2. Of the Passion as it is the Object of Sadness in the Higher Part

94. Next, by still applying to the matter at hand the object of Christ’s will that is the passion, one must look at which part could have been saddened by this object, and according to which of the three ways of being saddened possible for it.

95. And first, as to the higher part, it is plain of the will as it is a nature that it did will the good of the person of Christ and did so in its order to what is eternal; and in this way something unwanted did come about, and it was unwanted as being against the affection for advantage but not as being against the affection for justice. But something unwanted in this way, namely as against the affection for advantage, is a sufficient cause for being saddened (from the first article [n.54]); therefore the higher will as it is a nature was in this way saddened by the passion.

96. Nor is it an obstacle that the good to which Christ’s death was ordered was greater than the preservation of his life for a time; for although in this regard the good was to be more freely willed according to the affection for justice, yet not so by the will according to the affection for advantage - unless it could have been shown that the salvation of man was then a greater advantage to the person of Christ than the preservation of his life, and shown to be a greater advantage naturally, and not just from its ordering as being more useful to a good end.

97. If it then be objected that the will as it is a nature is not in that case the higher part, because it does not regard everything in its order to the eternal, nor in its order to the eternal first, for something else (namely its own being) seems naturally more advantageous to this person than any other extrinsic thing - one must deny this last point, for the eternal is not only the supreme good that is to be loved with justice, but it is also the supreme advantage of every will as it is intellective appetite (when this appetite is taken in abstraction from freedom and justice). And therefore, in each natural ordering of objects the eternal is first.

98. But, second, one must consider the higher part of the will insofar as it is free, and consider the sadness in it consequent to the actual not wanting of what was happening. It seems, on the basis of principles taken from the ultimate end, that one cannot conclude about his passion and its opposite (as they are referred to the end) that the passion was to be wanted; for as opposite things cannot be demonstrated, if one simply draws, by reference to the end, the conclusion that at that moment life was not to be wanted and death was to be wanted, then the divine will would not rightly have wanted the passion because it was against right reason; nor would Christ’s will have rightly wanted it, nor would he have obtained merit in wanting it - which results are absurd. It seems then that, just as the higher reason could not, by reference to the ultimate end, judge that death was bad at that moment but rather was definitely good (either because the willingness to die was ordered immediately to the ultimate end on account of its truth, or was so ordered mediately, namely by way of the salvation of man, for the procuring of which death was willed) - so, in the same way, the higher will as free and ordered was not able not to want death at that moment but rather to want it determinately, and so not to be saddened by it with the sadness consequent to a free absolute not-wanting.

99. On the contrary: therefore the higher part does not then have joy in Christ’s being alive, for there is no reason to conclude that his life is or should be simply wanted as referred to what is eternal, because the same reason would have concluded the same thing at the moment of the passion.

100. Reply: the conclusion of a practical demonstration concerns the act with its circumstances, and just as ‘wanting to die’ was simply good at that moment (for it was wanted by the Trinity at that moment, namely as to be undergone at that moment for confirming justice and procuring salvation), so life is good for the present moment now. But as to the point adverted to, that a demonstration always concludes the same thing [n.99], it is true that a demonstration has the same conclusion also in practical matters when it is circumstanced in the same way; but not so if one concludes ‘I have drawn the conclusion for this moment as this moment states a circumstance, therefore I have drawn it for every moment’, for the conclusion ‘composition, therefore also division’ is not the same when the ‘for this moment’ determines the inference or the thing inferred.

101. Third, one must consider the higher part as it is free and consider conditional or habitual not-wanting [nn.58-59] (and I mean by ‘habitual’ that whose act the will is inclined of itself to issue in, unless something stands in the way). On this point one must, it seems, say that the higher part did not want the passion, that is, it would not have wanted it as it would have been in itself if all the advantageous and just things that are desirable in themselves had been equally present without the passion.

102. The proof is by a twofold authority and a twofold reason:

One authority is from Augustine On the Trinity 13.7 n.10, “Although a just man is, though fortitude, ready to accept and bear with calm mind whatever adversity may happen, yet he prefers it not to happen, and if he can he does so; and he is ready for either event such that, as far as is in him, he chooses the one and avoids the other; and if he falls into what he is avoiding, he bears it willingly, because what he wanted could not be done” (understand: as far as is in him). Now it is clear that Augustine means what his words say, because through them he proves that no one, however virtuous, can be blessed here, for he can suffer adversity here and so does not have what he wants; because, as was already said, ‘he chooses, as far as he can, one of the alternatives’, namely the advantageous one.

103. The other authority is from the Philosopher Ethics 3.12.1117b7-11, “Death and wounds are sad for the courageous man; but he endures them because it is good or not base to do so. And the more he has the whole of virtue and the happier he is, the greater will his sadness be in death;” which is only because, as far as is in him, he wants the opposite. And Aristotle’s authority manifests what was said in the first point [n.95], that such not wanting suffices for being saddened.

104. The reason with respect to this point is that an object of patience does not seem to be choiceworthy in itself, for then patience would not in that case be required, and the blessed choose no such things.

105. If it be said in response to the authorities [nn.102-103] that they are speaking of fortitude in the moral sense, which is a disposition of the lower and not the higher part - there is no impediment here, because the higher part seems to judge nothing to be eligible according to eternal rules, as far as concerns itself, without judging the opposite to be more eligible provided justice do not forbid; otherwise why do those who are bound tightly to the ultimate end, as the blessed, choose nothing contrary to it?