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.