Concept

Christ the Savior

Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange's strict-Thomist commentary on the third part of the Summa Theologiae, questions 1-59, the Christological and soteriological core of Aquinas's mature systematic theology. Latin original De Christo Salvatore commentarii in IIIam partem Sum. Theologiae (Marietti, 1945). English translation by Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B., published by B. Herder, St. Louis, 1950. The single most thorough twentieth-century commentary on Aquinas's Christology and the standard Thomist reference on the doctrine of the incarnation, the Hypostatic Union, the communication of properties, the merits of Christ, and the atonement.

Intro

If you want to read what Thomas Aquinas taught about Christ, you read the third part of his Summa Theologiae, questions 1 through 59. If you want a careful guide walking you through every article and every objection, you read Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange's Christ the Savior. The book is a Dominican professor's commentary, written over forty years of teaching the same material at the Angelicum in Rome. It is dense, but it is the kind of dense that pays off line by line.

Garrigou was a strict Thomist, which meant he refused to soften Aquinas to fit modern theology. He went the other way. Where Aquinas's twentieth-century critics said the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union was too metaphysical, Garrigou said the metaphysics is exactly what makes the doctrine intelligible. Where the modern reader wanted to know what Christ "experienced", Garrigou pressed back: the right question is what kind of being Christ is, and then experience falls into place.

The book covers the whole arc Aquinas treats: why God became man (the fittingness of the incarnation), what the union of natures is, how grace and knowledge work in Christ, what defects of human nature Christ assumed, how his merits work, what his death accomplished, what his resurrection effected, why his ascension and continued priesthood matter. For Christology this is the most thorough twentieth-century scholastic commentary in print.

In full

De Christo Salvatore commentarii in IIIam partem Summae theologiae was published in two Latin volumes by Marietti, Turin and Rome, in 1945, late in Garrigou's teaching career at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas (the Angelicum). The English translation by Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B., appeared as Christ the Savior: A Commentary on the Third Part of St. Thomas's Theological Summa (B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, 1950). The English single-volume runs to roughly 700 pages and covers Summa Theologiae III, qq. 1-59, in article-by-article commentary. Garrigou-Lagrange holds the Thomistic position with rare consistency: the strict-observance Thomism of the Dominican commentatorial tradition (John Capreolus, Cajetan, John of St. Thomas), against the modifications introduced by Suárezians, the school of Molina, and the twentieth-century nouvelle théologie of Henri de Lubac and his circle. The work is thus a commentary not only on Aquinas but on the seven-hundred-year tradition of Thomistic Christology, with regular reference to the Salmanticenses, Cajetan, John of St. Thomas, and Billuart.

What the work covers

Aquinas's Summa Theologiae III divides Christology into two arcs: the doctrine of the Incarnation itself (qq. 1-26), then the work of Christ from conception through the ascension (qq. 27-59). Garrigou follows the same order.

Part I, on the Incarnation as such (qq. 1-26).

Why the incarnation was fitting and necessary for our salvation (q. 1)
The mode of the union of the Word: the Hypostatic Union in technical detail (qq. 2-6)
The grace of Christ in His human nature: habitual grace and the grace of headship (qq. 7-8)
The knowledge of Christ: the beatific vision, infused knowledge, and acquired knowledge (qq. 9-12)
The power and operations of Christ: His miracles and theandric activities (qq. 13-14)
The defects of body and soul Christ assumed: hunger, weariness, sorrow, the absence of original sin and concupiscence (qq. 14-15)
Things consequent to the union: the communication of properties, the unity of being and operation, the worship due to Christ (qq. 16-26)

Part II, on the saving work of Christ (qq. 27-59).

Mary's role: her sanctification, her perpetual virginity, her divine maternity (qq. 27-30)
The conception and birth (qq. 31-36)
The circumcision, baptism, and public life (qq. 37-40)
Christ's manner of life and teaching (qq. 40-41)
The passion: its cause, its mode, its effects (qq. 46-49)
The death and descent into Hades (qq. 50-52)
The resurrection (qq. 53-56)
The ascension and session at the right hand (qq. 57-58)
The judicial power of Christ (q. 59)

The commentary is article-by-article: Garrigou cites the Summa text, the objections, Aquinas's response, then his own commentary integrating the Thomistic tradition.

The doctrine that runs through it

Three doctrines anchor the whole commentary.

The unity of the Person of Christ. Garrigou hammers this throughout. There is one suppositum, one esse, one subject of attribution. The natures are two and remain unmixed, but the agent is one. Every paragraph that treats a question about Christ's consciousness, will, knowledge, or grace reduces to this: predicate of the Person according to the natures.
The integrity of Christ's human nature. Against any tendency to evaporate Christ's humanity into a function of the divine, Garrigou follows Aquinas in insisting on a complete human nature: real body, real soul, real intellect, real will, real human knowledge, real human emotional life within the constraints of sinlessness. The absence of original sin and concupiscence does not diminish the humanity; it perfects it.
The fittingness of the means of redemption. Garrigou devotes substantial attention to Aquinas's argument that satisfaction by a divine-human Mediator was supremely fitting (not strictly necessary in an absolute sense, but fitting in the order of wisdom and love God chose). The atonement is treated in the classical satisfaction terms.

Who Garrigou-Lagrange was

Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877-1964), entered the Dominican Order in 1897 and taught at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas in Rome (the Angelicum) from 1909 to 1960, a remarkable fifty-one-year teaching career. He was the doctoral director of Karol Wojtyła (the future Pope John Paul II) in the mid-1940s. He is considered the most important Thomistic theologian of the first half of the twentieth century alongside Jacques Maritain and Étienne Gilson, though his temperament and method differed sharply from theirs: he was an arch-conservative committed to the strict-observance Thomism of the great Dominican commentators.

He wrote a series of Summa commentaries that together cover much of Aquinas's systematic theology, of which Christ the Savior and The One God are the best-known in English translation. He was one of the major theological opponents of nouvelle théologie, particularly the work of Henri de Lubac on the relation of nature and grace. The Catholic theological landscape of the second half of the twentieth century moved away from Garrigou's positions, but his commentaries remain the standard references for anyone wanting to read Aquinas in the company of the Thomistic tradition.

Why this matters today

Three reasons the work is worth reading.

It is a guide to Aquinas's Christology. Without a commentary, the Summa Theologiae III qq. 1-59 are difficult to navigate even for trained readers. Garrigou's article-by-article exposition is the most thorough English-language guide.
It is the strict-Thomist Christology stated cleanly. Whether you accept or reject the strict-observance position, you should know what it actually says. Garrigou says it clearly.
It is a model of patristic synthesis. Garrigou regularly references John of Damascus's Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Cyril of Alexandria's anti-Nestorian writings, the Chalcedonian definition, and the Sixth Ecumenical Council's dyothelite decree. The commentary is a worked example of how to read scholastic theology in continuity with patristic teaching.

Editions

Latin original: Reginaldus Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., De Christo Salvatore commentarii in IIIam partem Sum. Theologiae, 2 vols. (Marietti, Turin and Rome, 1945)
English: Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B. (trans.), Christ the Savior: A Commentary on the Third Part of St. Thomas's Theological Summa (B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, 1950; reprinted by various Thomist publishers)
Public-domain scans of the 1950 English edition are commonly available online from Catholic-text archives.

Common questions this page answers

Q: What is Christ the Savior by Garrigou-Lagrange?

A line-by-line commentary on Thomas Aquinas's third part of the Summa Theologiae, questions 1 through 59, the Christological and soteriological core. Latin original 1945; English translation by Dom Bede Rose 1950. It is the standard twentieth-century Thomist guide to reading Aquinas's doctrine of the incarnation, the Hypostatic Union, the merits of Christ, the passion, the resurrection, the ascension, and the continuing priesthood of Christ.

Q: Who was Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange?

A Dominican theologian, born 1877, who taught at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas (the Angelicum) in Rome from 1909 to 1960. He was the doctoral director of Karol Wojtyła, later Pope John Paul II. Considered the most important strict-Thomist of the first half of the twentieth century, committed to the great Dominican commentators (Capreolus, Cajetan, John of St. Thomas, Billuart) over modifications introduced by Suárez, Molina, or the nouvelle théologie. Died 1964.

Q: What does the commentary cover?

Two arcs, following Aquinas. First, the Incarnation itself (qq. 1-26): why the Word became flesh, the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union, Christ's grace and knowledge, the defects He assumed, the communication of properties, and the worship due to Him. Second, the saving work (qq. 27-59): Mary's role, the conception and birth, the public ministry, the passion, the death and descent into Hades, the resurrection, the ascension, and the judicial power of Christ.

Q: How is it different from the Compendium of Theology?

The Compendium is Aquinas's own short positive summary written for one reader. Christ the Savior is Garrigou-Lagrange's full-length commentary on the much larger Christology section of Aquinas's Summa Theologiae. The Compendium gives you Aquinas's doctrine in 250 chapters of his own voice. Christ the Savior gives you a guide to roughly 350 Summa articles with the seven centuries of Thomistic commentary tradition behind them.

Q: Why does it still matter?

Three reasons. It is the most thorough English-language commentary on Aquinas's Christology. It states the strict-Thomist Christological position cleanly, so you can engage it without having to reconstruct it from scattered sources. And it models continuity with the patristic tradition, regularly drawing on John of Damascus, Cyril of Alexandria, and the Chalcedonian definition. For anyone studying Christology in the Catholic or broader catholic tradition, it is a primary reference.