St. Robert Bellarmine: The Seven Words on the Cross

[Stone]

CHAPTER XII: The literal explanation of the sixth Word, “It is consummated.

The sixth word spoken by our Lord on the Cross is mentioned by St. John as being in a manner joined with the fifth word. For as soon as our Lord had said, “I thirst,” and had tasted the vinegar which was offered Him, St. John adds: “Jesus therefore when He had tasted the vinegar, said: It is consummated.”[1] And indeed nothing can be added to the simple words, “It is consummated,” except that the work of the Passion was now perfected and completed. God the Father had imposed two duties on His Son: the first to preach the Gospel; the other to suffer for mankind. Of the first Christ had already said, “I have glorified Thee on earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.”[2] Our Lord spoke these words after He had concluded the long and farewell address to His disciples at the Last Supper. Then He had accomplished the first work which His Heavenly Father had imposed upon Him. The second task, of drinking the bitter cup of His chalice, remained. He had alluded to this when He asked the two sons of Zebedee, “can you drink the chalice that I shall drink?”[3] and again, “Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from Me;”[4] and elsewhere, “The chalice which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?”[5] Of this task, Christ at the point of death could now exclaim, “It is consummated, for I have drained the chalice of suffering to the dregs: nothing now remains for Me but to die.” And bowing His head He gave up the ghost!”[6]

But as neither our Lord nor St. John, who were both concise in what they said, have explained what was consummated, we have the opportunity of applying the word with great reason and advantage to several mysteries. St. Augustine, in his commentary on this passage, refers the word to the fulfilment of all the prophecies that had reference to our Lord. “Afterwards Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst,” and, “when He had taken the vinegar, said, It is consummated,”[7] which means that what remained to be accomplished has been accomplished, and so we may conclude that our Lord wished to show that everything which had been foretold by the prophets concerning His Life and Death had been brought to pass and fulfilled. Indeed, all the predictions had been verified. His Conception: “Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son.”[8] His Nativity at Bethlehem: “And thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, art a little one among the thousands of Juda; out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be the ruler in Israel.”[9] The apparition of a new star: “A star shall rise out of Jacob.”[10] The adoration of the Kings: “The Kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents, the Kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts.”[11] The preaching of the Gospel; “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me; He hath sent Me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up.”[12] His miracles: “God Himself will come and will save you. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be free.”[13] His sitting upon the ass; “Behold thy King will come to thee, the Just and Saviour: He is poor and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.”[14] And the whole Passion had been graphically foretold by David in the Psalms, by Isaias, Jeremias, Zacharias, and others. This is the meaning of what our Lord said when He was about to set out for His Passion: “Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished which were written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man.”[15] Of those things therefore which had to be accomplished, He now says, “It is consummated;” everything is finished, so that what the prophets foretold is now found to be true.

In the second place, St. John Chrysostom says that the word, “It is consummated,” shows that the power which had been given to men and devils over the person of Christ has been taken away from them by the Death of Christ. When our Lord said to the Chief Priests and masters of the Temple, “This is your hour and the power of darkness,[16] He alluded to this power. The whole period of time, then during which, by the permission of God, the wicked had power over Christ, was brought to a close when He exclaimed, “It is consummated,” for then the peregrination of the Son of God amongst men, which Baruch had foretold, came to an end: “This is our God, and there shall no other be accounted of in comparison of Him. He found out all the way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved. Afterwards He was seen upon earth, and conversed with men.”[17] And together with His pilgrimage that condition of His mortal life was ended, according to which He hungered and thirsted, He slept and was fatigued, was subject to affronts and scourgings, to wounds and to death. And so when Christ on the Cross exclaimed, “It is consummated, and bowing His head He gave up the ghost,” He ended the journey of which He had said, “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world, again I leave the world and I go to the Father.”[18] That laborious pilgrimage was ended of which Jeremias had said, “O expectation of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble: why wilt Thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man turning in to lodge.”[19] The subjection of His Human Nature to death was ended, the power of His enemies over Himself was ended.

In the third place was ended the greatest of all sacrifices, in comparison to which real and true Sacrifice all the sacrifices of the Old Law were regarded as mere shadows and figures. St. Leo says, “Thou hast drawn all things to Thyself, O Lord, for when the veil of the Temple was rent, the Holy of Holies departed from unworthy priests: figures became truths: prophecies became manifest: the Law became the Gospel.” And a little later, “By the cessation of a variety of sacrifices in which victims were offered, the one oblation of thy Body and Blood makes up for the differences of the victims.”[20] For in this one Sacrifice of Christ, the priest is the God-Man, the altar is the Cross, the victim is the Lamb of God, the fire for the holocaust is charity, the fruit of the sacrifice is the redemption of the world. The priest, I say, was the God-Man, than Whom no one is greater: “Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech;”[21] and rightly according to the order of Melchisedech, because we read in Scripture that Melchisedech was without father or mother or genealogy, and Christ was without a father on earth, without a mother in Heaven, and without genealogy, for “who shall declare His generation?[22] “from the womb before the day-star I begot Thee;”[23] “and His going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.”[24] The altar was the Cross. And as previous to the time when Christ suffered upon it, it was the sign of the greatest ignominy, so now has it become dignified and ennobled, and on the Last Day shall appear in the heaven more brilliant than the sun. The Church applies to the Cross the words of the Evangelist: “Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven,”[25] for she sings: “This sign of the Cross shall appear in Heaven when the Lord shall come to judge.” St. John Chrysostom confirms this opinion, and observes that when “the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,”[26] the Cross shall be seen more brilliant than the sun in its mid-day splendour. The victim was the Lamb of God, all innocent and immaculate, of whom Isaias said, “He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before His shearer, and He shall not open His mouth,”[27] and of Whom His Precursor exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him Who taketh away the sin of the world,”[28] and St. Peter: “Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as gold or silver, but with the precious Blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled.”[29] He is called also in the Apocalypse, “The Lamb which was slain from the beginning of the world,”[30] because the merit of His Sacrifice was foreseen by God, and was of advantage to those who lived before the coming of Christ. The fire which consumes the holocaust, and completes the Sacrifice, is the immense love which, as in a heated furnace, burnt in the Heart of the Son of God, and which the many waters of His Passion could not extinguish. Lastly, the fruit of the Sacrifice was the atonement for the sins of all the children of Adam, or in other words, the reconciliation of the whole world with God. St. John in his first Epistle says, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world,”[31] and this is only another way of expressing the idea of St. John Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him Who taketh away the sin of the world.”[32] One difficulty here arises. How could Christ be at one and the same time priest and victim, since it is the duty of the priest to slay the victim? Now, Christ did not slay Himself, nor could He do so, for if He had He would have committed a sacrilege and not have offered a sacrifice. It is true Christ did not slay Himself, still He offered a real sacrifice, because He willingly and cheerfully offered Himself to death for the glory of God and the salvation of men. For neither could the soldiers have apprehended Him, nor the nails have transfixed His hands and feet, nor death, although He was fastened to the Cross, have had any power over Him, unless He Himself had wished it. Consequently, with great truth did Isaias say, “He was offered, because it was His own will;”[33] and our Lord: “I lay down My life; no man taketh it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself;”[34] and more clearly still St. Paul: “Christ also hath loved us, and hath delivered Himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness.”[35] In a wonderful manner therefore was it arranged that all the evil, all the sin, all the crime committed in putting Christ to death was committed by Judas and the Jews, by Pilate and the soldiers. These offered no sacrifice, but were guilty of sacrilege, and deserve to be called, not priests, but sacrilegious wretches. And all the virtue, all the holiness, all the dutifulness displayed in the Passion, were the virtue and the holiness and the dutifulness of Christ, Who offered Himself a victim to God by patiently enduring death, even the death of the Cross, in order to appease the anger of His Father, to reconcile mankind to God, to make satisfaction to the Divine justice, and to save the fallen race of Adam. St. Leo beautifully expresses this thought in a few words: “He allowed the impure hands of wretches to be turned against Himself, and they became cooperators with the Redeemer at the time they were committing a heinous sin.”

In the fourth place, by the Death of Christ the mighty struggle between Himself and the prince of the world was brought to a close. In alluding to this struggle, our Lord made use of these words: “Now this 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.”[36] This struggle was a judicial, not a military one; it was a struggle between rival suitors, not between rival armies. Satan disputed with Christ the possession of the world, the dominion over mankind. For a long time the devil had unlawfully thrust himself into possession, because he had overcome the first man, and had made him and all his descendants his slaves. For this reason St. Paul calls the devils, “the principalities and powers, the rulers of the world of this darkness.”[37] And as we said a little before, even Christ calls the devil “the prince of this world.” Now the devil did not wish merely to be the prince, but even the god of this world, and so the Psalmist exclaims: “For all the gods of the Gentiles are

devils, but the Lord made the heavens.”[38] Satan was adored in the idols of the Gentiles, and was worshipped in their sacrifices of lambs and calves. On the other side, the Son of God, as the true and lawful heir of the universe, demanded the principality of this world for Himself. This was the contest which was decided on the Cross, and judgment was pronounced in favour of our Lord Jesus Christ, because on the Cross He fully atoned for the sins of the first man and of all His children. For the obedience shown to the Eternal Father by His Son was greater than the disobedience of a servant to his master, and the humility with which the Son of God died on the Cross redounded more to the honour of the Father than the pride of a servant tended to His injury. So God by the merits of His Son was reconciled to mankind, and mankind was snatched from the power of the devil, and “translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”[39]

There is another reason which St. Leo adduces, and we will give it in his own words. “If our proud and cruel enemy could have known the plan which the mercy of God had adopted, he would have restrained the passions of the Jews, and not have goaded them on by unjust hatred, in order that he might lose his power over all his captives by fruitlessly attacking the liberty of One Who owed him nothing.” This is an exceedingly weighty reason. For it is just that the devil should lose his authority over all those who by sin had become his slaves, because he had dared to lay his hands on Christ, Who was not his slave, Who had never sinned, and Whom he nevertheless persecuted even unto death. Now, if such is the state of the case, if the battle is over, if the Son of God has gained the victory, and if “He will have all men to be saved,”[40] how is it that so many are in the power of the devil in this life, and suffer the torments of hell in the next? I answer in one word: They wish it. Christ came victorious out of the contest, after bestowing two unspeakable favours on the human race, First that of opening to the just the gates of Heaven, which had been closed from the fall of Adam to that day, and on the day of His victory He said to the thief who had been justified by the merits of His Blood, through faith, hope, and charity, “This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise,”[41] and the Church in her exultation cries out, “Thou having overcome the sting of death, hast opened to believers the kingdom of Heaven.” The second, of instituting the Sacraments which have the power of remitting sin and of conferring grace. He sends the preachers of His Word to all parts of the world to proclaim, “He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved.” And so our victorious Lord has opened a way to all to attain the glorious liberty of the sons of God, and if there are any who are unwilling to enter on this way, they perish by their own fault, and not by the want of power or the want of will of their Redeemer.

In the fifth place, the word, “It is consummated,” may rightly be applied to the completion of the building, that is, the Church. Christ our Master uses this very word in reference to a building: “Hic homo coepit aedificare et non potuit consummare”–“This man began to build and was not able to finish.”[43] The Fathers teach that the foundation of the Church was laid when Christ was baptized, and the building completed when He died. Epiphanius in his third book against heretics, and St. Augustine in the last book of the City of God, show that Eve, who was built from a rib of Adam whilst he was asleep, typifies the Church, which was built from the Side of Christ whilst He slept in Death. And they remark that not without reason does the book of Genesis use the word built, not formed. St. Augustine[44] proves that the building of the Church commenced with the baptism of Christ, from the words of the Psalmist: “And He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.”[45] The kingdom of Christ, which is the Church, began with the baptism He received at the hands of St. John, by which He consecrated the waters and instituted that Sacrament which is the gate of the Church, and when the voice of His Father was clearly heard in the heavens: “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”[46] From that moment our Lord began to preach and to gather disciples, who were the first children of the Church. And all the Sacraments derive their efficacy from the Passion of Christ, although our Lord’s Side was opened after His Death, and Blood and water, which typify the two chief Sacraments of the Church, flowed forth. The flowing of Blood and water from the Side of Christ after Death was a sign of the Sacraments, not their institution. We may conclude then that the building of the Church was completed when Christ said, “It is consummated,” because nothing then remained but death, which immediately followed, and consummated the price of our redemption.


ENDNOTES

1. St. John xix. 30.
2. St. John xvii. 4.
3. St. Matt. xx. 22.
4. St. Luke xxii. 42.
5. St. John xviii. 11.
6. St. John xix. 30.
7. St. John xix. 28, 30.
8. Isaias vii. 14.
9. Micheas v. 2.
10. Numbers xxiv. 17.
11. Psalm lxxi 10.
12. Isaias lxi. 1.
13. Isaias xxxv. 4, 5, 6.
14. Zach. ix 9.
15. St. Luke xviii. 31.
16. St. Luke xxii. 53.
17. Baruch iii. 36-38.
18. St. John xvi. 28.
19. Jer. xiv. 8.
20. Serm. 8. De Pass. Dom.
21. Psalm cix. 4.
22. Isaias liii. 8.
23. Psalm cix. 3.
24. Micheas v. 2.
25. St. Matt. xxiv. 30.
26. St. Matt. xxiv. 29.
27. Isaias liii. 7.
28. St. John i. 29.
29. 1 St. Peter i. 18, 19.
30. Apoc. xiii. 8.
31. 1 St John ii. 2.
32. St. John i. 29.
33. Isaias liii. 7.
34. St. John x. 17, 18.
35. Ephes. v. 2.
36. St. John xii. 31, 32.
37. Ephes. vi. 12.
38. Psalm xcv. 5.
39. Coloss. i. 13.
40. 1 Tim. ii. 4.
41. St. Luke xxiii. 43.
42. St. Mark xvi. 16.
43. St. Luke xiv. 30.
44. “De Civit.” l. 27, c. 8.
45. Psalm lxxi. 8.
46. St. Matt. iii. 17.