person.” John Paul II, Mulieris
Dignitatem §21.
54
See also St. Paul’s depiction of the relationship of the Corinthians to Jesus: “I feel a
divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride
to her one husband” (2 Cor 11:2).

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in Adam’s nuptial soliloquy and the preceding command to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28, 2:23–24). This has been confirmed by the
Magisterium.55 Balthasar is also of this position.56 Still, as many Fathers
of the Church argued, our first parent’s relationship in “Paradise,” was
marked by virginal detachment, perhaps even lacking consummation.57
Balthasar surmises this position:
Since man’s disposition in this [original] state was one of perfect
obedience, perfect virginity and perfect poverty, we may conclude that, as an inner disposition, the three counsels express
the highest perfection of love to which man can attain by grace.
But since, in man’s original state, God had not yet expressed a
preference for one of the various states of life, the inner disposition that finds expression in the vows was identical with their
outer fulfillment.58
Adam and Eve, before the fall, were evidently both fecund and virginal,
in one manner or another; hence their state was uniquely inclusive of
spousal love and consecration, as is betrothal.
To summarize, in the basic Christian call of discipleship, which begins by the infusion of grace and faith in baptism, persons are called to
the ready and available love of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is a love that
simultaneously incorporates the spirit of the evangelical counsels and
spousal love without being either consecrated life or marriage in the conventional sense. In fact, because there are only “two specific ways,” that is,
two states that of themselves embody the complete and forever qualities
of the perfection of love to which all persons are called, the baptismal state
of single persons is best understood as a period of waiting like betrothal. This
analogous betrothal period, I have argued, and not the natural desire or
55

See Council of Trent, Session XXIV, Doctrine Concerning the Sacrament of Matrimony (November 11, 1563) §969, Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum §12, and Pius XI,
Encyclical on Christian Marriage Casti Connubii (December 31, 1930) §8.
56
See Balthasar, Christian State of Life, 93.
57
See ibid., 83–129. To mention this latter interpretation is not to confirm it. John
Paul II, for his part, speaks of the “man’s original virginal value” while describing
the rediscovery of the mystery of creation in the conjugal act. John Paul II, Man and
Woman He Created Them, 167.
58
Ibid., 121.

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right to marry, is the “default position” for Christian vocational discernment.59 It should be evident that this waiting stage is not bereft of intelligibility in such fashion as to leave those discerning in a state of bewilderment (what do I do now?), as clearly it is meant to be lived with poverty,
chastity, and obedience for others, that is, according to “the Redeemer’s
spousal love.” Still, at least one further consideration is in order before we
examine directly the vocation to sacramental marriage.
The Formal Primacy of Consecration
As was mentioned when discussing how living perfect love requires living the spirit of the evangelical counsels, the consecrated life has traditionally been understood as the Christian “state of perfection.”60 This is
because the state of living poverty, chastity, and obedience in the most
concrete sense is the state lived by Jesus of Nazareth. It is a state defined
by disponible love for whatever God wills one to do, in God’s time, and
in God’s way. It is characterized by an exclusive and permanent spousal
love for God in Christ that signifies the complete self-offering of the
consecrated person to the life of perfection.61 Marriage, on the other
hand, represents an indirect path to the perfection of love fraught with
dangers not typically encountered in consecrated life. “The married
man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his
59

We will continue to examine this point in the following discussion. The basic contention here is that the natural end of the desire to bind oneself physically to a person of the opposite sex as one’s destiny for life is renounced in baptism in an ontological way, according to the character of the sacrament. This reality no doubt assists
baptized persons to remain completely disponible to the Lord’s manifest will in a
moral way, even as—we surely wish to hold—the formal qualities indicative of the
natural desire for sexual relations remain in perpetuity. They can be seen in each of
the states just mentioned that mirror betrothal. If one is later called by God to enter
sacramental marriage, such a personalized divine calling, which is often revealed in
tandem with specific yearnings of nature (cf. 1 Cor 7:9), should work in complete
harmony with the desire for sexual relations, which God originally implanted on the
human heart.
60
For St. Thomas’s position on the matter, see especially ST II-II, q. 184.
61
Marriage may also be understood as a state of perfection insofar as Jesus calls everyone to “be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48) while clearly
offering marriage as a state to live out the perfection of love. This is yet another
signification that marriage incorporates the “spirit” of consecration within it. For
arguments to this effect, see Crawford’s work as noted above.

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interests are divided” (1 Cor 7:33–34). In light of such observations, it is
understandable why the Fathers of the Council of Trent proclaimed, “If
anyone says that the married state is to be preferred to (anteponendum)
the state of virginity or celibacy, and that it is not better and happier to
remain in virginity or celibacy than to be united in matrimony [cf. Mt
19:11f.; 1 Cor 7:25f., 28:40]: let him be anathema.”62 This is of course
no outdated stipulation. The “Christian tradition has always spoken of
the objective superiority of the consecrated life,” writes John Paul II.63 He
comments further:
The Gospel puts forward the ideal of the consecration of the person, that is, the person’s exclusive dedication to God by virtue of
the evangelical counsels: in particular, chastity, poverty and obedience. Their perfect incarnation is Jesus Christ himself. Whoever wishes to follow him in a radical way chooses to live according to these counsels. They are distinct from the commandments
and show the Christian the radical way of the Gospel.64
What concerns me here is how this superiority—a formal primacy because the form or spirit of consecration imbues every Christian path65—
62

Council of Trent, Session XXIV §969–82. “Of course, it is not Our intention to deny
that Catholic spouses, because of the example of their Christian life, can, wherever
they live and whatever be their circumstances, produce rich and salutary fruits as a
witness to their virtue. Yet whoever for this reason argues that it is preferable to live in
matrimony than to consecrate oneself completely to God, without doubt perverts the
right order.” Pius XII, Encyclical on Consecrated Virginity Sacra Virginitas (March 25,
1954) §42. See also Sacra Virginitas more generally; ST II-II, q. 152, a. 3–4; John Paul
II, Familiaris Consortio §16; and John Paul II, Vita Consecrata §32, inter alia.
63
John Paul II, Vita Consecrata §18. Original emphasis. It is noteworthy that the pope
who has written more on marriage than all other pontiffs combined esteems consecrated life just as highly as the tradition he inherited. It bespeaks the realization that consecration and marriage are interrelated in the spirit of the counsels and spousal love—to
properly value one is to value the other; to discredit one is to defame the other.
64
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem §20. Original emphasis.
65
Balthasar writes: “the state of election is forma sui et totius (the form of itself and of
the whole),” meaning it governs also “the state of the commandments” or the “second state” relative to it. “The second state of life within the Church is not an end in
itself, but is ordered to the first just as everything higher in the Church is higher only
because it renders or may render and is ready to render greater service.” Christian
State of Life, 205. Marriage falls within the second state, according to Balthasar.

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makes a difference for vocational discernment. It is my position that each
Christian should give pride of place to discerning the consecrated life as
his or her personal call to love. It is already clear that this is the way of
Jesus himself, that a preponderance of saints lived this state, that it is “objectively superior” from God’s point of view if one takes Church teaching
seriously, and that it has been known to bear the most fruit in spreading
the Gospel (cf. 1 Cor 7:32), all other matters being equal.66 What is more,
the Magisterium, not to mention the Fathers and Doctors of the Church,
has frequently encouraged religious and priestly vocations above all others.67 One cannot find similar statements regarding marriage, for all of the
66

Balthasar agrees: “The more closely human love resembles God’s love, the more it
forgets and surrenders itself in order to assume the inner form of poverty, chastity
and obedience, the more divine will be its fruit: a fruit that surpasses all human
fecundity or expectation.” Christian State of Life, 248. “Indifference and self-annihilation in the Eucharist, as in religious life, are both functions of the one love and
the source of Christian fruitfulness.” Two Sisters in the Spirit: Thérèse of Lisieux and
Elizabeth of the Trinity, trans. Donald Nichols, Anne Englund Nash, and Dennis
Martin (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 167. “The true principle of Christian
fruitfulness [is]: a burning readiness to be used and consumed for the salvation and
redemption of the world. This is a readiness that will necessarily be expressed as a
personal oblation [cf. vow], as the prayer of surrender.” “Beyond Action and Contemplation,” in Spirit and Institution, vol. 4, Explorations of Theology, trans. Edward
T. Oakes, S.J. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 306.
67
The best example of this is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, which for fifty
years now has given the presiding pope the opportunity to promote religious and
priestly vocations like no other. On the 48th occasion, Benedict XVI cited two texts
from Vatican II that set this emphasis in clear relief: “The duty of fostering [priestly] vocations pertains to the whole Christian community, which should exercise it
above all by a fully Christian life.” Decree on Priestly Training Optatum Totius (October 28, 1965) §2. Bishops should “foster priestly and religious vocations as much as
possible.” Decree Concerning the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church Christus
Dominus (October 28, 1965) §15. Another text from the Council reads: “Christian
husbands and wives . . . prudently help [their children] in the choice of their vocation
and carefully promote any sacred vocation which they may discern in them.” Decree
on the Apostolate of the Laity Apostolicam Actuositatem (November 18, 1965) §11.
Cf. Gaudium et Spes §52, inter alia. John Paul II affirms: “An integral part of Christian family life is the inculcation in its members of an appreciation of the priesthood
and religious life in relation to the whole Body of the Church. Our common pastoral
experience confirms the fact that there is a very special need in the Church today to
promote vocations to the priesthood and to religious life. It also confirms the fact that
generous and persevering efforts made in inviting young people to respond to these
vocations have been rewarded. I know that in your deliberations you will discuss appropriate ways that this can be ever more effectively accomplished. . . . The Church’s
earnestness in promoting vocations to the priesthood and religious life is explained

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reasons previously noted. It stands to reason, then, that persons should
give pride of place to consecrated celibacy and, indeed, consecrated poverty and obedience, in their vocational discernment.68
This brings us back to the point of considering, in summary fashion,
what the “default position” for Christian discernment really looks like.
If the newly baptized (or converted) considered themselves betrothed—
that is, on the way toward either consecrated life or sacramental marriage, disponible to whatever the Lord should ask of them, committed
to the spirit of the counsels and spousal love, and especially attentive to
the primacy of the consecrated state—surely they would be in the best
possible position to do the Lord’s will and bear fruit in Christian discipleship. They would not be left in a void of uncertainty, but rather an
ordered state intelligibly formed by the elements just noted.
The Vocation to Marriage
The “State of Election” and the “State of the Commandments”
Given my proposal that the “default position” for Christian discernment
is not simply marriage, then, but rather a period of waiting akin to betrothal, we are in a better position now to assess what I take to be a shortcoming in Balthasar’s position on Christian discernment.69 The Swiss
priest approaches the question of choosing a path in life by delineating,
by her desire to be faithful to God’s will to maintain both the hierarchical structure of
his Church and the state of religious life. The Church extols and promotes the special
consecration proper to both of these vocations even if a certain number of functions
exercised by priests and religious are increasingly shared by the laity.” Letter to the
Bishops of the Unites States of America (May 14, 1986). Original emphases.
68
This could take the form, following personal conversion to Jesus and the Church,
of visiting dioceses and/or religious communities and/or secular institutes, entering
minor seminary or a house of formation for a period of discernment, going on a
prolonged Ignatian retreat, or otherwise making a significant pause in one’s life to
prayerfully discern consecrated life before assuming that marriage is one’s vocation.
Undoubtedly such behavior would increase the number of disciples entering the consecrated state and, just as important, it would make of all disciples a better-formed
lot. We would be better formed in the spirit of the evangelical counsels and the radicalness of the call to love, whatever vocation we should eventually choose.
69
Balthasar appears to offer two contrasting models of Christian discernment that I
have attempted to illustrate in the appendix to this article. Here we describe his
“second” model.

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as John Paul II does, essentially two options for the discerning Christian.
For Balthasar, however, these options are not celibacy or marriage, but
rather, following his spiritual mentor St. Ignatius of Loyola, the “state of
election” or the “state of the commandments.” Christian marriage falls
within “the state of commandments,” according to this reading, and the
consecrated life within “the state of election.”70 Simply by application of
the divergent nomenclature, “election” and “commandments,” persons
are left without the opportunity to identify marriage as a state that certain persons are elected to, chosen for, or otherwise called. Sacramental
marriage gets cast, intentionally or not, as an ordinary path and nothing
“special.” Balthasar writes, “The call to the state of election is a qualitative, special, differentiated call. There is no similarly qualitative call
to the secular state, which is characterized by the absence of any such
call.”71 “Only two possibilities open themselves up to [the Christian] and
he awaits the moment when either a special call will summon him to the
state of election or the absence of such a call will indicate that he is to
remain in the secular state.”72
But is marriage really absent of a special, personalized call? Let us
consider six points:
1. The baptismal state is not simply a “secular” state. Even though
one can be forgiven for applying this language to distinguish those
called to consecrated life from those who remain in the world, identifying the basic Christian state as “the secular state” can easily lead one
to postulate theories about it that pay insufficient attention to the fact
that this state is informed by grace and faith. It is crucial to make clear
the distinction between the state of the baptized and the state of the unbaptized. In my judgment, conflating the two into one “secular” state is
not helpful for Christian discernment. Again, the baptized state is also a
specifically Christian state marked by the spirit of the evangelical counsels. It is not merely “a form of natural love” because it exists “a priori

70

The diocesan priesthood is also considered a state of election, according to Balthasar.
Christian State of Life, 279ff. But because diocesan priests only take a vow of celibacy
and obedience to their bishop and not a vow of poverty, their office spans both the
evangelical and lay states. Ibid., 364ff.
71
Ibid., 148.
72
Ibid., 203.

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from above,” as Balthasar elsewhere contends.73 To remain in this state,
I am suggesting, is to remain in a period of waiting for a personal call
to make one’s consecration to Christ complete in either of “two specific
ways”: consecrated virginity or sacramental marriage.74
2. Note that the second option, as I read John Paul II, is specifically
marriage and not the more general “secular” state. John Paul suggests
that the newly baptized or converted are being called by God to move
beyond the initiatory state of the baptized unless they are already married.75 They are being led to a yet more specific path of spousal love in
which they can give of themselves fully and irrevocably.
3. It seems clear that the “general” call to marriage placed on the
heart of every human person does not become, in the Christian dispensation, a “general” call to sacramental marriage, precisely because not
every Christian is called to sacramental marriage. Sacramental marriage
as a way of life represents the only other option besides consecrated celibacy for the realization of perfect love.76 But a specific option that not all
persons are called to cannot be at the same time a general option. This
means that if a person were to judge in prayerful discernment that he (or
she) was not called to consecrated celibacy, that specific confluence of
discernment in dialogue with God would necessarily represent a “special, qualified call” to sacramental marriage.77
73

Ibid., 244. See above for two direct quotes from Balthasar on this matter. Together
with similar observations from Balthasar’s corpus, this can only lead me to conclude
that his general theology of the Christian states of life runs counter to implying that
marriage should be characterized by the absence of a special, qualitative call.
74
See John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio §11, 16.
75
In which case their natural bond of love would be elevated to the grace of the marital
sacrament as soon as both parties are baptized. See Code of Canon Law, can. 1055.
76
Again I want to emphasize the distinction between a specific way of life and personal
devotion. One could presumably achieve perfect devotional or moral love in the
absence of a specific consecration (direct or indirect) so long as he was doing everything in his power to give of himself fully and irrevocably to the Lord. However, such
a person is not advantaged by a state that is ontologically structured for perfect love
unless and until he becomes a consecrated celibate or is married sacramentally.
77
We must be careful not to understand the natural “vocation” to marriage and the
Christian “vocation” to marriage univocally, but rather analogically. The natural vocation is a formal desire to bind oneself to a person of the opposite sex in a physical,
sexual way. It can be legitimately renounced in its concrete manifestation, as every
consecrated celibate does. The Christian vocation to marriage, which is only applicable to certain and not all Christians, is binding on the Christian conscience also in

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4. On the other hand, if a person were to marry without first prayerfully discerning this state as that to which the Lord was leading him,
then what would be one of the most significant choices of his life, something that would color all of his ethical choices henceforth and bear
upon his eternal salvation—the choosing of a particular spouse—would
be little more than a matter of preference-based consumerism. To explain, no one can know if he is not called to consecrated life on the basis
of his natural resources alone, so choosing to marry at any one point
without prayerful discernment would mean acting without the divine
initiative. Such an act would not be receptive; it would not require listening to God. It would be principally active and so preference based
and consumerist. In this most meaningful instance of life, the choice to
marry, God need not be personally involved, according to the logic of
this position; one can be left on his own to decide for himself.78
This line of reasoning could be contrasted with Pope Benedict XVI’s
fitting description of the basic Christian response:
By contemplating the pierced side of Christ (cf. Jn 19:37), we
can understand the starting-point of this Encyclical Letter:
“God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). It is there that this truth can be contemplated. It is from there that our definition of love must begin. In
this contemplation the Christian discovers the path along which
his life and love must live.79
One’s path is meant to be discovered, Benedict contends, because it is
not simply obvious in the absence of a personal call. It rather comes
only through a call as perceived in contemplation of Christ’s own way
of love and in Christian indifference to whatever path the Lord might
wish one to take.80 The Marian disponibility of the Christian ethos leaves
the Christian open, not simply to choose for himself the definitive and
thus critical state in which he is meant to reach perfect love, but for the
its concrete manifestation. See St. Alphonsus Liguori’s remarks in note 9 above.
As the saying goes, “Good luck!”
79
Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est §13. Emphasis added.
80
The call in the case of marriage is, of course, typically moved by a specific someone,
namely one’s future spouse, or, even before that, any number of persons, persuasions, or circumstances.
78

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Lord’s call to govern his choosing, to govern his response in love.81 In
this way the form of the evangelical counsels, indeed the a priori form of
the basic Christian call itself, never leaves those blessed with the “lofty
calling” of marriage.82
Nicholas Lund-Molfese makes a similar point in reference to Germain Grisez’s work on personal vocation:
The nature of coming to know one’s vocation is best characterized as that of a “discovery,” and not an invention. Persons come
to know the specific providential plan God intended when he
created them, with their concrete talents, in a given place and
time. We come to know this aspect of God’s will, which God
desires to reveal to us, through the normal developmental processes of self-discovery and exploration just mentioned. Other
aids to making this discovery include scripture, the teachings of
the Church, prayer, and spiritual direction.83
Even St. Ignatius of Loyola, from whom Balthasar draws his understand81

The movement of responsive Christian love is well encapsulated in the degrees of
love that St. Bernard of Clairvaux specifies. The fourth and highest degree of love to
which all are called as the standard of perfection is described as man loving himself
and/or other creatures for the sake of God. After first renouncing all other loves save
for the love of God alone, the Christian is ready to love only that which God wants
him to love and in the way God wants him to love. See St. Bernard, On Loving God,
trans. Jean Leclercq, O.S.B., and Henri Rochais (Rome: Cistercian, 1973), 29–31.
82
Gaudium et Spes §47; cf. §48.
83
Lund-Molfese, “Christian Duty of Discerning.” “If therefore at the point of making
such a commitment one is not confident it should be made, one should not make it.
The process of discernment needs to be continued until every alternative to making
the commitment—ordination, final vows, marriage to this person—loses its appeal
and making it appears clearly to be God’s call, recognized as such with a sense of light,
joy, and peace.” Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 2, Living a Christian Life (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, c1993), 122, as cited by Lund-Molfese (no page given). Lund
is cited in fn 23 above. Lund-Molfese states further: “Knowledge of one’s personal
vocation is mediated by God’s providence through secondary causes. A complete
program of lay formation would focus a person’s attention on self-knowledge (one’s
gifts, talents, pre-existing duties, Christian feelings, parental advice, etc.); the needs of
the world (in particular the poor); the counsels of perfection; Scripture; the teachings
of the Church; prayer; and the receiving of spiritual direction.” Ibid. Cf. Grisez, The
Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 1, Christian Moral Principles (Chicago: Franciscan Herald
Press, 1983), 673–77, as noted by Lund-Molfese.

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ing of Christian discernment, proposes, in so many words, a “qualified,
special, differentiated call” to marriage.
Without doubt, it requires more obvious signs to determine that
God’s will would have us remain in a state of life [such as marriage] that demands only the observance of the commandments
than that it would have us enter upon the way of the counsels;
for the Lord clearly exhorts us to the keeping of the counsels,
whereas of the other state of life he says only that it is fraught
with great dangers.84
If Ignatius is correct, how could one not rightly consider marriage to be
a vocation marked by “obvious signs”? And if one should claim that this
call is not to marriage per se, but to the commandments, our response
must refer back to John Paul II’s determination that the only vocation
within the state of the commandments is, in fact, marriage.85 Ignatius’s
understanding here is in keeping with our previous reflections on the
betrothal period begun in the grace of baptism. If one is already living
a life of continence handed over to the Lord in loving self-abandonment, the choice for marriage appears (or should appear) befuddling
however common it is. Why would anyone in good conscience choose
marriage if holy virginity (or celibacy) is an objectively superior state
and the Church so desperately needs vocations to the consecrated life?
Only, it would seem, if the choice to marry were preceded by “more obvious signs,” which is to say, a more pronounced call, than the call to the
consecrated state. In any case, marriage too must be a “qualified, special,
differentiated call.”
84

Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, ch. 23, 4, as cited by Balthasar, Christian State
of Life, 10n2. The translator, Sr. Mary Francis McCarthy, not Balthasar, cites this
statement from St. Ignatius.
85
John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio §11, 16. “The word ‘vocation’ indicates that there
exists for every person a proper direction of his development through the commitment of his entire life in the service of certain values. . . . And therefore a vocation
always means some principal direction of love of a particular man. . . . The process
of self-giving remains most intimately united with spousal love. A person then gives
himself to the other person. Therefore, both virginity and marriage understood in a
deep personalistic way, are vocations.” Wojtyła, Love and Responsibility, 256; cf. John
Paul II, General Audience (August 18, 1982).

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5. Considering that marriage involves another specific person to
whom one is presumably attracted, holding that marriage is not a differentiated vocation suggests that God does not work through the all-encompassing beauty of another to elicit one’s desire and self-giving in
spousal love.86 We have here an insufficient claim on the personal desire
(eros) and transformative love (agape) that a prospective spouse can engender in his or her future mate as a representative of God’s beauty and
love. In this way the position that Christian marriage is not a specialized
vocation is in measures both dualistic and moralistic. It is dualistic insofar as it brackets the fact that God evokes calls also through nature, that
is, through specific desires of the heart.87 It is moralistic insofar as it casts
the eventual choice to marry someone as simply a more fitting way to
be a Christian in this life, irrespective of any personal desire evoked by
the other. After all, many married persons claim they have been called to
marry their specific spouse, and one cannot be called to marry someone
without being called to marriage.
The reader will note my insistence that a Christian call—either to
consecrated life or sacramental marriage—could never simply be “top–
down” or “bottom–up.” While a Christian call is to be distinguished
from a so-called “natural call” on the basis of its specifically divine element, nature is never left out of the equation.88 Natural desires remain
at least formally, even when the possibility of their concrete realization
is renounced. Likewise, no one is suggesting that the personal call to
consecrated life and the personal call to sacramental marriage occur in
exactly the same way. The calls are analogous. It is reasonable to propose
that the (now transformed by grace) desires for sexual relations and fel86

That is, if this call is to marriage. Surely, Balthasar would grant that the call to spousal love in consecrated life can occur through another.
87
Precisely when the call to the state of marriage is perceived, whether before or simultaneous to the call to a specific someone, should be irrelevant to the question of
whether there is a calling to marriage in its own right. That a person can be called to
marriage prior to being called to a specific someone is commonly known. Clearly a
calling to the priesthood or religious life often occurs before one discovers the specific
diocese or community to which he should belong. The same is true for marriage.
88
By “divine element” I mean actual grace. The calling of nature can also be seen as a
divine call in an analogous sense, because God works through nature. Grace is not
reducible to nature, however, so neither is the call to sacramental marriage reducible
to the call to natural marriage.

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low feeling are more at play in the choice for sacramental marriage than
they are in the choice for celibacy, but if the first choice were to truly
represent a response to God, a “listening,” then the possibility of realizing these desires in marriage would have first been laid aside to be taken
up again at God’s initiative.
6. Finally, the position that persons are not personally called to
Christian marriage does not appear to sufficiently regard the mission to
perfect love to which all persons are commanded. John Paul II clarifies
this point in an address given to the Schönstatt Family Association:
According to God’s will, the family has been established as
“an intimate partnership of life and love” (Vatican Council II,
Gaudium et spes, n. 48). It has been sent to become more and
more what it is, that is, a partnership of life and love. Thus, a
person’s life decision for marriage and the family is a response
to a personal call from God. It is a genuine vocation, which includes a mission.89
Ironically, in a different section of The Christian State of Life, Balthasar
appears to present a dissimilar perspective on Christian discernment
than he does when describing its ends as “the state of election” and “the
state of the commandments.” Here he considers the Christian call to
love in three distinct stages:
These three stages of the call—to a general state within the
Church, to a particular state within the Church, and, finally, to
a concrete situation within the particular state—are, in some
way, analogous to the call by which the Christian is first summoned out of the world to be a Christian and then translated,
89

Address to the Members of the Schönstatt Family Association, 3. There are many
points in Balthasar’s overall corpus that stand in contrast with the implication that
marriage does not represent a differentiated call. One such point is the consistency by
which he identifies the human person with his mission in life. See Balthasar, “On the
Concept of Person,” Communio 13 (1986): 25, inter alia. Again, I believe the principal
reason for this discrepancy in the Swiss theologian’s thought may be accounted for by
the dichotomy of the nomenclature of “election” and “commandments,” which he assumes when adopting this language for matters of Christian discernment. If marriage
is within the state of commandments, how could anybody be elected to it?

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by a unique second and later call, to a particular state so that, in
this state, there may be bestowed upon him, through the concrete call that is spoken at this moment and every moment, a
Christian life that endures.90
In the absence of the linguistic dichotomy between “election” and “commandments,” Balthasar lends credence to the reality of a special vocation to marriage. He recognizes a “second and later call, to a particular
state” after baptism, and from there a “concrete call” within this particular state of life. If the particular state is marriage or, even should it be
termed “the commandments,” clearly the call within this call must be to
a particular spouse. There is simply no other vocation within “the state
of the commandments” that corresponds to the full and irrevocable perfection of a love to which all are summoned.
The Call to “Come” to the Counsels or “Go” to Marriage
Balthasar helps us see the positive basis for the Christian vocation to
marriage in still another way. He makes the case, rightly in my opinion,
that when Jesus goes up a mountain to a qualitatively higher region and
calls the apostles to him, there symbolized is the calling of certain persons to a higher state of life.
The force of the symbolism is impressive: The Lord ascends the
mountain alone; there calls the Twelve to come to him “that
they might be with him” (Mk 3:14); and afterwards descends to
the remaining disciples and the people who press upon him.91
How should this be understood relative to Balthasar’s notion that Christian
marriage begins “a priori from above”?92 Balthasar explains that even for or90

Balthasar, Christian State of Life, 392–93.
Ibid., 143.
92
Ibid., 244. Although Balthasar does not make the case here, one could postulate
that the symbolic mountain of the Lord (cf. Mt. Zion, Mt. Sinai, Mt. Olivet, etc.)
has different levels owing to the different degrees of perfection attainable upon its
heights. This is a recurrent theme in the work of St. Ephrem the Syrian, who describes Paradise as a mountain: “When the just ascend its various levels to receive
their inheritance, with justice He raises up each one to the degree that accords with
91

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dinary (read: “uncalled”) disciples of Christ there is some preliminary and
informative stage of being with the Lord before they are sent on their way.
Once his grace has been given and they [the ordinary disciples
in need of healing] stand in his light, he sends them back among
the people. He restores them, transformed into new men, to the
ordinary framework of their daily lives. There is scarcely a miraculous healing of the Lord that does not conclude with the
constantly repeated vade—“go now.”93
The Swiss theologian goes on to cite a series of examples in the Gospel
where Christ says “come” to his apostles (“come and see”; “come follow
me”) and “go” to the other disciples not meant to continue with him.94
Notice that for those called to the “state of election,” Christ gives a consciously perceivable message: “come.” For those sent to the “state of the
commandments” or, indeed, marriage, Christ also gives a consciously
perceivable message: “go.”95 Does not this vocative command to “go” also
his labors; each is stopped at the level whereof he is worthy, there being sufficient
levels in Paradise for everyone.” Hymns on Paradise, ed. and trans. Sebastian Brock
(Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990), II.11; cf. I.4.10, II.10, III.1,
IX.22. Cf. also Ephrem’s “Commentary on Genesis,” in St. Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works, ed. Kathleen McVey, trans. Edward J. Matthews Jr. (Washington,
DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1994), II.6.4; “Hymns on Virginity,” in St.
Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, trans. Kathleen McVey (New York: Paulist Press, 1989),
XXVI.13. Finally, see ST II-II, q. 184, aa. 3–4, on the degrees of perfection relative to
the evangelical counsels and the commandments, as well as Balthasar himself for a
discussion of this theme in Christian State of Life, 179.
93
Balthasar, Christian State of Life, 145.
94
Ibid., 146. “Thus the movements of the two groups of Jesus’ followers are diametrically opposed.” Original emphases. The quotes in the body of the text are on page 145;
the quote in the fn is on page 146.
95
John Paul II affirms: “When I think of you, dear young people, I realize that each of
you is preparing not only to complete your studies, but to found your own family. A
man and a woman leave their father and mother and cleave to their own husband or
wife to begin a new family (cf. Gn 2:24). The Book of Genesis presents this vocation
of the human creature in the simplest but very indicative words. At a certain moment in life, the young person, male or female, becomes conscious of this call and
takes account of it. Of course, it is a different call from a priestly or religious vocation, for which a special invitation by Christ, a personal call to follow him is decisive:
‘Follow me’ (Mt 4:19). Nevertheless, awareness of the way that leads to founding a
family is a vocation which requires clear discernment. It must be accepted knowingly, and to this end, it should be the subject of deep prayer. . . . All this emphasizes an

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579

represent a “qualitative, special, differentiated call”? It seems clear to me
that it does. Having spent time standing in Christ’s light and acquiring the form of radical disponibility, that is, the spirit of the evangelical
counsels, certain persons are called to go to a different kind of consecration to the Lord in the sacrament of marriage.96
Conclusion
On the basis of the argument presented here, the promises of baptism
suggest that all laudable human action proceeds on the basis of one being led in some way, on the basis of one first being called. The argument
implies that the entire ethical makeup of a person should follow from
a period of waiting on the Lord to do or become whatever he may ask,
in his time, and in his way. This does not, however, mean that persons
ought to abandon ordinary reasonable means of discernment. As the
reader surely knows, the element of faith, while formally implicit to reason in every matter of the Christian walk, does not often come to the
fore in discernment unless the matter is of significant importance—such
as when a person chooses a state in life or, further, a particular community or spouse to give oneself wholly and irrevocably.
One will also notice that the central argument of this essay that
there truly is a specific vocation to Christian marriage does nothing to
mitigate the “objective superiority” of the vowed life of poverty, chastity,
and obedience. On the contrary, this radical form of self-giving love,
the deepest articulation of the self-abandonment of baptism, has been
shown to spiritually form the entire Christian life, including sacramental marriage. As such, the Christian rightly gives the state of consecra-

expectation which is above all awaiting someone: him or her; but also it anticipates
love. Indeed, only love can truly make two young people understand that they are
called to walk through life together.” Homily (December 15, 1994).
96
Interestingly, John Paul II describes the vocation to marriage in much the same way
as consecration, that is, as a personal “come follow me” from Jesus. “When Christ
says ‘Follow me,’ his call can mean: ‘I call you to still another love’; but very often
it means: ‘Follow me,’ follow me who am the Bridegroom of the Church who is
my bride; come, you too become the bridegroom of your bride, you too become
the bride of your spouse. Both of you become sharers in that mystery, that Sacrament, which the Letter to the Ephesians says is something great: great ‘in reference
to Christ and the Church.’” Delecti Amici §10.

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tion pride of place in his discernment. Even should he then be called to
marriage, he will be all the better formed in Christian living.
All of this is to say that the call to perfect love in Christ is comprehensive of all redeeming virtue and intrinsic to any further articulation
of the Christian way of life. In Balthasar’s words, “the question of one’s
state of life is utterly secondary” to the will to “order everything—truly
everything—to perfect Christian love.”97 To meet the standard of Christian perfection, not only must one first renounce his claim on sensual pleasures before receiving only what the Lord has prepared for him
(“seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these [lesser]
things shall be yours as well,” Mt 7:33; cf. Mk 10:29–30; Lk 18:29–30),
he must also renounce all preferences of living, such as the state of the
counsels or marriage.98 This in turn leaves the Christian open and in
preparation for a form of spousal love, a complete and irrevocable life
choice, which will include a deepening in the spirit of poverty, chastity,
and obedience. Whether this calling is to a specific form of consecration
or sacramental marriage, every Christian must discern.
What about my suggestion that the state of the baptized single person is akin to a “betrothal” period? I have proposed this terminology to
convey essentially two points: (1) the baptismal state is inclusive of both
the spirit of the evangelical counsels and spousal love without being
concrete manifestations of either of these states. Betrothal seems to me
an apt analogue for expressing this reality; and (2) betrothal often suggests a period of preparation and waiting for some further consecration
to take place. This would be the case for the Christian following baptism
as he readies himself for consecrated celibacy or sacramental marriage.
How my specific understanding of Christian discernment might
relate to Balthasar’s and John Paul II’s respective understandings can
be seen now in the diagrams to follow. Here the reader will see what
I take to be two distinct (and contrasting) models of discernment in
Balthasar’s thought, the first with which I agree, as well as John Paul
II’s illuminating presentation and my own. Not all of the information
provided in these illustrations has been accounted for in this essay due
to our particular focus on the specific vocation to Christian marriage,
97
98

Balthasar, Christian State of Life, 187.
Balthasar, Christian State of Life, 187–88.

Marriage and Christian Discernment

581

and surely those matters that are presented are not exhaustive of the
positions represented herein. Still, these diagrams should prove helpful
for the inquiring mind.
Von Balthasar’s First Model
Virginal in form

Consecrated life (“come”;
summit of mountain)

		

Original state
(consecrated spousal love)—

Christian state as general call
to perfect love

Christian marriage (“go”;
Desire for sex
comes after the fall			“a priori from above”)
John Paul II’s Model
Virginal value (general call;
original solitude)			

Consecrated life (specific way)
		

Original state
(consecrated spousal love)—

Christian state as general call to
perfect love

Christian marriage
Natural desire for marriage
(general call; original unity)		(specific way)
*Although there are differences in Balthasar’s and John Paul II’s accounts of the original state, they both agree on the integration of some
form of virginity and marriage here. Their respective understandings
of the Christian state, at least according to Balthasar’s first model, are
wholly compatible.

Tobias Nathe

582

My Model
Consecrated life (specific call)
Virginal value
(general call; original solitude)			
		
Original state as “betrothal”
(consecrated spousal love)—

Christian state as analogous
“betrothal”

Natural desire for marriage
(general call; original unity)		

Christian marriage (specific call)

*I have made two slight additions (and no subtractions) to John Paul II’s
model, both of which I presume he would accept: (1) calling a state that
integrates the values of virginity and marriage “betrothal,” and (2) describing the two specific ways of perfect love as specific Christian calls.
Von Balthasar’s Second Model
State of election (specific call)—Consecrated life

Original state—Christian state—State of commandments (general
call)—Christian marriage (general call)
*As the reader can see, what I have called Balthasar’s second model of
Christian discernment is forced by his adoption of the nomenclature of
“election” and “commandments.” It also suffers from a certain inconsistency in logic with his conception of the original state (see his first
model) and other remarks of his on Christian discernment covered in
this article. For such reasons and his putative statement that, after reading John Paul II’s work, he would now have to “change everything” in
his book The Christian State of Life,99 it is quite possible that Balthasar
would accept John Paul II’s model and my own if pressed on the matter.
99

Nicholas J. Healy III mentioned this account to me anecdotally.

Marriage and Christian Discernment

583

As visuals, the models are my own invention and are not meant to be
N&V
exhaustive of the positions represented.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 585-600

585

The Thomistic Roots of Modern Papal Teachings
on Freedom
as Found in the Writings of Leo XIII
John Rziha

Benedictine College
Atchison, KS

BOTH JOHN PAUL II AND BENEDICT XVIwrote extensively
about the importance of having a proper understanding of freedom. For
example, in Veritatis Splendor, John Paul II teaches about the relation between freedom and truth (the wisdom of God).1 Benedict likewise notes
that fidelity to the truth is the only means to true freedom and integral
human development.2 Both John Paul and Benedict, using the terms
of Gaudium et Spes §17, will contrast authentic (also called genuine or
responsible) freedom with false freedom.3 This notion of authentic freedom is also very similar to the meaning of “freedom for excellence” that
is championed by Servais Pinckaers in his very influential book, Sources
1

Veritatis Splendor §31–53. Although John Paul only occasionally directly refers to
Leo XIII in this section of the Encyclical, the description of genuine freedom given
by John Paul is similar to the description given by Leo XIII in Libertas. In Centesimus
Annus (written two years before Veritatis Splendor), John Paul gives explicit praise
to Leo for explaining the true meaning of freedom: “Here, particular mention must
be made of the Encyclical Libertas Praestantissimum, which called attention to the
essential bond between human freedom and truth, so that freedom which refused
to be bound to the truth would fall into arbitrariness and end up submitting itself to
the vilest of passions, to the point of self-destruction” (§4; cf. §17).
2
Caritas et Veritate §9; cf. §17 and §70.
3
John Paul in Veritatis Splendor will also speak of a rightful or proper autonomy in
contrast to a false autonomy (§38–41).

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John Rziha

of Christian Ethics. In this book Pinckaers argues that for the last 600
years (following Ockham) the predominant view of freedom in western
society has been what he calls a “freedom of indifference” (or in the language of the abovementioned popes: a false freedom). For an example
he points to the manuals used to teach theology to seminarians for the
last few hundred years. He notes that they placed freedom almost solely
in the will—where one is just as free when rejecting the truth found
in the intellect as when following it.4 As a consequence, freedom was
seen as always being in opposition to law—including the law of God.
However, long before Pinckaers or Gaudium et Spes, Leo XIII, in 1888,
wrote an encyclical refuting this incomplete view of freedom. This encyclical, Libertas, repudiated those who declared that freedom is a sheer
autonomy of the will.5 Leo argued that true freedom requires that reason
guides the will to its proper end. Leo goes on to note that true freedom
is found in God and the saints who cannot choose evil. Choosing evil is
a defect in human liberty. Consequently, Leo argues that true freedom
requires that the intellect and appetites are guided and motivated by law
(Libertas §7).
Leo was an ardent supporter of Thomas Aquinas. During his papacy,
Leo endorsed the use of Thomistic thought in Catholic theology and philosophy in his encyclical Aeternae Patris.6 In this encyclical, Leo requests
a return to Thomas’s teachings on “the true meaning of freedom, which at
this time is running into license” (§29). But to what extent was Leo’s view
4

Pinckaers, Sources of Christian Ethics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 1995), 254–79. For an example not in Pinckaers, see Joseph Schade,
Catholic Morality: A Manual (Patterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1943). This
book was written well after Leo XIII’s call to use Thomistic principles in moral theology, so the understanding of freedom is much closer to authentic freedom than
in some earlier manuals. Yet even in this manual the author speaks of freedom as a
“freedom of indifference” found almost exclusively in the will (19–20). In fact, much
can be known about the view of freedom animating the book by reading the dedication in the preface: “To Mary, the lawgiver’s mother.”
5
Leo was primarily writing against the “modern liberties” enabled by Enlightenment
ways of thinking (§2). But the encyclical also refuted all views that placed freedom
in opposition to law. In other words, the encyclical also refuted views within the
Church that stated that following God’s law is a restriction to freedom even though
humans are required to follow God’s law.
6
Furthermore, Leo declared Thomas to be the patron of Catholic Schools, established
the Academy of St. Thomas, and commissioned the critical edition of Thomas’s writings known as the Leonine Edition.

Papal Teachings on Freedom

587

of freedom influenced by Thomas? After all, Thomas’s view of freedom is
complex. Sometimes it appears to be very much like what Leo describes,
and other times it appears to be different. For example, in support of Leo’s
view, texts can be found that say things like “The more love one has, the
freer one is.”7 Texts can also be found that appear to contradict Leo’s view,
however, such as when Thomas notes that natural liberty is a freedom
from coercion—see Summa theologiae I, q. 83, a. 2, ad 3—and that “free
judgment is indifferent to good and evil choice.”8 This essay will first briefly explain Leo’s view of freedom. Then, it will look and see if Leo’s view of
freedom is in continuity with the view of Thomas.
Leo’s View of Freedom9
Although Leo’s notion of freedom permeates many of his encyclicals,10
he systematically describes freedom in Libertas. (I am using the terms
freedom and liberty as synonyms.) In this encyclical, he begins by making a distinction between natural freedom and moral freedom (§3). In a
clear allusion to Summa Theologiae I, q. 83, a. 1, Leo states that natural
freedom is the ability of the will to choose a particular means to an end
as guided by the intellect.11 Leo explains that because humans necessar7

III Sent. d. 29, q. 1, a. 8, qc. 3, s.c. 1: “Sed contra, quanto aliquis plus habet de caritate,
plus habet de libertate: quia ubi spiritus domini, ibi libertas; 2 Cor 3:17. Sed perfectam caritatem habens, potissime habet libertatem.” See also De veritate q. 22, a. 6; ST
I-II, q. 109, a. 2.
8
ST I, q. 83, a. 2: “Liberum autem arbitrium indifferenter se habet ad bene eligendum
vel male.”
9
I am grateful for the help of Dr. Ed Macieroski and Kalen Skubal in the writing of
this section.
10
See for example, In Plurimis, Rerum Novarum, Immortale Dei, and Sapientiae
Christianae.
11
§5: “Liberty, then, as We have said, belongs only to those who have the gift of reason
or intelligence. Considered as to its nature, it is the faculty of choosing the means
fitted for the end proposed, for he is master of his actions who can choose one thing
out of many. Now, since everything chosen as a means is viewed as good or useful,
and since good, as such, is the proper object of our desire, it follows that freedom
of choice is a property of the will, or, rather, is identical with the will in so far as it
has in its action the faculty of choice. But the will cannot proceed to act until it is
enlightened by the knowledge possessed by the intellect. In other words, the good
wished by the will is necessarily good in so far as it is known by the intellect; and this
the more, because in all voluntary acts choice is subsequent to a judgment upon the
truth of the good presented, declaring to which good preference should be given.

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John Rziha

ily choose the good, and the good is the proper object of the will, freedom of choice is a property of the will—but only insofar as it is guided
by the intellect, which declares the truth of the good presented. In other
words, natural freedom is found in the proper operation of both the
intellect and will.
Although Leo clearly makes a distinction between natural and moral freedom in paragraph three, he does not have a clear transition to a
separate section on moral freedom. Instead, he begins to teach about
the perfection of natural freedom, which is moral freedom. In other
words, moral freedom is not a completely different type of freedom (like
the distinctions between authentic and false freedom made by the later
popes) but an extension of natural freedom.12 He notes that the natural powers of the intellect and will are ordered to their proper acts of
knowing the truth and loving the universal good. When these powers
function properly, humans are free because freedom results from the
intellect knowing the true end and how to attain it and from the will
choosing an action based on its love for this end. Consequently, the
greater the perfection of the intellect and will (one could also add passions in here), the greater the freedom of the individual (§7, 8, 12, 22).
To support this point Leo teaches that humans may appear to be free
when there are defects in the intellect or will; however, in reality, to the
extent these defects affect their actions, humans lack freedom. He states:
For, as the possibility of error, and actual error, are defects of the
mind and attest to its imperfection, so the pursuit of what has a
No sensible man can doubt that judgment is an act of reason, not of the will. The
end, or object, both of the rational will and of its liberty is that good only which is
in conformity with reason.”
12
The relation between natural and moral freedom is briefly alluded to later in the
document (§8). Leo states that God aids humans in performing good actions: “The
first and most excellent of these is the power of His divine grace, whereby the mind
can be enlightened and the will wholesomely invigorated and moved to the constant
pursuit of moral good, so that the use of our inborn liberty becomes at once less difficult and less dangerous. Not that the divine assistance hinders in any way the free
movement of our will; just the contrary, for grace works inwardly in man and in harmony with his natural inclinations, since it flows from the very Creator of his mind
and will, by whom all things are moved in conformity with their nature.” Inborn
liberty is here a synonym to natural freedom. God’s grace causes moral freedom by
perfecting natural freedom, not hindering it.

Papal Teachings on Freedom

589

false appearance of good, though a proof of our freedom, just as
a disease is a proof of our vitality, implies a defect in human liberty. The will also, simply because of its dependence on the reason, no sooner desires anything contrary thereto than it abuses
its freedom of choice and corrupts its very essence.13
Leo goes on to note that doing evil is not freedom at all, but in the words
of the Apostle Paul, “a slavery to sin.” Thus, although the ability to do
evil allows us to easily identify our ability to freely choose, it is actually a
defect in liberty.14 Leo then quotes Aquinas to make his point,
Everything is that which belongs to a thing naturally. When,
therefore, it acts through a power outside itself, it does not act
of itself, but through another, that is, as a slave. But man is by
nature rational. When, therefore, he acts according to reason,
he acts of himself and according to his free will; and this is liberty. Whereas, when he sins, he acts in opposition to reason, is
moved by another, and is the victim of foreign misapprehensions. Therefore, “Whosoever commits sin is the slave of sin.”15
13

§6: “Verum sicut errare posse reque ipsa errare vitium est, quod mentem non omni
parte perfectam arguit, eodem modo arripere fallax furtumque bonum, est indicium
liberi arbitrii, sicut aegritudo vitae, est tamen vitium quoddam libertatis.” The translation is from the documents on the Vatican website. See also Immortale Dei §37.
14
Because freedom emerges from knowledge of the truth and love of the good, freedom is like the transcendentals of being, goodness, and truth in that its opposite is
not a truly existing thing but rather a privation of it. For example, evil is not a truly
existing thing, but rather a privation of goodness. Knowing evil helps us to better
understand and appreciate goodness, but it is ultimately a lack of goodness.
15
§6. The quote is from Aquinas’s commentary on the Gospel of John, ch. 8, lec. 4, §1204.
Translation is by the Vatican. The Latin of the text is: “Unumquodque est illud quod
convenit ei secundum suam naturam: quando ergo movetur ab aliquo extraneo, non
operatur secundum se, sed ab impressione alterius; quod est servile. Homo autem
secundum suam naturam est rationalis. Quando ergo movetur secundum rationem,
proprio motu movetur, et secundum se operatur, quod est libertatis; quando vero peccat, operatur praeter rationem, et tunc movetur quasi ab alio, retentis terminis alienis:
et ideo qui facit peccatum, servus est peccati.” Because the translation is from the Vatican website, I did not want to alter it. I want to point out, however, a symmetry in the
text that is obscured by the translation. In talking about the free action, Aquinas states
that the free person acts according to reason, by his own power, and according to his
own operation. But in the case of sin, the sinful person acts against reason, as if moved
by another, and is restrained by external ends of the other.

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John Rziha

Humans are free when they are masters of their actions. However, whenever humans act based on misunderstanding, lack of love, or disordered
passions, they are moved by something outside of themselves. They are
unable to pursue their proper actions. In other words, they lack freedom
in a similar way as if they were coerced to act by a tyrant. Consequently,
Leo shows that the moral freedom to do good is really just an extension
of natural freedom. Natural freedom flows from the intellect and the
will. When these powers are perfected so as to avoid ignorance, concupiscence, and the effect of disordered passions, humans are morally
free. On the other hand, the freedom that results from the defects in the
intellect, will, and emotions is a false freedom, a slavery to sin.
Leo contrasts the false freedom of being able to do evil with the true
and perfect freedom of God and the saints by saying that the infinitely
perfect God, “although supremely free, because of the supremacy of His
intellect and of His essential goodness, nevertheless cannot choose evil;
neither can the angels or saints who enjoy the beatific vision.”16 Because
God and the saints have perfect freedom, then the ability to do evil cannot be an essential element of freedom.
The saints have this perfect freedom because they perfectly participate in the wisdom and love of God. Humans on earth can participate in
the eternal law (the wisdom of God) whenever they follow laws that are
derived from the eternal law (§8, 10). These laws guide the intellect, and
they move the will and passions, thus causing greater freedom (§7, 12).
Leo adamantly refutes the proponents of classical liberalism who argue
that law always removes freedom by stating, “nothing more foolish can
be uttered or conceived than the notion that because man is free by nature, he is therefore exempt from the law” (§7). Leo goes on to note that
law is the reason that guides humans to their proper actions. If freedom
and law contradict each other, than man would become free by being
deprived of reason (which is absurd). Humans are bound to submit to
law because they are free by nature.17
16

§6: “qui cum sit summe intelligens et per essentiam bonitas, est etiam summe liber,
malum culpae velle nulla ratione potest.” Leo references Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio I.6.14 for this point. Leo goes on to note that if the ability to do evil belonged
to the essence or perfection of liberty, God and the angels and saints would have no
freedom or less freedom than humans in this state of imperfection.
17
§7. See also Immortale Dei §36–38.

Papal Teachings on Freedom

591

Leo concludes by teaching that because virtue and grace perfect the
natural inclinations of the soul giving humans the ability to perform
their proper actions, the greater the virtue and grace in a human, the
greater the freedom.18 Grace does not remove freedom but enhances it
because it moves humans in accord with their nature to their proper action and end. He further states, “Religion conduces to pure morals, and
pure morals to freedom” (§22).
Thomas’s View of Freedom19
In teaching the proper view of freedom, Leo only explicitly references
Thomas a few times (e.g., §6, 8); however, the entire treatise is filled with
Thomistic concepts and phrases. For example, Leo is clearly relying on
Thomas in his descriptions of natural freedom,20 his description of humans as ordered by divine wisdom to their right and proper actions,21
his description of the nature and role of law and its participation in eternal law,22 and his description of the role of grace and religion.23 However,
to fully see the extent that Leo is influenced by Thomas, it is necessary
to examine Thomas’s view of freedom. A systematic study of Thomas’s
view of freedom is beyond the scope of this essay; instead I will explain
a few aspects of Thomas’s view of freedom by comparing each of them
to the points that I subscribe to Leo in the section above.
Leo makes a distinction between natural freedom and moral freedom and then treats moral freedom as the completion of natural freedom. Does Thomas also make this distinction between natural and
moral freedom and further believe that natural freedom is fulfilled in
moral freedom? Although Thomas does not literally make this distinc18

§8. Leo refers to an unidentified paraphrase of Thomas to support his point.
Unless I specifically note changes made for a more literal translation, the translation
of the Summa theologiae is from the Fathers of the English Dominican Province
(New York: Benziger Bros., 1948), and the translation of the SCG is from Anton
Pegis (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1955).
20
See Libertas §3 and ST I, q. 83.
21
See Libertas §17 and ST I-II, q. 93.
22
See Libertas §9–12, §16–17 and ST I-II, qq. 90–96, qq. 106–108.
23
Libertas §8 (on grace) and §19–22 (on religion) and ST I-II, qq. 109–114 (on grace)
and II-II, q. 81 (on religion). When describing grace in Libertas §8, Leo does specifically refer to Thomas, but Leo does not cite a specific passage. In talking about
religion in Libertas §20, Leo does specifically refer to ST II-II, q. 81, a. 6.
19

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John Rziha

tion when first treating free choice, Thomas does make a similar distinction between the power of free choice (liberum arbitrium)24 and the
perfection of this power through grace and virtue ordering the power to
its proper action. In other words, all rational powers in humans must be
perfected by virtues for them to attain their proper ends.25 The power of
free choice is a rational power, and thus must also be perfected by virtues.26 A similar distinction can be made between the power of the will
(the rational appetite) to love the good and the actions of the will once
perfected by justice or charity. The virtues perfect the will giving it the
ability to perform its proper acts of love.
Although Thomas does make a distinction between the unperfected power of free choice and free choice when the soul is perfected (the
specific passages showing this distinction will be examined below), he
does not specifically refer to this distinction as a distinction between
natural and moral freedom. So where does Leo get these terms? In ST
I, q. 83, a. 2 Thomas does speak of natural freedom and contrasts this
freedom to the freedom from fault and unhappiness. First, Thomas explains that free choice is a power and not a habit.27 Then in his reply
24

This phrase is usually translated as “free choice.” But Thomas has a different term,
liberam electionem, that is more literally translated as “free choice.” A more literal
translation of liberum arbitrium that also shows the strong role of the intellect in
freedom for Thomas would be “free judgment.” I use the terms “free judgment” and
“free choice” interchangeably.
25
ST I-II, q. 55, a. 1: “Now there are some powers which of themselves are determinate
to their acts; for instance, the active natural powers. And therefore these natural
powers are in themselves called virtues. But the rational powers, which are proper
to man, are not determinate to one particular action, but are inclined indifferently
to many: and they are determinate to acts by means of habits.” “Et ideo huiusmodi
potentiae naturales secundum seipsas dicuntur virtutes. Potentiae autem rationales,
quae sunt propriae hominis, non sunt determinatae ad unum, sed se habent indeterminate ad multa, determinantur autem ad actus per habitus.” See also ST I-II, q. 58,
a. 4, ad 1.
26
ST I-II, q. 55, a. 1, ad 2: Thomas notes that good use of free choice is said to be a virtue
inasmuch as virtues are needed to make good use of it. But because free choice is a
unique power of the soul in that it is composed of the operation of two other powers,
the intellect and the will (ST I, q. 83), multiple virtues are required to perfect it.
27
Thomas states that free judgment (choice) is indifferent to good and evil choice,
wherefore it is impossible for free judgment to be a habit. For more on Thomas’s
view of natural freedom see ST I, q. 83 in its entirety; I, q. 105, 3–5; SCG I, ch. 88; and
De malo, q. 6. Thomas also talks extensively about freedom in ST I-II, q. 1, aa. 1–2
and I-II, qq. 6–17. (See especially q. 17, a. 1, resp. 2, which notes that the subject of

Papal Teachings on Freedom

593

to the third objection, he notes, “Man is said to have lost free choice
by falling into sin, not as to natural freedom, which is freedom from
coercion, but as regards freedom from fault and unhappiness. Of this
we shall treat later in the treatise on morals in the second part of this
work.”28 Because Thomas states that this second type of freedom will be
treated in the part of the Summa on morals, Leo refers to the second
type of freedom as moral freedom. There is textual justification for Leo
to use these terms because, in De malo q. 2, a. 3, ad 2, Thomas makes
a distinction between the natural goodness of the will and the moral
goodness of the will.29
Both Leo and Thomas make a distinction between natural freedom
and a second type of freedom (which following Leo will be called moral freedom). But does Thomas, like Leo, believe that moral freedom is
the proper end of natural freedom? At first glance, it might appear that
Thomas’s view of freedom really is different from Leo’s. Leo’s whole encyclical is about how true freedom comes from virtue and law. Thomas
specifically affirms that natural freedom exists in a human prior to virtue
and that natural freedom is indifferent to good and evil choices (ST, q.
83, a. 2; Cf. De malo, q. 6). But if Thomas’s question on free judgment is
freedom is the will, but the cause of freedom is reason). Because these latter passages
are technically in the second part of the Summa, however, they are probably already
speaking of moral freedom. Nonetheless, a great deal about natural freedom can
be gleaned from them because all humans act in accord with their nature. Thus, by
looking at the actions, we know something of the nature that causes them.
28
“Homo peccando liberum arbitrium dicitur perdidisse, non quantum ad libertatem
naturalem, quae est a coactione; sed quantum ad libertatem quae est a culpa et a
miseria. De qua infra in tractatu moralium dicetur, in secunda parte huius operis.”
In De malo, q. 6, a. 1, resp. 23, Thomas makes a similar statement. But in q. 6, a. 1,
resp. 22, he makes the same distinction as in ST I, q. 83, a. 2, resp. 3. Thomas states
that those who do evil, which they rationally hate (cf. Rom 7:15), do not have free action, but they do have free will: “quod ille qui facit quod non vult non habet liberam
actionem, sed potest habere liberam voluntatem.” Note how in this passage Thomas
uses the term “free will” and not “free choice” (electionem) or “free judgment” (arbitrium) as he usually does. This is an interesting passage because De malo, q. 6 places
a lot of emphasis on the role of the will within free choice; however, Thomas shows
how, without the proper guidance of the intellect, the will may be free but the person
is not free. More about this passage will be explained below.
29
Thomas notes, “The will by its nature is good, and so also the will’s natural act is
good. And I say ‘the will’s natural act’ to mean that human beings by their nature
will to exist, live, and enjoy happiness. But if we should speak of moral good, then
the will, absolutely considered, is potentially, not actually good or evil.”

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John Rziha

looked at within the context of the Summa as a whole, we see that Leo’s
interpretation of Thomas is basically correct. The question on freedom
(I, q. 83) is in the first part of the Summa Theologiae in the section where
the nature of humans is covered; whereas the second part of the Summa
treats the perfection of human nature through its proper actions.30 All
things act in accord with their nature. Because things are perfected to
the extent that they perform their proper action, a being’s nature determines its mode of perfection.31 For example, because humans are made
with an intellect and will, humans are ultimately perfected by knowing
and loving God and others while a tree without spiritual capacities is
perfected simply by living and growing. Hence, in reference to freedom,
the natural ability of the intellect and will to freely choose is ultimately
ordered to the true (moral) freedom that comes from sharing in the wisdom and love of God.
Within the first part of the second part of the Summa Theologiae
Thomas introduces and elucidates one moral principle after another as
he shows how humans must be perfected and guided in order to perform their proper actions. Paralleling this development of moral teaching is the development of the notion of moral freedom. Beginning with
the treatise on happiness and extending into the treatise on human acts
in general, Thomas emphasizes multiple times that free choice is ordered to the end of happiness.32 When covering habits, Thomas notes
that because humans by nature need virtues and gifts to perform their
proper actions, habits aid humans in acting freely.33 When covering sin,
30

See ST I, a.75, prologue, where Thomas states that he will first treat the nature of man (qq.
75–90). See then the prologue to the second part, where Thomas states that in this part he
will treat humans inasmuch as they are free principles of their actions. See further the prologue to I-II, q. 6, where Thomas states that because happiness is obtained by human actions
he will then study human actions. It is in this section of looking at human actions that he
spends a great deal of time on the will and its relation to the intellect (ST I-II, qq. 6–17).
31
ST I, q. 5, a. 5; q. 73, a. 1; SCG I, ch. 68.3; III, ch. 150; Cf. Sentencia libri Physicae II,
14, n. 268. For a detailed study of the relation between the first and second act of the
creature as ordered to God, see John Rziha, Perfecting Human Actions (Washington,
DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 43–78.
32
See ST I-II, q. 1, a. 1 and a. 2; I-II, q. 10, q. 12, q. 13; q. 55, a. 1, ad 2. See also Pinckaers, Sources, 386–88.
33
See ST I-II, q. 55, a.1, ad 2, where Thomas states that good use of free choice is said to
be a virtue, because virtues are directed to the good use of free choice. Cf. I-II, q. 68, a.
3, ad 2; q. 108, a. 1, ad 2; II-II, q. 183, a. 4, ad 1.

Papal Teachings on Freedom

595

Thomas notes that disordered passions remove freedom.34 In the treatise
on law, Thomas notes that the new law of the Spirit is the law of liberty.35 Finally, in the section on grace Thomas notes that humans in their
weakened state need the grace of God to strengthen their freedom.36
Only with the aid of the virtues, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and
the grace of God are humans free to obtain their ultimate end. Thomas
demonstrates the development of the power of freedom through virtue,
grace, and law by stating that the new law of grace, which perfects the
soul to share in God’s knowledge and love, is the law of liberty:
According to the Philosopher (Metaphysicae I, 2), what is “free
is cause of itself.” Therefore he acts freely, who acts of his own
accord. Now man does of his own accord that which he does
from a habit that is suitable to his nature: since a habit inclines
one as a second nature. If, however, a habit be in opposition
to nature, man would not act according to his nature, but according to some corruption affecting that nature. Since then the
grace of the Holy Spirit is like an interior habit bestowed on us
and inclining us to act aright, it makes us do freely those things
that are becoming to grace, and shun what is opposed to it.37
Thomas affirms that habits suitable to nature perfect freedom because
they allow humans to more perfectly act by their own accord. Grace is
34

ST I-II, q. 10, a. 3; q. 73, a. 6. Thomas emphasizes that sin is an act of free judgment.
Whenever disordered passions precede the sinful act, they remove freedom and diminish the sin. However, consequent disordered passion increases the gravity of the
sin (ST I-II, q. 77, a. 6). Cf. ST I-II, q. 26, a. 1, which notes that the sensitive appetite
is free to the extent it participates in reason; i.e., it is perfected to desire the rational
good. See also ST I, q. 62, a. 8, ad 3 and q. 83, a. 2, ad 3.
35
ST I-II, q. 108, a. 1. In the Summa when covering the natural and old law, however,
Thomas does not talk about how law increases freedom.
36
ST I-II, q. 109, a. 2, ad 1; q. 111, a. 2.
37
ST I-II, q. 108, a. 1, ad 2: “Secundum philosophum, in I Metaphys., liber est qui sui
causa est. Ille ergo libere aliquid agit qui ex seipso agit. Quod autem homo agit ex
habitu suae naturae convenienti, ex seipso agit, quia habitus inclinat in modum naturae. Si vero habitus esset naturae repugnans, homo non ageret secundum quod est
ipse, sed secundum aliquam corruptionem sibi supervenientem. Quia igitur gratia
spiritus sancti est sicut interior habitus nobis infusus inclinans nos ad recte operandum, facit nos libere operari ea quae conveniunt gratiae, et vitare ea quae gratiae
repugnant.” Cf. ST III, q .7, a. 2; SCG III, ch. 148; IV, ch. 22, ch. 113.3.

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John Rziha

like a habit, so it also perfects freedom. Finally, the grace of the Holy
Spirit is called the new law, because it functions like a law: guiding and
moving humans to freely perform their proper action.38 Hence, like Leo,
Thomas believes that moral freedom is simply natural freedom brought
to its proper operation. Furthermore, freedom is perfected by law, virtue, and grace.
Because humans are free when they act by their own accord, defects
in the intellect, will, and passions diminish freedom. In the above section on Leo’s view of freedom, I already quoted the passage from Thomas’s commentary on John, which notes that without reason guiding the
intellect, humans are not free. They are like slaves who are moved by
another to their actions—because they are not performing actions proper to their nature.39 Elsewhere Thomas notes that when humans do evil,
which they rationally hate (cf. Rom 7:15), they do have free will (voluntatem), but they do not perform a free action.40 In other words a distinction can be made between the freedom of the will and the freedom of
the human person. In terms of the natural power of free choice, the will
is free whenever it chooses something determined by the intellect to be
good—even if it is an apparent good.41 However, the person himself is
not truly free unless the intellect knows the truth and the will loves the
good. Because these powers require virtue and grace to be perfected, so
also freedom is perfected as humans increase in grace and virtue. Thus,
like Leo, Thomas believes that defects in the powers of the soul remove
freedom of choice.
38

ST I-II, q. 106, a. 2; q. 108; SCG IV, ch. 22.6.
The passage stated, “Everything is that which belongs to a thing naturally. When,
therefore, it acts through a power outside itself, it does not act of itself, but through
another, that is, as a slave. But man is by nature rational. When, therefore, he acts according to reason, he acts of himself and according to his free will; and this is liberty.
Whereas, when he sins, he acts in opposition to reason, is moved by another, and is
the victim of foreign misapprehensions. Therefore, ‘Whosoever commits sin is the
slave of sin.’” Super Ioan. 8, lec. 4, §1204. See note 15 above.
40
De malo, q. 6, a. 1, ad 22. “quod ille qui facit quod non vult non habet liberam actionem, sed potest habere liberam voluntatem.” Note how in this passage Thomas uses
the term “free will” and not “free choice” (electionem) or “free judgment” (arbitrium)
as he usually does. Cf. ST I-II, q. 9, a. 5, ad 3.
41
In fact, in the section on sin, Thomas spends a great deal of time speaking about how
sins are freely chosen and how in a certain sense the degree of sinfulness is in accord
with the degree of freedom (ST I-II, qq. 71–88).
39

Papal Teachings on Freedom

597

Because Thomas sees that moral freedom is perfected by law, virtue,
and grace, the most perfect freedom exists when humans or angels share
in the wisdom and love of God in the beatific vision. When speaking of
angels in the presence of God, Thomas states,
It belongs to the perfection of its liberty for the free choice to
be able to choose between opposite things, keeping the order
of the end in view; but it comes of the defect of liberty for it to
choose anything by turning away from the order of the end; and
this is to sin. Hence there is greater liberty of will in the angels,
who cannot sin, than there is in ourselves, who can sin.42
Consequently, just as Leo states God and those that perfectly participate
in his knowledge and love are the most free, so also Thomas confirms
the freedom of the angels in the presence of God. This perfect freedom
also extends to humans in the beatific state; (see Summa contra gentiles
IV, ch. 95). Like Leo, Thomas also asserts that the ability to do evil is not
essential to freedom, but comes from a defect in freedom.
Finally, one of the points that Leo emphasizes the most is that just
laws do not remove freedom, but perfect freedom because they guide
the intellect. Thomas also makes this point in a passage in the Summa
contra gentiles. In this passage, Thomas notes that for the soul unperfected by virtue and grace, the law conflicts with freedom. Once the soul is
perfected, however, the Holy Spirit moves the soul to act freely:
The will, of course, is ordered to that which is truly good. But
if, by reason of passion or of bad habit or disposition, a man be
turned away from that which is truly good, he acts slavishly, in
that he is diverted by some extraneous thing, if consideration
be given the will’s natural order itself. But, if one considers the
42

ST I, q. 62, a. 8, ad 3. “Unde quod liberum arbitrium diversa eligere possit servato
ordine finis, hoc pertinet ad perfectionem libertatis eius, sed quod eligat aliquid divertendo ab ordine finis, quod est peccare, hoc pertinet ad defectum libertatis. Unde
maior libertas arbitrii est in Angelis, qui peccare non possunt, quam in nobis, qui
peccare possumus.” See also SCG I, ch. 88, in reference to freedom in God and SCG
IV, ch. 95, in reference to humans in the beatific vision. Cf. Commentary on Romans,
ch. 8, lec. 4.

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John Rziha

act of the will as inclined to an apparent good, one acts freely
when he follows passion or a corrupt habit. He acts slavishly, of
course, if while his will remains such he—for fear of a law to the
contrary—refrains from that which he wills. Therefore, since
the Holy Spirit inclines the will by love toward the true good, to
which the will is naturally ordered, He removes both that servitude in which the slave of passion infected by sin acts against
the order of the will, and that servitude in which, against the
movement of his will, a man acts according to the law; its slave,
so to say, not its friend. This is why the Apostle says: “Where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor 3:17); and: “If you
are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Gal 5:18).43
This passage shows many of the parts of Thomas’s view of freedom. First, it
notes that disordered passions and vices remove freedom. It then reminds
the reader that because free will is a power, it is still free to pursue an apparent good. When the will is pursuing this false good, just laws appear
to constrain that freedom. Yet true freedom can be found in following the
inclination of the Holy Spirit (called the new law of grace in ST I-II, qq.
106–8). Finally, quoting 2 Corinthians 3:17, Thomas notes that participating in the guidance and love of the Holy Spirit results in freedom.
One of Leo’s most influential contributions on the topic of freedom
is the distinction he makes between true and false freedom. As seen
above, this distinction is adopted by the Vatican II fathers in Gaudium et
Spes, by John Paul II, and by Benedict XVI. Does Thomas also make this
distinction? Thomas does speak of true freedom in contrast to a slavery

43

SCG IV, ch. 22.6: “Cum autem voluntas ordinetur in id quod est vere bonum, sive
propter passionem sive propter malum habitum aut dispositionem homo ab eo quod
est vere bonum avertatur, serviliter agit, inquantum a quodam extraneo inclinatur,
si consideretur ipse ordo naturalis voluntatis. Sed si consideretur actus voluntatis
ut inclinatae in apparens bonum, libere agit cum sequitur passionem aut habitum
corruptum; serviliter autem agit si, tali voluntate manente, propter timorem legis
in contrarium positae, abstinet ab eo quod vult. Cum igitur spiritus sanctus per
amorem voluntatem inclinet in verum bonum, in quod naturaliter ordinatur, tollit
et servitutem qua, servus passionis et peccati effectus, contra ordinem voluntatis
agit; et servitutem qua, contra motum suae voluntatis, secundum legem agit, quasi
legis servus, non amicus. Propter quod apostolus dicit, II Cor. 3–17.”

Papal Teachings on Freedom

599

to sin. True freedom results when humans are perfected by justice to
seek their proper action. He states:
Since man, by his natural reason, is inclined to justice, while sin
is contrary to natural reason, it follows that freedom from sin
is true freedom which is united to the servitude of justice, since
they both incline man to that which is becoming to him. In like
manner true servitude is the servitude of sin, which is connected with freedom from justice, because man is thereby hindered
from attaining that which is proper to him. That a man become
the servant of justice or sin results from his efforts.44
When humans are servants to justice, they are truly free. Although
Thomas believes that humans by natural freedom can freely commit sin
and see just laws as a restriction of their freedom, true freedom results
when humans are inclined (through grace and virtue) to their proper
end of knowing and loving God.
Yet, even as I show the continuity between Thomas’s view of freedom and Leo’s view of freedom, there are certainly differences of emphasis between Thomas and Leo. Thomas spends significantly more time
speaking of the natural power of free choice and far less time speaking
of moral freedom whereas Leo basically only speaks of moral freedom.
In fact, in many of the places where one would expect Thomas to speak
of humans lacking freedom due to slavery to sin—for example, in the
section on sin in the Summa Theologiae I-II, qq. 71–88—Thomas basically only focuses on the natural power of free choice and the fact that
sin consists of freely choosing evil.
Despite the fact that Leo XIII emphasizes different aspects of freedom (owing to the pastoral needs of the time), there is clearly continuity
44

ST II-II, q. 183, a. 4: “quia homo secundum naturalem rationem ad iustitiam inclinatur, peccatum autem est contra naturalem rationem, consequens est quod libertas a
peccato sit vera libertas, quae coniungitur servituti iustitiae, quia per utrumque tendit homo in id quod est conveniens sibi. Et similiter vera servitus est servitus peccati,
cui coniungitur libertas a iustitia, quia scilicet per hoc homo impeditur ab eo quod
est proprium sibi. Hoc autem quod homo efficiatur servus iustitiae vel peccati, contingit per humanum studium.” Emphasis added. In the reply to the first objection,
Thomas also notes how charity results in freedom from sin and in q. 184, a. 4, ad 2
Thomas speaks about how grace moves humans from servitude to freedom.

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John Rziha

between Thomas’s understanding of freedom and that of Leo. However,
this continuity can be obscured if only the passages from Thomas that
treat free choice as a power are examined. Thomas does state that free
judgment as a power is “indifferent” to good or evil actions inasmuch
as it can choose either. Like all rational powers, however, it must be perfected to perform its proper action. Hence greater practical knowledge
and the virtues perfecting the intellect, will, and emotions perfect the
natural power of free judgment so that it can perform its proper action
of freely choosing actions ordered toward God.45 Grace especially perfects this power. Thomas notes that true freedom exists when humans
freely choose actions ordered to God by charity through the guidance
of the Holy Spirit, whereas false freedom exists when humans commit
sins. Leo affirms Thomas’s view and further specifies that freedom is
perfected by laws that guide human reason and move the will to good
actions. Leo emphasizes the role of law and truth in guiding humans
because he is writing against those that hold that freedom is a sheer
autonomy of the will.
N&V

45

Because the power of free choice emerges from the powers of both the intellect and
will, there is not a specific virtue that perfects it. In other words, there is not a virtue
called perfected freedom. Rather, because both the intellect and will must be perfected (as well as the passions because of their influence on the intellect and will),
virtues perfecting all three powers are essential for true freedom to exist.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 601-616

601

St. Thomas Aquinas and the Virtuousness
of Penance:
On the Importance of Aristotle for Catholic Theology
Jörgen Vijgen

Philosophical-Theological Institute St. Willibrord
Haarlem, The Netherlands

Introduction

THE TOPIC OF PENANCE(Greek: metameleia, metanoia; Latin: paenitentia) is of course central to the Judeo-Christian faith.1 Both Old and New
Testaments contain numerous calls for a return to God: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the
Lord, that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon” (Is 55:7). John the Baptist is described as having appeared in the
wilderness, “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”
(Mk 1:4) and Christ himself starts his preaching with the words: “The time
is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the
gospel” (Mk 1:15). Christ tells his disciples: “if your brother sins, rebuke him,
and if he repents, forgive him” (Lk 17:3) because “unless you repent you will
all likewise perish” (Lk 13:5).2 Particularly insightful are the nine homilies
1

This is the revised version of a lecture given at the Center for Scriptural Exegesis,
Philosophy, and Doctrine at Dayton University in January 2013. I would like to
thank Matthew Levering for his invitation and his comments.
2
See the still valuable entries in G. Kittel, Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, vol. 4 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1942) and in Dictionnaire de spiritualité: Ascétique et mystique. Doctrine et histoire, vol. 10 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1980).

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Jörgen Vijgen

John Chrysostom preached in Antioch in the years 386–87. In the second
sermon, John explains why God forgave Ahab for having murdered a man
whose property he wished to possess (1 Kgs 20). John paraphrases God’s
train of thought: “‘Do not think,’ He said, ‘that I forgave him without any reason (haplôs sunekhôrêsa autôi). He reformed his manner of living (tropon),
and I changed my wrath and dissolved it. . . . If he had not changed his character, he would have suffered the consequences of the decision.”3 Forgiveness
is not granted unconditionally, or on the basis of a mere emotion but must be
accompanied by a reform of one’s nature, a change of heart.
Following the work of Servais Pinckaers, O.P., Maria C. Morrow has
argued for the need to reconnect the virtues and the sacraments, in both
the field of Catholic moral and sacramental theology as well as in the
life of the members of the Catholic Church. In doing so, she correctly
emphasized the unity that exists between the sacramental and the moral
life in the case of penance, being both a virtue and a sacrament in the
thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.4
My aim in this article is to explore the historical context in which St.
Thomas accounts for the virtuousness of penance. I argue that the importance of this exploration lies in the fact that St. Thomas has a unique and
insightful approach to pagan philosophy, exemplified by Aristotle. This
approach, far from introducing an alien system of thought into the articulation of the faith, illumines that faith and illustrates the fruitfulness of
St. Thomas’s “hellenization” of the Christian faith.5 In order to do so, I first
3

John Chrysostom, “Homily 2.3.20,” in On Repentance and Almsgiving, trans. Gus
Christo (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 24.
4
Maria C. Morrow, “Reconnecting Sacrament and Virtue: Penance in Thomas’s Summa Theologiae,” New Blackfriars 91 (2010): 304–20.
5
The call for a “de-hellenisation,” a return to the message of the Gospel that lies
hidden under the accretions of “scholastic” speculations, is the central theme addressed in the famous Regensburg lecture by Benedict XVI. For a historical account
of the notion of Hellenization, introduced by the Catholic Humanist Guillaume
Budé (De transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum, 1535), see Alois Grillmeier, “Hellenisierung—Judaisierung des Christentums als Deuteprinzipien der Geschichte
des kirchlichen Dogmas,” Scholastik 33 (1958): 321–55, 528–58, revised in Mit ihm
und in ihm: Christologische Forschungen und Perspektiven (Freiburg: Herder, 1975)
423–88; Leo Scheffczyk, Tendenzen und Brennpunkte der neueren Problematik um
die Hellenisierung des Christentums (Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1982); more recently, Christoph Markschies, “Does It Make Sense to
Speak about a ‘Hellenization of Christianity’ in Antiquity?” Church History and
Religious Culture 92 (2012): 5–34; expanded in Hellenisierung des Christentums:

The Virtuousness of Penance

603

need to outline the idea of penance in classical antiquity and the reaction
of some early Christian apologetics.
Penance among the Greek and Roman Philosophers
A different picture than the one sketched in the introduction on the
importance of penance emerges from the writings of the Greek and Roman philosophers. There is, for instance, the saying of the Presocratic
philosopher Democritus: “Penance (metameleia) over shameful deeds
is one’s own salvation in life (biou soterie).”6 What Democritus is saying here, however, is merely that the emotion, the pathos of metameleia, is not without significance for the moral life: it prevents a person
from exhibiting a moral apathy regarding his past and from making the
same mistakes in the future. The value of retrospective shame at one’s
misdeeds lies merely in the fact that it is a prerequisite for progress.7
It resembles what Seneca says, when commenting on the adagium he
ascribes to Epicurus—Initium est salutis notitia peccati “the knowledge
of sin is the beginning of salvation”—“he who does not know that he
has sinned does not desire correction; you must discover yourself in the
wrong before you can reform yourself.”8 The Greek Neoplatonic philosopher Hierocles of Alexandria (fl. 430 AD) will even claim that metanoia is “the beginning of philosophy (philosophias arche): the flight from
both senseless (anoeton) deeds and words and the first preparation for
a life that is without regret.”9 But these and other statements do never
occur in a systematic context and in the end metameleia or metanoia
Sinn und Unsinn einer historischen Deutungskategorie (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2012).
6
Herman Diels, Wilhelm Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin: Weidmann,
1903: Walther Kranz, ed., 6th ed., Berlin: Weidmann, 1952), 55A43. Hereafter DK.
7
See DK 55A84.
8
Letter 28, 9, quoted from Philosophische Schriften, vol. 3 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1999), 240: “Tempus est desinere, sed si prius portorium
solvero. ‘Initium est salutis notitia peccati.’ Egregie mihi hoc dixisse videtur Epicurus; nam qui peccare se nescit corrigi non vult; deprehendas te oportet antequam
emendes. Quidam vitiis gloriantur: tu existimas aliquid de remedio cogitare qui
mala sua virtutum loco numerant? Ideo quantum potes te ipse coargue, inquire in
te; accusatoris primum partibus fungere, deinde iudicis, novissime deprecatoris; aliquando te offende. Vale.”
9
In carmen Pythagorae aureum commentarium 14, 10, ed. Friedrich W. Köhler (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1974), 66.

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Jörgen Vijgen

remain merely an emotion that stands in the way of a morally good life
or at least something that has to be overcome.
Plato never sees metameleia as a virtue or a commendable quality.
On the contrary, in one of the rare occasions in which he uses this word,
he writes that the soul that is full of “remorse” (metameleias) is not capable of doing what she desires. Such a soul is enslaved under a tyrant
of an emotion.10
The position of Aristotle seems, at first, to be somewhat more complicated. In writing about the self-indulgent person in the Nicomachean
Ethics, Book 7, he says that such a person is “of necessity without regrets” (metameletikon)11 and because a person without regrets cannot
be cured, such a self-indulgent person is incurable. The reason that a
self-indulgent person is without regrets is that he “stands by his choice,”
he is convinced that his is the sort of man to pursue pleasures, that are
excessive and contrary to reason. In this he differs from an incontinent
person, who is apt to pursue the same excessive pleasures but not on
conviction; he does not have the conviction that he ought to pursue
such pleasures without reserve. An incontinent person therefore acts
contrary to choice; he is carried away by passions, whereas an self-indulgent person acts in accordance with choice.12 In this respect, at least, an
incontinent person is better off and his incontinence cannot be called a
vice in the same unqualified sense as the vice of self-indulgence. Metameleia clearly signifies in this context simply regret over what one has
done unwittingly, and not guilty compunction.
In Book 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics, however, in dealing with the
characteristics of friendship as something that proceeds from a man’s
relations to himself, Aristotle writes that a good man lives in harmony
with himself, that “he desires the same things with all his soul.” Such a
man therefore wishes for himself what is good; he “wishes to live with
10

Republic IX, 577e.
Ethica Nicomachea (EN) VII, ch. 7 (1150a21–22): “ἀκόλαστος: ἀνάγκη γὰρ τοῦτον
μὴ εἶναι μεταμελητικόν, ὥστ᾽ ἀνίατος: ὁ γὰρ ἀμεταμέλητος ἀνίατος.”
12
EN VII, ch. 8 (1150b29–30): “ἔστι δ᾽ ὁ μὲν ἀκόλαστος, ὥσπερ ἐλέχθη, οὐ
μεταμελητικός: ἐμμένει γὰρ τῇ προαιρέσει: ὁ δ᾽ ἀκρατὴς μεταμελητικὸς πᾶς”; see
also Magna Moralia (MM) 2111a40: “At all events the incontinent man, when he has
done something to which pleasure prompts, not long afterwards repents and reviles
himself. It is the same with the bad man in other vices. For he is always fighting with
and opposing himself.”
11

The Virtuousness of Penance

605

himself ” because he has delightful memories of the past and pleasant
hopes for the future. But such a man also grieves and rejoices with himself “for the same thing is always painful, and the same thing always
pleasant, and not one thing at one time and another at another; he has,
so to speak, nothing to regret”(ametameletos).13
The contradiction between these two passages is only apparent. The
emotion of regret, felt by the incontinent person, is not an active cause
but merely a condition, necessary in order to verify an improvement. In
Aristotle’s “perfectionist ethical scheme,”14 which emphasizes the character of the man of perfect virtue, there is no place for retrospective
shame because such a shame would imply a disposition to do wrong15;
hence metameleia is characteristic not of the man of perfect virtue but
of he who struggles and often fails to be good. In the Eudemian Ethics,
Book 7, he writes: “the good man never finds fault with himself like the
incontinent, nor the later with the earlier man, like the penitent, nor the
earlier with the later, like the liar.”16 In sum, metameleia is viewed in a
similar vein as shame (aidos)17: it cannot be a virtue because it is more
like a passion than a habit.
The philosophical current with the strongest reservations against
the usefulness of penance is the Stoa. Whereas one could say that Aristotle was not able to integrate metameleia into his moral philosophy, the
Stoa was explicitly directed against any pathos that could disturb their
ideal of ataraxia or mental tranquility. The Stoic Andronikos defines
metameleia18 as a pain, a grief (lupè) about faults in the past, in so far
13

EN IX, ch. 3 (1166a1–29), here 26–29: ἀμεταμέλητος γὰρ ὡς εἰπεῖν. Aquinas comments that this is so because such a person always acts according to reason and does
not readily have regrets. Thus he is at peace with himself. Note that Aquinas paraphrases Aristotle’s text impaenitibilis enim ut dicere as follows: non de facili paenitet
(Sent. Eth. IX, lec. 4; Leonine ed., vol. 47.2, p. 514, ll. 164–65; Marietti ed, no. 1809).
14
Charles L. Griswold, “Plato and Forgiveness,” Ancient Philosophy 27 (2007): 269–87,
here 282.
15
See EN V, ch. 9 (1128b10–35): the sense of disgrace is not characteristic of a good
man because it is consequent upon bad actions.
16
Ethica Eudemica (EE) VII, ch. 6 (1240b21–24): “ὁ δ᾽ ἀγαθὸς οὔθ᾽ ἅμα λοιδορεῖται
ἑαυτῷ, ὥσπερ ὁ ἀκρατής, οὔτε ὁ ὕστερος τῷ πρότερον, ὥσπερ ὁ μεταμελητικός,
οὔτε ὁ ἔμπροσθεν τῷ ὕστερον, ὥσπερ ὁ ψεύστης.” See also MM II, 1211a40–b2.
17
EN V, ch. 9 (1128b10–11): “περὶ δὲ αἰδοῦς ὥς τινος ἀρετῆς οὐ προσήκει λέγειν:
πάθει γὰρ μᾶλλον ἔοικεν ἢ ἕξει.”
18
Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ed. Hans von Arnim, 1905–24 (reprint, Stuttgart:

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as they have occurred by one’s own doing. Another Stoic, Stobaeus describes metameleia as an irrational passion of the soul.19 In his treatise
On Benefits, Seneca writes:
The wise man never changes his plans while the conditions under which he formed them remain the same; therefore, he never feels regret (paenitentia), because at the time nothing better
than what he did could have been done, nor could any better
decision have been arrived at than that which was made; yet
he begins everything with the saving clause, “If nothing shall
occur to the contrary.” This is the reason why we say that all
goes well with him, and that nothing happens contrary to his
expectation, because he bears in mind the possibility of something happening to prevent the realization of his projects. It is
an imprudent confidence to trust that fortune will be on our
side. The wise man considers both sides: he knows how great
is the power of errors, how uncertain human affairs are, how
many obstacles there are to the success of plans. Without committing himself, he awaits the doubtful and capricious issue of
events, and weighs certainty of purpose against uncertainty of
result. Here also, however, he is protected by that saving clause,
without which he decides upon nothing, and begins nothing.20
Ultimately for the Stoa, to repent is a foolish act and all folly is its own

Teubner, 1968), III, fr. 414. Hereafter SVF.
SVF III, fr. 563.
20
De beneficiis IV, 34 (SVF III, 565): “Non mutat sapiens consilium omnibus liis manentibus, quae erant, cum sumeret. ideo nunquam illum poenitentia subit, quia nihil melius illo tempore fieri potuit, quam quod factum est, nihil melius constitui,
quam quod constitutimi est. ceterum ad omnia cum exceptione venit: si nihil inciderit, quod impediat. ideo omnia illi succedere dicimus et nihil contra opinionem
accidere, quia praesumit animo posse aliquid intervenire, quod destinata prohibeat.”
Emperor Julianus the Apostate (d. 363) also expresses the negativity of remorse in
his Oration for Emperor Constantius. He writes that generals should not resent the
insolence of kings but should endure their censure with self-control and serenely,
“so that their whole life may not be filled with remorse” (metameleias). Oratio II,
50C: W. C. Wright, The Works of the Emperor Julian, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library
(London: Heinemann, 1913/1980) 134.
19

The Virtuousness of Penance

607

burden.21 The Stoic sage presents the culmination of the Greco-Roman
mind-set. Against the background of its cosmic determinism and its pantheistic monism, the moral ideal of ataraxia leaves the Stoic sage with no
escape. There is no Other to go to, there is no past or future to contemplate
because, as the Stoic Chrysippus writes, all is governed by fate (heimarmenè), by that cosmic logos “whereby things that have been, were: the
things that now are, have a present existence: and the things that are to be,
shall be.”22 In such a worldview—a worldview that now and then resurfaces in history—any conversion is metaphysically impossible.
Even Philo of Alexandria, cognizant as he was of Greek thought and
devoting a section of his On virtues (§§175–86) to metanoia, assigns a
secondary status to metanoia as a virtue, because it depends on a prior
error; just as health is the greatest good for the body, and recovery the
next best thing, so too is repentance.23
Christian Apologetics
Unsurprisingly, then, the early Christian apologetic Fathers felt the
need to distinguish Christian paenitentia from the views of their pagan contemporaries and predecessors. This is precisely what Tertullian
(160–225) does in the first chapter of his treatise On Repentance, titled
“Of Heathen Repentance.” True paenitentia is about a change of heart
that causes us to search for forgiveness for sins. The sins for which we
seek forgiveness are not emotions but offenses against an externally existing moral obligation. What motivates a true penitent is therefore the
awareness that the sin is an offense, offending above all against God. It
is this penance that, according to Tertullian, we sinners should embrace
“as a shipwrecked man the protection of some plank.”24 The penitent is
21

Seneca, Letter 9, 22: omnis stultitia laborat fastidio sui “all folly is afflicted with a
disdain of itself,” quoted from Philosophische Schriften, vol. 3 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1999), 63.
22
SVF II, fr. 913.
23
See Philo of Alexandria, On Virtues, trans. Walter T. Wilson (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 79–82.
24
De paenitentia, ch. 4: Ut naufragus alicuius tabulæ fidem. The “second plank after
shipwreck” (secunda tabula post naufragium) is a popular expression in patristic and
scholastic theology to indicate the importance of penance, after baptism as the first
plank. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (ST) III, q. 84, a. 6. On the history
of this expression, see p. 149n54 in the English translation Treatises on Penance: On
Penitence and on Purity, trans. William P. le Saint (New York: Newman Press, 1959).

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Jörgen Vijgen

essentially looking outward, he is foremost concerned about the impact
on others or an Other of the harm his actions have done. But the pagan penitent is essentially focused upon himself, and he regrets that his
sense of self has been damaged; that is, he feels distress at his shortcomings and he no longer wants to see himself in this way. Robert A. Kaster
has insightfully noted that “it is this difference of orientation that makes
‘self-regret’ a perfectly transparent notion at the same time that is makes
the idea of ‘self-remorse’ unintelligible; it is the reason why remorse is
essentially a moral emotion, while regret is not.”25 Whereas remorse can
be expressed as “look what I’ve done to you,” self-regret expresses itself
by saying, “look at me, what have I done.”26 Tertullian illustrates this by
saying that the pagans even experience paenitentia in respect of their
good deeds: “they feel paenitentia for good faith, love, simple-heartedness, generosity, patience, and pity, in so far any of these meets with
ingratitude, and they curse themselves for having done good.”27 And,
indeed, in his On Benefits, Seneca touches several times upon this sort
of paenitentia.28
Another example is Lactantius (c. 240 to c. 320). In book VI, chapter 24 of his The Divine Institutes, he comforts those who are in despair
because they have left the way of righteousness. He quotes Cicero, who
discredits penance because for him penance is the result of a rash, inconsiderate and unfounded opinion and that is precisely what a wise
man should never have. This resembles Seneca’s position, that a wise
man never changes his plans and he never feels regret because at the
time of his decision nothing better than what he did could have been
done, nor could any better decision have been arrived at than that which
was made. In his reply, Lactantius does not directly address this opinion
but offers the following example as a kind of counterposition: “if we
think that our children are corrected when we perceive that they repent
of their faults, and though we have disinherited and cast them off, we
again receive, cherish, and embrace them, why should we despair that
25

Robert A. Kaster, Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 80.
26
Ibid., 83.
27
De paenitentia, ch. 1.
28
Especially De beneficiis VII, 26.

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609

the mercy of God our Father may again be appeased by repentance?”29
Lactantius here presents the image of a God, unknown to the pagans:
a God who is a Father even for the sinner. In fact, paenitentia is a gift
of God: “God, knowing our weakness, of His compassion has opened
a harbor of refuge for man (aperuit homini portam salutis),30 that the
medicine of repentance might aid this necessity to which our frailty is
liable. Therefore, if anyone has erred, let him retrace his step, and as
soon as possible recover and reform himself.”31 Such a metanoia is indeed possible, he says, because “as the uprightness of his past life is of
no avail to him who lives badly, because the subsequent wickedness has
destroyed his works of righteousness, so former sins do not stand in the
way of him who has amended his life, because the subsequent righteousness has effaced the stain of his former life.”32
St. Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas stands in the tradition of Peter Lombard, who in book IV, d.
14 introduces for the first time, so it seems, the idea that paenitentia is
said of both the sacrament (the “exterior sacrament”) and the “virtue of
the mind” (virtus mentis; the “interior sacrament). He defines the virtue
of penance as follows: “Penance is a virtue by which we bewail and hate,
with purpose of amendment, the evils we have committed, and we will
not commit again the things we have bewailed. And so true penance is
to sorrow in one’s soul and to hate vices.”33
The idea of penance as a separate virtue was not readily admitted
by the scholastic theologians. William of Auxerre for instance in his
Summa Aurea will explicitly oppose this idea.34 Albertus Magnus will
make a clear distinction. A virtue in the proper sense of the word—and
29

Lactantius, The Divine Institutes VI, ch. 24.
This is reminiscent of Tertullian’s expression “as a shipwrecked man the protection
of some plank.” See note 24 above.
31
Lactantius, The Divine Institutes VI, ch. 24.
32
Ibid. For a recent study on this theme focusing on Eastern Christianity, see Alexis
C. Torrance, Repentance in Late Antiquity: Eastern Asceticism and the Framing of the
Christian Life c. 400–650 CE (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
33
Translation taken from Giulio Silano, trans., The Sentences—Book 4: On the Doctrine
of Signs (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010).
34
See his Summa aurea, lib. 4, tr. 8, c. 3 (ed. J. Ribaillier, Rome: Collegium S. Bonaventurae), 201–6.
30

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that means for him according to Aristotle—is a habit that directs to an
intellectual or moral good. In that proper sense of the word, penance is
not a virtue. The theologian, however, uses a broad definition of virtue,
namely, everything that contributes to a right way of living. In doing so,
the theologian names a virtue what in the Nicomachean Ethics properly
speaking is named a passion such as fear, joy, hope, etc. Therefore secundum dicta Sanctorum penance can be called a virtue.35 Bonaventure explicitly opposes the idea that penance is merely a virtue in a broad sense
of the word but without giving, so it seems, a fully satisfying account.36
But if penance is a virtue, why didn’t the ancient philosophers—and
this includes foremost Aristotle—examine this virtue? Already in his
Sentences commentary, where he explicitly raises this question, Aquinas
provides an answer by saying that the philosophers did not mention
this virtue because the remission of sins pertains to God’s providence
regarding human actions in that God is offended by fault and appeased
by penance. But the philosophers did not consider the virtues that lead
human actions as directed toward God’s providence, but as directed
toward the human good. As Aquinas underlines, however, it remains
possible to draw similarities between the human and the divine and
therefore to use the insights of the philosophers as an ancilla theologiae,
35

Albertus Magnus, In IV Sent. d. 14, art. 3 (ed. Borgnet, vol. 29, 408b–409a): “Dicendum mihi videtur, quod virtus sumitur proprie, et communiter: proprie quidem a
Philosopho in Ethicis, et secundum hoc est habitus ordinans in bonum intellectualis
vel moralis . . . Sic ergo propriissime loquendo de virtute, bene concedo, quod poenitentia non est virtus. Aliter sumitur virtus qua recte vivitur, et extenso nomine: et
hoc praecipue a Theologo qui multa quae in genere passionum ab Ethico ponuntur,
virtutes dicit: ut timorem dicit Gregorius virtutem, sicut et generaliter septem dona:
et gaudium dicit Ambrosius virtutem, sicut et generaliter duodecim fructus enumeratos in epistola ad Galatas. Et spem dicit virtutem theologicam omnis theologus: et similiter charitatem, et alia quae secundum ipsum nomen passionem sonare
videntur: et secundum hoc virtus erit generalius diffinita: scilicet quod quicumque
habitus perficit animam rationalem secundum actum ordinantem in bonum vel a
malo, quod ille virtus dicatur: et sic poenitentia est virtus, et timor, et gaudium, et
hujusmodi, secundum dicta Sanctorum.”
36
See Bonaventure, In IV Sent. d. 14, pars 1, a. 1, q. 1, resp. (ed. Quaracchi, vol. 4, 319):
“Tertia positio est, quod poenitentia est virtus, sed non est virtus nisi extenso nomine virtutis. Nam virtus proprie est in dirigendo ad bonum—virtus enim est qualitas
mentis, qua recte vivitur—sed poenitentia revocat a malo—Sed haec non videtur
adhuc sufficiens, quia poenitentia non facit tantum dolere de culpa perpetrata, sed
etiam facit emendare; unde eius est subiectum punire et Deo reconciliare; et hoc
patet ex definitione et ita est virtus proprie.”

The Virtuousness of Penance

611

as it were.37 Such a distinction between different spheres of inquiry is
common in St. Thomas’s reading of Aristotle and enables him to place
the philosophical validity of Aristotle’s thought within precise limits and
at the same time to supplement Aristotle’s thought in the light of the
Christian faith.38
But this is a merely extrinsic justification of the virtuousness of penance. Is it possible to give an intrinsic justification of the virtuousness of
penance, a justification that proceeds on the basis of principles of Aristotle’s ethics? This is the topic of question 85 of the Tertia Pars and more
in particular article 1, where it is asked, Utrum paenitentia sit virtus?39
Two of the three objections are based on Aristotle. In objection 2 it
is said that Aristotle clearly states that virtues are not passions40 and are
about something perfect.41 Aristotle himself gives the example of shame
in EN IV, ch. 9 (1128b10): shame cannot be a virtue because it is a certain kind of fear, a passion that entails a bodily change and is concerned
with an evil act. Likewise, penance entails a bodily change (for example
tears) and is about evil deeds.42
In objection 3 it is said that, according to Aristotle in EN IV, 3
(1123b3–4), a virtuous person never acts foolishly but according to

37

Thomas Aquinas, In IV Sent. d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 3, ad 4 (ed. F. M. Moos, p. 588, no.
61): “Tamen philosophi de hac virtute ideo mentionem non fecerunt, quia remissio
peccati, sive expiatio, pertinet ad providentiam Dei de humanis actibus, inquantum
culpa offenditur, et poenitentia placatur. Philosophi autem non consideraverunt virtutes dirigentes in actibus humanis prout ordinantur ad Dei providentiam, sed prout
ordinantur ad bonum humanum; et ideo de poenitentia mentionem non fecerunt;
sed ex similitudine aliarum quas determinaverunt, possumus nos istam accipere. Sicut enim est alicujus virtutis, ut homo placet eum quem peccando offendit; ita etiam
est alicujus virtutis, ut homo Deum placet, quem peccando offendit.”
38
See, for instance, the distinction Aquinas makes, on the basis of suggestions and
hints of Aristotle himself (“happy as men”) between imperfect and perfect happiness, in his Nicomachean Ethics; Aristotle only deals with imperfect happiness
reached in this life. See ST I-II, q. 3, a. 6, ad 1; I-II, q. 3, a. 2, ad 4; Sent. Eth. I, lec. 16
(Leonine ed., vol. 47.1, p. 60, ll. 215–36; Marietti ed., no. 201).
39
The incomplete treatise on penance in ST (qq. 84–90) has nineteen explicit references to Aristotle, eight of them occur in q. 85.
40
See Sent. Eth. II, lec. 5 (Leonine ed., vol. 47.1, pp. 91–92, ll. 138–85; Marietti ed., no. 299).
41
See Aristotle, Phys. VII, ch. 3 (246b23), and Thomas Aquinas, Sent. Phys. VII, lec. 6
(Marietti ed., no. 920).
42
ST III, q. 85, a. 1, obj. 2.

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Jörgen Vijgen

right reason.43 But it seems foolish to deplore what has been done in the
past, because it cannot be otherwise. But this is what is understood by
penance.44 Here Aquinas is implicitly echoing the objection of the Stoa.
Aquinas’s answer proceeds in three steps. First, he concedes that
penance means to deplore something one has done but immediately
notes that sorrow can pertain to two different things. (1) It can denote
a passion of the sensitive appetite and as such penance is not a virtue.
(2) But it also can denote an act of the will and as such it implies choice.
If this is so, penance will necessarily be a virtue. At this point Aquinas
introduces Aristotle’s definition of a virtue from EN II, ch. 6 (1106b36)
as his principal argument: “Virtue then is a habit that chooses the mean
in regard to us, as that mean is determined by reason and understood
by a wise man.” In the words of Aquinas: “virtue is a habit of choosing
according to right reason.” In his earlier Commentary on the Sentences,
St. Thomas had used a similar reasoning to refute Albert’s position that
penance was merely a virtue in the broad sense of the word, a reasoning
that is philosophically more convincing than that of Bonaventure.45 If
the determining fact in a moral virtue is indeed, as Aristotle says, the
habit of choosing, then every habit making the right choice can properly
be called a virtue.46
In a second step, he establishes what it means to choose according
to right reason regarding the act of penance. He says “it belongs to right
reason that one should grieve for a proper object of grief as one ought to
grieve, and for an end for which one ought to grieve.”
Finally, he applies these two steps to the act of penance. In the act of
43

See Sent. Ethic. IV, lec. 8 (Leonine ed., vol. 47.2, p. 226, ll. 35–45; Marietti ed., no.
737).
44
ST III, q. 85, a. 1, obj. 3.
45
See note 37 above.
46
In IV Sent. d. 14, q. 1, a. 1, qa. 2 resp.: “aliqui dixerunt, quod ex parte ista poenitentia est virtus; sed non proprie loquendo, sed communiter, prout omnia laudabilia
virtutes dicuntur, etiam si sint passiones. Sed hoc non potest esse; quia cum actus
virtutum non sint in dormiente, dormiens non posset dici poenitens; quod falsum
est: et ideo aliqui dixerunt, quod ex parte ista poenitentia est virtus; sed non proprie
loquendo, sed communiter, prout omnia laudabilia virtutes dicuntur, etiam si sint
passiones. Sed hoc non est verum; quia secundum philosophum in 6 Ethic. principale in virtute morali est electio; unde omnis habitus qui facit rectam electionem,
potest dici proprie loquendo virtus.”

The Virtuousness of Penance

613

penance, the penitent has a moderate, that is, according to right reason,
grief over his past sins, with the intention of removing them.
The distinction between an emotional state and a voluntary decision, whereby only the latter can be part of a virtuous action—a distinction entirely in agreement with Aristotle—enables Aquinas to respond
to the objections. First, penance is only a virtue if it includes a right
choice on the part of the will. Clearly this is not the case with shame.
Aquinas also notes another important distinction. Both penance and
shame have to do with evil deeds but shame regards an evil deed as
present, whereas penance regards an evil deed as past. This distinction
has an important consequence. Remember that Aristotle said that a virtue has to be about something perfect. An evil deed as actually present
obviously cannot be the object of a virtue. However, an evil deed as past
can indeed be the object of a virtue, or, better, it should be the object of
a virtue. It is entirely fitting to repent an evil deed of the past “for that
is what belongs to “becoming virtuous”: one passes over from one state
“being wicked” into the state of “being virtuous.”47
Second, Aquinas vigorously rejects the objection that it is foolish to
deplore what has been done in the past, because it cannot be otherwise.
Such an objection reflects a fatalistic and pessimistic view of the world
and the place of man therein, a view reminiscent of that of the Stoa.
Moreover, the penitent is not trying to undo what has been done; this
would be foolish also for Aquinas. Rather, the penitent has the intention—this is part of his choice—of removing the result of his past deed
and this is not foolish. Penance is not about cancelling what one has
done, but about freely and actively accepting what one has done and all
its consequences and being willing to make amends.
St. Thomas continues investigating the nature of this virtue in article 2. In his treatise of general ethics, he had established that habits are
distinguished according to the species of their acts. This means here
that an act, which has a special reason for being praiseworthy, must
have a corresponding special habit. Now what distinguishes penance
from any other virtue is that it aims at undoing the result of a past sin,
considered as an offense against God. Penance is therefore a distinct
and special virtue. Moreover, penance does not merely have a general
47

ST III, q. 85, a. 1, ad 2.

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Jörgen Vijgen

object in that it regards all sins but penance has to do with all sins inasmuch as these sins “can be remedied by an act of man in co-operating
with God for his justification.”48
If penance is a specific virtue, it must somehow have its place within the overall system of virtues. Now what distinguishes penance is not
merely the sorrow felt for evil done but the voluntary choice to amend
the offense committed against God. This amendment necessarily involves
some kind of compensation and this places penance in the realm of justice
(art. 3). This seems to be both impossible and harsh. Is it possible for a sinner to ever really amend for his sins? Can a sinner ever fully compensate
for his debt owed to God? Aquinas draws upon Aristotle’s distinction in
EN V, ch. 6 between civil justice, that is, justice between equals and relative
justice. Penance is an example of relative justice because a man is subject
to God as is a son to his father. It is because of God’s excellence that indeed
a perfect equality between God and man cannot be established, as even
Aristotle recognizes in EN VIII, ch. 7.49 But in such cases, when one falls
short of the other, Aquinas advises, one should do whatever one can and
because God will accept it, it becomes sufficient.
Aquinas’s language of justice, compensation, amendment, and the
like might sound harsh nowadays. Aquinas seems to acknowledge this.
In one of the objections he quotes a gloss on Lk 6:21 (“Blessed are you
that weep now”) that says that “it is prudence that teaches us the unhappiness of earthly things and the happiness of heavenly things.” This
would seem to suggest that penance is a species of prudence rather than
of justice. In his reply, Aquinas both confirms his position that penance
is directly a species of justice, but also that in a certain way (quodammodo), penance comprises things pertaining to all the virtues.50 Penance as
justice toward God shares in the theological virtues. It comprises faith in
Christ’s passion, hope for pardon, and hatred for vice, which is a result of
48

ST III, q. 85, a. 2, ad 2: “inquantum sunt emendabilia per actum hominis cooperantis
Deo ad suam iustificationem.”
49
Aristotle, EN VIII, 7, 1158b35: “And this is most manifest in the case of the gods; for
they surpass us most decisively in all good things.” For Aquinas’s commentary, see
Sent. Eth. VIII, lec. 7, no. 1634–35. Aristotle’s idea that the distance between friends
might risk that friendship to disappear is a major element of influence in Aquinas’s
reasoning that Christ left his bodily presence in the Eucharist so that a union of
friendship with Christ remains possible for us. See ST III, q. 75, a. 1.
50
This is Aquinas’s reply to William of Auxerre’s position.

The Virtuousness of Penance

615

love. As a moral virtue, penance shares in prudence, which directs all the
moral virtues and shows the penitent how he should accomplish an act of
penance moderately (temperance) and with discipline (fortitude).51
Aquinas again underlines the importance of the will when he considers the subject of penance in article 4.52 The subject of penance as
a virtue is properly speaking the will and its proper act is the purpose
of amending what was committed against God. Penance as a virtue requires more than the passion of sorrow (tristitia), located in the concupiscible part, and more than a mere reflection (memoria) on past deeds,
located in the memory, but requires a conscious choice on the part of
the penitent in order to make that choice virtuous.
There seems to be a tension between the virtuousness of penance
and Aquinas’s view that penance originates from fear (timor). Here,
however, the distinction between servile fear and filial fear is of crucial
importance. Whereas servile fear makes a person withdrawn from sin
through fear of punishment, filial fear moves a person to make amends
of his own accord (voluntarie) to God through fear of Him. Servile fear
is usually the first thing that moves a person, but the immediate and
proper principle from which penance results, is filial fear.53 This filial
fear is ultimately grounded in “the love of charity by which God becomes our Father,” according to Romans 8:15: “You have received the
spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba [Father].”54
The importance of penance as a virtue is further underlined when
Aquinas deals with the relation between penance and the other virtues
in article 6. He defines penance as the “door to the other virtues”55 because penance expels sins, and in doing so grace infuses the other virtues in us. The priority of penance is not a priority in the order of nature
51

See ST III, q. 85, a. 3, ad 4.
It seems to me that in the corresponding passage of his Scriptum (In IV Sent. d. 14, q.
1, a. 3, qa 1, ed. Moos, pp. 603–4, nos. 153–54), Thomas is somewhat more reluctant
in affirming the role of the will.
53
See ST III, q. 85, a. 4 co: “Sic igitur patet quod actus poenitentiae a timore servili
procedit sicut a primo motu affectus ad hoc ordinante, a timore autem filiali sicut ab
immediato et proximo principio.”
54
See ST II-II, q. 19, a. 2, ad 3: “per caritatis amorem Deus pater noster efficitur, secundum illud Rom. VIII, accepistis spiritum adoptionis filiorum, in quo clamamus,
abba, pater.”
55
ST III, q. 85, a. 6, ad 3.
52

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Jörgen Vijgen

because what is necessary precedes what is accidental. The virtues of
faith, hope, and charity are necessary for man’s justification, while penance is only necessary after one has sinned. This means that in the order
of nature the movement of the free will toward God in his fatherly love,
which is an act of faith quickened by charity, precedes the movement of
the free will toward sin, which is the act of penance. It is through love
of God (ex amore Dei) that the act of the virtue of penance is directed
against sin. However, in the order of time and after one has sinned, penance becomes the first step toward justification.
Conclusion
We have seen St. Thomas trying to describe penance in a positive
way. He has done this not by simply rejecting the pagan philosophers
as Tertullian had done or by simply presenting a biblical view as an alternative position as Lactantius had done. On the contrary, Thomas applies some key insights of Aristotle and most importantly Aristotle’s idea
that virtue is a habit of choosing according to right reason. In doing so,
Thomas shows himself to be aware of the enormous potential hidden
in Aristotle’s ethical principles in order to philosophically illumine the
N&V
virtuousness of penance as put forward by the Christian faith.

Nova et Vetera, E
 nglish Edition, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2015): 617-634

617

Book Reviews
Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives by Joseph Ratzinger/Pope
Benedict XVI (New York: Doubleday, 2012), xii + 132 pp.

SINCE THE MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY,the magisterium of
the Catholic Church has insisted that historical-critical methods are indispensable. Joseph Ratzinger is one of the few dogmatic theologians
who has done his best to remain conversant with historical scholarship,
and he has repeatedly expressed his admiration for it. At the same time,
Ratzinger has repeatedly defended Dei Verbum’s claim that historical-critical approaches do not “exhaust the interpretive task for someone who sees the biblical writings as a single corpus of Holy Scripture
inspired by God.”1 The books of the Bible can be read as individual artifacts from the ancient near east, but exegesis of these texts qua Scripture
requires one to read in light of the entire canon and the unfolding tradition of the Church. Each of the three Jesus of Nazareth books begins
with a brief relecture of this essential grammar of Catholic exegesis, and
the books themselves are attempts to draw together historical and canonical-theological modes of exegesis. This slender volume, the third
installment of the series, appeared in December 2012, only two months
before Ratzinger announced his abdication of the chair of Peter. We may
presume, then, that it shall remain Ratzinger’s final sustained attempt to
re-propose and put into practice the directives of Dei Verbum.
This book is very brief—a mere “antechamber” to the earlier volumes (xi). Chapter 1 uses Pilate’s question to Jesus, “Where are you
from?” (Jn 19:9), and the genealogies (Mt 1:2–17; Lk 3:23–38) to frame
the birth narratives as explorations of Jesus’s identity. Chapter 2 covers
1

Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (New York: Doubleday, 2007), xvi.

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the annunciations of the births of John the Baptist and Jesus (Lk 1:5–38;
Mt 1:18–25). In chapter 3, Jesus’s birth and presentation in the temple
are discussed (Lk 2:1–40), and chapter 4 is devoted to the Magi (Mt
2:1–23). An epilogue reflects on the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple
(Lk 2:41–52).
Matthew and Luke’s birth narratives contain some of the most notorious historical difficulties in the New Testament as well as some of its
richest theology. One would expect that the gulf between history and
theology to appear wider here than ever, but in fact Ratzinger comes
closer to a synthesis of history and canonical-theological exegesis than
in the previous volumes. The first two volumes had a tendency to lurch
from extended arguments with contemporary biblical scholarship to
quiet theological reflections. In this final installment, Ratzinger veers
more toward the latter and keeps historical debate to a minimum. This
is not to say that Ratzinger ignores historical questions, but that he does
not attempt to provide definitive answers, preferring instead to state
his own position with a minimum of argumentation. He quotes Klaus
Berger to describe his own approach: “Even when there is only a single
attestation . . . one must suppose, until the contrary is proven, that the
evangelists did not intend to deceive their readers, but rather to inform
them concerning historical events . . . to contest the historicity of this
account on mere suspicion exceeds every imaginable competence of
historians” (119). Matthew and Luke wrote “real history that actually
happened (wirkliche, geschehene Geschichte)” not fables (Geschichten;
17). Following Joachim Gnilka, he proposes that the birth narratives
draw on family traditions, with Mary herself singled out as one of Luke’s
sources. He defends the historicity of the virgin birth and the census under Quirinius (Lk 2:1–5), as well as the birth in Bethlehem. Many scholars will be frustrated by the near-absence of arguments in favor of this
high view of the historicity of the infancy narratives, but in the opinion
of the present reviewer Ratzinger plays to his strengths by keeping his
historical arguments brief.
Though Ratzinger takes a high view of the accuracy of the infancy
narratives, his understanding of historicity is capacious, leaving room
for Matthew and Luke’s creative theological work. For instance, interpreters over the centuries have struggled to explain why Matthew and
Luke do not agree on the name of Joseph’s father. Matthew says Joseph’s

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father was named Jacob, whereas Luke calls him Eli. Since the third century, some have suggested that Jacob and Eli were brothers who had
the same wife according to the stipulations in Deuteronomy 25:5–10, a
proposal that causes more problems than it solves. Since the sixteenth
century, some commentators have argued—in bold defiance of what
Luke actually says—that Luke provides the genealogy of Mary. In contrast, Ratzinger eschews overly clever solutions, allowing himself to be
led by the text. He writes, “Matthew and Luke agree on only a handful
of names; not even the name of Joseph’s father is common to the two.
How can this be?” (8). He concludes, “Neither evangelist is concerned so
much with the individual names as with the symbolic structure within
which Jesus’ place in history is set before us” (8). Ratzinger does not
draw attention to the fact that he diverges from a long tradition of attempts to reconcile the two, preferring instead quietly to take his cues
from Scripture itself.
Ratzinger’s treatment of the genealogies is indicative of his modesty—or perhaps it would be better to say docility—as an interpreter. He
receives the biblical accounts with a hermeneutic of trust, but he is also
willing to be challenged by them on what sort of information they provide. For instance, he notes that Luke seems to lack precise knowledge
of Old Testament legislation (81), and he critiques the traditional interpretation of Mary’s response to Gabriel as referring to a vow of virginity
on the grounds that such a vow would be “quite foreign to the world of
the Judaism of Jesus’ time” (34–35). Ratzinger also refrains from attempting to harmonize the details of Matthew and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’s
birth. In Matthew, the Holy Family goes to Nazareth to escape the threat
of Herod’s son Archelaus. In Luke, however, the Holy Family comes originally from Nazareth and goes to Bethlehem only to participate in the
census. Ratzinger’s response is straightforward: “Matthew apparently did
not know that Joseph and Mary were both originally from Nazareth” (65).
Following Jean Cardinal Daniélou, Ratzinger also entertains the possibility that Matthew invented the story of the Magi to foreshadow the preaching of the Gospel to all the nations, though he concludes that the story is
“real history, theologically thought through and interpreted” (119).
Over the centuries, pious imagination has filled in the gaps of the
birth narratives, providing names and nationalities for the Magi, specifying animals beside the manger, and so on. Ratzinger is always careful

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to distinguish between such ornamentation and what the narratives actually say, not to condemn the former as lamentable accretions, but to
show how the text has led over the centuries to ever-deepening reflection
on the res significata. For instance, he notes that Luke does not mention
any animals beside the manger. In the weeks following the book’s release,
media outlets gleefully reported that the pope had exposed the ox and ass
as spurious myths (“Killjoy Pope Crushes Christmas Nativity Traditions”
was the headline in the Daily Mail). In reality, he shows how prayerful
reflection on Luke led to passages such as Isaiah 1:3 (“The ox knows its
owner, and the ass its master’s manger”) and Habakkuk 3:2 LXX (“In the
midst of two living creatures you will be recognized”; 69). The manger
thus becomes the Ark of the Covenant, where God resides between the
two creatures. Similarly, Ratzinger sees the “mystery of the Triune God”
evoked by Gabriel’s words in Luke 1:35, but is careful to show that the
doctrine is not developed in the text itself (29–30). Jesus’s status as “firstborn” (Lk 2:7) leads Ratzinger to draw in Colossians 1:15–20, which refers
to Christ as the “first born of all creation,” and “firstborn of the dead.”
Luke himself does not describe this cosmic primogeniture, but “reading
his Gospel with the benefit of hindsight, this cosmic glory is already present in the lowly manger” (71). Ratzinger also draws in scribal alterations
in the manuscript tradition, such as the old Latin variant that applies John
1:13 to Jesus, “who was not born (qui non . . . natus est) from the will of a
husband but from God” (12). Ratzinger notes that the better manuscripts
do not contain this variant, but this does not stop him from drawing out
the theology of this instance of John’s Wirkungsgeschichte.
The book contains the sort of shortcomings one would expect in
a brief volume from a scholar who had nearly run out of time. There
are surprising omissions. For instance, the Visitation (Lk 1:39–45), the
Magnificat (Lk 1:46–55), the Benedictus (Lk 1:68–79), and the Nunc
Dimittis (Lk 2:29–32) are not discussed. Differing viewpoints hardly appear, even when Ratzinger advocates a minority position. When other
views are mentioned, Ratzinger is uncharacteristically brusque, at one
point dismissing the exegetical mainstream that would hesitate to accept Mary as one of Luke’s sources as “modern ‘critical’ exegesis” (16).
There are also a few notable missteps, such as the elision of the difference between the Hebrew and Greek texts of Isaiah 7:14 and confusion

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about which part of the Annunciation to Mary echoes the words of the
prophet Zephaniah (28).
The English translation is a bit misleading at times, showing perhaps that the translator’s knowledge of Scripture and theology is not so
advanced as his knowledge of German. For instance, Luke is said to “indicate” that Mary is one of his sources (16). This is a possible translation
of andeuten, but in this context it misleadingly suggests that Luke explicitly names Mary as a source, when of course he does no such thing.
“Hints” or “suggests” would have better captured the sense of Ratzinger’s
proposal. Wort Gottes is always translated as “word of God” even when
Ratzinger is clearly referring to Christ (e.g., 85).
While its weaknesses are obvious, the notable contribution of
Ratzinger’s final volume on Jesus is the way it models exegesis that is
a search for the face of the Lord, the one source of revelation who is
known in Scripture and tradition. This twofold search requires careful
historical exegesis and attention to the Church’s continual reflection on
the reality signified by Scripture, without equating divine revelation
and the biblical texts. If, as Ratzinger has argued, this is a “task that
has scarcely been attempted thus far” then these quiet reflections on the
N&V
birth of Jesus are required reading.2
Nathan Eubank
Notre Dame Seminary
New Orleans, LA
The Prudence of Love: How Possessing the Virtue of Love Benefits
the Lover by Eric J. Silverman (New York: Lexington Books, 2010), x +
211 pp.

HOW SHOULD WE SPEAKabout the benefits of loving? If such
benefits exist, should lovers seek them out? If these benefits redound to
the lover, how should we describe this phenomenon? Seeking to liberate descriptions of loving from reductive and counterintuitive accounts
of egoism, emotivism, and agapaic altruism, Eric J. Silverman’s first
monograph, The Prudence of Love, brings Aquinas’s treatise on charity
2

Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth—Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to
the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), xv.

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into conversation with various philosophical descriptions of love. The
structure of Silverman’s argument is straightforward. First, he counters
various contemporary philosophical accounts of loving and its benefits. Second, he describes a “Neo-Thomistic virtue of love.” Third, he
elaborates five distinct benefits enjoyed by lovers who love virtuously
and reinforces his account by examining the “harmful consequences”
that come from possessing “unloving dispositions.” Silverman advances
three claims: (1) the five benefits contribute to the well-being of the lover; (2) these benefits provide the lover with a “net increase in . . . overall
well-being”; and (3) cultivating the virtue of love is a “more prudent
strategy” for the increase of well-being than is cultivation of alternative
vices (cf. ix). Though Silverman relies on Aquinas for his description of
the virtue of love and its benefits, Silverman’s arguments do “not rely
upon any other Thomistic philosophical commitments” (ix). Despite
several peculiarities that weaken the argument, and despite prose that
often lacks grace, the book will remain of interest to anyone interested
in the theology of charity, the philosophy of love and human passions,
and the ongoing conversation within analytic philosophy regarding eudaimonism.
In chapter 1, Silverman demonstrates that his account of loving’s benefits could appeal to those who espouse a hedonist and/or a desire-fulfillment vision of well-being. His account is also compatible with those
who would look to objective lists of goods or perfections of the person’s
capacities for their vision of human well-being. Furthermore, Silverman
suggests his description of virtue is compatible with a variety of contemporary philosophical accounts of virtue. Silverman defines moral virtue
as a set of “excellent, desirable, ethically valuable human character dispositions,” acquired in order to “actualize innate human potential for excellence” (11). Given this definition of virtue, Silverman clarifies that his
naming love as a virtue is not a conflation of virtue and passion (pace
Robert Solomon). Rather, Silverman contends that naming love as a virtue
is a way of acknowledging that one might develop a disposition “to love
the right people in the right way for the right reasons.”
In chapter 2, Silverman contends with contemporary philosophical accounts of love in his search for a description of loving that holds
together impartial and partial loves and that is not limited to overly
narrow sectors of human relations (romance, adult friendships, etc.).
Silverman dispenses with several contemporary accounts of love be-

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cause of a lack of differentiation between love and brute urge, a lack
of descriptive power regarding love for actual, individual persons, and
a preoccupation with attributes rather than the person who bears the
attributes. Niko Kolodny’s account of loving provides Silverman with an
intuitive, nuanced account of loving that respects the weight personal
relationships carry for us.
Chapter 3 transitions to the constructive piece of Silverman’s argument. The author describes Aquinas’s account of love as follows: “a
disposition towards relationally appropriate acts of the will, consisting
of a disinterested desire for the good of the beloved and a disinterested
desire for unity with the beloved, held as final ends” (43). By Silverman’s own admission, his “Neo-Thomistic” philosophical account of the
virtue of love is dependent on Aquinas’s theological account of caritas.
Silverman notes that Aquinas uses the words amicitia, amor, caritas, and
dilectio at different points, but that caritas is Aquinas’s “most important account.” But Silverman remains silent on what difference this fact
could make to his argument. Despite relying on Aquinas’s treatise on
charity, Silverman often makes only passing reference to the treatise’s
theological weight. Silverman uses Aquinas to address the following issues: disinterested desire for the beloved’s good; the distinction between
various modes of union with the beloved; the role of intellect, will, and
the passions in loving; and the relationship between love’s universal
scope and the lover’s particular relationships. Silverman notes that these
features of Aquinas’s account of charity (some of which are also present
in Aquinas’s discussion of love as a passion) present some difficulties
of their own. Among these difficulties are the notion of an “ultimate
union” enjoyed by humanity in the afterlife, enemy love, and impartial
morality’s compatibility with partial relationships.
In chapter 4, Silverman develops a “Neo-Thomistic account of the
virtue of love” based on Aquinas’s treatise on charity but not dependent
on “other controversial aspects of Aquinas’s philosophy such as the existence of objective final ends for humans, the existence of God, or the
four types of Aristotelian causation” (59). After thickening his description of how love is a virtue and an activity of the will, Silverman addresses the lover’s desires for all those goods that contribute to the beloved’s
flourishing. But what of the word relationship in describing the love
shared between the two? How does a relationship shape the lover’s de-

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sires for the good of the beloved? Silverman defines the term “relationship” as “an ongoing, historical connection between particular people
constituting either a historical or a culturally recognized role one plays
in the other’s life that can be represented by a two-place predicate” (73).
This definition allows Silverman to address a broad range of voluntary
and involuntary relationships, issues of proximity and reciprocity, and
love of self. The lover’s many relationships are capable of shaping the desires of the lover for the good of the beloved, whether the beloved is self,
close kin, fellow citizen, or fellow human. Virtuous loving will be the
lover’s ability to desire in a relationally appropriate way depending on
the connection between the lover and a given beloved. Silverman then
proceeds to address chapter 2’s philosophical interlocutors concerning
impersonal relationships, the role played by the beloved’s attributes, and
the possibility of having objective, defensible reasons for loving. After
once again demonstrating that these issues are insufficiently addressed
in contemporary philosophical accounts of love, Silverman provides
the reader with his criteria for an “ideal account of love” and the way
his Neo-Thomistic account meets the requirements. Silverman’s ideal
account must: be a flexible concept of love that can accommodate various relationships; give an account of love that accords with “normative
psychological phenomena of love;” attend to partiality and impartiality;
and be construable in terms of virtue.
In chapter 5, Silverman describes the five benefits of loving and how
they increase the pleasure, desire fulfillment, and well-being of the lover. Throughout his discussion of the five benefits, he provides rich supporting examples from a variety of human relationships and scenarios.
First, loving provides the lover with final ends, inserting the lover into
a matrix of instrumental actions oriented toward goods—the very stuff
of human fulfillment. Second, loving provides the lover with psychic
integration, facilitating the ordering of desires and the elimination of
contradictions between ethical values, desired goods, and the demands
of loving. Third, loving provides the lover with a motivation for self-improvement, encouraging him to develop the virtues appropriate for
making him a relationally appropriate lover. Fourth, loving improves
the lover’s relationships in a variety of ways, including improvement
in types of relationships, increase in likelihood of nourishing relationships, and enhanced peace/harmony in existing relationships. Fifth,

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625

loving increases the lover’s “epistemic goods,” which Silverman suggests
are goods that can increase pleasure and desire fulfillment in their own
right. These epistemic goods include increased knowledge of others,
self-knowledge, empathic knowledge, and “knowledge concerning what
benefits humans” (128). In addition to these five benefits, Silverman addresses the possibility of an inherent pleasure that comes with love. The
chapter culminates in the claim that love is “the only advisable disposition” and that the harms that come with an unloving disposition far
outweigh the risks that come with loving virtuously.
Chapter 6 is Silverman’s description of “paradigmatic examples of
nonloving dispositions,” which include hatred, apathy, inappropriate
loving, and incomplete loving. In some ways, Silverman’s description of
the benefits of loving is most poignantly stated here as he investigates
the terrible contradictions and deep unhappiness of the vicious alternatives to love. As a pair, then, the two final chapters provide the reader
with an often rich portrait of the human person in relationship. Whether it is Silverman’s insightful analysis of the self-hater’s necessarily arduous navigation and valuation of goods and relationships with which
she may not dispense, or it is his economical discussion of the many
ways persons can be inappropriately bonded to one another, Silverman
provides the reader with a persuasive and useful philosophical account
of vicious dispositions. Arguably, his greatest success here is giving a fair
account of the ways in which viciously disposed persons may still attain
certain measures of happiness in this life. In this way, Silverman avoids
chimeric descriptions of self-hating apathetic persons and allows for an
important measure of realism as he applies his moral psychology to the
unloving person.
Silverman’s book suffers from peculiarities that give one pause. The
first is Silverman’s inattention to Aquinas’s treatise on charity as a piece
of sacra doctrina. In the treatise, Aquinas has much to teach us about the
gift of friendship that is the Father’s Son, the creation of charity via the
gift of the Holy Spirit, and the charitable community—the Church—in
which these gifts are received. These are not incidental topics that can
be removed from the treatise in order to arrive at philosophical material
palatable to a contemporary audience. Some effort to address this reality
seems necessary in a book like this. Second, Silverman’s argument may
be made clearer by showing more deliberately how he can provide his

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“Neo-Thomistic” account of the virtue of love without relying on Aquinas’s various “controversial” positions regarding final ends, the existence
of God, causality, etc. Whether and how this is possible seems a fitting
issue to treat explicitly and early on in the project rather than in passing
along the way.
The book is a success in a number of ways, however. First, Silverman
must be applauded for his effort to bring the vital resource of Aquinas’s
theology and philosophy into conversation with contemporary voices.
Second, his sensitivity to the complexity of loving relationships is itself a
resource to those who want to illuminate the mysteries of human action
and relationship. Third, Silverman’s broad-ranging research in contemporary analytic philosophy is a trove for both students and scholars of the
philosophy of love. Silverman has done us a service in contributing to a
variety of conversations and pointing to many venues of fruitful dialogue.
Jason Heron
University of Dayton
Dayton, OH

N&V

Embodiment and Virtue in Gregory of Nyssa: An Anagogical
Approach (Oxford Early Christian Studies) by Hans Boersma
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), ix + 284 pp.

WHEN THE JESUIT EDITORSof Sources Chrétiennes began their
series during World War II, they chose to produce Gregory of Nyssa’s Life
of Moses as their first volume. By that time, Gregory had assumed a position comparable to his brother Basil of Caesarea (the Great) and the one
who claimed Basil as his best friend, Gregory of Nazianzus (the Theologian). In modern times, these three have been grouped as “the Cappadocian Fathers,” but tradition had not smiled so favorably on Gregory of
Nyssa, despite the exalted title of “Father of Fathers” bestowed on him.
The Byzantines came to venerate “the Three Holy Hierarchs” by honoring
Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and … John Chrysostom. In the
West, Gregory of Nyssa has not been declared a Doctor of the universal
Church, and his feast does not appear, even as an optional memorial, on
the Roman calendar. Yet, in no small part owing to the work of classicist
Werner Jaeger and of Ressourcement theologians in the twentieth century,

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Gregory of Nyssa surpassed his fellow Cappadocians in terms of scholarly fascination and popular appeal. Recognizing this privileged place for
Gregory in theology today, largely created by the nouvelle théologie that
placed him after Origen as a leading inspiration, can serve as a prompt to
return to him and ask what his theology is really all about.
“Nothing was more important to Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 334 to ca.
395) than to make progress in the spiritual life in order to participate
more deeply in the being of God” (1). This is how Hans Boersma, J. I.
Packer Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada, begins the introduction to his insightful new book
on Gregory. An author of both a scholarly study on sacramental ontology in the nouvelle théologie and a more popular follow-up account,
Boersma turned his sights on Gregory. This evangelical theologian
acknowledges that he gladly follows in the footsteps of Hans Urs von
Balthasar and Jean Daniélou. Not unlike those theologians who inspired
him, Boersma came to the study of Gregory with a certain agenda. By
focusing on this Cappadocian, Boersma wanted to test his hunch “that
the premodern Platonist-Christian synthesis does not require us to
abandon the goodness of matter and of history, but that instead such an
affirmation of this-worldly realities is dependent on the participatory
or sacramental ontology of premodernity” (vi–vii). Boersma found that
his “hunch has been only partially validated” (vii). Gregory does not
affirm the goodness of matter and history as much as Boersma wanted
him to do. Boersma writes, “It has become clear to me that Gregory is
really quite reticent in affirming that the entire created order—including embodied existence—participates sacramentally in eternal realities”
(vii). Boersma thus has discovered that Gregory, although occasionally
affirming this world, really has a driving force expressed throughout his
writings to go up, leaving all things behind, into God.
For Boersma, Gregory is best described as a “theologian of ascent” or
“an ‘anagogical’ theologian” (vii). But what does anagogy mean? Gregory’s understanding of anagogy is more inclusive than many later classifications. Anagogy is not merely eschatological; it is something that could
also be called tropology, allegory, or other names. Boersma helpfully
summarizes: “anagogy has to do with Scripture giving insight into higher realities (that are spiritual in character), not just future realities” (2).
Moreover, anagogy reaches beyond the page of Scripture to characterize

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what life is meant to be. In part inspired by Morwenna Ludlow’s important work on recent ways of interpreting Gregory, Boersma demonstrates that some significant scholarship has missed this anagogical turn
in Gregory’s thought. On one side, Boersma writes of Mark Hart, John
Behr, and Rowan Williams. These scholars, in various ways, argue for
Gregory deeply appreciating bodily aspects of human existence, such as
sex, gender, and the passions. Hart, for this reason, claims that Gregory
has a higher regard for the married life than the virginal life. On the other side, Boersma places Elizabeth Clark and Virginia Burrus as scholars
who force a contemporary grid upon Gregory’s thought to argue that he
suppresses gender. Both sets of scholars, for Boersma, do not adequately
appreciate that, although Gregory writes much on bodiliness, that concern is aimed beyond the confines of this world for the life on high.
After his introduction and before his epilogue, Boersma’s arguments
unfold through the course of seven chapters, each with a focus on a particular form of embodiment: Measured Body, Textual Body, Gendered
Body, Dead Body, Oppressed Body, Ecclesial Body, and Virtuous Body.
This last chapter expresses something of how Gregory’s thought holds
together in Boersma’s analysis. Boersma explains: “embodiment serves
anagogical transposition, while this anagogical transposition, in turn,
means growth in virtue. Furthermore, since Gregory identifies virtue
with Christ and with God, we may also say that for Gregory embodiment serves the purpose of participation in the life of God” (18). Boersma offers a persuasive reading of many of Gregory’s works through this
concentration on the meaning of the body in the upward call to God. It
is a fine achievement. The following now briefly focuses on the difficulty
of understanding Gregory on diastēma (the extension of created time
and space) and epektasis (progress), issues that appear at the beginning
of Boersma’s book and run throughout the study.
Against his opponent Eunomius, Gregory clearly denies diastēma,
temporal or spatial distance, in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For
example, there is no time or space that separates the Father and the
Son; the Trinity is completely beyond the confines of measurement. But
Boersma raises an immediate question in his first chapter when he considers creation: “does Gregory unequivocally affirm the measurements
of created time and space . . . or does he insist that in some ways they
are obstacles to be overcome?” In other words, is the lack of any diastē-

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ma precisely a distinguishing aspect of the Creator from all creatures?
Against some interpreters, Boersma forcefully concludes that Gregory
“cannot accept that the temporal and spatial characteristics of this life
would belong also to our final destiny. The anagogical journey into a
significantly other mode of existence—the infinite life of God—is the
ultimate goal that Gregory asks us to pursue” (52).
This pursuit can be considered with attention on the word epektasis,
associated with Daniélou’s devotion to Gregory and taken up by many
others. Boersma writes, “This doctrine of epektasis is central to the treatise [De vita Moysis] as a whole” (232), and he discusses epektasis on
nearly thirty pages of the book. I want to add a bit of caution in continuing this emphasis on the term. It is true that Gregory quotes epekteinomenos from Philippians 3:13 in his introduction to the De vita Moysis, but
never again does he use epektasis, including participial and verbal forms,
in that text. In fact, Gregory uses epektasis once in the nominative and
once in the genitive in all his writings (nearly eighty works), and he includes forms of the participle and verb only a handful of times. What
does preoccupy Gregory is the end/perfect/perfection (telos/teleios/teleiotês), terms he uses in their various parts of speech dozens of times in
De vita Moysis and hundreds of times throughout his writings. For Gregory, our perfection is never-ending. Boersma rightly asks how Gregory
could hold an infinite progress (epektasis) while denying diastēma in the
hereafter. Boersma writes, “We may feel that the former ought to lead to
the latter, but for Gregory this is simply not the case. Instead, he holds to
a paradoxical tension” (23). Gregory is a master of tensions such as sober
inebriation, luminous darkness, watchful sleep, learned ignorance, and
stationary movement (52n145). Some readers will love how Boersma exposes Gregory’s paradox; others will scratch their heads.
By highlighting diastēma and epektasis, this review has engaged
briefly in key elements at work across Boersma’s chapters. Each chapter
is a rich account that can surprise and illuminate on such varied issues as
slavery, death, virginity, and sacraments. If I were to recommend an additional chapter to Boersma’s exploration of Gregory’s anagogy, it would be
God’s Body, on the Incarnation. Gregory’s thinking, as Boersma knows, is
quite Christological, and Boersma elucidates interesting aspects of Gregory’s Christology here and there throughout the book. For example, Boersma brings out the creativity of Gregory’s understanding that on Holy

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Thursday night, for the Lord to give the disciples his body, already Christ’s
“body had been ineffably and invisibly sacrificed and his soul was in those
regions in which the authority of the ordainer had stored it” (quoting De
tridui inter mortem et resurrectionem domini nostri Iesu Christi spatio 36).
Boersma also shows how Gregory hints that not just the Church, but “the
entire creation” will be the body of Christ in the eschaton (196). Still, a
more systematic exploration of the Incarnation would have assisted the
reader to witness Gregory’s remarkable anagogical force. For example,
Gregory’s fight against Apollinarius of Laodicea, who is not mentioned
in Boersma’s book, would be helpful for establishing more the distinctive
contours of Gregory’s teaching on the Incarnation and what happens to
Christ’s body, and ours, in the resurrection.
At the end of his book, implicitly distancing himself from the very
ressourcement theologians who inspired him to focus on Gregory of
Nyssa, Boersma does not disguise his concern about Gregory’s theology: “It has not been my primary purpose to hold up Nyssen as the
guiding light by which to pursue our own theological endeavors. I have
too many reservations with regard to aspects of his theology to be able
to do so in an unqualified fashion” (249). Yet Boersma still finds this
Cappadocian useful for theology today. He ends his study with these
words: “[Gregory of Nyssa] rightly reminds us that it is through embodied lives of virtue that we are led upward in continuous participation in
the eternal life of God” (250). Although not as much as Boersma hoped
him to be, Gregory can still be a theological guide. Does Gregory really
deserve the preeminent status in theological insight among the Cappadocians frequently accorded him these past seventy years? Boersma certainly does not broach such a question, and it would require those fascinated by Gregory of Nyssa to look at Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus
with similar attention. What Boersma’s study skillfully does is to expose
how Gregory of Nyssa’s theology, so mystical and mystifying, is really
all about an upward path in our various bodily concerns. In order to
approach Gregory rightly, we can decide whether we even want to lay
N&V
aside all earthly cares.
Andrew Hofer, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, DC

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Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics: Issues and Challenges for
Twenty-First-Century Christian Social Thought edited by Johan
Leemans, Brian J. Matz, and Johan Verstraeten (Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America Press, 2011), v + 272 pp.

POPE BENEDICT XVI,in a general audience from his weekly catechesis devoted to the Church fathers in 2007, identifies Basil of Caesarea as one of the fathers of the Church’s social doctrine. Although from
a different period of history, Basil speaks to us today about important
aspects of Christian life such as social responsibility.3 Reading Patristic
Texts on Social Ethics considers what Church fathers such as Basil might
have to contribute to contemporary Christian social ethics. This volume
is a collection of essays from a seminar held in Leuven in 2007, and the
second of four publications from a research project exploring the potential for “dialogue” between patristic texts and contemporary ethics. The
essays demonstrate that such a dialogue, although at times vexed and
not without its challenges, yields a fruitful conversation that will benefit
scholars in the fields of patristics and Christian social ethics alike.
The work is divided into four parts: (I) “Approaching Patristic
Socio-Ethical Texts,” (II) “Contexts for Patristic Socio-Ethical Texts,”
(III) “Issues in Patristic and Catholic Social Thought, and (IV) “Reflections on the Theme.” In Part I, Reimund Bieringer considers some
of the hermeneutical difficulties in the application of patristic teaching
to the contemporary period. Bieringer asserts that a simple “retrieval”
of patristic texts is impossible. Nevertheless, by appealing to certain
hermeneutical approaches—including those of Gadamer, Heidegger,
and Ricoeur—Bieringer suggests that patristic texts are not “locked
up” hopelessly in their own time, but rather may be engaged in such a
way as to go beyond a mere “reconstruction” of the past by “respecting
the irreducible otherness” of the texts and their “future dimension”
(18). Pauline Allen is perhaps less optimistic about the extent to which
patristic texts might inform contemporary ethics. While describing
distinctive patristic positions on issues such as private property and
slavery, Allen warns against the oversimplification of patristic socio-ethical teaching that is likely to occur if one does not take into
3

Pope Benedict XVI, Church Fathers: From Clement of Rome to Augustine (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 75–76.

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Book Reviews

account cultural and geographical differences (34). To give another
example of contextual difficulties, Allen points out that the majority
of audiences who heard patristic homilies were poor. Without acute
awareness of historical background, the danger of anachronistic interpretation persists. Allen’s essay is a helpful caution against an uncritical, decontextualized appropriation of patristic thought.
Part II of the volume provides case studies with regard to the contexts of patristic texts. In his discussion of social ethics and moral discourse in late antiquity, Peter Van Nuffelen rightly observes that patristic teaching cannot be easily systematized. Too often, patristic scholarship fails to offer nuanced interpretations of history. For instance, Van
Nuffelen asserts that it is too simplistic to say that the ancient ideal of
liberalitas was replaced by Christian caritas. Rather, from a “diachronic” perspective, “Christian charity became more important with the
progressive Christianisation of the empire,” and liberalitas never disappeared, as “Christians were able to draw on it” (53). Furthermore, even
as caritas had a transformative impact upon public discourse and ancient society, “care for the poor” came to be seen as a specifically Christian virtue and the task of the church. Helen Rhee considers the tension
between wealth and poverty in the context of a Christian community
with a particular eschatology that fosters “dualistic” vision, both with respect to the Christian’s true wealth and home (65). Turning to the issue
of audience, Wendy Mayer seeks to identify multiple targets of patristic
preaching and teaching, including the emperor and the government.
Mayer’s learned article contains a wealth of resources, even if some of
the points are rudimentary.
Part III is perhaps the most fruitful and constructive, as evident
above all in the work of Susan Holman and Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen.
Holman provides an illuminating examination of the meaning of the
“common good” (κονωφελής) in Greek patristic literature. Looking at
Basil in particular, Holman uncovers the Aristotelian influence upon
the definition of civic identity in patristic texts, while effectively showing
how the “common good” as “that which is good for all within a divinely
created order” is predicated upon a “divinely ordered social harmony”
inseparable from mercy (123). Holman does well to note the differences
between patristic and modern approaches to the common good while
arguing that, in the end, the similarities are significant and warrant fur-

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633

ther attention. Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen reveals the salvific implications
of usury in Greek Fathers such as Clement, John Chrysostom, and Basil,
leading to the conclusion that in general, none of the fathers considered
usury beneficial, with Ambrose as a possible exception. Ihssen illustrates the significance of patristic texts for contemporary social ethics
by identifying the underlying principles of patristic teaching on wealth,
greed, and the nature of the relationship between the members of the
body of Christ.
Brian Matz and Thomas Hughson supply focused studies on the
themes of detachment and social justice respectively. The strength of
Matz’s essay lies in the exploration of how detachment, as it functions
in the thought of Basil and other fathers, may serve as a resource for the
renewal of Catholic social teaching. Hughson gives a penetrating treatment of Lactantius, whose critique of imperial society and the status
quo in The Divine Institutes remains relevant, even if it stands as a minority report. Hughson also gives good reason to hope for the possibility of “postcritical application of patristic texts in contemporary church
life and thought” (204).
In Part IV, Richard Schenk, O.P., reflects upon the seminar as a
whole and addresses the “ambivalence” about the potential retrieval of
patristic thought for Christian social teaching. Schenk delivers a tour de
force that explores, among other themes, memory as subject to scrutiny and self-examination in the thought of Ricoeur. Schenk illuminates
Ricoeur’s hermeneutic of suspicion and retrieval, with reference to
Heidegger, a hermeneutic that “cuts both ways” insofar as certain kinds
of “selective amnesia” may lead to “revisionist histories” without inquiring into possibilities for a better future. Schenk considers the possibility
that the predominant methodologies of the seminar, namely finding the
“texts behind the texts” and stressing the “particularity” and “incommensurability” of each, might lead to a “productive noncontemporaneity,” to borrow a phrase from J. B. Metz (214). Schenk’s essay adds
another dimension to this volume that grants it instant appeal. In the
final analysis by Johan Leemans and Johan Verstraeten, the editors recognize challenges that persist when placing patristic texts in dialogue
with contemporary Christian social ethics, yet there is reason to remain
hopeful that fruitfulness may be found in the fusion of hermeneutical
horizons (231).

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Book Reviews

Reading Patristic Texts on Social Ethics gives witness to the perils
and the benefits of engaging patristic texts for contemporary application. It provides a solid foundation for the appropriation of early Christian thought, and it is a step forward in terms of a deeper, more historically informed Christian social ethic. As the second of four proceedings,
this volume leaves scholars in eager anticipation of the next.
N&V
James K. Lee
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX

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