One of the most striking differences between the early Christians and us is that they lacked any conception of "the emotions." Rather, what they talked about were "the passions."

What's the difference? A passion for them was the correlate of an action. It was something that happened to you when the world, through your perception of it, had an impact upon you.

We are most like the brute animals in our passions. We are most like the angels, on the other hand, when we act deliberately, starting from some rationally defensible ideal of our last end, and arriving at some concrete action which we can command by the will.

Hence, when Paul and Barnabas are in Lystra, and the people there want to worship them as gods on account of the miracles they worked, these great Apostles say that their humanity is shown by the fact that they suffer passions: "We also are men, of like passions" (Acts 14:15, KJV).

Paul and Barnabas appeal to the fact that they have passions, because, if they undergo passions, then they most definitely have bodies, because only bodies can be affected by bodies from without.

The word "emotion" is modern, not used widely before the 1820s, and it has a very different origin and meaning. It is from the French word for becoming stirred up, as when a frog squirms in the bottom of a pond, stirring up the muck. While passions move us from without, emotions stir us up from within.

To endure a passion is indeed to suffer: for example, "he suffered those insults stoutheartedly." The Passion of the Christ comprised not simply bodily sufferings, such as beatings and scourging -- "passions of the body" -- but also psychic sufferings, such as grief, sadness, and desolation -- much more painful "passions of the soul."

In older Christian commentators, one finds the presumption that Jesus could not have felt a passion, unless he had consented to it. When he suffered, it was because he allowed himself to suffer it: "I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father," (Jn. 10:17-18). If this is true of the ultimate bodily passion, of being put to death, it must be true, too, of less serious passions.

Passions were not thought to be spontaneous wellings-up from within. We, in contrast, suppose that they are. Or rather, we suppose that passions must simply be emotions, and an emotion, we think, must well up spontaneously. That is the nature of an emotion.

Consequently, we suppose that anything he had to consent to could not possibly have been an "emotion." Spontaneity is of the essence of an emotion, for us. That is why we think that emotions should lead and point the way. But for the early Christians, what mattered was what a passion was. The pain of a nail getting pounded into your hand is the same, whether you first give consent to the pounding or not.

Is there evidence for these "deliberately felt passions" in the New Testament?

Well, there is most strikingly his fast: "And having fasted 40 days and 40 nights, afterward he was hungry" (Mt. 4:2). The Greek is clear: he fasted 40 days, and, only following that, did he feel hunger.

It would be incredible, given this description, that he did not feel hunger because he chose to feel hunger. He would not have been "as a man," says one holy doctor, if he had not felt hunger at all; and yet he would not have been "as God," if he had felt hunger right away. He chose to feel hunger in a way that showed both his divinity and his humanity, appropriately.

But what applies to so powerful a passion as the desire for food, "a fortiori" must apply to anything else.

What about: "When Jesus saw her weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled ... Jesus wept"? (Jn. 11:33, 35). And yet, "Why else did Christ weep," as St. Augustine says, "except to teach men to weep?"

St. Jerome notices that the Greek for "was troubled" is in the middle voice and might better be rendered, "Jesus troubled himself" ("turbavit se ipsum"). The language itself suggests self-command.

St. Thomas says that John's language eliminates all three ways in which a passion may offend against reason:

Christ troubled himself by his own command. Sometimes such passions arise for an inappropriate reason, as when a person rejoices over something evil. This was not the case with Christ. To rule this out, John writes, "When Jesus saw her weeping, he troubled himself." And sometimes such passions arise for a good reason, but they are not moderated by reason. To rule this out, John writes: "he was deeply moved in spirit." Further, although these passions are moderated, they sometimes spring up in advance of any judgment of reason, as when they are sudden. This was not the case with Christ either, because every movement of his sensitive appetite was according to the control and command of reason.

It seems strange at first to imagine Jesus as having such complete command. And yet perhaps our emotional age needs as an antidote this older conception of human nature.



- Michael Pakaluk, an Aristotle scholar and Ordinarius of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, is a professor in the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America. He lives in Hyattsville, MD, with his wife Catherine, also a professor at the Busch School, and their eight children. His latest book is "Be Good Bankers: The Economic Interpretation of Matthew's Gospel.'' You may follow him on Substack at MichaelJosephPakaluk.Substack.com.