I. To the Question

8. Here three things must be considered: first how divine worship is taken; second how what is due is due; three to whom it is due, and to Christ in what nature it is due.

A. How Divine Worship is taken

9. On the first point. - Just as to revere someone in an inner act is to reckon one’s own goods little in respect of the goods of the one revered and to reckon the revered person’s goods great, and just as this is an act of virtue - so to go to the limit in one’s heart in reckoning the goodness of another to be supreme with respect to one’s own good, and for that other to be the one from whom he who magnifies him has the totality of his own good, is indeed a laudable act provided it have an object fitting the two features mentioned, namely that it be an object whose goodness exceeds the goodness of the one who reveres and that it be that from whom the reverer receives whatever goodness he has.

10. This reverence in interior act has regard only to God as to its fitting object - to God as being supreme good and supreme Lord.a

a.a [Interpolation] and so this reverence is to be shown to God alone.

11. To this interior act there correspond certain exterior acts that are signs of the interior act - namely, in the case of each Law [new and old], certain sacrifices or rites (as genuflections), which profess that this reverence is given to the supreme Lord, and that supreme Lordship exists in him to whom such acts are exhibited, and that subjection to him exists in the one who exhibits them.

12. From these frequently elicited interior and exterior acts there is generated a habit that inclines one to eliciting such acts easily and promptly; and just as such acts were good when possessed of their due circumstances, so the habit that comes from such acts when frequently elicited is itself good.

13. The name therefore of ‘divine worship’ can be taken in two ways: in one way for the worship or reverence shown to God in an interior act, by reason of God being supreme Lord or supreme Goodness, and for the reverence shown to God in an exterior act - or in another way for the habit that inclines one to such acts. And since this habit is consonant with reason it is a virtue - and not a theological virtue, because it does not have the uncreated Good for immediate object but rather the honor to be paid to the uncreated Good; it is therefore a moral virtue, and it is contained most of all under justice whereby that is rendered to a superior which is due to him, according to Augustine City of God 19.21.“Justice, further, is the virtue which bestows on each that which belongs to him. Is that then man’s justice which takes man himself from God and subjects him to unclean demons? Or is that man just who removes himself from God his master, by whom he was made, and serves malign spirits? So where man does not serve God, what of justice must there be thought to be in him?” ⁸⁹

14. The question here is not about the virtue of divine worship but about the act, because the offering or the debt does not belong to the virtue but to the act, the act that generates virtue or is elicited by virtue, because this act is immediately in our power.

B. When and How Divine Worship is due

15. As to the second point [n.8], when and how this debt should be paid, I say that the command to do this act is an affirmative one; for it is reasonable that the intellectual creature be obligated to acknowledge his supreme Lord sometimes and to revere him, City of God 10.1; and this precept, like other affirmative precepts, is always binding but not binding at all times.

16. It can be supposed indeed that the obligation to perform this act belongs to the first precept of the first table [the Decalogue, Exodus 20.3, 5], ‘Thou shalt have no alien gods etc.’ This precept is not merely negative, prohibiting worship to be shown to anything it does not fit, but affirmative, that the true God should be held and worshiped as Lord. This is well expressed in Deuteronomy 6.13, and it is cited by the Savior, Matthew 4.10, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve.’ Here a positive precept about worship is set down, together also with exclusion of worship and service shown to another, just as also idolatry is forbidden in the first quotation, ‘Thou shalt not worship alien gods.’

17. Now it is impossible that this affirmative precept be always prevented from being carried out, as if an opportune time for doing what is commanded should never arise - as it might arise in the case of the precept ‘Honor they father and mother;’ for it is possible that an opportune time necessary for honoring parents should never arise, and so this precept could always be kept without transgression even if no act of the precept should ever be done; for the obligation to do the act is only for when an opportune time arises. But nothing could permanently prevent an opportune time arising for worshiping God; and so every adult is simply bound at some time to perform an act of this affirmative precept.

18. At the time of the Mosaic law a determinate time for carrying out this precept seems to have been given in the third commandment, ‘Keep holy the Sabbath day.’ But it was also a precept of the natural law, namely that at some determinate time a man should refrain from servile works; and the observation of the precept did not consist in this negative refraining alone, but in a positive act, namely in an act of ‘keeping holy’, that is, in a greater magnifying of God.

19. Now in the time of the Gospel law this worship, which is to be shown to God in the keeping holy of the Sabbath, is determined as to be done on the Lord’s day - and determined also as to the act by which it must be done, namely in the oblation of the supreme sacrifice, that is, the Eucharist, which the priest must offer for himself and for the people. And the people too make offering in this oblation, namely in a spiritual way, since they are bound ‘to hear the whole mass on the Lord’s day,’ according to the decree ‘Masses’ [Gratian p.3 d.1 ch.64]. And if some necessity excuse one from performing the act that the Church has determined, then one must fulfill it in some equivalent act, namely that (as regards the divine worship specifically deputed) some act be done that is referred directly to God and to reverence of him.

20. But as to whether anyone is bound to carry out this precept, namely to do some act of worship, at any other time besides the time determined - first in the law of nature and afterwards in the Mosaic law and now in the Gospel law on the Lord’s day - it seems that it is so, as on the great feast days during the year, as in the decree ‘Who on a solemn day,’ and ‘Of consecration’ and ‘One must pronounce’ [Gratian p.3 d.1 ch.66]. But if this is doubtful, yet it is certain that some worship at least on those days does seem it should be performed.

C. Whether Divine Worship is due to Christ only as to his Divine Nature

1. Solution

21. As to the third article, where the question is asked whether divine worship is due to Christ only as to this divine nature, I say that the word ‘only’ can be taken in two ways, namely categorematically or syncategorematically.

I concede that in the first way the answer is yes, that a sufficient reason for Christ to be supremely adored only exists in him considered as to his divine nature.

22. But if the term is taken syncategorematically, then it marks, in respect of one extreme, an exclusion from the other extreme. I here draw a distinction, because the exclusion can be either from the term or object of the adoration or from the reason for adoring.

23. In the first way I say that Christ is not to be divinely adored only as to his divine nature, for the human nature should not so be excluded from the term of the adoration that, by this exclusion, the whole could not be adored. The point is made by Damascene (Orthodox Faith ch.54, or 3.8), “Christ, perfect God and perfect man, whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, we adore in a single adoration along with his uncontaminated flesh, a flesh that we deny is incapable of being adored; for what has come to exist in the single hypostasis of the Word is adored in that very hypostasis.” And a little later, “The one person of the Word of God, to which his two natures are reduced.” And he then gives an example, “I fear to touch the wood because of the fire present in it.” In this authority from Damascene the ‘with’ [in the phrase ‘with his uncontaminated flesh’] is taken associatively and not copulatively, so that the sense is, ‘we adore the Word with the flesh, that is, the Word having flesh united to him,’ and not, ‘with the flesh, that is, we adore the flesh as well,’ where the proposition is copulative and the flesh is considered as ‘flesh’ and not as ‘united to the deity.’ So ‘flesh’ should not be excluded from the object or term of adoration in this way, although flesh is not the reason for the adoration.

24. There is an example of this from a king and the king’s purple garment, for though the king is to be adored because of himself and in himself, yet he is to be adored along with the purple he is wearing; and just as the purple is not the cause of the adoration, so the flesh is not adorable in the Word such that it is the reason in the Word for the adoration. Another example is taken from a whole and its parts: if I revere a man because of his wisdom and virtues, I revere the whole of him, namely his body and soul, and do not exclude the body from the person I revere; likewise, when I adore a whole man, I do not adore his head by itself to the exclusion from adoration of the other parts.

25. In the second way [n.22], namely where the ‘only’ excludes something from being the reason for adoring, one can say that Christ is to be adored only as to his divine nature, to the exclusion of some other nature as the reason for adoring; for no other nature is the reason for supreme lordship, and so no other nature is the reason for the adoration due to the supreme Lord, just as neither is the body the reason for adoring someone who is virtuous.

2. An Objection, and Rejection of it

26. But an objection to this [n.25] is that supreme lordship is not immediately consequent to the divine nature, because, according to Augustine On the Trinity 5.16 n.17, God was Lord only in time, just as the creature was servant in time; therefore supreme lordship exists by reason of the creation, whereby the creature received its whole being from God. But as great a reason for lordship seems to belong to God because of the gift of redemption as because of the gift of creation;     therefore the cult of divine worship is due to the Redeemer as Redeemer, and by reason of the redemption, in the same way as it is owed to the Creator by reason of creation.

27. This supposition about the equality of lordship in Creator and Redeemer with respect to the created and redeemed is proved in several ways:

First from the Apostle in Galatians 6 [I Corinthians 6.20], ‘For you were bought at a great price; so glorify etc     .’ Therefore I am a servant for the reason that I am redeemed.a

a.a [Interpolation] The question is whether adoration is due to God because of something intrinsic to God in himself or because of a benefit conferred on us or an intrinsic good qua communicated to us. If the second, the question is whether the adoration due by reason of redemption is equally as great as the adoration due by reason of creation.

28. There is also this confirmation from Gregory in the canticle of blessing the paschal candle, ‘Had it not benefited us to be redeemed, it did not benefit to us to be born;’ as great a good, then, is conferred by redemption as by creation.

29. There is another confirmation, too, in that by redemption is conferred the gift of grace and glory, but by creation only the good of nature;     therefore etc     .

30. Herefrom the conclusion is drawn that, since Christ was redeemer as to his human nature, then the same adoration that is owed also to the Creator is owed to Christ according to his human nature, that is, according to the reason for adoring (not absolutely, but as it was the reason for redemption).

31. I reply that, although no one can be bound to something greater than what is greatest, yet he can, for some reason, be bound to the same thing for a more reasons. An example from a religious who vows chastity and afterwards receives sacred orders: he is bound to the same thing and not to a greater thing, but he is bound to it for a greater reason. In this way one can concede that to be the principle of redemption, or to perfect that very redemption - provided that it confers as great a good on us as creation - does, as a result, demand as much service from us by the work of redemption as by the work of creation. And then he who principally works redemption is, as to the reason itself for adoration, owed supreme adoration; but he is not owed a greater adoration than he is owed by reason of creation, because supreme adoration is owed to him by creation.

32. And this point is true: if some good conferred on a creature, and not the intrinsic good itself of the conferrer, is the reason for worshipping the conferrer as Lord (as, for example, if, per impossibile, there were several gods and one of them created us but not another, and if we were bound to adore the first and not the second) - then one could well say that, if as great a good is conferred on us by the working of redemption as by creation, then as much service is owed by reason of this redemption to the whole Trinity (which works the redemption) as is owed to the Trinity by reason of creation;a and it is plain that these reasons for owing adoration to the Trinity are distinct.

a.a [Interpolation] But if the intrinsic goodness of the conferrer is the only reason for such supreme adoration, then, since there is as much intrinsic goodness in one god as in the other, the first should be adored only as the other is.

33. But if the supreme intrinsic goodness of God is the reason for adoration then, since this goodness is not different according to the different goods conferred on creatures, there are not several reasons for adoring God -however many the benefits are that he confers on us.

34. So if this second position is maintained [n.33], then the argument applied to Christ as redeemer [n.30] does not hold, because the nature in which the work of redemption was carried out does not have infinite intrinsic goodness -however much it may be the reason or the principle of conferring on us a very great good.

35. But if the first position is maintained [n.32], namely that it is not just the intrinsic good or intrinsic goodness that is the reason for adoration, but rather this goodness as it communicates the greatest good to us (and this primarily and freely of itself and not because of some return of payment, according to Psalm 15.2, ‘Thou hast no need of my goods’) - then one can reply that, although Christ was Redeemer according to his human nature, yet he did not effect redemption principally according to that nature, but rather the whole Trinity did; and so Christ as man effected only by way of merit the salvation that has been conferred on us by redemption. But supreme reverence is not owed to one from whom we possess the supreme good, not principally, but secondarily.