Chapter 1 (45): 1. Whether In Christ There Was The Necessity To Suffer And Die,
66 | THE SENTENCES, BOOK 3
DISTINCTION XVI
Chapter 1 (45)
1. WHETHER IN CHRIST THERE WAS THE NECESSITY TO SUFFER AND DIE,
WHICH IS A GENERAL DEFECT. Here arises a question which draws its origin from the foregoing. For it was said above that Christ took in himself our defects, other than sin.' But there is a general human defect which is not sin, namely the necessity to suffer and die: hence our body is called not merely mortal, but even dead,' because it has not only a capacity for dying, but also a necessity. And so the question of whether there was such a necessity in Christ's body arises.—THAT MORTALITY WAS NOT A DEFECT IN MAN BEFORE SIN. Insofar as the capacity for dying is concerned, there is no doubt that it was present in him. This capacity was in man even before sin, when there was no defect in him, and so that mortality was not then a defect in him because it was natural to him.—WHETHER IT
IS NOW A DEFECT IN US. And so some say, not without justification, that the defect in us is not mortality as such, but the necessity of dying or suffering, which is also called mortality or passibility. For man is now said to be passible or mortal not only by way of capacity, but also because of necessity.— WHETHER
THE SOUL OF CHRIST HAD THE NECESSITY OF SUFFER-
ING. But was this defect in Christ's flesh? And since his soul was passible before death, did it have the necessity of suffering? No, for if the necessity of suffering or dying was in Christ, it does not seem that he took our defects only by the will of his compassion.
2. SOLUTION. To which it may be said that Christ took these defects, as he did the others willingly, and not by the necessity of his nature, namely the necessity of suffering in his soul together with that of suffering and dying in the flesh. Truly, he did not have this fate from the necessity of his condition, since he was immune from sin, but took of our infirmity by his will alone, placing his tabernacle in the sun,' that is, under [the rule of] temporal mutability and labour.—Hence authority says, in On the Epistle to the Hebrews, that "as it was established for other men by right and law of nature, that they die once, so Christ, by the same necessity and right of nature, was offered once only, and not several times.'* Nor was it because he had taken this defect by the nature of his condition that it says
'by right of nature'; this defect does not come to us from nature as it was first instituted, but as it was vitiated by sin. And so it is here called a natural defect because, shared by all, it has almost become our nature.
'Above, in dist. 15 cl n3.
*Cf. Rom. 8, 10.
*ChePs, 1836) "Interlinear gloss, on Heb. 9, 27-28.