Is Martyrdom Virtuous?

An Occasion for
Rethinking the Relation of Christ and Virtue
in Aquinas

Patrick Clark

IN HIS NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, ARISTOTLE ARGUES THAT MOST DEATHS

are contemptible and offer no opportunity for the exercise of virtue. Thomas
Aquinas, on the other hand, considers the publicly shameful death of the mar-
tyr to be not only the highest exemplification of the virtue of courage but also
the greatest proof of moral perfection more generally. What accounts for this
substantial divergence from Aristotle on the possibility of virtuous action in
death? This essay investigates the theologically informed metaphysical and
anthropological framework within which Aquinas situates his claims and then
explores the implications of these claims for his broader ethical appropriation
of Aristotelian virtue theory. It ultimately intends to show the extent to which
Aquinas's conception of virtue depends upon a theological and specifically
Christological understanding of human perfection.

Introduction

O
ne common feature that seems to unite all the many advocates and
allies of virtue theory over the past fifty years is the rejection of Im-
manuel Kant's notion of moral duty. The stock example of Kantian
moral duty so often invoked by critics and defenders alike comes from the
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in which Kant compares two philan-
thropists, one who takes spontaneous delight in the benefit of others and one
who is generally insensitive to the needs of others.1 No matter how right and
amiable the generous acts of the cheerful philanthropist are, Kant argues that
they do not display any moral worth because they may just as well be the prod-
uct of natural inclination and not duty. Such actions are not necessarily
blameworthy, but neither are they to be deemed fully moral because there is
insufficient evidence that the pleased philanthropist acts from a free commit-
ment to a rational maxim. Hence, only the generosity of the discontented yet

Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 30,1 (2010): 141-159

142 · Patrick Clark

persistent philanthropist shows true moral worth because the generosity is

clearly uninfluenced by natural inclination. Although in recent years many
contemporary thinkers, both virtue theorists and deontologists alike, have
worked to reconcile Kant and Aristotle on the relationship between reason
and inclination, the general boast among virtue theorists remains that an
Aristotelian-based theory offers a thicker and more plausible account of how
we determine certain actions to be good in any given context.2 They claim
to provide a more harmonious, more fluid account of the moral life, centered
on particular yet adaptable principles rather than inflexible abstract rules.
From their perspective, this account of the moral life better reflects our em-
bodied rational existence with its diverse and sometimes opposing demands.
With these broad assumptions in mind, the following essay intends to ex-
plore and interrogate Thomas Aquinas's conception of martyrdom as an act of
virtue and, more specifically, his designation of martyrdom as the paradigmatic
act of courage. It will attempt to demonstrate how Aquinas's classification of
martyrdom as an exemplary act of virtue reveals the influence that his theolog-
ical anthropology has on his fundamentally Aristotelian ethicalframework.By
looking at the way in which Aquinas defends the virtuous status of the act of
martyrdom, I hope to show that there are important exceptions to the presump-
tion that Aquinas is simply "Aristotle baptized," exceptions that extend further
than many might realize.3
To identify properly these exceptions, we mustfirstbriefly recall the specific
function of the virtue of courage according to Aristotle and then assess how his
portrayal of its paradigmatic specificationfitsthis description. In his Nicomachean
Ethics, Aristotle argues that moral science comprises only those acts that are de-
liberately chosen for the sake of some rational good. The virtuous person is one
who has disciplined her passions to cooperate with reason in the active pursuit
of what perfects her nature while the continent or self-controlled person pur-
sues these goods despite the movements of her passions toward limited or illu-
sory goods.4 Like any virtue, courage is for Aristotle a self-reinforcing disposi-
tion to actions that perfect the natural capacities of its possessor. Courage
perfects an agent by regulating the passions in the presence of objects of aver-
sion. Aristotle accordingly locates courage in reference to the two opposing pas-
sions of fear and daring but explains that courage does not actually constitute a
true mean between the two. "The person who is undisturbed in face of fearsome
things," he remarks, is more courageous "than the person who is so in relation
to the things that make for boldness."5 The reason for this asymmetry is that by
definition courage is "something that brings pain with it, and [is] an object of
praise [on that account]; for it is harder to withstand what is painful than to hold
backfromwhat is pleasant."6 Aristotle thus associates courage primarily with the
experience of pain rather than pleasure inasmuch as he defines courage as the
pursuit of the good in the face of evils that threaten its attainment.
 Is Martyrdom Virtuous? · 143

It is not simply withstanding any sort of fear that makes one courageous,
however.7 One should fear genuine threats to the attainment of the good, and
the greatest such threat is death, for "there seems to be nothing any longer for
the dead person that is either good or bad."8 The epitome of courage is there-
fore the pursuit of excellence in the face of death. However, to the extent that
one's excellence of character disposes one to exhibit courage, the same excel-
lence of character renders the prospect of death that much more painful, "for
to [the virtuous] person, most of all, is living worthwhile."9 The very excellence
of character that makes courage possible is also what makes it painful, since, as
Aristotle says, the courageous person will "knowingly be depriving himself of
good of the greatest kind, which is something to be pained at. But he is no less
courageous because of that, and perhaps even more courageous, because he
chooses what is fine . . . in place of those other goods"10 (emphasis added). To
determine a truly courageous act, then, one must first determine what counts
as a "good death." Aristotle simply takes it to be the case that the best sort of
death is the death of a soldier on the battlefield: "for them the danger is not only
greatest butfinest." u For this reason Aristotle says that deaths at sea or by ill-
ness cannot be occasions for courage because "we show courage [only] in situ-
ations where there is the opportunity of showing prowess or where death is no-
ble."12 Aristotle also excludes from this category those who suffer and die by
punishment. He remarks that "those who say that the victim on the rack . . .
is happy if he is good are, whether they mean to or not, talking nonsense."13
The exercise of true courage is therefore limited to situations in which one can
still actively display one's excellence, and war is the greatest of such occasions.
In recent years there have actually been quite a number of studies on how
Aquinas transforms this Aristotelian specification of courage and what impli-
cations this transformation has for his wider Aristotelian theory of virtue. Of
particular note in this regard are the works of Lee Yearley and John Bowlin.14
These studies generally recognize the curiously prominent role and undeni-
able salience Aquinas accords to the human agent's supernatural end within
his main treatise on courage in the latter half of the second part of the Summa
theologiae. They acknowledge that Aquinas's usually dependable methodolog-
ical compartmentalization of the natural and supernatural, especially through-
out the moral treatises of the second part of the Summa theologiae, begins to
show here atypical signs of conflation and imbalance. What they do not suf-
ficiently emphasize, in my view, are the precise theological and anthropolog-
ical reasons for this imbalance and what these reasons imply for the rest of
Aquinas's moral system. I argue that if one looks closely at the respective
metaphysical and anthropological contexts in which Aristotle and Aquinas
formulate their ideals of courage, one discovers that the particular meaning
they each accord to human mortality contributes more than any other factor
to their divergent accounts of this cardinal virtue.
144 · Patrick Clark

Aquinas on the Martyr's Exemplification of Courage

For Aquinas, courage's primary role in the moral life is to dispose the will to
standfirmagainst evils that threaten to withdraw the will from the rule of rea-
son. The evils that do so most effectively, according to Aquinas, are bodily evils,
and the greatest such evil is death. Death is the most powerful object of aver-
sion to our natural inclinations because it threatens our ability to act at its most
fundamental level: "it does away with all bodily goods."15 Since Aquinas, like
Aristotle, regards a certain degree of bodily integrity as necessary for the proper
operation of our intellectual faculties, bodily death precludes the possibility of
any properly human activity whatsoever.16 Nevertheless, Aquinas maintains
that not even the imminent prospect of death should deter us from the pursuit
of some goods. Even in the natural realm, obligations to the common good
rightfully demand that one risk and sacrifice of one's life. So Aquinas concurs
with Aristotle that the chief object of courage is the prospect of death in bat-
tle, although his explanation of what this means gives ample warning that he
is about to part ways with his Aristotelian inheritance. In the Summa theologiae
II-II.123.5, Aquinas introduces a distinction between general battle, answering
to conventional notions of martial combat, and singular or private battle, "when
a judge or even a private individual does not refrain from giving a just judg-
ment through fear of the impending sword, or any other danger though it
threaten death."17 By making this distinction Aquinas is able to categorize mar-
tyrdom as an act of battle insofar as "martyrs face [a]fightthat is waged against
their own person, and this for the sake of the sovereign good which is God;
wherefore their fortitude is praised above all."18 The admission of this notion
of singular battle broadens the scope of courage's preeminent exercise expo-
nentially, for Aquinas maintains that "one may be in danger of any kind of death
on account of virtue: thus may a man not fail to attend on a sickfriendthrough
fear of deadly infection, or not refuse to undertake a journey with some godly
object in view through fear of shipwreck or robbers."19
In the next article Aquinas goes on to argue for the priority of endurance
over aggression as the principal act of courage.20 His reasoning is that en-
durance is superior to aggression because it is more difficult, and it is more
difficult because endurance implies that an evil is already present, that effec-
tive resistance to this evil would exceed one's strength, and that this evil will
likely be present for a protracted length of time. All of these factors exacer-
bate the threat that such an evil poses to the will's allegiance to reason. In con-
trast, acts of aggression usually involve meeting an evil not yet present. They
also usually presume that one is able to effectively resist them in one way or
another. Difficulties that arise in the midst of aggression also appear to be
briefer, if for no other reason that one can do something about them. Whether
these explanations seem intuitively compelling or not, it is clear thatfromthis
 Is Martyrdom Virtuous? · 145

point forward Aquinas's dominant model of courage is not the attacking war-
rior but the enduring martyr. Likewise, it is clear that for him the touchstone
of courage is no longer the performative display of outward excellence but the
strength of reason's hold upon the will in the face of opposing natural passions.
All the same, our original question remains: how is it, exactly, that martyr-
dom qualifies as an act of virtue? Put more pointedly: given the divergence be-
tween Aquinas and Aristotle's respective notions of courage, to what extent can
we still call Aquinas's conception of virtue "Aristotelian"? In seeking an answer
to this question, let us first spell out the various problems with designating mar-
tyrdom as a virtuous act from the conventional Aristotelian standpoint. Aquinas
begins his consideration of whether martyrdom is an act of virtue with the most
obvious and perhaps most difficult objection, namely, that it does not appear to
be a properly human act at all but merely something one undergoes.21 Aquinas
invokes what is perhaps the most provocative example of this point: King
Herod's slaughter of the innocents.22 In the case of these infants, there is no ca-
pacity whatsoever for voluntary action, let alone perfected virtue; and yet as
Aquinas observes, the Church venerates these infants as holy martyrs. How can
this be? Aquinas's initial explanation is that "in being slain, these babies obtained
by God's grace the glory of martyrdom which others acquire by their own will.
For the shedding of one's blood for Christ's sake takes the place of Baptism."23
While this answer may at first appear feeble, it in fact reveals much about the
methodological shift at work here. Aquinas's use of the analogy of baptism shifts
the normative vocabulary in an unexpected direction: instead of talking about
excellence or difficulty as standards of evaluation, he speaks of merit. Just as bap-
tism imputes the merit of Christ to the infant by means of sacramental grace, so
martyrdom imputes the merit of Christ's death upon the martyr. Hence,
Aquinas's argument that the Holy Innocents are indeed martyrs rests not so
much upon whether or not God miraculously enabled these infants to willingly
die for Christ but rather upon the ability of God's grace to conform the human
person to Christ through the mediation of Christ's own death. This conformity
to Christ does not necessarily depend upon the full development of reason or
the full use of any other functional capacity but rather upon the mere receptive
capacity to be so conformed. To make this point, Aquinas cites Augustine's eu-
logy for the Holy Innocents. Speaking directly to the martyred infants, Augus-
tine says, "You were not old enough to believe in Christ's future sufferings, but
you had a body wherein you could endure the suffering of Christ who was to suffer"2*
If up to this point one could have come up with a plausible defense of the
continuity between Aquinas's prioritization of endurance over aggression and
his earlier affirmations of the voluntary and active requirements of virtue, it be-
comes nearly impossible to do so when one considers his endorsement of in-
fant martyrdom. To say nothing of the implausibility from the Aristotelian
view of calling such extremely brief lives "happy," the infant martyrs here are
146 · Patrick Clark

surely incapable of exerting any control over their will, let alone the sort re-
quired for endurance in the face of death. Thus, the endurance of the martyr
does not appear to require the essential features of every other act of virtue:
namely, a progressive habituation of the will to pursue deliberately and promptly
the ends established by reason.

The Motivation of the Martyr

To make sense of this clear departurefromAristotelian orthodoxy, we must ex-

amine more closely Aquinas's account of the motivation behind the martyr's
courageous endurance. The act of enduring has for Aquinas both a proximate
and ultimate end. The proximate end is the protection of the will's subordina-
tion to reason in the face of a present evil. In achieving this proximate end,
Aquinas says that one "reproduces in action the likeness of [the] habit" one pos-
sesses. However, the achievement of this proximate end alone does not render
the act good; that ultimately depends upon the nature of the ultimate end
whose pursuit the virtue of courage preserves. The highest such end for Aquinas
is of course one's adherence to God the sovereign good, the proper object of
the virtue of charity.25 Within the act of the martyr's endurance of death, then,
Aquinas sees courage and charity working in concert, charity being the final
motive cause that commands the act, and courage being the formal motive cause
that elicits it. Hence, Aquinas concludes that "martyrdom is an act of charity
as commanding, and of fortitude as eliciting."26
However, this appeal to charity does not fully explain Aquinas's idiosyncratic
account of the operation of the inclinations within the act of martyrdom.
Aquinas explicitly states that in the performance of the highest act of courage,
the virtuous agent does not delight in her act. The claim is puzzling because
one of the hallmarks of the virtuous person is that the completion of each of
her acts be spontaneously accompanied by pleasure in the goodness of the act
performed.27 Since the virtuous person takes delight in virtue above all else, it
would seem reasonable to expect that the pleasure resultingfroman act of virtue
would outweigh any countervailing pains, such as the pain of bodily death.
Aquinas grants that courageous acts do indeed elicit deep spiritual pleasure in
the virtuous soul, and that the sorrow caused by bodily pain in no way affects
the substance of this spiritual pleasure.28 However, in its most extreme form,
the immanent prospect of death brings with it a countervailing spiritual sor-
row even in the virtuous person. Indeed, as Aristotle himself remarked, the vir-
tuous have the most to lose in death because their attachment to the good
(which their life enables them to realize) is so much the stronger. Although the
grief of surrendering the capacity for any future action cannot overcome the
virtuous agent's attachment to the ultimate good she pursues, Aquinas admits
 Is Martyrdom Virtuous? · 147

that within the experience itself, the extreme pain that usually attends death is
able to "drown out" her inner delight in the good of virtue.29 Although Aquinas
inserts the caveat that the miraculous assistance of God's grace can enable the
martyr to delight in his act, in general he affirms the opinion of Aristotle, who
states that "it is not necessary for [the] brave . . . to delight so as to perceive
[their] delight, but it suffices for [them] not to be sad."30
How can we really consider such an act "virtuous" in the full sense if there
is no perceptible delight in its completion? To answer this question, we should
first ask what Aquinas means here by "sadness." His point is that because the
inclinations are unable to confirm reason's choice by producing the effect of
sensate delight, the strength of reason's choice alone must guide and sustain
one's course of action without the assistance of the inclinations. As long as rea-
son is not dislodged from its original choice of the good, the will maintains its
rectitude; but should this choice be abandoned, the act ceases to be endurance
in the proper sense, and becomes merely involuntary suffering. In other words,
in Aquinas's view it is essential that the courageous person not regret her choice
to pursue the difficult good amidst the evils and pains that result from it. But
this construal of courage's highest act only seems to sharpen the problem of
martyrdom's relation to the passions and natural inclinations: how can one pre-
pare, train, and habituate one's self to perform such an act promptly, gracefully,
and with ease? Even for the warrior, occasions of mortal danger are rare and
impossible to replicate fully through deliberate training.31 This problem is all
the more conspicuous for the martyr, who by definition faces not only the
threat of death but also its certainty.32 So, how is it that Aquinas can center his
account of this cardinal virtue upon the quality of an unrepeatable and final act?
Aquinas explains that while the act of martyrdom is indeed a sudden and unique
act, it nevertheless requires a certain "preparation of the mind."33 And so like
the example given in Kant's Groundwork, the martyr who endures death for the
sake of the highest good exemplifies the virtue of courage because it is evident
that she fixes her will upon the good of reason in the face of the greatest pos-
sible resistance from her natural inclinations.
Hence, Aquinas concludes that "of all virtuous acts martyrdom is the great-
est proof of the perfection of charity" insofar as "a man's love for a thing is
proved to be so much the greater, according as that which he despises for its
sake is more dear to him, or that which he chooses to suffer for its sake is more
odious"34 (emphasis added). Martyrdom is therefore unique in that it isolates
the state of the will in a way that communicates with unsurpassed clarity the
rectitude of an agent's intention. Since the martyr accepts the greatest evil for
the sake of the greatest good, she is able to display her unconditional adher-
ence to that good without any possible ambiguity. Martyrdom thus reveals the
summum bonum governing one's pursuit of every other end insofar as the ca-
pacity to will one's death for the sake of the good expresses the human agent's
148 · Patrick Clark

ability to adhere unconditionally to the good of reason in the face of the most
powerful opposing movements of sense appetite.
So we might say then that Kant and Aquinas are in agreement with respect to
the determination of truly courageous acts, inasmuch as situations that call for
courage possess a kind of communicative power with respect to revealing moral
worth. Aquinas's account of the exemplary courage of the martyr agrees with
Kant's portrayal of the miserly philanthropist to the extent that their actions
amidst opposing passions reveal, by emotion, the will's sovereignty over the pur-
suit of the good as determined by reason, goods whose ultimate preeminence is
thereby confirmed.35 However, for Aquinas the communicative significance of
martyrdom runs deeper than simply confirming reason's preeminence. By means
of her explicit confession, the martyr provides witness to the specifically super-
natural character of the ultimate good for which she is willing to sacrifice all else.
It is for this reason that Aquinas says that the act of martyrdom "belongs to per-
fection in its highest degree," for it manifests one's participation in the love of
God most fully exemplified in Christ's willing sacrifice on the cross.

Martyrdom's Wider Existential Context

A fuller understanding of Aquinas's psychology of courage, requires that we

must examine more closely the existential horizon against which he situates his
conception of courage and its exemplary act of martyrdom. Recall the claim
that the object of fear eliciting the virtue of courage in its purest and highest
degree is the prospect of imminent death. Death is the greatest evil because it
undermines the most basic good underlying all other goods. Our aversion to
death is simply the other side of ourfirstand most fundamental natural incli-
nation to preserve ourselves in existence.36 Moreover, just as this inclination to
self-preservation expresses itself constantly throughout the entire structure of
our various appetites, the disinclination to death exerts an equally pervasive in-
fluence. Thus, the relation one conceives between life and death and the con-
sequent significance of death to human achievement is of decisive importance
to any moral theory and especially to any theory of the virtues.37
From an Aristotelian perspective, death is the extreme manifestation of a
more pervasive threat to virtue, namely, the vulnerability of human endeavor
to contingency and misfortune. This idea, often subsumed under the head-
ing of moral luck, is intuited from the common awareness that one's actions
and well-being depend to a great extent upon contingent occurrences that lie
beyond one's control, occurrences that can destroy or fatally undermine the
ends for which one undertakes any action.38 In his book Contingency and For-
tune in Aquinas' Ethics, John Bowlin argues that a defining feature of Aquinas's
account of the virtues is their ability to neutralize these various difficulties and
 Is Martyrdom Virtuous? · 149

misfortunes. The virtues are those dispositions that help us to achieve the "dif-
ficult good,"39 the good that fully actualizes our various potentialities despite
the inconsistencies of time and circumstance.40 It is for this reason that the
virtue of courage is considered to be a virtue whose characteristic function is
required for every act of virtue as such, for every act of virtue must take into
account to one degree or another the various threats to the end it aims to
achieve, whether these be specific direct obstacles or more universal counter-
vailing forces. As Bowlin observes, Aquinas tempers the subversive effects of
misfortune and contingency by appealing to theological claims regarding di-
vine providence. Aquinas makes this move at crucial points to preserve the
unity and accessibility of the virtues but at the cost of what Bowlin perceives
to be an increased focus upon the state of the will, a position that brings him
closer to the Stoic view than to an Aristotelian one.41
One could readily apply this interpretation of Aquinas's supposedly Stoic
evasion of misfortune to his account of the virtue of the martyr. Bowlin's
analysis of Aquinas's negotiation of contingency and fortune suggests that
what makes martyrdom virtuous for Aquinas is not any external act but the
state of the will in relation to the ends set forth by reason. What matters most
is that the will continues to adhere to God through charity; it is precisely this
attachment to God that the act of martyrdom sets forth with unparalleled clar-
ity. Aquinas counters the prominent role of fortune in the Aristotelian account
by making such circumstances as gender, age, military status, and even rational
capacity incidental to the full exercise of courage in its highest form.42 What
counts is the attachment of our will to God, an attachment that is ultimately
established and perfected by God himself. Thus, the receptive dimension of
Aquinas's account goes much deeper than the priority of endurance. Not only
does he preclude an explanation of ultimate courage on account of the ulti-
mate pleasure such an act would elicit in the virtuous person (because for
Aquinas it is enough that the martyr not be sad) but he also insists that the
supernatural end for which the martyr endures pain and death must itself be
received. So it seems that the most any human agent can do to maintain their
hold on that end is to prepare and sustain a proper disposition to receive it.43
Is this not an essentially Stoic approach? Here is how Bowlin puts it: "Virtue
whose completed act is nothing but a certain state of the will, success in ac-
tion that is assured, at least with respect to the final end, and fortune made
inconsequential, at least for the most part—these are the marks of Stoic virtue
that Aquinas imprints upon the moral virtues, infused by grace and perfected
by charity."44 Is then Aquinas's designation of martyrdom as a virtue merely a
part of a larger Stoic retreat from the threats that contingency and misfortune
pose to more context-specific ideals of noble death?
The Christian tradition concurs with the basic Stoic view that death is not
really the sort of threat it appears to be on its face. When confronting inevitable
150 · Patrick Clark

features of human existence such as our finitude and mortality, what matters
for the Stoics is not how they act upon those threats but rather how much they
allow those threats to act upon them. And it is for this reason that we should
focus upon the state of the will in these circumstances, which no instance of
contingent misfortune can touch. For the Stoic exemplar of noble death—and
one rightly thinks of Socrates here—no external disturbance is able touch the
sovereign equipoise that is the true hallmark of human virtue. The end for
which the Stoic endures death is the same end for which she endures all else
that is not in her control. Similarly, Aquinas maintains that the proximate end
of the courageous person enduring death is simply "the reproduction in action"
of the virtue he possesses, whose principal act is to endure.45 On this view, then,
it would seem that for both Aquinas and the Stoics, what sets martyrdom apart
from other forms of self-sacrificial death is the degree to which the possibility
of misfortune can affect the achievement of the ends for which an agent dies.
Martyrdom is a virtuous act because it reveals most clearly the greatest possi-
ble strength with which one can adhere to the highest good of reason.
Where Aquinas's account of courage and the larger Christian understand-
ing of martyrdom depart from the Stoic view is in their characterization of the
"remote" or final end for which the martyr endures.46 For Aquinas, the mar-
tyr does not merely intend to impress her virtuous disposition upon whatever
circumstances she happens to encounter but, like Aristotle's noble warrior, she
is also interested in pursuing a more substantive good, a good to be enjoyed.
In this sense, Aquinas's account of the motivational structure of the act of mar-
tyrdom is properly called eudaimonistic because the final end of the act is in-
formed by a conception of happiness that is inclusive of states of affairs exter-
nal to the will. The final end of the martyr is none other than the beatific vision:
the eternal intellectual apprehension of God in Godself, an end that superabun-
dantly perfects every human capacity and satisfies every human desire.

Martyrdom and Original Justice

The most fundamental theological basis of the martyr's motivation is to be found

not in Aquinas's account of the beatific vision but rather in his account of hu-
manity's creation and fall in Genesis. Aquinas appeals to Genesis as a way of es-
tablishing the existential parameters of human nature in its original form.
Aquinas's prelapsarian anthropology bears particularly upon his approach to the
virtue of courage and its paradigmatic exemplification in martyrdom because the
distinctive matter circa quam belonging to courage (the threat of death) simply
does not apply within humanity's original state in Eden.47 Aquinas boldly asserts
that prelapsarian nature is exempt from the fundamental conditions for the pos-
sibility of courage. Any virtues whose exercise is occasioned by the imperfections
usually associated with the contingent material world are absent in Eden, and
 Is Martyrdom Virtuous? · 151

therefore absent from the actualization of human nature in its original state.48
For Aquinas, this anthropological presumption necessarily underlies his under-
standing of death's meaning, a meaning that can only be negative from a theo-
logical standpoint.
In the treatise on the first man, Aquinas returns four different times to a pas-
sage from the book of Ecclesiastes (7:30) that says "God made man right"
(Deusfacit hominem rectum).*9 This term rectus refers both to the proper sym-
biosis of human powers and to Adam's proper moral standing with God because
for Aquinas the former relation depends directly upon the latter. One notices
in this rectitude a conspicuous lack of any paradigmatic distinction between the
"moral order" and the "natural order" because for Aquinas the concept of orig-
inal justice encompasses both the will's proper adherence to God and the proper
adherence of the inclinations to reason. Hence, the "integrity" of human na-
ture in its original form does not exclude the direct assistance of God but rather
operates from the beginning in a "state of grace."50 Granted, the respective fi-
nal ends of prelapsarian and glorified humanity are substantively different, but
they are no less dependent upon grace for their realization."51 Aquinas's account
of human action and development in the state of original justice thus reveals
that the human person's capacity to receive the active assistance of God's grace
opens up the possibility of its indefinite material existence. In other words,
Aquinas maintains that God originally established human nature within an or-
der of providence in which the human person was "incorruptible and immor-
tal." "In the state of original innocence," he writes, the human body "was in-
dissoluble not by reason of any intrinsic vigor of immortality, but by reason of
a supernatural force given by God to the soul, whereby it was enabled to pre-
serve the body from all corruption so long as it remained itself subject to God.
This entirely agrees with reason," he declares, "for since the rational soul sur-
passes the capacity of corporeal matter . . . it was most properly endowed at
the beginning with the power of preserving the body in a manner surpassing
the capacity of corporeal matter."52 Thus in the state of original justice, the or-
dering of the soul to God exempted Adam from death.53
Careful consideration of Aquinas's account of the contingency and aberrancy
of death for prelapsarian humanity casts his treatment of courage in an entirely
different light, simultaneously answering and raising many unexpected ques-
tions. Because of his theological anthropology informed by Genesis, Aquinas re-
gards death as the greatest and most fearful danger to human life in a radically
different way than Aristotle does. For Aquinas, death is not merely a regrettable
yet necessary feature of our finite particularity, in light of which and in spite of
which acts of greatness are nevertheless possible. Rather, for him death is an un-
mitigated evil because it represents humanity's severed relationship with God.
Thus Aquinas views the exercise of courage in its deepest sense as an expression
of hope for the restoration of the form of existence in which the justice and
mercy of God preserves us from all harm.
152 · Patrick Clark

Martyrdom as a Christological Virtue

From this perspective, it is fitting, then, that the evil of death should be revealed
most fully in the person whose death also enables the restoration and intensi­
fication of the grace lost in Eden. In the Incarnation, the true nature of death
is displayed in all its hideousness and is nevertheless conquered by Christ's ef­
ficacious sacrifice, which makes satisfaction for the sin that separates human­
ity from God. Those who follow Christ share in the benefits of his death
through the sacrament of baptism, which washes away both personal and orig­
inal sin and bestows upon the believer the theological virtues of faith, hope,
and love. If we consider and take seriously both Aquinas's theological presup­
positions regarding the nature of human mortality and his concentration upon
the overriding theological trajectory of courage's exemplary act, we are left with
a rather puzzling question: if death is the punishment for original sin, and if
baptism washes away original sin, then why do the baptized still die?
Aquinas addresses this question in both the Summa theologiae (Ι-Π.85.5) and
the Summa contra gentiles (IV.55). In the Summa theologiae, he poses the dilemma
this way: if a cause is removed, so is its effect; therefore if baptism removes both
original and actual sin, the effects of corruption and death should be removed
as well. Why then do the baptized still die? Aquinas's answer is very intriguing:

While both original and actual sin are removed by the same cause that re­
moves these defects . . . each is done according to the order of Divine wis­
dom, at a fitting time, because it is right that we shouldfirstof all be conformed
to Christs sufferings before attaining to the immortality and impassibility of
glory, which was begun in Him, and by Him acquired for us. Hence it be­
hooves that our bodies should remain, for a time, subject to suffering, in or­
der that we may merit the impassibility ofglory, in conformity with Christ.5* (em­
phasis added)

In Book IV of the Summa contra gentiles, Aquinas addresses this issue in the con­
text of his defense of the incarnation. If Christ atoned sufficiently for the sin
of humanity, the objection runs, it is unjust that humanity should still suffer
the punishment of sin, the chief of which is death. Again Aquinas replies in a
similar fashion:

Although by His death Christ made sufficient satisfaction for original sin, it
is not unreasonable . . . that the penalties resulting from original sin still re­
main in all, even in those who have become participators in Christ's redemp­
tion (adhuc in omnibus qui etiam redemptionis Christi participesfluni).It was fit­
ting and profitable that the punishment should remain after the guilt had been
removed. In the first place, that the faithful might be conformed to Christ, as
members to their head. Wherefore, just as Christ bore many sufferings be-
 Is Martyrdom Virtuous? · 153

fore entering into everlasting glory, so was it fitting that Hisfaithful should suf-
fer before attaining to immortality. Thus they bear in themselves the emblems of
Christs suffering, that they may obtain the likeness of His glory; according to the
words of the Apostle (Romans 8:17), Heirs indeed of God, and joint-heirs
with Christ: yet so if we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with
him.55 (emphasis added)

More than anything else, then, Aquinas views the martyr's experience of suf-
fering and death as an opportunity to be conformed to Christ. It is this oppor-
tunity of assimilation that inspires the martyr's courage and that renders her
act the greatest proof of charity's perfection of the soul. In my view, the most
significant implication of this understanding of the martyr's courage is the cen-
tral place it gives to the incarnation within Aquinas's overall theory of the
virtues.561 have attempted in this essay to show how Aquinas's presentation of
courage depends at its core upon a particular transformation in the structure
and experience of human existence, which depends from the start upon the his-
torical manifestation of Christ's victory over sin and death. The point I want
to emphasize is that even in the heart of his treatise on human nature and ac-
tion, Aquinas cannot prescind from certain Christological claims that are de-
cisive for his understanding of human vulnerability and that thereby shape his
theory of courage.
All of the various aspects of human nature are for him reflections of God's
eternal artistry and sovereign ordering of the world. However, when it comes
to death—perhaps the most universal feature of human existence—Aquinas
treats it as something profoundly negative, something that alienates us from,
rather than relates us to, our Creator. From Aquinas's point of view, death is a
direct sign of our estrangement from God. For him, death is not part of God's
original plan for the human person. It is, however, part of the providential plan
for humanity's redemption through Christ. Aquinas maintains that Christ's
death changes the substantive nature of death itself and of the suffering and dif-
ficulty that foreshadow it. In this way, Christ's incarnation and death conditions
his account of the nature and function of the virtue of courage to its core. The
evil of death no longer represents ultimate loss but rather an opportunity to be
conformed to the person of Christ. In our endurance of suffering and death, we
grow in virtue by imitating the passion of Christ, which for Aquinas is simulta-
neously the exemplum of moral perfection and the source of grace by which the
supernatural life grows in us. From this theological vantage point, the martyr
pursues a unified good based on the person of Christ, whose death is at the same
time a cause of the deepest sorrow and a means of the highest perfection.
Viewed within the conceptual framework of a Christocentric virtue ethic, the
promise of participation in the final triumph of Jesus' resurrection through the
imitation of his self-emptying love constitutes a constant and universal source
154 · Patrick Clark

57
of moral motivation, even amidst the most fearful of circumstances. For the
martyr courageously imitates Christ's death in the hope that she will also share
his resurrection. It is fitting then, as Aquinas says,

for Christ's soul at His Resurrection to resume the body with its scars. In the
first place, for Christ's own glory. For Bede says that He kept His scars not
from inability to heal them, 'but to wear them as an everlasting trophy ofHis vic­
tory.' [And so] Augustine says in The City of God (Book 22): Terhaps in that
kingdom we shall see on the bodies of the Martyrs the traces of the wounds
which they bore for Christ's name: because it will not be a deformity, but a dig­
nity in them; and a certain kind of beauty will shine in them, in the body, though
5
not of the body.' * (emphasis added)

The virtue of courage preserves in the martyr the hope of ultimate perfection
by conforming her to the person of Christ, whose union with the Father is at
once the cause, the form, and the object of her full and enduring happiness.
The martyr thus finds her own fullness by sharing in his wounds.

Notes

1. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics ofMorals, trans. Mary Gregor (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 11-12.
2. See, especially, Rosalind Hursthouse, "Aristode and Kant" and the two subsequent chap­
ters in Virtue Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 91-107; Nancy Sherman,
Making a Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer­
sity Press, 1997); Christine Korsgaard, "From Duty for the Sake of the Noble: Kant and
Aristode on the Morally Good Action" in Aristotle, Kant and the Stoics, ed. S. Engstrom
and J. Whiting (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 203-6; and R. B. Louden,
"Kant's Virtue Ethics" in Philosophy 61 (1986): 473-89.
3. Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung catalogues the use of this metaphor in her essay "Power
Made Perfect in Weakness: Aquinas's Transformation of the Virtue of Courage," Medieval
Philosophy and Theology 11, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 147n2.
4. As Aristode explains, "For most people the things that are pleasant are in conflict, because
they are not such by nature, whereas to lovers of the fine what is pleasant is what is pleas­
ant by nature; and actions in accordance with excellence are like this, so that they are pleas­
ant both to these people and in themselves." Aristode, Nicomachean Ethics (EN), 1099al 1-
15, trans. Christopher Rowe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 104.
5. ΕΝΏΙ.9, 1117a31-33.
6. EiVIII.9, 1117a33-35.
7. ΕΝΠ1.6, 1115all-13.
8. £iVin.6, 1115a26-27.
9. ENm.9, 1117M1-13.
10.E/VIII.9, 1117M4-16.
11.EÌVIII.6, 1115a30-32.
 Is Martyrdom Virtuous? · 155

12. ΕΝΏ1.6, 1115b4-6.

13.EÌWII.3, 1153b20-21.
14. John Bowlin, Contingency and Fortune in Aquinas' Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1999); and Lee Yearley, "The Nature-Grace Question in the Context of For-
titude," The Thomist 35 (October 1971): 557-80. See Yearley, Mencius and Aquinas: Theo-
ries of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1990). Also of note are
Craig Steven Titus, Resilience and the Virtue of Fortitude (Washington, DC: Catholic Uni-
versity of America Press, 2006); and DeYoung, "Power Made Perfect in Weakness,"
147-52, 179-80.
15. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province
(New York: Benzinger Brothers, Inc., 1947), II-II 123.4. Hereafter abbreviated ST.
16. His theory of the soul's union with the body is laid out most direcdy in ST 1.75-76. See
also, however, Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles (hereafter abbreviated SCG), trans.
James E Anderson (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 11.57,
65-72, 83; SCG IV.79, trans. Charles J. O'Neil (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1989); and Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology 1.153-84, trans. Cyril
Vollert (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1948). For a meticulous and comprehensive treat-
ment of the role of the body in the perfection of the human person, see Robert Pasnau,
Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2002), chs. 3
and 9 (73-99, 361-93).
17. ST II-II.123.5c.
18. Ibid. As Stanley Hauerwas and Charles Pinches have pointed out, however, by conceiv-
ing of martyrdom as an act of batde, Aquinas is not assimilating martyrdom under the cat-
egory of warfare so much as redefining the category itself. Hauerwas and Pinches, Chris-
tians among the Virtues (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997).
19.STII-II.123.5c.
20.STII-II.123.6c.
21. ST II-II.124.1.
22. See Matthew 2:1-18.
23.STII-II.124.1.
24. ST II-II.124.1.
25.STII-II.123.7c.
26. "Charity inclines one to the act of martyrdom, as its first and chief motive cause, being
the virtue commanding it, whereas fortitude inclines thereto as being its proper motive
cause, being the virtue that elicits it. Hence martyrdom is an act of charity as command-
ing, and of fortitude as eliciting. For this reason also it manifests both virtues." ST II-
II.124.2c.
27.STI-II.4.1.
28. "The brave man, on one side, has something that affords him delight, namely as regards
spiritual pleasure, in the act itself of virtue and the end thereof: while, on the other hand,
he has cause for both spiritual sorrow, in the thought of losing his life, and for bodily pain.
Hence we read (2 Maccabees 6:30) that Eleazar said: Ί suffer grievous pains in body: but
in soul am well content to suffer these things because I fear Thee.'" ST II-II. 123.8c.
29. "Since bodily pain is more sensible, and the sensitive apprehension is more in evidence to
man, it follows that spiritual pleasure in the end of virtue fades away, so to speak, in the
presence of great bodily pain." ST II-II. 12 3.8c.
156 · Patrick Clark

30.ENTI.3, 1117b 16-17, as paraphrased by Aquinas in ST Π-Π. 123.8c. In this case I have
altered the use of "man" and masculine pronouns in this translation of Aquinas so as to
better accord with my use of feminine pronouns immediately before this quotation. The
quote in the English Dominican Fathers translation reads thus: "Hence the Philospher
says (Ethic. Ii. 3; iii.9) that it is not necessary for a brave man to delight so as to perceive
his delight, but it suffices for him not to be sad."
31. See Arthur Madigan's treatment of this problem in the context of Aristode's thought in
his essay "Eth. Nie. 9.8: Beyond Egoism and Altruism?" in Essays in Ancient Greek Philos­
ophy, vol. 4. ed. John P. Anton (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1991), 73-94.
32. In ST II-II. 124.4, Aquinas explicidy argues that actual death is part of the essence of mar­
tyrdom: "It belongs to martyrdom that a man bear witness to the faith in showing by deed
that he despises all things present, in order to obtain invisible goods to come. Now so long
as a man retains the life of the body he does not show by deed that he despises all things
relating to the body. For men are wont to despise both their kindred and all they possess,
and even to suffer bodily pain, rather than lose life. . . . Therefore the perfect notion of
martyrdom requires that a man suffer death for Christ's sake."
33. ST II-II. 124.1. Pieper suggests that such "preparation of the mind" for death is an inher­
ent part of every courageous act, insofar as every injury irregardless of degree constitutes
a certain foreshadowing of death. According to him, every difficulty and danger in a sense
"participates" in death, which represents the full and final culmination of our vulnerabil­
ity. It is an interesting interpretation of courage but one that is certainly colored by exis­
tentialist and phenomenological currents that far postdate Aquinas himself. While I am
not sure the extent to which Aquinas would endorse Pieper's view, I do think that Aquinas
would agree that our susceptibility to corruption and death is a pervasive and enormously
influential dimension of our moral psychology. Joseph Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966).
34.STII-II.124.3.
35. When considering the question of whether continence is superior to temperance (ST Π-
Π. 15 5.4), Aquinas makes a crucial distinction between the two principal sorts of causes of
alteration in the movement of sense appetite. According to him, these causes are either
bodily or spiritual, and both sorts can bring about either the growth or diminishment of
the passions. It is of enormous ethical significance which sort of cause accounts for the
strength or weakness of the passions within any given act because these causes bear in­
versely upon the act's merit. Bodily causes on the one hand (which include both one's nat­
ural disposition with respect to concupiscence as well as one's circumstances with respect
to the presence and proximity of objects that incite concupiscence) increase merit if they
make it harder to perform goods acts, while they diminish merit if they make it easier to
do so. In the case of bodily causes, then, merit is a function of difficulty—just as a more
difficult jump earns an Olympic diver higher marks from the judges. Spiritual causes of
alteration in concupiscence, however—and for Aquinas these consist primarily of "the ve­
hemence of charity" and "the strength of reason"—increase merit to the extent that they
weaken concupiscence because the augmentation of these principles in the soul actually
facilitates the subordination of the passions to reason. So merit in the case of spiritual causes
is a function not of difficulty but perfection.
36. ST I-n.94.2c.
37. In this regard, Aristode appears to have inherited many assumptions from the Greek
Homeric tradition, which understood death to be the crucial distinction between human­
ity and divinity. In this epic-mythic tradition, death sets all human endeavors against a
common horizon of finitude that bestows upon human action an urgency, gravitas, and
yearning for excellence that is neither necessary nor possible for the gods. The prospect
 Is Martyrdom Virtuous? · 157

of genuine failure, permanent disgrace, and irredeemable futility is a very real one for Aris-
tode and the ancients, and we are all on the clock to do something about it, for in the end,
death puts a halt to all our projects and ambitions. And yet, a life of surpassing excellence,
whether it be characterized by political prudence or contemplative understanding, is ul-
timately well worth its exchange for mortality. Thus while finitude is always a pressing
threat from the Aristotelian perspective, it is also a source of motivation to take advantage
of the limited opportunities we enjoy. Of course, Aquinas' Christian beliefs about death
differ profoundly from this view, and I hope to show shordy just how determinative the
difference really is.
38. Martha Nussbaum's seminal work on this topic is of particular significance in the field of
ancient ethics. See, in particular, her The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek
Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
39. ST II-II.129.2c.
40. Bowlin, Contingency and Fortune, 31.
41. Ibid., 213-21. See also Bonnie Kent's account of this same trend in the broader scholas-
tic context in her Virtues of the Will: The Transformation ofEthics in the Late Thirteenth Cen-
tury. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995).
42. Bowlin, Contingency and Fortune, 167-212.
43. STI-ILI 12.2c.
44. Bowlin, Contingency and Fortune, 218.
45. ST II-II.123.7c.
46. In Nicomachean Ethics IX.8, Aristode speaks direcdy to the issue of what would motivate
the person of true excellence to sacrifice his money, honors, goods, and even his fife for
the sake of friends and fatherland. His response is that the truly virtuous person desires
for himself above all else the performance of extraordinary deeds of excellence. Hence "he
will choose intense pleasure for a short duration over mild pleasure for a long one, and a
year's life lived in a fine way rather than many years lived indifferendy, and one fine act
on a grand scale over many small ones" (ENTX.8,1169a20-24). It is remarkable that Aris-
tode speaks of the decision to sacrifice self not only in terms of pleasure but also in terms
of opting for one fine action "on a grand scale" over many insignificant ones. "And this,
presumably, is what happens with those who die for others;" he says, "they are, then, choos-
ing a fine thing for themselves, on a grand scale" (EÌVIX.8, 1169a25-27). In this way, the
good person "assigns" a deed of surpassing excellence to themselves, refusing that even
death should prevent them from staking their claim to it. An act of such greatness elicits
great pleasure, and this act represents a fitting end to a great life lived well. It is therefore
only a sacrifice in very limited sense. Hence, Aristode's description of the ideal noble death
is vasdy different than Aquinas's. The echoes of Achilles in Aristode's description ring as
loudly as the echoes of St. Paul in Aquinas' description (ST II-II. 123.5). What Aristode
envisions is an occasion for the warrior to "go out with a bang," to choose the intense plea-
sure of a rare and magnificent act of virtue. Such a deed obviously requires that one be
able to act, to fully display one's strength of character and strength of body; the notion
that a criminal suffering on the rack could be happy or die a good death is simply foolish-
ness for Aristode.
47. This is also the case with regard to temperance because in Eden there is no disordered con-
cupiscence to be moderated. Aquinas does still insist that courage and temperance are pres-
ent in prelapsarian Adam inasmuch as they reinforce the spontaneous movements of the
sensible and irascible appetite by responding to them with joy and hope. See ST 1.95.2-3.
48. Bowlin, Contingency and Fortune, 163-65.
49.STL91.3, 94.1, 95.1, 99.1.
158 · Patrick Clark

50. According to Aquinas's reading of Genesis, this relation was established with humanity
from the very beginning, such that the human soul possessed all the virtues it was capa-
ble of receiving, including the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which directed
Adam toward the full actualization of his natural capacities. Adam had knowledge of this
grace to the extent that he possessed knowledge of God derived from the intelligibility of
created things. Thus, the unseen object of his faith was not God in himself (the object of
beatific knowledge) but rather the fullness of the transcendent first cause.
51. ST I-II. 109.3 c. Although Adam was never destined to know God in the way that those
who are glorified in the beatific vision know him, he was ordained to love God in the same
way as the baptized. "In the state of perfect nature," Aquinas writes, "man referred the
love of himself and of all other things to the love of God as to its end; and thus he loved
God more than himself and above all things" (ST I-II. 109.3 c).
52. ST 1.97.1.
53. Death is fundamentally a punishment, not in the sense that God imposes death as a way
of "getting back" at Adam for his sin but in the sense that death severs humanity from its
"natural"—that is, its intended—object of final happiness. "In this way the sin of our first
parent is the cause of death and all such like defects in human nature, in so far as by the
sin of our first parent original justice was taken away, whereby not only were the lower
powers of the soul held together under the control of reason, without any disorder what-
ever, but also the whole body was held together in subjection to the soul, without any de-
fect. . . . Wherefore, original justice being forfeited through the sin of our first parent,
just as human nature was stricken in the soul by the disorder among the powers . . . so
also it became subject to corruption, by reason of disorder in the body" (ST I-II.85.5).
54. ST I-II.85.5ad2.
55. SCG W.S6.
56. In recent decades there have been many theologians who have advocated moral theories
based first and foremost upon the person of Christ in opposition to ones that give pri-
ority to natural or philosophical categories in light of which the person of Christ is sub-
sequendy evaluated. In the Catholic milieu, perhaps the most prominent proponent of
this current of thought is Bernard Häring, whose Law of Christ employed a moral
methodology privileging the scriptural portrayal of Christ above other natural or con-
ceptual sources. His work grew out of the broader context of philosophical personalism,
which took hold among continental faculties in the early twentieth century, arising pri-
marily from the thought of such figures as Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler. In lieu of
abstract natures and rational constructions, theological followers of the personalist move-
ment such as Theodore Steinbüchel and Franz Tillman maintained that human moral
endeavor depends more vitally upon the adoption of "person-models" than upon the
adoption of universal maxims or value calculi. For them, person-models represent the
most immediate and most authoritative reference points for human moral reasoning. Such
a view obviously translates well into the Christian moral paradigm, which regards the per-
son of Jesus as the model of moral perfection and thus more readily regards the moral
life as primarily a matter of discipleship or friendship rather than compliance, calcula-
tion, or sentiment. A number of Thomist thinkers were also influenced by this general
trend, including most notably the Fribourg Dominicans Servais Pinckaers and Jean-
Pierre Torrell. Pinckaers' teachers at the Angelicum, Louis Gillon, published a book in
1967 tided Christ and Moral Theology that traces with extraordinary clarity the concep-
tual and methodological roots of personal exemplarism in Aquinas' moral thought, a
theme that Pinckaers and Torrell would later develop in much greater depth. In their
work, Pinckaers and Torrell aim to show how Aquinas' own Aristotelian virtue theory is
shaped by and put in the service of his theological mission, which culminates in the di-
rect imitation of the person and work of Christ. Yet the idea that Aquinas advocated a
 Is Martyrdom Virtuous? · 159

full-blown exemplarism is problematic not only because it departs from centuries of

Thomistic commentary but more importandy because it seems to defy the very structure
of the Summa. As Torrell points out, Aquinas, in constructing the Summa, makes the con-
scious decision to place his Christology after his treatise on human action, such that the
various ethical categories corresponding to the perfection of human nature precede the
description of the way in which Christ assumes that nature and then redeems it. This de-
cision, as Torrell explains, stems from Aquinas' methodological strategy of organizing his
exposition according to the order of being rather than the order of knowing, from which
it follows that "the Trinity would be first in explanation as it is in reality." Jean-Pierre
Torell, Saint Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master (Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 2005), 103. Although it remains true, as the first article of the Summa the-
ologiae (1.1.1) makes clear, that the special revelation of salvation history culminating in
Christ's incarnation is indispensable to our knowledge of God, God's inner nature remains
the chief object of theological knowledge. As M. D. Chenu remarks, "the transition from
the [second] to the [third part of the Summa] is a passage from the order of the neces-
sary to the order of the historical, from an account of structure to the actual story of God's
gifts. In this way, he writes, the plan of Aquinas's Summa "achieves a paradoxical success
when it unites, amid sensitiveness to God's transparency, a science of the necessary and
respect for the contingencies of a love which is eternally free. . . . [Thus Aquinas's
schema] make[s] possible a science of human nature as such that will not bring detriment
to the analysis of man's historical states b u t . . . on the contrary, [furthers] a correct es-
timation of what they imply." M. D. Chenu, Toward Understanding St. Thomas, trans. A.
M. Landry and D. Hughes (Chicago: H. Regnery Co., 1964), 315.
57. Instances of Aquinas speaking direcdy about imitating Christ are sprinkled sparingly
throughout his work, never really demanding a central place in his overall moral system.
Yet when these passages do show up, it is remarkable how they almost all deal specifically
with the imitation of Christ's passion. In ST III.46.3, Aquinas makes the bold statement
that "in his passion Christ offers himself to us as the perfect model of all the virtues." Sim-
ilar passages occur in ST III.46.4, 50.1 and 51.1. Perhaps the most forceful of these pas-
sages comes from his Catechetical Instructions, where we encounter this litany of admoni-
tions: "Indeed, there is not a single example that the Cross does not give us. Do you seek
an example of charity? 'There is no greater love than to give up one's life for those whom
we love.' And Christ did it on the C r o s s . . . . Are you looking for an example of patience?
The most perfect patience is found on the Cross. . . . An example of humility? Look upon
the Crucified One. And example of obedience? Follow him who made himself obedient
to the Father even unto death. . . . An example of scorn for earthly things? Walk after
him who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, in whom are found all the treasures of
wisdom and who, nonetheless, appears naked on the Cross, and object of mockery, spit
upon, beaten, crowned with thorns, offered gall and vinegar, put to death." Quoted in Tor-
rell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 120.
58. ST III.54.4c, emphasis added.