CHAPTER V

OF THE FOURTH ARTICLE

“SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, WAS CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED”

QUESTION I

The Necessity of knowing the Fourth Article, and its Purport

How great is the necessity for the knowledge of this article, and with what assiduity the pastor should labour that the faithful may revive in their minds the frequent recollection of the passion of our Lord, the apostle teacheth when he declares, that he knows nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Wherefore, the greatest zeal and industry are to be employed in the elucidation of this subject, to the end that the faithful, excited by the memory of so great a benefit, may altogether turn themselves to the contemplation of the love and goodness of God towards us.

The first part of this article (for of the second we shall treat hereafter) proposes to our belief, that when, by command of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate governed the province of Judea, Christ the Lord was nailed to a cross; for, having been taken, mocked, treated with all manner of outrage and torture, he was finally uplifted on the cross.

QUESTION II

The Soul of Christ felt the Tortures

Nor can it be matter of doubt to any one that his soul, as regards its inferior part, was not free from the perception of these torments; for as he really assumed human nature, we must of necessity confess that his soul experienced a most acute sense of pain, whence he says: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. For although human nature was united to the Divine Person, he yet felt the bitterness of his passion as acutely as if no such union had taken place, because in the one person of Jesus Christ were preserved the properties of both natures, human and divine; and therefore, what was passible and mortal remained passible and mortal; and again, what was impassible and immortal, such as we understand the divine nature to be, retained its own proper condition.

QUESTION III

Why mention is made in the Creed of the Governor of Judea, under whom Christ suffered

But if we find it here so carefully recorded, that Jesus Christ suffered at that time when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea, the pastor will explain the reason, which is, that by distinctly fixing the time, which we find also done by the apostle Paul, so important and so necessary an event may be the better ascertained by all; and also because it is shown in those words that the event verified the prediction of the Saviour: They shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify.

QUESTION IV

It was not a Chance Circumstance that Christ suffered Death on the Cross

That he suffered the particular death of the cross, is also to be attributed to the divine counsel, that whence death came, thence life might arise. For the serpent, which had overcome our first parents by the fruit of the tree, was overcome by Christ on the tree of the cross. To show further reasons for this the congruity of the Saviour’s having suffered the death of the cross rather than any other, we might adduce many reasons, which the holy fathers pursued at greater length; but let the pastor admonish the faithful, that for them it is sufficient to believe that species of death to have been chosen by the Saviour, which appeared most suitable, and best adapted, to the redemption of the human race, as also assuredly no other death could have been more ignominious and humiliating. For not only amongst the Gentiles was the punishment of the cross deemed execrable, and most replete with disgrace and infamy; but also in the law of Moses the man is pronounced accursed, that hangeth on a tree.

QUESTION V

The History of Christ’s Passion is to be frequently inculcated on the People

But that the faithful may be familiarly acquainted with at least the principal heads of this mystery, which are of more immediate necessity to confirm the truth of our faith, the pastor must by no means pass over the historical part of this article, which has been most diligently narrated by the holy evangelists; for on this article, as on a sort of foundation, rest the religion and faith of Christians, and on this foundation, when once laid, all the rest is built with perfect security. For if to the mind and understanding of man any other matter presents difficulties, most difficult of all, of a truth, must the mystery of the cross be considered; and we find it hard to conceive that our salvation depends on the cross, and on him who for us was fastened to its wood. But in this, as the apostle teaches, we may admire the supreme providence of God; for whereas in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God; it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. We are therefore not to marvel that the prophets, before the coming of Christ, the apostles, after his death and resurrection, laboured so strenuously to persuade men that he was the Redeemer of the world, and to bring them under the power and obedience of him who was crucified.

Wherefore, the Lord, seeing nothing is so far beyond the reach of human reason as the mystery of the cross, immediately from the Fall, ceased not, both by figures and by the oracles of the prophets, to signify the death by which his Son was to die. To glance a little at these figures; first, Abel, who fell a victim to the envy of his brother; next, the [intended] sacrifice of Isaac; again, the lamb immolated by the Jews on departing out of Egypt, and also the brazen serpent lifted up by Moses in the desert, all prefigured the passion and death of Christ the Lord. That many prophets also arose who foretold this event, is a fact too well known to require to be here developed. Not to speak of David, whose Psalms embrace the principal mysteries of redemption, so clear and open are the oracles of Isaiah, that he may with reason be said to have recorded a past, rather than predicted a future event.

QUESTION VI

“Dead and Buried.” What is signified to be believed by this Clause

In explaining these words, the pastor will propound it to be believed, that Jesus Christ, after he was crucified, was really dead and buried. Nor is it without reason that this is proposed to the faithful as a separate object of belief; seeing there were not wanting those who denied that he died upon the cross. Justly, therefore, did the apostles judge, that to such an error should be opposed this doctrine of faith, the truth of which article is placed beyond the possibility of doubt, since all the evangelists concur in recording that Jesus “yielded up the ghost.” Moreover, as Christ was true and perfect man, he, of course, was also truly capable of dying; and death takes place in man by the separation of the soul from the body. When, therefore, we say that Jesus died, we mean that his soul was separated from his body, without, however, conceding that his divinity was separated from his body: on the contrary, we firmly believe and profess that, while his soul was separated from his body, his divinity continued always united both to his body in the sepulchre, and to his soul in the shades. But it became the Son of God to die, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver them, who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

QUESTION VII

Christ underwent Death not by Compulsion and Involuntarily

But Christ the Lord had this peculiar privilege, that he died when he himself decreed to die, and that he died, not so much by external violence, as by voluntary assent. But he ordained not only his death, but also the time and place in which he should die, for so writeth Isaiah: He was offered, because it was his own will. Before his passion the Lord declared the same of himself: I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man taketh it away from me; but I lay it down of myself; and I have power to lay it down; and I have power to take it again. As to time and place, when Herod insidiously sought the life of the Saviour, he said: Go ye, and tell that fox, behold I cast out devils, and I do cures to-day, and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. Nevertheless, I must walk to-day, and to-morrow, and the day following, because it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. He, therefore, did nothing involuntarily or by compulsion; but offered himself of his own free will. Going to meet his enemies, he said: I am he; and all the punishments, which with injustice and cruelty they inflicted on him, he endured voluntarily. When we meditate on his sufferings and torments, nothing can have greater force to awaken the feelings of our souls, than to reflect that he endured them all thus voluntarily. For if any one were to endure, by compulsion, every species of suffering, for our sake, we should not deem his claims to our gratitude very considerable; but if he were freely, and for our sake only, to endure death, when he might have avoided it, this indeed were a favour of so great a character, as to deprive even the most grateful, not only of the power of returning, but even of adequately feeling the obligation. Hence we may perceive the supreme and transcendant love of Jesus Christ towards us, and his divine and boundless claims to our gratitude.

QUESTION VIII

Why Christ is said not only to have been Dead but “Buried”

But, when we confess that he was buried, we do not make this, as it were, a distinct part of the article, because it presents any difficulty, that is not implied in what we have said of his death; for if we believe that Christ died, we can also easily be persuaded that he was buried. The word buried was added first, that there might be less room for doubt respecting his death, for it is a very strong argument, to establish a person’s death, if we prove the burial of his body; and, secondly, to declare and glorify the miracle of his resurrection more clearly. Nor do we only believe that Christ’s body was buried; but these words propose, as the principal object of our belief, that God was buried, as, according to the rule of catholic faith, we also most truly say that God was born of a virgin, that God died; for, as the divinity was never separated from his body, which was laid in the sepulchre, we truly confess that God was buried.

QUESTION IX

What Matters are chiefly to be observed touching the Death and Burial of Christ

As to the place and manner of his burial, what the holy Evangelists record on these points will be found sufficient for the pastor. There are, however, two things that demand particular observation; the one, that, in accordance with the prediction of the prophet, thou wilt not give thy Holy One to see corruption, the body of Christ was in no degree corrupted in the sepulchre; the other, which regards the several parts of this article, that burial, passion also, and death, apply to Christ Jesus, not as God, but as man: for to suffer and to die are incidental to human nature only; although they are also all attributed to God, because predicated with propriety of that person, who was at once perfect God and perfect man.

QUESTION X

In what light the Benefit of Christ’s Passion ought to be contemplated

These things being known, the pastor will next explain those particulars of the passion and death of Christ, from which the faithful may be enabled, if not to comprehend, at least to contemplate, the immensity of so stupendous a mystery. And first, we are to consider who he is that thus suffers. And we, indeed, cannot express in words, or even conceive in thought, his dignity. Of him St. John says, that he is the Word, which was with God; and the apostle describes him in these sublime terms; that he it is whom God hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world; who, being the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, making purgation of sins, sitteth down on the right hand of the majesty on high. In a word, Jesus Christ, God and man, suffers! The Creator suffers for those whom he himself created: the master suffers for the servant: he suffers by whom angels, men, the heavens, the elements, were created: he, I say, in whom, through whom, and of whom, are all things.

We cannot, therefore, be surprised that, whilst he was agonized under so many torments of suffering, the whole fabric of the universe was convulsed; for as the Scripture informs us, the earth did quake and the rocks rent, and there was darkness over all the earth, and the sun was darkened. If, then, oven mute and senseless things mourned the dying sufferings of their Creator, let the faithful bethink them with what tears they, as the living stones of this edifice, should display their sorrow.

QUESTION XI

Reasons why Christ suffered; and what must be thought of those who, professing Christianity, are defiled with, Sins

That the greatness and force of the divine love towards us may still more fully appear, the reasons why the Saviour suffered must also be explained. Should it then be asked, why the Son of God underwent his most bitter passion, we shall find that, besides the hereditary guilt of our first parents, the principal cause is to be found in the vices and crimes which men have perpetrated from the beginning of the world to the present day, and those that they shall perpetrate up to the consummation of time. For in his death and passion the Son of God, our Saviour, contemplated atoning and obliterating the sins of all ages, by offering for them to his Father a full and superabundant satisfaction.

Besides, to add to the dignity of this matter, Christ not only suffered for sinners, but also for those who were the very authors and ministers of all the torments he endured. Of this the apostle doth remind us, writing as follows to the Hebrews: Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself; lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. In this guilt we must judge that all those are involved who fall frequently into sins; for, as our sins impelled Christ our Lord to undergo the death of the cross, most certainly those who wallow in sins and iniquities, as far as depends on them crucify to themselves again the Son of God, and put him to an open shamed. In us such guilt may indeed seem even deeper than it was in the Jews, inasmuch as, according to the apostle, had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory; whereas we both profess to know him, and yet, denying him by our works, seem in some sort to lay violent hands on him.

QUESTION XII

Christ was delivered over to Death by the Father, and by himself also

But that Christ the Lord was also delivered over to death by the Father and by himself, the sacred Scriptures bear witness; for he says in Isaiah: For the transgression of my people have I struck him; and a little before, when filled with the Spirit of God, he sees the Lord afflicted with stripes and wounds, the same prophet says: All we, like sheep, have gone astray: every one hath turned aside to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Of the Son it is written: If he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed. But this same thing the apostle expressed in language still stronger, when, however, on the other hand, he wished to show us how much we may trust in the boundless mercy and goodness of God: He that spared not even his own Son, says the apostle, but delivered him up for us all, how hath he not also, with him, given us all things?

QUESTION XIII

Christ truly, in Body and Mind, felt the Bitterness of his Torments

It next followeth, that the pastor teach how great was the bitterness of the Redeemer’s passion. If, however, we bear in mind that his sweat was as it were drops of blood falling down to the ground; and this, when he solely anticipated the torments and tortures with which he was soon after to be afflicted, any one must easily perceive that his sufferings admitted of no increase. For if—and this sweat of blood proclaims it—the very thought of the impending evils was so bitter, what must we not suppose their actual endurance to have been?

That, however, Christ our Lord was afflicted with the most intense sufferings both of body and mind is certain. In the first place, there was no part of his body that did not experience the most excruciating torments: for his hands and feet were fastened with nails to the cross; his head was pierced with thorns, and smitten with a reed; his face was befouled with spittle, and buffeted with blows; his whole body was covered with stripes! Men, too, of all sorts and conditions set themselves together against the Lord and against his Christ. Jews, also, and Gentiles were the advisers, the authors, the ministers of his passion: Judas betrayed him; Peter denied him; the rest abandoned him; and, whilst on the very cross, we are at a loss which to deplore, his agony or his ignominy, or both. Surely no sort of death more shameful, none more bitter, could have been devised than that by which only the most guilty and atrocious malefactors were usually afflicted; a death, the tediousness of which aggravated the sense of its intense pain and torture. His agony was increased by the very constitution and frame of his body, which, formed by the power of the Holy Ghost, was much more perfect and better tempered than the bodies of other men can be, and therefore possessed a keener susceptibility of pain, and a sharper sense of the torments which it endured.

As regards Christ’s inward anguish of mind, no one can doubt that it was extreme. For those among the saints who had to endure torments and tortures, were not wanting in consolation given from above, refreshed by which they were enabled not only to bear with patience the violence of their sufferings, but, in many instances, to feel, in the very midst of them, an inward joy. I rejoice, says the apostle, in my sufferings for you, and fill up those tilings that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh, for his body’s sake, which is the Church; and in another place: I am filled with comfort; I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation. Christ the Lord, on the contrary, tempered with no admixture of sweetness the chalice of his most bitter passion; but permitted his human nature to feel every species of torment, as acutely as if he were man only, and not also God.

QUESTION XIV

What advantages and Blessings are chiefly bestowed upon the Human Race through the Passion of Christ

It alone remains, that the blessings and advantages which flow to the human race from the passion of Christ be accurately explained by the pastor. In the first place, then, the passion of our Lord was our deliverance from sin; for, as St. John says: He hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. He hath quickened you together with him, says the apostle, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of the decree which was against us, which was contrary to us, and the same he took out of the way, nailing it to his cross. In the next place, he hath rescued us from the tyranny of the devil; for our Lord himself says: Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself. He hath also discharged the punishment due to our sins; and next, as no sacrifice more grateful and acceptable could have been offered to God, he hath reconciled us to the Father, appeased his wrath, and propitiated his justice. Finally, by taking away our sins, he opened unto us heaven, which was closed by the common sin of the human race, as the apostle doth signify in these words: Having therefore, brethren, a boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of Christ. Nor is there wanting some type and figure of this mystery under the old law; for those who were prohibited to return into their native country before the death of the high-priest, typified that, until that supreme and eternal High-Priest, Christ Jesus, had died, and by dying had opened the gates of heaven to those who, purified by the sacraments, and gifted with faith, hope, and charity, become partakers of his passion, no one, how just and pious soever had been his life, could have gained admission into his heavenly country.

QUESTION XV

Whence the Passion of Christ had Power to deserve such Benefits for us

But the pastor will teach, that all these most great and divine blessings come to us from the passion of the Lord; first, because the satisfaction which Jesus Christ has, in an admirable manner, made unto his Eternal Father for our sins, is full and complete; and the price which he has paid for our ransom not only equals and quits, but far exceeds our debts. Furthermore, it was a sacrifice most acceptable to God, which, when offered by his Son on the altar of the cross, entirely appeased the wrath and indignation of the Father; and this word sacrifice the apostle makes use of, when he says: Christ hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice, to God for a sweet-smelling savour. It was also a redemption, of which the prince of the apostles says: Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot; and the apostle teaches: Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.

But besides these immense blessings, we have also received another of the very utmost importance, for in the passion alone we have the most illustrious examples of every virtue. For he so displayed patience, and humility, and exalted charity, and meekness, and obedience, and unshaken firmness of soul, not only in suffering pains for righteousness’ sake, but also in meeting death, that we may truly say, that on the day of his passion alone, our Saviour presented, in his own person, a living exemplification of all the moral precepts which he had inculcated during the entire time of his public ministry. Let so much, then, be briefly stated touching the saving passion and death of Christ the Lord. And O that these mysteries may ever be present to our minds, that we may learn to suffer, to die, and to be buried with our Lord; that thenceforth casting away all stain of sin, and rising with him unto newness of life, we may at length, through his grace and mercy, be found worthy to be made partakers of his heavenly kingdom and glory.