Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

From the Subtili Doctore in 1. dist. 2. qu. 1. n. 10. a twofold possibility can be distinguished: namely, the logical and the physical. The logical possibility, he says, is the mode of a composition formed by the intellect, whose terms do not include a contradiction; and in this way the proposition, that God can be produced, and that God is God, is possible in this manner. Real, or physical, possibility however is that which is taken from some potency in a thing, as from a potency inherent in something, or terminated to it as to its term. That is, that is called physically possible which can be the real term of some productive potency, just as before creation the world was possible; and innumerable creatures are still said to be possible, which God by His infinite power could produce, yet which by the counsel of His wisdom He never produces. Of both possibilities there will be question here: for we undertake to determine whether that proposition, God is man, involves any contradiction, or whether the union of Divinity with humanity does not exceed the supreme power of God.

NOTANDUM 2. It is certain that no medium is given between these two, being possible and being impossible; for no medium is given between involving a contradiction, which is impossible, and not involving a contradiction, which is possible; yet a medium is admitted between these two: demonstrating that something is possible, and demonstrating that something is impossible; for many things are possible, concerning which nevertheless no positive natural medium is given by which their possibility is demonstrated; but these, because they are possible, cannot be demonstratively proved to be impossible, for truth is not opposed to truth, but to falsehood alone: wherefore if it be true that something is possible, it is false that it be impossible: but an argument which concludes a falsehood can in no wise be demonstrative.

NOTANDUM 3. For God to become incarnate is not for God to be transmuted into flesh, but for God remaining God to become man in the unity of supposit; so that the Divine person not only terminates and supposits the Divine nature, but also the human; wherefore as Peter is said to be man, because his person sustains and persons the human nature, so God is said to be man, because the Divine person of the Word sustains and terminates the human nature. From this termination moreover there follows in God an intrinsic denomination, whereby He is said to be intrinsically united to man: for this denomination suffices that the human nature be substantially and intimately united to the Divine person. Yet it is not on this account an intrinsic denomination, as though the human nature informed God, who is said to be man: hence that denomination, God is man, approaches in some way to extrinsic denomination, and also recedes from it. It approaches indeed, because the human nature does not inform God, who is said to be man, while nevertheless other intrinsic denominations are drawn from an informing form. It recedes truly, because other extrinsic denominations are either from forms accidentally united, or from terms existing outside the subject denominated: but this denomination is taken from a human nature personally and substantially united to the Word, which terminates its personal dependence.

These things thus premised, two things especially must be determined in this Question: First indeed whether that personal union of the divine nature with the human is possible. Second, whether all the reasons can be solved which seem to assail that possibility.

Conclusio prima. — It is made possible for the human nature to be united to the Divine Word in the unity of supposit.

Proof first: From act to potency is a legitimate consequence: but that union has in fact been accomplished; therefore it is possible to come about. The major stands, for what truly is has no repugnance to existing. The minor is of faith, and stands with all those moments by which we shall prove in the third following Section against the Jews that the Messiah has come, and that the Mystery of the Incarnation has been accomplished.

The Doctor proves secondly in 3. dist. 1. q. 1. n. 4: That is possible which presents no repugnance: but in no wise does it conflict for a nature to be united to the Word in the unity of supposit: therefore it can be done. He proves the Minor: if any repugnance existed, it would be sought either from the side of the Word assuming, or from the side of the nature assumed: but from neither head can a repugnance be deduced. Not indeed from the side of the Word assuming: for it would conflict either because the person is divine, or because the person of the Word is peculiar. Not the first, because, says the Doctor, to terminate the dependence of the human nature infers nothing repugnant to the divine person; since it does not import composition, to which act and potency are required; seeing that the divine person is not an informing act, but only the term terminating the dependence of the human nature. Nor does it equally enter into any potentiality, limitation, or dependence, because for that termination or union nothing is required per se except that the terminator be independent of that which it terminates: but the Word is independent of the human nature which He terminates, as God, although He terminates the dependence of creatures upon Himself, He is not held to depend upon them in any wise.

Nor does it conflict because the person of the Word is peculiar; for if from this head any repugnance would arise, most of all because there could not be given a union to one person unless necessarily there were given union to the rest — for no other reason can be assigned: yet it is not so. For although that which convenes with the divine nature is likewise common indivisibly to each of the three persons; nevertheless that which convenes with one personalization ought not to be common to all: for it convenes with paternity to constitute the Father; but this same does not convene with filiation, nor with passive spiration: therefore there can convene with one of the divine persons the ratio of terminatively uniting the human nature hypostatically without this same convening with the others. But the reason, says the Doctor, wherefore each divine person can terminate the dependence of an alien nature is, because each divine personality is in itself and of itself formally independent: but anything independent in some genus can terminate another which has dependence in such genus: therefore a divine person independent in itself and of itself can sufficiently terminate such a dependence of the created nature.

Finally, that hypostatic union does not conflict from the side of the nature assumed: for if it conflicted, most of all because the singularity of some person could not be separated from that same personality, and consequently since no nature can be assumed unless existing, and consequently unless singular, because existence belongs to singulars, therefore neither could it be assumed unless personated; which since it conflicts, it would also conflict for a singular nature to be assumed: but this reason is null, for it has been sufficiently proved in the Metaphysics that personality is really distinct from singularity and separable, nor does it conflict that some substance be singular and yet further communicable; therefore God will be able to unite to Himself a singular nature with its personality set aside, and consequently from no head does that union of divinity with humanity conflict in the unity of person.

Conclusio secunda. — By no natural reason can the impossibility of the divine Incarnation be demonstrated.

Proof: Truth cannot be contrary to truth: but it is true that the Incarnation is possible, as is clear from the preceding Conclusion: therefore no natural reason, which presents any truth, can urge its impossibility. Further, if any reason could evince this impossibility, it would be sought either from the side of God as unable to assume the human nature in the unity of person, or from the side of the very nature itself, which would not be assumable in such a way: but from neither head does it conflict, as was proved above, and it will stand more amply from the solution of all the reasons soon to be objected: therefore, etc.

You will object 1. Pure act is not unible with any other: but each divine person is pure act: therefore it is not unible with an alien nature. The minor stands. The major likewise; for if act were united, it would no longer be pure act, because it would signify potentiality toward another with which it would be united: therefore, etc.

The Doctor distinguishes the major in book 11, n. 16. Actus purus cannot be united with another as a component part, so that with the other to which it is united it makes one per se, composed of parts standing to each other as matter and form: this he grants; it cannot be united in the manner of an infinite term supplying the place of some created term: this he denies; and, the minor having been granted, he denies the consequence.

You will insist: A divine person cannot be united to the humanity unless it constitute with it some one thing per se: but one thing per se is not constituted out of several things unless one of them have the role of act and the other that of potency: therefore if the divine Word is united to the humanity, it is necessary that it have the role of a component part.

I distinguish the minor: that one thing per se which comes about through composition and informing cannot be made except from parts, of which one is act and the other potency — this I grant; that which comes about through the termination of the dependence of one upon the other — this I deny. Now the divine Word is united to the humanity so as to constitute one Christ per se, not indeed in the manner of formal composition, but only in the manner of a divine person terminating and supplying the place of a created person.

You will urge: That union which would come about in the manner of a term would supply the place of human personality; therefore it would effect a true and real composition. The consequence is proved: Whatever supplies the place of personality ought to perform the same function as personality itself: but human personality effects a true composition with the individual nature; for it is an act informing and affecting that nature itself: therefore if a divine person supply the place of human personality, it ought to effect a composition with the nature assumed.

I deny the consequence; and in proof of its proof I answer first by distinguishing the major: that which supplies the place of personality ought to perform the same function as personality itself, inasmuch as it is the ultimate terminating efficient term, lest the nature have any further communication — this I grant; inasmuch as it is an act affecting and perfecting that nature itself in the manner of a form — this I deny. The former belongs to the formal and special notion of personality, precisely inasmuch as it is personality; not so the latter, because the notion of affecting and perfecting is common to personality with the other modes and forms, both accidental and substantial, if, as some hold, created personality itself be a mode or positive form.

I answer secondly by denying the minor; for, as we proved more fully in our Metaphysics, it is more probable, according to the mind of the Subtle Doctor, that the formal notion of person is not something positive, but only connotes, above the notion of the individual, the negation of any further communication of the individual nature to another as a supposit, with which it is deemed to make one being per se.

You will object 2. Among things that can be mutually united there must intervene a certain proportion: but between the divine person and created nature no proportion intervenes; for the divine person is infinite, created nature finite; and between the finite and the infinite there is no proportion: therefore they are not mutually unifiable.

The Doctor distinguishes the major in the same place: there must be a proportion of entity to entity — this he denies; of relation, such as is between cause and effect, object and power, terminator and terminated — this he grants. Between God and a creature there is indeed no proportion of entity, but of termination, both on the part of God and on the part of the creature itself: for the creature, in the role of effect, terminates the fecundity and causality of God, by which it is produced; and God in turn, in the role of object, terminates the activity of the created intellect and will, by which He is perceived: therefore although there be no entitative proportion between the Word and the humanity itself, because the Word exceeds it infinitely in perfection and dignity; nevertheless there is a personal terminative proportion sufficient for the union of which we speak: for since the Word is an infinite person, it has the power of terminating all communication of a personable nature, whereby it depends upon Him as upon its cause.

You will insist: The infinite and the finite cannot even be at once in the roles of terminator and terminated: therefore no solution. The subsumption is proved: contraries cannot exist at once, on account of their repugnance: but the finite and the infinite conflict with each other more than contraries do, because they are more diverse, seeing that they do not agree in any genus, as contraries agree in the genus of quality and accident: therefore they cannot subsist at once.

The Doctor denies the subsumption, and of its proof he denies the minor. For contraries are not mutually incompossible because they have diversity: for quantity and whiteness are more diverse than whiteness and blackness, inasmuch as quantity and whiteness belong to different predicaments, whereas whiteness and blackness belong to the same predicament; whence things of different genus can subsist together, as quantity and whiteness, whereas things of the same predicament cannot be together, on account of their natural opposition: and consequently the incompossibility of contraries arises solely from their natural repugnance. But the divine and the human nature have from their particular nature no repugnance whatever with respect to the same supposit; hence, although they are more diverse than contraries, they can subsist together more easily in the same supposit than contraries can.

You will object 3. If the divine Word could become incarnate, it could also suffer: but it cannot suffer: therefore neither can it become incarnate. The major holds, because just as to incarnate is to act, so to be incarnate is to suffer; for to every action there corresponds a passion.

The Doctor denies the major, and in proof of its proof says that although to every transient action there corresponds a passion, and consequently although to active incarnation there corresponds some passion, as to active heating there corresponds the passion of passive heating: nevertheless the passion corresponding to the incarnating action is not signified by this word Incarnari, but is designated by the word to be assumed, or united: from the fact that Incarnare signifies to unite flesh effectively, or the human nature, to the supposit of the Word, making it be assumed by the Word through that special dependence which it has from Him by reason of the hypostatic union. Therefore the passive verb properly corresponding to the active verb Incarnare is not Verbum Incarnari, but the verb to be united, or assumed. From which it follows that that passion corresponding to active incarnation is only in the human nature, which is assumed, and not in the Word, which assumes. Although, therefore, grammatically speaking, says the Doctor, incarnari is a passive verb which seems to correspond to the active verb incarnare, yet really and significatively it is not the passive verb corresponding to it.

You will object 1. It implies that God is changed: but if He were incarnate, He would truly be changed, for He would acquire a new nature, and would be terminated by it, which previously He had not, and did not have: therefore, etc.

I deny the minor: for from the positing of the possibility of the Mystery of the Incarnation it does not therefore follow that God is changed, for that whole change is extrinsic to the Divine Word, since He receives no form in Himself by which He would be intrinsically affected anew; but that whole change is reflected back upon the human nature, which receives the person of the Word, to which it is substantially united, and by which that whole communication is terminated. The Apostle intimates this in Philip. 2, where he says: in habit found as a man, which words St. Augustine splendidly explains in lib. 83. qq., question 73, where, after premising a multiple notion of habit, he has this:

Habit, therefore, is said of that thing which happens to us as something had. Yet there is this difference, that certain of those things which happen to us so as to make a habit are not changed by us, but they themselves change us, remaining whole in themselves; just as when wisdom comes back to a man, it is not itself changed, but changes the man, whom it makes wise out of a fool. But certain things happen in such a way that they both change and are changed, just as food itself loses its own species and is turned into our body: while we, refreshed by food, are changed from weakness and languor into strength and vigor. There is, moreover, a third kind, when the very things which happen are changed, and in a certain manner are formed by those to which they make a habit, as is clothing: for when it is stored away or cast off, it does not have the form which it takes on when it is put on and drawn over the limbs; but the limbs themselves remain in their state both when clothed and when unclothed. And there can be a fourth kind, when those things which happen to make a habit neither change those to whom they happen, nor are themselves changed by the same; as a ring upon a finger.... Now this habit (by which indeed the Son of God is said to be found as a man) is not of the first kind; for the nature of man, remaining in itself, did not change the divine nature. Nor of the second; for man did not change God, and was not changed by Him. Nor of the fourth; for man was not so assumed that neither did God change him, nor was he changed by Him. But rather of the third; > for man was so assumed as to be changed into the better, and to be formed by Him ineffably more excellently and more closely joined, than clothing when it is put on by a man. By this name, therefore, of habit the Apostle sufficiently signified how he said made in the likeness of men, because he was made not by transfiguration into a man, but by habit.

The same holy Augustine again explains this by a most apt example, Serm. 27. De tempore.

For, he says, not because it was said: the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh, was the Word thus made flesh that He would cease to be God. For just as the Word which we carry in our heart becomes a voice when we utter it with our mouth, yet it is not changed into that voice, but, itself remaining whole, is assumed by it as it proceeds: so that it may both abide within to be understood, and sound without what is heard. Hence the same word is nevertheless uttered in sound which before had sounded in silence: and thus the word, though it is a voice, is not changed into voice: but abiding in the light of the mind, and assuming the flesh of the voice, it proceeds to the hearer, and leaves the thinker.

But to the argument brought forward for the confirmation of the minor I say that: that which acquires a new nature is indeed changed if it acquires it as receiving; but not if as bestowing and communicating itself to it: whereas when God in the Mystery of the Incarnation acquires human nature, He does not receive it into Himself, but communicates Himself to it, and thereupon is not changed: thus when any creature is newly produced, it has a real relation to God the creator, by reason of which God, who communicates Himself to that creature, acquires the character of terminus with respect to it, yet is not on that account changed.

You will insist: By the same reason that human nature is said to be changed by the Incarnation, the Divine Word would be said to be changed: therefore, etc. Proof of the antecedent: therefore human nature is said to be changed, because it receives into itself the divine nature, which it did not have in itself, or to which it was not personally united: but the Divine Word also, through the Incarnation, has personally conjoined to itself the human nature, to which it was not before united: therefore by equal reason it is said to be changed by the Incarnation.

I deny the antecedent: and the reason of the disparity is, that the Divine Word conjoins human nature to itself by the mode of terminating its dependence, in the character of person; but human nature receives into itself the person of the Word as its intrinsic complement; inasmuch, namely, as the Word supplies the place of created personality, which belongs to the substantial complement of the nature itself, whence it comes about that the nature itself is said to be perfected by that personal union of the Word, because the personality of the Word supplying the place of a created person confers upon the nature itself its complement, without which that nature would remain incomplete. It is otherwise, however, with the Divine Word, because the Divine Word acquires no perfection nor complement through that termination: for it would not be less infinitely perfect even if it did not supply the place of created personality.

You will urge: Although the Divine Word have the character of terminator with respect to the assumed nature, it would nonetheless truly be said to be changed: therefore the solution proposed above is null. Proof of the antecedent: it stands so, proportion preserved, that divine personality in the character of terminator is related to the nature, as the divine intellect is related to an intelligible object: but the divine intellect would truly be said to be changed, if it were newly terminated upon some intelligible object upon which it was not before terminated, inasmuch as

God would be judged to know something anew, which He did not previously know: therefore, etc.

I deny the antecedent, and against its proof, I deny the parity. The reason of the disparity is, that the divine intellect has for its object every intelligible being, by whatever account it may be intelligible; hence if it were newly terminated upon some object which it did not previously attain, it would truly be changed; because it would follow that it did not extend itself to everything that is intelligible, nor consequently equal the breadth of its object, toward which it naturally tends by its infinite power; it is otherwise, however, with the divine personality, which by its innate power does not demand to terminate personally every nature whatsoever, whether uncreated or created, but precisely and of itself is borne only to terminating the divine nature: wherefore its power is no less complete where it terminates only the divine nature than if it were to terminate whatever created natures.

Subsumes: Therefore the divine intellect extends itself to everything that is intelligible, and would be changed if it did not attain it from eternity, because it has infinite power of understanding: but also the divine personality has infinite power of terminating the communication of nature: therefore by the reason by which the divine intellect would be judged to be changed, if it were newly to perceive some intelligible object, by equal reason the divine personality would be judged to be changed, if it were newly to terminate the communication of some nature.

I deny the parity: because the knowable object, inasmuch as it is knowable, of itself pertains to the adequate object of the divine intellect, which is every intelligible being: but any nature terminable hypostatically does not of itself pertain to the divine personality, because each nature, by reason of its formal and natural principle, demands to be terminated by its own personality: whence the case is not the same for a knowable object with respect to the divine intellect as for a terminable nature with respect to the divine personality. To these points add that the knowable object contributes to the perfection of the knowing power: for the more excellent an object is known, the more excellent is the intellectual knowledge; but a terminable nature does not of itself contribute to the perfection of the terminating personality; rather, personality itself of itself confers upon the nature personated and terminated its dignity and excellence, for the more worthy the supposit is, the worthier is the personated nature.

You will urge further: That which passes from potency to act is truly changed: but the divine nature by the Incarnation would pass from potency to act, because what was unifiable would become united: therefore it would be changed.

I distinguish the major: that which passes from potency to act passively or subjectively, that is, by way of inhering or informing, is changed, because it receives a new form which it did not have — I concede; actively, and by way of communication, I deny. And likewise, the minor being distinguished, I deny the consequence: for the divine nature is united to the human by way of active power; because that union is nothing other than the communication of the divine personality, whereby the Divine Word assumes the human nature into the unity of person.

You will object 5. From two beings in act there cannot be made one per se: but the divine nature and the human are beings in act; for each has all that which is required for its perfection: therefore either the union of both cannot be brought about, or what is united will not be a being per se.

I answer, that the human nature in Christ is indeed perfect in the order of nature, yet imperfect and incomplete in the order of person: because it lacks a proper personality, and thus it can subsist through the divine personality, and together with it make one per se, namely Christ.

You will object 6. Two contradictories cannot be verified of the same thing: but if the divine nature could be joined with the human in the same person, it would follow that it is at once finite and infinite, creator and creature, mortal and immortal, which are contradictories: therefore these things cannot come about.

I distinguish the major: contradictories cannot be true of the same thing according to the same respect — I concede; according to diverse respects, I deny; for man is at once mortal and immortal; mortal indeed by reason of his body, immortal however by reason of his soul. But Christ is said to be mortal by reason of the assumed humanity, immortal however by reason of the divine nature.

You will object the last: God cannot supply the effect of a formal cause: therefore neither can He supply the effect of created and human subsistence.

I distinguish the antecedent: every effect, I concede; some effect, I deny. Now human subsistence involves two things: first, that it affect by the mode of a form, should there be some substantial mode affecting the individual nature itself, as some hold; and this effect God cannot supply. The other, that it terminate the nature ultimately, and thus, by terminating, denominate that nature subsistent; and this God can supply equivalently by His own subsistence, not indeed by bestowing a connatural subsistence, but another equivalent one and far more worthy, namely His proper subsistence, which terminates the further communication of the created nature; but in a far worthier and more excellent manner than it is terminated by a proper personality.

You will insist: The personality of the Word cannot stand in place of a created person unless it contain that person eminently and virtually: but such is not the case, since, as the Doctor says, since the divine personalities are not formally perfect nor infinite, they cannot contain virtually the perfection of a created personality. Add that even if it contained it in such a manner, still on that account it could not stand in its place; seeing that the divine nature, which contains virtualiter created personalities, just as it contains any creature whatsoever, because it is formally infinite, nevertheless cannot supply the place of a created personality: therefore neither will the personality of the Word be able to accomplish this.

The Doctor denies the major in the same place, n. 1. For not because the person of the Word is infinite or perfect can it supply the place of a created personality, but because it is in every way independent in the order of person; therefore it can supply the place of any dependent person whatsoever: and for this reason, although the divine essence contains virtualiter and eminenter created personalities, nevertheless it cannot bear their place, because it is not itself formaliter independent in the order of person. Therefore, says the Doctor:

not from the perfection of personal being is it gathered that the personality of the Word can supply a created personality, but from this, that that personal entity is independent; and being independent at such a point, it can terminate the dependence of another upon itself, which dependence is naturally apt to have such a term. But this dependence is naturally apt to have a person for its term, and not a nature: therefore a divine person, being independent, can sufficiently terminate such a dependence of a created nature upon itself.

The mystery of the Incarnation.

NOTE 1. There is a threefold light which, as is customary, shines upon us, whereby supernatural truths can be made known: The first is the light of infused faith, by which they are perceived through a mirror and in an enigma. The second is that of demonstration, or of knowledge divinely bestowed, or acquired from revealed principles with the aid of reasoning. Finally, the third is that of persuasion, whereby a thing is sought out from conjectures and reasons, and is supported and confirmed by similitudes. Faith informs and enlightens the believer through the authority of the one revealing, in whom he believes: knowledge confirms and convinces the Philosopher through the evidence of demonstration and of inference from naturally evident principles regarding some lesser-known truth: persuasion, finally, instructs the unskilled and the ignorant, and disposes them to receive the truth through a knowledge of those things which lie within their view. But whether the Mystery of the Incarnation is proved by this threefold light is disputed among theologians. All agree indeed that it is made known by the light of faith; inasmuch as the sacred Scriptures bring forth nothing more frequently than this Mystery, which is to be adored: wherefore Christ rightly admonished the Jews, John 5: Search the Scriptures, for you think that in them you have life everlasting; and they are they that give testimony of me. The difficulty therefore concerns only the light of knowledge and persuasion; namely, whether this Mystery can be clearly uncovered either by demonstration or by conjecture, both by Philosophers and by the more unlearned and ignorant.

NOTE 2. Supernatural things are distinguished in two ways: for certain things are called supernatural as to their substance, while others only as to their manner. Of the former kind and order are all those things which so exceed nature that by no effort whatsoever of any intellect can they be detected and known by their native and proper power: for instance, the Trinity of persons in the unity of essence, the decree of predestination of this or that man. For what man knows the things of a man, says St. Paul, 1 Cor. 2, but the spirit of man that is in him? So the things also that are of God no man knows, but the Spirit of God. Of the latter kind, however, are those things of the natural order indeed as to their entity, although not so as to their manner of existing. Thus, for example, sight restored to a man born blind is natural according to its entity, since that visual faculty is of the same order and kind as that which is possessed by generation: but it is supernatural as to its manner; because it exceeds the powers of nature, and the manner and order which God is accustomed to preserve in acting by his ordinary providence. It is disputed among theologians, however, whether all faith and divine revelation set aside, the Incarnation of the Word is so supernatural according to its entity that it cannot be perceived naturally. Some judge that since it was accomplished only by an extraordinary power of God, it follows from this that it cannot evidently be proved. Yet some theologians, whom Raymond Lull is said to have anticipated, contend that the Incarnation can be evidently proved against the objections of the Philosophers.

NOTE 3. The Incarnation may be regarded either as possible, or as future, or as accomplished, concerning which threefold state there can be a difficulty: how it may be known by man as wayfarer, and likewise by the Angels, both the blessed and the damned.

First Conclusion. — No angelic or human intellect can uncover by the powers of nature the possibility, or the future occurrence, of the Incarnation: nor can it evidently and certainly know its existence.

Proof of the first part: Supernatural entities as to their substance cannot be attained by the powers of nature: but the Incarnation is supernatural according to its entity: therefore by no effort of natural intellect can it be perceived. The major stands, for entities of supernatural order according to their entity are called such because they transcend every grasp of nature. The minor is also evident, since it is altogether supernatural that God should be united hypostatically to man, that created nature should be stripped of its connatural mode of subsisting, that natural subsistence should be supplied in place by divine personality, etc.

Furthermore, in order that an intellect might comprehend the Mystery of the Incarnation, it would have to know evidently the obediential power of rational nature with respect to all that to which that power can extend itself; it would likewise have to know the power of the divine Omnipotence with respect to the supreme effect which that power can produce; since the Incarnation is the greatest and most excellent work of the divine Omnipotence: but a created intellect cannot evidently grasp both of these by its own powers: therefore neither can it uncover certainly and evidently the Mystery of the Incarnation.

Finally, in order that that possibility could be conjectured and come into anyone's mind, there would need to be some medium in created things from which a created intellect could detect that possibility: but there is no such medium: partly because that mystery is a work of God's supreme liberality and freedom; and consequently there is no connection of it with natural causes and effects: partly because since each created nature is infinitely distant from God, it has nothing at all of itself whereby it may show forth a possible intimate union of itself with God: therefore by no medium, and by no power of a created intellect, faith and revelation set aside, can the possibility of this mystery be uncovered.

The second and third parts are proved together: First indeed from Scripture, which declares this mystery hidden from creatures. Thus Paul, writing to the Ephesians 3, speaking of the Mystery of the Incarnation calls it the unsearchable riches of Christ, and the Sacrament hidden from eternity in God: and in 1 Cor. 2 he calls it the wisdom in a mystery which is hidden. Wherefore Christ is said in Isaiah 8 to be a hidden God, on account namely of the Sacrament of the assumed man. This St. Ambrose excellently proves in the second chapter of the latter Epistle to the Corinthians, where he concludes thus: Therefore the wisdom of God was hidden while it was not in words, but in power: possible not by human reason, but believable by the efficacy of the Spirit. To these words equally applies that of Isaiah 35: Who shall declare his generation? Whence St. Ambrose, book 1 On the Faith, chapter 3: For me indeed it is impossible to know the secret of the generation: the mind fails, the voice falls silent, not mine alone, but even that of the Angels. And shortly after: Not only is the generation of Christ from the Father admirable: admirable also is his generation from the Virgin.

The other holy Fathers testify the same: above all Dionysius, book

On the Divine Names, chapter 2: Jesus, he says, appeared in the flesh, and is ineffable in speech, and wholly unknown to understanding: even to the most ancient prince of the Angels himself not sufficiently perceived. To him accords St. Cyril of Alexandria, book On the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten, chapter 7, saying that the union of the Word with flesh is superior to all human cognition. This St. Augustine openly demonstrates in Epistle 3 to Volusianus, where speaking of this mystery he says: Here if reason is sought, it will not be marvelous: if an example is set forth, it will not be singular. That God can do something which we confess we cannot do is incredible. In such things the whole reason of the deed is the power of the one doing it.

You will say 1: Natural reason does not judge evidently that the incarnation is impossible: therefore it can judge it to be possible. The consequence is evident, because between contradictories, such as possible and impossible, no middle is given.

I deny the consequence: for although on the part of the thing itself there is no medium between a mystery being possible and impossible; nevertheless there is a medium between judging that mystery to be possible, and judging it to be impossible: for between both of these judgments there is given a suspension and denial of the act. Hence if some Philosopher were asked whether he judged the union of God with man to be possible or impossible; either he would suspend the act, affirming and denying nothing; or if he uttered anything, that would certainly exceed the capacity of his own intellect, and would send a sickle into another's harvest: since the Incarnation is of the supernatural order, it exceeds the natural sphere of created intellect, and has no connection with natural principles, from which alone the Philosopher can borrow his certain knowledge.

You will say 2: An angel evidently knows that God can effect whatever does not imply contradiction: but it is also evident to him that there is no contradiction in God being made man; since he naturally knows that God is subsistent and independent in the manner of a person, he likewise knows that the subsistence of human nature is separable from it: therefore he can gather that a divine person, by reason of its independence, can supply the place of created personality.

I deny the minor: for although an angel can know that divine subsistence is communicable, and that created subsistence is naturally distinct from human nature, yet he would not know in what way the Word could be united to human nature; indeed it would not be known to him whether that human subsistence were really separated from its nature, and whether that nature subsisted by the subsistence of the Word, since that mode of subsisting is of the supernatural order.

You will insist: Created subsistence is of the natural order, and within the breadth of the natural object of an angel: therefore an angel can know it to be absent from the individual nature of Christ; and consequently he can know that nature to subsist by the subsistence of the Word.

I deny this last consequence; for although an angel could acknowledge the human nature of Christ not to have its own subsistence, yet he cannot infer thence that it subsists by the subsistence of the Word; indeed he could judge that God preserves that individual nature without any subsistence, just as in fact He preserves the Eucharistic species without any subject.

You will say 3: An angel can know the resurrection of man to be possible; therefore he can also judge the Incarnation to be possible.

I deny the antecedent: for although the resurrection of man is not supernatural as to its substance as the Incarnation is, nevertheless since it is of the supernatural order as to its manner, and depends upon the free will of God, and there is no natural cause by which it can be brought about, hence it is that an angel certainly cannot know by natural light that the resurrection is possible.

You will say 4: Some most skilled Philosopher will be able to solve evidently all the arguments persuading the impossibility of the Incarnation: therefore he will be able to infer it to be possible.

I distinguish the antecedent: that he will be able to solve them negatively, that is, by denying the principles from which they are inferred, and by showing that the conclusions drawn from those principles do not convince, nor persuade altogether, I concede; that he will be able to solve them positively, by showing evidently that the principles from which they proceed are false, and consequently that their contradictories are true, I deny: for it does not follow that he who proves evidently by certain arguments that something is not impossible, persuades and demonstrates by those same arguments that it is possible; because the possibility of a thing does not depend upon the arguments which persuade it, but upon its own intrinsic principles from which it comes about that that thing is possible. Add to these, that even if the Philosopher solved all the arguments proposed to him against the possibility of the Incarnation, still he certainly could not judge that there is no argument which would assert that impossibility; nay, he could suspect that far more pressing arguments might be proposed, which would demonstrate that impossibility.

You will say 5: Natural reason persuades that the Mystery of the Incarnation is evidently credible: therefore it likewise persuades that it is evidently possible.

I deny the consequence; for credibility is sought from one source, and the possibility of the thing from another: for possibility proceeds from the internal principles of that thing, from which it has that it does not conflict, nor is there a contradiction that it be; but credibility is taken from the authority of one speaking worthy of faith, whence the more one is judged truthful in speaking, the more easily and firmly also is faith given to him.

You will say 6: In truth the demons knew the Mystery of the Incarnation, and that Christ is the God-man: but they did not know it through revelation, seeing that they are incapable of every divine benefit: therefore they must have known it by their native power of understanding. The major is established: first indeed from that passage of Matthew 8, where it is said, that when Christ the Lord had come across the strait into the region of the Gerasenes, there met him two possessed with devils, exceeding fierce, so that none might pass by that way, and they cried out, saying: What have we to do with thee, Jesus Son of God? art thou come hither before the time to torment us? And Luke 4: And devils went out from many, crying out and saying: For thou art the Son of God: and rebuking them he suffered them not to speak, for they knew that he was Christ. Second, the same is established from all the oracles uttered by the devil himself in idols: for it is established, as Suetonius relates in Octavius chapter 91, Nicephorus in book one chapter 17, and several other sacred Annalists, that when the Emperor Augustus had consulted the Delphic Apollo, and the shut-up demon gave no accustomed responses, when the Emperor asked what was the cause of so great a silence of the speechless Apollo, he at last elicited from him these responses:

Me puer Hebraeus divos Deus ipse gubernans, Cedere sede iubet, tristemque redire sub orcum: Aris ergo dehinc tacitus abscedito nostris.

Wherefore the same Authors add that Augustus, having returned to Rome, erected an altar on the Capitol, inscribed with these words: Ara Primogeniti Dei.

I answer by distinguishing the minor: that they did not receive it through a revelation made to them immediately, I concede: through a revelation made both through the Prophets and through Angels, and set down in the divine Scriptures, and declared by miracles, I deny. For it is certain, as Tertullian says in his Apologeticum, chapter 22, that the demons

know most easily what is done everywhere, just as they proclaim it; swiftness is believed to be divinity, because their substance is unknown: they even snatch away the dispositions of God, then when the Superiors preach, and then when the readings resound they pick them apart, and so taking from this source certain lots of times, they emulate divinity while they steal divination.

The demons therefore could know from the reasonings of the Prophets that Christ was that Messiah so longed for in so many vows, and promised in so many oracles; for indeed if the Jews, from the promises made and set down in the divine Scripture, could know that Christ was the Messiah, much more easily could the demons come to know it; not indeed certainly and evidently, but conjecturally, both on account of those prophecies, and on account of the marvelous works which Christ himself had wrought. For if they had truly known him, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory, that is, would never have suggested that he be crucified, as the gloss upon 1 Corinthians 2 says. Hence also the demons strove to hinder the death of Christ the Lord, as is gathered from the dream of the wife of Pilate, who, as we read in Matthew 27, said to her husband: Have nothing to do with that Just One: for I have suffered many things today in a vision because of him: for then the devil, greatly doubting whether Christ was the Messiah, tried to dissuade his death: whence although the demons acknowledged very many signs of divine virtue in Christ, yet because they also beheld in him examples of human infirmity, they did not hold for certain that he was truly the Son of God, whence the tempter came to him saying: If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. Nor does it stand against this that the Evangelist said, He suffered them not to speak, because they knew him to be the Christ: for the particle because is not taken there causally, but historically and recitatively; that is, Christ did not suffer the demons to assert that they knew him to be the Son of God, partly because they lied, when they intended to signify that they knew it with certainty, when they knew it only conjecturally; partly because they said it chiefly to probe whether it were truly so.

You will urge: Doctor Subtilis in 1. dist. 10, question 8, number 12, teaches that whatever Angel, even a bad one, if he be permitted absolutely to use his natural cognitive power, can understand mysteries of grace already existing: which he seems indeed to assert concerning the Mystery of the Incarnation, and proves expressly through that whole Question concerning the Existence of the Body of Christ. For the respondent says in answer to the third argument:

Concerning the bad Angels I say that, if any bad Angel whatsoever be permitted absolutely to use his natural cognitive power, he can understand any intelligible thing caused; and consequently he could understand the thoughts of hearts, and the Mysteries of Grace. Whence he infers that if a demon did not know the Mystery of the Incarnation, that happened for this reason, because, he says, it was not permitted on account of certain causes, lest our redemption be impeded; for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory, that is, would never have procured my redemption by his death; therefore the Doctor Subtilis opposes us, and we him.

I deny the consequence; for the Doctor speaks not of evident and certain cognition, but of argumentative and conjectural cognition. And if you contend that it must be understood of prior cognition, I answer with Fabro, in the first Disputation, chapter 13 last, that the Doctor speaks of supernatural Mysteries of grace, which do not involve an order to something uncreated, such as is the Mystery of the Incarnation, which involves an order to the Word, which order surely, being supernatural, so transcends the powers of any natural intellect, that without revelation it cannot perceive it with clear and evident cognition, whether mediate or immediate, but only with argumentative and conjectural cognition.

You will say seventhly: Very many unbelievers had some knowledge of the Incarnation of the Word, as is gathered from Theodoret in the book De Graecanicis Haeresibus, Eugubius book 1. De perenni Philosophia chapter 3, Sixtus Senensis book 2. Bibliotheca sancta, the Serbian Sibyl, and St. Augustine book 18. De Civitate, chapter 23, where he recites and weighs the prophecies of the Sibyls, especially indeed the Cumaean Sibyl, concerning the Incarnation of the Word; and that so distinctly and expressly that she expressed even the name of Jesus Christ acrostically; by which testimony also the Holy Fathers made use, as many as undertook to defend against the Gentiles the cause of the Christian Religion. Nay, St. Paul did not disdain to make use of the testimony of those Sibyls, as Clement of Alexandria relates in book 6. Stromatum, in these words:

As God willed the Jews to be saved, giving them Prophets: so also Paul declared that the Greeks, the most eminent among them, trained in their own language, were believed by Him according as they could desire the beneficence of God, through the preaching of Peter, saying: Take up also the books, recognize the Sibyl, how she signifies one God, and the things that are to come. Take up the Hydaspes, and read, and you will find the Son of God written far more clearly and openly, and how many Kings would array a battle line against Christ, who hold him in hatred, and who bear his name, and his faithful ones, and constancy, and tolerance.

Which Clement surely recites not from the Epistles of Paul, but from sermons delivered to the peoples, certain words of which must be thought to have fallen so into the ears of the hearers that oblivion never effaced them, but they were propagated by a fortunate and continuous tradition down to the time of that same holy Clement. For why should not St. Paul be believed to have made use of Sibylline testimony, when he was wont to cite the Greek Poets, as we read in Acts 17? Hence at first the Christians were frequent in reading the Sibylline books, that thence they might make use of testimony against the Gentiles for the Christian Religion: wherefore, as Origen avers in book 5. Contra Celsum, the Gentiles themselves were accustomed to call the Christians Sibyllists. Whence Justin Martyr relates in his Oration to Antoninus Pius that, by the work and instigation of evil demons, the punishment of death was established against the labors of the books of Hydaspes, the Sibyl, or the Prophets, that through fear men might be withdrawn from them (lest, reading their writings, they should attain knowledge of good things, but should be held in their servitude): which indeed they were unable to accomplish, nor to carry through to their end. Whence it came about, as Lactantius relates in book 4. chapter 15, that overcome by these testimonies the Gentiles were wont to take refuge in saying, that those were indeed Sibylline Verses, but forged and composed by ours: Which surely no one would think, says the same Lactantius, who has read Cicero and Varro, and others besides, who mention the Erythraean Sibyl and the rest, from whose books we bring forth those examples: which authors died before Christ was born according to the flesh. Nor was Virgil ignorant of these things, seeing that from the same Sibylline Verses he ascribed to Saloninus, son of Pollio, with great flattery, the first Eclogue, in which things were foretold concerning Christ about to be born of a Virgin. For he sings:

Under your guidance, if any traces of our guilt remain, they will render void the lands, freed from perpetual fear, He shall receive the life of the gods, etc. Noble offspring of the gods, great increase of Jupiter, etc.

But that these things were to be understood concerning the Incarnation of the Word, the Emperor Constantine splendidly argued in his Oration to the assembly of the saints. Thence a settled persuasion had even come among the Gentiles, as Suetonius relates in his life of Vespasian, chapter 11: It was contained in the fates that at that time men from Judaea would seize the reins of power, which Suetonius, surely ignorant of the matter, thought must be attributed to Vespasian Augustus. To these add what St. Thomas relates, 2. 2. q. 2. art. 7. ad 3.: It is found, he says, in the histories of the ancients that at Constantinople in the time of Constantine and Helena his mother, a certain sepulchre was discovered, in which lay a man bearing on his breast a stone tablet, on which was engraved this epigram: Christ is born of a Virgin, and I believe in him! O sun, under Helena's and Constantine's times you will smile upon me again. Therefore from these and similar testimonies it is established that the Gentiles had knowledge of the Incarnation of the Word, and consequently that Mystery did not exceed the natural grasp of man.

I deny the consequence: for although I do not doubt that all these things narrated in the objection are true, yet it does not follow from them that this knowledge was acquired by the Gentiles by the mere guidance and light of nature; for it could have been brought in from elsewhere. First indeed by tradition, which could have prevailed from Adam through the Patriarchs to the posterity of Noe: for that a promise was made to our First Parent of the Incarnation of the Divine Word, the restorer and savior of men, is doubted by no one; and by happy tradition this prevailed among his posterity. Second, from the gift of Prophecy generously granted by God to very many Gentiles: in which manner St. Jerome, book 7. Contra Iovinianum, judges that the Sibyls were illustrious by the gift of Prophecy: Of whom, he says, signal was their Virginity, and the reward of virginity divination: whence the consentient opinion of Christians holds, as Lactantius relates, book 1. chapter 6., that the Sibyls prophesied many things by divine instinct concerning the Mysteries of the Christian Religion, but especially concerning the Incarnation of the Son of God, and above all his Passion. Third, from the oracles of the demons themselves, to whom this Mystery had been revealed before their fall. For St. Bernard judges that the demons fell and became the utter foes of God for this reason, because God, proposed to them as the man who was to be, as head and prince of all, to whom all creatures ought to be subject as to a superior, they refused to submit themselves. Nay, even after their fall this Mystery was intimated to the demon, as the sacred Interpreters gather from those words of Genesis, chapter 3., where God thus addresses the devil, the explorer and assailant of the First Parents under the masked figure of a serpent: I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. Add that, as we said above, the demons, being endowed with the highest power of understanding, were able to know all the prophecies of the holy Prophets written in the Scriptures concerning Christ who was to come, and to intimate them to their followers. Finally, the Gentiles could borrow that knowledge from their communication with the Hebrews; who, scattered among various nations through many captivities, were able to announce to them what they held in their sacred writings and prophecies: for since the whole hope of the Hebrews was placed chiefly in Christ who was to come, who would deliver them from all their miseries and hold the empire of the whole world, and this they would chiefly have as their solace in their straits, it is no wonder if they intimated this eminent hope of theirs to the Gentiles.

Second Conclusion. — Faith and divine revelation being supposed, natural reason, illumined by that divine light, can by conjectures and examples scale the mystery of the Incarnation.

The truth of this Conclusion is evident from the holy Fathers, who labored to intimate this Mystery to infidels and the more unlearned by various examples and similitudes. And this especially by the example of the union of the rational soul with the body, which St. Augustine elegantly employs in both ways, Epistle 3., which is to Volusianus, where speaking of this Mystery,

Thus, he says, certain persons demand that a reason be rendered to them how God was mingled with man so that one person of Christ should come to be, when this had need to be done once, just as if they render reason concerning a thing which happens daily, how the soul is mingled with the body so that one person of man comes to be. For as in the unity of person the soul is united to the body that man may be, so in the unity of person God is united to man that Christ may be. In that person therefore there is a mingling of soul and body; in this person there is a mingling of God and man: provided however the hearer withdraw from the custom of bodies, whereby two liquors are wont to be so commingled that neither preserves its integrity — although even in bodies themselves incorrupt light is mingled with air: therefore the person of man is a mingling of soul and body: but the person of Christ is a mingling of God and man. For when the Word of God was mingled with the soul having a body, at the same time he took to himself both soul and body. The former happens daily for the procreation of men: the latter was done once for the liberation of men. Nevertheless the commixtion of two incorporeal things ought to have been believed more easily than of one incorporeal and another corporeal. For if the soul in its own nature, comprehending itself to be an incorporeal nature, is not destroyed, far more incorporeal is the Word of God; and for this reason the mingling of the Word of God and the soul ought to have been more credible than that of soul and body. But this we experience in ourselves; that we are bidden to believe in Christ. Yet if both alike, being unexperienced by us, were commanded to be believed, which of the two would we sooner believe? How do we not confess that two incorporeal things could have been mingled more easily than one corporeal and another incorporeal — provided however it be not unworthily admitted to that name of mixtion or mingling, on account of the custom of bodily things, which are far removed from one another and known otherwise? The Word therefore of God, and the same the Son of God, coeternal with the Father, the same power and Wisdom of God, reaching from the supreme end of the rational creature even to the innermost end of the corporeal creature, attaining mightily and disposing all things sweetly, present and hidden, nowhere confined, nowhere divided, nowhere swollen: but without bulk everywhere entire, > in a manner somehow far other than that wherein he is present to the other creatures, took up man, and made himself and him one Jesus Christ, mediator of God and men, equal to the Father according to divinity, less than the Father according to the flesh, that is, according to man, unchangeably immortal equally as equal to the Father according to divinity, and the same changeable and mortal according to the infirmity known to us, in which Christ at that time, which he himself knew to be most opportune, and had disposed before all ages, came to men as magisterium and aid, for the attaining of everlasting salvation.

Fitly also is this marvelous union expounded through the union of an accident with its subject, which the Doctor uses in o. dist. 1. question 1. But that this similitude may appear, first there must be distinguished a twofold relation of accident to subject. The first is that of informing to informed, to perfectible: and this, says Poncius there, denotes imperfection in the subject, because potentiality and perfectibility do not accord with God, our purpose being such. The second is the relation of a substantiated natural posterior to the prior substantiating, from which it depends as from a pure terminus: and this latter notes no imperfection in the subject; because it denotes only the natural properties in it, and the substantiation of the accident, which is a note of perfection. Therefore, the imperfections being removed from this union, it will be most like the hypostatic union, and consequently will render it most intelligible, on account of its manifold congruence. The first is: as the subject sustains the accident, and the accident depends on the subject, so the Divine Word sustains the human nature, and this depends on him by special motive. Second: as accident and subject united together make a certain one supposit, so in this union, although there are two natures, yet they have one unique supposit. But the third is: as the accident accrues to the subject already existing, so humanity to the Word. Fourth: as the accident is not of the essence of the subject, so neither is humanity of the essence of the Word. Fifth: as the nature of the subject is neither confounded nor commingled with the nature of the accident, nor conversely; but each remains integral and unmingled, so it is said of the divine and human nature. Sixth finally: as the properties of the accident, and the accident itself in concreto, are communicated to the subject and enunciated of it, and conversely; so the properties of human nature, and the nature itself, are communicated to the Divine Word, and enunciated of him, and conversely; as will be seen where we treat of the communication of idioms.

Reason also persuades the same thing. For it is established by the natural light itself that God, as the greatest of all goods, is supremely communicative of himself: and accordingly it is fitting that he communicate himself in respect of all that which his infinite entity contains; namely, according to entity, perfection, and hypostasis; therefore as he had communicated his entity in the order of nature to all creatures, which are participations of his infinite entity and certain outflowings from it; but most of all to man, who is the breathing and truthful image of his divine entity: as he had implanted his divine excellencies, gathered together and expressed as it were in his sublime sanctity, in just men in the state of grace, that he might constitute them his adoptive sons: finally, as he had implanted his felicity and beatitude in the most blessed minds in the order of glory: so likewise it was fitting to his supremely good nature that he communicate himself with his human nature hypostatically and personally in an individual, inasmuch as man might thereby be able to be raised up to the order of divinity.

You will say. If, faith being supposed, the human intellect can by its natural power scale this mystery with probable reasons: then also without any light of faith, the same intellect will be able by those conjectures and reasons to judge this mystery possible, or to come.

I deny the consequence: for the intellect illumined by the light of faith can investigate more things for confirming a truth than it can when destitute of those aids. For things found out and known are proved more easily than unknown things are found out. Therefore; because these reasons and conjectures, which the intellect now illumined by faith employs, faith set aside would not suffice for overcoming the difficulty and repugnance which the natural light suffers concerning this mystery: and therefore, faith set aside, those reasons and conjectures do not avail sufficient for rendering judgment even probable, that such a mystery is possible, or to come.

A twofold convenience can be distinguished. One indeed intrinsic to the thing, according to which something is said to be convenient, insofar as it is ordered by God. For, says the Apostle to the Romans 13: Those things that are of God are ordained. The other, however, extrinsic, whereby it consists in a certain relation, or bearing, of the thing itself toward those things to which it is fitting. Now since the Incarnation can be considered with respect either to God its author, or to human nature as its terminus, or to the whole orb of the earth, and like unto an encyclopedia of lands: therefore the convenience thereof must be treated with respect to those three things: namely, whether the Incarnation was convenient, both with respect to God, and with respect to man, and with respect to the other creatures.

Note 2. Since every good is diffusive and communicative of itself: and since God is the most excellent of all goods; diffusion of Himself and communication belong most of all to Him. Now the communication of God is twofold: one indeed ad intra, either through the fecundity of light and knowledge, whereby the eternal Father communicates Himself to the Son, who is God of God, light from light, true God from true God; or through the fecundity of love, whereby the Father and the Son, burning with divine love toward themselves, produce the Holy Spirit, who is the fruit and terminus of the mutual love of the Father and the Son. The other communication, however, is ad extra, whereby those three adorable persons communicate themselves to creatures in the order of nature, grace, glory, and divinity. In the order indeed of nature, by bestowing upon them all natural goods owed to them connaturally for their integrity and perfection. In the order truly of grace, by conferring upon the rational creature those gratuitous gifts by which it can be promoted to the supernatural order and end. In the order of glory, by exhibiting all His excellencies and delights of divinity to be beheld and enjoyed by the purest and most blessed minds. Finally, in the order of divinity, through hypostatic union; whereby one of those adorable persons communicates Himself substantially to human nature through His own proper subsistence, whereby it comes about that God becomes man, and in turn man God: taking upon Himself body and soul in the unity of person, so that in man there dwells the whole fullness of divinity corporally.

Note 3. That this last communication is the most excellent and greatest of all. For some communication can be judged greater than another in two ways: namely, either intensively, or extensively. It is said to be greater indeed in the prior way, when something more noble and more perfect is communicated: but in the second, when it extends itself to more subjects or supposits; by which reasoning the communication of natural goods is greater extensively; but the communication of supernatural goods is greater intensively, inasmuch as supernatural goods excel natural ones. But the communication which comes about through the Incarnation is without doubt the greatest of all communications, not only intensively, because the very uncreated substance of the Word, which is of infinite dignity and perfection, and thereupon surpasses all goods of the order of nature, grace, and glory, communicates itself to humanity: but also extensively; since it contributes not only to the honor and ornament of men and Angels, but also of the other creatures, as will be evident in the following Conclusions.

First Conclusion. — The Incarnation of the Word was most convenient to God.

Proof. That thing is most fitting to God which contributes to manifesting His divine excellencies: but through the Incarnation the perfections and excellency of God shine forth most greatly: therefore it was most convenient to God. The reason of this stands firm; for it is convenient to God to demonstrate His invisible perfections through visible effects. For this purpose indeed He founded the universe, that the invisible things of God may be understood through those things which have been made; His eternal power also, and divinity, says Saint Paul to the Romans 1. But the minor is proved: although the divine excellencies and divine gifts be innumerable, yet especially with respect to God, and to creatures, before all others there shine Goodness,

Goodness, I say, whereby He wills to communicate Himself to them and to bestow on them participation in His being: Power, whereby He performs and executes the same: Wisdom, whereby He weighs, orders, and establishes creatures in due and decent order, and directs them to their convenient end: Justice, whereby He distributes to each what accords with perfection: finally Mercy, whereby He supplies and restores the defects of the rational creature: and all those five divine perfections shine forth most greatly in the Mystery of the Incarnation.

First indeed the divine Goodness shines forth supremely in that mystery: for the divine Word, by bestowing His own person upon humanity, bestows at the same time divinity itself, and pours out upon man as it were all His divine excellencies. Hence that divine communication is called the measure of the divine love toward men; whence Christ Himself, from this ineffable Mystery, commends above all the goodness and charity of God toward men, saying John 3: So God loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son: and the Apostle judges that love so supreme and excellent that he did not blush to call it superexcellent and exceeding, to the Ephesians 2, saying: God, who is rich in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ (by whose grace you are saved), and hath raised us up together, and hath made us sit together in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus: that He might show in the ages to come the abundant riches of His grace, in goodness towards us in Christ Jesus. Hence the same Apostle, commending that divine goodness toward us, to the Romans 8, says: If God be for us, who is against us? who spared not even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all: how hath He not also, with Him, given us all things? Wherefore to Titus 3 he says: The benignity and humanity of our Savior God appeared. Which Saint Bernard expounds thus, Sermon 1 on the Nativity of the Lord:

There had appeared before, he says, power in the creation of things: wisdom was appearing in their governance: but now the benignity of mercy appeared above all in His humanity. Power had been made known to the Jews in signs and wonders; whence also in the Gospel you will often find: I am the Lord, I am God: to the Philosophers also, abounding in their own sense, majesty was made known, since according to the words of the Apostle, what is known of God is manifest to them. Yet nevertheless the Jews were oppressed by that very power, and the Philosophers, searchers into majesty, were weighed down by the glory. Power exacts subjection, majesty demands admiration, neither imitation. Appear, Lord, O goodness, wherewith man, created to Thine image, may be conformed: for majesty, power, wisdom, we can neither imitate, nor does it profit to emulate.

Omnipotence likewise shines forth in wondrous manner in the Mystery of the Incarnation; whence the Prophet Jeremias 31, to commend this most excellent work, calls it new. New, He says, hath the Lord created upon the earth: a woman shall compass a man. These words Saint Bernard expounds thus, homily 2 super Missus est: There was, he says, a man in Jesus, born not only of wisdom, not of age: of vigor of mind, not strength of body: of maturity of senses, not corpulence of limbs. And a little before: In this new and unheard-of prodigy is recognized length that is brief, breadth that is narrow, height that is subject, depth that is full. There is recognized light not shining, the Word an infant, water thirsting, bread hungering. You may see, if you attend, > power ruled, wisdom instructed, virtue sustained: God at last nursing at the breast, yet refreshing the Angels, groaning, yet consoling the miserable. You may see, if you attend, sadness joyous, the poor confident, salvation given over to pestilence, life dying, fortitude weakened. But what is no less to be wondered at, sadness itself is there seen rejoicing, comforting the poor, passion saving, death vivifying, infirmity strengthening.

Wherefore the Incarnation on account of its excellence is called the Work of God in Habacuc 3: Lord, Thy work, in the midst of the years make it live: and the most Blessed Virgin in her Canticle says it is the work of the omnipotent arm of God: He hath wrought power in His arm. Which truth Saint Bernard commends thus, in Sermon 3 for the Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord:

Three works, he says, three mixtures did that omnipotent Majesty make in the assumption of our flesh; so singularly marvelous, and marvelously singular, that such things neither have been done, nor are ever again to be done upon the earth. For there were conjoined one to another God and man, Mother and Virgin, faith and the human heart.

And He commends that first mixture thus:

He wished, He says, to exalt our weaker parts with more abundant glory, and majesty contracted itself, that what it had of better, namely itself, it might join to our mire; so that in one person God and mud might be united to each other, majesty and infirmity, such vileness and sublimity; for nothing is more sublime than God, nothing viler than mud, and yet with such condescension God descended into the mud, and with such dignity the mud ascended unto God, that whatever God did in Him, the mud is believed to have done, whatever the mud endured, God is said to have endured in Him: a sacrament as ineffable as it is incomprehensible. And attend to this: just as in that singularity there is Trinity in persons, unity in substance; so in this special commingling, there is Trinity in substance, unity in persons: and as there the persons do not divide the unity, nor does the unity diminish the Trinity, so here also the person does not confuse the substances, nor do the substances themselves dissipate the unity of the person. That supreme Trinity exhibited to us this trinity, a marvelous work, a singular work among all things, and above all His works. For the Word, and the soul, and the flesh came together into one person, and these three are one, and this one is three, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person; this is the first and superexcellent mixture, and this the first among the three.

The divine Wisdom is celebrated equally, especially in the manner of reconciling divine Justice with His mercy. For St. Augustine says in his book, Cur, quando, et quomodo Deus, etc. chapter 6.

God had required from man justice, so that he who had offended by sin should make satisfaction through justice. For this the diversity of natures, and the unity of person in Christ availed, and was necessary for the human race, so that what human nature could not do, the divine nature would accomplish, and would exhibit even what in no way befitted human nature: and not one being and another, but that the same self should exist, perfect from both, who through the human nature might pay what He Himself owed, and through the divine nature could accomplish what was expedient. The debt of Adam was such that he ought not to pay it unless he were man, but he could not unless he were God: hence it was necessary that He should be the same man who was God. Wherefore it was necessary, in the unity of person, that God should assume man, so that man, who ought by his nature to pay and could not, might be in the person of Him who could, because satisfaction for sin could not be made except by God; but it was not owed except by man: therefore it stands that, for the restoration of that supernal city to be wrought in men (which could not be brought about unless the aforesaid satisfaction for sins had been made, which none could render unless he were God, nor ought he unless he were man) it was necessary that God made man should accomplish it.

Which reason St. Leo lucidly expounds in Sermon 1. on the Nativity, saying among other things: But by the property of both substances, converging into one person, infirmity is received from power, humility from majesty, mortality from eternity, as befitted the remedy for our body, that one and the same mediator of God and men might be able both to die from the one and to rise again from the other. It shines forth therein especially, that the adversary of the human race, who had conquered our First Parents together with their whole posterity, should be conquered and overcome by God through man. For, says Hugh of St. Victor, book 1. De Sacramentis p. 8. chapter 6: He who had cast out by justice, it was fitting that he be conquered not by fortitude, but by prudence, so that in the very thing wherein he had raised himself up as victor, he should be laid low as vanquished, according to that of Job 26: And his prudence struck down the proud one. Which reason St. Augustine likewise expounds thus, in the book Cur, quando, et quomodo Deus, etc. c. 6.

Subtly God wished to assail the subtle enemy, concealing beneath the bait of humanity the hook of divinity, so that he might find one who owed him nothing: which nature when he unlawfully touched it, he deservedly lost that which in a certain manner he possessed: for thus was the ancient serpent to be deluded, that he who had deluded men should himself be deluded by the God-man. And as he had cunningly subjected unguarded man to himself, so through man divinely guarded he should be subjected, not cunningly, but wisely. Here truly appears the highest wisdom, when that is set before the enemy which is first cast down by the enemy: and as it were, that which had fallen should recover its strength, and assailed by the enemy, should again presume to fight against the enemy. The enemy is therefore provoked again to battle, that he who before rejoiced that he had conquered might afterwards, vanquished, succumb entirely, and thus man would become far more glorious by his resumption than if he had never chanced to fall.

To this St. Leo accords his voice, saying:

According to the fullness of time, which the inscrutable depth of the divine counsel disposed, humanity took upon itself its nature to be reconciled to its leader, and the author of death, the devil, was to be conquered through the very one whom he had cast out: in which conflict undertaken on our behalf he was prostrated by a great and marvelous law of equity, while the omnipotent Lord engages with the most savage enemy not in His own majesty, but in our humility, setting against him a fallible form, and a fallible nature: partaker indeed of our mortality, but wholly without experience of sin.

Hence the Church sings: The order of our salvation required: that the manifold art of the traitor might be deceived by art, and the remedy borne thence whence the enemy had wounded. Finally, the divine wisdom excels chiefly in this, that this Mystery contributes above all to establishing the glory of God; nay, even to increasing it. For, says St. Bernard, Sermon 2. on the Ascension: Christ, since by the nature of His divinity He had nothing whereby He might grow or ascend, because beyond God there is nothing, found how He might grow by descending: coming to be incarnate, to suffer, to die, lest we should die for eternity. Wherefore St. Gregory of Nyssa in his Catechetical Oration chapter 14 calls that descent of the divine Word an overflowing abundance of power: That, he says, which is the abasement of descent, is a certain signal and overflowing abundance of power. To which fits that verse of the Psalm: He ascended above the setting sun; the Lord His name. Whence St. Gregory, Homily 17. on the Gospels: Above the setting sun the Lord ascends, because whence He lay down in His Passion, thence He manifested His greater glory by rising again: namely, above the setting sun He ascends, because the death which He endured He trod underfoot by rising again.

Equally the divine Justice shines forth excellently in this adorable Mystery: since through the passion and death of Christ the Lord He accepted a condign satisfaction for the sins and offenses of men: inasmuch as the God-man offered Himself not only as victim and expiation upon the altar of the cross to the eternal Father, but also exposed Himself like a target to the arrow, and to the most severe vengeance of the divine justice. Hence St. Paul to the Romans 3, expounding most brilliantly the satisfaction and redemption of Christ the Lord, says: Justified freely by His grace: through the redemption, of the preeminent offenses, in the forbearance of God. The divine Justice is commended also especially from this, that it displayed its rigid and exact severity in avenging sins in the Passion and Death of Christ. For if the eternal Father chastised with such severity His most loving Son, who had constituted Himself surety for the sins of men, and who had only put on the likeness of the flesh of sin, what terror and dread must abide in each sinner obstinate in so many and so great crimes, when they stand before that divine justice to judge and to punish? For, says the Savior Himself Luke 23: If in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry? Finally the bitterness of the divine justice appears in that infinite price which He willed to be paid for our redemption. For St. Peter says, 1. Epistle chapter 1: Not with corruptible gold or silver are you redeemed from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers, but with the precious blood as of a lamb immaculate.

Finally, the divine Mercy shines forth supremely in this Mystery. Although it be proper to God always to have mercy and to spare, and all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth, whereby He sustains in much patience the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, that He may show the riches of His glory; nevertheless that divine mercy did not so shine forth before as after the Incarnation. Indeed, for complete and perfect mercy two acts are chiefly desired: namely, to repel the misery of another, and to be affected by the miseries of another as if they were one's own: for one is called merciful as it were having a miserable heart, because he is affected by the misery of another as if it were his own misery. The first indeed of those acts befitted God by reason of His goodness and infinite power; but the second was most alien to Him, inasmuch as He is immutable, and enjoys infinite and unchangeable felicity. Wherefore, that the divine mercy might be absolute in every respect, it was necessary that God become man, that He might be able to compassionate our infirmities, or as the Apostle says to the Hebrews 2: In all things He ought to be made like unto His brethren, that He might become merciful. Hence chapter 4 he says: We have not a high priest who cannot have compassion on our infirmities, tempted in all things like as we are, without sin. The divine mercy shines forth also especially in this, that the Son of God assumed a mortal body, and suffered death itself, that He might deliver us from death. Hence the Apostle to the Romans 5: God commendeth His charity towards us: because when as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died for us. Commendeth, I say. For St. Anselm says in book 2. Cur Deus homo: what can be understood as more merciful than that, for a sinner destined to eternal punishments and having nothing wherewith he might redeem himself, God the Father should say, receive my only-begotten, and give him for thee: and the Son Himself, take me, and redeem thyself? Which superabundant divine mercy towards us St. Bernard elegantly expounds thus, Sermon 3. on the Nativity of the Lord:

I was playing outside in the street, he says, and in the royal secrecy of the royal bedchamber judgment of death was being passed upon me. His only-begotten heard this, and went forth with little haste, clothed in sackcloth, sprinkled with ashes on His head, bare of foot. Weeping and wailing, because His poor servant had been condemned to death... By consideration of the remedy for my peril I estimate the magnitude. I knew it not; I seemed to myself sound, and behold the Son of the Virgin is sent, the Son of the Most High God, and commanded to be slain, that He might heal my wounds with the balsam of His precious blood. Know, O man, how grievous are the wounds for which it was necessary that the Lord Christ be wounded. If these wounds were not unto death, and unto death everlasting, never for their remedy would the Son of God die. Therefore it is shameful, most beloved, negligently to dissemble our own passion, for which I see such great compassion shown by so great a Majesty.

You will say 1. Whatever is unbecoming to the supreme majesty of God cannot be judged fitting and expedient: but to assume flesh is unbecoming to the supreme majesty of God: therefore, etc.

I answer: The Seraphic Doctor, distinguishing the major: whatsoever is unbecoming to the majesty of God, both by reason of itself and by reason of what is united to it, neither befits nor is expedient: this he grants; by reason only of what is united to it, he denies. Indeed it is unbecoming to the majesty of God in itself to be humbled, since, the divinity being altogether immutable, in itself it covets neither exaltation nor humiliation. But by reason of what is united to it, it can be humbled unto the greater manifestation of its own height: for in this, that God assumed humble and infirm flesh, he crushed the most mighty adversary and strengthened infirm man: and therefore although the work of the Incarnation in itself may not seem to conduce to the honor of the divine majesty, yet it conduces to it most of all when the end and effect, unto which it is ordered, is considered: since it is the highest glory to God that he chose the weak things of this world, that he might confound the strong, and exalt the humble.

You will say 2. As excessive exaltation is blameworthy, so excessive abasement is to be blamed: but just as the exaltation was excessive, when a creature desired to be God: so the abasement is excessive, that God should become man, who is a creature; therefore as that exaltation is to be blamed, so also would the abasement appear blameworthy, whereby God became man: but nothing blameworthy can befit God: therefore etc.

I answer: The same Seraphic Doctor replies that there is no parity: both because the divine nature was not humbled by any abasement of itself, seeing that the Divine Word, in assuming the human, lost nothing of the divine; whereas when the creature desired to be God, it was inflated with some elation, whereby it wished to be carried beyond its natural lot and its own state, and therefore on this side that excess and overflowing of elation tended into vice: and because the emptying, which was wrought in the assumption of humanity, proceeded from an excess of love and charity: but the elation, whereby man wished to be like unto God, was from an excess of presumption. Now every presumption is confessedly to be blamed, not so love and charity: and thereupon the emptying of Christ was not blameworthy, but praiseworthy, even as the elation of the first parent was blameworthy.

You will say 3. Injury is done to God when he is thought to have some created effigy. For, saith St. Paul, Acts 17: We ought not to think that gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art and thought of man, is to be likened to the divine: therefore the greatest injury would be done to God, if a human effigy were attributed to him: but this would have to be attributed to him, if he were truly man: therefore, etc.

I answer: The same Seraphic Doctor replies that it is true and must be maintained when one believes that God truly has, according to his deity, some bodily effigy, as the idolatrous Gentiles thought: but otherwise when one judges that God indeed has not in himself any created effigy, but only by reason of the assumed humanity, as comes about through the Mystery of the Incarnation.

You will say 4. That rather conduces to the glory of God which more illustriously commends his mercy alone. For, as St. James saith, ch. 2: Mercy exalteth itself above judgment: and the Church testifies on the 10th Sunday after Pentecost: O God, who dost manifest thine omnipotence chiefly by pardoning and showing mercy: but far greater would have been the mercy in freely remitting to man his debt, than in exacting satisfaction: therefore it would have been more fitting for God freely to forgive the offense of men, than to exact satisfaction for it through the Incarnation of his Son.

I deny the major: for that work is more perfect in which, together with the highest mercy, the highest justice also shines forth, than that in which mercy alone is chiefly commended; because all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth, since he himself is supremely just and merciful:

And therefore, saith the Seraphic Doctor, in the reparation of mankind, which is the most excellent of the ways of the Lord, it is fitting that mercy and justice run together, and therefore it was seemly that God should exact satisfaction for the injury done to him: which if man could not render, then mercy would give a Mediator, who should pay the debt: for if God had not remitted the fault, but had exercised vengeance alone, mercy would not appear: if truly he had not exacted satisfaction, justice would not be manifested: therefore it was fitting that out of mercy a Mediator should be furnished, who should pay the debt out of justice, for thus Mercy and Truth met each other, Justice and Peace kissed.

You will say 5. It seems unjust to punish the innocent for the guilty: but that takes place in the Mystery of the Incarnation: therefore it befits not the divine justice.

I distinguish the major: if that be done by way of punishment and vengeance, I grant it: if by way of satisfaction and reparation, I deny it. For although in punishing sin he must be chastised who sinned, nevertheless in making satisfaction one can bear the punishment for another; for in vengeance the iniquity of the sinner is regarded: but in satisfaction for another the charity of him who satisfies is beheld.

You will say 6. Whatsoever offends the divine equity is unbecoming to God: but it conflicts with the divine equity that the life of the Son of God, since it is most precious, should be exposed to be poured out for a thing most vile, such as the redemption of sinful men: therefore, etc.

I deny the minor: both because Christ subjected himself not to death, that he should be swallowed up by it, but that, death being cast down, he should rise again immortal: and because the salvation of man is only an effect of the death of Christ, but not its end: and moreover because both the life of Christ and of men is ordered to the glory of God, which is more excellent than the life of Christ.

Second Conclusion. — The Incarnation of the Word is most fitting for human nature.

Proof. That thing is most fitting for human nature which conduces in an eminent degree to its being recalled from evil and advanced toward good: but the Incarnation serves both purposes to the highest degree.

First indeed, that man be recalled from evil; for every fount and origin of evil arises either from the devil instigating, or from the flesh alluring, or from the spirit growing proud: but this threefold fount and root of all transgression is removed and torn up by the Incarnation. Indeed through it the devil has been cast down from his authority: for 1 John 3. the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil, and Christ our God says that the prince of this world would be cast out, and the Apostle says to the Colossians 1. He has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins: seeing that, as St. Augustine adds, book 18. On the Trinity, chapter 15, for this redemption the blood of Christ was given as the price for us: upon receiving which price, the devil was not loosed, but bound, that we might be loosed from our sins. He adds in chapter 17 that by this mystery the pride of the demons was dragged down and the abjection of men raised up. It was shown to man, he says, what place he held among the things which God created: since human nature could be so joined to God as to become one person out of two substances: and thereby the same out of three, namely God, soul, and flesh; so that those proud wicked spirits, who interpose themselves as a middle term for suspending, as it were for adjuring, should not dare to propose themselves to man on the ground that they have no flesh: and especially because the Son of God deigned even to die in that same flesh, lest those same spirits, who are believed to be immortal, persuade themselves to be adored as gods. Likewise the flesh, vitiated in its origin, was healed and consecrated through the assumption and union with the Word. For since in Christ dwelt the whole fullness of the Godhead bodily, as the Apostle says, whence it came about that our bodies were made members of Christ, and temples of the Holy Spirit: therefore that flesh, which was an incentive to sin, became a stimulus to salvation and justice: for, as Tertullian says in the book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 8, The flesh is the hinge of salvation; for the flesh is washed, that the soul may be made spotless; the flesh is signed, and the soul is illuminated; the flesh is shadowed over by the imposition of hands, that the soul may be preserved; the flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of the Lord, that the soul may be fattened on God. Finally the exaltation and pride of mind is broken; for, as St. Augustine says above, The pride of man, which is the greatest hindrance to clinging to God, can by so great a humility of God be reproved and healed: and let man learn how far he has departed from God, and what is owed him for medicinal sorrow, when for our salvation there came a Mediator, who as God aids men by his divinity, as man suits them by his infirmity. Hence St. Bernard, in Sermon 3. on the Nativity of Christ, says: What is more unworthy, what more detestable, what more deserving of punishment, than that man, seeing the little one who is God of heaven, should still go on to magnify himself above the earth? Intolerable impudence it is, that where Majesty has emptied itself, a little worm should puff himself up and swell.

Secondly, this mystery also conduced most greatly to the advancing of man toward good. For first human nature is raised up in the supreme degree; for, as St. Augustine says in the book On the Predestination of the Saints chapter 15.

This is that singular assumption of man by God the Word, effected ineffably, that he might at once be called Son of God and Son of man: Son of man on account of the assumed man, and Son of God improperly, and properly on account of the assuming, the only-begotten God; lest not a Trinity but a quaternity be believed. There was predestinated for this human nature so great, and so lofty, and so supreme an elevation, that it had nothing higher to which it might be raised, just as for our sakes the divinity itself had nothing lower to which it might humble itself, than the assumed nature of man with the infirmity of the flesh even unto the death of the cross.

Whence it is no wonder if the Angels, who before that divine exaltation of human nature suffered themselves to be adored by men, as Abraham and Loth adored them, Genesis 18. and 19., afterward refused such honor to be paid them by a man; for St. John the Evangelist, when he wished to adore the Angel who was speaking to him, immediately heard him saying, Apocalypse 19. See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren who hold the name of Jesus. Hence St. Leo admirably admonishes in Sermon 1. on the Nativity, Know, O Christian, thy dignity, and having been made a sharer of the divine nature, do not return to thy former baseness by a degenerate manner of life, etc.

Thirdly, through the Incarnation man had the most excellent exemplar of all virtues whatsoever, which before he lacked. For, as St. Augustine says in Sermon 52. on Diverse Subjects: Man was not to be followed who could be seen. God was to be followed, who could not be seen: that therefore there might be exhibited to man one who could be seen by man, and whom man might follow, God was made man. For an exemplar, that it be complete in every respect, ought to be at once upright and perceptible to sense. Indeed God was upright by reason of holiness; but invisible by reason of his infinite majesty: man truly, who was visible, on account of the many defects with which he was stained, deflected from the upright rule of virtue: wherefore it was necessary that a union intervene between both, that thence a perfect exemplar of virtue might be granted to man. Wherefore Christ also admonished, John 13. I have given you an example, that as I have done, so you also may do. For he who was invisible in the majesty of his divinity presented himself visible in the infirmity of his humanity: as Paul speaks most excellently in 1. to Timothy 3., where he calls the Incarnation a great sacrament of piety, which was manifested in the flesh. For all the actions of Christ were truly the acts of the God-man, or, as St. Ambrose speaks, the acts of the Lord's flesh are an exemplar of the divinity, and things invisible concerning him are shown to us through those things which are visible. Hence he names himself, John 11. the way, the truth, and the life: indeed the way in example, the truth in promise, the life in reward, as St. Bernard says in Sermon 2. on the Ascension.

Fourthly, it was most fitting that God become incarnate, that man might be made perfectly blessed. For therefore, says the Author of the book On the Spirit and the Soul, chapter 9. (among the works of St. Augustine), God was made man, that he might beatify the whole man in himself, and that the whole conversion of man might be toward him, and the whole deferral of man might be in him, since with the ascent of the flesh he would be seen through the flesh, and with the ascent of the mind seen through the contemplation of the divinity. Whence each of the Blessed can say with Job, chapter 19. In my flesh I shall see

my God: whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold; or with the same Seer: My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.

Finally, to this end did the Incarnation of the divine Word conduce most greatly, that we might have whatsoever we need, both for the health of the body and of the soul. For, as St. Bernard says most excellently in Sermon 3. on the Circumcision: He was given whole to me, he was spent whole for my uses. Indeed he says in Sermon 24. on the Passion: What do you seek in him that you may not find? If you are sick, he is the physician: if you faint, he is the fountain: if you are assailed, he is the champion: if you thirst, he is drink: if you are cold, he is a garment: if you are sad, he is joy: if you are darkened, he is light: if you are an orphan, he is Father. In one word, as Ambrose says in book 3. On Virgins: Christ is all things to us, and he has given all things to us. To these add, that through the Incarnation the faith of man is especially illustrated, hope is strengthened, charity enkindled.

Faith, I say, is illustrated: for, as St. Augustine says in book 11. Of the City of God, chapter 2. ⟦uncertain⟧ That man might walk more confidently in faith toward the truth, the Truth itself, the Son of God, assuming man, joined us to God, and strengthened faith, that the way to God might be for man through the God-man. Hope also is raised up and strengthened: for, as the same St. Augustine says in book 13. of the City of God chapter 10.

What was so necessary for the raising up of our hope, as that, weighed down by the condition of mortals through the abjection of mortality itself, in order to deliver us unto immortality from despair, there should be shown to us how much God loved us, and how dearly he loved?

Finally, Charity is kindled in a wondrous manner: for, as Saint Augustine says in book 1 of his de Catechizandis Rudibus, cap. 1: What greater cause is there of the coming of the Lord, than that God might show forth His love toward us? And further on: If it grieved us to be loved, at least let it not grieve us to be loved in return.

You will say 1. It seems unfitting that by so great a price as is Christ so few men are saved: and it seems more fitting that God should have assumed some other means whereby all men would be saved: therefore the Incarnation of the Word was not most fitting for human nature.

I answer 1, the salvation of each elect soul is of such worth that God judged it not unworthy to be wrought at the expense of His own Son: whence, although few attain salvation, this ought not on that account to be judged incongruous to the divine wisdom. I add that if all men had been saved, this would redound less to the glory of God: since He would not have displayed His Justice and Mercy so perfectly toward us: whence Saint Augustine, Epist. 105: If both were delivered, it would be hidden to whom the punishment of sin was due; if no one, what would grace have to bestow?

I answer 2. The failure of salvation in the reprobate is not to be charged against the Incarnation itself, but against the perverse will of men: since the Incarnation of Christ was a means all-sufficient for the salvation of all men; for Christ the Lord is the true light which enlighteneth every man coming into this world: He is also the mediator of God and of men, who wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

You will say 2. That manner of repairing human nature is more fitting by reason of which nature itself is the more bound to God, and owes Him ampler thanks: but man would be more bound to God if He had freely forgiven him his offence; for he owes greater thanks to one whose debt a judge freely remits than to one from whom satisfaction is exacted: therefore etc.

I deny the minor, and in proof I say that the ground of the disparity is that God, in exacting satisfaction from us, gave us His own Son, who might satisfy for us, and thereby merited and bestowed most abundant thanks, whereby we also, after our measure, could make satisfaction together with Him, our adored Redeemer. But it seems more honorable to be able to pay one's own debt than to ascribe its remission solely to the clemency of the judge.

Third Conclusion. — The Incarnation of the Word was fitting also for the whole universe.

First, indeed, whatsoever creatures there are in the universe have received something of sublimity in the very promotion of man to fellowship with the divine: for since man is a microcosm, and the epitome of the whole universe, his dignity and excellence overflow upon the other creatures. Hence the Apostle, Ephes. 1, says: The eternal Father, namely, purposed in the dispensation of the fulness of times to renew all things in Christ, which are in the heavens, and which are on the earth, in Him.

Next, the supreme perfection of the whole universe was that there should be in it the greatest and most perfect grade of being, which should unite God and creature together: for the more excellent and the more numerous the grades of being throughout the whole world, the more excellent and perfect is it accounted: and this has been granted through the mystery of the Incarnation, wherein we have God and man subsisting in one person.

Finally, it was fitting that all the differences of things be found in the universe, so that just as in us there is one nature in one person, and in God one nature in several persons, so likewise there should be several natures in one person: which indeed came to pass through the Incarnation, for three natures, namely, the Divine, the Spiritual, and the Corporal, are united in the one person of Christ.

From our Alensis, part 3, question 1, member 6: that the similitude of man to God appears far greater and more manifold than that of the Angel. For in the soul of man there shines forth the image of God in nature, in person, and in power. In nature indeed, as St. Augustine says in sermon 21, which is on the Image, just as God is everywhere whole, vivifying, moving, and governing all things: so the soul is everywhere whole in its body, animating, moving, and governing it: which does not befit an Angel, because he is not a substance ordered to the vivifying of a body. Moreover, in man there is a similitude according to the reason of person, because man proceeds from man, as one Person in the divinity proceeds from another: but one Angel does not proceed from another. Finally, there is a similitude in power, because in man there is a power responding wholly to the exemplar: for since in the divine exemplar there exists eminently the reason both of corporeal and of spiritual being, the soul attains to both these reasons, inasmuch as it is ordered to spiritual and corporeal actions; which an Angel cannot have, for since he is simply spiritual, he is not ordered by his nature to corporeal actions: from which it appears that man has a greater affinity with God than the Angel.

Note 2. Truly the Angelic nature, and the human, would have seemed unworthy to be united to the divinity, especially had the fallen Angels been considered. For the Angels no less, indeed more gravely, provoked the divine attention and vengeance than men did: since the prevaricating Angel no less than man aspired to the divinity: the former indeed by emulating the supreme majesty and power of God, according to that of Isaiah 14, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the testament, etc. The latter, however, pursued the divine wisdom promised him by the serpent, Genesis 3. Whence it was the supreme mercy of God, and that pure mercy, that He undertook to redeem men rather than Angels: yet since the divine wisdom undertakes nothing without reason, hence we inquire what those reasons may be, which stood forth as so many incentives of the divine love toward men, such that He relieved us rather than the Angels from eternal misery.

Note 3. That God could have become man in various ways: namely, either by creating for Himself body and soul, and assuming each independently from any commerce with any creature, nor deriving His origin and birth from a Mother: or if He had wished to have a Mother on earth, as He had a Father in the heavens, He could have formed her outside the line and propagation of Adam: so that she, formed by His alone extraordinary power, and not begotten of men, would not be reckoned among the posterity of Adam, nor would she in any way pertain to his progeny. Whether, however, either of these modes would have been more fitting than that by which in fact the Divine Word assumed flesh, must be determined in the present Question, to be resolved by two Conclusions: whereof the First will show that it was more fitting for God to assume and repair the human nature than the Angelic. Second, that it was more expedient to assume a nature propagated from Adam than one formed from elsewhere.

First Conclusion. — It was more fitting to assume and repair the human nature than the Angelic.

That this indeed is abundantly proved by the very operation of God, since His divine wisdom weighs and works all things in weight, number, and measure. Nowhere did He apprehend Angels, but He apprehended the seed of Abraham, says St. Paul to the Hebrews 2.

Moreover the reason of this greater fittingness can be sought, partly on the side of the very constitution of human nature itself, partly on the side of its greater capacity for reparation. On the side indeed of its constitution, and this for a threefold cause, which the Seraphic Doctor assigns and examines in Book 2, dist. 2, qu. 2; whereof the first is sought from the reason of origin and propagation of one man from another: for since one man takes his origin from another, which does not befit an Angel, it was the more becoming that the Person of the Son, who is distinguished from the Person of the Father according to origin, should receive that nature in which the property of filiation resides. And this indeed was done in the assumption of human nature: for He Himself, who was eternally the Son of the Father, in time was made the Son of the Virgin Mother. The second reason is, on account of the greater similitude of man with God by reason of the rational soul itself, which, as we said in the first Notable, emulates, as it were, the immensity of God, being whole undivided in its whole body, as God is whole in each single part of the world. Hence, says the Seraphic Doctor, the rational soul represents God not only as He is considered in Himself, but inasmuch as it is united to the body, which it rules, and in which it inhabits, as God fills heaven and earth. Thirdly finally, the reason of greater congruity is sought from the manifold composition of man; for since man is composed of corporeal and spiritual nature, and in a certain manner is every creature: for he has being with the elements and inanimate things, life with plants, sense with animals, understanding with Angels: hence it is, that when human nature is assumed and deified, in a certain manner every nature is exalted in it, while in a part like to itself it is hypostatically united to the deity: whence the assumption of human nature would contribute far better to the perfection of the universe than the Angelic could have contributed, if it had been assumed.

That greater fittingness also appears on the side of reparation, and this for three causes: First indeed, because human nature stood more in need of reparation: Second, because it was less unworthy thereof: Third, because reparation would have profited men more than the prevaricating Angels.

Human nature indeed stood more in need of reparation than the Angelic, for Alensis says, qu. 1, memb. 2, that in the first man was the whole human nature; therefore, by his sinning and perishing, at once all his progeny perished: but it is otherwise concerning the fallen Angels, since none of them comprised the whole Angelic nature, but their sins were personal; nor on account of the fallen prevaricating Angels did the whole Angelic nature perish; since very many remained faithful and obedient to God; and therefore there was not so much need for them of remedy and reparation: otherwise with humanity, which through the sin of one man had been corrupted and lost in all; moreover it did not befit the divine mercy, and the supreme goodness of God, to consign the rational nature most akin and similar to Himself to eternal ruin and perpetual damnation. For that was unworthy of the goodness of God, that things created by Him should pass away into destruction on account of the fraud of the devil against men, says St. Athanasius, in the book De Incarnatione Verbi Dei.

Second, man was less unworthy of the divine mercy; since human sin was not so grave as Angelic sin, whether you consider the genus of the sin, or the circumstance, or the occasion. Considering indeed the genus of the sin: for although man and Angel sinned through pride; yet far disparate is the guilt of each, since, says Alensis, man sinned by coveting all the knowledge of God, but the Angel His omnipotence: now God in no wise wills to communicate His omnipotence to any creature in any state whatever, because by reason of that omnipotence He is the principle of all creatures, which pre-eminence He wills to be common to none; but knowledge He wills to communicate to a creature in the state of glory, for He demonstrates Himself, and all things that are in Him, to the blessed minds, upon whom He bestows the light of all His knowledge. Since therefore it is supreme inordinateness to covet that to which no creature is ordained: hence it is that the Angel sinned more gravely by coveting omnipotence, than man by emulating knowledge, to which he was ordained.

Graver also was the sin of the Angel than of man by reason of circumstance, since man sinned by reason of some nescience: for he deemed the divine threat made to him to be intended rather for trial than for punishment: but the Angel sinned from certain knowledge, and therefore from malice; and thus his sin was against the Holy Spirit, and consequently irremissible. Finally also less was the sin of man than of the Angel by reason of occasion, for man did not sin by his own propensity and determination to evil, but instigated and importuned by his wife, who, deceived by the serpent, led her husband into deception. It was just therefore that he who had fallen through another should also be raised up through another, since he could not rise by himself: but it was otherwise concerning the Angel, who had fallen not by the cunning of another, but by his own malice. Finally less profitable would redemption have been for the lost Angels than for men, since the Angels, once fallen, possess a will hardened in evil, nor are they further capable of doing penance. Add to these, that the ruin of the Angels could have been repaired by men, namely by promoting them to the seats of the fallen Angels, as St. Anselm excellently demonstrates in book 1, Cur Deus homo, chapters 16 and 17; but the fall of men could not fittingly have been supplied by substituting another nature in place of the human: since no creature inferior to man appears capable of the divine glory.

All these reasons St. Bernard passes over luminously and divinely in the first sermon on Advent, in these words:

Let it be known that the higher Angels passed over into an affection of malice and wickedness, nor did they sin from any ignorance or infirmity; wherefore it is necessary that those unwilling to be punished perish: for the love of the Father and the honor of the king loves judgment. On this account He also created men from the beginning, who might fill up that place and restore its ruins. It is written to me that no redemption lies open to the Angels: namely, the pride of the Devil dies, which pride is the root of pride, and the pride of the Devil admits no remedy of penance, and therefore is not redeemed; nevertheless He afterward created no creature from his light: hinting by this very fact that man was yet to be redeemed, since he had been tripped up by another's malice, so that another's charity might profit him. Thus, Lord, I beseech Thee, may it please Thee to care for me, because I am weak: because out of my land I was secretly taken away and not without guilt was cast into the pit: not wholly guiltless indeed, but as regards him who seduced me, in some measure guiltless.

You will say 1. That nature appears more unible with God which has a greater affinity with Him: but the Angelic nature has a greater and more intimate affinity with God than the human: therefore etc. The major is evident, for things to be united must have a certain proportion to one another. Likewise the minor, because, says St. Isidore in the books De Trinitate, the more subtle a nature is, the more fully does it stand forth in expression toward a likeness of the divine unity: but the Angelic nature is subtler than the human, being devoid of all commerce and society with body: therefore it approaches more closely to the likeness of the divine nature than the human does: and consequently is more unible with it.

I distinguish the major: that they have a greater affinity with the divine nature under that aspect by which it is unible with itself, I concede: otherwise I deny: but the human nature has a greater likeness and proportion with the divine nature under the aspect by which it is unible with it than the Angelic nature; because the notion of person, through which God is unible to man, is more expressed by man, who draws origin from another, than by an Angel, who does not proceed from another Angel in such a way: therefore although the Angel, by reason of his simplicity, expresses the divine essence more fully under the aspect of essence, because he is wholly spiritual; yet he does not so perfectly express the divine persons and the mode of procession, whereby one draws origin from another, as men do; and hence he does not have a greater, but rather a lesser affinity with the divine nature, under that aspect by which God is unible with a creature.

You will say 2. That nature must be said to be more unible with God which on account of its excellence is worthier and more apt to be raised up and exalted: but the Angelic nature, since it is far more excellent than the human, is also worthier and more apt to be raised up through incarnation: therefore it was more fitting that it be assumed than the human. — The Seraphic Doctor answers dist. 2 q. 2 ad 2, that although the Angel is higher in nature than man; yet it befitted man rather than the Angel to be exalted through the grace of union, both for the confutation of the pride of Lucifer, who wished to make himself equal to God, and for the commending of the grace of God, that it may appear that elevation in glory comes not from nature, but rather from divine grace: wherefore the Savior, associating to Himself, chose the poor and lowly rather than the rich and powerful, that He might break the pride of men, and that no creature might glory in His sight.

You will say 3. The major appears from mercy, where misery is greater: but far greater is the misery of the lost Angels, since their sin was graver than that of men: therefore it beseemed the divine mercy more to redeem them than men.

I deny the minor: for far greater was the misery of lost men than of Angels, seeing that not all the Angels fell, as men did, nor did the whole Angelic nature perish, as did the human; wherefore it was more fitting that men be repaired than Angels. Add to this, that the lost Angels were less worthy of mercy on account of their pride and hardened malice: for since they are universally obstinate in malice, says the Seraphic Doctor ad 1., they would not be inflamed toward humility, nor would they be kindled to charity by the exhibition of so great a benefit and example; for we see this today in many sinners, for whom on account of their habitual perversity the Passion of Christ the Lord profits but little.

You will say 4. From him should redemption congruously have begun, from whom the transgression took its beginning: but this has its origin from an Angel, who was the author of the whole transgression: therefore reparation ought likewise to have been begun from him. — The Seraphic Doctor answers, that

The transgression of the human race took its beginning from the devil, and from man, but with this difference, that it proceeded from man as from the principal author, but from the devil as suggester and instigator: since however Christ is the author of our redemption, it was more fitting that He inaugurate it from the author of the transgression, inasmuch as restoration directly corresponds to perdition: and as in the first Adam the consummation of our transgression was made, so through the second Adam the perfection of our redemption would be wrought.

You will say finally. The sin of man was as mortal as that of the Angel: but mortal sin is irremediable: for it is called mortal for this reason, that it brings eternal death and devours one guilty unto perpetual damnation: therefore both man and Angel were unworthy of and incapable of redemption; and hence it was not more fitting that man be repaired than the Angel. — Alensis answers q. 1 memb. 2. To the first argument,

that irremediable is said in three ways, as also invisible: namely, negatively, privatively, contrarily. Irremediable negatively is that which can in no way be remitted: irremediable privatively is that which has nothing worthy whereby it ought to be remitted: irremediable contrarily is that which has a contrary disposition to remission, without which it can in no way be remitted. In the first way the sin of the Angel is called irremediable, and the sin of the damned: in the second way sins against the Holy Spirit are called irremissible, namely despair, presumption, etc., because they are under dispositions contrary to remission. In the third way every mortal sin is said to be irremissible, because no mortal sin has anything whereby it is worthy of remission. By this last reason the sin of man was irremissible, but not by the two first ways, and hence there is not the same reason concerning the reparation of man as of the Angel.

Second Conclusion. — It was fitting that the human nature be assumed sprung from the stock of Adam, rather than formed elsewhere. This Conclusion follows from what precedes, and St. Anselm proves it in the second book of Cur Deus homo, chapter eight, by a threefold argument:

First, it is just that he who makes satisfaction be either the same one who sinned, or someone from his origin: otherwise he who offended would not devote satisfaction: but it was just that satisfaction be made to God for the fault of man: therefore equally it is just that the man making satisfaction either be Adam, who offended, or someone from his offspring.

Second, if Adam had not sinned, the whole human race would have stood of itself in innocence, without the help and sustenance of another creature: therefore if it must rise again, it is more fitting that it rise through the help and aid of someone who is of the same genus: but if the man assumed were formed from elsewhere than the offspring of Adam, he would not be of the same state with the human race: therefore the human race would not rise through the help of one of its own genus.

Finally, when God first formed human nature, He produced only Adam, and from him drew forth the woman; by which He signified that He willed all men to be propagated from him as from one principle: wherefore Adam was the head and prince of all men before sin: therefore if that dignity must be repaired by the Incarnation of the Word, it was necessary that it be repaired either by Adam himself assumed, or by another man formed from his offspring: but Adam could not be assumed, because the properties of the man assumed are attributed to the divine person assuming: and consequently just as it would be true to say of Adam that he sinned, so also it would be true to say of the divine person that he had sinned: but this absolutely conflicts with the divine holiness: therefore it also conflicts that Adam himself be assumed by the Word: hence it is necessary that another man be assumed, who although he be from the offspring of Adam, nevertheless has had no sin.

You will say 1. It was fitting that the man who had to make satisfaction for the guilt of all should be most estranged from all sin: but such a one would not be, if he were from the offspring of Adam: therefore it was more fitting that the man making satisfaction be formed from elsewhere than from the stock of Adam. Proof of the minor: he who has no similarity of sinful flesh, nor any commerce with sinners, is more estranged from sin than he who is marked with those characters: but such would be the man formed from elsewhere than the blood of Adam; and such a one would not be he who was propagated from him: therefore it was more expedient that the man be created anew, to be assumed, than that he be propagated from Adam.

I distinguish the minor, and its proof: if that similarity of sinful flesh be by reason of guilt, I concede: if only by reason of the punishment due, I deny: but in the man assumed by the Word, that is, in Christ, there is no similarity of sinful flesh by reason of guilt; but only by reason of punishment, because the divine Word assumed a mortal body, that by His most bitter passion, and the frequent straits of His whole laborious life, He might expiate and discharge the punishment due to our sins.

You will say 2. It was more fitting that he who contracted the debt should pay it: but Adam himself contracted the debt of sin: therefore it was fitting that he himself pay it, and accordingly that his individual be assumed by the divine Word. —

I distinguish the major: if he can pay that debt of himself alone, or by the benefit and help of him with whom he has no absolute incompossibility, I concede: otherwise, I deny. But Adam could neither pay the debt of himself, nor by the help of any divine person with whom he might be united: because he was of limited entity and operation, and consequently could not exactly make satisfaction for the debt, which held the sum of indignity by reason of the Divinity offended. Nor indeed could he be joined with God in the unity of person, because since he was a sinner, it would follow also that the divine Person could be called sinful, which is altogether absurd: therefore this could neither be done nor ought to have been done.

You ask. Whether it was more fitting for Christ to be born of a Virgin than of a man and a woman. — I affirm: both because it was seemly that he who has the Father a Virgin in heaven should also have a Virgin Mother on earth: and because, says St. Anselm above:

In four ways can God make a man, namely, either of a man and of a woman, as constant usage shows; or neither of a man nor of a woman, as He created Adam: or of a man without a woman, as He created Eve: or of a woman without a man, in which way He may assume that man whom we seek.

Finally, because this more commended and illustrated the purity and integrity of the Incarnate Word.

It is certain that any one of the divine persons can assume human nature, whether propagated from Adam, or formed from elsewhere; since if another person than the Son were to assume human nature from the Virgin, it would not follow, in point of fact, that there would be a diminution of equality among the divine persons, nor a confusion of persons: for there is no confusion in the fact that one person bears several appellations mutually opposed; or that he who is Father should also be Son; since we now believe that one and the same person is temporal and eternal, immortal and dead, immense and circumscribed. Nor indeed is there any diminution of equality, seeing that the divine Word, when he took flesh, although he is less than the Father according to his humanity, is nevertheless equal to the Father according to his divinity, for in assuming what is human he did not lose what is divine. Hence the present question does not concern possibility, but only fittingness; namely, whether it would have been more congruent that the Son, rather than the Father or the Holy Spirit, become incarnate.

Note 2. That although the Incarnation, insofar as it is an effect ad extra, is the work of the whole Trinity: nevertheless it is certain that it is attributed peculiarly to one divine person alone. Because, as St. Bonaventure says in 3 dist. 1 q. 2:

a creature can be compared to the Creator in two ways; just as the Creator can be compared to the creature. For a creature can be compared to the Creator either according to its reception of some perfection, or according to the relation of a habit of dependence. The first comparison necessarily regards three persons indistinctly and indivisely; since in them there is one and indivisely the same essential perfection. But the second comparison can be made with respect to some determinate and distinct person, without regarding another, because the divine persons are distinguished among themselves by relations, and really. Similarly God can be compared to a creature in two ways: namely, in the character of a causative principle, and in the character of the supposit subsistifying it. According to the first comparison the three persons agree together and communicate with one another, because in them there is one nature, and one productive power of creatures: but according to the other comparison a creature can have a distinct relation to one divine person alone; because although one person agrees with another in nature and power, it is nevertheless distinguished from that other in supposit and personal property.

Since therefore in the union of natures, or incarnation, the divine person is the supposit, or hypostasis, of the human nature; so that union, or incarnation, signifies not merely a habitude of God to the creature by way of cause, but also by way of supposit; hence it comes about that, from the comparison of God to creatures, one person can be united to human nature without another being similarly united. On the part of the creature the same holds; since since the creature signifies a comparison to God, not only with respect to the reception of its complement, but also with respect to the habitude of relation; hence it follows that the Incarnation can belong to one person without belonging to another.

Note 3. That although the divine persons agree among themselves so indivisibly in the unity of essence as to be one God; nevertheless certain things are proper to them peculiarly, either according to their own properties, or according to appropriated attributes. According to their own properties, paternity is attributed to the first person, filiation to the second, and passive spiration to the third. But according to appropriated attributes, power is attributed to the Father, wisdom to the Son, goodness and love to the Holy Spirit. For this reason a triple operation is likewise attributed peculiarly to these divine persons, namely creation to the Father, re-creation to the Son, glorification and justification to the Holy Spirit; because creation is the work of power; re-creation, or restoration, the work of wisdom; and justification and glorification the work of divine goodness. Now those three divine excellencies shone forth in a wondrous manner in the Incarnation of the Word. Power indeed, for, as St. Damascene says, book 3, chapter 1, God being made perfect man is perfected, which is the greatest of all modes: which alone knows itself through that alone by which the infinite power of God is shown forth: for what is greater than that God should become man? Goodness likewise shines forth in a wondrous manner in this, that God did not despise man, miserable and condemned by his own fault, but his divine bowels of Mercy were moved over his infirmities, that he might deliver him from them. Finally wisdom, on account of that manifold reason assigned in Question 1 of this Section. But it is asked whether it was more fitting that the Incarnation be reckoned the work of infinite wisdom rather than of goodness or of power: or, which amounts to the same thing, whether it was more expedient that the Incarnation be wrought by the Son rather than by the Father or the Holy Spirit.

Single Conclusion. — Truly it was more fitting that the Son become incarnate than the Father or the Holy Spirit.

The Seraphic Doctor praised above proves this conclusion in question 3, in almost the following way: the Incarnation can be considered either in itself, or inasmuch as it is ordered to the redemption of the human race: but under both considerations it was more congruent that the person of the Son become incarnate than the others.

First indeed, if the Incarnation be considered in itself, and with respect to the person who becomes incarnate, this is openly evident: because the second person can be considered either inasmuch as he is Son, or inasmuch as he is Image, or inasmuch as he is Word: and by this threefold reason it was more expedient that he himself become incarnate. — First indeed, inasmuch as he is Image; since the image of God, worn away by sin in man, had to be restored: therefore that natural image and likeness of God had to be applied, after whose likeness man, formed, could be restored, and emulate and reproduce the lineaments of the first divine perfection. — Secondly, inasmuch as he is Word, because as the Word of the Father he proceeds from the Father, that the Father may manifest himself through him; and therefore just as for the manifestation of thought our intellectual word is joined to sensible voice, so for the revelation of divinity it was congruent that the Word of the Father take flesh: wherefore St. Paul says to the Hebrews 1: God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all in these days has spoken to us by his Son. — Lastly, because he is Son, it was fitting that he assume flesh, that he might be of the race of men, and thus the Son of man: for, as St. Anselm says, in book 2 of Cur Deus homo, chapter 9, if any other person were incarnate,

there would be two in the Sacred Trinity, namely the Son of God, who is Son even before the Incarnation, and he who through the Incarnation would be the Son of the Virgin, and thus there would be in persons, which must always remain equal, an inequality according to the dignity of natures: for he born of God would have a more noble nature than he born of the Virgin.

This same reason Saint Augustine also proves in book De Ecclesiasticis dogmatibus, chapter 2, saying:

Not the Father assumed flesh, nor the Holy Spirit, but the Son alone, so that he who was in the divinity the Son of God might become in man the Son of man, lest the name of Son pass to another who would not be Son by eternal generation. The Son of God therefore was made the Son of man, born according to the divinity of nature from God the Son of God, and according to the truth of nature from man the Son of man; and the truth of the begotten one not by adoption, not by appellation, but in both births he should have the name of Son by being born, so that he might be true God and true man, one Son.

The second argument, suggesting this same truth, is drawn from the very comparison of the Incarnation with the Redemption of the human race. For on this account it was more fitting that the Son become incarnate than the Father or the Holy Spirit, whether we consider the fall of man, the manner of repairing him, or the fruit of that reparation.

First, I say, if we consider the fall of man, this appears: for man fell by desiring the likeness and equality of God, which in divine things is attributed especially to the Son: hence he himself was as it were the occasion of man's fall; and therefore man ought to take his reparation from that whence he had taken the occasion of his fall. This reason Saint Bernard weighs out no less elegantly than piously, Sermon 1 De Adventu, in these words, wherein he introduces the Son speaking thus:

Behold, on my occasion the Father loses his creatures. My height the first Angel coveted, and he had a people that believed him: but straightway the zeal of the Father avenged himself upon him, striking him together with all his followers with a plague past cure, with cruel chastisement. Knowledge also, which nevertheless is mine, man wished to steal: and neither did his eye pity him nor spare: he had made only two noble creatures partakers of reason, capable of beatitude: namely, the Angel and man: but behold, because of me he lost many Angels, and all men. Therefore, that they may know that I also love the Father, let him receive through me those whom he seems in a certain way to have lost: if because of me this tempest has arisen, take me, and cast me into the sea: all envy me, behold I come, and show myself to them of such a kind, that whoever strives to imitate me, there may be wrought in him a change into good.

To these things add, that since men sinned specially against the Son, it belonged to him to pardon and remit the sin against whom the offense had been committed. This reason Saint Anselm brings forward in the place just praised. Quasi specialius, he says, adversus personam Filii peccaverant, qui vera Patris similitudo creditur: illi itaque cui specialius fit iniuria, convenientius attribuitur culpae vindicta, cui indulgentia.

Second, if we consider the manner of reparation, that befitted the Son more than the other persons: for we are repaired through the obedience and supplication of the Mediator: now the role of Mediator befitted the Son rather than the other persons; for it was becoming that he who is middle among the divine persons should also set himself forth as a mediator between God and man, so that he might exist as the mediator of God and of men. Likewise it befitted the Son more to supplicate the Father and to obey: For, says Saint Anselm in the same place, Convenientius erat Filium supplicare Patri, quam aliam personam. — Lastly, if we consider the fruit or effect of reparation, it was more congruous that the Son become incarnate; because the Incarnation is ordered to this, that we be sons of God: but it was fitting that we attain the dignity of sons through him who is the natural Son. Hence Saint Augustine lib. 8. De Trinitate, chapter 9: Ut homo ex Deo nasceretur, primo ex ipsis natus est Deus: for it was necessary that through him we be made adopted sons, who is the natural Son.

You will say 1. To recreate and repair man belongs to him to whom it belongs to create and form him: but creation is attributed especially to and befits the power of the Father: therefore also to him should be attributed the restoration and reparation of man through the Incarnation. —

I answer. The Incarnation can be regarded either effectively or formally: in the first way it equally befits the three adorable persons; not so in the second way. —

I distinguish the major: to repair belongs to him to whom it belongs to form effectively; I concede; formally, I deny. Effectively, I say, the Incarnation is attributed especially to the Father, who so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son; and he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all: formally, however, it is attributed uniquely to the Son, since the personality of the Word alone terminates the dependence of human nature, and by formally affecting it makes it subsistent and personated.

You will say 2. To him belongs the adopting of sons into whom belongs the begetting of sons: but to the Father alone belongs to beget: therefore to him alone belongs to adopt men into sons through the Incarnation. —

I distinguish the major: authoritatively, and principally, I concede: sub-authoritatively and according to mission, I deny. Therefore there belongs to the Father the authority of adopting principally, because, as the Apostle says to the Galatians 1, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem them who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

You will say 3. It is more fitting for the Father to have something which the Son has not, than for the Son to have something which the Father has not, because what the Son has, he has from the Father: but through the Incarnation one person has something which the other has not: therefore it is more expedient that the Father, rather than the Son, become incarnate. —

I distinguish the major: it is more fitting for the Father to have something which the Son has not, according to eternal origin, I concede: according to hypostatic union, I deny. Indeed the Father ought to have, according to eternal origin, something which the Son has not, because the Father has the generative power of the Son, but in turn the Son has not the generative power of the Father. But it is otherwise concerning hypostatic union, for since through it one person is subjected to another, it is more fitting that the Son have that by which he can be subjected to the Father, than that by which the Father would be deemed inferior to the Son; and forthwith it is more expedient that the Son have the human nature by which he is less than the Father, than that the Father by reason of it would be subjected to the Son.

You will say 4. The Incarnation most accords with him to whom it belongs to confer upon man the highest grace, for that is the highest of all graces: but the bestowal of the highest grace belongs especially to the Holy Spirit: therefore the Incarnation must also be attributed to him more fittingly. —

I distinguish the major: to whom the bestowal of the highest grace is attributed, whether effectively, or formally, I concede: effectively only, I deny. Indeed the Incarnation is appropriated effectively to the Holy Spirit, because the supreme work of the love and goodness of God toward men, such as is the Incarnation, is appropriated especially to that person which is called the love and goodness of God: formally, however, it belongs to the Word alone, inasmuch as only the Word by his own personality made human nature subsistent.

The present difficulty is raised chiefly concerning the threefold circumstance of the time at which the Incarnation ought to have taken place, namely at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the world's duration: for since Adam fell at the world's outset, it seems to have been more fitting that relief be brought to his misery a little after he fell from the state of his felicity: for that medicine appears healthier and more opportune which is prepared and administered not after a long illness, but at its beginning. Since, however, divine Wisdom weighs all its acts and motions with a just and even balance, and disposes all things sweetly, the reasons must be investigated why it deferred so long, and so late, that wholesome and saving medicine being bestowed upon the human race.

Note 2. The time in which the Incarnation was accomplished is designated by various names in sacred Scripture. First it is called the last day. Thus Isaiah 2: It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord shall be prepared. Second, the fulness of time: thus to the Galatians 4: When the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son. Third, it is called the midst of years, thus Habakkuk 3: Thy work, in the midst of the years thou shalt quicken it; in the midst of the years thou shalt make it known. It is called the midst of years not as though by that name the middle of the world's duration were signified — otherwise we could know at what time the day of judgment would be: which directly conflicts with that oracle of Christ: But of that day no man knoweth, etc. — but so that the time appointed by God might be declared: for it is familiar in Scripture to call that thing "in the midst" of something which lies within it. Thus Psalm 100: He that worketh pride shall not dwell in the midst of my house. Jeremiah 51: Flee out of the midst of Babylon. It is called the fulness of time, moreover, to signify either the time in which God willed to fulfil what he had promised and destined, or in which the figures were to be fulfilled, or especially that in which the fulness of grace was to be bestowed and made manifest. Finally it is called the last day: since this inestimable Mystery was accomplished in the last age of the world, through which the law of grace is to endure, nor is it to have any further age succeeding to itself: that this may be declared more fully and more fully

NOTE 3. The whole duration of the world is wont to be distributed through six ages, according to the notable variations and most celebrated events which befell in the world, but especially among the people of Judah. The first is reckoned from Adam as far as Noe, or the flood: the second from Noe as far as Abraham; the third from Abraham as far as David; the fourth from David as far as the Babylonian captivity: the fifth from the captivity as far as Christ: the sixth finally from Christ the Lord as far as the end of the world. On which account Christ the Lord is said to have come in the last days, because he came in the last age, and at the world's eventide. The first age lasted one thousand six hundred fifty-six years, as is clearly gathered from Genesis 5 and 7, according to the old Hebrew edition and the new. The second seems to have lasted 322 years, for although from Genesis 11 only 292 years are gathered, nevertheless since there the generation of Cainan was passed over, which the Seventy Interpreters added, and also S. Luke chapter 3, therefore at least thirty years must be added to that number, by which Cainan lived before he begat sons. The third seems to have lasted 941 years: for from the birth of Abraham down to the promise made to him there flowed 75 years, Genesis 12; but from that promise down to the end of the people's captivity in Egypt, or down to the giving of the law, which happened three months after that exodus, there flowed 430; but from the giving of the law down to the beginning of the kingdom of David there were 436, as is evidently taken from book 3 of Kings chapter 6; which 436 added above five hundred make the said number 941, through which this third age seems to have lasted. The fourth age, moreover, in which the kingdom of the Jews endured, from the beginning of David's reign down to the captivity

Babylonian, was completed in 170 years, as is to be gathered from book 3 of Kings chapter 2 verse 11 and chapter 22, and book 1 from chapter 5. The fifth age is of all the most difficult as regards its duration; for sacred Historians and Chronologists are torn into various opinions on this matter. For Genebrard, book 2 of the Chronologia, assigns to this age 501 years. Bede, however, in the book De sex aetatibus, numbers 560. Driedo, book 3 De Dogmatibus, chapter 5, computes 596. Eusebius, in the Chronica, wills it to be 785. Certain others, with Suarez in 3 part. q. 1 disp. 6 sect. 1, assign six hundred years to this age; from which he gathers that the Incarnation took place about the fourth thousandth year from the creation of the world: whether that opinion be the truer is not the business of this place to resolve, but only to open up the reasons which can persuade that it was accomplished at a fitting time.

Single Conclusion. — It was fitting that the incarnation of Christ the Lord neither be sought from the beginning of the world, nor deferred to its end, but be wrought as it were about the middle of the ages. This Conclusion consists of three parts, of which

The first S. Bonaventure thus proves in 3 dist. 1 q. 1, and that by a fourfold reason: the first indeed is sought from the side of divine justice. For in this, he says,

the severity of divine vengeance is made manifest, in that for so long a time it endured so many cries and so many lamentations of men, whereby they besought the Saviour, and did not hear them sooner: and that there might appear to Adam himself exiling in tears, and to all his posterity, how great was the gravity of his offence, and with how bitter a vengeance God chastised him.

The second is sought from the curing of the disease; for man ought first to know his own impotence to provide for himself the necessary remedy, before he received it divinely, that thus convicted of his infirmity he might take refuge in divine grace, and thus taking refuge might be cured. The third it repeats from the order of the universe: for because, he says, this was the plenary and greatest benefaction, it ought to be deferred even to the fulness of days. The fourth reason was on account of commending the benefit of the Incarnation; which, since it is the most precious among the benefits of God, ought first to be desired and expected, than exhibited. Therefore it was fitting, for the commendation of so excellent a mystery, that most many ages precede its execution: that namely through the course of so many centuries Christ the Saviour should be sought by the Patriarchs, foretold by the Prophets, prefigured by the shadows of the Mosaic law, and be desired by all nations: for, as S. Aug. says, tract. 31 on John, The greater the judge who was coming, the longer the series of heralds that ought to precede him. — S. Thomas adds, q. 1 art. 5, that it was not fitting for the Word to become incarnate immediately after sin was committed: First on account of the condition of sin, which drew its origin from pride; for man had to be humbled before he was delivered; wherefore the Lord left him first in the liberty of free choice under the natural law, and under the written law, that thus by his own nature he might acknowledge his infirmity; which known, he might cry out to the physician, and seek the help of grace. Second, that befitted it on account of the order of promotion into good, for man ought to be promoted from the animal state to the spiritual state, according to that of 1 Corinthians 15: Not first that which is spiritual, but that which is animal; afterwards that which is spiritual. The first man of earth earthy: the second man from heaven heavenly. Third, on account of the dignity of the Word becoming incarnate: for, as Tertullian says, book 3 against Marcion, chapter 2: So great a work was preparing for man's salvation, inasmuch as it was about to be believed, that it might profit, in so much did it desire to be prepared, that it might be able to be believed, laid beneath the foundations of disposition and preaching, by which order faith being informed, it was deservedly both enjoined upon man by God, and God exhibited in man.

The second part also holds: both because, whereas Christ came to merit grace and glory for us, and glory ought to be bestowed chiefly at the end of the world, it seems fitting that he come first bestowing grace, before glory: and because if he had deferred the advent of his Word into the world even to the end of the world, while the sins of men grew strong day by day, the knowledge and reverence of God, and the honesty of morals, would have been utterly spent upon the earth: wherefore as he delegated Abraham, that he might restore the knowledge of God among men, among whom it had already begun to be extinguished: as afterwards he delegated Noe, that he might restore the worship and reverence due to himself, which had well nigh been spent: so also it was congruous that when he saw the Jews and the gentiles to have shaken off all fear and law of God, he should delegate his Son to the lands, that he might reform the morals of men: and finally, that through the more abundant largition of grace very many might be saved.

From these, therefore, the third part is gathered, namely that the Incarnation took place at a fitting time, around the fullness and middle of time; so that just as the Sun, placed in the midst of the planets, illumines those above and those below it: so Christ, that true sun of justice, coming in the midst of the ages and manifesting himself to the world, would enlighten and illume the ages that went before through faith and hope in his future advent, and would sanctify and consecrate those that followed through evangelical doctrine and the Sacraments.

You will say 1. To one who is sick, laboring perilously and at the point of death, aid must be brought as soon as possible, and more effective remedies prepared: but as soon as man fell into mortal sin, he labored under a most dangerous disease: therefore it was fitting that God should come to his aid through the Incarnation, which is the remedy and most efficacious means of removing the sickness of sin. —

I distinguish the major: if it be thus expedient for curing the sickness, I concede; otherwise, I deny. Now it was not expedient for healing man's infirmity that he should cure him by the Incarnation as soon as he fell into sin: lest he either despise that remedy out of pride, or consider it owed to him: he ought therefore first to acknowledge his own infirmity, poverty, and weakness, and thus more effectually implore the charity of the physician.

You will say 2. From 1 Timothy 1: Christ came into this world to save sinners: but more would have been saved if from the very beginning of the world they had been enlightened by his doctrine, grace, and examples: therefore, etc. —

The Seraphic Doctor answers, that divine wisdom, and the chief order of providence, require that the common good be preferred to the private good, and the perfection of the whole universe to the perfection of any single person: and therefore it pleased the Creator of the universe to reserve the benefit of the Incarnation for the last age, that he might show forth in some the benignity of mercy, preserve in others the severity of justice, yet pour out his grace upon all more abundantly. Where sin abounded, grace did more abound. Whence it is that he furnished sufficient means to men in every age of the world, whereby, if they wished, they could merit their salvation.

You will say 3. And that against the second part: things done through many are done in vain which can be accomplished through fewer: but men could have been saved through the last advent of Christ the Lord: therefore the prior advent was superfluous for the salvation of men. —

I distinguish the major: if they be thus opportunely done, I concede; otherwise, I deny. To the minor I say, that although indeed men could have been saved through a single advent of Christ, had God so ordained that whoever placed in him their faith, hope, and love would straightway have been predestined, even as the holy Angels were predestined because of the obedience rendered to God by man in a single moment of time, as St. Bernard holds; nevertheless it was more fitting that men, who are subject to time and succeed one another in their operations, should have various advents of Christ, inasmuch as through them they might advance themselves more diligently and more excellently toward the later one. Hence the same St. Bernard, in Sermon 3 De Adventu, says:

We know a threefold advent of Christ: to men, in men, against men: to men indeed indifferently, not so in men or against men. The first was through the Incarnation: the second takes place through the infusion of sanctifying grace: the third will be through the last appearing of Christ in his majesty. The first in the humility of the flesh: the second in the consecration of the mind: the third in the retribution of the reward. The first was unto the good and the evil, that they might become just: the second only unto the just, that they might persevere in holiness: the third unto the elect and the reprobate, that unchangeably they may pay the penalty, or be illustrious with crowns.

Now it was more fitting that the two prior advents go before, in order that by a just ordination the third might follow.

It is certain from the faith that all men whatsoever are held guilty by the sin of Adam our parent, and bound over to divine justice, and enslaved as debtors to punishment and vengeance: for so the Council of Trent, session 5, canon 2, decreed after the Apostle, in these words:

If anyone asserts that the prevarication of Adam harmed himself alone and not his progeny, and that the holiness and justice which he lost, received from God, he lost for himself alone and not also for us; or that he defiled by the sin of disobedience transferred death and bodily punishments only upon the human race, but not that stain and sin which is death of the soul; let him be anathema: since he contradicts the Apostle who says: By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death: and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned: from which it is plain that we are all constituted in a mass of perdition: from which we are drawn out by the merit of the one Mediator Jesus Christ, who reconciled us to God.

Whether, however, and in what manner it was necessary for the Divine Word to become incarnate for this reparation of the human kind, here shall be resolved.

Note 2. Omitting the various divisions of necessity, as regards the present undertaking, I posit two kinds: one indeed absolute, the other hypothetical. Absolute is that by which a thing cannot be otherwise, and that either simply, so that it is a contradiction and repugnance for it to be otherwise; thus it is necessary that God exist. Hypothetical necessity is that by which something is said to be necessary on the hypothesis that it so be. Thus, on the hypothesis that a man run, it is necessary that he be moved: but it is not necessary that he run. The first necessity is called of irritability by St. Anselm, book 2, Cur Deus homo, chapter 1. The second of immutability, because it is sought from the immutability of God, both in his entity and in his decrees. Or, as the Theologians customarily speak, the first is a necessity of the antecedent, the second truly a necessity of the consequent. Moreover, here there is no question of absolute necessity, and simply invincible: for no Theologian was ever one who asserted the Incarnation to have been so necessary that it would imply a contradiction for God not to become incarnate: but the question is moved concerning the necessity of immutability, and the hypothetical: seeing that there are some who judge it necessary for God to have become incarnate on the hypothesis that man had fallen. Thus St. Anselm seems to think throughout the whole first book of Cur Deus homo: to whom subscribe Richard of St. Victor, book De Incarnatione, chapter 1., Raymond Lull in his brief introductory Art to all sciences, eighth demonstration; who nevertheless seem to decline from the opinion of St. Anselm in this, that they do not pronounce absolutely that the Incarnation was necessary supposing the fall of man, but only on the hypothesis that God should will to advance fallen man to his former innocence, and to the beatific state, unto which he had formed him. St. Anselm, however, seems to teach both.

Note 3. This twofold necessity, both absolute, and respective and hypothetical, can be regarded in two ways with respect to the end, namely either absolutely, or secundum quid. That is said to be absolutely necessary without which a thing cannot be obtained: thus a ship is necessary for crossing the sea. Secundum quid truly, that which conduces only to an end to be attained in an easier and more perfect manner: thus a horse is said to be necessary for a man in good health to undertake a journey. It is certain, however, that the Incarnation is necessary secundum quid for the redemption of men, because by it satisfaction was made to God in a more excellent and efficacious manner, and provision and counsel were supplied for our miseries and calamities more abundantly and more salubriously. Whence the discourse here is to be only of the absolute necessity of the Incarnation for the salvation of men.

Two things therefore come here to be determined: First, whether supposing the fall of man, it was necessary for God to become incarnate, that he might restore him,

Second, whether on the hypothesis that God willed to ordain the restoration of man, he had need to effect it through the Incarnation.

First Conclusion. — The Incarnation, supposing the fall of man, was not simply necessary for God.

Proof first from sacred Scripture. Wisdom 2. Who will charge thee with injustice if the nations perish, which thou hast made? It would not therefore turn to the prejudice of justice for God, if he should leave fallen man forever in the state of his misery. And Jeremiah 12. Can the potter himself make vessels of the house of Israel? Therefore God can, short of injustice, by his supreme liberty repair fallen man, or cast off the lost one, as the potter can refuse to restore a broken vessel to wholeness.

Reason also favors this: for God works all things ad extra according to the counsel of his own will, and in modulating all his operations he is most free, and far removed from every coaction and necessity; seeing that nothing of perfection accrues to him or recedes from him on account of the salvation or perdition of a creature: therefore he is impelled by no necessity to receive and restore fallen man; and presently he is led by no necessity to undertake the Incarnation. This truth will be made plainer by the following consideration, but first must be resolved the arguments by which St. Anselm seems to assert the contrary.

He objects therefore: First, book 1. Cur Deus homo, chapters 2. 4. The purpose of God cannot be evacuated: but God, in creating man, had purposed to advance him to eternal beatitude, which he cannot attain so long as he lies in his fall: therefore it was necessary for God, lest his purpose prove frustraneous, and lest what he had purposed concerning man be utterly annihilated, and the human kind, so precious a work of his, perish altogether, that he repair him from his fall: but this could not be done except through the Incarnation of the Word: therefore it was simply necessary. —

I answer. From this argument nothing else follows than that it would have been fitting indeed for God to repair fallen man, but not that he was driven to it by any necessity. Or if there be any such necessity, certainly no other than one of consequence, drawn from the immutability of his purpose, which assuredly does not imply absolute necessity: for it does not follow, says the Seraphic Doctor in the same place, if God repairs by the necessity of his immutability, that therefore he does not repair by the liberty of his benignity: for these can stand together. Add that even if God had some decorum and necessity of repairing men, he was not therefore bound to accomplish it necessarily through the Incarnation; since there was supplied to him a varied and manifold mode of saving men, even if the Word had not become incarnate, as will appear below.

They object 2. chapter 21. It is not fitting that supreme wisdom permit the noblest creature universally to be defrauded of its end: but unless the reparation of fallen man intervene, all men created unto eternal beatitude would be defrauded of their end, and thus all the sons of men would have been constituted in vain, since everyone is unjust who does not render to God what he owes: and no unjust man, says St. Anselm, is admitted to beatitude, since as beatitude is a sufficiency in which there is no indigence, so it befits no one in whom justice is not pure, so that there be no injustice in him: therefore it was necessary for God by reason of his divine wisdom to restore fallen man, and to advance him to his due end.

I answer. The solution of the former argument serves also sufficiently for the present one: for from it is understood only that it was congruent indeed to the divine wisdom that God should raise man up from his fall, and advance and order him toward his end; but not that this was absolutely necessary: since God, as we said, is most free in his operations ad extra, and whatever benefit he bestows he lavishes especially upon sinners, not from constraining necessity, but from overflowing mercy and goodness.

You will object. Wisd. chapters 16 and 17. It would be unseemly, and therefore impossible, to leave forever diminished the number of Angels, as being the most excellent creatures: yet that number could not be restored from those who had fallen; since an Angel once fallen cannot be reconciled to God through penance. Nor could that number be repaired through other Angels newly created, because those who were to be substituted ought to be such as those who fell would have been had they not sinned: but they could not be such without the former Angels, who fell, being better if they had persevered than the later Angels would have been, who were to be created after their fall: since the former, had they persevered, would have done so with no punishment of sin seen, nor strict chastisement of God upon his enemies: whereas the latter, newly created, would persevere only after that punishment had been witnessed: but it is more excellent and more perfect to persevere in grace with no example seen of the divine justice vindicating sin, than to persevere on account of that example: because the former perseverance proceeds from the pure and sole motive of divine love, while the latter has fear mixed in; and the act elicited simply from the motive of love is more excellent than that elicited from the motive of fear: therefore the former manner of persevering would be more excellent than the latter. From these things St. Anselm infers that the ruin of the Angels must be repaired out of another nature than the Angelic: but no other nature was apt for this than the human: therefore it was necessary for human nature to be raised up to supply the number of the Angels. But where it had fallen, it could not be advanced to that elevation unless it were raised up and restored to its pristine innocence: therefore it was necessary for it to be saved, and consequently for God to have a Savior, which he obtained only through the Incarnation.

I answer. All those consequences are utterly void. First, for it was not absolutely necessary, but only congruent, to restore and supply the number of the Angels; for, as we said from Wisdom, What shall hinder him if the nations perish? since God owes the sinner nothing by justice except punishment. Secondly, it appears less true that the number of the Angels could not be restored from those who had fallen, or from others newly created; since we proved in Volume 2 that it involves no contradiction that Angels can be recalled to penance through the aid of divine grace; for the hardening of those in evil arises chiefly from the aid of grace being denied them. God could equally supply that number through Angels newly created: both because it was not necessary that it be restored from Angels equally good with those who fell, since it was free for God to constitute and order otherwise; and also because God by his grace could bring it about that Angels newly created would be even better than those who had fallen; for the grace of God is not less efficacious for preserving and increasing goodness and justice than the chastisement of God and his vindication for punishing. Finally, even if the number of the Angels were to be repaired through men, still it would not follow that those men were to be restored through the Incarnation of the Word; since by very many other modes, even setting aside the Incarnation, God was able to liberate man and make safe what had perished, as he will judge.

Second conclusion. — THE INCARNATION WAS NOT SIMPLY NECESSARY, EVEN ON THE HYPOTHESIS THAT GOD DECREED TO RESTORE AND SAVE FALLEN MAN. This is common among Theologians.

It is proved first from Scripture, which commends the Incarnation as a most excellent work, and a benefit of the love, mercy, and liberality of God. Thus John 3: So God loved the world, as to give his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting. To Titus 3: According to his mercy he saved us. And 1 John 4: In this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him: but the work of the charity, mercy, and benignity of God is not a work of necessity, but of supreme liberty: therefore the Incarnation, through which God restored men, was not in any way from necessity.

St. Anselm responds, book 2, Cur Deus homo, chapter 5.

That a twofold necessity must be distinguished: the one which compels someone unwilling to confer a benefit, because he cannot do otherwise: and this necessity, he says, of benefiting takes away or diminishes grace; for when anyone benefits against his will by that necessity to which he is subject, either no gratitude, or less, is owed him: the other, indeed, through which rather the gratitude of the benefactor is increased, because he has freely subjected himself to this necessity: when he submits himself to the necessity of benefiting, and does not sustain it unwillingly, then surely he merits greater gratitude for the benefit; for this ought not to be called necessity, but grace, because he undertakes or keeps it under no compulsion, but freely. Such is the case when one vows a purpose of holy living; for although after the vow it must be kept of necessity, lest he incur the damnation of the apostate, and although he can be compelled to keep it if he should be unwilling, yet if he keeps not unwillingly what he has vowed, he is not less but more grateful to God than if he had not known it, since he denied himself not only the common life but also its license for the sake of God: nor is he to be said to live holily of necessity, but with the same liberty by which he vowed it. Wherefore much more if God does good to man, whom he has begun, although he ought not to fall away from the good begun, we must impute the whole to grace; because this he began on our account, not on his own, needing nothing; for it did not lie hidden from him what man was about to do when he made him, and yet by his goodness, creating him spontaneously, he bound himself to perfect the good begun.

Such are the words of St. Anselm; by which he signifies that because God created man, whom he foreknew would sin, and consequently that it would be necessary for one of the divine persons to become incarnate, who would redeem him, and nevertheless produced him freely and permitted him to sin, therefore he willed to undergo this necessity of his own accord; and consequently nothing was derogated from his liberality, grace, love, and benignity thereby. — But this response does not meet the authorities cited above, for

Scripture openly intimates the free and supremely merciful will of God after the fall in repairing man, and in that mode of reparation which he chose among all those which he was able to employ for that office, as we shall say presently.

Passing over the Arians, where he had said that God fittingly undid the malediction through the Incarnation of the Word, which He had threatened, saying: Earth thou art, and into earth shalt thou go, he subjoins this objection of the Arians: But it could have been so even if the Savior were a creature, or merely spoke, and thus undo the malediction: which he solves in this manner: God could without the advent of Christ merely speak, and undo the malediction: here it must be considered what is useful to men, not what lies within the power of God. — The same is said by very many holy Fathers. St. Leo, sermon 2. On the Nativity, chapter 3. A marvelous thing, he says, is the mercy of God, to whom ineffably many ways lay ready for repairing the human race, and who chose above all this way of consulting for us, whereby to destroy the work of the devil he would employ not the power of might but the reason of justice. St. Bernard subscribes, Epistle 190. Who denies, he says, that by the nod of the Omnipotent there could have been other and other modes of our redemption, justification, and liberation? — More openly, however, St. Augustine insinuates this truth, book On the Christian Struggle, chapter 11, where he says: They are fools who say: the wisdom of God could not otherwise deliver men unless he took upon himself a man, and was born of a woman, and suffered all those things from sinners. And lib. 13. De Trinitate, chapter 10, arguing against those who say that there failed God another mode by which he might deliver men from sin, he says: It is too little thus to refute, so as to assert that this mode, by which God deigns to liberate us through the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, is good and fitting to divine honor: but we must also show that no other possible mode failed God, to whose power all things lie equally subject: but that there has not been, nor ought to have been, another mode more fitting for healing our misery.

Theological reason also gives its suffrage. For first, since God is most free in his operations ad extra, and since he himself was offended by the sins of men, he was able to pardon and remit that offense gratuitously by a simple and gratuitous condonation, exacting no punishment or satisfaction for the fault committed; for this would above all savor of his divine clemency, benignity, and mercy, and his superabounding sufficiency in himself would appear; since indeed thereby he would manifest himself in no wise to need our goods, nor would honor paid by us to him, or denied him, add anything to or detract anything from his perfection or felicity. Add that it seems laudable to every man who has been offended, when he gratuitously pardons an injury inflicted upon him: for this gratuitous remission of an offense is a manifest argument of a generous and magnanimous soul: therefore that equally gratuitous condonation would tend supremely to the honor and glory of God. It is confirmed, because although a Magistrate, or a particular Judge, sometimes cannot leave unpunished an offense even remitted by the man offended and gratuitously pardoned, but according to the prescriptions of the laws is held to prescribe due punishments to the guilty party; yet a prince, for just causes, by his authority over the community, can gratuitously relax the principal punishments from the guilty party according to the prescriptions of the laws, and dismiss him free without any satisfaction: therefore much more will God, by his supreme authority and clemency, be able to condone gratuitously to men the punishments due according to the prescriptions of his divine justice, and exact from them no satisfaction; therefore, even presupposing the fall of men, the Incarnation of the Word was not necessary. —

Then, even if God out of justice necessarily exacted some satisfaction from men for expiating their offense, he could have required it from each man individually guilty; so that each one of men would be bound to satisfy God in his own singular person for original sin contracted from himself: just as any sinner is held to render God satisfaction for all his actual sins: since original sin is contracted by each man for this reason, because his will interpretively was in the will of Adam, so that in him they sinned; why could God not also prescribe to each of men some satisfaction to be rendered voluntarily and freely, for expiating that guilt, which was only interpretively voluntary with respect to each man? — Finally, God was able (as we shall say in the following Question) to confer so great a grace upon some particular man, that his works would become wholly pleasing and acceptable to God for satisfaction on behalf of the whole human race: therefore satisfaction rendered by the God-Man was not absolutely necessary for that end.

You will object 1. The holy Fathers affirming that the Incarnation was absolutely necessary ex hypothesi, that God decreed to liberate man. Thus St. Chrysostom, Homily 10. on John. Our nature fell, he says, in such a manner that it could by no means be restored by anyone whatsoever, except by that most omnipotent hand: for neither otherwise could it be restored, unless he who fashioned it from the beginning stretched forth his hand. Cyril, book 6. of the Treasury, chapter 7. Since, he says, it befitted not the work of God to be imperfect, and it could not otherwise be repaired, God became of necessity man. Ambrose on Hebrews 9. So great was our sin, that we could not be saved otherwise than if the omnipotent Son of God died for us. Leo the Pope, Epistle 81. What reconciliation, he says, could there be, whereby God might be propitiated to the human race, unless the Mediator of God and men took upon himself the cause of all? To these add St. Anselm throughout the whole of book 1. Cur Deus homo, etc. —

I answer, that all those holy Fathers can be expounded by us in the manner in which our Alensis and the Seraphic Doctor expound St. Anselm, when he said it was impossible for God not to become incarnate; and thus it was necessary for man to be redeemed through the Incarnation, such that otherwise it neither could nor ought to have been done. For those Doctors say that St. Anselm spoke only of the necessity of immutability, which proceeds from the decree of the will of God, which God himself, once held, cannot change. Therefore, supposing the divine ordination concerning redeeming man through the Incarnation, we could not otherwise be saved, nor could God deny us this benefit: otherwise he would have been mutable. Secondly, the holy Fathers can be expounded as speaking of the necessity of being better: so that that may be called necessary which is most fitting, and which compensates on every side the loss inflicted by sin: for in this way neither does the disgrace of sin remain without the adornment of justice, and man pays the penalties which he owes, and worthily satisfies God, who can render worthy satisfaction. Finally, they can be expounded as speaking of the necessity conducing to the mode of redemption most perfect that can be conceived: it is certain, moreover, that the most excellent satisfaction for the sins of men that can be conceived is that which is exhibited by the Man-God.

You will object 2. with St. Anselm, book 1. Cur Deus homo, chapter 12: God can accomplish nothing to the prejudice of his divine equity and justice: but if he relaxed the offense of men without due satisfaction, which can be made only by the God-man, he would act against the requirement of his justice, which wills every sin to be punished and the honor taken away from God to be repaid: therefore, etc. —

I distinguish the minor; that it would tend to the prejudice of divine equity and justice according to the reason of the present disposition and ordination of things, I concede: since indeed God decreed that no sin should go unpunished, nor be remitted without satisfaction, either proper or another's: according to the ordination which God could have established, had he willed to succor us by another means, as it was in his liberty, I deny; since the whole justice and equity of God depends upon his divine ordination, and that is considered just and equitable only which accords with the divine will; thence it is clear that if God had disposed the matter otherwise, that decree would not have conflicted with divine equity.

You will object 3. with the same St. Anselm: If sin is not punished, it is left disordered: because as virtue is ordered unto glory, so sin unto punishment: but it beseems not God to leave anything disordered in his kingdom: therefore it beseems not God to leave sin thus unpunished. —

I distinguish the major: that it is disordered to leave sin without punishment, according to the present divine ordination, I concede; since God, as we said just now, wills every sin to pay due penalties: but since God could have disposed the matter otherwise, so equally could he have brought it about that sin should not be ordered absolutely to punishment infallibly to be inflicted.

Finally you will object with the same: If sin is not solved by due satisfaction, nor punished, the consequence is that it lies subject to no law: but this conflicts: both because it would follow that injustice would be freer than justice: because this lies subject to divine providence, while that would lie subject to no law; and equally that injustice would be like unto God; seeing that, like God, it would lie subject to no law: which consequences are altogether absurd: therefore also that whence they are inferred. —

I deny the sequel of the major: since in that case sin and injustice would lie subject to the divine will ordaining them, so that they be remitted gratuitously, just as the works of justice themselves lie subject to it, which by divine ordination ought to receive their due reward, for no other reason than that namely God so decreed and ordained.

By the name of a mere man the Theologians here do not understand a man destitute of sanctifying grace and other supernatural gifts, as Cajetan understood it: but only is signified a man who is not God, nor hypostatically united with any one of the divine persons, such as is Christ the Lord; whence the sense of the question is, whether any man can offer to God a condign satisfaction for all the sins of men, and so merit before Him by his meritorious and satisfactory works that God remit the offence of men and grant them sufficient means for attaining eternal salvation.

Note 2. That satisfaction in general is the payment of a debt: which is defined by the Subtle Doctor in 1. distinc. 5. num. 4. The voluntary rendering of an equivalent, otherwise of what is not owed. The Doctor explains the parts of this definition in the same place. First it is called a rendering, both that it may be distinguished from simple donation, because a rendering is not a simple donation, but the payment of a debt: and also, that it may be signified that satisfaction is an act of justice, and directed toward another; because properly no one renders anything to himself. Secondly it is called voluntary: both because it is an act of the virtue of justice, but every act of moral virtue ought to be voluntary: and also because every rendering which is not voluntary is more a suffering of satisfaction than a satisfaction. Thirdly, of an equivalent: for what is rendered through satisfaction ought to have a certain equality with the debt; and this either according to the geometrical proportion, whereby by distributive justice a greater satisfaction is owed to the worthier injured person than to the less worthy: or according to the arithmetical proportion, whereby by commutative justice so much is given for so much, e.g. a hundred gold pieces are paid for as many debts. When however some satisfaction has all these conditions, it is called perfect: when equality is wanting, it is called de congruo, because the creditor is not bound to accept it from justice, but only from liberality, and congruity: when indeed it is made unto equality, but from goods granted by the creditor, it is said to be de condigno: because although what is rendered be from the grace of the creditor, yet truly the price rendered is equivalent to the debt.

Note 3. By reason of its matter, satisfaction is manifold; for it is made either in the goods of fortune, or of nature, or of honor, or of reverence; but with this distinction, that satisfaction in the goods of nature cannot be made to the injured person except by a certain commutative compensation; for he who has gravely struck another owes him satisfaction by paying from the goods of fortune some price for the penalty of injury and offence. In the goods of fortune however satisfaction ought to be made from the same goods, not indeed always according to the same entity, but according to price and estimation: for he who owes another a hundred coins will satisfy by restoring an equal or matching sum of money, or by donating something equivalent in price, according to common estimation, or at least according to the judgment of a prudent man. Satisfaction moreover in honor is especially attended to, either according to the excellence of the satisfactory work; or according to the dignity of the satisfying person: for as injury grows according to the dignity of the offended person, and the lowliness of the offender; so satisfaction grows according to the excellence of the satisfying person: for the worthier the person doing honor, the more illustrious is the honor.

These things thus premised, two things are here to be resolved. The first, whether any mere creature by ordinary law could condignly satisfy God for the sins of all men. The second, whether at least according to the absolute power of God, and extraordinary dispensation, He could accomplish it.

First Conclusion. — MAN COULD NOT, ACCORDING TO THE PRESENT DISPOSITION OF THINGS, OFFER SATISFACTION DE CONDIGNO, AND UNTO EQUALITY FOR THE SIN OF ALL MEN. This too is the common

For satisfaction to be perfect, it would have to be a rendering of an equivalent, as was said in Note 2: but a mere man could not render an equivalent, both for his own sin and for another's, with every divine pact set aside: therefore neither could he bestow perfect satisfaction.

Not indeed repay an equivalent, because there is no work of man, however endowed with grace, which could repay to God so much honor as was taken from Him by any sin of man: for as through whatsoever sin a peculiar injury is done to God, there would be need for perfect satisfaction, that a peculiar satisfaction also be made for each sin: or that an act so perfect be elicited, which could bestow on God so much honor as was taken from Him through each individual sin: but neither can a mere man accomplish, with the divine pact set aside. Not indeed the first, because no man can elicit so many meritorious acts as offensive acts against God were elicited by sinners. Nor can he accomplish the second, for as by any sin there is a certain and limited indignity and offence; so a meritorious work has a determined reason of merit and honor, nor can it have so much dignity that its merit is equivalent to all the injuries inflicted on God by individual sins. Add that the reason of merit is partly drawn from the acceptance of God; therefore where that does not intervene, as in fact it truly did not, since it appears nowhere, so neither could the satisfaction be equal.

It is confirmed by the authority of the Holy Fathers, who for this reason affirm the necessity of the Man-God for working our salvation, because no Angelic or human creature could accomplish it. Thus above all very many Greek Fathers teach. So St. Athanasius in the Gospel of the Passion and Cross of the Lord, says: When He saw the intolerable malice, neither was the mortal race fit to withstand death, nor could it pay the penalty of its evils, for the excess of malice exceeded every punishment: and seeing at once the goodness of the Father, and that He was fit and able (for Christ is the Power and Wisdom of God) He was moved by His humanity, and had pity on our weakness, and took upon Himself that very weakness... and seeing at once how we were not sufficient for the payment of the penalty, He transferred that very penalty upon Himself. And in the book On the Incarnation of the Word. For since, he says, the Word belongs to the Father and is above all, deservedly He alone could recover all things, and was fit, who should intercede for all. —

St. Basil expounding on Psalm 28 these words, Neither shall brother redeem, shall man redeem, says: Not man merely, but the Man-God Jesus Christ: because no other could offer a worthy price. — Cyril epist.

1. or exegesis, In what manner, he says, could one dead for men, the just for all, pay the price, if we say that passion was that of some mere man? — Damascene lib. 15. and 19. says the action of Christ, and His Passion, were salutary for this reason, because they were divine: For, he says, it could not befit a human action. — Chrysostom Homil. 10. on John. Our nature fell, he says, in such a way that it could in no wise be restored by anyone, save by that most omnipotent hand: for neither could it otherwise be restored, unless He who fashioned it in the beginning had stretched forth His hand. — To these the Latin Fathers give assent, over whom presides St. Cyprian, or whoever is the author of the book On the cardinal works of Christ, where he says: Since for original death there could be no remedy except in the death of Christ, nor could any offering reconcile God to the exiled and condemned, except the singular sacrifice of this blood. —

St. Ambrose lib. 1. on Luke. What so great a leader would there be, who should profit all, unless He who is above all? Who would establish me above the world, unless He who is greater than the world? etc. —

St. Augustine in the Enchiridion c. 10. Nor would we be freed through him, the mediator man Christ Jesus, unless he were God. — Fulgentius On the Incarnation and grace, cap. 4. after the middle. The Word therefore God, he says, the only-begotten Son of God, who is in all things, as He Himself testifies, the beginning, and end: so did He begin initialiter according to His human nature, nourished not by flesh: so dying in the same flesh God paid the final debt of human nature: for so far would human nature bear away the sin of the world to be removed, and become fit, unless through union with the Word of God it passed, not by natural confusion, but only personally. — Finally St. Leo Serm. 1. On the Nativity says: Unless He were true God, He would not have brought the remedy. And Serm. 12. on the Passion of the Lord: Since therefore, he says, the miserable posterity of the first man had fallen together at once with the wound, nor could any merits of Saints overcome the condition of that death, there came from heaven a singular physician. — From which and similar oracles of the Holy Fathers it openly appears that satisfaction for the sins of the human race could not by the ordinary way be offered to God by any man whatsoever, however holy. Whether however it could be done by the extraordinary way, and through the absolute power of God, the Second Conclusion will disclose.

Second Conclusion. — A MERE MAN COULD HAVE SATISFIED GOD WITH EQUALITY FOR THE SINS OF THE HUMAN RACE, BY THE ABSOLUTE POWER OF GOD, AND ACCORDING TO HIS EXTRAORDINARY DISPOSITION. This is the teaching of the Subtle Doctor in book 3, distinction 20, number 9, where, attacking the opinion of St. Anselm, who says that it was absolutely necessary for God to become man in order to make satisfaction for men, he says:

Against what he says in the third article, that none but a man ought to make satisfaction, this does not seem absolutely necessary: for one who is not a debtor can make satisfaction for another, just as he can pray for another. Wherefore as Christ, an innocent man and not a debtor, made satisfaction: so, had it pleased God, one good Angel could have made satisfaction by offering something pleasing to God on our behalf, which He would have accepted for all sins: for every created oblation is worth as much as God accepts it for, and no more. Moreover, one mere man could have made satisfaction for all, if he had been conceived without sin, as was possible by the operation of the Holy Spirit and of the Mother; even as Christ was; and God would have given him the fullness of grace, which he could have received, even as He gave it to Christ, without preceding merits, out of His liberality: for such a man could have merited the remission of sin even as he could have merited beatitude.

— And then, answering the claim of St. Anselm, namely that there is required on the part of the one satisfying that he offer to God more than the whole of creation is worth, he says at number 8:

I believe that, saving his reverence, this is not true: for satisfaction for the sin of the first man did not need to exceed the whole creation formally in magnitude and in perfection; for it would have sufficed to offer to God a greater good than the evil of that man sinning was. Wherefore if Adam, through grace given and charity, had had one act, or many acts, of loving God for His own sake, with a greater effort of free choice than was the effort in > sinning; such love would have sufficed for redeeming his sin, and satisfaction would have been made. And then that proposition is false, that he ought to have offered to God something greater than all that for which he ought not to have sinned: but just as for the love of a creature, as an object lovable, he ought not to have sinned: so in making satisfaction to God he ought to have offered something greater, attaining objectively through his act more than a creature is; namely, a love attaining Him for His own sake, and that love objectively, as terminated in God, exceeds the love of a creature, just as God exceeds the creature. Wherefore just as he sinned by love of a baser object infinitely: so he ought to have made satisfaction by love of a nobler object infinitely, and this would have sufficed, at least possibly.

Thus the Doctor; wherein he teaches First, that God could have formed some man who would not be from the stock of Adam, nor infected with his sin, and could have conferred upon him the same fullness of grace which He bestowed upon Christ the Lord: and could have agreed with him that his good works should avail unto the remission of sin, and unto the merit of beatitude for other men, just as He agreed with Christ. In which hypothesis that man, from perfect justice, could have satisfied God for the guilt of the whole human race. Secondly, God could also have agreed with Adam repenting, insofar as he was the head of the human race, that by acts of the love and charity of God, and other acts of piety and penance, he should make satisfaction both for his own sin and for the sin of his posterity, because by reason of that pact God would have accepted those meritorious acts, so that as much honor should be rendered to Him as had been taken away by the sins. For that these things could be done, no repugnance appears: therefore so it could have happened.

It is proved further: If a mere man could not make satisfaction with equality, chiefly because the works of such a just man could not have that condignity unto the expiation and payment of sin: but the consequence is false; therefore, etc. The minor is proved: hence those works would not have that condignity, because, as very many Thomists hold, sin has a certain infinity in the order of malice; but no creature can expiate and pay for infinite malice: yet this argument is worthless. I prove it: Either they speak of the extrinsic and objective infinity which sin has, inasmuch as it is committed against God, because He is an infinite object; or of the formal and intrinsic infinity. But the first does not prevent that malice from being paid for by a mere man; because the satisfactory works of a just man would tend also to God, as to an infinite object: therefore they likewise have that extrinsic infinity. But the second is false, because, as the Doctor proves in book 3, distinction 19, number 18, and in book 1, distinction 19, number 2, question 1, no sin is formally malice of infinite kind; for if sin were of infinite malice formally and intrinsically, no one could offend God more gravely by one sin than by another, and thus the offense would be no graver if anyone offered irreverence directly to God than if he killed a man or stole; which is absurd. The sequel is evident: because if the offense which is in theft be infinite, that offense which is in irreverence cannot be greater, since no offense can be conceived greater than infinite.

The Thomists reply, that offense and injury increase according to the dignity of the person against whom they are committed: for, other things being equal, the injury is graver if a prince is struck with blows by a commoner than if a commoner is struck by a prince: whence Aristotle, book 5 of the Ethics, chapter 5, says: If anyone holding office strikes someone, it is not fitting that he be struck back; and if anyone strikes him who holds office, he must not only be struck back, but also punished. Therefore since sin is committed against God, who is of infinite dignity, it is judged to have infinite malice. —

The consequence, however, I deny: for if it were a legitimate inference, it would follow equally that the beatific vision would be of intrinsic infinite dignity: for just as the more dignified the person offended, the graver the offense, so the more excellent the object, the more perfect also is the vision: therefore if the offense against a person of infinite dignity be of infinite malice, the vision of an object of infinite perfection will also be infinite: therefore just as this latter consequence is false — otherwise the acts of a pure creature would be intrinsically infinite — so too is the former false. — Therefore from it only this may be inferred, that the offense against a more dignified person, other things being equal, is graver than that which would be inflicted upon a less dignified person; wherefore just as the clear vision of God is more worthy than vision of an inferior object, yet is not an infinite act, because it tends in a finite manner toward its object: so the offense against God is graver than another offense: yet it is not infinite. Hence those acts indeed increase according to the greater perfection of the object according to a geometrical proportion; so that those acts which are concerned, whether by way of honor or of offense, with a more worthy object, have a greater dignity, or indignity, than those which tend in such wise to a less worthy object: but they ought not to increase according to an arithmetical proportion; so that an act tending toward some object should have as much perfection as the object toward which it tends has.

You insist. Although sin in the order of act is something finite, yet in the order of offense and aversion from God it is something infinite: for the malice of aversion is as great as the good which one spurns: therefore since sin, as offense, is something infinite, satisfaction of infinite dignity is required. —

I deny the antecedent: for that aversion from God either means only the privation of sanctifying grace, or the moral deformity and malice of sin. If the first, the offense cannot be infinite; for the gravity and deformity of a privation is not drawn from the object or end, but from the form which ought to inhere. Wherefore just as the pain of loss, which is the perpetual lack of the divine vision, is finite intensively, since it deprives only of the clear vision of God, which ought to inhere in the intellect as its perfective form; while it deprives of God only insofar as He is the object of that vision: so mortal sin, since it deprives either immediately of the due rectitude of the act, or of sanctifying grace as the physical form due to the subject, will be only a finite offense, although God, to whom grace converts, be infinite. If the second, since the malice of sin is something finite, the offense also will be finite: for sin is called an offense of God not because it injures God, or takes away anything intrinsic to Him — for on that account it would be judged infinite intrinsically — but because it is an evil which displeases God.

They urge. For every mortal sin, whether actual or original, infinite punishment is owed: therefore it is of infinite malice. —

I distinguish the antecedent: that infinite punishment is owed as regards intensity, I deny; as regards extension and duration, I concede. For this punishment is not inflicted because sin has infinite malice; but because, together with taking away grace, without which sin cannot be remitted, it also renders sinners unworthy of all future grace, therefore it is judged to be an incurable wound. But since punishment is owed to sin as long as it remains, therefore, since the sin of the damned remains forever, punishment is likewise owed to them forever: and hence it is eternal and infinite as to duration, although finite as to intensity. Or otherwise I answer by denying the consequence: for if the inference were valid, it would follow that our meritorious work would be likewise of infinite value, because through it we merit an eternal reward, and of infinite duration. Therefore there does not seem to be a more fitting reason why God willed final sin to be punished with eternal punishment, just as a good work is to be given an eternal reward, than because it so pleased Him; for although that punishment exceeds the malice of sin speaking extensively, nevertheless God could justly prescribe it, because the infliction of it is rather to be attributed to the sinner, who suffers it, than to God, who prescribes it, inasmuch as the sinner most freely performs those actions against the dictate of right reason on account of which that punishment of eternal duration would be inflicted.

You urge again. Although sin does not grow univocally, nor according to arithmetical proportion, according to the dignity of the person against whom it is committed; nevertheless satisfaction is to be measured from the dignity, or lowliness, of the one satisfying; wherefore, since man is far inferior to God, and appears most vile in the sight of that divine majesty, thence it comes about that nowhere can man of himself worthily satisfy God for sin. —

I deny the antecedent: for satisfaction is not always diminished on account of the lowliness of the person; otherwise an inferior, who had injured a superior, could never make satisfaction to him, unless at least he rendered him more than he had taken away; which is false; indeed, if the injury be in goods of fortune, some peasant will worthily satisfy a Prince for a hundred gold pieces taken away, if he render him the same number; similarly if the offense were against reputation, he can make restitution, either by denying that he said anything to the prejudice of so great a Prince, or by celebrating him with praises. Nor does it matter that those who thus injure a Prince are accustomed sometimes, besides this satisfaction, to be chastised with a graver penalty; for that is done for terror, lest others should have an easier occasion for thus detracting from so great a Prince. Finally, if the injury be done to honor, although satisfaction may appear more difficult, because nothing is esteemed so great that a vile person should humble himself and cast himself down before the Prince: nevertheless his humiliation can be so great, and his love toward the Prince so great, that he expose himself to grave peril for the safety and life of the Prince; whereby it will come to pass that the Prince judges him worthy to whom he may equally remit the offense. Thence it appears that man, although far inferior to God — as the peasant is to the Prince — nevertheless, elevated and upheld by His divine grace, will be able to bestow upon Him an equivalent satisfaction for sin, especially since the sins of men take away from God no intrinsic good, but are said to offend and injure Him only insofar as they displease Him. Add that the love of God above all things pleases God as much as sin displeases Him. —

The preceding argument is confirmed; for it does not conflict with its being done, nor ought it to be denied of God, because it involves no contradiction: but no contradiction appears in that a mere man should render to God as much as has been taken away by sin, both his own and that of others: therefore, etc. The major stands. The minor is proved; for for worthy and equal satisfaction only this is required, that the work of satisfaction be equivalent in value and dignity to the debt, and that God accept it as compensatory of the debt: for the merit of man, and the value of his good works, is sought chiefly from pact and divine acceptation, as we shall prove in the Treatise On Grace, the Disputation on Merit: but a just man can elicit an act of as great goodness as was the malice of Adam's sin, especially if he be free from original sin and endowed with the highest grace: therefore a mere man could satisfy with equality for the sins of others. —

This argument is confirmed again, and illustrated by this example: God could have stipulated a covenant with Adam, that if he did not sin, but merited an increase of his justice, He would transmit such justice, together with its increase, to posterity; for if the pact was sufficient to transmit justice, so was it sufficient to transmit its increase: but if Adam could do this by pact, and by reason of divine acceptation, by a similar reason another mere man could, through his meritorious works, transfer aids and justifying grace, so that others might be cleansed from sins: and consequently he could satisfy de condigno for them by the acceptation of God.

You will object 1. All the holy Fathers praised in the preceding Conclusion, affirming that no man had been fit to repair the fall of the human race, and therefore that it had been necessary for the Son of God to become incarnate, who might bestow a due and fitting satisfaction for the sins of the human race to the eternal Father. —

I answer, the authorities of the holy Fathers do not stand against us: for indeed we may reply with the Doctor in 1. distinc. 15. q. 1. that they are to be understood of conditional necessity, and ex suppositione, that God willed to employ a more excellent remedy than the worse disease required, and that the price of merit should far surpass the debt, so that where sin abounded, grace might superabound also. Or we may reply with the same Doctor in 3. dist. 20. num. 10 that God therefore decreed that satisfaction be bestowed through His proper Son, that we might be bound to Him by the bond of a greater benefit:

For, says the Doctor, therefore we are much bound to Him, since man could have been redeemed otherwise, and yet out of His free will He so redeems him, we are much bound to Him, and more than if it were so necessary, and we could not have been redeemed otherwise: therefore, to draw us to His love (as I believe) He did this especially: and because He willed man to be more bound to God: as if someone had first begotten a man, and afterwards instructed him in discipline and holiness, he would be more obliged to him, than if he had only begotten him, and another had instructed him: but this is congruity, not necessity.

— Or with the same Doctor in the same place, we may reply, that the holy Fathers intended nothing else than that de facto, ex suppositione of the divine ordination and law truly instituted, no one could worthily satisfy God except the God-Man, as was said in the preceding Conclusion: but this does not conflict with the present Conclusion, which does not treat of what was done, but of what could be done. — Or finally I say, the holy Fathers can be expounded thus, that they wish, that no mere man could have satisfied de condigno for the sins of the human race: such that, for example, the satisfaction of Adam exhibited by himself, insofar as it proceeded from him, could not have force morally to move God to remit sins; but the satisfaction of Christ obtained this, insofar as it proceeded from Him; for since it proceeded from a divine person, it could of itself sufficiently move God to forgive sin, although not so necessarily but that He could not forgive that sin, even though satisfaction had been exhibited by Christ, unless there intervened a pact to forgive sin on account of that satisfaction exhibited by a divine person. Yet it does not follow from this, that, a similar ordination and divine pact intervening, a mere man, especially one who would not be propagated from Adam, nor infected by his sin, and who would have the highest grace, could not render a satisfaction worthy of God for the sins of men.

You will object 2. That satisfaction cannot be worthy in which the favor of the creditor intervenes, and which is made from gifts freely accepted from the creditor: but such would be the satisfaction of a mere man, because it would have its value only from sanctifying grace gratuitously granted to him, and from the most free acceptation of God: therefore it could not be unto equality, nor from pure justice. —

I distinguish the major: if that grace granted, and gratuitous acceptation, be antecedent to the satisfaction, that satisfaction cannot be worthy, I concede: if only consequent, I deny. To the minor I say, that both the grace granted, and the gratuitous acceptation of God, whereby He would receive the satisfaction exhibited to Him by a mere man, would be consequent upon that satisfaction bestowed by Him, and thus they do not prevent it from being worthy: because although that ordination, or law, depended on the mere and gratuitous will of the creditor; nevertheless once granted, by means of it the debtor acquires a right of justice, both in that which has been gratuitously given to him, namely in grace liberally granted to him; which although it was given gratis, nevertheless when he possesses it, it is his own property, and he can use it, or not use it, at his pleasure for performing meritorious and satisfactory works: and likewise in the condition, which he fulfills, which stands in the manner of merit, so that recompense be rendered to him, or debt remitted, when he has fulfilled that condition: for he who fulfills the pact merits to receive that reward concerning which agreement had been made.

You will object 3. If a mere man could have made satisfaction for all the sins of men, it would follow that we are not greatly beholden to Christ our Lord: since we could have been redeemed by another: but the consequent openly militates against Sacred Scripture, and no less against Christian piety: therefore also against that from which it follows. —

I deny the sequel of the major; for, as we said just now with the Subtle Doctor, we are so much the more beholden to God because, although He could have saved us in another way, He yet spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all; for far more beholden would a peasant be to the King whom he had offended, if, to compensate the injury which the King could freely forgive, or discharge in another way, he were to substitute his own son in the place of that commoner, that he might exhibit to him a satisfaction worthy of the offense; but were to dismiss that commoner exempt from punishment and satisfaction.

You will object 4. A mere man could not make satisfaction except through the mediation of habitual grace: but habitual grace is not a principle of meriting condignly anything other than eternal life and the increase of grace for the man who uses that habitual grace worthily: therefore it cannot be a principle of meriting for others, by condignity, the forgiveness of sin. —

I distinguish the minor: according to the present ordination, I concede it; according to the possible, I deny it; for nothing hinders God from being able to accept an act of charity of a just man for another reward than for eternal life; for if a man had the fullness of grace, through the mediation of which he would have a right to eternal life corresponding equally to that grace itself, so that God would not in any way wish to accept his works as meritorious of an increase of grace, or of glory for the man himself operating them (just as in fact the meritorious works of Christ did not profit Himself, nor toward more abundant graces, whose plenitude He had from the beginning of His conception; nor toward a more ample beatitude of soul, whereby He enjoyed God), it would be most absurd that God could not accept those merits for other rewards to be conferred on those very persons for whom the lowly man would exhibit his merits to God.

You will object 5. No one could make satisfaction sufficiently to God for all the benefits received from Him: therefore much less will he be able to make satisfaction for the sins of all. The consequence is evident, because man is constituted debtor no less for a sin committed than for benefits received. —

I deny the consequence, because for making satisfaction for benefits another grace is required, for which no satisfaction could then be made, or the process would go on to infinity; which process would not arise if one were to make satisfaction for all sins. Add that the antecedent could be denied, for just as he who deserves for his sin the penalty of temporal death can make condign satisfaction for it, namely by exhibiting such service for the utility of the king, or of the commonwealth, as to be worthy to have life bestowed upon him by the supreme authority; in the same way one could make satisfaction for another, and compensate the penalty of death that was owed.

You will object 6. One man cannot make satisfaction for the sin of another, in expiation of which the latter deserved the penalty of death: therefore much less will he be able to make satisfaction to God for a sin which deserves eternal death. —

I deny the consequence: and the reason of the disparity is that a man making satisfaction for the sins of others: for just as sin merits eternal punishment, so a meritorious work merits eternal life; and hence it seems a condign satisfaction, when a meritorious work is exhibited in compensation for mortal sin and its eternal penalty: because it plainly renders an equivalent work, which merits eternal life.