You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.
All Commentaries on Hebrews 2:8 Go To Hebrews 2
Thomas Aquinas
AD 1274
100. – Having made a comparison to show that it is more necessary to observe the commandments of Christ than those of the Law delivered by angels, the Apostle now confirms the consequence. First, he confirms this consequence by showing that Christ’s power is greater than that of the angels; secondly, he proves this on the authority of Scripture (v. 6).
101. – He says, therefore, that they will undergo severer punishments who act against Christ’s commandments than those who act against the commandments of angels, because Christ is Lord, and a person who offends his Lord is punished more than one who sins against a servant. That Christ is Lord is shown by the fact that God has not subjected the earth to angels but to Christ. He does two things: first, he shows that the earth is not subject to angels; secondly, he shows which earth he means (v. 5c).
102. – The earth is not subject to angels: ‘What other has he appointed over the earth, or whom has he set over the world he made’ (Jb. 34:13)? But Daniel (chap. 10) says that an angel was the prince of the Greeks and of the Persians, and in Dt. (32:8) it says: ‘He appointed the bounds of people according to the number of the children of Israel.’ But it should be noted that they are not subject to them as to a lord, but as to a vicegerent: for all visible creation is administered by angels: ‘His ministers who do his will’ (Ps. 102:21). Or, it was not to angels that God has subjected the world to come, i.e., that world which is to come, because in Scripture something is described as coming, not in relation to us but in relation to that to which it is compared, as the Apostle says of Adam in relation to Christ: ‘Who is the form of the future’, (Rom. 5:14), for Christ is not future in relation to Himself, but in relation to Adam. So, here, this earth is said to come not in relation to us but in relation to Christ, Who exists from all eternity, whereas the earth exists in time.
103. – And because the Manicheans say that the earth is subject to an evil god and not to the good God, he adds, of which we speak, namely not of some other world, but of this one; or because he had said above, they shall perish, namely, the heavens, and they shall be changed, which, as was explained there, is understood of the state but not of the substance of the world Hence, there are two states of the world: one is its present state: ‘But the heavens and the earth which are not, by the same Word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment’ (2 Pt. 3:7); the other is its future state. But in the world which now exists not all things are subject to Him as far as the execution of His power is concerned, although they are subject to His authority; but in that future state the earth will be subject to Him; hence, he says, of which we speak.
104. – Then he proves by an authority, when he says, it has been testified somewhere. Here he does three things: first, he commends the value of the testimony to be adduced; secondly, he adduces it (v. 6b); thirdly, he explains the meaning of the testimony (v. 8b).
105. – In regard to the testimony he states first that the words of the Old Testament are witnesses to Christ: ‘Search the Scriptures: the same are they that give testimony of me’ (Jn. 5:39). Therefore, he says, for it has been testified somewhere. Secondly, because among the Jews there were some writings less known and some better known, the Scriptures of the Psalms are of greater value than those they used in all their sacrifices; hence, he says, somewhere, known and manifest. Thirdly, he gives the authority of the speaker, namely, David, who enjoyed the greatest authority: ‘The man to whom it was appointed concerning the Christ of the God of Jacob, the excellent Psalmist of Israel said’ (2 Sam. 23:1).
106. – Then he adduces the authority (v. 6b). Here he does three things: first, he hints at the mystery of the Incarnation; secondly, of the Passion (v. 7); thirdly, the mystery of the exaltation (v. 7b). In regard to the first he touches on two things: first, the cause of the Incarnation; secondly, the Incarnation itself (v. 6c).
107. – But the cause of the Incarnation is God’s care of man. Therefore, he says: What is man? as though in contempt. As if to say: Man is so unimportant when compared to God: ‘All nations are before him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to him as nothing and vanity’ (Is. 40:17). For if a person loves another and leaves him in wretchedness for a long time, he seems to have forgotten. But God loved the human race, both because He made it according to His own image and because He placed man in the midst of paradise. But after sin, because He did not come to his aid immediately, He seems to have forgotten. But later he seems to have become mindful of him, when He sends a Redeemer: ‘Remember us, O Lord, in the favor of your people; visit us with your salvation’ (Ps. 105:4). Therefore, he says, What is man that you are mindful of him? As if to say: If we consider man’s vileness, it is strange that You should be mindful of him who is so vile and so small. I say vile and small in nature, especially in regard to his substance: ‘God formed man from the slime of the earth (Gen. 2:7); ‘And now, O Lord, you are our Father and we are clay’ (Is. 64:8). Vile in his sins; hence, Augustine says on John: ‘Men accomplish nothing when they sin;’ ‘Behold, I have made you small among the nations, you are exceedingly contemptible’ (Ob 1:2). Vile and weak in his punishment: ‘Man born of a woman, living for a time is filled with many miseries’ (Jb. 14:1); ‘Who shall raise up Jacob, for he is very little’ (Am 7:5).
108. – Secondly, he mentions the Incarnation when he says, the son of man. Here it should be noted that in Sacred Scripture Christ is called the Son of man, as is clear from Daniel and from the Gospel. The reason for this is that others are sons of men: ‘O you sons of men, how long will you be dull of heart?’ (Ps. 4:3); but Christ alone is the son of man, namely, of the Blessed Virgin, and He is visited by God. Sometimes in Scripture a visitation refers to a benefit, as when ‘the Lord visited Sarah as He had promised and fulfilled what He spoke’ (Gen. 21:1). Sometimes it refers to a punishment: ‘I will visit their iniquities with a rod’ (Ps. 88:33). But here it refers to the benefit: You care for [visit] i.e., confer a most excellent gift on man, because you make him a son of God, when His humanity is assumed by the Word. Or he says this because of Christ’s fullness: ‘Full of grace and truth’ (Jn. 1:14). Or both can be referred to Christ, so that the sense is this: You were mindful of him in the Incarnation, when humanity was assumed by Christ, but you visit him in the resurrection. Or both should be referred to the human race. But every son of man is a man, although not every man is a son of a man. For Adam was not a son of man. A man, therefore, is one who bears the image of the earthly man, namely, of Adam; and this man is called a sinner; but a son of man is one who bears the image of the heavenly man, namely Christ, Who is called the Son of man: ‘Therefore, as we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly’ (1 Cor. 15:49). Man, therefore, is called a sinner; and because he is far from God, ‘for salvation is far from sinners’ (Ps. 118:155), God is said to be mindful of him, as a man is mindful of one far away. But when he is changed from sinner to just, the son of man is visited by grace: ‘Your visitation has guarded my spirit’ (Jb. 10:12).
109. – Then (v. 7) he mentions the mystery of the Passion. Here it should be noted that in the order of nature corruptible things are lower than incorruptible things. But angels are incorruptible and immortal according to their nature; hence, when Christ deigned to suffer and undergo death He was made a little less than they: not that He had lost His fullness or was diminished in any way, but because He joined our smallness to Him self. This was signified in Lk. (22:4): ‘There appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him’, not because He needed him, but to show that He was less than they by suffering. He says, little less, for two reasons: first because every bodily creature is slight when compared with the rational, because bodily things are confined within the fixed limits of their quantity, but not rational things, which can grow and grown in intelligence. But Christ was made less than the angels, not in regard to his divinity nor in regard to His soul, but in regard to His body. Therefore, he said, a little less, i.e., quantitatively. Secondly, he is a little less according to duration, because He lasted a short time: ‘For a small moment have I forsaken you’ (Is. 54:7).
110. – Nor is it strange, if He was made less than the angels in his suffering body, since in this respect He was made less than man: ‘I am a worm and not a man’ (Ps. 21:7), and this because of His shameful death: ‘Let us condemn him to a most shameful death’ (Wis. 2:20). But if the question, What is man that you are mindful of him? is referred to man, then man is said to be a little less not in regard to the kind of knowledge, because both man and angel share the same kind of knowledge, but according to the manner, because the angels know in a more excellent way than men. Secondly, as to the body, because, although an angel and a soul are of one nature, namely, intellectual, nevertheless, the soul is united to a body; but even in this he is a little less, because the dignity of the soul is not destroyed by this union, but it is dulled and impeded from higher contemplation: ‘The corruptible body is a load upon the soul’ (Wis. 9:15). Thirdly, as to gifts; and in this respect man is a little less not as to gratuitous gifts, in which ‘they will be as the angels in heaven’ (Mt. 22:30), but as to natural gifts.
111. – Then (v. 7b) he presents the mystery of exaltation. Here he does three things: first, he shows its glory; secondly, the honor (v. 7c); thirdly, the power (v. 8). ‘The lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power and divinity and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and benediction; and every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and such as are in the sea’ (Rev. 5:12).
112. – He says, therefore, You have crowned him with glory, i.e., with brightness: for glory implies brightness. But Christ was crowned with a double glory, namely, with the glory of the body: ‘Who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory’ (Phil. 3:2). This glory is promised Him in Jn (12:18): ‘I have both glorified it, namely, your soul, by filling it with the splendors of grace, and will glorify it again’, namely, the body with the glory of immortality.’ Another brightness comes from the confession of all people: ‘Every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father’ (Phil. 2:11); ‘Glory and great beauty shall you lay upon him’ (Ps. 20:6).
113. – Then (v. 7b) he shows His honor. Now honor differs from glory as effect from cause: for honor is reverence shown in view of some excellence; hence, it is a testification of one’s goodness. But that honor consists in every creature’s revering Him as the Father is revered: ‘That all men may honor the Son as they honor the Father’ (Jn. 5:23). he says, crowned, namely, as a sign of victory, because a crown is given to a victor: ‘They, indeed, that they may receive a perishable crown: but we an imperishable one’ (1 Cor. 9:25); ‘He is not crowned, except he strive lawfully’ (2 Tim. 2:5). But Christ won this crown by the struggle of His Passion: ‘He was made obedient unto death: for which cause God also has exalted him and given him a name which is above every name’ (Phil. 2:8). But things which belong to Christ as God are not a reward but are natural to Him; yet inasmuch as He is man, they are the reward for the victory of his Passion.
114. – Then he shows His power: first, as to its authority; secondly, as to its effect (v. 8).
115. – In regard to the first he says: You have set him over the works of your hands. This can be taken in three ways: in one way, as meaning that He was set over all places; and this in the Ascension: ‘He ascended above all the heavens’ (Eph. 4:10); secondly, over all dignities: ‘Setting him on his right hand above all principality and power and virtue and dominion’ (Eph. 1:21); thirdly, over all power, because He is set above every creature: ‘all power is given to me in heaven and in earth’ (Mt. 28:18). But Christ as God is not appointed but born; yet He is appointed as man: Whom he appointed heir of all things (above 1:2).
116. – The effect of His power is that all things are subject to him [under his feet]. The prophet uses the past for the future because of His authority, for it has already taken place in God’s eternal predestination. He says, under his feet, i.e., under His humanity or with all subjection: ‘Till I make your enemies your footstool’ (Ps. 109:1).
117a. – That is, under His humanity: for just as the head of Christ is God, so by the feet of Christ is understood his humanity: ‘We shall adore in the place where his feet stood’ (Ps. 131:7).
117b. – But if it is understood that way, then man is said to be crowned with glory as to intellectual knowledge, in which he excels the other animals: ‘The man, indeed, ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God’ (1 Cor. 11:7); ‘Who teachers us more than the beasts of the earth’ (Jb. 35:11). He is crowned with honor, inasmuch as he along of all the animals is master of his own actions and is not subject to the necessity of changeable things in regard to his soul, because he has free will. He is crowned with power, because you have set him over all your works: ‘Let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air and the beasts and the whole earth’ (Gen. 1:26).
118. – Then (v. 8) he explains the meaning of the testimony. Here he does two things: first, he explains it as to His sublimity; secondly, as to His diminution (v. 9). In regard to the first he does two things: first, he shows how the prophet’s statement is to be understood; secondly, that it has not yet been fulfilled (v. 8b).
119. – Therefore, (v. 8a) he shows how the statement is to be understood. For since Scripture says that all things have been subjected to Christ, there is nothing outside his control. Hence, the all is not limited to certain genera, but applies absolutely to all, because all are generally and universally subject to Him. But then Arius argues: The Father has subjected all things to the Son; therefore, the Son is inferior to the Father. I answer that it is true that the Father subjected all things to the Son according to His human nature, in which He is inferior to the Father: ‘The Father is greater than I (Jn. 14:28); but according to the divine nature Christ Himself subjected all things to Himself.
120. – Then when he says, as it is, we do not yet see all things subject to Him, he shows that this has not yet been fulfilled, because unbelievers, sinners and devils are not yet subject to Him: ‘But not all obey the Gospel’ (Rom. 10:16); ‘How long do you refuse to submit to me?’ (Ex. 10:3). Consequently, sinners are not subject to Christ by reason of their rebellious wills; but in regard to his power all are subject to Him: now in regard to its authority, but later in regard to obedience. Hence, this is an explanation of the phrase, the world to come (v. 5).
