Annotatio CLXII

”Far from my salvation are the words of my sins.” — Psalm 21:3

Augustine, in the commentaries on the Psalms, in the second exposition of this psalm, seems to think that Christ did not truly fear, nor had true sadness.¹ For the Master of the Sentences, in book 3, distinction 15, reports his explanation — with some words permuted and transposed, for a clearer understanding of the sense — in this manner: “How does he say this, ‘Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth’?² Concerning us — his body — he says this: for he bore the person of his body, that is, the Church; as also elsewhere, when he said, ‘Let this chalice pass from me,’³ he speaks for us — unless perhaps he be thought to have feared to die. But he did not truly fear to suffer, [he] who was to rise on the third day, when Paul burned to be dissolved and to be with Christ.⁴ For a soldier is not braver than the emperor: for the soldier, about to be crowned, rejoices to die — and would the Lord, about to be crowned, fear death? But, representing our infirmity, he said this for his own weak ones, who fear to die: for it was the voice of those [members].” He has a similar opinion in the epistle to Proba, On the grace of the New Testament, chapters 6 and 7; likewise in the exposition of Psalm 103. But it is clear that Augustine did not think thus, from those things which he brought against this opinion in the exposition of Psalm 93, in these words: “Be unwilling to think that the Lord was not sad; for if we should say this — that he was not sad, whereas the Gospel says, ‘My soul is sad even unto death’⁵ — then, when the Gospel says ‘Jesus slept,’ [we might say] ‘Jesus did not sleep’; ‘Jesus ate,’ ‘he did not eat’; and thus nothing sincere is left, so that it be said, ‘And now the body was not real, and he did not have true flesh.’ Whatever, therefore, is written of him is done, is true: therefore he was sad — altogether sad — but taking on sadness by [his] will, just as [he took on] flesh by [his] will.” The Master of the Sentences, in book 3, distinction 15, says that Augustine — in [the exposition of] Psalm 3 — signified that Christ did not truly fear according to [his] passion, but in Psalm 93 showed that Christ, according to fore-passion [propassion], truly feared. You will see below the things which pertain to this argument, Annotation 186 of this book.