Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

Note 1. That the heretics against whom we do battle freely concede that Christ Jesus born of the Virgin glories in the name of God, since august Scripture frequently and openly attributes that name to Him: but they contend that this name is attributed to Him no otherwise than to certain creatures which are honored with that title; although He claims it for Himself in a more excellent and more divine manner, on account of the ampler, richer communication of divinity which He obtained at the very beginning of His formation, through the operation and power of the Most High descending into the Virgin. Therefore before that rising and birth He neither was God nor obtained any appellation of Son of God. Two things therefore are here to be proved: First, that Christ is true God: Secondly, that He existed prior to His birth from the Virgin.

Note 2. The divinity of Christ becomes known chiefly by two ways; namely, either by the clear texts and oracles of both the Old and New Divine Testament, or from His wondrous operations in commendation and assertion of His divinity: since God is truth by essence, to whom it cannot happen either to deceive or be deceived; thence it is clear that oracles proceeding from Him bear certain and constant truth, nor can anything unusual beyond the order of nature ever be wrought by anyone in defense of falsity or error: whence if He has attested by clear oracles that Christ is true God, and the true Son of God, likewise if He has exercised His omnipotence in working deeds above the forces of nature in assertion of the divinity of Christ, it can be doubtful to no one however unskilled in Christian truth that Christ is to be confessed true God; therefore from this twofold head especially must the divinity of Christ be gathered and asserted.

Note 3. The name of divinity is attributed to someone either by delegation: thus Angels, who appeared instead of God to the holy Patriarchs and Prophets, are called by the name of God: or by ministry: thus Exodus (7) 1 Moses is called god of Pharaoh, because by his wondrous works he exercised the power and justice of God: or by usurpation: thus demons were called gods by the gentiles: For all the gods of the gentiles are devils, Psalm 95: or by imitation: thus the just, and emulators of divine sanctity, are sometimes illustrated with the name of God in the Scriptures; hence Christ our Lord John 10 commands: If He called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken, etc. Or by assimilation, and exercise of power and justice: thus Psalm 81, God addressing princes and judges said: I have said: You are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High; but you shall die like men, etc.: Or finally by nature and essence, which is the proper and genuine attribution and signification of the name of God, of which alone there will be question in the present.

Single Conclusion. — CHRIST IS TRUE GOD, AND THE TRUE SON OF THE ETERNAL FATHER. This is against the Jews and various heretics.

It is proved first. — From the oracles of the Old Testament, in which the Messiah is named true God. — First indeed from that of Psalm 2, where God the Father addressing the Son says: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee; which text was to be taken of the Messiah was most constant among the Hebrews. Hence Paul Acts 13 and also to the Hebrews 5, that he may prove Christ to be the Messiah, uses those words, which certainly he would not pass over unless he understood the Hebrews so to hold. And indeed if the words be rightly weighed, especially toward the end of the Psalm, it will be evident they can be fitted to the Messiah: for he who is called Son of God says: But I am appointed King by Him over Sion His holy mount. And since this kingdom was not temporal but spiritual, He immediately adds: Preaching His commandment: and then adds: The Lord said to me: Thou art my Son, truly natural and not only by adoption or participation, as is evident from this singular mode of speaking, Thou art my Son, that is, in a nobler and more excellent manner than the others who are only sons by adoption: but Thou specially art my own and natural Son.

They respond 1: THAT THE NEW ARIANS say this our interpretation is altogether fictitious, nor did any one of the most ancient Fathers interpret the aforesaid words of the eternal and divine generation of Christ. — But on the contrary: for besides that, as I said just now, this is plainly gathered from the very signification of the words, the holy Fathers have the same interpretation. For St. Ambrose on the Epistle to the Hebrews, expounding these words of St. Paul: For to which of the Angels has He said at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee? And again: I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son, says:

for this indeed is said without any doubt of the incarnation of the Son: He put the verb of future time, I will be to Him a Father, as He shall be to me a Son. But what He said, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee, He openly manifests, that He same One of whom He says I shall be in the Father is begotten of the very essence of the Father, therefore He put the present tense today: because concerning Him nothing is past or future, but all things always present: for this can be understood even according to the flesh, because flesh communicates with higher things, as divinity deigned to communicate with lowly things.

— The same has St. Chrysostom: These things indeed, he says, were said of flesh, I will be his Father, and he shall be my Son: but when He said, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee, He manifests nothing else than that He is begotten of the very essence of the Father. To them subscribe St. Cyprian book 2 Contra Iudaeos chapter 7; St. Cyril book 8 of the Thesaurus; St. Athanasius responding to the objection of the Arians saying that in the Old Testament no mention of the Son of God was made, which likewise the new Arians inculcate. Tertullian also favors it in the book Contra Praxeam, where of Christ he says: Firstborn, and begotten before all things: and only-begotten, as alone begotten of God: properly of the womb of His heart: according as the Father testifies, to whom rejoicing thereafter, properly rejoicing, that person of His, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee: false therefore is what the new Arians obtrude, that there is none of the ancient Fathers who expounds this passage of the eternal generation of Christ.

They respond 2: That those words are taken otherwise by the Apostle than to signify the eternal generation of Christ: for the Apostle Acts 13 uses them to confirm the resurrection of Christ. Then to the Hebrews 1, to show that Christ had obtained a name more excellent than the Angels: and chapter 5 accommodates these words to celebrating the honor of the priesthood of Christ; therefore they are perversely twisted to express His eternal generation. — But I answer that the various use of the same text does nothing against the divine filiation, and eternal generation, which those words genuinely signify; although by accommodation to other meanings they can also be used; for although these things are truly said of Christ as to human nature, whether rising, sacrificing, or illustrated with the glorious name Jesus; nevertheless that excellence which He has above the Angels competes to Himself from no other source than that He who is man is at the same time also God, and He who is Son of Mary is also Son of God: but this could not truly be said of Christ if He were only man; for Christ by reason of humanity is said not only inferior to the Father but also "a little less" diminished below the Angels. — To the same tends the use of the same words in the fifth chapter of that Epistle: for in that chapter St. Paul opens the difference between Christ the Pontiff and other Hebrew Pontiffs, that He was called by God in a more excellent manner, namely as born of God and Son of God. — Nor does the passage Acts 13 stand in the way; for worst of all do the Adversaries interpret this passage as if Christ only then began to have participated divinity, when He rose from the dead, because, they say, resurrection is a new generation; and if Christ reviving was born, who begot Him? namely God, who raised Him from hell; therefore Paul also to the Colossians, chapter 1, calls the raising up of Christ the firstborn from the dead: and consequently by what is said, this day have I begotten Thee, that time is indicated when Jesus Christ was recalled unto life which death would never afterwards follow; and He gained empire over heaven and earth. This, I say, reasoning of theirs is altogether absurd: for if God is said to have begotten Christ only because He raised Him from hell; therefore the Son also ought to be said begotten of Himself; for by His own power He rose from the dead, according to that: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Likewise: I have power to lay down my life, and to take it again. Then, if He be held begotten of God only in His resurrection; therefore falsely so often did He prove Himself Son of God before His passion, and mendaciously He proclaimed blessed Simon Bariona, that God had said: Thou art Christ the Son of the living God, who camest into this world. — Finally, if from resurrection only the Son of God gained empire over heaven and earth, how could He before His passion command sea and winds, cast out demons, heal diseases, raise the dead, and what is greater, forgive sins? Since therefore the word of begetting is said of resurrection only transferred and secundum quid, another generation of the Son of God older than resurrection must be sought; which if we say it is that whereby He was born of the most holy Virgin, I will indeed gladly confess Jesus the Nazarene conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary to be truly and properly Son of God, and true God of true God; but most constantly I will deny that His divine filiation is to be confessed from that only temporal nativity: since He had it from eternity and before the rising of Lucifer.

It is confirmed from Psalm 109, where the divine Father likewise addressing the Son says: With Thee is the beginning in the day of Thy strength, in the splendors of the saints, from the womb before Lucifer I begot Thee; that this Psalm was written of Christ is not doubted: both because Christ our Lord Himself expounds it so Matthew 22 v. 44, and the Apostle 1 Corinthians 15 v. 25: and because the beginning of this Psalm, The Lord said to my Lord, etc. can be accommodated to none other than Christ. The fourth verse also: The Lord has sworn, etc., is used by the Apostle to the Hebrews c. 1 to confirm the priesthood of Christ: but this part of verse 3, From the womb before Lucifer I begot Thee, although some interpret of the nativity from the Virgin, as Tertullian, others truly of the eternal generation of the Son of God, as Athanasius, Nyssen, etc., nevertheless neither opinion favors the adversaries.

They reply that it is falsely written "before Lucifer," since literally here the sense is: God of thy nativity is from the womb of dawn, whence they subject this interpretation: just so many disciples of Christ, through whom He conquers enemies, as is the density of the morning dew. — But although some Interpreters and Translators have not expressed those words quite like the Vulgate, nevertheless they brought forward nothing alien from that common version: for the Septuagint Interpreters thus translated: From the womb, before Lucifer I begot thee. Aquila truly: "out of that blindness pour upon thee thy dew." Symmachus: Like dew of dawn is thy youth. Theodotion: From the womb of morning is thy youth: but according to the Hebrew idiom, if word be rendered for word, it must be said with Pagninus: From the womb of dawn is the dew of thy nativity to thee; which words although some transfer to the nativity from the most holy Virgin Mother: others truly to those who are reborn in Christ through the preaching of the Gospel: yet they do not sin who interpret the same of the nativity of Wisdom, by which she was begotten before the foundations of the world: but Wisdom of God is Christ: for this the holy Fathers favor, for Hilary lib. 12. De Trinitate: This, he says, is the illustrious voice of the Father concerning that Christ: from the womb before Lucifer I begot Thee, etc. And St. Ambrose book 1 De Fide chapter 6 from these words: Before Lucifer I begot Thee, concludes the Son not to be a creature, since He is begotten of God, not created. St. Epiphanius book 2 tom. 2 after he expounded the various translations of this passage adds: From which discourse you may know that the Word of God is begotten of the substance of the Father by nature, without beginning and without time, before anything was: He said not only Lucifer the single star, and indeed since many are the stars, as Sun and Moon made on the fourth day, but sea, trees and fruits made beforehand, and the firmament of earth approaches, and together with these the Angels were made: for unless Angels too had been created together with heaven and earth, He certainly would not have said to them: when the stars were begotten, all the Angels praised me with voice. Therefore, he says, before Lucifer, as if He said: before anything created existed, the Word was always with the Father: for through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made. To them St. Augustine admirably subscribes in the enarration on Psalm 109, where he says:

If God has a Son, has He perhaps also a womb? But as He has not bodies of flesh, because neither bosom: yet it was said, He who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared. What is bosom, itself is womb, and > bosom: and womb is put for the secret. What is from the womb? from the secret, from the hidden, of myself, of my substance, that is from the womb; for who shall declare His generation? Let us take then the Father saying to the Son: From the womb before Lucifer I begot Thee; what therefore is before Lucifer? Lucifer is put for the stars, as Scripture signifying the whole by a part, and from the eminent star all the stars: but how were these stars made? that they be for signs, and for times, and for days, and years. If therefore the stars are placed for signs and for times, and Lucifer is named for the stars, that which is before Lucifer is before the stars, and that which is before the stars, is before times. If therefore before times, from eternity seek not when: eternity has not when: when, and sometime, are adverbs of time; He is not born of the Father in time, by whom times were made. It was said therefore, as it behoved to be said figuratively and prophetically, that both womb should be put for secret substance, and Lucifer for times.

I judge it must be noted, however, that Saint Augustine also interprets this passage of the birth from the Virgin Mother, which Justin had done before him in the dialogue with Trypho the Jew, and Tertullian, book 3 Contra Marcionem. Against whose opinion many things are disputed by blessed Athanasius in his oration against the Arians, who keenly contends that these words of the Psalm must be understood of the eternal generation of the Word.

It is proved likewise by the testimonies of the Prophet Isaiah, which are so numerous that they cannot all be gathered together without prolixity: but the chief one is sought from chapter 9, where the characters and offices of the coming Messiah are described in these words: Parvulus natus est nobis, et Filius datus est nobis, et factus est principatus eius super humerum eius, et vocabitur nomen eius, Admirabilis, Deus fortis, Pater futuri saeculi, Princeps pacis: multiplicabitur eius imperium, et pacis eius non erit finis; et super solium David sedebit in aeternum: which passage, although certain Hebrews twist it to King Ezechias, they are nevertheless silently refuted; for how was Ezechias Prince of peace, since he waged many wars against the Assyrians? how was his kingdom everlasting, which shortly afterward was scattered by the Babylonians? Whence even the Chaldean has here the express name Messiah. To this is added that he, of whom mention is made, is called God, which appellation simply and absolutely, without any diminishing addition, is ascribed to none but the true God, especially when joined with the appellation strong, and others that sound of divine majesty. — It is confirmed from chapter 38: Deus ipse veniet, et salvabit nos. Tunc aperientur oculi caecorum, etc., where are described all those wondrous effects and stupendous prodigies which the coming Messiah, who is called God, was to work, which signs no one before Isaiah, nor after him any of the Prophets, worked, save Jesus of Nazareth: whence deservedly Matth. 11, when the disciples of John inquired and asked of him in the name of their master: Art thou he that art to come, or look we for another? Jesus answering said to them: euntes renuntiate Ioanni, quae audistis, et vidistis, caeci vident, claudi ambulant, etc. But that the discourse there is about the true God is evident both from these words, God himself will come, and from what precedes, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the beauty of our God: and from the fact that the name of God is expressed by the name Iehovah, which is proper to God. Hence the holy Fathers often use this passage against the Arians, most especially Saint

Athanasius, book De Incarnatione Verbi, and also against the Jews, as Irenaeus, book 3, chapter 22, and Cyprian, book 2 Contra Iudaeos, chapter 1. — It is confirmed again from chapter 13, where of the Messiah it is said: in te est Deus, et non est Deus absque te: vere tu es Deus absconditus, Deus Israel Salvator. But he had premised: haec dicit Dominus, by which he designates the eternal Father speaking to Christ, in whom God is, either because in him dwells all the fullness of divinity corporally, that is substantially, by reason of the divine person; or because God the Father is in the Son, as Saint Ambrose expounds, book 1 De Fide, chapter 2, according to that oracle of Christ: Ego in Patre, et Pater in me est, etc. It is rightly said also to the Son: non est Deus absque te, on account of the unity of nature, because neither is the Father God without the Son, nor is there another God besides the Son, as Nazianzen rightly expounds, oration 19. Finally he is deservedly called a hidden God, on account of the mystery of the humanity assumed, and God Israel the Savior, which is interpreted Jesus; which passage Saint Paul seems to imitate when he said: erat Deus in Christo mundum reconcilians sibi. Add to these what the same Prophet has in chapter 32, where, having brought in God thus speaking: haec dicit Dominus Deus, in Aegyptum descendit populus meus in principio, further on he subjoins: Ego ipse, qui loquebar, ipse adsum: therefore the same God who before spoke through the Prophets, whom the people of Israel worshipped, afterward appeared through the Incarnation: wherefore he subjoins, quam pulchri sunt super montes pedes Evangelizantis pacem, annuntiantis bona. Which the Prophet Baruch explains more clearly in chapter 3, from those words: Hic est Deus noster, down to these: et cum hominibus conversatus est: where he speaks openly of the true God of Israel, who gave the law to his people, whom afterward he says conversed with men, namely made man; for if he were speaking of another apparition, which took place through the ministry of Angels in assumed bodies, or by a merely imaginative or sensible representation, he would not say: post haec in terris visus est; for long before the giving of the law he had been seen in that manner on earth, and had conversed with Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and other holy men. Wherefore since the sacred Letter name Christ absolutely and definitively God, and our God, the true God, God above all to be praised, and God our Savior, and finally Iehovah; it must be concluded that Christ the Lord is God not by nomination or adoption or participation of gifts, but truly by nature and substance.

It is proved secondly. — From the New Testament. — By all those oracles in which Christ is called the true God, and Son of the true God, which we already explained in our third volume De Trinitate, while proving the divinity of the Word: whence I linger only over those in which it is intimated that Jesus Christ existed long before he was born of the Virgin; which, since they cannot be understood of the humanity, which then first existed when Christ the Lord was formed in the womb of the Virgin, must needs be taken of his divinity. Thus Ioannis 8, Christ the Lord himself speaking of himself says: Antequam Abraham fieret, ego sum: but he was not before Abraham according to the flesh, seeing that he existed very many centuries after that most holy Patriarch: therefore that priority must necessarily be understood of his divinity. In like manner the holy Apostle proves it, chapter 1 ad Hebraeos, from those words of Psalm 103: Dilexisti iustitiam, et odisti iniquitatem, propterea unxit te Deus oleo exsultationis pra consortibus tuis. Et tu in principio terram fundasti, et opera manuum tuarum sunt Coeli: ipsi peribunt, tu autem permanebis, et omnes ut vestimentum veterascent, et velut amictum mutabis eos, et mutabuntur: tu autem idem ipse es, et anni tui non deficient. The sense of which words appears here: O God! Thy God, that is, I the Father, have anointed thee, O Son of God, with the oil of gladness; for the Son, who by reason of his eternal nativity acknowledges the Father, acknowledged him also as God by reason of his temporal generation, by which he is less than the Father according to his human nativity: whence it is a common expression with the Apostle, Deus, et Pater Domini nostri Iesu Christi, by which he signifies that by reason of the assumed humanity Christ acknowledges God as God, whom before the Incarnation he acknowledged only as Father. It follows: pra consortibus tuis, that is, brethren, who are the faithful; for of these the Son of God was made partaker in the assumption of flesh and blood. It is subjoined: et tu ab initio Domine terram fundasti, by which he signifies that he who was anointed with the oil of gladness was together with the Father the maker of all things: but in the two following verses he celebrates the eternity of Christ, for all created things shall perish, because they are subject to change and destruction: but thou remaining, namely from eternity to eternity, without beginning and end, because thou art the same thyself, and thy years shall not fail, seeing that thou art an eternal, immortal, and incorruptible God.

The Heretics reply. First, that text must be understood literally of Solomon, and attributed mystically alone through the Apostle to Christ. Secondly, that not God but only man is described there; for he who is anointed, and who acknowledges God, that is, one superior and greater than himself, and who moreover has partakers and companions of the kingdom, is not the eternal God: Christ is anointed, he has God and partakers: therefore he is not God.

Against this. It is false that this oracle must be understood literally of Solomon, and appropriated to Christ mystically only by St. Paul, since from the very text it is clear that most of the things said cannot be understood of Solomon: for he neither founded the earth from the beginning, nor does he remain the same while others fail, since he died long ago. To the second I say that there is the fallacy a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter: for all those things are not said of Christ simply, but secundum quid, namely by reason of the office of Mediator and of the humanity, in respect of which he is both anointed and has God and partakers; but not by reason of his eternal Deity, in respect of which indeed the Son has a Father, but not God the maker.

They reply secondly. That these words cannot be taken of the Son: Tu, Domine, ab initio terram fundasti, but must themselves be referred to the Father; first, because the Apostle would contradict himself, seeing that he had previously said the Father created the world: therefore the Son himself did not create. Secondly, because creation is nowhere else attributed to the Son. Thirdly, because the purpose of the Apostle is to exalt Christ above other men and Angels; but if here he attributed creation to him, he would compare the Creator to the creature, which would be foolish and absurd. Fourthly, it is impiously attributed to the Father, that he calls the Son his Lord: therefore those words are not to be referred to the Son, but to the Father himself.

I deny the antecedent, and to the first proof I say it is false that, because the Father created through the Son, therefore the Son did not create: Quaecumque enim Pater facit, Filius similiter facit, as Christ himself testifies, Ioannis 5. To the second I say it is equally false that creation is nowhere else attributed to the Son, for in the same chapter he testifies:

Pater meus usque modo operatur, et ego operor. And in Psalm. 33 it is said that Verbo Domini Coeli firmati sunt. To the third I say the argumentation of those heretics is altogether foolish and absurd: for the scope of the Apostle is to exalt the Son above the Angels, not simply, but as the God and Lord of the Angels: therefore deservedly he adduces the testimonies of Scripture by which he may demonstrate Christ to be both God and Creator, which the Hebrews did not yet know. To the fourth finally I answer that that calumny of the heretics is blasphemous; for it is not said that the Father calls the Son his Lord; but Lord absolutely, or Iehova; for he says, Tu Iehova: and not, Tu Iehova meus: but the Son is the same Lord Iehova as the Father: therefore deservedly the Father honors the Son with this name.

All these responses are confirmed together, and the aforesaid proof, by all those texts of the same Apostle in which he plainly professes that the whole universe of things was created through the Son of God. Thus Coloss. 1: Gratias agentes Deo Patri, qui dignos nos fecit in partem sortis Sanctorum in lumine, qui eripuit nos de potestate tenebrarum, et transtulit in regnum Filii dilectionis suae, in quo habemus redemptionem per sanguinem eius, remissionem peccatorum: qui est imago Dei invisibilis, primogenitus omnis creaturae: quoniam in ipso condita sunt universa in coelis et in terra, visibilia et invisibilia, sive Throni, sive Dominationes, sive Principatus, sive Potestates; omnia per ipsum et in ipso creata sunt. And 1 ad Cor. 8: Unus Deus Pater, ex quo omnia, et nos in eum: et unus Dominus Iesus Christus, per quem omnia, et nos per ipsum. And Hebr. 1: Novissime diebus istis locutus est nobis in Filio, quem constituit haeredem universorum, per quem fecit, et saecula. Hence the Son himself, who is the eternal and divine wisdom, deservedly says in Proverbiorum 3: Dominus possedit me ab initio viarum suarum, antequam quidquam faceret a principio... quando appendebat fundamenta terrae, cum eo eram cuncta componens. Add to these that in the history of creation Moses makes mention both of God the Creator, and of the Word through whom God made all things, and of the Spirit of God, who cherished the matter produced by God: for he brings in God speaking, and God making, which the Ancients interpreted of the Father, and of the Speech, or Son of God. Moreover, in the creation of man he brings in God deliberating: Faciamus, he says, hominem ad imaginem, et similitudinem nostram. And again in chapter 3: Ecce Adam quasi unus ex nobis: now these things were not said to the Angels, for neither was the world founded through the Angels, as inferior gods, nor was man created to the likeness of the Angels; nor must he be sought outside the essence of God, who was present with God the Father in the creation of things; but God the Father addresses his only Son and the Holy Spirit, who do all things whatsoever the Father does.

It is confirmed finally, and the Divinity of Christ and his indivisible power of creating with the Father is most openly declared, by that most loving Disciple of his, whose testimony, as being a most firm argument of our assertion, we reserved for the last place of this proof. For in the first chapter of his Gospel he says openly: In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum; hoc erat in principio apud Deum. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est. And after some verses interposed there follows: Et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis, et vidimus gloriam eius; gloriam gloriae quasi unigeniti a Patre plenum gratiae, et veritatis. That Theologians all know with what arts Satan attempted to corrupt and evade that open oracle, through the old and new Arians. But that I may pass over the various corruptions of that passage devised by the ancient heretics and refuted by the Holy Fathers; it pleases us here merely to report and refute that diabolical fiction which the new Arians devised, saying that by the name of the Word, or Speech, is indeed signified that man Jesus born of Mary, who is called Speech by reason of his office, because he was a singular herald and interpreter of the divine will, and is therefore called Made Flesh because in the most abject condition he bore among men the form of a servant: but that they might extol the authority and force of the aforesaid divine oracle, they interpret the words of the Evangelist in two ways after this manner, as may be seen in Simlerus in Antisocino.

OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE HOLY GOSPEL OF SAINT JOHN

THE HERETICAL EXPOSITION IS PROPOSED AND REFUTED.

Heretical exposition (column 1)	Heretical exposition (column 2)
1. At the beginning of the reformation of the world through the Gospel, when John the Baptist began to exhort men to repentance, Jesus Christ was already then destined for the office of opening and confirming the Gospel: but at that time he was not yet known to men as the legate and internuncius of God, but to God his Father alone; nay, even then that same one was endowed with divine power and authority.	1. At the beginning of the Gospel, when John the Baptist was preparing the way for Christ by his preaching, Jesus Christ the Speech, and Interpreter, or Legate of God, was already present, and this Speech, although he dwelt among men, was known from the beginning to God alone, and was as it were hidden with God. Finally this Speech was destined for us as Savior, prince of our salvation, and he was our Lord and God, though unknown to the world.
2. But at that time he was known to God his Father alone.	2. This Speech, I say, from the beginning of the Gospel was with God: seeing that he was known to him alone, nay dwelt with him so familiarly that from his bosom he might shortly afterward bring the Gospel to us.
3. Through him all things were made which pertain to the reformation of the world through the Gospel, and without him nothing was made of what was done by his disciples and ministers.	3. Through this Speech all things whatsoever pertain to the confirmation of the Gospel were made, and without his auspice nothing of these things was done, which consequently were also done by the Apostles, so that the glory of all these works is to be referred to him alone as author.
4. and 5. He was the chief Herald of eternal life, and as it were the supreme Doctor of the Church, setting before men ignorant of heavenly things the solid doctrine of the Gospel,	4. In this Speech of God J.C. eternal life was exhibited or set forth to us: and this life, or its promise, was the true and spiritual light of men, seeing that by its knowl-

Heretical exposition (column 1), cont.	Heretical exposition (column 2), cont.
…and he shone forth before them by the example of holy life: but they would not believe his doctrine nor imitate his life.	…edge and certain hope human minds are illumined.
—	5. Moreover this light shines clearly thus far in the darkened society of men; but the sons of darkness (who do evil, and hate the light) by their own fault did not at all comprehend it, being unfit to perceive it.
6. There was a man sent from God to the Jews, whose name was John.	6. Besides, at this very time there was in Judaea a certain celebrated man sent from God, whose name was John.
7. He came, that he might testify openly and publicly concerning Jesus, that he is the Christ, that is, the Messiah and only Savior of the world, so that all might believe in him through him.	7. Him God willed to come forth into the midst for this purpose, that as a faithful witness and precursor he might render testimony concerning Jesus Christ among all, and so by his preaching commend to all the author of that spiritual light of which I spoke before, that all might be prepared through the ministry of this man to have faith in Christ.
8. He was not the Christ, that is, the Messiah himself, as many of the Jews supposed, but the precursor of Christ, sent by God for this end, that he might testify concerning Christ.	8. This John, I say, was not the celestial light, which was about to illumine the whole world presently, but only its precursor, therefore sent that he might give testimony concerning that light.
9. But Jesus the Nazarene himself was the true and chief Doctor of the Gospel, who from the time he came into the world instructed every man to be saved with the solid knowledge of heavenly doctrine and holiness of life.	9. But that light was Jesus Christ, namely that true and celestial light, which after he came into the world and began to exercise his office, illuminated absolutely all men, as far as lay in him, with the saving knowledge of God and the most certain hope of eternal salvation.
10. He dwelt among the men of this world, and men were reformed and regenerated through his Gospel: but also the impious unbelievers did not acknowledge him.	10. Moreover that spiritual light J.C. then sojourned in this world, and dwelt in the midst of human society, teaching and healing all as occasion offered; nay, this world through him was restored and made as it were new, or other.
11. He came to his own people the Jews, but they refused to acknowledge him as the true Messiah and Savior of the world sent and exhibited by God.	11. And what is more marvelous, he came to his own proper people, namely the Jewish, to whom he had been promised peculiarly, and to whom first of all he announced the way of salvation; nevertheless those own people of his

Heretical exposition (column 1), cont.	Heretical exposition (column 2), cont.
—	…did not receive him, but affixed him to the cross as some criminal.
12. But as many as applied faith to him, to them he gave power to become Sons of God, and heirs of eternal life.	12. Meanwhile as many of the Jews and Gentiles together as embraced him as their Savior, to these he attributed a truly great dignity, namely that they may eventually become in perfect manner Sons of God, and so be made most like unto him in glory and immortality.
13. But those who have attained this power are not to be judged to be all those who are born naturally either from some illustrious family and other men, or adopted as sons by the will of men: but those alone who are regenerated from God through the preaching of the Gospel.	13. To these, I say, he gave that power, who believe in him from the heart; and keep his precepts, such as not indiscriminately all whoever are born of the blood of parents, or of the lust of the flesh, or the lust of man; but only they who are born of God; namely upright and pious men, who are prepared to obey the divine will as soon as it has been made open to them, and so by the power of God are recalled to the pursuit of justice.
14. Although indeed Jesus the Nazarene was endowed with so great and so divine power and authority; nevertheless before the men of this world, especially the Scribes and Pharisees, he lived as a lowly man, abject, obscure, sorrowful, and mortal. But he dwelt familiarly among us Apostles and Disciples, and made his glory, power, and divine authority clearly known and attested by various and admirable signs and deeds, so that he was acknowledged by us all as the Only-begotten and most beloved Son of God the Father, who not only most abundantly and clearly disclosed to the world the true doctrine of the Gospel, and in it the immense grace and benignity of God toward the human race, but also will most certainly finally bestow eternal life, which he promised in the name of God to all believing in him, etc.	14. But this Speech of God Jesus the Nazarene, as long as he lived in this world, was flesh, that is, wretched, mortal, and abject, and was as it were one of the common crowd of mortals, so that he sojourned among us as in a tent of an earthly body: nevertheless we Apostles and Disciples (as we Apostles) who dwelt more familiarly with him, clearly saw his divine glory in the transfiguration and miracles, professing itself continually; his glory, I say, as of the Only-begotten and singular Son of God, which he had received from his Father; by whom namely he himself was begotten, and sent as legate into this world: and he in all his words and deeds showed most fully the most abundant benignity and fidelity of God toward us.

Novi Ariani say the Speech, or Word, is a created Spirit fashioned before all other things, and the minister of God in creating the world, and that this one was made man in assumed flesh. Servetus indeed denies that the Word or Speech is an existing thing, but the disposition or dispensation of a thing, whereby it has pleased God to reveal to us the hidden secret of his will; and he adds that it is the voice of God, an oracle out of darkness, the decree of the cloud, an idea, just as the idea of a future work is in the mind of the artisan; this Speech was made flesh because by the voice uttered from the beginning that flesh was begotten; no otherwise than if a man uttering a word should cast gold or pearls from his mouth; thus then properly speaking his voice would be said to have been made gold: so the Word of God most powerful passed without any coagulation of things into the matter of flesh. And these are the opinions of the Heretical Adversaries, so absurd, monstrous, and impious, that to have indicated and denounced them to Christian men is refutation sufficiently just, says Simlerus.

Nevertheless, for the fuller confutation of these blasphemies, I say that all these heretical fictions are most alien to the mind of the holy Evangelist, since they attribute to the Speech, or Word, those things which befit none but a subsisting person, seeing that they say the Word existed in the beginning, the Word was God; for the article added shows that the Word in this speech of the Evangelist is the subject; so that place may not be given to the cavil of those who say the Father was the Word; so that the Word may be predicated of God; even as God is also said to be just and strong: since here Word is not an attribute, but the subject of the attribute name God. Moreover it is said that through this Word all creatures were created, the Word was life and light, and the author of all life and light in men; John the Baptist bore testimony concerning him; he himself came to the nation peculiar and proper to himself, and was not received by it; he gave to those who received him and believed in him power to become Sons of God. Finally that Word was made flesh and dwelt among men; men also saw his glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father: which things, since they cannot belong except to an intelligent and operating hypostasis, evidently prove that Word to be a person, and even to have existed before the flesh was assumed; but after the flesh was assumed to consist of two natures in the unity of person, namely the divine, which is proper to the Word itself, and the human, which he assumed when he was made flesh.

But this interpretation was not only most constant among all the holy Fathers who lived after the first Council of Nicaea, as the heretics contrive, who wish that at the time of this most famous Council the faith concerning the Son of God and Christ had been given over to ruin and altogether corrupted, but it is also the sense of the whole antiquity long before the Council, and from the very beginnings of the nascent Church. For St. Ignatius in his third Epistle, speaking of Jesus Christ the Son of the eternal Father, whom he calls Speech, or Word, says: Verbum non a voce, sed a substantia Dei existens, for it signifies not a composed sound of speech, but the begotten substance of the divine operation, which may restore all things to him from whom he was sent, appeased and reconciled to the Father. Irenaeus, book 2, chapter 3, says to the same effect: ostensum manifeste, quod in principio Logos existens apud Deum, per quem omnia facta sunt, qui et semper affuit generi humano. Hence in the last times according to the time predetermined by the Father, he sent his fashion, namely passible man made. The same holds Tertullian adversus Praxeam, Gregory of Neocaesarea, and all whosoever wrote before the Council of Nicaea concerning the eternal or temporal generation of the divine Word.

The Heretics reply, insofar as Christ is called Word and God through whom all things were made, insofar as by a special dispensation he exercised among men the ministry of God, that all things might be repaired and renewed through the mystery of reconciliation and redemption; for, they say, new creature is everywhere attributed in the New Testament to Christ, through whom God accomplished this.

Against this, this response is utterly futile and empty; for the Evangelist testifies absolutely that that Word, of which he undertakes to speak, existed from the beginning, namely in that beginning of which Moses had said: In principio Deus creavit coelum, et terram. Nor does it matter that works of reparation are attributed to him; for what hinders that to one and the same two works, which follow upon each other mutually, be attributed? Whence deservedly Irenaeus, book 4, chapter 14, says: Filium Dei ab initio assistere suo plasmati, et suum plasma in semetipso recapitulare: therefore nothing hinders that the Word, who formed all things together with the Father and Holy Spirit, should have repaired and restored through the mystery of his Incarnation his image defiled by the sin of the first man and corrupted moreover in many ways; by which reason, although creation is not specially attributed to him, yet the restoration and reformation of men is specially attributed to him, seeing that he alone assumed human nature.

They reply secondly. That the Old Testament attributes creation to one and only God the Father, just as the New attributes the later creation or renovation; it never says that God alone accomplished these, but through Christ: whence it asserts that also we were redeemed, justified, reconciled to God, and made heirs of eternal life, which is the work of the new creation wrought by God through Christ; for without him nothing of these was done: therefore St. John speaks only of reparation made before all things through Christ, that is, restored. They confirm from the fact that the New Testament is called the beginning of the words and deeds of Christ; for Lucas in Actor., chapter 1, says he writes quae Iesus coepit facere, et docere until the day on which, giving commandments through the Holy Spirit to the Apostles whom he chose, he was taken up. In the same way also Marcus says he writes initium Evangelii Iesu Christi; so too Saint Paul ad Hebr. 2 enumerates the sum of the doctrine of salvation begun to be preached by Christ, and of his works: but those Apostles would lie if Christ under the Old Testament had done or taught anything: therefore he undertook nothing besides the reconciliation and Redemption of men; and straightway the words of John must be understood only of the reparation and reconciliation of men. They confirm moreover that if Christ had created heaven and earth he would not have been silent about it: especially there where against the Jews he proves himself to be the Son of God from the works common to himself with the Father; but there he makes mention only of the works of the new creation, in healing, quickening, raising, judging. He would also have said, if this were true: The Father was working in creating; so I also work: but he was speaking only of present things saying: Sicut Pater meus operatur, ita et ego operor: therefore, etc.

But the truth of the contrary plainly appears from what has been said; for both Testament, New as well as Old, attributes the creation of all things to Christ the eternal Word, and subsisting Wisdom. Whence we are said not only to be redeemed through Christ, justified, and reconciled to God, which is the work of the new creation; but both Testament says: Verbo Dei coeli firmati sunt: and omnia per ipsum condita sunt, and of him it was said Psalm. 102 and ad Hebr. 1: Tu in principio, Domine, terram fundasti, et opera manuum tuarum sunt coeli.

To the Confirmation I say the Adversaries sin in many ways in their argument; first for the Evangelists speak of the Son of God not simply, but as incarnate, and endowed with the name Jesus and Christ; but both this name he had only from his temporal conception and nativity; for Jesus was named from his office, because he was to save his people from their sins: Christ likewise was called from the unction, which from the oil of Divinity and divine charisms, by which it was illustrated, he obtained in the union of humanity with the Word: but the heretics transfer to one nature of the Word, existing from the beginning with God, those things which are said of Christ according to both natures, or of the whole person: therefore they admit a true paralogism in their argument. Secondly the Evangelists describe the beginning of the Gospel, for to do and to teach is referred to the administration of the Gospel: but the heretics refer it to the beginning of the person of Christ, which certainly is to hallucinate. Finally, if Christ had only a beginning, when he began to do and to teach, what will be its origin? For Marcus begins that beginning of the Gospel of Christ from his baptism, but Lucas begins his narrative higher, from his very conception and nativity: therefore according to the blasphemous temerity of the heretics, one or other of the Evangelists would have to be guilty of falsehood.

To the second confirmation, I deny that it follows that, if Christ had created heaven and earth, he would not have been silent about it when addressing the Jews: for this conditional proposition has been made; for, as the mystery of the Son of God before his coming in the flesh was veiled by certain shadows and prophetic utterances, and he offered himself to the Ancients to be glimpsed only under an enigma; so also, after he came in the flesh, he did not at once exhibit his celestial glory to be seen; for since the Son of God in the flesh exhibited himself to the world as Mediator and Redeemer, Scripture describes for us those discourses above all, and those deeds of Christ, with divine majesty as it were covered by a certain veil, which pertain to that office of Mediator. Yet meanwhile Christ was not silent concerning his divine nature and Majesty: for he testified both that he is God, and the true Son of God, existing before Abraham, not only in words but also by very many wondrous works. Add that Saint John expressly pronounces: In mundo erat, et mundus per ipsum factus est: therefore that very Word which was made flesh is the maker of the whole world; and long ago, before his nativity and conception from blessed Virgin, he existed according to the divine nature and person.

They reply, that by the name of world is signified by the Evangelist not the universe of all things, but only men, by whom he was not known: for what does it matter to the matter that Christ is not known by the machine of heaven? They add that often with John world is taken for men, as when Christ is called lux mundi: and that thus Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum unigenitum daret; and that

Christ tollat peccata mundi, etc.

I answer, that although by the name of world men are usually signified, yet where John says, mundus per ipsum factus est, by the name of world he understands the fabric of the universe, since by this locution he wishes Christ to be commended: but what great thing would it have been that Christ, merely a man, dwelt among men and existed in the world? But it is illustrious and honorable for Christ that he was Emmanuel, that is, God with us, or as St. Paul says, he was seen on earth, and conversed with men.

It is proved thirdly. — From the holy Fathers of the former centuries. — St. Ignatius stabs this error, which was then being disseminated by Cerinthus, in many places of his epistles: thus in Epist. ad Ephesios: Medius, inquit, unus est, et carnalis et spiritualis, genitus et ingenitus, seu factus et non factus, in homine existens Deus, in morte vita aeterna, et ex Maria et ex Deo primum passibilis, et tum impassibilis Iesus Christus Dominus noster. — And in Epist. ad Magnesianos: Unus Deus est, qui seipsum manifestavit per Iesum Christum filium suum, qui est Verbum ipsius aeternum. — St. Polycarpus, in the Prayer poured forth to God at the brink of martyrdom, which the Church of Smyrna reports in its encyclical Epistle: Domine Deus meus, inquit, pater dilecti ac benedicti Filii tui Iesu Christi, per quem tui notitiam accipimus, Deus Angelorum et virtutum, benedico te. — St. Justin martyr, Apolog. 2: Et horum omnium, inquit, Magistrum nos habere, qui in hoc ipsum veniens et crucifixus est, Iesum Christum; eundemque quod ipsius veri Dei Filium esse edocti sumus. And further on: Et Iesus Christus unus et solus proprie Filius Deo genitus, qui nimirum ratio et verbum eius, et primogenitus et virtus est, atque de consilio et voluntate eius instaurandi et restituendi humani generis, ergo homo factus nos ista docuit. — And in Apolog. 2, he has this: Porro filius eius qui proprie dicitur filius, Verbum simul cum illo ante creaturas existens et nascens, quoniam primitus per eum cuncta ordinavit et ornarit. — And in the Dialogo contra Tryphonem, page 251, he demonstrates that Christ is called God and Lord of hosts in Sacred Scripture. And throughout the whole Dialogue he proves that those things which are said in the sacred Letters, especially indeed in the Psalms, concerning the supreme Lord and God of all, befit Christ, and that he is the one who appeared to Abraham, Moses, and the patriarchs, whom they worshipped as their God, and who is there designated by that name, namely the Tetragrammaton. — Tertullian, book Contra Praxeam, chapter 13, assaults the same error with these words: Itaque Deos omnino non dicam nec dominos; sed Apostolum sequar, ut si pariter nominandi fuerint Pater, et Filius, Deum Patrem appellem, et Iesum Christum Dominum nominem. Solum autem Christum potero Deum dicere, sicut idem apostolus: from which Christ, who is, he says, Deus super omnia benedictus in saecula omne. And chapter 28, after he had adduced the words of the Apostle ad Galatas 1, writing: Paulus non ab hominibus, neque per hominem, sed per Iesum Christum, et Deum Patrem, he subjoins these: Et habes tota instrumenta quae in hunc modum pronuntiant, et duos proponunt, Deum Patrem et Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum filium Patris, et Iesum ipsum esse Christum, in utroque quoque nomine Dei Filium, etc. — St. Cyprian, book 2 Adversus Iudaeos ad Quirinum, chapter 1, with many testimonies of Sacred Scripture proves Christ to be the firstborn, and the wisdom of God, through whom all things were made. And chapter 3, that Christ is the same Speech of God. And chapter 6, that God is Christ. And book de idolorum vanitate: Hic est virtus Dei, he says, hic ratio, hic sapientia eius et gloria, hic in Virginem illabitur, carnem Spiritu Sancto cooperante induitur: Deus cum homine miscetur: hic Deus noster, hic Christus est. — Origen expressly asserts that Christ is not a mere man, book 7 contra Celsum: Quod si divinum quiddam, inquit, erat in eo homine, qui in illo intelligitur, cuiusmodi erat Unigenitus Dei et primogenitus omnis creaturae, qui dicit: Ego sum veritas, et ego sum vita, et ego sum ostium etc., alia nimirum et huius, et substantiae ipsius ratio propter eam quae est hominis in Iesu considerati. — Minucius Felix in Octavio, to the pagans objecting that a crucified man is worshipped as God by Christians, answers thus: Nam quod religioni nostra hominem noxium et crucem adscribitis, longe a veritatis via erratis, qui putatis Deum credi aut meruisse noxium, aut posuisse terrenum. By which he affirms that Christ is God, but denies that he was guilty and altogether earthly. — Josephus himself, though a Jew in religion and race, bears testimony to the divinity of Christ, book 18 Antiquitatum Iudaicarum, chapter 1: Eodem tempore, inquit, fuit Iesus vir sapiens, si tamen virum eum fas est dicere: erat enim mirabilium operum patrator, et doctor eorum qui libenter vera suscipiunt: plurimosque tam de Iudaeis quam de gentibus sectatores habuit. Christus hic erat, quem accusatum a nostrae gentis principibus Pilatus cum addixisset cruci, nihilominus non destiterunt eum diligere, qui ab initio coeperant. Apparuit eis tertia die vivus, ita ut divinitus vates hoc et alia multa miranda praedixerunt et usque in hodiernum diem christianorum genus ab eo denominatum non deficit. Nor let some of the heretics deprive us of that strong testimony to be taken from an enemy, by claiming that that passage is not conformable to the style, order, history, and faith of its author, and therefore seems here stitched in; for besides the authority of the more ancient Fathers of the Church, and especially of Eusebius, the parent of ecclesiastical history, who give it great credit, whosoever shall sincerely read that passage will observe both the consonance of style and the congruence of order, seeing that his purpose there was to narrate the tumults stirred up among the Jews; and since on occasion of Christ the Lord all Judaea had been stirred up, he could not fail to say something about him. That however he said little, this arose from the hatred of the Jews and Romans toward Christians: if he spoke against his own faith, he brought forth these things conquered by truth according to common estimation. — Moreover there could be added not so much testimonies as entire volumes of the Fathers of following centuries; but let these suffice against the Socinians, who hear only the Fathers of the three first centuries, and spew out that the tradition concerning the Trinity and Incarnation was violated by the Council of Nicaea.

THE PRINCIPAL OBJECTIONS ARE PROPOSED AND SOLVED,

WHICH THE HERETICS THRUST FORTH FROM THE SCRIPTURES.

It is objected 1. That Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary is the same who had been promised to the ancient holy Fathers and Patriarchs: but he who had been promised is not true God, but only man: therefore Christ is not true God. All admit the major. The heretics prove the minor with various oracles of the Old Testament; most especially indeed from those words Genesis 3 v. 15, where Christ is called the seed of the woman, who was to crush the head of the serpent, and chapter 12, where God promises Abraham that in him shall be blessed all the kindreds of the earth, that is, in his seed, as the Apostle explains ad Galat. 3: Abrahae, inquit, dictae sunt promissiones, et semini eius. Non dicit et seminibus, quasi in multis; sed quasi in uno, et semini tuo, qui est Christus. Likewise from Deuteronomii 18, where Moses promises the Israelitic people that the Messiah will come in these words: Prophetam de gente tua, et de fratribus tuis, sicut me, suscitabit tibi Dominus Deus, ipsum audies: which Prophet Peter and Stephen interpreted to be Christ, Actor. 1 and 7; nay, Christ seems to have alluded to that place when he said Ioan. 5: Si crederetis Moysi, crederetis et mihi, de me enim ille scripsit: as St. Cyprian noted, book Contra Iudaeos, chapter 18. But Moses indicates in the same place that the future Prophet will not be God; then because he says he will be like himself; then because he subjoins: ipsum audies, ut petisti a Domino Deo tuo in Horeb quando dixisti, ultra non audiam vocem Domini Dei mei, etc. Similarly Psalm. 102, God promises David: De fructu ventris tui ponam super sedem tuam: and similarly as often as the Prophets make discourse concerning the coming Messiah, they delineate him no otherwise than as a pure man: therefore, etc.

I answer by denying the minor, and to its proof I say that the aforesaid oracles do indeed designate that the coming Messiah ought to be true man, yet they do not deny that he must likewise also be held true God; for in the promises the description of the person of the Messiah is not everywhere set forth intact, but many things are uttered concerning his office, from which nevertheless he may still be gathered to be true God, since there are attributed to him things which cannot befit one who were only man, for instance when it is said that by his power, or by the works of his mother herself, the head of the serpent must be crushed: that all nations are to be blessed through him: that he must reign unto the age of ages, etc. Which comprise liberation from the wrath of God, and reconciliation with God, release from sin, and death, and the tyranny of Satan: all which require infinite efficacy; nor can they be presently performed, nor expected from one who is only man. Add that in certain prophecies the person of the Messiah is described more clearly, and adorned with certain titles, by which it is indicated far more openly that the coming Messiah will be God-man. Thus Isaiae 7: Ecce Virgo concipiet et pariet Filium, et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel: for Emmanuel cannot be said unless that person who was born of the Virgin also be God: for God spoke through Moses and the Prophets, and worked miracles; and yet neither Moses nor the Prophets were called Emmanuel: therefore he who was born of the Virgin had to be not only true man, but also true God.

They insist. Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin, was announced by an Angel what he would be: but the Angel, the Herald of that nativity, does not say that he is the eternal God, nay says that the Son of God was to be so called, not because he was begotten of divine essence and a divine Father before the ages, but that he would be so called because he ought to be conceived by the power of the Most High and the Holy Spirit, and born of Mary. Add that he does not say he is called, but will be called Son of God: therefore he was not then the Son of God when the Angel uttered these things. Secondly, the Angel does not console Joseph doubting about the conception of the Virgin by saying that he who lay enclosed in the womb of the Virgin was the eternal Son of God the Father: which certainly would have been the chief and most welcome consolation in that disturbance: therefore the Angel judged him not to be such. Finally, the Evangelists accurately describe the Annunciation of Christ accomplished, his Conception, Nativity, and Ancestors: nor do they pass over the time, the months during which he was carried in the womb; they remember also the place in which he was born, the manger into which he was laid, the house in which he was educated; moreover they narrate what he did whether boy or grown man, and what befell him, etc.; but none of them touched even with a word upon his Divinity, and his eternal generation from the divine side: which certainly they would not have passed over in silence, if they had judged it true: therefore that Christ born of the Virgin Mary must not be held the eternal Son of God.

I deny all these consequences: and to the first reason, I say that the Angel sufficiently designates that he who was to be born of the Virgin was the eternal Son of God, when he said: Quod ex te nascetur Sanctum, vocabitur Filius Dei: for that attribution of divine filiation can signify nothing else than that he who was to be born would be the true Son of God, not only by reason of the divine nature, but also of the divine person, by which the assumed humanity, soon to be born of the Virgin, subsisted. Nor does it matter that he said will be called, and not is called Son of God: for the Son of God was manifested in the flesh in his own time, who nevertheless was from eternity the Only-begotten Son of God; and thus him whom before the faithful of the Old Testament dimly discerned to come in the flesh, now that he has been exhibited openly, all the faithful of the New Testament preach to be the Son of God.

To the second proof I say that, since Joseph was solicitous about this most holy conception, it was sufficient for confirming his mind to indicate that Mary had not conceived from adultery, nor in human manner and mode, nor from any congress of man, but from the Holy Spirit, and by the power of the Most High, saying: Quod in ea natum est, de Spiritu sancto est.

To the third confirmation I say that this consequence does not hold: the Evangelists describe Christ as man: therefore they write nothing else about him than that he is man; for the Evangelists and Apostles preached his eternity and true Deity, as has been proven above from their oracles: therefore if the heretics embrace those passages of Scripture by which the true human nature in Christ the Savior is proved, they must also reverently receive and embrace the others which call him God, and attribute to him divine glory and divine worship.

They press: If there were two natures in Christ, divine and human, the Evangelists ought to have declared them most openly; otherwise they would have omitted the foundation of Faith, insulted God and the Son of God, and been the cause of all contentions in the Church: but nowhere do they openly confess two natures in Christ: therefore there are not two natures in Christ.

I deny the minor: for there is no one of the Evangelists who does not relate those divine oracles and wondrous works by which Christ attested his Divinity: therefore the Evangelists and Apostles did not omit the foundation of Faith. Nor are they themselves the authors of discords, but ambitious and turbulent men, who are not content with the simplicity of Apostolic doctrine, have always been, and are today also, the cause of dissensions. I confess that the doctrine concerning Christ the Savior as God and at the same time man, God and Son of man, has had many adversaries from the very age of the Apostles, of whom some denied that Christ is God, others that he is man, and many moreover impiously mangled the natures that they might take away either both or one or the other: yet it does not therefore follow that the dogma itself is false.

It is objected 2. He who is Mediator of men before the God of Israel is not himself the God of Israel: but Christ born of the Virgin is Mediator before the God of Israel: therefore he is not himself the God of Israel. The major is proved from the absurdities which follow if we say that the God of Israel is a Mediator before God: First, God will be held inferior to himself. Secondly, God will pray to himself. Thirdly, the offended party will be mediatrix with herself. Hence the Apostle ad Timotheum 2 distinguishes Christ the mediator from the one supreme God, and calls him man: Unus Deus, unus et Mediator Dei et hominum, homo Christus Iesus.

I answer with St. Chrysostom that God is here said to be one by way of distinction from idols, not to the exclusion of Christ. Or with St. Augustine, that Christ is not opposed to the one God except qua he is man, which the very words intimate: Unus Mediator homo Christus Iesus, inasmuch as he is man, he says, book 10 Confess. chapter 13, so far is he Mediator: but inasmuch as he is the Word, equal to God, and God with God, together with the Holy Spirit one God. And as because he is Mediator of God and men it does not conflict that he is man, nay thus he is named in the cited place; so also it does not conflict that he is God. Nay, St. John Chrysostom, homily 1 on epistle 2 of St. Paul ad Timotheum, elegantly shows that the Mediator must be joined by association with both parties of whose mediation he is: for that, he says, is proper to a mediator, to become a partaker of both parties of whom he was mediator. But if he touch one indeed by association, but be separated from the other, he can no longer be called mediator. Therefore unless he be a sharer of the paternal nature, he certainly is not Mediator: but just as he took upon himself fellowship of human nature when he came to men: so also he did not depart from the substance of God, since he came from God: for he who was middle between two natures had need to be a partaker of both. For a pure man would never altogether become Mediator; for such a Mediator had need to converse with God. Likewise God alone could not be Mediator, for neither would they have received him whose Mediator he came to be. Therefore, so far is the aforesaid passage of the Apostle from favoring Ebionites and Cerinthians as ancient as recent, that rather it confounds and casts them down.

To the first absurdity however I say it does not follow that God is inferior to himself by reason of being Mediator: for the Mediator, by reason of office, is inferior to him with whom he intercedes: but he is not inferior in nature, since among men an equal often becomes intercessor with equals for others: so the Son who is one God with the Father, and equal to God in the form of God, emptied himself taking the form of a servant, and lowered himself to the office of Mediator, without any diminution of his nature, power, Majesty, and Deity.

To the second I say that the Son prays to God insofar as he is Mediator, especially considered according to human nature; for prayers and subjection pertain to the human nature; but the efficacy of these flows from the divine nature, with which the human nature is joined into one person.

To the third I answer that it is indeed absurd that the offended party be mediatrix where there is only one person of the offending party: but where there are several persons, it is not unfitting that one of them offer herself by common decree to pacification and satisfaction: thus however it was done between God and men through the very Son of God, nor certainly could it otherwise have been done or ought to have been; for who besides this Mediator sent from the side of the offended party, whether of men or of Angels, could come forth and intercede with God? Certainly unless the offended party had undertaken the office of Mediator, we should never have returned into grace with God.

Add to these what we said concerning the satisfaction of Christ, namely that he could make satisfaction even to himself, as offended.

It is objected 3. He alone is the one true God whom Christ acknowledged and invoked, and taught to be invoked as true God: but Christ acknowledged only the Father, and taught him to be invoked, Matth. 11, Luc. 11, Ioan. 17: therefore only the Father is true God.

I distinguish the minor: that Christ, as mediator according to human nature, invoked God the Father, and handed on to us also the ordinary formula of praying, whereby we may invoke the Father, I concede: that as divine Word, and according to the divine nature, he invoked the Father, I deny.

Add that Christ himself does not strip himself of this honor, so that we may not invoke him also together with the Father; for there are open passages of Scripture in which Christ proposes himself as to be invoked by us. Thus Ioannis 5: Pater non iudicat quemquam, sed omne iudicium dedit Filio, ut omnes honorificent Filium, sicut honorificant Patrem. And Ioan. 14: Quodcumque petieritis Patrem in nomine meo, hoc faciam, ut glorificetur Pater in Filio: therefore he wishes himself to be invoked together with the Father. Moreover, since the Apostles teach by their word and example to invoke Christ, does not Christ, in whose spirit they spoke, claim invocation for himself? Add that since the works of the Trinity ad extra are indivisible, hence it comes that under the name of Father, whom we invoke in the formula of prayer handed down by Christ, three persons together are comprehended.

They insist: If by the appellation of God Christ also understood himself, he would also include himself, mention of God being made: but he does not include himself when he speaks of God; rather he expressly makes discourse of himself, and calls the Father only the true God; while he calls himself his legate Ioannis 3 v. 16: Sic Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum Unigenitum daret, etc. And chapter 17: Haec est autem vita aeterna, ut cognoscant te solum verum Deum, et quem misisti Iesum Christum. And Ioan. 14: Creditis in Deum, et in me credite: therefore, since he does not join himself into the society of the name of God, it follows that the name of God absolutely placed signifies only the Father.

I answer, that the name of God is taken in two ways in the Scriptures, namely either essentially or hypostatically: that is, either insofar as it signifies the essence common to three persons, or insofar as it signifies some one of the divine persons, which is truly God. Whence to the minor I say that as often as the name of God is placed relatively and hypostatically to signify the person of the Father, Christ deservedly distinguishes himself from God, that is from the Father, seeing that he is another person than the Father: but he does not distinguish himself from God insofar as the name of God is taken absolutely and essentially. Likewise I distinguish otherwise: that Christ qua Mediator of God and men distinguishes himself from God, I concede: that qua Son of God, I deny. Therefore it must be concluded with Saint Ambrose, book 3 De Fide, c. 2: Ergo cum legis Deum, non separes Patrem, non separes Filium, quia divinitas Patris et Filii una eademque est; et item nec ibi separes, ubi legis quod beatus et solus potens; for of him it was said, as we have it, I command thee the name of God which signifies all things: but also Christ is called God: therefore the name of God befits both the Son and the Father, when the effect of operation also befits them.

They press. The name of God is attributed to Christ insofar as he is held one with the Father: but he is not one with the Father by reason of nature, but only by reason of consensus and affection: therefore, etc. The minor is proved from John chapter 17, where Christ prays the Father that all the disciples may be one among themselves, as we also are one: but the faithful are one among themselves not by unity of essence, but by consensus of minds and wills, and communication of goods: therefore Christ is one with the Father not by unity of essence, but by consensus and communication of goods.

— I deny the minor: for although there perhaps Christ makes discourse concerning concord and likeness of properties, yet he does not assert there that no other closer union, or unity, exists between himself and the Father than that which is between men; otherwise he would fight with himself: for he teaches elsewhere that he is the Son of God begotten of the Father, equal to the Father, and that the same one who is the Father is God. Whence it follows, on account of the equality and unity of essence, that the Father and the Son have the same most concordant will, as has been proven many times already.

They object again: From the attribution of the name of God, and divine generation, it cannot be gathered that Christ is true God, and has the same nature with the Father: therefore, etc. The antecedent is proved by all those texts of Scripture in which the name of God is attributed to creatures, as we observed in the third Notable; likewise divine generation and filiation is attributed to creatures; for Esaiae 1 concerning the Jews it is written: Filios enutrivi, et exaltavi; ipsi autem spreverunt me. Ioannis 1.: Quotquot autem receperunt eum, dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri. Et Ioann. 3.

— I deny the antecedent. For it belongs to creatures on account of identity of essence with the Father, to creatures indeed only on account of usurpation, imitation, representation, or delegation. Add that not only some name of God is attributed to Christ, but those names above all are attributed to him which signify true God, as Iehovah, the Tetragrammaton. Similarly Christ is called Son on another account than the other sons of God; since men are called sons of God either on account of formation, or on account of the singular protection and affection of God toward them, or on account of adoption, which takes place through sanctifying grace: wherefore believers are born of God through adoption and grace, and have in themselves the seed of the divine Spirit, and are partakers of the divine nature through the bestowal of gifts and the operation of the indwelling Spirit: but Christ by nature is Son of God, and Deity itself was communicated to him whole and undivided without beginning of time through eternal generation, whence he is said not only to be Son of God, but even God himself.

They insist. Although the name Iehovah, and something similar, is attributed to Christ, nevertheless from this it cannot be inferred that Christ is truly one God with the Father: therefore, etc. They prove the antecedent: for this name Iehovah is attributed to the city Jerusalem, in the last of Ezechiel: and Moses, when he had constructed an altar, Exodi 17, called it Iehova: similarly Iudicum 13 the Angel claims for himself the name Iehovah. — I deny the antecedent, and to its proof I say that the name Iehovah is attributed to those things not absolutely, but only respectively with respect to God; for thus the altar built by Moses was such that Iehovah is the exaltation of Moses; for we read in the Vulgate: Aedificavit Moyses altare, et vocavit nomen eius, Dominus exaltatio mea. Similarly the name Iehovah is attributed to the city of Jerusalem because it enjoyed the peculiar protection and residence of God; for we read: the name of the city from that day, Dominus ibidem. But as far as concerns the Angel, I say that he is named Iehovah not only in Iudicum 6 but also Genesis 32 and often elsewhere: but certain Theologians wish this Angel, who is named Iehovah, not to have been a created Angel, but the very Son of God, who then offered himself to men to be seen in sensible form, as very many Fathers teach together with Tertullian: which indeed could be confirmed from the fact that those most holy Men, to whom that Iehovah appeared, offered to him the worship owed to the true God alone, as sacrifice, Iudicum 6 ff., Genesis 18, Temple, Malachiae 3; and the Fathers, upon seeing this Angel, Genesis 32 and Iudicum 13, said they had seen God face to face. Oseas too testifies that the Angel who wrestled with Jacob, and being asked his name, answered that it was admirable, was Iehovah. From which it can be gathered that that Angel who claimed for himself the name Iehovah was that Angel of great counsel, namely Christ, who although he was not yet then incarnate, nevertheless began to exercise the office of mediator, and set forth the figure of his office, that he might approach more familiarly to the faithful. — More truly however I judge it must be said that he was really a created Angel who appeared to the holy Fathers: for St. Paul says ad Hebraeos 1: Multifariam multisque modis olim Deus loquens Patribus, novissime nobis locutus est in Filio: which certainly would appear less true, if the Son himself had also spoken to the ancient Fathers: therefore he who spoke then was truly a created Angel: but since he fulfilled the commands and legation of God, he also spoke in the name and stead of God.

All Catholics agree that Christ, God, insofar as he is the Word of the eternal Father, is also his true consubstantial Son; for thus it is declared not only by open texts of Scripture, but also defined by sacred Oecumenical Councils against the Arians, Sabellians, and other heretics. It holds equally that at least by reason of the divine supposit, by which the humanity of Christ subsisted, concretely Christ can be called Son of God natural, as is clear from the Symbol of the Apostles, in which we believe in Christ his only Son our Lord, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. And from the Symbol of Saint Athanasius: Est ergo fides recta, ut credamus, et confiteamur, quia Dominus noster Iesus Christus Dei Filius, Deus, et homo est. And everywhere this truth is inscribed in the sacred Scriptures: thus Ioannis 1: Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis, et vidimus gloriam eius, gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre, etc. Whence the only difficulty is whether Christ, considered qua man, can be called and truly is an adoptive Son of God: for man is capable of the adoptive filiation of God, as the sacred Texts mostly indicate: thus ad Romanos 8: Accepistis spiritum adoptionis, in quo clamamus Abba Pater. And ad Galat. 4: in adoptionem filiorum reciperemus: quoniam autem estis filii, etc. Et ad Ephes. 1: In adoptionem filiorum per Iesum Christum in ipsum. That these things may appear more evidently,

Note 1. From the Doctor in 3 d. 10 nu. 2, that the name of adoption has been drawn from the jurists to the Theological schools, to declare that consignation whereby God through sanctifying grace and superinfused charity peculiarly elects and destines certain men to eternal inheritance, as proper and adoptive sons: for adoptive son is said to be he, says the Doctor, who is not naturally begotten of someone, nor has by natural generation the right of succeeding him in his inheritance and goods, but obtains that right from the favor and pure liberality of the adopter: by which reason the daughter of Pharaoh adopted Moses as her son, Genesis¹ 2, by reason of which adoption Moses had right to the throne and scepter of Egypt, as Saint Paul indicates ad Heb. chapter 11, saying: Fide Moyses grandis factus negavit se esse filium filiae Pharaonis, magis eligens affligi cum populo Dei, quam temporalis peccati habere iucunditatem, maiores divitias aestimans thesauro Aegyptiorum improperium Christi. By like reason God is said to adopt certain men when he receives them to the inheritance of eternal life, who by their nature do not demand that inheritance to be communicated to them. Whence divine adoption is an acceptation, whereby God accepts men grateful to himself unto possession of eternal life after the manner of inheritance: to which description of adoption corresponds that which the Council of Frankfort hands down near its end, where it says: Quid est adoptio nisi charitatis copulatio, qua pater adoptione sibi copulat filium, quem proprium non habet? Which description indeed the book Sacro-syllabus confirms, pronounced in the same Council, in which it is said: Adoptatus dici non potest, nisi ille, qui alienus est ab eo, qui dicitur adoptans. Et gratis ei adoptio tribuitur, quonium non ex debito, sed ex indulgentia tantummodo adoptio praestatur.

Note 2. That although divine adoption agrees with human in some things, yet in more things it differs from it: First indeed, because human adoption takes place only in supplement of sterility and unfruitfulness: seeing that therefore the adopter chooses and enrolls another as son to himself because he desires to have some heir in place of a son whom nature denies him: but God although he has a natural son in all things like himself, nevertheless on account of his eminent charity deigns to enroll us among his sons, and to destine us to the inheritance owed to his proper natural Son: for, says the Apostle ad Romanos 8: Si autem filii, et haeredes: haeredes quidem Dei: cohaeredes autem Christi. — according to the second difference between both adoptions, divine and human: that he who adopts is nowise the principle or cause of the nature of the adopted: nay among men adoption was introduced that there might be a solace of sterility, and the defect of nature might somehow be supplied: but truly God adopts us as sons in such wise that he is also the principle of our being according to nature, although we were aliens from him with respect to the gift of grace and justice; wherefore when God adopts anyone, he is said to adopt one who was otherwise his own through creation, though not through the grace of holiness: and communicating to him sanctifying grace, he is said in a certain peculiar manner to make him his own: which St. Augustine explains most beautifully book 1 De sermone Domini in monte, chapter 22, saying: Adoptamur in regnum Dei, non tamquam alieni, sed tamquam ab illo facti, et creati, hoc est conditi, ut unum beneficium sit, quo nos fecit esse per omnipotentiam suam: alterum, quo adoptavit, ut tamquam filii vitae aeterna pro nostra participatione frueremur. For since from the benefit of creation alone we should not have right to eternal life and beatitude, which is the inheritance of God, which he prepared for his sons, from that alone we were not adoptive sons: but we obtain it through justification, by which we are instituted sons of God and his heirs. — The third difference between divine and human adoption is that by reason of human adoption, the adopted does not succeed in the paternal inheritance while the father still lives, but after he dies: but in the divine it happens otherwise: for the adopted by right of filiation enjoys his inheritance and beatitude while God always lives. The reason of this difference is not only that God is immortal, man indeed subject to death: but chiefly this comes about because adopting man needs those goods himself together with his own, nor could he communicate them to the adopted without his own loss, therefore he did not hand over those things to the adopted while he lives among the living: but since God is himself the inheritance of the sons whom he adopts, living he communicates himself to them through vision and love, without any detriment to himself. — The Doctor assigns a fourth difference, that man adopts by mere willing, and without positing any real entity in the adopted; but God adopts without any really distinct willing, but through communication of some real entity, namely sanctifying grace, by which the adopted is formally constituted in the reason of adopted: whence the divine will is not called adoption properly speaking, but rather the grace itself communicated; but the human will is the very adoption.

Note 3. From the Doctor in the same place, three conditions are desired for adoption: The first is that such adoption be gratuitous: so that the adopter is neither necessitated nor bound by any law to adopt anyone as his son and heir. Second, that in adoption there intervene mutual consent of adopter and adopted, if he who is adopted as son be of his own right: but if he be under paternal tutelage, or under his guardian, it is necessary that there intervene the consent of the father himself, or guardian, as is provided by law in adoptions, etc. Finally third, that the person who is adopted be extraneous, that is, that he have not by his nature right to that inheritance to which he is adopted. These three conditions are also desired in divine adoption: First indeed, that is done gratuitously, seeing that from charity alone and pure mercy the eternal Father gives us sanctifying grace, whereby we are named and are Sons of God. Secondly, the justification of adults, who are of their own right, takes place with their own consent; but the justification of infants, who are under the care and tutelage of the Church, takes place mediated by the ministry of the Church itself. Finally third, the one adopted by God to eternal beatitude is extraneous. Nevertheless that extraneousness, as the Doctor observes number 3, must not be so understood as if sin ought to precede the grace of justification; otherwise the Virgin Mother of God could not have been held an adoptive Daughter of God, because she never contracted sin before grace; nor equally could Adam have been called an adoptive son during the time of his innocence; nor finally would the Angels have been adoptive Sons of God, because they were always innocent. There remains therefore that such extraneousness consist in the lack of natural right to the inheritance and goods of the adopter.

These things having been premised, there remains the difficulty to be determined, whether Christ qua man is and can be called Son of God adoptive. Concerning whose resolution there is a threefold opinion: The first indeed of those who judge that Christ, qua he is man, cannot be called adoptive son, whether his person be considered or his nature regarded. Thus Suarez, disputation 19, and Vasquez, disputation 89, who contends the opposite opinion was condemned as heretical in the Council of Frankfort against Felix and Elipandus; but as Cavellus our countryman notes most excellently in schol. 3 to the aforesaid question of the Doctor, Vasquez learned ill from St. Paul that word: Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus.

The second opinion is that, although absolutely and simply Christ is not to be called adoptive Son of God, nevertheless he can be so called with this reduplication, insofar as man; which opinion indeed Durandus taught in 3 dist. 1 qu. 1, with which the Doctor seems partly to subscribe in the above-praised place, where he says that he who should say filiation belongs precisely to the supposit, and not according to nature, could easily say Christ is not an adoptive Son, because that relation does not befit the supposit in itself: but by saying filiation is founded in a nature similar to the nature of the natural generator, adoptive filiation will be founded in the nature, which is similar to the Creator, as the image thereof by natural similitude, and also by similitude of grace, which he himself, as intellectual nature, can attain to the inheritance of the adopter. But since in the preceding Distinction, speaking of natural filiation number 10, he said it is not taken in creatures from the person, but from the nature, some gather from the same that he inclines more to the affirming opinion than the denying. Finally the third opinion is that of those who contend that Christ the Lord, as man, is to be called neither adoptive nor natural son. Thus Lugo disputation 31 and Faber disp. 23. We however judge the question is not to be determined absolutely, but only with distinction and modification. Whence let there be

Conclusion first. — CHRIST, IF MAN, IS NOT TO BE CALLED ABSOLUTELY SON OF GOD ADOPTIVE.

This is the more common, and is proved by all those authorities of Scripture and the Holy Fathers by which Adrianus the Pontiff, and the Fathers of the Council of Frankfort impugned the most wretched assertion of Elipandus Archbishop of Toledo, and of Felix Bishop of Urgel. But the chief ones are those by which Christ the Lord, often speaking before men concerning the Father God, never addresses him with one name common with us; for he does not say Pater noster, but Pater meus; et ascendo (says Ioan. 20) ad Patrem meum, et Patrem vestrum. He did not say, says Adrianus, Patrem nostrum, but Patrem meum, namely by nature, and Patrem vestrum, by benefit and grace. Although however an argument from negation usually carries little force, here nevertheless it is of no small moment; since Christ is so often called Son of God, why would he not once and again be called adopted, if truly he were such? Whence rightly St. August., book Contra Se-

Contra Secundinum Manichaeum, chapter 3, says: Read, he says, the Scriptures, you will never find it said of Christ that he is by adoption a Son: wherefore the Council of Frankfort, in the Epistle to the Bishops of Spain, after a certain testimony of St. Hilary, says: But thou whosoever thou art, who preachest Christ adoptive, whence had this sense come to thee? Thou knowest not any Patriarch knew it. Tractators kept silence about this name, Doctors of our faith did not teach it. — Secondly Adrianus proves from that ad Romanos 8: Qui proprio Filio suo non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit illum: for if he calls him proper, how will he be adoptive? But that this must be referred to Christ according as he is man, Adrianus gathers: Because, he says, he was not delivered according to his Divinity, but according to that which he is man: him namely who was delivered, the very Apostle protests to be the proper Son of God. — It is confirmed by the authority of St. Hilary 6 De Trinitate, where weighing those words of the Apostle he says: Numquid rursum nunc adoptionis erit nuncupatio, in quo proprietatis est nomen?

These things are confirmed most especially from the words of the Divine Father, when Christ was baptized by John, and again while transfigured between Moses and Elias, in the sight of three Apostles resounded from heaven: Hic est Filius meus dilectus (Matth. 3 and 17), he manifestly distinguishes him from those who were sons of God by grace and adoption. For nothing hinders that John, Moses, Elias, the Apostles be called sons of God by adoption: therefore since this voice of the Father was directed to Christ alone, and called him Son, and his own, and beloved: doubtless he separated him from those who are called sons of God solely by the grace of adoption. Therefore Christ is not adopted, thence because, as often as Christ speaks of the Father, so often he distinguishes between himself and the sons of adoption; and nowhere does the Gospel say with common signation of filiation with us: Pater noster; but perpetually either Pater meus, indicating that by property of nature he pertains to God: or Pater vester, or Pater suus, that he may signify the grace of adoption.

It is proved secondly by the authority of the Holy Fathers: most especially indeed of St. Augustine, tract. 2 on chapter 1 of Ioannis, at those words: Quotquot autem receperunt eum, dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri, where he says: Non enim nati sumus de Deo, sicut illo Unigenito, sed adoptati per gratiam ipsius; ille enim natus est Unigenitus, ut solveret peccatum: quibus solutis, implicamur, ne non adoptaret nos propter impedimenta eorum. But St. Augustine speaks of Christ qua he is man: for according to his humanity he alone had brothers adopted. Whence thus argues Adrianus: when through his grace we were adopted, if he himself was partaker with us in the grace of adoption? For just as he would not have taken away sin, if he himself had sin, so he would not bestow the grace of adoption, if he himself, on account of the man whom he assumed without stain of sin, had need to receive the grace of adoption. — Secondly he proves the testimony of St. Gregory the Great book 1 Moralium, chapter 6, where applying to Christ those words: Erat ille vir magnus inter omnes orientales, he says: All men are only men: but himself the east of God and man is rightly called: he surpasses all who are born of God in faith; because not as the others adoptive, but natural illuminator he existed. Nearly the same has St. Isidore book De doctrina christiana, and Ecclesiasticarum dogmatum, chapter 2, whose words are: The Son of God made man became son, born according to the truth of nature of man the son of man, that by the certainty of the Only-begotten, not by adoption nor appellation, but in both nativities he might have the name of son in being born, that he might be true God and true man one son.

The Doctor proves the same truth with this reason: That anyone be adopted it is necessary that he be extraneous to that to which he is adopted: so that nothing accompany his generation as a disposition conferring right to the inheritance: but Christ in the very moment of time in which he was conceived had habitual grace, which conferred right to the inheritance: therefore Christ, even according to his humanity, was not adopted. The major is clear from Notable 3. The minor is proved; for in the first moment of conception the humanity of Christ was united to the Word, and thus demanded sanctifying grace.

We shall reply therefore with the same Doctor, that that grace which accompanied the generation of Christ was not granted in the prior instant or sign of nature, but in the posterior; and thus in that prior sign of nature human nature, regarded in itself, was extraneous, nor had right to the inheritance: therefore qua such it could be adopted. — But true, although the Doctor does not answer this objection, but only says why; nevertheless I say this does not suffice for Christ to be called simply, qua man, Son of God adoptive; because however much Christ had right to the inheritance only in the second instant of nature, nevertheless in the first instant he had a disposition necessitating, at least de congruo, to that right; which disposition indeed was none other than the exigency of the divine supposit, since he lacked his proper supposit. Add that that priority of nature whereby the existing human nature is conceived before being assumed by the Word does not suffice for that reason of extraneousness required on the part of adopting: for extraneousness is something extrinsic presupposing a nature complete according to all its intrinsic modes, and consequently the nature must first be conceived as complete according to subsistence before it can be called extraneous or not extraneous. Therefore since in that prior instant of nature the human nature of Christ is not conceived as affected with personality, nor consequently intrinsically perfect, it cannot be held extraneous to the inheritance, seeing that in that sign it is not yet conceived capable of the inheritance, but only in the second instant of nature, in which it is conceived to have the subsistence of the Word and to be intrinsically complete: but thus considered the nature was not extraneous, because the supposit of the Word, by which it was sustained, demanded from congruity sanctifying grace, which conferred right to the inheritance.

It is proved secondly: If Christ were an adoptive son qua man, he could even simply be called adoptive Son; for since things befit Christ qua he is man, they can be affirmed of him simply, and must nowise be denied: for it is said simply of him that he suffered hunger, thirst, and similar things, which did not befit him except qua he is man, or by reason of his humanity; therefore since it is false that Christ is simply an adoptive son, it cannot be true that he is an adoptive son also qua man. Finally that formula of speaking is above all to be shunned, and every attribution is to be eliminated from Christ, which savors of heresy, or at least imitates the manner of speaking of heretics: but to call Christ an adoptive son, even qua man, savors of Nestorian heresy, by which he pronounced absolutely that Christ is Son of God only adoptive: therefore such he is not simply to be called.

You will object 1. Various authorities of the Holy Fathers, whereby there seems to be signified that Christ is Son of God adoptive; for Irenaeus book 1 Adversus haereses, chapter 21, expressly pronounces thus: Propter hoc enim Verbum Dei homo, et qui Filius Dei, filius hominis factus est. Mixtus homo Verbo Dei, ut adoptionem percipiens, fiat Filius Dei. Et Marius Victorinus book 1 Contra Candidum Arianum has thus: Nos adoptione filii, ille natura, etiam et adoptione quadam filius, et Christus, sed secundum carnem. Et Hilarius 2 De Trinitate, past the middle says: Potestatis Divinitas non amittitur, dum carnis humilitas adoptatur, namely in Christ. From which at least it is gathered that the humanity of Christ was adopted. — I answer, the holy Fathers use adoption improperly, truly not according to its strict signification, seeing that Irenaeus and Victorinus call the substantial union itself of humanity with the Word the adoption of that humanity. But if Christ were an adoptive Son, his adoption would not have to be sought precisely from the hypostatic union: since that of itself does not confer the reason of divine filiation, both because, as has been proven, the Word could assume any non-rational nature; yet in this hypothesis an assumed irrational nature could not be called daughter of God: then because union with a person, who is a natural son, is judged rather to confer natural than adoptive filiation. To St. Hilary I say that reading seems corrupt: for although in some codices there is that word adoptatur, in others however is read adoratur, into which the carelessness of scribes could easily creep. To which response Hilary himself gives suffrage, for speaking words about the nativity of Christ according to the flesh, he says: Hinc intelligitur, aliud videtur, aliud oculis, aliud animo conspicitur: parit virgo, partus a Deo est: infans vagit, laudantes Angeli audiunt: panni sordent, Deus adoratur: ita potestatis dignitas non amittitur, dum carnis humilitas adoratur: where the particle dum has causal force, just as the particle quidem: he therefore renders most excellently the reason why the dignity of power is not lost through the humility of birth and crying, saying: dum carnis humilitas adoratur.

You will object 2. Various texts of Scripture, in which Christ is preached inferior to the Father: thus Ioannis 14: Pater maior me est: but he is not inferior to the Father by reason of natural filiation, seeing that by it he is equal to him: therefore he must be held inferior to him by reason of adoptive filiation. Secondly ad Romanos 8 Christ is called our co-heir: Si filii, et haeredes: haeredes quidem Dei, cohaeredes autem Christi: but he is not our co-heir according to nature and divine filiation: therefore according to the human. Finally in the same chapter 8 v. 29 Christ is called firstborn among many brethren, that is, among all predestinated sons: therefore Christ is first among all adoptive sons by reason of grace and glory, and consequently truly is an adoptive son. — I answer, from these and similar texts of Scripture nothing against our assertion is inferred. Certainly not from the first, for when Elipandus had objected those words: Pater maior me est, the Fathers of the Council of Frankfort answered that these were not said by Christ on account of adoption, but on account of the form of servant, which Christ had as man. For, as they say: God and man he was, who according to his Godhead said: ego et Pater unum sumus, and according to his manhood: Pater maior me est: therefore that inferiority is not to be reduced to the reason of adoption, but to the assumption of humanity. To the other contexts I say Christ is not called our co-heir and brother because he is an adoptive son as we are, but because, as natural Son of God, he has the same Father whom we sons of God adoptive acknowledge: and has right to the same inheritance, though far more excellent than we; seeing that his right is founded in his natural filiation: ours truly in gratuitous adoption. Which response is clear by a like case: if any one of men, for instance having a son begotten of himself, nevertheless adopted others from the consent and will of the son himself: although that son were natural, nevertheless he could be called firstborn among adoptive brethren, because their adoption was made solely from his good pleasure and nod, and he earlier had right to the inheritance than they, of whose inheritance he is co-heir: but the same can be said of Christ the natural Son of God, by whose benefit we were enrolled as adoptive sons of God.

You will object 3. Christ was predestinated Son of God, ad Romanos 1; but predestination is adoption: therefore Christ is Son of God adoptive; for to predestinate is to adopt to the inheritance; therefore truly Christ is Son of God adoptive. — I deny the minor, for more things are required for adoption than for predestination, for to adoption is required that the adopted be extraneous; for predestination however only is desired that someone be elected to glory, whether meanwhile he be extraneous or not. To the proof I say that to predestinate is to adopt when the nature of the predestinate has sufficient extraneousness for adoption, I concede: when however it has not, I deny. But Christ has not sufficient extraneousness for adoption; seeing that right to the inheritance is founded in his natural filiation: therefore the consequence must be denied.

You will object 4. Every dignity of human nature is to be attributed to Christ: but dignity is in man that he be Son of God adoptive, because it befits no non-intellectual nature: therefore that is to be attributed to Christ. — I distinguish the major, similarly and the minor: it is a dignity to be an adoptive son, a dignity, I say, arguing some imperfection, I concede: it is a dignity without imperfection, I deny; for less worthy and glorious is it to be an adoptive son than natural. Therefore the consequence must be denied. For not every dignity arguing imperfection must be admitted in Christ; but only that by which it argues an imperfection necessarily consequent upon human nature: but the dignity of adoption presupposes extraneousness, which is an imperfection not necessarily consequent upon human nature: therefore that must not be admitted in Christ.

You will object 5. Insofar Christ is Son of God natural insofar as he is begotten of God the Father: but he is not begotten of God the Father qua man: therefore qua such he is Son of God adoptive, but not natural. — Some answer with Vasquez chapter 12 and 13 by denying the minor, because, they say, the human nature of Christ subsists in the Word, which is

Son of God natural, and begotten of God the Father; for to be Son of God natural happens in two ways: in the first way strictly and properly, insofar as it denotes begotten of an intellectual generator naturally; in the second way less properly, insofar as it signifies something personally united to him who is said to be begotten naturally. In the former way Christ as man is not Son of God natural: in the second way however he can be so called. I answer moreover that if that proposition, Christ, as man, is Son of God natural, be so taken as to signify that that man united to the Word has not only habitual grace, by which he is adopted to the inheritance, but also has the grace of hypostatic union, by which he is called God, certainly in this sense, Christ, as man, is Son of God natural, because he is united personally to the natural Son of God: but if this proposition be understood thus: Christ according as he is man, that is specificatively, the human nature of Christ is natural daughter of God, in this sense that proposition is false; for the humanity of Christ is not begotten of God, but of blessed Virgin. Whence speaking absolutely, the minor could be permitted and the consequence denied, because since between filiation simply natural and simply adoptive a middle is given, doubtless to be Son of God not absolutely naturally, but by participation of natural filiation, as Christ as man is Son of God on account of the union of humanity with the person of the natural Son of God, it follows that the inference is vicious, since the argument is not made from a just distribution.

You will object 6. The natures remain unmixed in Christ, nor mutually impeding their properties: but to be adopted is a property of a nature having grace: therefore it can be said of Christ that he is adopted by reason of his human nature, by which he has grace, no less than it can be said of him, by reason of the divine nature, that he is a natural Son. — I distinguish the major: the natures remain unmixed not impeding their properties necessarily and connaturally consequent upon themselves, I concede: their properties, that is, all those things which could befit those natures, I deny. Similarly I distinguish the minor: adoption is a property necessarily and connaturally consequent upon a nature having sanctifying grace when that nature is extraneous to the inheritance, I concede: otherwise, I deny. Whence the consequence must be denied, seeing that the human nature of Christ, as completed by the subsistence of the Word, does not have that extraneousness.

You will object then: The Subtle Doctor teaches that Christ as man can be called Son of God adoptive, as may be seen in the already-praised book, and moreover in 3 dist. 8 where he teaches filiation is not taken in creatures from the person, but from the nature: hence the favorers of that Disciple, namely Tartaretus, Maior, Luzsonius, etc., defend the same opinion: therefore our assertion militates against him. — I deny the antecedent: For the praised Doctor q. 10 resolves with the Master that Christ is not Son of God adoptive; Because, he says, then he would be the Son of the Trinity, whom the whole Trinity adopts, and would exercise every act outside: and in the same place he solves all the arguments which he himself had formed for the opposite side: whence Puteolanus disp. 10, Lucher disp. 23, Ried 3 part of Controversies 3 art. 2, and Pourius in the Commentary militate for our assertion, and confess the Doctor is problematical in this opinion: nevertheless I incline more to the denying side; for the Doctor himself in 3 dist. 2 qu. 1 n. 11, having said: Non necesse est, quod si filius Dei est filius hominis, quod ille idem filius hominis sit Filius Dei per gratiam: adds: Forte enim negaretur de eodem determinate: imo nec conceditur, quod Christus sit Filius Dei adoptivus: therefore false is it that our assertion opposes the mind and doctrine of the Doctor. Hence appears how gravely very many Recentiors of either school exorbitate, while they praise the Subtle Doctor absolutely for the opposite opinion.

Conclusion second. — IT IS NOT CERTAIN (WITH CERTITUDE OF FAITH) THAT CHRIST, QUA MAN, IS NOT TO BE CALLED SON OF GOD ADOPTIVE. This is against Vasquez and others his pertinacious followers.

It is proved first: If that proposition were of faith, chiefly because it would be held defined in the Council of Frankfort against Felix and Elipandus: but this reason is null: therefore it is not certain of faith that Christ qua man is not to be called Son of God adoptive.

Vasquez admits the major chapter 6 and 8 of disputation 81. But the minor is proved: Firstly very many Doctors even after that Council, as Alensis, Albertus, Richardus, and others judged it probable that Christ qua man can be called Son of God adoptive: nor did any of the Ancients condemn as heretical the opinion of Durandus, who assertively attributed such adoption to Christ. It can scarcely be replied that those Authors were ignorant of the definition of the Council of Frankfort, since they made no mention of it. For he will say it is not likely: for although it can be believed that perhaps they had not read the Acts of that Council, until at most in the year 1567 Surius took care to have transcriptions printed from a most ancient and true exemplar; nevertheless it can hardly be believed that they had not read the histories and writings of all those who impugned the Felician heresy, or made discourse concerning it; such as not only were Beatus and Heterius, who first rose up against Elipandus and nobly impugned him by words and writings: but also Charles the Great Emperor, by whose labor that heresy was condemned. And also Ionas Aurelianensis, and very many other Authors who wrote against Elipandus and Felix, all whom certainly could scarcely be believed unknown to those most expert Doctors.

Secondly, although in that Council Felix and Elipandus were condemned asserting Christ to be Son of God adoptive; nevertheless sufficient foundation would not seem to exist for asserting that proposition, as asserted by certain Theologians, to be rejected as heretical; because although Felix and Elipandus were condemned and proscribed by that Council as heretics because they asserted Christ to be Son of God adoptive: yet that condemnation does not prejudice our assertion; for Felix and Elipandus were therefore condemned in this Council because they renewed the heresy of Nestorius, and established two persons in Christ, or two supposits, according to the two natures, namely human and divine, which he had, as Suarez disp. 19 sect. 3, Valentia q. 20, Baronius ad annum Christi 783 n. 5 and 6 teach, likewise anno 791, Mariana book 7 De rebus Hispanicis, nay even Surius himself in the annotations upon this Council; which is also evinced from the acts of that Council, which consist in a certain epistle to the Bishops of Spain: likewise in the epistle of Adrian

the Pope, and also in the book sacro syllabo, whose author is Paulinus Aquileiensis, who together with CCC Bishops from Germany and Gaul in the Council condemned Felix and Elipandus therefore because they renewed the heresy of Nestorius; addressing first him and his adherents, column two has: Invenimus in libelli vestri principio scriptum, quod vos posuistis: Confitemur, et credimus Deum Dei Filium ante omnia tempora, sine initio ex Patre genitum, coaeternum, et consubstantialem, non adoptione, sed natura. Item post pauca in eodem legebatur: Confitemur, et credimus eum factum ex muliere, factum sub lege, non genere esse Filium Dei, sed adoptione, non natura, sed gratia. Et col. 1. Quia hominem Christum verum Dei Patris Filium esse negatis, nobis defensor esse noluisti. Et inferius col. 15. Nonne olim eadem haeresis vestra in Nestorio ab universali sancta Ecclesia refutata est etiam, et damnata? Et addit: Quapropter forte illum anathematizare noluistis, dum alios, Bonosum scilicet, Arianum, et Sabellium, Manichaeumque, qui prave de Filio Dei senserunt, Epistola vestra anathematizastis. In these things it is sufficiently intimated that Felix and Elipandus erred concerning the truth of the mystery of the Incarnation itself, and fell into Nestorian heresy either openly or under disguise. — The same is proved from the book sacro syllabo: for of Felix and Elipandus column three says: Haeresim veternosam illustrium virorum calcibus mirabiliter inculcatam, Catholicaque falce olim funditus detruncatam, spinoso redirivae radice suscitare de stirpe molliuntur. Et col. 8. Non duo Filii, alius Dei, alius hominis, ut sicut illi errando aestimant, adopticus sit hominis Filius, et sine adoptione Dei Filius. By which is signified that Felix and Elipandus openly distinguished the Word as natural Son from the son adoptive of man, like the ancient Nestorians. — The same is gathered from the epistle of Adrian, for at the beginning of the epistle the Pontiff speaking of the heretics whom he impugns says: Non sunt ex hominibus, quos Pater dedit illi, qui eum adoptivum, et non proprium Filium confitentur; quasi alienus aliquando a Patre fuerit — that is: They are not of men, whom the Father gave him, who confess him an adoptive and not a natural Son; as though he had been at any time alien from the Father. Therefore the opinion of those heretics was, that the person of Christ, who was man, was not the proper Son of God, but only adoptive. Which the Pontiff plainly signifies by the authorities of the holy Fathers, by which he upholds his own opinion, and attacks the opposing one as heretical. He proves St. Athanasius saying: If anyone against the divine Scriptures teaches another to be the Son of God, and another, who from Mary the Virgin was man, adopted by grace as we are, as if there were two Sons, him the holy Church anathematizes. He proves also the authority of St. Gregory Nazianzen, writing thus to Cledonius.

Then follows the decree of the Provincial Council, whose subscription not only the most illustrious men but also the bishops signed, and by authority of the Church condemned the same Felix: nay with the author of their error Nestorius, whom he imitated, they delivered them over to perpetual anathema. The same Sigebertus reports in his Chronicle ad annum 793 where he thus writes: Feliciana haeresis condemnata in praesentia domini Papae cum ipso Felice auctore abdicatur. This heresy asserted that the Son of God in divine nature was true God, but in human nuncupative. Likewise that in divine nature he was true Son of God, but in human truly adoptive, dividing the one person of God and man into two persons, namely of a true son and of an adopted. The same report Saint Antoninus 2 part of history tit. 14 cap. 1, Paulus Aemilius book 2, Nauclerus gen. 27, and others.

They reply therefore with Vasquez, those who contend that those heretics did not admit two persons in Christ, but only asserted that Christ qua man is not Son of God natural but adoptive; they reply, I say, first, that those authors who fought against Felix and Elipandus attributed the Nestorian error to them, not because they taught it, but because they taught something from which that error seems to be inferred. — Against this: if those heretics had altogether conceded union of natures in Christ according to one subsistence, and only from a bad understanding of the name of attribution had attributed adoptive filiation to Christ, there would have been no reason why the Nestorian error should be fastened on them. Moreover, why did not someone, whether of the Fathers of the Council of Frankfort or of the Authors who fought against them, most especially indeed Alcuinus most learned, to whom the Felician heresy was clear-sighted, have laid open and plainly explained such heretical deception and assertion? But none so explains the forces of that heresy, but with unanimous reckoning, as has been said above, they teach the assertors of that heresy innovated Nestorianism, asserting that Christ the man was an adoptive Son in precisely the same way, though with more excellent grace, as other just men are. Add that Elipandus himself taught the very same thing in his Epistle to King Charles. His words are reported in the Epistle of the Council to the Bishops of Spain column 3: Ex Patre Unigenitum sine adoptione, primogenitum vero in fine temporis, rerum hominem assumendo de Virgine carnis adoptivum, Unigenitum in natura, primogenitum in adoptione et gratia. By which words he plainly teaches that that man was united to God and assumed by him solely by the grace of adoption. But that Elipandus judged that adoption similar to ours is gathered from column 2 of the same epistle, where it is related that Elipandus in his epistle expounded that word of 1 Ioannis 3: Similes ei erimus: that is, he said, similar in the adoption of flesh, not similar in Divinity. Therefore there is no reason why they should labor so greatly to free him from Nestorian error.

They reply secondly from the confession of faith of Elipandus himself, which is inserted in the book of Beatus and Etherius, which Vasquez reports entire chapter 2 of the above-praised disputation, that it appears Elipandus admitted one person in Christ; for he says: Homo interior in una eademque Dei, et hominis persona agglomeratus, atque carnis vestimento indutus. — I answer, cunningly and with heretical variety he said one person in Christ, in that manner in which Nestorius admitted unity of person in Christ. For St. Thomas testifies 3 part q. 2 art. 6: Si fiat sermo in nomine personae, etiam Nestorius utebatur unitate personae propter unitatem dignitatis et honoris. Whence also the sixth Synodus defines anathema against him who says one person secundum dignitatem, et honorem, et adorationem: as Theodorus and Nestorius foolishly wrote. Therefore similarly Elipandus could by this artifice posit unity of person, that he might more easily delude the orthodox Fathers and avoid sentence of condemnation. Hence add that those words in una eademque Dei persona agglomerata signify no more than accidental union. But also Elipandus himself declared that he intended something else; for he adds in the same confession: Quia non per eum, qui natus est de Virgine, visibilia et invisibilia condidit, sed per illum qui non est adoptione, sed genere, neque gratia, sed natura, et per istum Dei simul et hominis filium adoptivum humanitate, et non adoptivum Divinitate mundum redemit. Et infra: Si conformes sunt omnes sancti huic Filio Dei secundum gratiam, et cum adoptato adoptici, et cum advocato advocati, et cum Christo Christi, et cum parvulo parvuli, et cum servo servi: where he plainly seems to make us equal to Christ in adoption: nay in so unworthy a manner of speaking about Christ he seems to think nothing more than about a pure man; seeing that in the same place he writes that God willed Christ to be ignorant of certain mysteries of his action.

Finally they reply: If Elipandus and Felix had been infected with Nestorian error there would have been no need to convene so many Councils, nor write so many books to convict and eliminate their error; for it would have been easiest to mark and convict them as heretics both by the ancient definitions against Nestorius and by the testimonies of Scripture, whereby it is demonstrated that there is only one person in Christ. But truly the Council of Frankfort does not proceed thus, but rather from the unity of person of Christ, which Elipandus did not deny, and from the properties and true definition of adoption, which he seems to have been ignorant of, the Council gathers that adoption cannot befit Christ: and finally to this it reduces the inconveniences, that if Christ were held an adoptive Son, he also must be divided into two sons. They add that since already in the Church, especially the Latin, the Nestorian error had been utterly uprooted, how could Elipandus hope from the Council and Latin Bishops confirmation of his doctrine, if he had felt the same as Nestorius? With what face before Charles the Great, a Prince most Catholic and the greatest defender of the Church, would he have acted, ordering a Council to be convened, in which his doctrine would be approved? — I answer, indeed Elipandus and Felix had not professed the error of Nestorius in express words, nor asserted expressly two hypostases or two supposits in Christ, or accidental union: but only that one was such by the name adoptive, which however they declared so that plainly in reality they thought nothing else than Nestorius: because neither did they distinguish it from our adoption, as has been proven above, nor did they attribute it to the sole humanity, but to a certain man, whom they said was third and prior to such union or adoption. Hence it is no wonder if Elipandus dared demand the judgment and approval of a Council, because perhaps he did not understand what followed from his error, or blinded by his own heresy and vainglory he hoped it would come to pass that he might more easily deceive others with his wrappings of words. And for the same cause the Council not only used the testimonies and definitions made against Nestorius to confound those heretics, but also strove to declare how in reality they said nothing else than Nestorius.

NOTE 1. or rather to be repeated from what we said in Logic from the Doctor in 1 dist. 1 q. 10: relations, as well as the other entities, are essentially and numerically distinguished by their essential and individual differences: but since on account of the scanty entity of relation those differences lie hidden from us, they can become known only either by the term alone, or by the foundation alone, or by term and foundation together. But it is certain that upon multiplication of foundations relations are multiplied; for that reason that a numerical accident cannot be naturally in subjects numerically diverse: most especially a relative accident, because relative accidents are essentially actual denominations of them: and therefore a numerically diverse foundation suffices for gathering numerical diversity of relations. But whether relations are also multiplied by multiplication of terms of the same species is not so constant among Philosophers and Theologians: yet truer appears the opinion of the Doctor affirming that where there are diverse reasons of terminating and founding, there are diverse relations: but in a father having three sons, for instance, there are three reasons of founding, namely three active generations: likewise there are three reasons of terminating, namely three passive generations: therefore there are three paternities. Which truth indeed we sufficiently proved and asserted in our Logic. The present difficulty therefore turns on this, whether in Christ there be a double sufficient foundation for multiplying the relations of filiation: so that by one filiation he be referred to the eternal Father by reason of his divine generation; but by the other be referred to the Mother by reason of temporal generation.

NOTE 2. Concerning the present difficulty there are chiefly three opinions of Authors. The first is of our Alexander Alensis 3 part. q. 10 memb. 3, teaching that Christ the Lord, qua Word, is referred by one real relation to the Father and to the Mother. The second opinion is of Saint Thomas 3 part. q. 25 art. 4, teaching that Christ is indeed referred to the Father and to the Mother by a double relation; yet nevertheless the relation by which he is referred to the Father is real, but that by which he is referred to the Mother is of reason: with which Saint Bonaventura seems to subscribe in 3 dist. 8 art. 2. Finally the third is of the Subtle Doctor in the same distinction n. 10 where he says: Ego dico quod alia est filiatio in Christo ad Patrem, et alia ad Matrem, et utraque est realis. With whom besides the disciples subscribe from the Recentiores Lorea disput. 21, Suarez disp. 12 dist. 2, and many others.

NOTE 3. That filiation does not require a supposit as proper subject, but can immediately inhere in nature as subject: which indeed the Doctor proves n. 3, because, he says, filiation is the habitude of the product naturally similar to the producer in intellectual nature: but greater is the similitude between produced and producing nature than between producing and produced supposit, because that similitude inheres in two supposits only by reason of nature: therefore the relation of filiation is more immediately subjected in nature than in the supposit. Therefore two things are to be posited here: First, that in Christ there are two relations, of which one is referred to the Father, but the other to the Mother. Second, that those two relations are real.

Conclusion first. — CHRIST IS REFERRED BY A DOUBLE RELATION, ONE INDEED ETERNAL TO THE FATHER, BUT THE OTHER TEMPORAL TO THE MOTHER. Thus the Doctor.

And he proves the conclusion first: Filiation is the habitude of the product naturally similar to the producer in cognitive nature: but in Christ there are two habitudes of this kind, one insofar as he is produced as God from the Father eternally, to whom he is similar in intellectual divine nature: the other insofar as he is produced as man from blessed Virgin, to whom he is similar in human intellectual nature: therefore there are in him two filiations. The major is clear, because, says Poncius in Comment., to every and only filiation befits the aforesaid description, as appears from its explication; for it is said the habitude of the product, because just as paternity is the habitude of the producer, so filiation is the habitude of the product: it is said naturally, for if he were not produced naturally, although he were similar in nature to the producer, he would not be a son: thence indeed the Holy Spirit is not a Son, although he is similar to the Father in Divinity, because he is not produced naturally. Is added similar to the producer, because a worm however much it be produced naturally by the Sun cannot yet be called son of the Sun, since it is not similar to it in nature. Finally it is said in cognitive nature, not intellectual: seeing that according to common acceptation of filiation only an intellectual and cognitive substance can be called daughter. The minor also holds; for there are in Christ as many habitudes as there are origins from distinct principles: but there are two origins in Christ, one indeed eternal, whereby he receives divine nature from the Father; the other truly temporal, whereby he receives humanity from the Mother: wherefore St. Damascenus book 3 cap. 7 says: duas generationes Christi veneramur: therefore also in him there are two filiations.

The Doctor proves secondly: Christ besides eternal filiation has another, whereby he is referred to the Mother: therefore he has two filiations. The antecedent holds: since Christ is Son of blessed Virgin. But the consequence is proved. Christ since he is son of the Virgin is referred to her by the relation of filiation: but he cannot be referred to her by eternal filiation; because the divine Son by his eternal filiation can no more be referred to blessed Virgin, from whom he is generated temporally, than the eternal Father would be referred to her by his paternity if he were likewise begotten of blessed Virgin and assumed from her the generated humanity: but in that hypothesis the eternal Father would not be called Son of the Virgin, nor would he be referred to her by his paternity: therefore neither can the divine Son be referred to her by his eternal filiation. — Poncius confirms this argument of the Doctor: because if the Father had assumed human nature begotten of blessed Virgin, as he was able to do, as we proved above, the Father would truly be man, and qua man would be Son of blessed Virgin: therefore he would have some form by which he would be called her Son: but that form, by which he would be denominated Son of the Virgin, could not be eternal paternity: therefore it ought to be another relation distinct from paternity itself: but Christ now has such a form as the Father would have, if he de facto had been begotten of blessed Virgin, as Christ de facto is begotten of her: therefore truly Christ besides eternal filiation, whereby he is referred to the Father, has another temporal, whereby he is referred to the Virgin.

The Doctor proves thirdly: In Christ there are two nativities and two produced natures: therefore equally in him there are two filiations. The antecedent is of faith. But the consequence is proved: foundations and terms being multiplied, however much the subject remained the same, the relations also are multiplied: but if Christ be twice-begotten, in him are multiplied the foundations and terms of filiations: therefore the filiations also are multiplied. The major is evident: for by no other reason does the divine Father remaining the same refer himself by a double relation to the Son and to the Holy Spirit than because the proximate foundations are multiplied, namely generation and active spiration: the terms also are multiplied, namely Son and Holy Spirit: and consequently foundations and terms being multiplied, filiations must be multiplied. The minor also is proved: the proximate foundation of filiation is to be begotten in intellectual nature: but from St. Damasceno book 3 cap. 7 two generations in Christ we venerate; because Christ is twice-begotten, once from eternity, and again in time: therefore of his filiation two proximate foundations are given, namely two passive generations: also two terms are given, namely eternal Father and Virgin Mother of God: therefore equally two filiations must be.

Porzanus answered, That the Son in human things has not two filiations, although he has two natures, namely body and soul; and regards also two terms, namely Father and Mother: therefore multiplication of natures and terms does not effect multiplication of filiations. — I answer, indeed multiplication of partial terms constituting one total does not contribute to multiplication of filiations: thus father and mother, since they are the one total cause of generation, are also the one total term of the filiation of the man begotten by them: but far different is the case concerning the eternal Father and blessed Virgin generating Christ, because eternal Father and Virgin Mother of God do not concur as two partial causes, namely as father and mother, toward the temporal generation of Christ; but just as the Father alone from eternity is said to be total and adequate principle of the son, so the Virgin Mother of God is said in time to be alone and adequate and total cause, or mother of Christ the Lord: for although the Holy Spirit concur toward that generation through his overshadowing and supervening power, nevertheless he does not concur after the manner of genitor, wherefore he is not called Father of Christ: therefore since Christ has two distinct nativities and two distinct and diverse terms of his filiation, he must also have two wholly distinct relations of filiation.

Conclusion second. — THE TWO FILIATIONS OF CHRIST ARE REAL. This is of the Doctor.

It is proved first: Eternal filiation doubtless is real: but temporal also is real: therefore that double relation is real. All admit the major. The Doctor proves the minor: that relation is real which has all that is desired for a real relation, namely real extremes, upon which it follows independently of any act of intellect: but the filiation of Christ with respect to the Mother is such; for it has the Mother generating and the nature generated: therefore as by reason of both this extreme the maternity of blessed Virgin is truly real, so also the relation of filiation of Christ to her is truly real. — It is confirmed: Christ is formally Son of blessed Virgin, although no intellect or vital power conceived or feigned any form in him: but, as has been proven above, he cannot be held formally Son of the Virgin by his eternal filiation: therefore necessarily he is referred to her by the created relation of filiation.

It is proved secondly: If blessed Virgin had begotten a pure man, she would be true mother of that begotten man by a truly real relation; and he likewise would be true son of hers referred to her by the real relation of filiation: but she no less begat Christ the Lord, or cooperated no less toward his production, than if Christ were pure man; nor does Christ as man less really receive his nature and entity from her through true generation: therefore he is her Son by real filiation. The major holds. The minor is proved: if any difference existed between the generation of a pure man and the generation of Christ, chiefly because a pure man begotten of a Virgin would have received from her nature and personality together; but Christ receives from her nature only: yet this does not stand in the way of a true relation of real filiation, which I prove thus: blessed Virgin is true Mother of Christ by a real relation, although Christ did not receive personality from her: therefore Christ is true and real Son of hers by real filiation, although he did not receive his personality from blessed Virgin. The consequence is clear from parity of reason; for if blessed Virgin is truly called Mother of Christ precisely from this, that through her cooperation the humanity was produced, which had personality no less perfecting and affecting that nature than if personality had been begotten of blessed Virgin: therefore similarly Christ by this reason must be held her true Son, who through her cooperation had nature begotten, which the supposit no less brings forth and sustains than if it had been produced together with nature by blessed Virgin herself. — It is confirmed, because man is no less true and real cause of another man begotten of him than fire is cause of other fire produced by it; although man does not produce the substantial form, namely the rational soul of the begotten man, as fire produces the substantial form of the fire produced; nor is the begotten man less said to be produced by the generating man than the produced fire is truly said to be produced by the producing fire: because that generation and begotten suffice that through the cooperation of the Virgin a true man be produced, whether meanwhile that personality of that man be produced by her or not. The parity holds, because neither ought begotten man more receive his personality from the generating man that he may be called his son, than receive the rational soul, whereby he is his substantial form essentially constituting his very nature: but notwithstanding that from the generating man begotten man does not receive the substantial form, truly he is called his son begotten by him: therefore from parity of reason, although Christ receives not his personality from blessed Virgin, he will be none less her true Son, and is referred to her by a true and real relation.

The Doctor proves thirdly: If anything stood in the way why Christ is referred to the Mother by a true real relation, chiefly because, as St. Thomas wishes, there cannot be several forms of the same kind in the same supposit, and consequently in Christ there cannot be two filiations: but this reason is null: therefore etc. Vain is the chief foundation of St. Thomas.

The Doctor proves the minor: if it were repugnant for several relations of the same kind to exist in the same supposit, this would be chiefly either because relation is simple, or because it is such a relation, namely of origin and filiation: but from neither head is this repugnant. Not indeed from the first, because there can be several relations in the same supposit of Christ, namely relations of equality, identity, and similarity: for Christ, since He had a true human nature of such a size, affected with whiteness, truly had a relation of identity to all men, of equality to those who were of the same size and stature, and of similarity to other men, just as also of dissimilarity to black men: therefore it is not repugnant that there be several relations in the same supposit of Christ. Nor is it repugnant from the second head, namely, that there can be several relations of the same kind in the same supposit, for instance of origin: because it is no more repugnant that there be several relations consequent upon origination than that there be several originations in the same supposit: but there are several originations, or passive productions, in Christ, one by which He receives from the Father the divine nature communicated to Him through eternal generation; another by which He receives human nature through the cooperation of the blessed Virgin: therefore likewise He can have two filiations. The major stands; for no repugnance appears why the relation of origin should be multiplied in the same supposit any more than that that origination be multiplied which is the proximate ground of founding that relation. The Doctor proves the minor by the authority of St. Damascene affirming that we venerate two generations in Christ. — Nor does it avail to say that St. Damascene is to be understood of active generations; for, says the Doctor, there is no greater reason why there should be two active generations in Christ than two passive ones. That same minor can moreover be proved: both because Christ, as man, has a dependence upon His Mother; which dependence is really distinct from the passive origination He has from the Father: therefore He truly has two real originations; and because two relations of active origin can exist in the same supposit: therefore also passive: the consequence is clear from parity of reason: the antecedent also stands, because in the eternal Father there are two active productions of origin, namely active generation and active spiration: finally, because two relations of origin can no less exist in Christ than two most diverse operations, one of which is divine and the other human: but two operations are most diverse in Christ: therefore by equal reason there are in Him two relations of origin.

The Thomists answer with Cajetan that there is a disparity why Christ can have two nativities, and two respects of similarity and dissimilarity, and two operations, but not two filiations, because, they say, the temporal nativity, which He can have besides the divine, is founded immediately in His own human nature: but several operations, and other relations are not immediately subjected in the supposit, but in the very natures with which they are identified: whence the supposit can indeed have those relations and operations by reason of the natures it sustains: but temporal filiation would have to be immediately subjected in the very supposit of Christ, if that supposit were capable of receiving that relation: but it is not capable of a real relation, because the supposit of the Word, which sustains the human nature of Christ, cannot receive any accident. — But on the contrary, first they gratuitously suppose that filiation, which accrues to the supposit, must be immediately subjected in it: therefore their reply is worthless. The antecedent is plain, because as, although actions belong to supposits and not to nature, according to the adversaries, yet they themselves admit that actions are not immediately subjected in the supposit but in nature, otherwise Christ would have no actions or operations truly human, which is absurd; so likewise, although filiation pertains to the supposit, by which it is denominated Son, still it does not follow from that that it must be immediately subjected in the supposit and not in nature. Poncius confirms this response in his first Commentary, because the created supposit, according to the truer opinion, consists in negation; but the filiation of a created supposit, since it is a real respect, cannot be immediately subjected in a negation: therefore filiation ought not to be subjected immediately in the supposit, but in nature. He confirms it secondly, because if the Holy Spirit assumed a human nature born of a Virgin, He would no less be the Son of the Virgin than Christ: but He would not be her Son through eternal filiation, because the Holy Spirit does not have such: therefore through temporal filiation: but that temporal relation would not be immediately subjected in the personality of the Holy Spirit: therefore that filiation would be subjected in the humanity, and consequently filiation ought not to be subjected in anything other than the humanity. He confirms it thirdly, because it would be said gratuitously that filiation ought to be subjected in something other than that in which the passive production is subjected, by which Christ has it that He was produced by a Virgin: but that, according to the adversaries, is subjected in the humanity: therefore filiation too ought to be subjected in it.

The Thomists answer: If filiation were received immediately in the humanity, the humanity could be called daughter of the Virgin: for that is formally called son which formally has filiation immediately subjected in itself: but this is absurd: therefore it is false that filiation is immediately received in human nature. — I answer first, the major can be denied; for although divine filiation is intimately joined with the soul and body of Christ; nevertheless in the three days of death, when the soul was separated from the body, it did not denominate the body son, nor the soul daughter; therefore likewise, although filiation is immediately received in the humanity, it does not follow that it must denominate it daughter. Which indeed is confirmed; for filiation and divine personality need not necessarily denominate daughter or person the assumed nature; for if the Word had assumed wood, for example, that assumed wood could not be denominated either son or person, because in order that any individual nature be called person and daughter, it must be intelligent and rational; where these conditions are absent, the assumed nature is not capable of receiving such denomination: so similarly we can say that in order that any nature be truly denominated daughter, it is necessary that it be complete by its own subsistence and personality: and consequently that nature, considered singularly in itself and apart from its personality, cannot have such denomination, even though it be born and produced. I answer secondly, that if for human nature to be daughter is nothing else than for it to have filiation immediately subjected in itself, the minor can be denied, and whatever will be brought forward to the contrary will be only a question about a name.

You say first: Divine filiation is not received immediately in the divine nature, nor does it denominate that nature daughter: therefore neither does created filiation: therefore created filiation ought not to be received immediately in nature, but in the supposit. — I answer first, the consequence can be denied; for there is a disparity between created and uncreated filiation, because the former is an accident, the latter substance; the former requires a subject in which it inheres by way of inhesion, the latter only requires a subject in which it is present by way of constitution. Whence the argument can be retorted; for just as uncreated filiation is not received in the supposit but constitutes the supposit, so neither ought created filiation to be received in the supposit. I answer secondly, that the antecedent can be denied; for divine filiation, just as it is received by its real entity in the divine nature, and determines it to constitute a son; so that if the divine nature of the Son were really distinguished from the Father, that filiation identified with it would denominate it daughter with respect to the Father; but He does not denominate it thus, because in order that any nature be able to be denominated daughter, it is necessary that it be really distinguished from the generating principle: whence similarly the argument can be retorted: divine filiation is received immediately in the divine nature by identification, and would denominate it daughter if it were really distinguished from it: therefore created filiation ought to be received immediately in the singular nature and denominate it daughter, since that created nature is really distinguished from the generating principle.

You say secondly: If filiation were received immediately in the humanity and not in the whole supposit, or in the man himself constituted of nature and personality, it would follow that, if the Word relinquished the assumed humanity, as He truly can relinquish it, that nature thus relinquished would have its own supposit; and thus that man would be said to be the Son of the Virgin and would not be said to be: he would indeed be said to be, because his nature had been born of the blessed Virgin: therefore if filiation follows nature, that man would truly be the Son of the blessed Virgin; but he would not be, because the blessed Virgin had not begotten that supposit. Which indeed is confirmed, because if at the same instant at which the Word relinquished the humanity the eternal Father assumed it, He could not on account of that assumed nature be called Son of the Virgin: therefore neither should that one, who would be pure man on account of the humanity relinquished by the Word, be called Son of the Virgin. — I answer, passing over the various solutions which he reports from Suarez, Faber and others, and which Poncius unfolds in his Commentary n. 10 and following; by denying the consequence of the major as regards its second part: for truly, in that case, that pure man would truly be son of the Virgin, if it suffices in order that some person be called daughter of another person that it be a supposit having a generated nature, in which nature the relation of filiation immediately resides; for in that hypothesis both the created supposit and the supposit of the eternal Father could truly be called Sons of the Virgin, because they would have a nature joined to them, in which the relation of filiation toward the blessed Virgin would be immediately received. But if anyone contend that this does not suffice for the reason of filiation, but that besides it is required either that the supposit be produced together with the humanity, or that it follow connaturally upon the production of the human nature for that instant at which the human nature is produced; then neither the human supposit nor the eternal Father ought to be called sons of the Virgin. Thence this difficulty can only be about a manner of speaking.

You say thirdly: By filiation man is constituted in the reason of son: therefore two real filiations constitute two sons really: but Christ is not two sons: therefore He does not have two filiations. — The Doctor distinguishes the first consequent at n. 18: by two filiations two sons are constituted, if those filiations are in two supposits, he grants: if in the same, he denies. Because, he says, concreated things are not multiplied unless both form and supposit are multiplied; for the multiplication of form alone does not suffice, especially where several forms, whether of the same kind, or expressed by the same name, can exist in the same supposit: thus Christ is not several willing beings, although He has several volitions.

You say fourthly: Therefore the eternal Father is not incarnate but the Son, because otherwise there would be confusion of properties, as was said in the first Article of the first Disputation, because the same person would be Son and Father; Father indeed inasmuch as first person of the Trinity; but Son inasmuch as born of the blessed Virgin: therefore Christ is not Son, both of the Father and of the Virgin, by a filiation other than the eternal: because otherwise there would be confusion of properties: seeing that He would not be Son by one and the same filiation alone. — The Doctor answers first by denying the consequence with its proof, because there is utterly no confusion that Christ by one filiation be son of the Virgin, and by another son of the eternal Father; indeed from the fact that He is son of the Virgin it is not on that account denied that He is son of the eternal Father. Hence when it is said of Christ that He is Son, no one can doubt from that manner of speaking that the divine person of Christ is the person of the Word and son of the eternal Father: it would be otherwise, however, if the Father or the Holy Spirit were incarnate; for if one of those two persons were called son, one could doubt whether the speech were of the son of the eternal Father, or of the son of the Virgin; which confusion does not follow from the incarnation of the Word, because by the appellation of divine Son we sufficiently understand the person of the Word. He answers secondly by retorting the argument: confusion would follow from the incarnation of the Father, because the same person would be Father and Son: therefore an incarnate Father would truly be son of the Virgin: but He would not be son through eternal filiation, which He does not have: therefore through temporal filiation: therefore a divine person is capable of temporal filiation: therefore the Son is not incapable of that filiation, as the adversaries will.

You say fifthly: Therefore a real temporal filiation would have to be admitted, in order that Christ be truly called son of the Virgin: but He could be called son of the Virgin without that real relation. It is proved, because God can be called Lord of creatures without a real relation: therefore Christ can be called son of the blessed

Virgin without a real relation. — The Doctor denies the minor: for neither could he be called son of the Virgin unless the blessed Virgin were likewise called his Mother and had a real relation of maternity: but she would not have that relation unless Christ equally had the relation of filiation, because by the same reason that the blessed Virgin is called Mother of Christ because she begot His humanity, by the same reason Christ ought to be called her son, because he has humanity born of her: for there is no greater reason why a relation of maternity should follow in her upon the active generation of the blessed Virgin than that a relation of filiation should follow in Christ upon the passive generation. Wherefore the proof of the minor must be denied, because God has no reason in Himself on account of which a real relation must necessarily follow from His being Creator and Lord of things: nay rather He has a reason entirely opposed to that real relation, namely immutability, by which it comes about that He is not capable of sustaining a real relation: but it is otherwise concerning Christ the Lord, because He is capable of that new relation of filiation by reason of the assumed nature born of the blessed Virgin: therefore it is not the same reason concerning Christ with respect to the relation of filiation as concerning God with respect to the real relation of Creator and Lord.

You say sixthly: If Christ had a new real relation to His Mother, He would be really equal to her: but this is false, because real equality is founded upon unity of union, and consequently that equality does not intervene except between things having unity of union: but Christ has not unity of any real union with His Mother: therefore He has neither any quality, nor consequently a real relation. — The Doctor denies the minor with its proof: for, as Poncius explains him, two pure men equal in perfection of nature do not have any unity of union between themselves: therefore equality is not founded upon such a unity. But if you say that two men have a unity of union between themselves by reason of their agreement in nature, on account of which they found a relation of equality: the same can also be said of Christ and the blessed Virgin: for whatever equality is posited between two men by reason of nature, the same can be posited between Christ and the Virgin by reason of the generated human nature which Christ has.

You say lastly: Whatever relation Christ had to the blessed Virgin, He had it only as long as He preserved the integral human nature born of that blessed Virgin: but He lost that integrity of humanity in the three days of death: for while the soul is separated from the body, the whole composite of man perished: therefore either He no longer has that real relation of filiation, or He has it not received from the blessed Virgin but only from God reproduced in the resurrection. — He denies the minor; the consequent is false: Mary has Him by the same filiation as before: because filiation is founded upon the existence of the nature received through generation absolutely, to which no interruption is added, provided the existence be the same: and therefore whenever that existence is the same, and the other extreme the same, the filiation also is the same: and by the same action by which the foundation remains the same, the relation remains the same. Such is the doctrine of the Doctor, by which He signifies that Christ after the resurrection is son of the blessed Virgin by numerically the same filiation by which He was before death.

Note 1. According to Isambert on q. 22, art. 3, a fourfold servitude can be distinguished in Sacred Scripture: The first natural and general, common to all creatures in order to God, according to which every creature is so under the dominion of God as to serve Him at His nod, of which Wisdom 16: Serving the maker of all things. But that this servitude is true is plain, because then the proper reason of servitude is present when someone is so subjected to another as not only to be bound to obey him as superior, but also that all that he is and has exists under his dominion and he is bound to direct himself and all his goods to that one's good: for thus a servant properly so called is held to be wholly of his lord, as Aristotle teaches in his Politics: but all this is found in every creature with respect to God, according as it is a creature; for both in being and in being preserved it depends on God; and God can by exercising His absolute right destroy it. Likewise it is ordered to God as to its ultimate end, and if it be a rational creature, it is bound to direct itself and all its actions to Him, and if it constitute any other end for itself, it sins: therefore every creature, qua creature, is called servant in order to God. The second servitude is legal and despotic, which was introduced by law, and not by the institution of that first nature, according to which some are so under the dominion of another that they are his as regards all their temporal actions and operations, and are bound to expend them for his good: in which species are constituted not only purchased slaves but also hired ones for that time during which they hire out themselves and their works to others. The third servitude is sinful, by which a rational creature is subjected to sin or the devil, of which 1 John 10: He who committeth sin is the servant of sin. The fourth and last servitude can be called penal, which consists in that affection by which a rational creature obeys God through fear of punishment to be undergone, as the Apostle says to the Romans 2: You have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear. It is asked, moreover, whether Christ our Lord can be reckoned and called servant in any of these ways.

Note 2. Between the first servitude and the rest there is this difference, that the first does not conflict with free birth but is compatible with it, and at the same time admits of the right to inheritance: since Adam before sin, and his posterity had they persevered in the state of innocence, would have been servants of God by this kind of servitude, as is sufficiently understood of itself; and yet by force of original justice, or rather of sanctifying grace, they would have had a right to eternal life and would have shared in the goods of God Himself, since sanctifying grace, which original justice imports, is a certain singular participation in the divine nature, by reason of which we are named and are sons of God, as St. John says. Likewise the just are servants by this kind of servitude: for the blessed Virgin calls herself the handmaid of God in her Canticle, and everywhere all the Saints do; yet they are not less freeborn and free; nay, as the Church sings in the office of blessed Agatha, Supreme nobility is that in which the servitude of Christ is proved. Hence St. Jerome on Psalm 115: O Lord, for I am thy servant, says: To be a servant of God is of great dignity and merit. And St. Ambrose book 1 On Jacob and the Happy Life, chapter 3, calls such servitude glorious liberty. And St. Augustine on the cited verse of Psalm 115 says that a creature owes service to its Creator, which when it renders, it is free; receiving from the Lord that grace whereby it serves Him not from necessity but willingly. It must further be observed that for the formal reason of servitude there is not required a negation of communication in the goods of the lord, as Vazquez less correctly teaches in the cited place chapter 9, because since servitude admits free birth along with itself, it likewise admits the right to inheritance, and consequently communication in goods: therefore only communication in goods with equality and plainly entire independence can take away the reason of servitude, not any communication whatsoever in the goods of the lord.

Note 3. In three ways it can be said that Christ was subject to the Father, namely either by reason of the inequality of human nature with respect to the divine; or by reason of the divine will, by which He is above the created will of Christ; or by reason of the obedience rendered to the paternal command and precept. Concerning the first and second subjection there is no controversy; for it is said 1 John 14: The Father is greater than I: whence the subjection of Christ is at once manifest. Therefore only the question is moved concerning the third reason of subjection, whether namely Christ was subject to the Father by reason of some precept to which He was bound by reason of the virtue of obedience.

Conclusion first. — CHRIST WAS SUBJECT TO THE FATHER BY REASON OF A PRECEPT TO WHICH HE WAS BOUND TO BE OBEDIENT.

It is proved: for He Himself says John 10 and 14: I have received a commandment from my Father. And as the Father gave me commandment, so I do: and although the name of commandment is sometimes taken broadly in the Sacred Scriptures, inasmuch as those things that are commended to us, though not commanded, are called commandments; nevertheless commonly by the name of commandments precepts and prohibitions are understood. Hence in the same chapter 11 Christ professes that He received precepts from the Father: I, He says, keep the commandments of my Father, in which places Christ makes an equal condition of the precepts imposed upon Him by the Father. Then, to the Philippians 2, Christ is said to have been made obedient unto death. Nor should it be said that obedience is more excellent when someone obeys a superior without intimation of a precept than with intimation of a precept: for this is simply false; for although from another standpoint that act is more excellent, and argues a will more excellent even under another title; nevertheless, if the force of obedience be considered, certainly the intimation of a precept is required, which alone regards obedience as its proper correlate. But more ample discourse on these matters will belong to the following Disputation, where the merits of Christ will be treated.

You will object first: Precepts are given to someone only for two reasons, namely on account of direction to be made in the very will of the operator: or on account of infliction of punishment, insofar as the law decrees punishment for transgression: but in neither way was a precept given to Christ. Not indeed in the first way, because He was impeccable and His will was otherwise sufficiently directed. Not even in the latter way, because fear of punishment argues penal servitude, which was none in Christ, as we shall soon say. Besides, where there can be no transgression of the law, there also no punishment to be inflicted can be joined to the law, because there is lacking to the Legislator Himself the motive reason for constituting punishment, which is to contain subjects in observance of the law whom they can violate: therefore punishment could not be inflicted upon Him: therefore no precept is given. It is confirmed by the example of a vow, which Christ could not make, as Theologians commonly teach, because a vow is made by man in order that, because his will is not firm in good, by vowing he may fix it immovably upon what it is expedient to do, and he does this so that through fear of dishonoring God and violating his promise he may abstain from its contrary. Since therefore a precept is given to someone also to direct him, because his will is not firm in good but can defect from it, and the will of Christ was not of this condition, seeing that He could not make a vow, thus neither could any precept be imposed upon Him. — I answer denying the major: for a precept is given on account of the act which the law commands; whence in such a precept neither direction nor punishment is considered primarily, but only secondarily. Direction indeed where the will is not firm: punishment truly, where there is present the power of imposing precept and law: and because neither of these was in Christ; therefore neither was a precept given to Him under those reasons; but with the added reason of the excellence and dignity of the act, which He could choose through obedience without need of direction and fear of punishment. To the confirmation I answer, that Christ could not make a vow under those reasons brought forward in the objection, yet could under other reasons, inasmuch namely as it is some act of latria or religion; for Christ, as man, could will to pray to the Father out of a vow, to fast, to sacrifice, and the like; for these include no imperfection or indecency.

You will object secondly: Where there is a precept, there is necessity of executing the thing prescribed, because a precept induces obligation: but Christ, John 10, denies that He had necessity of dying: therefore etc. — I answer, that Christ the Lord asserts indeed that He had not necessity of dying, because the mandate about undergoing death for us was accepted by Him freely, according to Psalm 38: Then said I; Behold I come.

You will object thirdly: The death of Christ is commonly said to be merely permitted, not commanded. — I answer, it is said permitted by reason of the crucifiers; but said commanded by reason of the crucified and dead.

You ask first: to what laws was Christ subject? — I answer first that He was subject to the laws of the natural law, both of the natural and of the supernatural order, which nevertheless did not derogate from the dignity of His person. The reason is, because Christ assumed human nature with the conditions that follow upon it (excepting sin and ignorance): but the precepts of the natural law follow upon human nature; likewise they contain the right order which a rational creature ought to keep, against which Christ could not act. I said of the supernatural order also, because since His soul was ordered to a supernatural end, with respect to which certain necessary means are given which by their own nature follow upon such ordination, of which kind is the supernatural love of God, thence it comes that Christ was subject to this and other similar precepts. I said furthermore, which nevertheless did not derogate from the dignity of His person: for the dignity of the person of Christ demanded that He be exempted from some laws even of the natural law: e.g., by the natural law we owe obedience to parents: but Christ was not bound to render it to His Mother the most blessed Virgin, since she was His superior: and therefore what is said Luke 2, and he was subject to them, must be understood not from the obligation of a natural precept but from His free will and for our instruction; as blessed Bernard signifies section 29 on the Canticles. — I answer secondly, that Christ our Lord was not subject to human laws, as is gathered from chapter 27 of Matthew, where Christ signified that He paid tribute not from obligation but voluntarily: lest namely others be scandalized. But the reason of the response is, because a superior cannot be bound by the laws of an inferior: but Christ is superior to all human laws and legislators: therefore He was not subject to human laws. — I answer thirdly, that Christ was not subject to positive laws, both of the New and of the Old Testament. It is proved concerning the laws of the New Testament, because the Prince is loosed from his own laws, especially when the law regards subjects inasmuch as they are in some state discordant with the state of the Legislator, as is plain when the Prince lays down a law about paying tributes: but Christ is the author of the New Testament, and the law of the New Testament regards men inasmuch as they are in some manner sinners: therefore Christ was not subject to the law of the New Testament. — It is proved further concerning the laws of the Old Testament, because the old law was given only for the posterity of Adam descending according to common reason: but Christ did not descend from Adam in this manner. Whence I gather, that when it is said to the Galatians that Christ was made under the law, that must be understood of the voluntary subjection of Christ as an example of humility. That word of Matthew 5, I came not to dissolve the law, but to fulfil, is rightly understood of the fulfillment of the figure through the exhibition of truth: for the old law was the shadow of things to come in the New Testament.

Conclusion second. — CHRIST, AS MAN, CAN TRULY AND PROPERLY BE CALLED THE SERVANT OF GOD BY NATURAL SERVITUDE, BUT NOT BY LEGAL SERVITUDE.

The first part is proved from Sacred Scripture, in which Christ the Lord is most frequently called the servant of God. Thus Isaiah 12: Behold my servant, I will uphold him: my elect, my soul delighteth in him. And chapter 53: By his knowledge shall this my just servant justify many. And Zechariah 5: I will bring my servant the Orient. The same truth is handed down in the New Testament: for Matthew 12, the Evangelist interprets the passage quoted from Isaiah of Christ. Nor does it matter that the Evangelist did not report the words my servant but my child, for most often the name child is taken for servants. Thus 1 Kings 9: Bid the child go before us, and 21: If the children be innocent (that is, servants) especially from women. And Psalm 68: Hide not thy face from thy child. Which is also evident from the New Testament, where the name child is sometimes written for servant. Thus especially Acts 4, Peter said: For of a truth there assembled together in this city against thy holy child Jesus, in which place the name child does not signify a younger man not yet mature in adult age, but is taken properly for a servant. Nay Christ Himself Matthew 11 quite plainly signified that this appellation was to be attributed to Himself, when He said: I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, where He calls the Father Lord of those things which exist made in heaven and in earth, that He may signify that He also, as man, acknowledges the Father as Lord; and consequently, that He be reckoned among His servants, as St. Athanasius gathers book 3 Against the Arians. — It avails to reply with Vazquez that the words of Scripture are to be taken metaphorically: both because the oracles of Scripture are to be taken in their proper signification whenever no absurdity follows from it: but nothing is detracted from Christ, nor from Christian truth, by Christ's being called, as man, servant of God: therefore He must truly be so regarded: and because the Holy Fathers, soon to be praised, used the foresaid authorities of Scripture in their proper signification: therefore they ought to be so taken. — Nor does it equally stand in the way, that Adrian, supreme Pontiff, in his epistle to the Council of Frankfort, says that never did any Evangelist, no Apostle call Him servant: for he said this either because rarely, and not with such express words in the New as in the Old Testament, is He so called, or he takes servant in another signification, namely either for pure man, or for man subjected to sins, of which matter below.

It is proved secondly from the Holy Fathers: first indeed St. Chrysostom, Homily 7 on the epistle to the Philippians, expounding these words, Taking the form of a servant, says: As in the form of God He is perfect God, so in the form of a servant He is perfect servant. Similarly St. Ambrose book 7 of Epistles, epistle 15, reproves one who had denied that Christ accepted for us the condition of a servant, where expounding that word of Psalm 109: Strengthen me, O Lord my God, he says: Servitude is of nature, dominion is of dignity. St. Jerome, on the epistle to Titus, chapter 1: Let it be no wonder if any sounding men are nobly called servants of God, when through Isaias the Prophet the Father speaks of the Son: It is great for thee to be called my servant. Isidore, book 1 On the Highest Good, chapter 16: Christ, and in the form of a servant a servant, and in the form of God not a servant: for in the form of a servant, servant of the Lord: and in the form of God Lord of men. Augustine, epistle 171: According to the form of God He said of Himself: I and the Father are one: according to the form of a servant: because the Father is greater than I. Athanasius, sermon 3, Against the Arians, where he referred the words made, created, servant, and son, thus has it: All such words, by reason of humanity, well and properly apply. Nazianzen, oration 3, On Theology: Thou hast rendered to me more safely against those voices of ingratitude these, namely, My God and your God; greater, created, made, sanctified; add even servant, if it so please, and obedient.

It is proved also by reason: For he truly is held servant who is under the power of a lord, and is held to spend all his actions and labors in his service, as well as in all things obey and serve him: but all these befit Christ as man with respect to God. First indeed God of all men, and therefore of Christ as man, is such Lord that according to pleasure and right of his dominion he can annihilate all men, and therefore Christ as man, and all creatures: as God himself testifies Deuteronomii 32: Ego occidam, et ego vivere faciam: et Sapientiae 16: Tu es Domine, qui vitae et mortis habes potestatem. Similarly Christ, as man, whatever he has owes to God omnipotent, as distributor and bestower of every good. By equal reason he is held to spend all his service toward his worship and honor; for all things serve him; wherefore Christ D., as the Apostle teaches ad

Philip. 2, Et factus est obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem Crucis.

You will say first: The reason of creature depending on God is not adequate foundation of true and proper servitude; but moreover it is required that he who is servant communicate nowise in goods of his lord: but Christ as man communicates in goods of God; since, to be complete man, he must have subsistence; but subsistence of Christ is divine: therefore as man he communicates in goods of his Lord. — I deny the major; for although this communication in goods of lord perhaps be something consequent upon legal servitude, because he who is servant with legal servitude is so under dominion of another that with him he communicates neither in goods, nor honor, nor dignity; yet that negation is not required for natural servitude, as we said in Notable second. Since indeed this does not exclude right of communicating in goods and honors, as appears not only in son, who although natural servant of father, nevertheless has right to communicate with him in goods and honors, but even in most holy men; for just men communicate through grace in goods of God, because through grace they are partakers of divine nature, as St. Peter teaches epist. 2 cap. 1, and have right to vision and fruition, are truly and properly named servants of God, as St. Paul testifies many times, who in his epistles glories chiefly in this appellation repeated often, Paulus Apostolus servus Iesu Christi. Hence Matth. 25, to every Just man called to eternal glory it is said: Euge, serve bone et fidelis, etc.

You will urge again: That the just indeed are called servants of God, but improperly: seeing that Christ said to them Ioann. 15: Iam non dicam vos servos, sed amicos: therefore that response is null. — I deny the consequence: For Christ only removes from the just the appellation and lot of servile servitude, because the just do not act in manner of servants from servile fear, but in manner of sons from love: wherefore rather friends than servants are they named. But that natural servitude excludes not condition of adoptive son, nor friend, holds, because it admits with itself also condition of maternity: for indeed blessed Virgin, who communicated most abundantly in honors of God, and was illustrated with title and glory of divine maternity, nevertheless immediately after conception of divine Word, and dignity of maternity granted her, named herself servant and handmaid of God, saying Luciae 1: Ecce ancilla Domini: whence in her Canticle there she sang: Respexit humilitatem ancillae suae, etc.

You ask: That parity of communication of Saints and Mother-of-God Virgin in goods of God and Christ is not the same: therefore however much that communication does not stand in the way of blessed Virgin and Saints being called servants of God, since Christ far more nobly and divinely communicates in goods of God, he can nowise be reckoned his servant. — Against this, however much Christ far more perfectly than any other Saint communicated with God in goods, nevertheless he did not communicate unto equality: since Christ claims for himself not all divine attributes; for neither is he omnipotent, nor infinite, nor immense; for although attributes of God be predicated of Christ through communication of idioms, nevertheless his true humanity cannot be called omnipotent, immense, eternal, etc.: therefore he communicates not in all goods of God unto equality. Whence notwithstanding this communication in goods Christ truly will be able to be said servant of God, because although equal to Father according to divinity, nevertheless he is less than Father according to humanity.

The other parts of the Conclusion are proved. First indeed from Council of Frankfort, which in epistle to Bishops of Spain thus addresses Felix and Elipandus: Intelligite, inquit, in hac professione vestra, duplices diabolicae fraudis latuisse dolos..... dum, et Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, quem Deum colimus et adoramus, servum producutis, et adopticum, considerate quale est hoc scandalum inter paganas gentes, ut dicatur Deum Christianorum servum esse, vel adopticum. Nos per illum a servitute liberati, non ille nobiscum servus. The same is gathered from epistle of Adrianus supreme Pontiff to Bishops of Spain, in which equally addressing Felix and Elipandus, says: Tanta vos dementia detulit; adopticum eum.... filium quasi purum hominem calamitati humana subiectum, et quod pudet dicere, servum: cum impii, et ingrati tantis beneficis, liberatorem nostrum non pertimescatis venenosa fauce susurrare. Cur non veremini, queruli obtrectatores Dei odibiles, illum servum nuncupare, qui eos de servitute diaboli liberarit? Et paulo post: Dominum igitur Angelorum, omnisque creaturae, cuius sub pedibus cuncta subiecta sunt, eos dicitis servum, et adopticum. From these two testimonies plainly enough it stands that servitude is removed from Christ, namely not natural in order to God, to which assumed nature is subjected; but either legal or penal or sinful; which Council signifies more clearly in same epistle while saying: Etsi cum Propheta servum nominasset, non tamen ex conditione servitutis, sed ex humilitatis obedientia, quia factus est Patri obediens usque ad mortem, Papa Leone dicente: Assumpta est de Matre Domini natura, non culpa, sumpta in forma servi sine conditione servili. By which words Council signifies that it removes from Christ servitude not natural consisting in obedience of humility, which is proper to creature, but legal and sinful servitude.

Vazquez replies. Pontiff and Council remove from Christ every servitude altogether, seeing that they signify Christ to be to be called simply Son, truly not servant. — Against this, both Pontiff and Council eliminate that servitude from Christ, for impugning which they bring forth authorities of Holy Fathers: but all authorities of Holy Fathers which they bring forth remove only the threefold last servitude from Christ. For Saint Chrysostom Homil. 13 in epistola ad Heb., whom Vasquez also alleges for confirming his opinion, excludes only servile condition from Christ per order to men; for he says: Sicut servus factus est, sic etiam Pontifex, et minister: sed servus factus non mansit servus, sic et minister factus non mansit minister: non enim ministri est sedere, sed stare. By which words St. Chrysostom shows that Christ now sitting at right hand of Father in heavens exercises ministry of servant no longer, nor minister, per order to men. Whence he excludes from Christ only that subjection which the mortal state still showed per order to men. — Similarly St. Leo Sermon 1 De Nativitate past middle, soon praised by Council, says thus: Assumpta est de Matre hominis Domini natura, non culpae: creata est forma servi, sine conditione servitutis, quia novus homo sic contemperatus est veteri, ut civitatem susciperet generis, et ritum excluderet vetustatis. — Finally St. Damascenus, who seems to militate more openly for opinion of Vasquez, removes from Christ no servitude other than that introduced through sin: for he says: nisi caro Deo Verbo copulata fuisset, serva procul dubio, et ignara extitisset: verum quia personaliter Deus Verbum eam sibi univit, id habuit, ut nec servus esset, neque in ignorantia versaretur. By which words he signifies that only that servitude is removed from Christ to which his humanity would have been subjected, as also ignorance, if it had not been assumed by Word. But it is certain that it would not have been subjected to ignorance except on account of sin: therefore St. Damascenus removes only from Christ servitude induced through sin: therefore there is no reason why Vasquez should flatter himself so greatly that his opinion is confirmed by open and evident oracles of Councils and Holy Fathers.

Vazquez argues. Council of Frankfort after removing from Christ the servitudes above-named, adds: Quid dicitis de Deo Patre, qui cum in baptismate, et transfiguratione Filium nominarit, non Servum? Secondly, if Christ could be called servant with natural servitude, Adrianus supreme Pontiff had labored so much in vain, that he twisted into allegorical sense all texts of Scripture attributing some servitude to Christ; for with easy task he would have said those were to be understood of natural servitude of Christ in order to God, if he had acknowledged that in Christ.

I answer first denying the consequence: for besides natural servitude, whereby man depends on God, he can also have another servitude with respect to God contracted from sin, since by the very fact that man is sinner he is subjected by new title to God as Judge and avenger. And God obtains new right over sinner, to punish him not only, but also exterminate and annihilate.

I answer secondly, Council speaks of servitude which would be founded in supposit and person, such servitude as Felix and Elipandus admitted, who innovating error of Nestorius affirmed double person in Christ, as Fathers of same Council signify, addressing Felix and Elipandus in same epistle thus: Numne olim eadem haeresis vestra in Nestorio refutata etiam et damnata est? Unde St. Damascenus lib. 3. De Fide cap. 21: Si autem, ait, qui solum eum dicunt, unum Christum iuxta Nestorium in duos dividunt.

I answer to second, more prudently indeed and rightly would it have been to receive testimonies in proper than metaphorical sense: nevertheless with prudent counsel Pontiff descended to metaphor, lest he attribute name of servitude (so odious to Spaniards on account of their dire and long-lasting servitude whereby they were vexed by Moors) to Christ, and so Spanish Church appear burdensome and hostile to Fathers.

NOTE 1. That it is beyond doubt that the divine Word, from that time at which He appeared among men, was announced and called man, and there is no heretic who denies that constant truth, since the oracles of Scripture most openly testify it, not only of the Old Testament but especially of the New. Thus John 8 Christ Himself says: you seek to kill me, a man who have spoken the truth to you. And chapter 9 the blind man enlightened by Christ said: that man who is called Jesus made clay, etc. When Christ heard him say this, He did not correct him, but further asked of him that he believe even Him to be the Son of God. And chapter 10 the Jews saying to Christ: for a good work we stone thee not, but because thou being a man makest thyself God: Christ indeed first admitting it nevertheless confirms that He is God and rightly so called. Whence Caiphas

John 11 and 18, moved by a prophetic spirit, gave counsel to the Jews: It is expedient for you that one man die for the people, etc. Which man the Evangelist there declares to be Jesus Christ, who was about to die for the whole human race. Therefore only one doubt remains, whether that appellation of man was truly attributed to Christ, so that it designated true humanity in Him, or however it was only a certain metaphorical manner of speaking, as heretics formerly contended, whoever they were who denied that integral and true humanity existed in Christ.

NOTE 2. There have been various heretics, as we warned in the prelude of this Treatise, who denied a true soul in Christ: first indeed certain Arians taught that Christ had not a true rational soul, but that the Word was to Him in place of a soul, as St. Epiphanius reports, heresy 69, and St. Augustine heresy 19; which error indeed is also attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea and other Arians his followers in the 7th Synod action 6. Apollinaris, however, who at first had held the same opinion with the Arians, afterwards convicted of error by open texts of Scripture, yet not yielding, finally taught that in Christ indeed there was a sentient soul but not a mind, as Epiphanius reports, heresy 77, Nazianzen orat. 16, Augustine heresy 56. But what that heretic understood by the name of mind, namely whether the intellectual power, or the very substance of the rational soul, the said Fathers do not explain quite openly. For Augustine says: He denied the mind which is the rational soul of man. Epiphanius however reports that he asked the heretics what they understood by the name of mind and that they answered it to be substance or spirit: From which, says Suarez disp. 15 sect. 1, it follows that they denied a certain part of human nature, perhaps in that sense in which the heretics called Dimoerites said that of the three parts of human nature, body, soul, and mind, the Word assumed only the two former, as is evident from St. Epiphanius heresy 78, and from the epistles of Damasus, which Nicephorus reports book 12 of History chapter 17, in which Damasus against these heretics defines that Christ assumed a true rational soul, not obscurely indicating that those heretics denied it, and in this followed the error of Apollinaris.

NOTE 3. Various heretics likewise denied in Christ a true body born from the fecundity and seed of the Virgin. Simon Magus seems to have led the column of these with his followers. For just as he boasted himself to be Father, Son, Holy Spirit, he feigned such an appearance in Christ as in himself of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then they compared the appearance of Christ with the appearances of the Old Testament, which having been made in aerial bodies, compacted and composed only for the time of the apparition, which afterward dissolved into air or into nothing, feigned for themselves such an indwelling character and nature of the body of Christ, and thought nothing about the Incarnation of Christ and its human nature personally assumed and never to be deserted. But when they observed in the Gospel that Christ could not be seen in the midst of crowds, and often withdrew Himself from the eyes of friends or enemies, they readily inclined to this opinion: the body of Christ was not altogether palpable and visible, and therefore Christ used it whenever He would meet men, but often showed by those disappearances that He did not altogether wear true flesh and a true body. To assert which they were moved also by those various appearances after His resurrection, in which He was not recognized by the Apostles even though He conversed familiarly with them; He went toward them, entered while doors were shut and bars strongly impeded and drawn, and performed various things which did not seem to persuade a real body and true flesh. Then by the very Apostles, when once He trod the waves of the sea on foot, He was held for a phantom, whence this delirium could reach others also and adhere more strongly in the minds of heretics than in the hearts of the Apostles, whom such a thought had occupied only for a moment. Wherefore St. John the Evangelist, that he might meet this most pestilential dogma and show that truly there existed in Christ the Lord two natures, namely human and divine, after the asserted and declared nativity of Christ the Lord, finally adds: And the Word was made flesh, by which words he signifies that the divine Word assumed true flesh, and refutes the impious dogma of the Simonians concerning the phantastic and masked flesh of Christ. — Nevertheless Marcion, imbued with this simoniaceous virus, dared to assert that in Christ there was only a phantastic and appearing body, as Justin Martyr reports, Apology 2 for the Christians, Irenaeus book 1 c. 19, who says that therefore this heretic expunged the opening chapters of the Gospel of Luke which are about the human generation of Christ, and Tertullian in those books which he published against Marcion. But there were other heretics who taught that Christ had a true body but not of the same kind as ours, who therefore were split into various parties: some said the body of Christ was formed from the elements, as Apelles disciple of Marcion and later deserter, says Tertullian; others that He had a celestial body, as Valentinus who, says Tertullian, book On Prescription chapter 19, said that Christ brought down from heaven some spiritual body, as water through a pipe, thus passing through Mary the Virgin, taking nothing thence, either receiving or borrowing. Finally some said He had a divine body consubstantial with the Divinity, or certainly formed from Itself, as Apollinaris taught, Justin Martyr reporting, Apology 2 near the end.

Therefore three things are here to be resolved strictly for the sake of greater clarity, which nevertheless converge into the same: First, that Christ assumed true and integral humanity. Second, that He had a true body consubstantial with ours. Third, that He also had a true rational soul altogether similar to ours.

Conclusion first. — THE DIVINE WORD ASSUMED TRUE HUMANITY. This is of faith against Basilides.

The Conclusion is proved first from open oracles of Sacred Scripture, namely from John 8: you seek, says Christ, to kill me a man who have spoken the truth to you. From Matthew 20: Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed and crucified, and the third day he shall rise again. From Luke last chapter: See my hands and feet, that it is I myself. Handle and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have. The same He proved by eating with the Apostles, that through the truth of eating the truth of flesh might be shown, says St. Gregory. The same is confirmed from many other texts of Sacred Scripture, by which it stands that God was made man and like unto us, conversed and spoke among us in human fashion, tempted in all things without sin, through thirst and weariness, through passion and death. Therefore He was not a mask of man but true man. For how often, says Theodoretus, either does Christ call Himself man, or is He inscribed of the seed and stock of Abraham and David, so many times does He bear witness of true flesh and true soul: for if either part be wanting, truth does not underlie these appellations.

It is proved secondly from the most ancient symbols which before the Synod of Nicaea were read throughout the Church, and likewise from the decisions and professions of faith of Nicaea itself and of the following synods, while they set forth the Word incarnate and made man. Hence the second Synod of Constantinople among the Ecumenical, epistle to Damasus and others gathered in the Roman Synod, says: That it admits Him neither destitute of soul or mind, nor an imperfect reason of flesh: but knows itself confessing perfect the Word of God before the ages, and perfect man in the last days for our salvation. The Council of Chalcedon in the decree of faith promulgated at action 3 affirms Christ the Lord to be the same perfect in Divinity and perfect in humanity: God and man truly the same out of rational soul and body: consubstantial to the Father according to Divinity, and consubstantial to us according to humanity, and like to us in all things without sin: which the Symbol of Athanasius expressed in the same sentiment: Perfect, he says, God, perfect man, subsisting out of rational soul and human flesh. It would be long and superfluous here to write all the definitions of later Councils and authorities of the Holy Fathers, by which this Catholic truth is taught and confirmed: yet it pleases us to prove it by arguments which most of the Fathers use for confirming the same truth.

The first argument is deduced from this, that unless the human nature of Christ were integral, it would not be true, nor Christ true man, and therefore neither would He be man altogether: for what something truly is not, that simply it is not: thus Tertullian argues in the book On the Flesh of Christ: Otherwise, he says, Christ would not be called man without flesh: nor son of man without some parent man, just as neither God without Spirit of God, nor Son of God without God the Father... why do you halve Christ with a lie? The whole was truth. Hence book On the Resurrection of the Flesh chapter 10.

Moreover neither is the soul by itself man, which after being called a fiction of man is afterward inserted in the body: nor is flesh without soul man, which after the exile of the soul is inscribed corpse: thus the appellation man is in a certain way the clasp of two partner substances, under which appellation they cannot exist except cohering.

Gelasius forms the same reasoning in the book On the Two Natures, proving against the Acephali that Christ consists of two natures, because when the property of one thing is taken away:

In part Christ will be among them neither one, nor integral; and therefore not true: it follows that He be false, because by every mode it tends to this rupture, if anything is naturally removed thence, out of or in which Christ is one and integral: consequently on this account also true: therefore in order that He be true, it is necessary that He be integral: that He be integral one, and the same will persist.

Such is Gelasius.

The second argument can be drawn from St. Irenaeus, book 5 Against Heresies, chapter 1, and thus be retorted against Basilides: if Christ had been man only in species and according to appearance, there would be no difference between His incarnation and the apparitions made to the ancient patriarchs and prophets. For in those visions He appeared under the species of a sensible body. But this is openly false, both because those things said of the incarnation cannot be verified of such apparitions, namely that God was made man, that He died etc., and because as those visions represented the future true advent of Christ in the flesh, so the incarnation would be only a forewarning of another advent of Christ in true humanity. Such are the words of St. Irenaeus:

If when He was not man He appeared as man: neither did that which He truly was persevere, that is the Spirit of God, since the Spirit is invisible: nor was truth in Him in any way: for He was not what He seemed. But we have foretold that Abraham and the other prophets saw Him prophetically, prophesying through vision that which was to be: therefore if now also He so appeared, not being what He seemed, a certain prophetic vision was made to men, and one ought to await His last advent, in which He will truly be such as He is now seen prophetically.

The third argument is drawn from the same St. Irenaeus, who also supplies many others in the same place. Nothing more constant is asserted in Sacred Scripture than that Christ delivered up His body to be crucified for us, and washed away our sins with His own blood, and also taught us by word and example: but no one will say that we are redeemed in appearance only, and that the price for sins was paid putatively only. Therefore with His own blood, says St. Irenaeus in the cited place,

redeeming us as Lord, and giving His soul for our soul and His flesh for our flesh, and pouring forth the Spirit of the Father unto the union and communion of God and men, bringing down God indeed to men through the Spirit, but placing man again upon God through the incarnation, and firmly and truly in His advent granting us incorruption through communion which is with God, all the doctrines of heretics were blinded.

He concludes the same from this, that Christ was our true and only teacher and not merely in appearance:

For, he says, otherwise we could not learn the things that are of God unless our Teacher, being the Word, had been made man. Nor could another narrate to us the things of the Father, except His own Word. For who else knows the sense of the Lord? or who else has been made His counselor? Nor again could we learn otherwise than by seeing our Teacher, and perceiving through our hearing His voice, that we might be imitators indeed of His works and receive perfect proof.

Again book 3 against heresies, chapter 20:

If our Teacher, he says, did not truly suffer, no grace is to Him, since there was no passion: and when shall we begin truly to suffer, He will seem seducing us, exhorting us to seize and offer the other cheek, if He did not first suffer that in truth: and just as He seduced them so that He seemed to them Himself that which He was not, so He seduces us exhorting us to bear those things which He did not bear. Nay rather we shall be above the Teacher, while we are thought truly to suffer and sustain those things which neither did the Teacher suffer nor sustain: how then did He suffer leaving us an example that we should follow His footsteps, if He suffered only in specious pretence?

The fourth argument most of the Fathers suggest, which can thus be proposed: Truth, as it cannot be deceived, so it cannot deceive: but if the Son of God had assumed only a phantom of a man, He would have deceived men. Thus St. Augustine book 83 Questions, question 11: If the body of Christ was a phantom, Christ deceived: and if He deceives, He is not truth. But Christ is truth: therefore His body was not a phantom. The same reason St. Epiphanius thus presses:

But surely jocular prestidigitations must have been employed by the Word of God, that He might deliver another to death and to undergo the punishment of the cross in His stead (namely Simon of Cyrene whom Basilides feigned crucified for Christ); especially He who said: I am the truth and the life. Yet it belongs not to life to procure death for another: nor to truth, which truly indwells in itself, to dissemble it, and show other things for others: for truth ceases to be, if it be an artificer of fraud and error, and hide its very own work.

He adds still further to undermine that invention of Basilides:

If that Simon of Cyrene was lifted upon the cross, therefore salvation is not wrought for us through Christ, but through Simon: nor ought the world anymore hope to be saved through Christ, seeing that He in no wise suffered: neither through Simon, for Simon cannot be a cause of salvation: pure and mere man indeed, and nothing more.

The fifth argument is sought from this, that Christ the Redeemer ought to be among us and God a surety and reconciler, that is, a middle, or, as Scripture speaks, a Mediator: but it beseemed such a Mediator to embrace both, either part, in Himself, that He might the more easily establish concord. Thus argues St. Hilary book 9 near the beginning:

The Mediator, he says, Himself constituted in Himself for the salvation of the Church, and by that very sacrament of mediator between God and man existing as one with each, while He Himself from natures united into the same is the same thing of either nature; so however that He lacked neither in either.

St. Fulgentius urges this argument with luculent words book 1 to Trasimundus chapter 15, where he says:

Not in vain was the man Jesus Christ called Mediator of God and men: except because the same God received in Himself the whole nature of man, and the same man has in Himself the whole substance of Deity. For because man through sin was separated from God: between God wrathful and man sinning there must intervene the person of such a Mediator, which for propitiating God to man would have in itself the whole true God born of God, and for reconciling man to God would contain in itself the whole true man born of man.

The Heretics objected: He who was made in the likeness of men is not truly man but in appearance only: but the Son of God is said Philippians 2 to have been made in the likeness of men and found in fashion as a man: therefore He was not truly but in appearance only man.

I answer denying the major. For likeness does not always exclude truth, nay it says something common to things which are called similar; and supposes something whereby those same things differ. For likeness does not say entire identity, nor even does it say entire diversity, but there intervenes some agreement together with some discrepancy. Thus, to come to the minor, Christ is said to have been made in the likeness of men, because He agrees with them in human nature; but differs both by reason of the supposit, which in other men is created, in Him truly divine, and by reason of conception, because He was conceived not by the ordinary way but through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit of the Virgin; and by reason of state, for others are liable to sin and servants, but He immune from all sin and alien to it; whence it is said Romans 8: God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And Hebrews 4 it is had that Christ was tempted in all things according to likeness without sin, by which it is intimated that He had the truth of flesh, not of sin, and is in all things like unto us.

Tertullian explains this expressly, book 5 against Marcion, chapter 14:

Suppose now, he says, likeness of substance is said; truth of substance will not on that account be denied. Why then like, if true? Because true indeed, but not from seed; like in state, but true in sense, not dissimilarly true. Moreover in contraries there is no likeness. Spirit would not be called likeness of flesh, because neither would flesh take on the likeness of spirit, but it would be called phantom if what was not seemed to be. But likeness is said when that which seems exists: for it exists while it equals another. But a phantom, which only seems, is not a likeness.

And in the same place:

If, he says, the Father sent the Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, the flesh which appeared in Him will not on that account be said a phantom. Therefore understand the Son sent in the likeness of the flesh of sin thus: that He might redeem the flesh of sin by similar substance, namely flesh which should be like to sinning flesh, while itself is not sinful. For this also will be the power of God, to accomplish salvation in equal substance: for it would be neither great nor wonderful if the Spirit of God remedied flesh; but if flesh quite similar to sinning flesh did this, while it is flesh, but not of sin. Thus likeness will pertain not to the title of sin, not to the falsehood of substance.

Then the cited context ought to be understood as the following ones are understood Genesis 2: God saith: those contexts can no more be so explained that wife and son of Adam had not His true nature, than that the Son of God is not consubstantial to the Father. Therefore from the fact that Christ is said to have been made in the likeness of men, it is badly inferred that He is not true man. Wherefore to remove even the least suspicion concerning the truth of the humanity of Christ arising from these words, that truth is established there in these words: He humbled himself, being made obedient unto death; for neither could He exercise that highest humility and obedience and suffer death unless He had been true man.

You will urge: He who condemned flesh did not assume true flesh: but Christ condemned flesh through His Apostle saying 1 Cor. 15, v. 50: Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God: therefore etc.

I distinguish the minor. He condemned flesh, that is, the works of the flesh, I grant; that is, the substance of flesh, I deny. Thus Tertullian distinguishes in the cited place. But he himself discoursing how he would not have us be in the flesh while we are in the flesh, namely that we not be in the works of the flesh, shows he wrote this reason: flesh and blood cannot attain the kingdom of God; condemning not the substance but its works; which because they can be not admitted by us while still placed in the flesh, will pertain not to the guilt of substance but to conduct.

You will object 2: The Son of God appeared to the holy Fathers in the Old Testament clothed with flesh, nay walked, spoke and ate: yet His flesh was not true but putative: therefore neither in the New Testament did He assume true flesh.

I answer first. With St. Augustine in various places, but especially book 3 On the Trinity, chapters 10 and 11, these apparitions were made by the ministry of Angels, nor did the Son of God appear in His own person.

I answer secondly. According to the opinion of other

Fathers, denying that He did not appear to the ancient fathers in true flesh. For He Himself, says Tertullian, then appeared with the Angels to Abraham in truth indeed of flesh, but as yet unborn, because not yet to die, but also learning already to converse among men. This is had book 3 Against Marcion chapter 9. It can therefore be said that the Son of God then assumed a true body, not indeed hypostatically, but through a peculiar assistance and use.

I answer thirdly denying the consequence. Nay from the fact that those apparitions of God or Angels were made only in human species, because they were figures, it follows that the Son of God in the New Testament appeared in the truth of flesh, that those figures might be fulfilled, since as Tertullian says, in a like cause there would not have been a figure unless the body were of truth. Moreover an empty thing which is a phantom could not take on a figure.

You will urge: Angels appeared to the ancient patriarchs in phantastic flesh, although they walked, spoke, and ate: therefore, although Christ was seen to elicit similar actions, it cannot be gathered that He appeared in true flesh.

I answer. I deny the consequence. For the Angels although they moved a body compacted from air or other matter in the manner of a body informed by human soul, nevertheless they did not exercise actions of corporeal and animal life: whence the Angel says Tobit 10: I seemed indeed to eat and drink with you, but I make use of invisible food, which can be seen by no man. Besides those Angels were neither born, nor suffered, nor died: but Sacred Pages show all these to fall upon Christ.

You will press: Truth of body is unworthy of God who is purest Spirit; therefore etc.

I deny the antecedent. For although, says Tertullian, book 8 Against Marcion, chapter 20, nothing be worthy which God may clothe Himself with, yet whatsoever He shall have clothed Himself with, He makes worthy without falsehood. Add that, as is had in the same place, likeness of flesh was no less unworthy of God than truth, whence, he says, if He disdained it as earthly, why did He likewise despise its image: for the image of nothing to be disdained is to be disdained: likeness follows state.

You will object: If Christ had been perfect man, He would have been part of the world: but this cannot be said, because part of the world cannot bring salvation to the world: therefore He was not perfect man.

I answer 1. The major can be denied: since Christ is not only man but also God, by which reason He is not part of the world but Lord.

I answer secondly. Denying the minor: for what stands in the way that part of the world bring salvation to the world? Indeed it beseemed that man, like unto us, bring salvation to us, according to that of the Psalm: A brother shall not redeem, man shall redeem, not indeed pure man, but God-man, as St. Augustine explains.

Conclusion second. — Christ had a rational soul of the same species with the other souls of men. This also is of faith, as is evident from the preceding Conclusion. And it is proved further by those texts of Scripture in which Christ the Lord spoke concerning His soul. Thus John 12: Now is my soul troubled. And Matthew 26: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. By the name of soul the divine Word cannot here be understood; otherwise it would follow that it is passible and subject to human passions and affections, which not even the Apollinarists themselves admitted, seeing they believed the Word to be true God. Nor can these oracles be taken metaphorically, in the way in which in the Old Testament the soul of God is said, that is, divine will: thus Isaias first: Your new moons, and your solemnities my soul hateth, that is, they are odious to my divinity. For truly by the name of soul Christ sufficiently signified the true vivifying soul of His body distinct from the very divinity, when He says John 12: I have power to lay down my soul; and to take it up again. For this power of laying down the soul was in something distinct from the soul; not indeed in the body, since the body has no power of dismissing and resuming the soul of itself alone: therefore this resided chiefly in the divinity of Christ: therefore the divinity of Christ and His soul are distinguished. Nor can those testimonies be expounded of the sentient soul, both because there is not there speech of any rational sorrow whatsoever, but of voluntary sorrow, as is evident from the following words, yet nevertheless not my will but thine be done. And because from voluntary consideration and attention He excited in Himself that sorrow, as the 6th argues St. Thomas act. 8, which indeed is confirmed from John 10, where Christ addressing the Jews meditating His death thus says: I have power to lay down my soul, and to take it up again. From which it stands that He had liberty of arbitrium, and consequently a rational soul.

Moreover this truth was defined in most many Councils. First indeed in the Roman Council under Pope Damasus in the profession of faith which Theodoretus reports book 5 of History chapter 9; at Ephesus in the epistle of Cyril to Nestorius which is approved there Canon 3; at Chalcedon session 1 and others following: The divine Word assumed integral humanity consisting not of the members of the body only but also of rational soul. This is of faith against Apollinaris. All the holy Fathers hand down the same truth likewise, especially St. Leo in epistles 11, 72 and 93, and St. Augustine book Against Felicianus the Arian c. 13, where he demonstrates that truth with most many reasons, whose principal one he draws from the end of the Incarnation: both because without a rational soul Christ could not have prayed, merited, nor satisfied; and because since He became incarnate to redeem fallen man, He ought to assume that which had principally fallen in man and which most needed redemption; but this is the rational soul.

It can be confirmed even by Philosophical reasons: Since God cannot become form of a body; for form is a constitutive part of the whole composite: but every part denotes imperfection, which must be eliminated far from God. Then, even if He could inform somewhat, since the composite receives its denomination from the form, by no reason would Christ be true man, since He would not have the constitutive form of man. Finally, the rational soul is not in man distinct from the sensitive: therefore if Christ had assumed only a sensitive soul, He would have assumed not the soul of man but of a brute.

Apollinaris objected: If Christ received the whole and perfect man, it is consequent that human cogitations existed in Him: but it cannot come about that there not be in human cogitations something of sin; because, says the Apostle Romans 8: The wisdom of the flesh is death: and the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God; for it is not subject to the law of God. Whence Apollinaris concluded, as Leontius reports, that God did not assume the whole man, seeing that the whole man is not devoid of all sin on this way. The holy Fathers answer, especially St. Athanasius in the book On the salvation of adversaries, denying that vicious cogitations or affections of this kind were in the human nature of Christ: for they are not appendages of that nature but offspring of sin: wherefore in Adam before the fall those cogitations, which are reckoned under the name concupiscence, in no way existed: but, says Athanasius, after he transgressed the mandate he began to be bound by such cogitations: not that God created pressing cogitations of this kind, but that the devil through fraud and deception sowed them upon rational nature, after it was constituted in transgression of the law and rejected by God. Therefore since Christ was infected by utterly no cogitation of sinful Adam, He was immune from cogitations of this kind and the enticements of the flesh.

He objected 2: If Christ had truly had an integral rational soul and human mind, He would also have had two principal moderating faculties of human actions, namely the human mind and the divine will: but this ought not be said, since one moderator sufficed: therefore the other was superfluous: but nothing superfluous ought to have been in Christ: therefore He ought not assume a human mind, since the divine will was most sufficient for moderating His actions.

I deny the minor. For, says St. Maximus martyr in Euth. Panopl. title 1: Just as white wool dyed with the color of purple is not bicolor but of one color only, so in the assumed nature, deified by the mind of man, there are not two principals, God and mind, but one namely, God who made the divine mind. In which words Maximus does not wish the mind to have been extinguished in the soul of Christ through fellowship with divinity, just as the whiteness of wool is abolished when suffused with the redness of purple, but only that, the soul remaining safe and integral, and its principal part, which is the mind, nevertheless that did not hold principality of actions, but since it was imbued and fortified throughout by Divinity, applied itself to its guidance and moderation: so that the divine mind acted the human mind in Christ and governed it.

Conclusion third. — The divine Word did not assume a body formed of celestial matter, but one that was of the same kind with ours. This is of faith against Valentinus saying that Christ took nothing from blessed Mary the Virgin, but brought a body from heaven. But that error is refuted by open oracles of Sacred Scripture in the holy Fathers praised against him and to be adduced below: for thus St. Irenaeus proves our Conclusion book 3 against heresies chapter 32:

If Christ did not receive from man the substance of flesh, he says, neither was He made man, nor son of man; and if He was not made what we were, He accomplished nothing great in suffering and sustaining. But we, because we are a body taken from earth and receiving spirit from God, this also the Word of God became, recapitulating in Himself His own formation: and on account of this He confesses Himself son of man.

And the Apostle to the Galatians manifestly says: God sent his Son made of a woman; and to the Romans: Of his Son who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh. Moreover His descent into Mary is superfluous. For what descended into her, if He began to take nothing from her? Or if He had taken nothing from Mary, He never would have perceived those foods that are from earth, by which the body, that which is taken from earth, is nourished: nor fasting 40 days as Moses and Elias would His body hungering seek food: but neither would John His disciple writing of Him have said: But Jesus being wearied with his journey sat: nor would David have proclaimed over Him: Upon the pain of my wounds they have been added: nor would He have wept over Lazarus; nor sweated clots of blood. For all these things are signs of flesh taken from earth; which He recapitulated in Himself, saving His own formation.

Tertullian proves the same truth in five books against Marcion: especially however the book On the Flesh of Christ, whose principal reasons, for the benefit of religious youth to whom this Author is not yet familiar, it pleases us to report here summarily. He proves Christ had true flesh first from His Nativity:

Marcion, he says in chapter 1, in order to deny the flesh of Christ, denied also the Nativity; or, in order to deny the Nativity, denied also the flesh, namely lest the Nativity and the flesh should render testimony to each other and answer for one another, since there is neither a nativity without flesh, nor flesh without a nativity.

Thereupon in chapter 2 he censures Marcion because he cut out the opening chapters of the Gospel of Luke, in which the Nativity and infancy of Christ are delineated:

These devices, I think, says he, Marcion dared to employ in destroying even the original instruments of Christ, lest his flesh should be proved — and with what authority, pray tell? If you are a Prophet: foretell something; if an Apostle: preach publicly; if an Apostolic man: hold the view of the Apostles; if you are merely a Christian: believe what has been handed down; if you are none of these, I shall deservedly say: die — for dead indeed you are by not believing what makes Christians by being believed.

In chapter 3 he proves that this nativity and assumption of flesh is neither impossible nor unbecoming to God:

He cannot say, he says, that if He had been born and had truly put on a man, God would have ceased to be God, losing what He was while assuming what He was not: for there is no peril to His own state for God.

In chapter 4 he shows that this birth from a Virgin is neither unworthy nor foolish for God. Hence he addresses Marcion thus, setting out from his hatred of the nativity once it had been taken up:

Hold forth now, pray, on the filthiness of the genital members within the womb of the elements, the whole curdling of humor and blood, the feeding of the flesh from that same union through nine months; describe the womb swelling day by day, heavy, anxious, bound fast, wholly given over to lust, disgust, and gluttony. Rant away now also at the very birth-pangs of the laboring woman, whether to be honored for its peril or revered for its nature. You shudder assuredly, and so far does it lie poured forth amid its impediments, forgotten and disdained by you: that which is bound in swaddling clothes, that which is twisted in bands, that which is mocked with endearments. Hence, O Marcion, you despise the veneration owed to nature: yet how were you born? You hate the human being as he is born, and how can you love anyone? You plainly did not love yourself when you withdrew from the Church and the faith of Christ; but see whether you please yourself, or whether you were born otherwise. Certainly Christ loved that man in his impurities, coagulated in the womb, brought forth through shameful parts, born amid mockeries: for him He descended, for him He preached; for him He cast Himself down in every humiliation even unto death, and the death of the cross. He surely loved him, whom He redeemed at so great a price. He confirms this in chapter 5, showing that Christ had true flesh, because He truly suffered and was crucified:

For what, he says, is more unworthy of God? What more to be blushed at? To be born, or to die? To bear flesh, or to bear the cross? To be circumcised, or to be crucified? To be reared, to be laid in a manger, or to be entombed in a monument? Answer me here, murderer of truth: did not God truly suffer crucifixion? Did He not truly die, as truly crucified? Was He not truly raised again, as truly dead, namely? Did Paul then wrongly establish among us that the Crucified alone was the cross, wrongly thrust in such a burial, wrongly insist that He was falsely raised? Is our faith therefore false, and all that we hope from Christ but a phantom? Most wicked of men, who excuse the murderers of God. For Christ suffered nothing at their hands, if He suffered nothing truly. Spare the sole hope of the whole world, who destroyest the glory necessary to the faith: whatever in Him seems unworthy is profitable to me: I am saved if I am not ashamed of my Lord. Whoever shall have been ashamed of Me, He says, of him shall I too be ashamed; otherwise I find no materials of shame which may prove me, through contempt of disgrace, nobly shameless and happily foolish: the Son of God was born: I am not ashamed, because it is unfitting; and buried He rose again, it is certain, because it is impossible. But how shall these things be true in Him, if He Himself was not true? If He did not truly possess in Himself what was nailed, what died, what was buried and raised again? Flesh namely suffused with blood, built upon bones, interwoven with nerves, entwined with veins, which knows how to be born and to die, human without doubt, as born of a man.

In chapter 6 he presses hard against Apelles, the disciple of Marcion, who asserted that Christ borrowed flesh from the stars and substances of the upper world, although Angels fashion bodies for themselves out of celestial or aerial matter whenever they appear to men. Therefore he says:

Those who set before us as exemplar of the flesh of Christ that of Angels, saying it was not born, namely fleshy, let them compare, I beg, both the causes of Christ and of the Angels, on account of which they came into flesh. No Angel ever descended in order to be crucified, to undergo death, to be raised from death: if there never was any such cause for embodying Angels, you have the reason why they did not receive flesh by being born. They had not come to die, and therefore neither to be born: but Christ, sent to die, necessarily had also to be born, that He might be able to die; for only what is born is accustomed to die. A mutual debt exists between nativity and mortality: the form of dying is the cause of being born. As truly about to be a man even unto death, it behooved Him to put on that flesh of whose nature it is to die, and further that flesh of which nativity precedes dying.

Then, taking upon himself that passage of Luke 8, where Christ answers: Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? as though He had rejected His mother and brethren, he answers that He said this not to deny His mother, but to make those more excellent who hear the word of God and keep it. He therefore denied His parents in the manner in which He taught them to be denied for the work of God in Matthew 10. Finally in chapter 8, refuting the invention of Apelles, who dreamed that an angel of fire founded celestial things out of penance for a debt, he shows that if from that source the flesh of Christ had been drawn from the elements of sin, it would be sinful from a sinful sense, and would be equal in substance to ours, which Christ disdains to assume as sinful. In chapter 9 he demonstrates that all the signs of truly earthly flesh existed in Christ:

Consider, he says, each single quality: the muscles as clods, the bones as rocks, even certain pebbles around the breasts. Behold the tenacious connections of the sinews and their transplanted roots, the branching courses of the veins like the windings of brooks, the down like moss, the hair like turf; attend likewise to those very treasuries of marrow like mines of flesh: all these are earthly signs of origin, and they existed in Christ: these are the things that concealed Him as the Son of God. For the tokens of earthly flesh we enumerated are so much so, that they belong to our own as well. What do you say of that, ⟦that He takes food and slumbers?⟧ He trembles at death: for the flesh, He says, is weak; lastly He shed blood. These, I suppose, are celestial signs: but how, I ask, could He have been contemned and made to suffer, if anything of celestial nobility had radiated in that flesh?

Finally Tertullian proves in chapter 17 and following, from the fact that Christ was conceived and born of Mary, and not merely in Mary the Virgin:

If the first Adam, he says, is handed down as from the earth, deservedly the following, or last Adam, as the Apostle said, accordingly from the earth, that is, from flesh not yet consigned to generation, was brought forth by God unto a quickening spirit. But reason also defends this here, that God by a rival operation recovered His image and likeness captured by the devil: into the Virgin, still Eve, had crept the word that builds up death: in the Virgin equally was to be introduced the Word of God that builds up life, so that what had perished through such a sex might be restored to salvation through the same sex. Eve believed the serpent; Mary believed Gabriel: what the former ruined by believing, the latter destroyed by believing: yet Eve then conceived nothing in her womb from the word of the devil: nay rather she did conceive, for thereafter, so that she might bring forth cast out and bring forth in sorrows, the word of the devil made seed for her: finally she brought forth the devil a fratricide: on the contrary Mary brought forth Him who would one day preserve safe the carnal brother of Israel, his own murderer. Into the womb, therefore, God the Word brought down His good brother, that He might escape the memory of the evil brother: thence Christ was to come forth for the salvation of man, from that place whither the condemned had already entered.

And in chapter 20, answering the objection of Valentinus, saying indeed that Christ was born through the Virgin, not of the Virgin, and in the womb, not of the womb; because also the Angel said in dreams to Joseph: What is born in her is of the Holy Ghost; he did not say of her: thus he makes sufficient answer to this objection:

Even if He had said of her, He said in her: for that which was of her was in her: therefore it amounts to the same thing: and both when He said in her, and of her, it accords: because that which was in her was of her. But well does Matthew say the same, tracing the origin of God descending from Abraham down to Mary. Jacob, he says, begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Christ. But Paul too imposes silence upon these Grammarians: God sent, he says, His Son, made of a woman. Was it perhaps through a woman, or in a woman? This the more emphatically, because he says made rather than born; for he would have expressed it more simply by saying born: but by saying made, as also the Word was made flesh, he sealed and asserted that the truth of flesh was made of the Virgin.

And in chapter 21:

I will go even further against their meeting: behold, says Isaiah, a virgin shall conceive in the womb. What then? Assuredly the Word of God, not the seed of man, certainly so as to bear a Son, for

and she shall bear, he says, a Son: therefore as it belonged to Him that she conceived, so what she bore belongs to Him: although that which she conceived may not have been His. On the contrary, if the Word became flesh of itself, for it conceived and bore itself, then the prophecy falls void. For the Virgin neither conceived nor bore, unless whatever she bore from the conception of the Word is flesh of her own. Shall this alone voice of the prophet be evacuated? or also the Angels announcing the conception and birth of the Virgin? or also all Scripture already, whatsoever announces the mother of Christ; for how a mother, except because He was in her womb? but He received nothing from her womb which would make her mother, in whose womb He was.

This name foreign flesh ought not to claim. The womb of a mother names none but the daughter of the womb, flesh. Further, there is no daughter of the womb, if she is born of herself. Shall then Elizabeth also be silent, bearing a prophet, an infant already conscious of his Lord, and moreover filled with the Holy Ghost? For not without cause does she say: and whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me? if Mary carried in her womb not a Son but a guest, Jesus, how does she say: blessed is the fruit of thy womb? What fruit of the womb is this, which did not spring from the womb, which took no root in the womb? which is not His whose is the womb, and which assuredly is fruit of the womb? It is Christ; therefore of this fruit God swears that He shall sit upon the throne of David, from the loins of David, that is, from the posterity of his flesh; if from the loins of David, how much more from the loins of Mary, for whose sake He was in the loins of David?

And in chapter 22. Matthew, the most faithful commentator of the Gospel, as companion of the Lord, for no other cause than to make us partakers of the carnal origin of Christ, thus arose: the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. From these fountains of origin, with the stock flowing on, when the order is gradually traced down to the nativity of Christ, what else is described than the very flesh itself of Abraham and David, through each of its successive generations descending even into the Virgin, dwelling inwardly in Christ? but Paul also, as both disciple and master and witness of the same Gospel, since he is the apostle of the same Christ, confirms Christ of the seed of David according to the flesh, namely of that same flesh. Therefore the flesh of Christ is of the seed of David; but according to the flesh of Mary it is of the seed of David: therefore it is of the flesh of Mary, while it is of the seed of David.

And further below: What quality of flesh ought we and can we acknowledge in Christ? surely none other than Abraham's: since Christ is the seed of Abraham: nor any other than Jesse's, since Christ is from the root of Jesse: nor any other than David's, since Christ is the fruit from the loins of David: nor any other than Mary's, since Christ is from the womb of Mary: nor any consequent one other than Adam's, since Christ is the second Adam. Consequently they must either contend that those men had spiritual flesh, whereby the same condition of substance is traced down into Christ; or grant that the flesh of Christ was not spiritual, which is not reckoned as of a spiritual stock.

You will say. — St. Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 says: If we have known Christ according to the flesh, but now we know him so no longer, that is, as Faustus Vanichaeus explained, Paul at first thought Christ had true flesh; but later, having become more learned, he changed his opinion, and acknowledged Him veiled not in true but only in apparent flesh.

I answer, that exposition of Faustus is impious. Whence a twofold sense can be assigned to that oracle: First, that Paul speaks of that time when he was persecuting Christ in His faithful ones; as though he said, although at one time according to the flesh, that is, judging carnally concerning Christ, we held an unworthy estimation of Him, yet now we know Him so no longer, or esteem Him thus. Or the second sense can be, that he speaks of the condition of passible flesh, in which he knew Christ while He led a mortal life: but now knows Him no longer such. Which exposition is given in the acts 6 of the VIIth Synod, and by Augustine book 11 against Faustus, and fits the words of Paul; since he afterwards subjoins: and who live now may not live to themselves, but to him who died for them, and rose again.

You will say 2. — The same Apostle in 1 Corinthians 15 teaches that Christ is the heavenly man come down from heaven to earth; for he says: The first man was of the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly; but Christ is not called the heavenly man except by reason of a body formed from celestial matter: therefore the body of Christ was not of the same substance and nature as ours. — The same thing St. John teaches us in chapter 3 of his Gospel, where we read: No man ascendeth into heaven, but he that descendeth from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven. And chapter 6: I am the living bread which came down from heaven, says Christ the Lord.

I answer, by distinguishing and expounding such contexts: Christ is a heavenly man and descended from heaven by reason of His person and divine nature, I concede; by reason of the assumed body, I deny. Or that the very body of Christ came down from heaven by reason of the matter of which it was compacted, I deny: by reason of the power by which it was formed, I concede. Thus St. Hilary expounds these passages of sacred Scripture, lib. 10. De Trinitate: Hence the Lord Himself showed that greatest and most beautiful mystery of the man assumed, saying: no man ascendeth into heaven, etc. That He descended from heaven is the cause of His origin conceived of the Spirit. For Mary gave the body no origin from herself; although toward the growth and birth of the body she contributed everything natural to her sex. That the Son of man is so called is the issue of the flesh assumed in the Virgin. And afterward, explaining how God, who fills all things and is everywhere, could descend, he says the Word descended because He began to be present in a certain special manner in the assumed body, in which He was not previously present on earth: because the power of the Word, he says, had not remained in the earth after bodily modes, and there was not wanting whence He might descend. — And soon after: The Apostle spoke absolutely, saying: the first man of the mire, the second man from heaven; for by saying man he taught the nativity from the Virgin: which workshop executed the nature of her maternal sex in conception and birth: and when he says the second man from heaven, he attested His origin from the approach of the Holy Spirit supervening upon the Virgin: and thus He both is man, and is from the heavens: the offspring of this man is both from the Virgin, and conceived of the Spirit. Finally, in the same place he adds: The Lord Himself, unfolding the mystery of this nativity, spoke thus: I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of my bread he shall live forever; calling Himself His own bread: for He Himself is the origin of His own body; lest indeed the power and nature of the Word be thought to have failed of itself in the flesh by this, that descending from the heavens He is bread, He showed that His body did not take its origin from human conception. But whereas the profession of His own bread is that of the body assumed through the Word, for he subjoined: unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you; that by the bread descending from heaven, and by the flesh of the Son of man, the assumption may be understood both of flesh conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin. — Wherefore Christ is not called the heavenly man because His body was compacted of celestial matter, but He is so called according to His person, by which He is divine by reason of the formation of His body, because it was formed by the power of the Holy Ghost without seed: or He is called a heavenly man because He lived a heavenly life: wherefore the same Apostle calls men imitating Christ celestial in the same place: but Adam is said to be the earthly man, as subjected to sin: wherefore St. Paul subjoins: Such as the earthly is, such also are the earthly; such as the heavenly is, such also are the heavenly. In which manner Tertullian also explains it, book De carne Christi, chapter 8. Not, he says, with respect to difference of matter, but only did he oppose the earthly substance of the flesh of the first man behind, namely, to the celestial substance of the Spirit of the second man, namely Christ: and he refers the man to spirit, not to celestial flesh, so that, comparing them thus, it may stand that in this earthly flesh men become celestial, namely by the spirit: but if Christ were celestial also according to the flesh, they would not be compared to Him who are not celestial according to the flesh: if therefore those who become celestial, such as Christ is, bear an earthly substance of flesh; hence also it is confirmed that Christ Himself likewise in earthly flesh was celestial, as are those who are made equal to Him. Thirdly, finally, Christ is called a heavenly man on account of the glory which He had from the beginning: for although it did not redound to His very body from the beginning, but only at His resurrection: nevertheless it was connaturally owed by reason of His union with the Word: but the first man is said to be earthly on account of the mortality contracted from sin. So St. Chrysostom Homily 12 on 1 Corinthians, and Augustine book 15 De Civitate, chapter 23.

You will say 3. — If Christ had assumed earthly flesh, He would have been of worse condition than an Angel, which is not immersed in earthly things in its flesh: yet Christ was not worse than an Angel. Then our like flesh would have obtained the same condition of nativity: but the condition of the flesh of Christ was far different, inasmuch as conceived of the Holy Ghost it caused no burden or pain to the pregnant Virgin: therefore etc.

I distinguish the minor: Christ was not inferior to the Angels qua God, I concede; qua man precisely taken, I deny. They read, Tertullian says, book De carne Christi, chapter 16: Thou hast made him a little less than the Angels, and they deny the inferior substance of Christ, and pronouncing themselves not man but Word acknowledge man mingled with God, and deny the man: they believe He died, and contend that what died was born of incorruption, as though corruption were anything else than death.

I answer the second, distinguishing the major: flesh like ours would have been similarly born if it were the flesh of mere man, I concede: if it were the flesh of man mingled with God, I deny. But Christ is a man mingled with God, to speak with Tertullian, that is, man is personally united to God; whence although He was born of the Virgin in a new and wholly wonderful manner, the Holy Ghost having made her fruitful, He nonetheless had flesh of the same condition as ours as regards substance. Hence Tertullian, chapter 29 of the aforesaid book, says: Christ was born of God, because the Word of God: but since the flesh was not of blood, nor of the will of flesh and of man, nay rather of the will of God was the Word made flesh; for to the flesh, not to the Word, belongs the formal denial of our nativity, because thus the flesh was to be born, not the Word. But denying that He was born also of the will of the flesh, why did He not deny also of the substance of the flesh? For He denied, because He denied of blood; He removed not the substance of flesh, but the matter of seed. We understand, therefore, that the nativity of the Lord was denied of concubinage, which savors of the will of man and of flesh, not of participation of the womb.

Note 1. That the parts of the assumed humanity are manifold; for some are physically essential, as body and soul: others integrating, as head, arms, legs: and others excrementitious, as hair, nails, and all those things which, as superfluous, contribute nothing to nutrition and the integrity of the body. Moreover, of the integrating parts some pertain precisely to the integrity of the human body, as head, bones, flesh, and the rest; some only to its truth, but not to its integrity, as blood, vital spirits, and other humors, which are said of the truth of the body by reason alone, since the human body cannot subsist without them, at least without blood, which is the basis and foundation of life. The question is asked whether the Divine Word hypostatically joined to Himself all those parts. All agree indeed that He assumed and joined to Himself all the parts that belong to the integrity of the body; otherwise He would not have assumed a true and perfect human body, which is contrary to the preceding Conclusion. But a grave difficulty concerns the parts pertaining to the truth and life of the body.

Note 2. Certain theologians with Cajetan, question 51, article 2, distinguish a twofold blood in the human body: one merely nutritive, and another natural, or such as he says belongs to the truth of nature. Nutritive blood is only a certain sanguineous humor little concocted and purified, which has not yet the true nature of blood, although in color and other accidents it is like it. Such is that which is proximately generated from food, either in the liver or in the veins leading to the liver, which physicians call Mesaraic: and the Philosopher reports that this blood is sweated out by some, in the book on the history of animals. Natural blood, however, is that which is made from the former by greater decoction and elaboration of the formative virtue of blood residing, according to Galen, in the liver, or according to Aristotle in the heart, whereby it becomes far purer and obtains the true substantial form of blood. It is called natural, moreover, because although it serves in some way for nourishing the whole animal, this function is not adequate to it, but besides it concurs also to the natural integrity and life of the body. — Cajetan teaches, however, with very many Thomists, that the former blood does not live, nor is it animated by the vivifying form of the body; but that the latter is animated. Yet it must be observed from St. Bonaventure in 4 dist. 11 p. 1 quest. 1 ad 2: A thing is said to live in three ways: either because it receives the influx of life: or because it disposes to life: or because it has its origin and constitution from an act of life. In the first way the corporeal substance and flesh are vivified: in the second way spirits and humors grow: in the third way hairs and even nails: and because all these have connection with life, all will rise again. Therefore, since blood does not belong to the official members, but only to the similar parts, nor is it animated by the rational soul, nor does it vivify, but only serves vivification, as do also the spirits we call vital, the question arises by what reason it was united to the divine Word, and whether, separated from the body of Christ, it was always joined to the Divinity. Whether, moreover, the blood was assumed immediately, or only mediately through the humanity, so that it had its own proper subsistence without subtraction of the subsistence of the Word, is a grave controversy among theologians. For Durandus in 4 dist. 10 qu. 1 denies that any blood, whether natural or nutritive, was hypostatically assumed by the Word. Cajetan, however, and most Thomists, establishing a distinction between nutritive and natural blood, assert that the latter was assumed, but not the former. Other theologians teach that every blood which was in Christ while He lived in a mortal body subsisted by the subsistence of the Word; for they reject that distinction of blood into nutritive and natural.

NOTE 3. That about the year of Christ 1351 a grave controversy arose at Barcelona; for while some in the aforesaid city asserted and publicly preached that the blood of Christ shed in the Passion was separated from the Divinity, and therefore was not to be adored during the three days of death with the worship of latria, and, as Wadding relates in our Annals under the same year, n. 3, Franciscus Baiuli, Guardian of the Minorites, taught this ex professo; Nicolaus Rosselli, then Inquisitor in the kingdom of Aragon, learned through his letters that Ioannes Morlandinus had been assumed to the Cardinalate together with the General Pastor of the Order of Minors by his uncle Clement VI in the year last past: this Morlandinus replied that he had received by the oracle of the living voice from the Pontiff, on the 20th of July, instructions in mandate that those who had so preached should be compelled to recant, and that it had been judged that this opinion must altogether be accounted heretical. The process having been completed, the Inquisitor Nicolaus, relying solely on the letters of that Cardinal, severely punished all who had been assertors of that proposition, and brought it about that before the Curia and in the presence of the Bishop of Barcelona they abjured that sentiment. Thus at that time, without tumult, the affair was quieted and concluded: yet after one hundred and thirteen years the same opinion revived among the Brescians in the year 1462¹ preached by blessed James Picenus, commonly surnamed of the March, a man indeed of outstanding sanctity and conspicuous in very many miracles. But when James of Brescia of the Order of Preachers, Inquisitor in Lombardy, contended keenly that that opinion had been condemned as heretical by Clement VI, bitter disputes came about, and public disputations before Pius II. Nevertheless nothing was decreed by the supreme Pontiff in this matter, as will appear below.

Three things, therefore, are chiefly to be resolved in this Question: First, whether the Word truly assumed human blood immediately: Second, whether it is of faith: Third, whether the Word also immediately assumed the excrementitious parts of the human body.

First Conclusion. It is probable that all the blood of Christ the Lord's humanity was immediately assumed by the divine Word and hypostatically united to Him. This is the more common opinion among theologians.

Proof. 1. By all those texts of sacred Scripture in which the price of our redemption is attributed to the blood of Christ the Lord shed forth. So Rom. 5 v. 9: Justified in his blood. Ephes. 1 v. 7: Having redemption through his blood, the remission of sins. Also Coloss. 1 v. 20: He made peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven. Heb. 9 v. 12: Christ, by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption. If the blood of goats etc. v. 13: sanctify the unclean unto the cleansing of the flesh etc. v. 14: how much more shall the blood of Christ cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God? 1 Pet. 1 v. 2 the faithful are called elect unto the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. And ibid. v. 19 they are said to be redeemed with the precious blood, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled, Christ. 1 John 1 v. 7: The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. Apoc. 1 v. 5: He hath washed us from our sins in his own blood. From all these texts it appears that the blood poured forth by Christ the Lord, especially upon the cross, was at once the price of our redemption and the saving laver wherein all sins are washed away. Further, that blood of Christ the Lord would not have had that power and efficacy unless it had been assumed by the Word and joined to the Divinity, by reason of which union it was of infinite worth and price.

It is confirmed further by this argument: Whatever pertains to the integrity of the human body was hypostatically assumed by the Word: but it is more probable that blood pertains to the integrity of the human body: therefore the divine Word hypostatically assumed it. The major stands from the preceding Question, in which we proved that the divine Word assumed the entire humanity, and consequently a body consisting of all its parts. The minor, however, is proved: First indeed by the authority of Aristotle, book 3 De Historia animalium, chapter 2, where he ranks blood among the similar parts of the animal body. To him Seneca gives suffrage, book 2 Quaestiones Naturales, where he writes thus: Blood is as it were a part of us, which nevertheless is even matter, for it prepares other things too, and none the less is numbered among those of which the whole body is made. St. Damascene also subscribes, book 2 De Fide, chapter 12, where he says: Every body is compounded of four elements, but the bodies of living creatures from four humors. The same St. Augustine taught, epistle 116, saying: The nature of flesh is tempered by four humors. Also that authority of St. Paul to the Hebrews 2: Therefore because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner hath been partaker of the same. Wherefore St. Cyril, in the epistle which was read and approved in the Council of Chalcedon, Action 1, interprets that saying of John, the Word was made flesh, thus: He assumed flesh and blood. And Nazianzen, oration 50: The Word, he says, was made flesh, not putatively, but truly, because He assumed a body consisting of flesh and bones and blood. Yet it could be answered here that in these places blood is signified indeed to be a part of man, not integral, but only accessory, which, since it is the seat and vehicle of the animal spirits, by whose benefit man lives and moves, therefore by synecdoche the whole man is wont to be designated in the Scriptures by the name of blood. So Matthew 16: Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee. And 1 Cor. 15: Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God.

From these it is gathered that the conclusion has no most efficacious foundation, neither from authority nor from reason, whereby its most constant truth may appear: for what is wont to be adduced from Councils and the decrees of supreme Pontiffs we shall declare does not patronize this assertion in the following Conclusion. Nevertheless we have called that opinion the more probable: partly because it is more conformable to the manner of speaking of Scripture and the Holy Fathers, who seem to attribute our redemption to the price and worth of the blood of Christ the Lord: partly because a more numerous company of theologians accords with that opinion: finally, because the supreme Pontiffs, before whom this controversy was agitated, seem to incline the more toward it. For Spondanus relates under the year 1462 that

the contention growing and a schism being made by the people on account of the controversy stirred up between blessed James of the March and the Friars Preachers, and the Bishop of the place not prevailing to calm the tumult, the matter was referred to the Apostolic See: concerning which Pope Pius II at that time commanded the Superiors of the Orders to send their most learned theologians to the Curia, whom he heard disputing for three days at the Nativity of the Lord in the Apostolic Palace, in the presence of Cardinals, Bishops, and Doctors of divine and human law who were at the Curia. Finally after three days, when they had produced whatever parts they wished, the assembly having been dismissed, he treated of the matter with the Cardinals on most days; approved the greater part of the sentence of the Preachers, few sided with the Minors, and Pius also inclined to the major part: but it was not thought well at that time to make a decree of declaration, lest the multitude of Minors, whose preaching against the Turks was necessary, be offended: and therefore it pleased that decision be deferred to another time, which nevertheless it never pleased to decide. How empty and futile this reason of Spondanus is, namely that the supreme Pontiff was unwilling to settle this controversy by his decree lest he offend the Minorites, will appear in the following Conclusion.

You will object. 1. If the divine Word had assumed human blood, it would follow that He assumed several natures: but this is absurd, seeing He assumed only one human nature: therefore, etc. The major is plain, because since blood is not of the integrity of the nature, it must be another nature than the human.

I distinguish the major: To have assumed several natures ordered to constituting one and the same whole, I concede; otherwise, I deny. And in this there is nothing absurd, since it stands that Christ assumed body and soul: and the body consists of heterogeneous parts.

You will say. 2. If the Word had assumed blood, it would follow, by the communication of idioms, that one could say, the blood is God, and God is blood: but this is absurd: therefore also that from which it follows.

I deny the consequence of the major, because by the communication of idioms two entire natures can indeed be predicated of one another, but not a part of a whole, nor a whole of a part: hence although the Word immediately assumed soul and body, still it is not rightly said, God is body, and body is God.

Second conclusion. It has not been proved with certain certainty that the blood of Christ was properly and immediately united to the Word of God, especially during the three days of death: in such wise that the contrary opinion could be defended without heresy and without error. This is against Suarez, Vazquez, and many other Moderns.

And the conclusion is proved: If that which was the foundation of the contrary opinion, whereby it was held as most certain that Christ the Lord must be believed to have assumed human blood, especially because, as the adversaries will, it was so defined by Clement VI and Pius II: but this reason is nonexistent: therefore, etc. The major is evident from Suarez and Vazquez themselves, who judged all the testimonies which they adduce from sacred Scripture and the Holy Fathers in support of their assertion to be so weak that they had recourse to the decree of Clement VI and Pius II as to a most solid foundation. The minor our Wadding proves in the place praised just above: First indeed from the fact that Pius, the supreme Pontiff, by his diploma absolved blessed James of the Marches, well deserving of the Church and of the Catholic faith, from every note of heresy and error on account of the asserted contrary opinion: for while this blessed man complained before the same supreme Pontiff that his adversaries were boasting at Barcelona that the process drawn up against him had been confirmed by Papal authority, and that he was therefore regarded by many as a heretic, he answered him with his diploma, which Wadding transcribed from the autograph, as follows:

Pius Bishop, etc., to his beloved son Fr. James of the March. Beloved son, health and Apostolic blessing. You wrote that you are greatly anxious on account of that matter of the blood shed by our Lord and Savior, which in certain places is commonly said to have been decided and determined by Us, against your opinion and preaching. We wonder at this, nor do we know whence such a report arose. For We have not thus far determined that matter itself, nor, on account of various occupations, have We been able to determine it, but God willing, We intend to do so when first a more opportune occasion shall present itself, and We shall not be distracted by so many occupations. But lest you should think that We neglect your honor and reputation, since you write that from Milan even to Verona you have been publicly preached to be a heretic, We will that you write to our brother the Bishop of Verona, to whom We likewise hereby give command, that he reduce to writing the things preached in this matter, and transmit them to Us in authentic form: for if the Preachers have behaved less honorably in their preaching, and have said anything of you that ought not to be said, We shall show them that this displeased Us, nor shall their transgression go unpunished. But as touching the authentication of that opinion, or of the process celebrated at Barcelona, made by that Prelate to whom this affair was committed by Us, know that it was not done so that by it faith or authority might be added to this kind of opinion or process; but that it might be a certain testimony of a thing done, that is, lest the knowledge of that deed, whatever it may have been, perish; for it was not Our intention, by reason of the commission, to confirm or approve the opinion or the process. For whereas supplication had been made to Us on the part of the Friars Preachers that We should wish to have them authenticated, We could not do otherwise than commit the cause: but the Commissary judged, as you have already seen. Wherefore let not your heart be troubled, > neither let it fear; be of quiet mind, and let not your soul be scandalized at this, for We know your sincere charity, nor is your zeal unknown to us, but persevere in the best faith, which God, the searcher of hearts, knows well, and let not the rumors of the crowd or the voices of calumniators delay you. Sufficiently known to God is your conscience, and it can rest content that We have conceived a paternal opinion of you, and retain what we have conceived. Concerning attendance at the Chapter of your Order soon to be celebrated, We are content, and exhort you to attend, and to do those things that are pleasing to God and to the honor of the Order and conducive to the salvation of your soul. But concerning access to the Duke of Venice We are content, and we exhort you to approach him. For We know him to be a good prince and one who fears God. We think that you wish to address and see him for no other than a good and honest cause, and We judge your access to him will be useful. Given at Macerata in the diocese of Siena, under the Fisherman's ring, on the 28th day of April 1461, in the sixth year of our pontificate.

Therefore the Pontiff did not mark the opposing opinion with any note of error.

This same judgment of the Pontiff is confirmed — namely, that he defined nothing by any Apostolic authority concerning this controversy — from the fact that the same supreme Pontiff eight days before his death, namely in the year 1464, issued another diploma, which Laurence Cherubinus reports, wherein he enacted,

that it shall not be lawful hereafter to any of the Orders of Minors or Preachers to dispute concerning the aforesaid doubt, or to preach, or to speak publicly or privately, or to persuade others that it is heretical or sinful to hold or believe that the same most sacred blood, as premised, during the three days of the passion of the same our Lord Jesus Christ was in any way divided or separated, or not divided or separated, from the divinity itself, until concerning the decision of this kind of doubt, what is to be held, shall have been defined by the Apostolic See. He commanded therefore all and singular the Brothers of the same and of whatsoever other Orders constituted throughout the whole world, of whatsoever state, grade, or condition they may be, present and future, under pain of the sentence of excommunication latae sententiae, which they would incur ipso facto, and from which, unless constituted in the article of death, they could be absolved only by the Roman Pontiff, not to presume in any way to come against, or to do, or to attempt anything against the aforesaid statute and ordinance.

It is not true, therefore, what Suarez and Vazquez affirm, that Clement VI and Pius II condemned that doctrine which asserted that the blood was separated from the divinity during the three days of death, since they can bring forward nothing for the establishing of this assertion of theirs besides those alone-written letters of John the Cardinal Dominican, against which our Francis de Ruvere, Cardinal of the Franciscans — who afterwards was Pope under the name Sixtus IV — opposed many things, together with the little book, or process drawn up by the Inquisitor likewise a Dominican, which Gabriel Vazquez wrongly says was formed by mandate of Clement through Apostolic letters: whereas copies of it exist, and no briefs, or Bulls, or Pontifical diplomas are seen there, except that one letter of the Cardinal: and this alone did the aforesaid Inquisitor of Brixia allege as foundation of the definition, while he was vehemently pressing the cause against B. James of Picenum. Add that Dominic de Dominicis, a learned man of almost that age, in the book which he wrote on the blood of Christ, asserts that the decree of Clement is not authentic, nor does it rest on approved testimonies. And certainly the little book, or process formed by Rossellus, rests on no other credit than its own, being strengthened neither by the hand of a Notary, nor by the testimony of any public minister. Whence I can scarcely wonder enough for what cause Sylvester, in the Golden Rose, tract. 8, qu. 31, asserts that Clement the supreme Pontiff damned the aforesaid proposition, and what is more wonderful, that the condemnation and retraction made at Barcelona by the aforesaid Inquisition was approved by Pius II: for Pius himself denies this in express words in the aforesaid diploma given to B. James of the Marches. To these things add that, for anything to be declared as a dogma of faith, it must rest upon the authority of Scripture, or some tradition: but it is difficult to show either of these on which the supreme Pontiffs rested and were moved to bring forth that definition; for all the authorities, whether of Scripture or of the Holy Fathers, by which to the blood of Christ shed is attributed the remission of our sins and the other subsequent benefits, press but little: because, as we said in the prior Conclusion, all these things are appropriated to the blood, not that we were saved or delivered by the mere shedding of blood, since there were other meritorious works of our salvation in Christ, and he could have saved us by sweat and tears, had he so willed, but because all his merits were terminated and consummated in death and passion. Hence these benefits are referred principally to the death of Christ: to the shedding of the blood indeed, as to the means through which death followed, just as to the cross these same benefits are attributed as to an instrument.

He urges — Vazquez urges, bringing forward what he thinks a firm foundation of this definition, which he boasts himself to have collected from the VI Synod, act 16, where a certain heretic named Constantine is condemned because he said the blood was dismissed from the Word during the three days of death, and from the same Synod act 8, where the confession of Macarius Antiochene Bishop, albeit a Monothelite, is proved, in that he said Christ assumed flesh and blood, and from the Epistle of the Alexandrian Council, which is the 10th, recited and approved by Cyril in the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, anathematism 5, where the divine Word is said to have been made partaker of flesh and blood. Truly these urge nothing, for as regards the condemnation of Constantine, it was deservedly pronounced; Vazquez himself admits it, because Christ plainly confessed in the Council that he had laid aside not only the blood, but also the flesh and the human will: for the Synod questioned him: Where then did that flesh and blood remain? Constantine answered: He laid it aside. And the Synod again asked: And did he lay aside the human will together with the flesh? Constantine answered: Yes, Lord. Whence he was partly condemned as a Manichean, and partly as an abettor of the Monothelites, because he confessed only one will in Christ. The same must be said of Macarius, who as a heretic was deposed in that Synod, and whose confession was condemned, in that he confessed only one will and operation in Christ; whence it is vain to seek testimony from his confession. As to the authority of Cyril and of the Councils approving that epistle, we have spoken sufficiently above.

Third conclusion. Hairs, nails, tears, sweats, and other excrementitious parts were not assumed hypostatically by the divine Word immediately, but only because they were in the human nature which was assumed. This is the more common view, against Suarez disp. 15, sect. 1, who holds as more probable that nails, teeth, and hairs were assumed according to hypostasis by the divine Word.

It is proved: First, because those excrementitious parts do not pertain to the integrity of the human body, whence they will not remain in glorified bodies: then, because those parts in no way, neither directly nor indirectly, conduce to the end of the Incarnation, namely the salvation of men: therefore they do not seem to have been assumed.

You will say: St. Ambrose lib. On the Incarnation cap. 6, and Athanasius in the Epistle to Epictetus, treating against heretics who said the divinity and the flesh of Christ were of the same substance, seem to infer that consequently they would say the Word was converted into flesh, hairs, blood, and bones: therefore those Fathers judged that these parts of the body pertain to its integrity.

I deny that the Fathers infer that, but only report the error of those heretics: for St. Ambrose writes thus: Thereupon all these men, namely the heretics, say that the Word was converted into flesh, hairs, blood, and bones, and changed from his own nature. Occasion is given them to twist the infirmity of the flesh into an infirmity of the Divinity by a certain fictitious mutation of the divine nature. And St. Athanasius against the same heretics writes thus: Nay rather you pass over into another impiety, asserting that the Word, his former nature having been left behind, passed away into flesh, into bone, into hair, sinews, and indeed wholly into body. Therefore the aforesaid Fathers do not argue as absurd that the Word was changed into hairs if it had been changed into a living body, as though even the hairs lived: but they suppose this from the opinion of those heretics.

You ask: whether some particle of the blood of Christ has truly remained on earth substantially, and is still preserved.

I answer. That there is a great controversy among Theologians concerning this difficulty; for very many, with John of Turrecremata, judge that no particle of the blood of Christ remained on earth after his resurrection: but that the blood which is carried about under the name of Christ is not that which flowed from his body, but from a certain image of Christ struck by the Jews of Berith, whose history Athanasius relates in the book On the Passion of the Image of our Lord Jesus Christ. Which author, although he is not held by some to be the great Athanasius, yet that book ought not to be of slight authority, since the aforesaid history was recited under the name of Athanasius and approved in the Second Council of Nicaea, Act 1. This author moreover, cap. 7 of that book, speaking of the blood which flowed from that struck image, says: This is that blood of the Lord, which is said to have been found among very many, nor is it to be lightly esteemed by true Catholics beyond what is written by us, as though something from the flesh and blood of Christ could be found in the world, except that which daily is spiritually wrought upon the altar through the hands of Priests. Other Theologians however think that particles of the blood of Christ are still preserved on earth, nor was all the blood shed in the passion resumed by Christ. Sylvester proves it in the Golden Rose tract. 3, question 31. First indeed by the authority of Pius II, who in a Bull to the Abbot of the Monastery of Xanten thus defines: The petition exhibited contained this, that although for so long a time, of which no memory exists in the Church of the said house, there is piously believed to be a certain particle of the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ shed healthfully for the redemption of the human race upon the wood of the cross, etc. We therefore, who have certain knowledge of the premises, attending to the fact that it nowise repugns the certitude of faith to affirm that our Redeemer left upon earth, out of most pious memory of him, some part of the aforesaid blood, etc.

Therefore the supreme Pontiff judges it most probable that some particle of the blood of Christ the Lord remains substantially on earth. Add what Platina relates in the life of Leo III, that the Pontiff went to Mantua to see the blood of Christ, which then was in great veneration on account of constant miracles: and thence, the blood having been approved, it was brought to Charles. It is confirmed from book 6 of the Revelations of St. Bridget, where the Virgin addresses her in these words: When the time of my call from this world drew near, I myself commended that sacred membrane (namely of the foreskin) to St. John my keeper, together with that blessed blood which remained in his wounds when we took him down from the cross. There come besides innumerable narrations, all of which cannot be condemned as false by any man of sound sense, and yet from these it is beyond doubt that some portion of the blood shed by Christ survives (under another form, however, than that of blood). Such is that redness which is still seen in many instruments of the Lord's passion: the redness is not a bare color left from the sprinkling of blood (for second qualities are not propagated in that way), but the true substance of blood, which first adhered to those instruments and persists fixed to them. Likewise concerning the thorn of the royal chapel of Paris, and the iron of the lance formerly kept at Nuremberg, now at Rome, and concerning the sacred shroud of Turin, and the Holy Face of Rome, or the veil of Veronica, many writers relate. And specially as regards the Turin shroud Julius II declared that the redness which is then seen in it is relics of shed blood, and those who treat of Veronica's sudarium say the same of it. Finally all these things are confirmed from the fact that the flesh of the foreskin is reverently kept and worthily honored under the eyes of the supreme Pontiffs and in the sight of the Roman Curia; for every year in the presence of the Cardinals, in the Easter days, it is shown in the Lateran Basilica, and with a Latin and Italian proclamation from the high pulpit there is set before the people to be adored the blood and water which flowed from the side of Christ dying. Therefore it is not improbable that some substantial particles of the blood of Christ the Lord still remain on earth.

The Adversaries object all those texts of Scripture cited in the superior Conclusion, by which the blood of Christ the Lord is said to have been shed for the price of our redemption and salvation. Truly I answer that those texts are not to be understood of the blood of Christ separated from his body either dead or risen, but of his actual shedding thereof, whereby Christ himself, while still living, offered his own most precious blood to the Father for the redemption of the human race: whence the Apostle attributes the price of our redemption not to the blood alone, but also to prayer, to strong crying and tears and supplications, Heb. 5 v. 7, where of Christ he says: Who in the days of his flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications to him that was able to save him from death, was heard for his reverence: and indeed whereas he was the Son of God, he learned obedience by those things which he suffered: and being consummated, he became, to all that obey him, the cause of eternal salvation. In which words the Apostle taught two things especially: first, that not the blood alone, but also the prayers, supplications, and tears of Christ meriting were offered for our redemption: the other, that the whole merit of Christ and his satisfaction were terminated for us in his death. Being consummated, he says, he became, to all that obey him, the cause of eternal salvation. Whence Heb. 2 v. 10: For it became him, he says, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, who had brought many children into glory, to perfect the author of their salvation by his passion. Whence Tostatus admirably, on Gen. cap. 13, question 351, says the Church was founded rather on Christ living than dead: because, he says, our redemption is from the merits of the passion of Christ, in which passion all foundations instituted by Christ have their efficacy: but the passion of Christ is in the living, and not in the dead, because the dead can suffer nothing sensibly. It is to be noted by the wise: the same blood of Christ from the body of Christ living, and its penalities then profited unto our redemption: but that which was in Christ after death contributes nothing effectively to our redemption, because there is no meritorious action there, but only for signification: just as the burial of the body of the Lord does not contribute effectively or meritoriously to our redemption. And so the blood which flowed from the dead redeemed us not, but the blood which flowed from the living: but that which flowed from the dead signifies redemption and cleansing; it does not effect them.

They object 2. That common axiom from St. Damascene lib. 3, On the Faith cap. 23, where of the divine Word he says: What he once assumed he never dismissed: since therefore he once assumed blood, he never dismissed it.

The Theologians answer commonly that that axiom is to be understood of the principal parts of the humanity, namely soul, body, and its integral parts: whence Richard of Mediavilla, 3 dist. 2 art. 2 qu. 1, says that if a foot had been cut off from the body of Christ, it would always have remained joined to the divinity: but not of parts less principal, and accustomed to flow off from the body, which, since they were no longer parts of the body, had no conjunction with the divinity. Such likewise was the foreskin cut off from the body of Christ in circumcision, which even to this day is kept and shown in the Lateran Church: yet it is not adored as joined to the divinity. So therefore the blood shed in the passion and not resumed by Christ in the resurrection, which is kept at Rome, Mantua, in the monastery of St. Mary of Xanten, and at St. Maximin, although it flowed forth from the body of Christ the Lord at the time of the passion: nevertheless, since it is no longer joined to him, it seems neither on that account joined to the divinity nor to be adored with the worship of latria.

NOTE 1. From the Subtle Doctor in 2 dist. 15: that the faculties of the rational soul are not really distinct from it, as we abundantly proved in the Physics, disp. On the Soul, q. 3, conclusion 2. Which truth St. Augustine plainly hands down lib. 1. De Trinitate, cap. 11, where he says: These three therefore, memory, understanding, and will, since they are not three lives but one life; nor three minds, but one mind; certainly not three substances, but one substance. To him subscribes St. Bernard Sermon 11 on the Canticles: There are, he says, certain things in the contemplation of the soul, memory, understanding, and will. And this triad is the very soul itself. And the Doctor proves this truth: First, because nature always tends to unity and suffers no plurality unless some necessity demands it: but no necessity appears for establishing a real distinction between the soul and its faculties; especially since they cannot exist apart, nor does the soul physically produce its faculties: for if the soul produced its faculties by a real action, it would follow that it was productive independently of them, and consequently such faculties would be superfluous to it; for why should it not be able to elicit its vital acts as immediately as its faculties? From which it is clearly gathered that, if this natural reason is considered, since Christ assumed the rational soul, he must also be said to have assumed intellect and will, and its faculties. Truly, however, since heretics contend against this truth, of whom some, as we saw in the prelude of this Treatise, take away from Christ the Lord a human intellect, others proscribe the human will, contending that he understood and willed only with the intellect and will of the Word: therefore I judged it worthwhile in this Question to demonstrate that Christ the Lord truly had an intellect and human will.

NOTE 2. That the Monothelite heretics, of whom we treated in the prelude of this Treatise, acknowledged two perfect and entire natures in Christ, divine and human, against Apollinaris and Arius, and these not confused, against Eutyches; but whether they truly denied a double will in Christ, acknowledging only the divine; or rather denied only a double action, which they thought was one of both natures, and that divine — is disputed among Theologians. For Vazquez in 3 part. disp. 53 cap. 11 contends that the Monothelites did not deny in the man Christ the power of operating and willing, but only the action.

Their error, he says, was that in Christ there was only the effect of the divine will, but not the human, by whose bidding the lower members were moved to their actions and works: so that the members obeyed only the motion of the divine will, which stood in place of the human; but that there was no human one, whereby, as in us, the members would be moved to their actions. So that they called that effect of the will in Christ, whereby they said the members were moved to their operations, one will, and one operation only, and that theandric, which word St. Dionysius first used in Epistle 4, which is to Caius. And they said the theandric operation in Christ was composed not of two operations, namely of two affections of two wills, which they called operations; but of one operation of the will, and the action of the members, or of another will, which they called operation, or motion, or work.

Which legitimate sense of the error Vazquez boasts himself first to have detected. De Lugo subscribes to him, disp. 25, and some others. But the other Theologians cry out against this, contending that those heretics took away not only the operations of the human will, but this faculty of willing besides. Which truth Petavius proves most copiously from the Holy Fathers themselves lib. 8 cap. 1, especially from the fact that the Saints who attacked those heretics always distinctly assert that they denied two wills and two operations in Christ. Here I bring forward Euthymius alone in the Panoplia near the end of title 15, among other sentences of the Fathers which he collects there: Of those, he says, whose nature is the same, their will and operation are the same: but of those whose nature differs, their will and operation differ. Moreover we do not call those wills and operations hypostatic, nor personal, nor gnomic, that is, the faculty of willing and operating. Nothing indeed is clearer than this, to show that the will and operation about which the question lay between the Monothelites and Catholics is not only action, but also faculty. I add that the heretics themselves denied human will and operation as two things: for in the 6 Synod, Act 8, Macarius Bishop of Antioch, patron of the Monothelites, asked whether he confessed two natural wills and two natural operations in the Incarnation of Christ the Lord, answers that he acknowledges neither two natural wills nor two natural operations.

NOTE 3. That the Monothelites were not the first inventors and asserters of that heresy; for, to pass over the rest, Hippolytus relates in his Collectanea that Simon of Valentine, having rejected his heresy, having constituted a single and singular operation, confounded the divinity and humanity of Christ. Similarly Apollinaris taught one operation in Christ, as Pope Martin reports from some sayings of his in the Lateran Council. For he said: Of those who have one operation, these have one essence: therefore the essence of the Word and of flesh was made one. Before all these the Eutychians shone forth, whom they called by the common name Monophysites, whose offspring we said the Monothelites were in the prelude: for they too, arisen long before this, established one operation and will in Christ, and condemned the two with anathema: thus Severus, mentioned by Pope Agatho in the synodal epistle which is in the Acts of the sixth Synod, pronounced anathema upon the Synod of Chalcedon and upon the epistle of St. Leo to Flavian, and upon all those who say, or have said, that our Lord Jesus Christ after the ineffable and incomprehensible union is one in two natures, and consequently confessing two operations or properties. Yet from the very Monophysites the Monothelites differed in this, that these acknowledged with the Catholics two perfect and entire natures in Christ, as is evident from the 6 Synod, in which this heresy was diligently expounded and damned, inasmuch as in Act 6 Macarius of Antioch, chief of that faction, in that profession of faith which he published at command, distinctly preaches that Christ after the Incarnation exists in two perfect natures without confusion and division, in one person and one hypostasis, nowhere differing by the removal of the union of the natures: but rather the natures concurring into one person and one hypostasis with each property preserved. Those heretics, however, did not agree among themselves in rendering the reason of their heresy and making its exposition. For some established a certain operation of God and man in Christ, which they called both Divic and Theandric: others acknowledged two operations and wills, as Pope Agatho of Rome relates in the Synodal Epistle, which is recited in Act 1 of the Synod; others decreed that neither one nor two should be said, as in the Ecthesis of Heraclius, and the Typus of Constans, of which we treated in the prelude of this Treatise. — There remains therefore to be proved against these and other heretics, that there were truly in Christ two intellects, two wills, and the operations of those faculties; which we shall accomplish in the two following Conclusions.

First conclusion. — Christ had a twofold intellect, divine and human. This is against the Apollinarians contending that the divine Word did not assume a human mind, or faculty of understanding, whose office they affirmed the divine Word to discharge.

It is proved first from sacred Scripture, by all those oracles wherein it appears that Christ the Lord exercised the operations of the human intellect, and especially those in which he is said to have wondered. Thus Matth. 8, he wondered at the faith of the Centurion; which wonder, the Theologians teach, befitted Christ the Lord as regards experimental knowledge: just as he who knows a coming eclipse by science no less wonders when he knows it by experience. From which I thus argue: Christ could not wonder by reason of the divine intellect, since we wonder only at those things whose cause does not lie hidden; nor yet by reason of the sensitive soul, whose part it is not to investigate and uncover the causes of things: therefore it remains that that wonder befitted Christ on the part of the rational soul endowed with its intellect: and therefore in Christ there was a human intellect. — Second, this same thing is clear from those places in which Christ the Lord is related to have had knowledge and wisdom, counsel, and the other perfections pertaining to human intellect; for none of these could belong to him by reason of the divine intellect; especially if you attend to that argument of experimental knowledge, according to which it is said Luke 2, Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men. — Finally this Catholic truth is gathered from those oracles in which it is held that Christ the Lord prayed, and spent the night in prayer to God; for prayer is the elevation of a created mind to God. — Add to these what we said in the 1 Question, demonstrating that Christ assumed the entire human nature, because he assumed everything that was to be healed: but the intellectual faculty was wounded through sin, as was said in the fourth volume, where we demonstrated that all the faculties of the soul are vitiated in many respects through original sin: therefore, that it might be healed, it behooved to be assumed by Christ together with the soul itself. There is nothing weighty, or at least but light, that heretics can thrust against this truth.

Second conclusion. — Christ truly has a divine and human will. This is determined of faith in very many Councils against the Monothelites, especially in the 6 Synod, where this heresy was examined and proscribed, and in the Lateran Council under Martin I, Consultation 5, Canons 12, 13, and 14, and in the VII Synod Act 7, and in the confession of faith wherein the aforesaid heretics are condemned; and in the Florentine Council in the decree of Eugene.

And it is proved above all from Scripture by the testimonies by which two wills are intimated in Christ. Thus Matth. 26, not as I will, but as thou; Luke 22, not my will, but thine be done: John 6, I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. He had therefore a will subject to the Father: not the divine, therefore the human. Likewise from those oracles in which Christ is read to have obeyed: thus Phil. 2, made obedient unto death. Hebrews 5, He learned obedience by those things which he suffered. For obedience is an act of will: not the divine, because obedience acknowledges a superior. But God has no superior: therefore the human. Third, the same truth is confirmed from those places in which Christ is said to have merited salvation for us. For merit pertains to the will: not the divine, because merit is of one tending toward perfection: therefore the human. — Finally it is gathered from those places in which Christ is said to have performed studious and praiseworthy acts, as an exemplar which we ought to imitate: such studious acts he could not exercise without a human will. For if there is no human will, neither will there be free choice; without liberty, moreover, an act can be neither praiseworthy nor studious.

It is proved secondly by all those arguments wherewith the Holy Fathers attacked the heresy of the Monothelites: the first of which is formed from the fact that the Monothelites acknowledged a double perfect nature in Christ. For thus the Fathers of the 4th Synod in their discourse to Emperor Constantine:

Perfect therefore in divinity and in humanity, perfect according to the ancient traditions of the Fathers and the divine formula sanctioned at Chalcedon we preach: and as we have received two natures, so also we acknowledge two natural wills, and his natural operations. For we do not forge to assert either nature in Christ devoid of will or operation in his Incarnation, lest, losing their properties, we perish the natures into one.

St. Damascene uses the same argument lib. 3 cap. 15, saying: The difference of the natures being preserved, the operations also will be preserved, for no nature is devoid of operation, etc. In the same way reasons St. Maximus in the Epistle to Nicander:

How, he says, if nature properly God, and nature properly man, were the same, had He not also a divine will and operation by proper nature, and a human will and operation by proper nature, deficient in neither of these according to nature; through which, preferring the names congruent with things, and again affirming the very things by these names, He was manifestly acknowledged as the same, obtaining and exercising both divine and human things naturally, and thence reasoned to be what He was believed to be from, and in, and whereby? Whereas if natural will and natural operation be taken away, who will be God, or man? Who will be shown to be this and that according to substance, if he retains not the property of both natures without any defect?

They prove secondly: If there were only one will in Christ, it would be either simple or composite. If simple, it would be proper either to God alone, or to man alone: if composite, many absurdities would follow from it, as that it would be created and uncreated at once, and then that Christ would be neither God nor man, but something mixed of both: which argument St. Maximus thus presses in Euthymius title 18:

If only one will in Him, says he, and one operation is said of us, we shall plainly profess that the same is either not by nature man, but God only, or by nature man only, and not God; or neither man nor God, just as if we perchance said a natural will of God. Either this will be altogether divine, or human: if divine, then by it the divine Word naturally willeth, showing Himself by nature God only, and of one will with His generator, not man: for nature does not suffer that from that which is by nature divine, that which is by nature human should take its own proper form and character: even as it cannot come to pass that through that which is according to substance human, that which is divine should be distinguished in substance. Nor will the reason of consequence differ, if we say that the same will of Christ is human.

The Monothelites objected first indeed certain authorities of the ancient Fathers. — But it was demonstrated in the VI Synod that these were partly fictitious, partly fraudulently contrived and depraved by them; partly finally misinterpreted and twisted elsewhere; for their arts and calumnies there were openly detected and convicted: for certain books falsely attributed by those men to the ancients are mentioned. So act. 3 and 12 and 11, the Epistle of Mennas of Constantinople to Pope Vigilius concerning one will of Christ: and two books of Vigilius himself, one to the Emperor Justinian, the other to his wife Theodora, asserting one operation. In action 8 and 5 of the same Synod many passages collected from various monuments of the Holy Fathers by Macarius of Antioch are alleged, which, compared with authentic codices of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Synod discovered had been gathered in bad faith and truncated, and therefore they were condemned by the common suffrages of all. Further, the testimonies which flatter their heresy under some appearance are few. First indeed they drew from St. Cyril book 4 on John, where that great light of the Church says: Christ showed one kindred operation through both natures. — But St. Martin the Pope answers this objection in Euthymius:

One, he says, he calls action by reason of union: but kindred by reason of the parts; inasmuch as it was of the same efficient dominion over all, and of the attraction of holy flesh: for by both these God the Word manifestly showed it, in that He quickened through the flesh, demonstrating it to be vivific through the whole. Even as fire burning through iron, by that vision whereby it is joined with it, makes the iron endowed with the power of burning. So that therefore the burning is thereafter not of fire alone according to nature: but also of the iron by reason of the union: and similarly the divine operation of the Word in miracles comes not on account of its own nature only; but also of His holy flesh itself, by reason of the hypostatic conjunction with it: since He made it partaker with Himself of action in performing divine things.

They objected further the testimony of Gregory of Nyssa, as may be seen in the 6 Synod, Action 12, who writing against Eunomius asserts: That the Divinity itself wrought through the body which He put on the common salvation truly of all, so that the suffering of the flesh might be an operation of God. Consonant with this is that saying of Philo in the book De Cherubim, where he says: It is proper to God to do, which it is unlawful to attribute to anything made: but proper to the creature to suffer. From these they gathered that the human nature in Christ was not operative, but that the divine only operated in Him. — But St. Maximus in the disputation against Pyrrhus, and St. Damascene book 3 chapter 13, turn back that argument upon the heretics: for if therefore there ought to be one operation in Christ because action belongs properly to the Divinity alone, but passion to humanity; the same necessity of consequence will make that there be only one nature of God in the same Christ, if namely that alone operates, and the created alone is passible: since nature is gathered only through motion and operation. Therefore where there is the operation of one nature only, there also one nature only: nor does it matter that every created nature suffers; for this does not hinder it from being also active, for every created agent, especially corporeal, while acting undergoes passion.

They objected 3. Every instrument has no action from itself, but only from the principal agent: but the human nature, according to the Holy Fathers, is called the instrument of the Divinity: therefore from itself it was not operative, but only served, as instrument, the operation of the Divinity itself. The major stands from the Philosophers.

But they proved the minor from St. Cyril in the dialogue De Incarnatione Verbi, part 5, where he says: Christ used His own flesh as an instrument for works of the flesh, and for natural infirmities and other such things, which were without reprehension, likewise His own soul for human passions devoid of vice: for He is said to have hungered and to have borne the labors of long journeys, etc. The same has St. Athanasius in oration 1: Being God, he says, He had His own body, and using this as an instrument, He was made man for our sake. Therefore those things are said to belong properly to the flesh itself because they were inherent in it, such as hungering, thirsting, etc.

I distinguish the major: An artificial instrument, which lacks a principle of acting, and is moved only by the impulse of the mover, I concede: a natural, or substantive instrument, which is endowed with its own form and virtue and power of effecting, and has true affection of itself, and converts into the work to be done, I deny. Similarly, distinguishing the minor, I deny the consequence. For the human nature in Christ, if it is an instrument of the divinity, is not an artificial but a natural instrument; because it exercises its own action from itself, nor merely undergoes. — Add that since Christ had operations of a twofold kind, some indeed purely natural, as cognition, volition, speech, touch, etc.; others exceeding the power of nature, as all miraculous operations which Christ performed either by touch or by word, as the curing of infirmities, the raising of the dead, and other such miracles, whose natural cause was not the human nature; the humanity itself was the principal cause of the former actions: but not a mere instrument; but the latter actions the Divinity alone wrought, and the human nature used the action, namely touch or speech, for accomplishing those marvelous effects, as an instrument.

Finally they objected: If Christ had had two wills, He would also have had a battle of wills, since the human would have resisted the divine, and consequently He would not have been wholly without sin, for everyone sins who struggles against the divine will: but to assert this is injurious to Christ the Holy of Holies: therefore, etc. — I deny the major, for although Christ had two wills, it does not follow thence that the human resisted the divine; nay rather it was subject to it in all things always: since Christ was made obedient to the eternal Father unto death, Philippians 2. Hence Matthew 26 He said: Not as I will, but as thou wilt, and Luke 22: Not my will, but thine, be done. Wherefore He testifies John 5: I seek not my own will, but the will of him that sent me. Add that by this argument the Monothelites ought no less to have denied the sentient appetite in Christ: for this appetite seems much more easily to war with the divine will than the human will does; nor thence, as the heretics wished, need it be guarded that Christ be shaken into sin: for, as St. Ambrose noted in book De Incarnationis dominicae sacramento, chapter 7, He who delivered others from the slippery fall of the flesh, could He fear lest He too be conquered by a certain dominion of that flesh?

They objected moreover that the supreme Roman Pontiffs, chiefly Vigilius and Honorius, stood on their side and patronized their sentiment, as appears in the disputation of Pyrrhus with St. Maximus. — But how false and mendacious that assertion was, that it may appear more clearly, it is worth while here to examine more fully whether truly those two supreme Pontiffs stood on the side of the Monothelites, which I shall indeed perform in the two following paragraphs.

§ I. — Whether Vigilius the Roman Pontiff was a Monothelite.

Thus he is accused by Pyrrhus in the disputation with St. Maximus the martyr, affirming that that Pontiff by his vote approved the little book offered by Mennas Patriarch of Constantinople, in which it is affirmed that there is one will in Christ. But the most holy Martyr purges this calumny in these words:

I wonder how you, being Patriarchs, wish to lie: he who preceded you wrote in his letters to Honorius that he had indeed been warned concerning that little book, but that it was neither offered nor shown to him; but you yourself said in your Epistle to Pope John that it was offered and shown, and even read through the quaestor Constantine: which therefore shall we believe? You, or him whom you succeeded? For both cannot have spoken the truth.

Whence when Pyrrhus granted that it was so written by Sergius his predecessor, he was forced to confess that Vigilius could not be blamed on this head.

You will urge: Truly Mennas offered his little book to Vigilius, as is clear from the epistle of Sergius to Cyrus Bishop of Alexandria, which was read in the sixth Synod, act 12, wherein it is affirmed that that little book was handed to Vigilius himself by Mennas. For he says:

When we had signified to him by our rescripts those things which were within our knowledge, sending also the acclamatory discourse of Mennas of holy memory once Patriarch: this, for the preserving of that royal city, offered by him, here preceding the present Vigilius of holy memory, predecessor of your holiness, having also various paternal testimonies concerning the one operation and one will of our Savior Christ.

Therefore truly that little book was offered to Vigilius, and approved by him. — I answer, denying the consequence; for although it were true that the little book was offered to Vigilius himself, it does not nevertheless follow that it was approved by him. I answer secondly, that in that little book of Mennas those words about the one operation and the one will of our Savior Christ were added by the Greek Monothelites: for when the Monothelites had produced this little book in the VI Synod act 3, as read, namely that there is one will in Christ, then, as is related there, rising up, the Legates of the Apostolic See cried out that the codex had been vitiated by the Monothelites, and that that epistle, or little book, in the name of Mennas to Vigilius had been added, because the genuine acts themselves did not contain it; and they brought forward for this a certain sure argument, that Mennas died in the year 21 of Emperor Justinian; but the fifth

Synod, at whose beginning the epistle of Mennas is said to have been read, was assembled only in the year 27 of his empire. Hence it must necessarily be inferred that a little book could not have been sent by Mennas to Vigilius at the time of the fifth Synod, since Mennas had already died six years before the Synod was assembled. Moreover the falsification of that little book and the imposture appeared by example, as is clear from the acts of that 3rd session, where these things are had:

And then inspecting, the most pious Emperor with the most glorious Judges together with certain ones from the holy Synod, Bishops beloved of God, and opening and discerning, they found three quires applied at the beginning of the book, not having the notation of number which according to custom is affixed upon quires: but in the fourth quire having the first number, and in the following quire the second, and third, with a fourth subsequent; otherwise, and unlike, were the letters of the same, in the beginnings of the submitted quires, in which was contained the discourse called Mennas to Vigilius.

From which appears the fraud and craftiness of the heretics. — But when the Monothelites pressed it in defense of their error, in act 12, so that again that little book might be read, the Judges and Council said:

Superfluous has been the present reading of the discourse, which is altogether fictitious and false, because in the deposited records of this venerable Patriarchate the discourse of Mennas of most holy memory Antistes of this royal city, called Mennas to Vigilius, did not appear among the letters.

In the same Act 3 it is again objected by the Monothelites that Vigilius wrote two books: one to Emperor Justinian, the other truly to Theodora Augusta wife of Justinian; in which books was contained: But we anathematize Theodore, who was Bishop of Mopsuestia, as one who always stood aloof from the Church, and an adversary of the Holy Fathers, who does not confess that the Word of God was made incarnate, that is, that Christ is one subsistence, and one person, and one operation. The Monothelites moreover added that these books are found in Act 7 of the 6 Synod. — But the Legates of the Roman See again accused the Monothelites of falsity; because they had plainly added "and one operation": and they set forth the argument for demonstrating the falsity and imposture; because if mention of one operation had been made there, doubtless that would have been inserted in the definition of the Council. — Besides, the Synod itself ought to have professed the error of that same one operation, seeing that Vigilius was received by the Synod. Which since it cannot be said, neither must that be thought of Vigilius. — Whence in Act 12 of the same Council, while the same little books were again brought forward, thus the Judges, thus also the Council:

We hold in memory that then (that is, in Act 3) they pursued, who on the part of the Apostolic See of ancient Rome proclaimed that the 7th Act had been falsified, because two fallacious little books are contained in it, as if offered by Vigilius, to Justinian, and Theodora of pious memory.

From these things it stands that Vigilius the Roman Pontiff is falsely accused of the error of the Monothelites. But as regards Honorius, the matter is far more difficult, as will appear in the following §.

§ I. — Whether Honorius professed the dogma of the Monothelites and patronized its assertors.

The affirmative part is defended not only by heretics but also by certain Catholic theologians with Melchior Cano book 6 De Locis Theologicis, last chapter; who judge that Honorius truly patronized the error of the Monothelites: Both because in his two Epistles, which were read in Action 12 and 13 of the sixth Synod, he approves the doctrine of Sergius, chief of the Monothelites, and decrees that it is not to be said that Christ has two wills or two operations: And because in that same VI Synod he is condemned as a heretic, because, say the Fathers of the Council Act. 13, we find through the writings which he made to Sergius that he followed his mind in all things, and confirmed impious dogmas; whereupon, decreeing, the same Council expunctuated his name from the sacred diptychs, and his writings were burned with fire as profane and pernicious to the soul: Then because in the VII Synod, in the final Action, anathema is said against Honorius together with Sergius and the other Monothelites, as is read in the Epistle of the same Synod to all the Clergy: Then because in Action 7 of the eighth Synod there was read and approved the Epistle of the Roman Council under Adrian II, in which it is related that Honorius was judged after death by the VI Synod because he had been accused of heresy: Finally because from Agatho's Epistle to the Emperor Constantine, which is found in Act. 1 of the VI Synod, anathema is said against Honorius as of the Monothelites; and from Leo II's Epistle to the same Emperor, which stands at the end of that same Council, it is written that Honorius died in the heresy of the Monothelites, and therefore had been condemned by the just sentence of anathema.

Nevertheless, not notwithstanding these things, the more numerous and more noble company of Doctors protests, together with Ecclesiastical Annalists and Historians, whose sentiment I judge to be truer and more certain; that we may prove it more efficaciously and demonstrate it more clearly, three things must here be demonstrated severally: First indeed, that Honorius truly was not an assertor of the error of the Monothelites; Second, that he is not to be accused of the same error on the ground that at the beginning of the controversy he communicated with Sergius by letters given and received; Third finally, that in the VI Synod he was not at all condemned and proscribed as a heretic. But that these may appear more clearly, those things must be repeated which we said at the beginning of this Treatise concerning the origin, propagation, and condemnation of the heresy of the Monothelites. Especially must be recalled that when Cyrus Patriarch of Alexandria had convoked a Synod under pretext of recalling to the Church the heretics the Nestorians, in it it was defined in chapter 1 that there is one God-man operation in Christ; whose Synod's acts he sent as soon as possible to Sergius Bishop of Constantinople, together with an Epistle full of flattery, which was read in the VI Synod Action 13; but when this definition of the one operation of Christ had become known to Sophronius Patriarch of Jerusalem, he strove with all his might with Cyrus that he would rescind it; and since he could not obtain this, he wrote to Sergius of Constantinople, and also to Honorius the supreme Pontiff, that that definition of the Alexandrian Synod be rescinded. But when Sergius had received those letters from Sophronius, he wrote to Honorius the celebrated Epistle which is found in Action 12 of the VI Synod, in which he explains that for the good of peace it seems to him that both opinions should be repressed by silence, whether that which defends one will and one operation in Christ, or that which admits two: yet he submits his own opinion in all things to the judgment and censure of the Apostolic See. Having received the letters from Sergius, Honorius wrote a twofold Epistle to him, in which the adversaries will have it that he patronized the Monothelites. Honorius dying, Severinus was substituted in his place: whom Ioannes IV succeeded, who having convened a Council at Rome condemned the Monothelites. Ioannes dying, his successor Theodorus anathematized Paulus Bishop of Constantinople because he favored the Monothelites, and deprived him of his Episcopate. Martin, successor of Theodorus, convenes a Lateran Council, in which the Monothelites are again condemned, and it is defined that there are two wills and operations in Christ, in hatred of whose assertion Martin is driven into exile, wherein amid various hardships he merits the crown of martyrdom.

But when after his death Constantinus Pogonatus, truly orthodox, held the Empire, he treated first with Domnus successor of Martin, then with Agatho, who had succeeded Domnus upon his death, about convening a general Council. Therefore the VI general Synod is convened at Constantinople: the Legates of the Apostolic See preside, the Emperor himself also is present with graver men. The Monothelites, whose chief was Macarius Patriarch of Antioch, are heard peacefully. Finally it is defined that there are two wills and two actions in Christ, and anathema is pronounced against the authors and principal holders of that heresy.

Honorius is not to be called a Monothelite on account of the Epistles given and received with Sergius at the beginning of the controversy.

Proof: No one ought to be called a heretic who communicates by letters given and received with some Bishop who is celebrated by all and held as a Catholic, and falls under no suspicion of another's error: but when Honorius received the Epistle from Sergius and wrote back to him, Sergius was held by all as a Catholic, and fell under no suspicion of anyone's error: therefore on account of communication with him, Honorius is not to be condemned as a heretical Monothelite. The major stands: otherwise all the holy Fathers who communicated with heretics before they fell under suspicion of error would have to be accused of heresy, as Jerome with Rufinus, Augustine with Julian. The minor, however, is proved, namely that Sergius at that time was held as a Catholic and the best Pastor of the Church of Constantinople. It is proved, I say, first from the Epistle of Sophronius Bishop of Jerusalem to Sergius, where he celebrates him with many encomiums:

To you, he says, we send (the confession of faith) who know not only how to discern approved dogmas from adulterated ones, but can perfectly supply what is lacking, on account of perfect charity in Christ. I shall proceed therefore to say those things which I learned, fostered and nourished from the beginning in the holy Catholic Church, and received from my tenderest years, and to hear them preach divinely, etc.

Therefore at that time Sergius was held as a Catholic. — Next, he who submits his doctrine to the judgment of the Roman Pontiff, nor does it contain manifest error, cannot be held a heretic: but Sergius in his Epistle to Honorius submits his doctrine, containing no manifest error, to his judgment; for he says near the end:

We exhort you, most holy ones, to read all these things, and following the charity pleasing to God and most full, which is in us now also, if you find anything more or less, to fill it up through the grace given you by God, and by your holy syllables together with desirable charity preserve, let it be signified concerning those things which we have said above that they please.

By which it stands how humbly Sergius submits himself to the judgment of Honorius, while he asks that the Roman Pontiff himself, if he should know anything less or more in the Epistle, add likewise or take away; although these things were put forward subtilely by him, lest he be detected as a heretic. — Finally, there was nothing in the Epistle of Sergius to Honorius from which it could be judged that Sergius himself patronized the Monothelites: for he declares his opinion so that he seems only to pursue the good of peace and to provide for the tranquillity of the Church: since elsewhere he attested his sound and integral faith concerning the divinity and humanity of Christ in the unity of person; for he says:

You truly considering that from this contention begins to blaze forth among certain here, and knowing that always from such contentions those dissensions of hereses have been effected; we judged it necessary to bestow all study upon calming and cutting away that superfluous conflict of words, and we wrote to the often named most holy Patriarch of Alexandria, that after he composed unity with those who formerly separated themselves, with His aid, he permit thereafter no one to bring forth one or two operations in Christ our God, but rather, as the holy and universal Councils delivered, to confess the one same only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ true God operating, as well divinely as humanly, and every operation worthy of God and worthy of man proceeding undividedly from the one same incarnate Word of God, and reducing to one same; because the voice of one operation, although said by certain holy Fathers, nevertheless seemed strange, and to disturb the ears of certain suspecting that this is brought forth confusedly unto the perdition and according to subsistence of the two natures united in Christ our God, which never is, nor ever was. Similarly however, the saying of two operations scandalizes many, as issued by no Saint, nor by probable institutors of the Church. Moreover, its consequence is to preach two wills, having contrarieties mutually among themselves, as though indeed God the Word willeth salvifically the passion to be fulfilled, but His humanity resisting His will, and opposing it, and accordingly two contraries willing being introduced; which is impious. For it is impossible in one same subject two wills simultaneously, and contraries toward this very thing, to subsist. For the salutary doctrine of the Fathers bearing God instructs worthily, that never did the intellectually animated flesh of the Lord separately, and from its own appetite contrary to the assent of the Word of God united to itself according to subsistence, effect its natural motion, but when, and what sort, and how much God the Word Himself wished. And (that it may be said more fully) even as our body is ruled and adorned and disposed by our intellectual and rational soul; so also in the Lord Christ the whole admixture of His humanity moved always by the very Deity of the Word in all things, was movable by God, according to Gregory of Nyssa saying against Eunomius thus: according as He was God the Son, He is assuredly impassible and immortal: but if any passion of Him is said in the Gospel, certainly through the humanity, which underwent the passion, He wrought things of this kind. For truly the Deity operates through the body which is around Him the salvation of all, that there be indeed in the flesh the passion, but the operation of God.

But he relates that there he seems to disapprove the opinion of Sophronius blaming the definition of the Alexandrian Synod, and to approve the opposite definition and the sentiment of Cyrus: for that he does only to signify how much tranquillity that definition gave to the Church of Alexandria: which peace indeed he judged hard to disturb by rescinding that definition of the Alexandrian Synod.

How, he says, would it not be hard and very burdensome, when to dissolve this and overturn it was going to destroy all that concord and unity, which had been well effected, as much in the great city of Alexandria as through all the provinces subject to it, which had at no time up till now acquiesced, even to make simple mention of the name of our divine and laudable Father Leo, or of the holy and great universal Council of Chalcedon; now truly preaching this with illustrious and great voice in the divine mysteries of the Masses?

Therefore there is no reason why from thence Sergius should be accused by Honorius of any error. Wherefore Honorius had no cause at that time why he should withdraw himself from communication with Sergius, and consequently therefore is not to be charged with the error of the Monothelites.

Nor is he to be reproached with error on account of the doctrine expressed in his letters to Sergius.

For Honorius, as we said above, gave two Epistles to Sergius himself: but in neither of them is contained the error of the Monothelites, nor anything that tends to the patronage of that same error: therefore Honorius is not to be condemned on account of those Epistles.

The minor is proved: First indeed from the prior Epistle: since in it he teaches: First, that Christ the Lord is God and man, who shone forth in flesh full of divine miracles, He Himself, and having become fleshly, fully God and man. Secondly he confesses that He suffered passions and reproaches not in both natures, since it stands that the divinity can undergo no human passions, and therefore His humanity was assumed not from Heaven but from the holy Genetrix of God. Thirdly he teaches that on account of the ineffable conjunction of the human and divine nature God is said to have suffered, and the humanity to have descended from heaven: For, he says, He Himself speaks thus in the Gospel: No man ascendeth into heaven, but he that descendeth from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven, surely instructing us that flesh passible was united to the Divinity ineffably and singularly, and discretely and without confusion, so indivisely believed to be joined, that assuredly it may be known to be united wonderfully with marvelous keeping of the differences of both natures. Fourthly he teaches Christ the Lord to have wrought divine things mediately by humanity naturally united to the Word of God, and the same to have wrought human things ineffably and singularly. By which he signifies that on account of the communication of idioms he believes one willing and operating in Christ, as one is His person: although he asserts that on account of the diverse properties of two natures simultaneously indivisely and without confusion conjoined, equally distinct and unconfused wills also are found in Him. — Finally, he confesses that there is one operator of divinity and humanity: Because, he says, that our Lord Jesus Christ Son Word of God, through whom all things were made, Himself is the one operator of Divinity and humanity, the sacred Letters abundantly demonstrate more clearly: but whether on account of the works of divinity and of humanity twofold operations ought derivatively to be said or understood, that pertains not to us, leaving those things to Grammarians, who are wont to vend exquisite names by speaking them to little ones. Therefore Honorius professes one operator in Christ, saying that the unity of operation agrees not to the person, but to the operator. So St. John Damascene book 3 chapter 11 treating of these things teaches that by reason of one person there cannot be said one will, but one willing, nor one operation, but one operating, namely in two natures, which while he asserts indivise, without confusion, and inconvertibly conjoined, he plainly necessarily introduces two operations and wills. In these things indeed nothing more Catholic could be said, nothing more pious and holy, nothing finally in those times could seem more usefully devised for preserving peace in the Churches. Which Catholic truth indeed (I shall say freely with Campensis, says Baronius) not only could no Synod ever condemn, but if an Angel from heaven should announce another thing besides what has been said, let him receive anathema inflicted on such by the Apostle.

You will say: The same Pontiff in the same Epistle openly said: whence also we confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ. — St. Maximus answers in the disputation against Pyrrhus that he said one will not of humanity and divinity together, but of humanity alone; for when Sergius had written that certain men called the two wills in Christ contraries, Honorius answered, says the holy Martyr, we said that Christ had not two contrary wills; of flesh, I say, and of spirit, as we have after sin, but only one, which naturally signified His humanity; which response indeed is confirmed from the very Epistle of Honorius, for when he had said, We confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ; immediately he subjoins:

Because chiefly by the divinity was our nature assumed, not guilty, that certainly which before sin was created never after the transgression vitiated. And below: it was not therefore assumed, as we prefaced, a vitiated nature by the Savior, which would resist the law of His mind: but He came to seek and to save what had perished, namely the vitiated nature of humankind: for there was not another law in the members, or diverse or contrary will to the Savior; because He was born above the law of the human condition. And since it is written: I came not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me, the Father, and: not what I will, but what thou wilt, Father, and other such like: these are not of diverse will, but of dispensation of the humanity assumed; for those things were said on our account, whereby He gave example that we may attain His footsteps, the pious Master imbuing disciples, that each of us prefer not his own will, but rather the will of the Lord to all.

These words of Honorius: therefore when you hear Honorius say one will, you must understand him so to speak with respect to the two mutually warring contrary wills toward evil and good.

You will insist: Honorius in the same Epistle says that Sergius wrote rightly and providently to Sophronius when he took away the novelty of the word, evidently disapproving the dictum of Sophronius who admitted two wills in Christ. — I answer, Honorius did not more blame Sophronius because he admitted two wills than the adversaries who professed one will in Christ; but he wished only that for the sake of preserving peace the assertion of one or of two wills be silent: For you, he says, we have perceived from the sacred Letters not one operation or two, not one Jesus Christ, and His Holy Spirit, but multiformly we have known Him operating. By which he signifies that indeed one operator of divinity and humanity must be said. — But whether there were two wills or operations he was unwilling to define, for a twofold cause: The first is, because in defining new things one must proceed cautiously: but he judged that thing new: for neither in the Gospels nor in the Synods did the matter seem clear to him.

It behooves, he says, that dogmas be referred back to these Ecclesiastical ones, which neither synodal decrees examining above, nor canonical authorities ever condemned: that anyone should presume that one or two virtues of Christ God are preached, which neither Evangelic or Apostolic letters, nor the synodal examination held concerning these, ever terminated.

The second is, lest if two operations, he might seem to favor Nestorius; if one, Eutyches.

And we, he says, according to the sanctions of the divine Oracles ought to think or hope, refuting namely those things which even now are known to generate scandals in the holy Churches of God, and neither being offended at the appellation of two operations, following Nestorians, they judge our pride to have been cut down: nor certainly, if again we judged that one operation of our Lord Jesus Christ must be confessed, should we be thought to confess with most eager ears the foolish madness of the Eutychianists.

The second cause why he decreed nothing concerning this controversy was perhaps lest by this definition the Ecclesiastical peace be disturbed and the unity of the Churches be utterly taken away. Add to these that Honorius would seem no more blameworthy on this account because he judged that both assertions, of one or of two wills, were to be kept silent than Sophronius himself, who judged the same silence to be observed: but Sophronius is accused by no one of heresy because he judged abstention from that new manner of speaking to be necessary: therefore neither on that account ought Honorius be blamed. That Sophronius however consented to abstain from this formula of speaking stands from the epistle of Sergius to Honorius, where he says:

Finally it stood and pleased that the aforesaid venerable Sophronius should henceforth move no discourse concerning one or two operations, but let it suffice him with the cautious and well-trodden tradition and doctrine of the Holy Fathers prestated. Content with these things, therefore, the often named venerable Man, certifying that he keeps these, etc.

Similarly in the posterior epistle of Honorius there is nothing for which at that time he could be accused of heresy: since in it only these things are contained:

The appellation of one or of twofold operation newly introduced let it be removed from the preaching of the faith: for those who say these things, what else do they suspect than that, according to the appellation of one or twofold nature of Christ God, so also one or twofold operation is suspected, on account of the simplicity of men, and that inextricable labyrinths of questions are to be cut away, rather than that one or two operations are defined in the Mediator of God and men? But both natures in one Christ conjoined in natural unity operating with communion of each other we ought to confess as operating and operatrix, and indeed the divine, whereby they are of God, operating, and the human, whereby they are of flesh, executing, teaching neither dividedly nor confusedly or convertibly the nature of God into man made, nor the human converted into God, but confessing whole the differences of the natures. And below: Taking away therefore, as we said, the scandal of the novel invention, neither does it behoove us detaining to preach one or two operations, but instead of one (which certainly they say) operation, it behooves us truthfully to confess one operator Christian the Lord in both natures, and instead of two operations, removed the appellation of twofold operation, rather those very two natures, namely of Divinity and flesh assumed in one person of the only-begotten Son of God the Father without confusion, indivisibly, and inconvertibly with us preach as operating properly. And this indeed we have provided to be intimated to your most blessed fraternity, that we might show to your unanimity of holiness the purpose of one confession, that assuredly breathing in one spirit, we may inspire with equal document of faith. He adds moreover: writing also to the common Brothers Cyrus and Sophronius antistes lest they seem to insist upon or dwell upon the new word, namely the appellation of one or twofold operation; but erased the appellation of this new word, may they preach one Christ the Lord in both natures, divine or human, operating. Although this, which the aforesaid brother and Conbishop of ours Sophronius sent to Us, We instructed, lest they strive to preach princes of two operations; which most urgently they promised the aforesaid man would do, if also Cyrus Brother and Conbishop of ours shall depart from the appellation of one operation.

So far from the posterior epistle of Honorius to Sergius the sixth Synod; from which it appears that he signified that the appellation itself of one or of two operations must be equally kept silent by either party, for the good of peace: which also the Legates of Sophronius promise to observe. Therefore since Sophronius on account of the imposed silence concerning either expression, nor on account of communication and consent with Sergius fell anywhere into suspicion of error; so neither ought Honorius on account of the same come into suspicion of heresy: especially since with this reason Honorius consulted peace so that he committed no prejudice to truth. For prejudice could be done to truth only in one of these two ways, either because he had confirmed the heresy of the Monothelites concerning the one will and operation of Christ: but not so; because he expressly forbids saying one unique, just as he forbids saying two: or because by his simulation and indifference he might seem secretly to favor the Eutychians: but not so, because he wills expressly that we believe both natures in Christ conjoined in natural unity, neither dividedly nor confusedly or convertibly the nature of God into man, nor the human converted into God; but whole the differences of the natures: therefore so far is he from being judged a heretic on account of the epistles, that rather it stands, as we rightly established, that he at that time prudently provided for the affairs of the Church, lest namely the Church long vexed by the heretics the Eutychians and Nestorians, and not yet enjoying peace firm and solid in every respect, suffer herself to be harassed by new controversies arising.

It is more probable that Honorius in the sixth Synod was not reckoned among the heretics, nor condemned.

This last part of the vindication of Honorius appears far more difficult of proof than the preceding ones; because in the acts of the sixth Synod, which circulate through the universal Church and are in the hands of all, he is read to have been reckoned among the heretics; which some subsequent general Synods also did, as we warned at the beginning of this controversy. Nevertheless I judge it must be said with the more noble company of Doctors and Annalists of the Church, truer, that the name of Honorius was inserted by the Monothelites themselves, together with the other condemned holders of their error, that they might the more easily elevate the authority and definition of the sixth Synod, and summon patronage for their pretensed innocence and just condemnation. For they valued so highly the memory of Honorius, that even until now Monothelite Patriarchs of Constantinople preserved his name inserted in their diptychs, the names of his successors expunctuated, by whom they had been condemned: but toward defending this opinion I am moved by arguments not lighter, but, as it seems to me, most weighty.

First I recall from the Lateran Synod celebrated under Martin Pope and Martyr in the year of Christ 649, that is, ten years after the death of Honorius: to which Synod one hundred and five Bishops were present, the supreme Pontiff himself presiding, in which the cause of the Monothelites was exactly weighed and treated; and after diligent inquisition there were condemned together with the heresy, and with their writings, Theodore Bishop of Pharan, Cyrus Patriarch of Alexandria, Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paulus successors of the Patriarch of Constantinople, authors and champions of the error: but concerning Honorius there was so deep a silence that he suffered no calumny whatsoever from the heretics concerning heresy, nor was he assailed by the holy Synod even with the lightest suspicion: since otherwise Honorius would not have escaped the same sentence with the other condemned authors and patrons of that error; or certainly Martin with the Council would have gravely failed in his duty, who accepted the person of the same to the prejudice of truth; which indeed no one can judge without crime of so great a Pontiff and glorious Martyr. For with this exception he would have approved the doctrine of Honorius himself, and thus by silence seemed to approve what by decreeing he disapproved: therefore if the silence of that Council is the most valid testimony of the innocence of Honorius, is it credible that the sixth Synod could have pronounced sentence against that innocent Pontiff, and numbered him with the heretics? What knowledge could the sixth Synod have concerning the mind and sentiment of Honorius which escaped the Fathers of the Lateran Council? For the memory and doctrine of Honorius was more recent among these than among those; and with easier negotiation the Lateran Fathers could know his mind, inasmuch as they still had very many survivors of the familiars of Honorius, with whom Honorius had treated that cause, and from whom they could learn his mind. It is said that Honorius was condemned in the sixth Synod on account of the mere reading of his two epistles to Sergius: but were these unknown at Rome, or less understood by the Roman and Latin Prelates than at Constantinople, whose Synod the greatest part was Orientals? whereby it behooved those epistles to be translated into the Greek idiom: certainly no one judging equitably will esteem this.

The second argument is sought from the Roman Council celebrated under Agatho in the year 680, that is, in the same year in which the sixth Synod was celebrated, to which one hundred twenty-five Bishops were present, as stands from the synodal epistle, which was as it were the instruction of the Legates who were sent by the same Agatho to the sixth Synod, and exists in action 1 of the same sixth Synod; in which synodal epistle three things are contained: The first is the profession of faith, wherein expressly is contained the Catholic doctrine of the two wills and operations in Christ. The second, the condemnation is repeated of the same patrons of the Monothelite error, Theodore, Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paulus; nor is slight mention indeed made that Honorius similarly erred: which certainly ought not to have been dissimulated, if it were true. Third finally, it is affirmed that the predecessors of Agatho taught the same faith always, and defended it constantly even unto the exit of their soul, not seduced by blandishments, nor terrified by perils, etc. But with what face would these things be subscribed by one hundred twenty-five Bishops, together with the supreme Pontiff, if not long before Honorius labored under the same error which was condemned in that Lateran Synod, and whose condemnation was to be procured from the Legates setting out to that sixth Synod? Who is so light as to believe that so many Prelates wished so shamefully to impose upon the whole Church gathered in an OEcumenical Council, and that they were so heartless and prodigal of their fame, who, that they might preserve the name of Honorius untarnished, would rather expose themselves to the open peril of mendacity before the whole assembly of the Church? It is confirmed from the epistle directed in the name of Agatho alone to the Emperors Constantine, Heraclius, and Tiberius through the same Legates, which likewise is related at the beginning of action 1 of the same sixth Synod, where the Symbol of faith, which expressly contains the truth of the twofold will and operation, is brought forth, and the Pontiff subjoins with free mouth and firm and reiterated contestation professes that never at any time has the Apostolic See deviated from the right path of faith. For he says: By the assisting protection of Christ this Apostolic Church of his hath never turned aside from the way of truth in any part of error. And shortly after:

This is indeed the rule of true faith, which in prosperity and adversity this spiritual mother of your most tranquil Empire, the Apostolic Church of Christ, has vigorously held and defended, which by the grace of almighty God will be proved never to have erred from the path of Apostolic tradition, nor corrupted by heretical novelties to have succumbed: but as from the beginning of the Christian faith she received it uncorrupted from its authors the chief Apostles of Christ, so she has remained even unto this time. And concerning his own predecessors shortly after he adds specially these things: Let your tranquil clemency consider, therefore, since the Lord and Savior of all, whose is the faith, who promised that the faith should not fail, admonished to confirm His brethren: that the Apostolic Pontiffs, predecessors of my littleness, have always confidently done this, it is known to all: whose my littleness also, although unequal and least, yet having undertaken the ministry of divine condescension, desires to be a follower. For it will be a tedium to me if I neglect to preach the truth of my Lord, whom they sincerely preached.

These words of Agatho, which indeed he could not assert so firmly, preach freely, and confess sincerely, if for confirming the same heresy which he confesses, Honorius could have been brought into accusation. Which you will judge most true if you consider who said these things, where, to whom, and when he wrote; namely the most holy Agatho, praised by the mouth of all, in the great synodal convention of the Fathers, writing these things with the consent of all to those very Emperors dwelling at Constantinople, whose predecessors had favored the error, as stands from the Ecthesis of Heraclius and the Typus of Constans: and he would write this at the time when the OEcumenical Synod was about to be celebrated, namely in that city whose Patriarchs Agatho himself had condemned with his Council; but he would have exposed himself to just accusation of accepting persons if to the prejudice of truth he had excepted guilty of that error with the same favorers and patrons of the Monothelites. — Add to these that long before those supreme Pontiffs St. Maximus vindicated Honorius from that very calumny, in that disputation which he held with Pyrrhus; for when that heretic clamored that Honorius stood for him: What, he kept saying, do you have to answer concerning Honorius, who openly handed down to my predecessor that there is one will of our Lord Jesus Christ? Holy Maximus liberates him from this insimulation of error, showing that he was always a keenest champion of the true faith, and said one will in the Lord, not of His divinity and humanity, but of humanity alone, lest he admit contrary wills of flesh and spirit in Christ. It is confirmed from this, that in the year 610, that is, second after the death of Honorius himself, when the Monothelites attempted to draw him over to their party on occasion of the aforesaid epistles to Sergius, Ioannes then sitting in the Chair of Peter summoned him, who had written those two epistles to Honorius, that he might disclose the mind of the deceased Pontiff, and write to the Emperor Constantine what he had judged. He obeyed, and as St. Maximus martyr relates, he signified to the Emperor that thus far only Honorius said one will in Christ, so far as he denied the human will contrary, namely of flesh and of spirit; not truly that he denied the double, whereof one is divine, the other human. Therefore it stands that before the sixth Synod, both from the letters of Honorius himself, and from the writings of St. Maximus, and from the two Councils celebrated at Rome, then from the letters of the Roman Pontiffs Ioannes, Martinus, and Agatho, by no means can Honorius be charged with error; and consequently no just estimator of things can be induced to believe that the name of Honorius, with other patrons of that heresy, was inserted by the sixth Synod; nay rather he will easily judge that this was compacted by the crafty artifice and fraud of the Monothelites. In what manner however this was done, we shall soon disclose.

The third argument, whereby the faith of Honorius can be vindicated whole, and that his condemnation in the sixth Synod appear fictitious, is gathered both from the terms and from the circumstances of that condemnation, which is read and written out in action 28 of this Council, whose words are these:

The holy Council said: according to the promise which has been made by us to our glory, reexamining the dogmatic epistles which were written by Sergius formerly Patriarch of this royal city preserved of God, as well to Cyrus who was then Bishop of Phasis as to Honorius formerly Pope of ancient Rome; similarly also the epistle ⟦that⟧, namely written back by Honorius to the same Sergius: and finding ⟦incernientes⟧ that they are altogether alien from the Apostolic dogmas and from the definitions of the holy Councils and of all probable Fathers, but follow the false doctrines of heretics; these we reject altogether, and execrate as noxious to the soul. But those whose, namely of the same, impious dogmas we execrate, their names also we judge to be cast out from the holy Church of God. (namely Sergius formerly Bishop of this royal city preserved of God, who undertook to write concerning such an impious dogma, Cyrus of Alexandria, Pyrrhus, Peter, and Paulus, who also themselves exercised the office of bishop in the see of this city preserved of God, and felt things similar to them: ⟦ad haer⟧, and Theodore formerly Bishop of Pharan): of all the above-written persons mention was made by Agatho most holy and thrice most blessed Pope of ancient Rome, in the suggestion which he sent to the most pious and confirmed of God our Lord and great Emperor; and afterwards he casts them out, as feeling things contrary to right faith, whom we define to be subjected to anathema. With these we command with justice to be cast out together from the holy Catholic Church of God, and at the same time anathematized, Honorius also, who was Pope of ancient Rome, because we find through the writings which were made by him to Sergius that he followed his mind in all things, and confirmed impious dogmas.

So far, the sentence as it is carried against the heretics condemned in the Synod.

This is the principal stronghold of the adversaries, whereby as many as will have it that Honorius was guilty of the error of the Monothelites rely upon it. But I demonstrate that the aforesaid sentence has been falsified, and that the name of Honorius was falsely inserted by the craft and fraud of the heretics, by several arguments, and those not lighter. First indeed, because the Synod says it condemns those whom it says were precondemned by Pontiff Agatho in his own epistle to the Emperor: but in that epistle Honorius is not found among the condemned heretics; nay rather Agatho testifies most constantly that never hath the Apostolic Church turned aside from the way of truth into any part whatsoever of error, nor through the grace of almighty God ever erred from the path of Apostolic tradition, nor corrupted by heretical novelties succumbed: which certainly would be most false if he had judged that Honorius himself had lapsed into the error which he himself Agatho condemned: therefore since the Synod testifies that only those are condemned whom Agatho precondemned in his epistle to the Emperor, the consequence is that Honorius in that Synod was not condemned, inasmuch as he was not named among the heretics condemned by Agatho. Secondly it is said in that sentence that Honorius was therefore condemned because his epistle to Sergius is alien from Apostolic dogmas and from the definitions of the Holy Councils and of all probable Fathers, but follows false doctrines of heretics: but all these things are most false, as has been proved above; seeing that in those epistles there is nothing that does not breathe Catholic doctrine. Then even if those epistles (which cannot be said) presented something of error, ought Honorius himself to have been condemned by the Synod on account of them, and not rather, after the manner of the ancients, inquiry made whether it could be found that he, his opinion changed, abjured the error before he closed the last day? Moreover, since it was known that there existed the posterior epistle of the same Honorius to the same Sergius: why was its reading not awaited, which was only made in the following session, from which posterior epistle it could stand as certain argument, as we said above, that the Pontiff himself asserted two operations, and as many wills in Christ? Surely there is no one who does not judge this preposterous and headlong condemnation of the Roman Pontiff suspect of imposture and falsification. Thirdly, since the Legates of the Apostolic See presided over that Synod, how would they have kept deep silence hearing the Antistes of that same see condemned with such premature violence, especially in a matter so open and already sufficiently discussed, both through the preceding judgment of Ioannes Roman Pontiff sent to Constantinople, and through the defense of St. Maximus martyr, promulgated to the whole Catholic world in the public disputation with Pyrrhus, which had repelled this calumny from Honorius? Finally since in the epistles of Agatho, whose offices they discharged, they had most expressly that none of the Roman Pontiffs had lapsed into any error? In what manner would they have labored under so profound a lethargy that not even one or other of them perceived and rose up, at least as defenders of the letters of Agatho, especially since from those letters they had received that nothing was to be decreed by themselves except those very things alone which were contained in the same letters? Add that even if truly the epistles of Honorius breathed some error, why did not the Legates urge that proceedings be suspended until it stood established that he had not laid aside that error, but died in it? Can it come into anyone's mind, who knows with what firmness of soul the Legates themselves resisted the Monothelites while they attempted to draw Vigilius the Roman Pontiff over to their party; yet they heard with quiet mind the other Antistes of the same see condemned, not even a word being uttered for his detention? What? On account of the condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia and the condemnation of the writings of Theodoret and Ibas Bishop, the whole Christian world ought to have been moved and an OEcumenical Synod convened; yet it was accomplished only with the greatest labor: but the Antistes of the first See, who judges all and is judged by none, was to be condemned from the simple reading of those Epistles, no inquisition being made whether before he should meet his last day he had abjured that error? Fourthly, if truly Honorius had been condemned as a heretic, why after the celebration of the sixth Synod was his name not expunctuated from the sacred diptychs together with the names of the condemned Patriarchs? for Anastasius Bibliothecarius relates that when the Synod was concluded the names of all the condemned Patriarchs were deleted, and their images removed from the Churches. But it stands that Honorius was buried with orthodox Pontiffs in the Basilica of St. Peter, and his sepulchre adorned with very many elogies and honorific titles, which Baronius relates under the year of Christ 638 n. 2 and following. Among other things however his Epitaph offers this:

Whom mighty in doctrine, whom the rule of sacred life, alike of Pontiffs the glory decreed to have. Of thy master ever of holy speech the inventions shone forth in thee as though exceedingly fruitful. For the footsteps of Gregory so great a just one while eagerly thou followest, and bearest his merit, of eternal light Christ vouchsafing everlasting, with the holy Fathers possess now the day.

Which verses although they carry no elegance about them, and savour of the ruder Muse of that age: nevertheless sufficiently disclose him to have been an upright man and imitator of St. Gregory: which certainly the Roman see would not suffer to be said of a heretical man, nor would allow his name to be inserted in the list of orthodox Pontiffs, nor would suffer his image woven in mosaic in the apse of the Church of St. Agnes, which he himself had restored, to be seen hitherto publicly exposed to the veneration of Christians. — From these things therefore it ought to stand sufficiently that the acts of that Synod were falsified, and that the name and Epistles of Honorius were deceitfully inserted with the assertors of the condemned error by the craft of the Monothelites.

THIRDLY IT IS INQUIRED: who can be induced to believe that anyone arrived at such audacity as to corrupt the acts of a general Council? — I answer, that this does not seem wonderful to a man expert in Ecclesiastical affairs; for this trick was most frequent among the Greeks, whom we saw above falsifying the acts of the fifth Synod, and convicted of falsehood in the cause of Vigilius. — Moreover, St. Gregory book 5 Epistle 11, which is to Narses, testifies that they corrupted the acts of the Council of Chalcedon, where he adds that he suspects that they corrupted also the Ephesine Synod, whence he subjoins there that the codices of the Romans are more truthful than those of the Greeks: Because, he says, the Romans have as they have no acuteness, so neither impostures. Similarly that they corrupted the Canons of the second Synod is evident from Action 16 of the Council of Chalcedon and from the letters of St. Leo concerning the Patriarch of Constantinople. — Finally, that they corrupted the acts of the seventh Synod no less than those of the preceding, Anastasius Bibliothecarius testifies in the prefation of the History to the sixth Synod; after which he subjoins:

Thus therefore the Greeks, having accepted the occasion of the universal Councils celebrated, frequently are made clear to have acted, now diminishing, now adding or changing, now in the absence of colleagues, now in hidden corners, now outside the Synod, now after the Synod with their craft, nay fraud, abusing common sanctions, and unto their ⟦liking⟧ violently bend all things which shall have seemed good to them.

FOURTHLY IT IS INQUIRED: who indeed that bold interpolator may have been, who dared to tamper with such synodal acts, and insert the name of Honorius with the condemned patrons of the heretics. — I answer, it does not seem improbable, as Baronius teaches under the year 681 n. 29, that the artificer and author of this imposture is held to be Theodore Patriarch of Constantinople, a Monothelite and the most audacious defender of that heresy, who broke out into such insolence as to take away the names of the Roman Pontiffs deceased since the controversy arose from the sacred diptychs, and above all Vitalian's, retaining only the name of Honorius, as stands from the fact that George of Constantinople, who had been substituted in his place, in the sixth Synod Action 8 demanded that the name of Pontiff Vitalian be restored, which was granted spontaneously. But when that most crafty man had been restored to his own see with simulated penance in the year 682, George dying namely after three years and as many months, it is credible that he, having obtained the summit of affairs, and gained the prototype of the Synod, deleted his own name from the number of the condemned. Nor indeed can it be said that he was not condemned in that Synod: Both because the Synod passed judgment upon all the Bishops of Constantinople since this heresy arose, and condemned Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paulus, and Petrus: but Thomas, Ioannes, and Constantinus, predecessors of that Theodore, were declared orthodox; why therefore not Theodore himself, since he felt the same as the other heretical Patriarchs, and on that account had been deposed, be likewise condemned with the heretics? Then because Anastasius Bibliothecarius, who reduced the actions of the same sixth Synod into compendium, has this:

Thereupon, he says, the most pious and most serene prince brought forth the tomus to be reread, in which alone the heretical dogma of Macarius had been conscribed, and its subscription in his hand openly affirming one will in the Lord: beneath whose subscription, and of Theodore Patriarch certainly close by, the tenor of subscription was there.

Therefore it stands that Theodore was guilty of the same error; and yet nothing of this sort is found in the acts which are in hand: whence no light argument is drawn that he expunctuated from the autograph of the synodal acts those things which tended to his own ignominy, and inserted the name of Honorius and restored it in place of his own name, both that he might attempt thereby to fulfill that hatred which he had conceived against the Roman Church: and especially that his own guilt and that of the other successors of Sergius, and also of Sergius himself might seem less, inasmuch as they had had as companion in the same error the Pontiff of the universal Church.

You will urge: How then in the seventh Synod in the final Action was that fraud not detected? since in it anathema is said against Honorius and Sergius and the other defenders of the Monothelite heresy; which is also found in the Epistle sent in the name of the Synod to Emperor Constantius and Irene his mother. — I answer, that likewise the acts of that Council were interpolated by the Greeks out of hatred of the Roman Church, the name of Honorius being substituted in place of Theodore, as had been fabricated in the sixth Synod by Theodore himself Patriarch of the Constantinopolitan See, that the guilt of the condemned might appear less, whom certainly the Pontiff of the Roman Church Honorius had preceded. — Some answer, that the Fathers of this seventh Synod, deceived by the corrupted acts of the sixth Synod, pronounced anathema against Honorius. Truly that has no appearance of probability; for the Legates of Adrian the Roman Pontiff, who presided over the Council in his name, would not have suffered so great an injury to be inflicted upon the Roman Pontiff, whom Ioannes supreme Pontiff and St. Maximus Martyr had declared immune from error.

You will urge: If these things are so, why then does the Roman Council under Adrian II testify that Honorius was rejected in the sixth Synod? for in the Epistle of that Council it is held: That Honorius was judged after death by the sixth Synod, because he had been accused of heresy. — I answer, that in it is not said that Honorius was condemned by the sixth Synod, as the objection falsely supposes, but only that he was condemned by the Orientals: which indeed we do not deny; but we rightly have cause to complain of that unjust condemnation, both because Honorius was altogether innocent; and because the first See is not to be judged by another inferior. Therefore his condemnation did not emanate from an OEcumenical Synod, by which however he would truly have deserved condemnation if he had been infected with that error.

Some object the authority of Agatho, as though in it Honorius were condemned. — But the contrary stands most openly, seeing that it contains, as we saw above, most expressly that the Roman Church never departed from the path of the Apostolic See, nor corrupted by heretical novelties succumbed; which would be plainly false if he himself condemned Honorius in it.

Finally they object the epistle of Leo II to Emperor Constantine, which is had at the end of the sixth Synod, whose acts it confirms and approves: in which it is written that Honorius died in the Monothelite heresy; for he says: Likewise we anathematize the inventors of the new error, namely Theodore Bishop of Pharan, Cyrus of Alexandria, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paulus, Petrus, successors of the Church of Constantinople, rather than Prelates, and also Honorius, who did not illustrate this Apostolic Church with the doctrine of Apostolic tradition, but attempted by profane betrayal to subvert the immaculate faith. — Baronius answers under the year of Christ 687 n. 19 and following, that Epistle of Leo to be spurious; and he proves it because it contains contradictories: for first it is written: given on the nones of May indiction tenth: and yet in the context it is had that Leo received the imperial letters and the synodal acts, elapsed recently of the tenth indiction, in the month of July, and received the Legates returning from the Synod. Secondly because Leo could not have received the Legates together with the letters and acts of the sixth Synod in the month of July; seeing he sat barely ten months, but was created Pontiff in the month of August. Thirdly he says he received in the month of May, tenth indiction, the Epistle of the Emperor, and yet it stands that it was sent by the Emperor only within the same indiction, in the month of December. Which things all plainly contradict one another, it must be confessed that that Epistle circulated under the name of Leo is spurious and counterfeit. And therefore from all these arguments it stands that Honorius was utterly immune from that error, and by no means reckoned among the heretics by the sixth Synod, nor condemned with them.

You will urge: Therefore Leo Pontiff wrote to various Prelates of the Christian world, but especially to the Spaniards and their King Ervigius, to whom he transmitted this definition and the acts of the sixth synod through Peter notary regionary, so that they might be fortified by the subscriptions of all those, which had been enacted in that OEcumenical Council: but in those very acts transmitted by Leo there is found that condemnation of Honorius and proscription of the same Epistles: therefore truly Leo approved that condemnation of Honorius, and held it legitimate.

Baronius denies the major under the year 683 n. 21 and following, and demonstrates those Epistles which circulate under the name of Leo to the Prelates of Spain and King Ervigius to be spurious and supposititious: first because in each of those Epistles it is asserted that the same OEcumenical Synod was concluded in indiction 9. But it stands from the last action of the same Synod that it was concluded only in indiction 10. Secondly in the Epistle to the Prelates of Spain these things are had: But of the diverse Councils subject to this holy Apostolic See, whose ministry we exercise, Archbishops have been sent by us, who with the pious Prince, at once and with all, who convened by his mandate, presiding over the Prelates of Churches; and confidently first indeed the five holy universal Councils, etc. But it is false that any Archbishop sent from Rome assisted at the Synod; for none is reported in the acts of that Synod: therefore this appears fictitious. Finally thirdly, in the Epistle to King Ervigius he says that the Emperor wrote to Pope Agatho that Legates be directed to Constantinople to celebrate the Synod: but it stands both from the letters of Agatho and from the acts of the Synod themselves that the Emperor wrote not to Agatho, but to his predecessor Pope Donus. Add that that Epistle relates that the Emperor wrote these things in the ninth indiction; which is found equally most false; since those letters of the Emperor to Donus are found given in the sixth indiction on the day before the ides of August, which certainly corroborate the argument of imposture.

This Question is commonly proposed by theologians in other words: namely whether in Christ there is one esse or manifold: for a threefold esse is commonly assigned by the Philosophers, namely of essence, of existence, and of subsistence. The esse of essence is that whereby things are constituted in some determinate species of being, namely that which coalesces from the essential and quidditative parts of each thing, from which is derived the abstract essence, which differs by reason alone from its concrete esse, as the Doctor teaches passim, especially in 1 dist. 8 last question but one. The esse of existence is that whereby a thing is in act, and is really placed outside causes and outside nothing; whence existence and actual essence do not differ really. The esse of subsistence of substance is that very real existence of any substance whatsoever whereby it is called a being subsisting per se: for subsistence is taken in various ways, chiefly two: first inasmuch as it is the mode of an existent being per se, and independently of any subject of inhesion sustaining it, whereby it differs from accident; or inasmuch as it signifies the mode of existing incommunicably, as this something and as whole, that is, after the manner of part and superior. Subsistence taken in the prior way is called difference of substance and mode of its existence: but in the latter it is called supposit in things devoid of reason, and person in things endowed with reason.

Note 2. That all Catholic Doctors agree that in Christ there is one unique esse of personal subsistence, because in Him there is one only person; since the human nature of Christ subsists by the very personal subsistence of the Word, as we proved above: but all those same Doctors do not agree whether there is also in Christ one unique esse of substantial subsistence; since most of the holy Fathers to be praised below admit in Christ a threefold subsistence, as likewise substance and essence, namely divine, corporeal, and spiritual. Whence a grave controversy on this matter arose at some time between the Spanish Prelates and Benedict II. For the writers of Spanish history, as Ambrosius Maurus book 12 chapter 38, and Mariana book 6 chapter 18, relate, when the Fathers of the Twelfth Council of Toledo had said in their confession of faith that there are three substances in Christ, when Benedict II received that confession transmitted to himself by those Prelates, that it might be approved by Pontifical authority, he noted three things in it which did not seem rightly enough said: especially truly, that they professed three substances in Christ. Which he certainly signified verbally through a Spanish man whom they had sent to Rome with Peter notary regionary Legate of the Apostolic See: when the Toledo Fathers had received this, Julian Toletan Antistes, in the name of the whole Council and of the prelates of Spain wrote an apologetic book, King Egica requiring it, in which with many testimonies he confirmed that three substances in Christ, according to the sentiment of the holy Fathers and OEcumenical Councils, must be admitted; and they transmitted that book to Benedict himself; but since he was already deceased, Sergius his successor received it, who, as Rodericus Archbishop relates in his History chapter 13, and likewise Garcias Loaysa Doctor Complutensis and Archbishop of Toledo in the annotations on Council 15, gratefully held and approved, Sergius the Pontiff. — But whether that Apologetic was written by the succeeding Thirteenth Council of Toledo or truly at that time between the Twelfth and Fifteenth is disputed among those same authors; and Baronius thinks that Apologetic was written and transmitted under the year 684 and 685 before the celebration of Council 13; and he notes that Benedict suspected more than three propositions in that confession of faith, and proves it from the same Council 13 where the Fathers speak thus: Considering truly the third and fourth chapter, we have shown that we tasted beforehand not only the sense but even the very words from the books of blessed Ambrose and Fulgentius. But they say monstravimus certainly nowhere else than in that prior Apologetic sent to Benedict for the defense of the same propositions; there therefore all four chapters noted by Benedict were confirmed, and transmitted to the same Benedict during that intervening time between the Councils of Toledo 12 and 13; although afterward it was enlarged, as seems to be gathered from those words of Council 13 read again more studiously, (etc. and approved by the unanimous consent of the Fathers of Council 17: which indeed stands, because in the acts of that Council, after the confession of faith, it is had: from which it appears that the controversy is not uselessly raised whether three subsistences are to be admitted in Christ.

Note 3. That among Scholastic Doctors there is the greatest controversy concerning the resolution of the first difficulty. For most Thomists with Cajetan in 3 par q. 17 art. 2 and Capreolus in 3 dist. 6 q. 1 contend that the humanity of Christ does not exist by created existence, but that by hypostatic union it has been assumed unto existing by the very existence of the divine Word, and they strive to confirm this by the authority of St. Thomas from his sayings in 3 par in the same question. Truly, as Suarez observes disp. 36 sect. 2, St. Thomas is to be understood of the esse of personal subsistence, not indeed of the esse of existence and substantial subsistence. Other theologians however with Subtili Doctore in 3. dist. 6 q. 1 contend that there is in Christ a twofold existence, namely divine, by which the divine nature exists, and created, by which the human nature really exists.

First Conclusion. — THERE ARE IN CHRIST TWO ESSES OF EXISTENCE: ONE UNCREATED OF THE DIVINE NATURE; THE OTHER CREATED OF THE HUMAN NATURE. This is the opinion of the Doctor; and he proves it with eight arguments, whereof the first is: The term of generation, or that which receives esse through generation and passes from non-existing in the order of nature to existing esse, is either the very existence itself or something having existence: otherwise it would not receive esse of existence through generation: but the humanity of Christ, or Christ Himself qua man, is truly begotten of His Mother, and brought forth in time by her, the Holy Ghost cooperating: therefore that humanity receives esse of existence through generation, which it had not before: but the uncreated esse, or existence of the Word, is not produced through temporal generation: therefore the term of that generation had another esse of existence distinct from the existence of the Word. The major is Aristotle's Metaphysics 5 text 7. The minor truly is St. Damascene's book 4 De fide, chapter 13.

The Thomists reply: that the uncreated esse terminated generation not absolutely, but under humanity. — Against this: the uncreated esse, as it was in humanity, denoted nothing but a respect toward it: but such a respect cannot be the terminus of a real and actual generation.

Moreover, there are two natures in Christ having distinct actual entities: therefore also distinct existences, because existence is nothing else than actual entity; whence as personal or subsistent esse cannot be understood without subsistence, so neither can actual esse without existence; and this argument indeed is founded upon our general principle, by which we say essence and existence are not distinguished really.

Thirdly the Doctor proves the conclusion from that saying of Aristotle, To live to living things is the same as to be: but the humanity of Christ lived an actual life distinct from the life of the Word: otherwise as the Word truly did not die, so the humanity would truly not have died if it had lived no other life than the life of the Word: therefore it had an actual esse distinct from the esse of the Word: but actual esse is the esse of existence: therefore etc.

Fourthly, the humanity qua condistinct from the Word is either something or nothing. If nothing, then the Word assumed nothing; if something, either it is only in objective potency, as Antichrist, or in act. If only in objective potency, the Word assumed humanity no more than any possible being whatever. If in act; therefore the humanity qua condistinct from the Word has existence, for humanity in act and existing humanity are the same. It is confirmed: for the Word assumed humanity either outside causes and outside nothing, or still only existing in its causes. If the first, we have our intent; if the second, the Word assumed not so much the humanity itself as its causes, because a thing in its cause is nothing else than the cause itself, as productive of that thing.

Fifthly, if the assumed humanity were dismissed, it would not be necessary for it to be annihilated, but it would truly exist; which supposed, it would exist either by force of a certain new production, or by force of the ancient production through which it was first effected, so that it might be assumed by the Word. Not the first, because no necessity appears why it be produced anew: therefore it would exist by force of its own production: therefore that production is terminated to humanity actually existing.

Sixthly, he argues ad hominem, because the Word could assume an angelic nature: but according to the adversaries the angelic nature assumed would not lose its own existence: therefore neither ought the assumed human nature lose its own existence. The minor the adversaries admit, for they teach that existence in purely spiritual things is really indistinct from essence. The consequence the Doctor proves: first, because proper existence is no more connected with an angelic nature than it is connected with a human nature. Secondly, because for this reason it is said that human nature has not its own proper existence in the Word, because it would follow that the same supposit has in itself several existences: but the same follows from the assumption of the angelic nature with its proper existence: therefore if this proper existing existence can be assumed, that one also can be.

Seventhly, the foundation of a relation as such precedes the relation as such: therefore the foundation of an actual relation really existing precedes it according to real existence: but the union of the human nature to the Word is an actual relation really existing: therefore it precedes it according to real existence, and consequently ought to have real existence antecedently to that union with anteriority of nature; not truly of time, because from what was said above the human nature of Christ did not exist earlier in time before the union: but what it had for that prior condition, it had in the same instant of time: therefore for that instant of time it had the same existence. But that existence was not the existence of the Word: therefore in that instant it had another existence; which is our intent. The Doctor confirms it: because before the nature was assumed as nature, the soul perfected the body of Christ, since the nature was constituted of body and soul, and consequently that nature could not be before the soul perfected the body: but in that prior condition the soul could not perfect the body unless both existed: therefore both existed before the nature was perfected. But in that prior condition they had not the existence of the Word: therefore another: but that other was not lost on account of the assumption: therefore it remained with the assumption, and consequently remained with the existence of the Word, which had come through the assumption.

Eighthly, every mode, especially extrinsic, supposes the thing whose mode it is: but hypostatic union is a mode extrinsic: therefore it supposes humanity: accordingly as that union is actual, so it supposes humanity existing.

They object 1. Certain authorities of the Holy Fathers: the first indeed drawn from the synodal epistle of Sophronius approved in the 6 Synod action 11, where speaking of the humanity of Christ he says: In Him (namely in the Word) and not in itself it had one existence. Likewise St. Damascene book 3 De fide, chapter 22 saying that human nature exists by the existence of the Word. Thirdly, the testimony of St. Leo Pope epistle 11 saying that the humanity of Christ was created by the very assumption. And St. Fulgentius book De Incarnatione chapter 3, where he says thus: The very acceptance of flesh was virginal conception: therefore they judge those Holy Fathers held that human nature did not previously exist before it was assumed by the Word, and therefore exists by the existence of the Word. — I answer first to Sophronius: he wished to signify that humanity did not exist twice, once in itself, and afterward in the Word, but that as soon as possible it existed thus in the Word, so that it did not previously exist in time than it subsisted in Him. Which certainly is confirmed from the preceding and following words of his epistle; for it is said: At once flesh, and at once the flesh of the Word of God; at once flesh animated rational. And it is subjoined: therefore in Him, and not in itself it had one existence, namely it did not previously exist in time in itself than in the Word. Which we grant spontaneously; but it is one thing to have existence in the Word, and another to exist by the existence of the Word. For the former does not repugn created existence; but the latter does. To these add that it can be answered that Sophronius understood by existence personal subsistence. For Budaeus observes in the Commentary on the Greek language that sometimes existence and subsistence are expressed by the same name. — To St. Damascene I say that authority is fictitious; since he teaches the contrary, for in the same chapter 22 he says: That the flesh is united from the last articulation to God the Word; nay rather that it existed in Him, and had personal identity with Him; where observe he does not say the flesh existed by the Word, but in the Word, because the Word is not the very existence of humanity, but the terminus of that existence. — To Saints Leo and Fulgentius I answer that they wish nothing else than that in the same instant of time humanity was formed and assumed; for thus says Leo: Our nature was not so assumed that first it was created and afterward assumed, but that it itself, namely, in the very assumption was created; where that prior and posterior are manifestly referred to succession of time. Fulgentius however thus expounded the matter: He showed this flesh then from the nature of the Virgin conceiving when in her God came to be conceived: therefore some interval must not be judged between the beginning of flesh and the advent of Majesty.

They object 2. From the opposite opinion three absurdities follow: The first, that the divine Word exists by created existence. The second, that created existence is a perfection of the Word. The third, that the Blessed Virgin is not the Mother of God. The first they prove a simili, because as the Word is said to will by created will and understand by created intellect, since He has created will and intellect, so He is said to exist by created existence if He be said to have created existence. They prove the second thus: existence is complement and perfection of subsistence: but in Christ there is one subsistence only, namely of the Word: therefore created existence will be complement and perfection of it. They prove the third, because from the opposite opinion it follows that the action of Virgin Mary was terminated to created existence, or to created being, and accordingly she will have from such created being that she is an action productive of a created being, not truly of God, and accordingly she will not be Mother of God. — The Subtle Doctor answers that it is not absurd that the Word be said to exist by created existence; not indeed qua He is God, but inasmuch as He is man; nor on that account ought the Word be said to exist by created existence secundum quid, but simpliciter, for that existence tends to make that which it affects existent simpliciter, not however secundum quid: for although Paul exists by the existence of white, because formally he is white, yet not simpliciter, but secundum quid does that existence exist, because that existence is secundum quid; and especially with respect to the existence which is in itself existence simpliciter; but in the supposit the existence of the human nature is in itself existence simpliciter, inasmuch as being is divided into simple being and being secundum quid, and ens simpliciter is subsistence, ens secundum quid is accident; but the existence of the human nature is the existence of substance: therefore since the divine Word is simpliciter man, that existence exists simpliciter, although he may say that this existence of the human nature is not the existence of this supposit, but supervening upon it, already having perfect esse, and therefore seems to be the existence of the supposit secundum quid, if it is not born to give secundum quid existence, such as every substantial nature is, however it stands toward that to which it gives esse. But if altogether the dispute be made, that the first supposit and not simpliciter be taken for the same, there is contention only about the word. — It will also be answered concerning the second absurdity that there is none, because so far is existence from being the complement of subsistence that rather subsistence farther actuates existence and supposes it. — To the third I say that the Virgin Deipara is not called Mother of God for this reason that she did not generate some created being; but that that created being generated by her was farther completed and terminated through the subsistence of the Word. Whence although the formal terminus of that generation be humanity with its existence; nevertheless the ultimate terminus which is generated is not humanity, but this man, because that humanity and its existence is not produced in itself, but in the Word, and therefore the Word is truly said to be generated and born of the Virgin: as the murderers of Christ, says Suarez disput. 36 sect. 1, truly deprived the humanity of Christ of its own existence, for the humanity did not exist during the three days of death; yet because the humanity did not suffer nor was deprived of existence per se, but as existing in this supposit, therefore this man is truly said to be slain, and God dead.

They object 3. If the humanity of Christ has its own created existence, Christ will not be ens per se. The consequent is proved: humanity having created existence is formally ens in actu; also the divine Word is ens in actu: but from two beings in actu there is not made ens per se: therefore etc. — I answer, that from two complete beings in actu there is not made ens per se, but well from two incomplete beings in actu, as in our hypothesis, since humanity destitute of proper subsistence is not accounted a being in actu altogether complete.

Second Conclusion. — WITH RIGHT REASON IT CAN BE SAID THERE ARE IN CHRIST THREE SUBSTANCES, AND CONSEQUENTLY THREE SUBSTANTIAL SUBSISTENCES.

It can be proved first by the authority of the Councils of Toledo 12 and 15, in which that proposition is asserted also through the apologetic book first published by Julian Archbishop of Toledo, and then approved by that Council 15 not only through Sergius successor of Benedict, but even through Benedict II himself, if those things are true which Rodericus relates lib. 3 Historiae Hispanicae cap. 13, where relating this controversy he says: Earlier in time the book concerning three substances, which long ago the most holy Primate Julian had sent to Rome, and treating less cautiously Benedict the Roman had declared to be reproved, for this reason that will grieved over will. It is added:

But St. Julian strengthened with truthful testimonies in this Council through their oracles, which he had transmitted to Rome, that it was true; and he made an apology, and sent it to Rome through his Legates Priest, Deacon, and Subdeacon men most learned servants of God in all things and imbued with divine Scriptures, together with acclamatory verses also, according as formerly he had transmitted concerning the praise of Roman Empire. Which Roman Pontiff Benedict receiving worthily and piously proclaimed to be read by all, and by acclamating, Thy praise, O God, unto the ends of the earth, made known it was often read; who also remitted the rescript to Lord Julian through the aforesaid Legates with thanksgiving and with honor, and brought forth that all things whatsoever he wrote were just and pious.

From these things it follows that that proposition, that in Christ there are three substances, although not first proven by Benedict, and, together with the other noted propositions, seemed to have been imprudently posited, as if the Fathers of Toledo had willed something far different, nevertheless, upon a change of judgment, Benedict approved the exposition of Julian and his book.

It is confirmed by the authority of the Holy Fathers, who taught that there are three substances in Christ, or that Christ was composed of three substances. For thus St. Augustine, lib. 3. De Trinitate, cap. 17, says: Since

human nature could be joined to God, so that from two substances one person might be made, and thereby already from three, God, soul, and flesh: by which he clearly teaches that Christ consists of three just as of two substances. Similarly St. Isidore in lib. De differentiis, cap. 7: We, he says, subsist of two substances, namely of soul and body: that one (namely Christ) of three, of the Word, of soul, and of body: which manner of speaking the Eleventh Synod of Toledo also imitated in the profession of faith, where, having said that there are two natures in the Son, it adds: The same Christ in these two natures exists in three substances: of the Word, which is to be referred to the essence of God alone: of body, and of soul, which pertains to the true man. — To these subscribes Stephen, Bishop of Edua, in lib. De Sacramento altaris, cap. 17: We believe, he says, that in Christ there were two natures, divine and human, and three substances, the divine, flesh, and soul. To these we can add St. Bernard, sermon 3. De virginitate nativitatis after the middle, where he speaks thus: And attend, because as in that divine singularity there is a Trinity of persons, a unity of substance: so in this special conjunction there is a trinity of substances, a unity of person.

You will say: Very many of the Holy Fathers disapprove this way of speaking: therefore it is to be rejected. The antecedent is proved; since St. Damascene, lib. 3. De Fide, cap. 16, does not think it should be said that Christ is composed of three substances: For, he says, every composition is said to be made only from those things which proximately compose, for we do not finally say that a house is composed of water and earth, but of bricks and wood; otherwise it will be necessary to say that man consists at least of five natures, namely of four elements and a soul. Thus in Jesus Christ our Lord we consider not parts of parts, but those things which are proximately composed with one another, divinity and humanity. In a similar manner speak the Fathers of the Council of Frankfurt in the Synodal Epistle to the Bishops of Spain, as well as Paulinus of Aquileia in his sacrosyllabic little book: therefore, etc. — I answer, that the aforesaid Fathers do not disapprove such a way of speaking as truly erroneous, but because it could perhaps lead someone either to think that Christ consists of three distinct natures, or has three substances personal as well as substantial; or to signify that the opposite way of speaking is more proper and fitting, so that we may profess our faith simply: notwithstanding that against the Apollinarian heretics denying the soul in Christ, and against the Valentinians and Marcionites denying in Christ a true body, one would rightly say that there are three substances in Christ. For, as the Council of Frankfurt says in the place soon cited, it is one thing to contend against heretics, another faithfully to confess pure faith; there indeed the truth of soul and flesh in Christ must be shown, here perfect humanity in the same must be confessed. Add that, as St. Damascene says, in composition remote parts are not reckoned, but proximate ones: for it must not be said that man is composed of five substances, but of two; because the four of them, namely the elements, concur in one body. By this reason, therefore, the way of speaking of the Council of Frankfurt and of Damascene seems more sincere, that Christ be said to consist of two natures and substances, namely the divine and the human.

Peres: whether Christ can be called some two? — I answer with the Doctor in 3. dist. 6. qu. 2, that neither in the masculine nor in the neuter can Christ be called two simply. Not indeed in the masculine, because these names, one, whole, other, two, taken in the masculine gender, signify hypostasis and person, as we said in the treatise on the Trinity; but in Christ there are not two persons, nor two supposita: therefore Christ cannot be called two in the masculine gender. Nor even then could he be called two in the neuter, because if Christ could be called two in the neuter, especially on account of the two natures that he has: but for that reason he cannot be called two, for from Logic abstracts cannot be predicated of concretes simply, but only with addition and explication: for it is not said, white simply is whiteness, because white says more than whiteness: since whiteness signifies only the form; white, however, the form and subject. Whence this enunciation is not legitimate: Christ is nature divine, or nature human, because Christ says more than the divine nature separately and the human nature: since besides those natures he says also the suppositum of the Word. Hence Athanasius in the Symbol says: Perfect God, and perfect man; yet not two, but one is Christ. Nevertheless, just as by exposition it can be said that white is that which has whiteness, so in an expository sense it can be said that Christ is that which has two natures; or more rightly, in which there are two natures, namely divine and human.

You will say: Wherever there is one thing and another, there are two: but in Christ there is one thing and another: therefore in him there are two. The minor is proved: Christ according as man, is something; and also according as God, is something: but according as man, he is not the same something as according as God: therefore he is another something. — The Doctor answers in the same place, that the particle according as, or inasmuch as, can be taken in two ways, namely reduplicatively or specificatively. In the former way it signifies that the term which is appended is the reason why the predicate is said of the subject: and thus the minor and its proof are to be denied. For just as it does not follow, milk inasmuch as white is something; and inasmuch as sweet is something: therefore milk inasmuch as white is the same something as it is insofar as sweet, or is another something: for it cannot be said that it is the same something, because it is certain that milk insofar as sweet, speaking reduplicatively, is not white: therefore it is another something: therefore it is true that milk is two, which is absurd: because if milk were called two, it would follow that there are two supposita. Therefore just as there is no first consequence of this argument, so neither does the minor of the argument about Christ stand in the reduplicative sense: whence just as of milk it cannot be said that inasmuch as sweet in the reduplicative sense it is white or not white; because sweetness is an impertinent reason for milk to be called white or not white, since it could be white even if it were not sweet; in the same way the suppositum of Christ, neither inasmuch as God, is the same as it is inasmuch as man, because it could be God without being man; nor yet is it thus diverse from it, because otherwise the suppositum of the Word, or Christ, could not truly be called man. But if the particle inasmuch as, or insofar as, is taken specificatively, so that the sense is that Christ insofar as man, that is, who is man, or notwithstanding that he is man, is also God, thus the minor can be denied, as well as the minor of its proof; for Christ, who is man, is entirely the same who is God, because the same suppositum of Christ is God and man. Nor does it thence follow that God is the formal reason on account of which he is man; or humanity the formal reason on account of which he is God, because that would only be true if the particle inasmuch as were taken in the reduplicative sense.

You will say 2. Christ is not only God: therefore he is God, and something else: and consequently he is two. The consequence is proved: because if it is true that a man runs, and does not run alone, it follows that something else besides the man runs: therefore similarly if the exclusive particle is posited on the part of the predicate, as happens in the aforesaid argument, saying that Christ is God, and is not only God, it follows that he is something else. — The Doctor answers by denying the consequence, together with the consequence of the proof; because one must not reason in the same way about the exclusive particle when it is added to the subject as when it is added to the predicate; for when it is added to the subject, it signifies that every subject not having the form to which the predicate is attributed also cannot have that predicate, although all things that have such a form can also have such a predicate; thus e.g. when it is said, only the white runs, it does not follow that the man and dog and white horse does not run, but only that the black does not run, nor anything else that is not white. But when the exclusive particle is posited only on the part of the predicate, then it could be said that no other predicate belongs to the subject: thus when it is said, milk is only white, the sense would be that of the qualities only whiteness would belong to milk. And in this sense it is denied that Christ is only God, because by that proposition it is signified that nothing belongs to him except Deity, which is false; equally by parity of reason it should be denied that he is only man. But it is conceded that he is not only God, nor only man; but thence it is not inferred that he is something else than God, or something else than man; for although of Christ no predicate is said that is other than God, and of which it could not be said that it is not God; nevertheless of him a predicate can be said of which God is not said essentially and formally. Therefore the parity of example does not hold; namely, that when it is said that not only the man runs, it is signified that some other suppositum runs: whereas when it is said that Christ is not only man, it is not signified that he is another suppositum: which signification, however, hangs on the institution of men, who by one exclusive particle signify another suppositum, but not by another.