And not only on their own account do they experience these emotions, but also on account of those whose deliverance they desire and whose perdition they fear, and whose loss or salvation affects them with grief or with joy. For if we who have come into the Church from among the Gentiles may suitably instance that noble and mighty hero who glories in his infirmities, the teacher (doctor) of the nations in faith and truth, who also laboured more than all his fellow-apostles, and instructed the tribes of God’s people by his epistles, which edified not only those of his own time, but all those who were to be gathered in—that hero, I say, and athlete of Christ, instructed by Him, anointed of His Spirit, crucified with Him, glorious in Him, lawfully maintaining a great conflict on the theatre of this world, and being made a spectacle to angels and men,693 and pressing onwards for the prize of his high calling694—very joyfully do we with the eyes of faith behold him rejoicing with them that rejoice, and weeping with them that weep;695 though hampered by fightings without and fears within;696 desiring to depart and to be with Christ;697 longing to see the Romans, that he might have some fruit among them as among other Gentiles;698 being jealous over the Corinthians, and fearing in that jealousy lest their minds should be corrupted from the chastity that is in Christ;699 having great heaviness and continual sorrow of heart for the Israelites,700 because they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God;701 and expressing not only his sorrow, but bitter lamentation over some who had formally sinned and had not repented of their uncleanness and fornications.702
If these emotions and affections, arising as they do from the love of what is good and from a holy charity, are to be called vices, then let us allow these emotions which are truly vices to pass under the name of virtues. But since these affections, when they are exercised in a becoming way, follow the guidance of right reason, who will dare to say that they are diseases or vicious passions? Wherefore even the Lord Himself, when He condescended to lead a human life in the form of a slave, had no sin whatever, and yet exercised these emotions where He judged they should be exercised. For as there was in Him a true human body and a true human soul, so was there also a true human emotion. When, therefore, we read in the Gospel that the hard-heartedness of the Jews moved Him to sorrowful indignation,703 that He said, “I am glad for your sakes, to the intent ye may believe,”704 that when about to raise Lazarus He even shed tears,705 that He earnestly desired to eat the passover with His disciples,706 that as His passion drew near His soul was sorrowful,707 these emotions are certainly not falsely ascribed to Him. But as He became man when it pleased Him, so, in the grace of His definite purpose, when it pleased Him He experienced those emotions in His human soul.
But we must further make the admission, that even when these affections are well regulated, and according to God’s will, they are peculiar to this life, not to that future life we look for, and that often we yield to them against our will. And thus sometimes we weep in spite of ourselves, being carried beyond ourselves, not indeed by culpable desire, but by praiseworthy charity. In us, therefore, these affections arise from human infirmity; but it was not so with the Lord Jesus, for even His infirmity was the consequence of His power. But so long as we wear the infirmity of this life, we are rather worse men than better if we have none of these emotions at all. For the apostle vituperated and abominated some who, as he said, were “without natural affection.”708 The sacred Psalmist also found fault with those of whom he said, “I looked for some to lament with me, and there was none.”709 For to be quite free from pain while we are in this place of misery is only purchased, as one of this world’s literati perceived and remarked,710 at the price of blunted sensibilities both of mind and body. And therefore that which the Greeks call ἀπάθεια, and what the Latins would
