GALEN may be also regarded as partially an Epicurean; for he insists that there are several sorts of matter, or as we should say, several elements; but he differs from that sect again in affirming for it a passible quality.
His object in general is a sensible or passible quality, because the sense is affected with it.
That which the imagination hath taken from the sense, this agent judgeth of, whether it be true or false; and being so judged he commits it to the passible to be kept.
Christ is said not to have given His mortal and passible body at the supper, because He did not give it in mortal and passible fashion.
His soul also was of necessity passible in like manner.
Now, from the very beginning of His conception Christ was "full of grace and truth," yet He had a passible body, which through His Passion and death was raised up to a life of glory.
Wherefore a Christian receives grace in Baptism, as to his soul; but he retains a passible body, so that he may suffer for Christ therein: yet at length he will be raised up to a life of impassibility.
Secondly, because being passible and mortal, it was fit for immolation.
Now Christ's body was able to be hurt, since it was passible and mortal, as above stated (Q.
Further, every passible body suffers by contact and by being eaten.
The Son of God assumed a passiblebody (as will be said hereafter (Q.
What kind of body did He receive or give, namely, was it passible or impassible?
Christ's Passion was consummated in a body that still had a passible nature, which is known to all by general laws: consequently His Passion could be directly manifested to all.
Yet there was present in the sacrament, in an impassible manner, that which was passible of itself; just as that was there invisibly which of itself was visible.
Therefore, since Christ's body was passible and mortal, as was said above (Q.
The essence of the godhead remained complete, unchanged and impassible; while the hypostatic union of God and man in Christ made possible the assumption of a passible nature by the person of the Son of God.
This, for the monophysite, was the one alternative to the doctrine of a passible God.
He maintains an impassible God, but a passible Christ.
They suggest a passible God; they degrade the infinite to the level of the finite.
The monophysite could not say "yes," or he would then be driven to assert a passible God.
The disciples of Thales and Pythagoras grant that all bodies are passible and divisible into infinity.
Zeno son of Mnaseas, the native of Citium, avers these to be principles, God and matter, the first of which is the efficient cause, the other the passible and receptive.
It is called an atom, by reason not of its smallness but of its indivisibility; in it no vacuity, no passibleaffection is to be found.
Every virtue of a passible body is weakened by continuous action, because such agents are also patient.
But a soft body is naturally passible as regards a hard body; therefore if a hard body had come in contact with the soft body of the first man, the latter would have suffered from the impact.
In this second sense, man was passible in the state of innocence, and was passive both in soul and body.
Therefore he was passible even to the degree of the cutting out of part of his body.
I answer that, In the present state of life in which the soul is united to a passible body, it is impossible for our intellect to understand anything actually, except by turning to the phantasms.
Again as regards His soul, He was a comprehensor, although in regard to His passible body, He was a wayfarer.
