From the book
Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici
Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Meaning
Passibility is the capacity to undergo an action or to suffer. “Nothing undergoes action except what has body,” rien ne patist que ce qui a corps, makes bodily receptivity necessary to the natural effects discussed in II.2.11. II.3.17 correspondingly restricts its concluding generalization about substance and excrement to passible things beneath the moon, rather than every possible being.
In II.4.9 this distinction acquires theological force: Christ is described as passible and mortal in the flesh, but expressly unstained and uncorrupted at the centre of his nature. Susceptibility to suffering is not moral impurity. The natural comparison likewise preserves a pure centre while acknowledging removable conditions around it.
Places to read
- Book Two · Chapter 2 · Unit 11Only what has body can receive the asserted action.
- Book Two · Chapter 3 · Unit 17Only what has body can receive the asserted action.
- Book Two · Chapter 4 · Unit 9Compare bodily susceptibility to suffering with the explicit denial of stain in Christ and the retained pure centre in the natural analogy.
Attested forms
rien ne patist que ce qui a corps; soubs-lunaire; choses passibles; passibles