Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

Note 1. As regards the present Question, a threefold union can be distinguished: either by apposition, or by composition, or by sustentation. Union by the apposition of one thing to another takes place in three ways, as our Alensis observes, question 1, article 1. For, he says, sometimes one thing is united to another by apposition in such a way that it contracts from it neither denomination nor property; thus stone is applied to stone in a heap, and one thing is made of them by aggregation, and yet one stone draws from the other neither designation nor property. But sometimes one thing is applied to another so that it receives from it a property, but not denomination: thus flowers, and aromatic and odoriferous things impress their odor upon the hand, so that the hand contracts from them a property, namely odor, but not denomination; for the hand is indeed called odoriferous from the flower, but it is not called a flower. Sometimes truly one thing is joined to another so that it receives from that other denomination, but not property: thus when someone puts on a garment he receives denomination from the garment, and is said to be clothed in this or that manner; but he receives from it no property by which he be physically affected. Union by composition takes place chiefly in two ways, by reason of the twofold form, either substantial or accidental, according to which the union occurs. Substantial union is that by which two substances are united to one another after the manner of act and potency, that is, after the manner of matter and form. And this also happens in two ways: for sometimes in that union the nature of each extreme is preserved, and entirely distinct, whether some third thing meanwhile be made from them, as from the union of the rational soul with the human body there is made a third thing, namely man; yet both unities remaining distinct, namely body and soul, which are distinct in man: or whether no third thing results from the united things, as when the grafting of a shoot of a pear with an apple, for example, no third thing results, namely any tree which would be neither pear nor apple: but sometimes the nature of neither is preserved; rather they pass into a third entity, and some third thing is made distinct from the extremes. Accidental union is that by which either an accident is united to a substance, as whiteness to a wall, or an accident to an accident, as the whiteness which inheres in the quantity of the Eucharist, or a substance to another substance after some accidental manner, as form to matter through the union, which is a relation. Finally, union by sustentation is that by which some rational nature is assumed into the unity of a person, or an irrational nature is assumed into the unity of a supposit, or an accidental nature into the unity of a sustaining subject.

NOTANDUM 2. Two extremes unite with one another by unitive action in three ways: In the first mode, by producing the whole composite, and together with it producing each of its parts: such is the creation of the heavens, by which both matter and form are created together and are united to one another. Second, by producing only one extreme, and joining it to the other already pre-existing. Such is the action by which the material form is educed from the potency of matter: for it is at once productive and unitive of such a form with matter. In the third mode the action is merely unitive, and not productive of the extremes: but only of the composite, which results from the conjunction of both; such is the unitive action of the soul with the body in the resurrection. It is certain, however, that the Incarnation is not a productive union of both extremes; since the Word is eternal and subject to no temporal production; nor is it productive even of the humanity, because the action by which the humanity is produced is other than the unitive action of the same with the Word, as will appear within. — The difficulty therefore is, whether that action by which the Word is united to the humanity is productive of some formal term, distinct both from the Word and from the humanity, by means of which that humanity may be united to the Word. Concerning the resolution of this authors vary: for Gregory of Rimini, in book 3, distinction 28, question 2, whom Gregory de Valentia subscribes in part 3, disputation 1, question 2, point 5, and many others, contend that by this unitive action nothing was produced in the humanity distinct from it, by which it might be formally united to the divine Word. — The second opinion is that of Gabriel, in book 3, distinction 30, question 1, who holds that by the action of incarnating there is produced a certain absolute and supernatural quality by which the humanity is united to the Word, and he calls that quality the Grace of union. — The third opinion is that of Suarez, disputation 8, section 2, and Gabriel Vasquez, disputation 18, chapter 3, who assert that the formal term of the aforementioned unitive action is some substantial mode; distinct not really, but only ex natura rei, from the humanity; which mode is the foundation of the relation that intervenes between the humanity and the Word. The fourth opinion finally is that of the Doctor, in book 3, distinction 1, question 1, number 3, who teaches that by the action of incarnating there is produced the formal term, namely union, which is an extrinsic adventitious relation, by reason of which the human nature is said to be formally united to the Word.

NOTANDUM 3. Or rather, to be repeated from the Logicians, so far as regards the present undertaking: categorical relation is divided into intrinsic and extrinsic adventitious. The former is that which results from the foundation and term being posited, and desires nothing extrinsic for its resulting: as similarity, which arises between two white things; for by the very fact that they are white they are similar. The latter, however, does not arise precisely from the position and existence of the foundation and term, but furthermore desires something extrinsic, without which it would not arise: thus although fire and wood to be burned exist, still no respect arises between the transmutative fire and the transmutable wood unless an approximation of both be made. Moreover, relation is subdivided into mutual and non-mutual. Mutual is that which has a relation corresponding to itself in the term to which it is referred. Thus paternity has filiation corresponding to itself. Non-mutual is that which does not have such correlation in its term. Thus knowledge, inasmuch as it is terminated to the knowable, does not acknowledge in it a correlation. Finally, mutual relation is distributed into relation of equiparance and disquiparance. The first is that which has a relation of the same rationale and name in both extremes. Thus brotherhood has the same name in each brother and the same rationale of foundation, namely origin from the same father. The second, however, does not acknowledge in the other extreme a similar relation.

These things being thus proved, three points especially must now be discussed: First, whether the hypostatic union is something real created, really distinct from the humanity and the Word: Second, whether it is something substantial or accidental, and that either absolute or respective: Third, whether on the hypothesis that it is a relation, that relation be mutual or non-mutual, of equiparance or of disquiparance.

First Conclusion. — The hypostatic union is a real created being, really distinct from the extremes. This Conclusion contains three parts, of which the two former are abundantly evident, and will appear more evidently from the proof of the third.

The first part indeed is most firmly established: for that is a real being by which the humanity assumed by the Word is really distinguished from other humanities not assumed; but by the hypostatic union the assumed humanity is so distinguished from others, since it is united personally to the Divinity, with which the others are not so associated, and it has a personal dependence upon the Word Himself subsisting by it, which the other humanities have not, which subsist by their own proper subsistences and persons: therefore, etc.

The second part also is clear: for that is created which began in time; but the hypostatic union began in time, just as did the assumed humanity itself: therefore it is something created. Further, that is truly created which is an effect of the divine omnipotence; but, as we said above, the hypostatic union is the most excellent effect of the divine omnipotence: therefore it is a created being. Finally, whatever is uncreated is God, either really, or personally, or formally; but this union is not God essentially, nor even personally, because although it is made through the union of the Word with the human nature, nevertheless that human nature thus united is not God but a true creature: therefore on its own part the union is something created.

The third part is proved: To every productive action there ought to be assigned a term which is produced by it; for to produce and to be produced are correlates; but the hypostatic union is an emanation or productive action: therefore it ought to have some term; yet that term can be none other than the union joining the Word with the human nature. For either that term would be the subsistence of the Word, or the assumed humanity; but not the first, since the subsistence of the Word is uncreated and existing from eternity. Nor the second, because, as we shall say below, the humanity was produced by an action distinct from the assumptive or unitive action; since the productive action of the humanity was generation, to which the Virgin Mother of God contributed her concurrence; yet she did not influx precisely into the unitive action of the humanity with the Word: therefore that unitive or productive action in the Incarnation could not have had any other term than the union itself; but the produced term is really distinguished from the unproduced extremes: therefore the produced union is really distinguished from the Word and from the humanity.

The adversaries reply. That there is a twofold action, one indeed productive of a term, the other merely unitive: and that the former always has some term, the latter by no means, as is evident from various natural things, for example the union of the soul to the body, of the form to the matter, etc., which are united to one another by themselves immediately and without any newly produced medial entity. Whence, since this action of which we speak is merely unitive, it requires no newly produced term. — Against this, first, it is false and gratuitously asserted that the soul with the body, and the form with the matter, are united immediately; since they are associated with one another by means of the union itself, which is an adventitious extrinsic relation, such also is the hypostatic union, as we shall soon say. Then, even if these were true, still the parity would not hold; for the extremes of the union of those natural things are of the same order, and have a natural and intrinsic order to one another, and consequently greater affinity and facility for being immediately associated with one another; but truly the extremes of the hypostatic union are of an altogether different order, nor do they by their nature have an intrinsic order to one another; wherefore, that they may be associated with one another, and that from them one thing be made, some formal term must be produced, by which they may be united to one another.

They reply secondly. By the action of the incarnate Word there is produced indeed neither the Word, nor the humanity, nor even the union itself, but only Christ, namely the composite of the humanity and divinity; but Christ, proportionally speaking, is the term produced by the human generation; nor is it the rational soul, since that is made by creation; nor the body, because it is presupposed to the generation, since it imports only matter as the root of quantity; but the term of generation is the human supposit itself. — Against. First, it is less true that by generation no substantial body is produced, for it is truly a partial term of that action, as we proved in the Physics. Second, although Christ the Lord is the terminus qui, or total term, of the unitive action, nevertheless He is not its formal term; but that unitive action ought to have not only a total term newly produced, but also a formal term, namely by which the extremes are associated with one another: for indeed it cannot be understood how the terminus qui, or total term, should be produced except through the production of the formal term: therefore if the unitive action produces the terminus qui, or total term, it will also produce the terminus quo, or formal term: for it could not be understood how anything should be produced by an action unless something have esse of existence which before it did not have; for by production a thing passes from non-esse of existence to that esse; but by the unitive action neither the Word nor the humanity passes from non-esse of existence to existing esse; since the Word pre-existed from eternity, and the human nature existed, at least by a priority of nature, before it was assumed: therefore by that productive action something distinct from the humanity and the Word ought to have been produced, which might receive an esse which before it lacked.

It is proved secondly: By the Incarnation the humanity becomes dependent upon the supposit of the Word, and by something new it becomes formally dependent; for it cannot be understood how from non-dependent it becomes newly dependent unless some formal rationale of this dependence intervene; but that cannot be other than the union itself, inasmuch as it is distinct from both extremes; for that by which the humanity newly depends upon the Word is either something distinct from the Word itself or not; if it is, we have our intent; if not, how can it come about that those two extremes are said to be united to one another more than they were before? Indeed the same thing remaining always makes the same thing, and obtains the same appellation: therefore it cannot be understood how the humanity, which before was not united, becomes united to the Word unless it receive something in the union which before it did not have.

Then, that actual union of the humanity with the supposit of the divine Word either says only the indistance of the Word from the humanity, or says something else received in it and superadded to it, by reason of which, although it be equally indistant from the other divine persons, it is nevertheless judged rather to be united to the Word than to the Father and the Holy Spirit. The first cannot be said: because the divine Word is no more indistant from His own humanity than from us all; for God fills heaven and earth with the immensity of His divinity; nevertheless such indistance is common to the three divine persons, since it is founded in that attribute of the divine immensity; yet not all the divine persons are hypostatically united to the humanity: therefore the actual union with the Word does not say the indistance of the humanity to the divine Word; therefore it says something else received in the humanity itself and newly produced: therefore, etc. These things being thus laid down, if God were to impede the proper subsistence from issuing forth from some singular human nature, although the Word were indistant from it, it would not on that account be said to subsist by His subsistence: therefore, that it may be so called, it ought to have something newly received which before it did not have.

You will say 1. From the Symbol of St. Athanasius, as the rational soul and flesh are one man, so God and man are one Christ: but body and rational soul are united by themselves immediately, and not through any medium produced in them: therefore the human nature is united to the Word by itself immediately. — I deny the minor: for it is false that the rational soul and the body are mutually united immediately: for such a union stands in the same manner as the other unions which are made by physical composition, for which there is required some extrinsic agent that efficiently joins the extremes: for although matter and form — and the same must be said of body and soul, inasmuch as they are act and potency — are united by themselves in the genus of material and formal cause, nevertheless in the genus of efficient cause they are mutually joined effectively by the productive cause, which causes the very union: hence it is, as we proved in the Physics, that the whole is really distinct from the parts taken together, and from them. The same must be said of the union of the Word with the human nature: nay rather, although the human nature has an obediential potency to subsist by the subsistence of the Word, and there is in the Word the power to render it subsistent: nevertheless, since the subsistence of the Word comes to the human nature of Christ personally, and from without, it requires the action of a supernatural agent, which joins both by some action; which being posited, the personality of the Word supervenes upon the human nature, and inflows into it after the manner of a formal cause, so as to confer upon it the power of subsisting.

You will say 2. If the union were something medium between the human nature and the Word, it would follow that it would be at once created and uncreated, corporeal and spiritual: created indeed by reason of the human nature, uncreated by reason of the

Word: corporeal by reason of the parts of the body, to which the Word is united, and incorporeal by reason of the soul: but this conflicts: therefore, etc. — I answer, that union cannot be called uncreated, since it is not real on the part of the Word, as we shall say presently; but only created, which as such can be spiritual and corporeal, extended and inextended; namely by reason of the united parts: for since that union is a relation, as we shall say at once, it can receive all these appellations not by reason of itself, but by reason of the extremes which are referred: for a relation of itself is neither material nor spiritual, extended or inextended, but only by reason of the extremes which it refers.

You will say 3. If the union between the humanity and the Word were necessary, especially because extremes really distinct cannot be actually united without some real medium really distinct from either extreme: but this reasoning is null: for from it there would follow a process into infinity in unions: for if extremes really distinct cannot be actually united without a real and really distinct medium, the mode of union really distinct from the humanity and the Word could not even be coupled to them without some bond really distinct, concerning which the same difficulty would recur: and again concerning another, and thus one would proceed into infinity. — I deny the minor: for our assertion, whereby we contend that things really distinct cannot be mutually united without something really distinct, is not to be understood universally, of whatever things are really distinct, but only of those which are so really distinct that one of them has not as its essential rationale being conjoined to the other: but the mode of union, since it has as its essential rationale that it be the nexus of two extremes, and thus it is essential to it to be conjoined to the other, does not thence require to be coupled to the extremes through another bond distinct from itself: but immediately through itself; for what is essentially such cannot be made such through something distinct from itself; just as since it is essential to an accident to inhere in a subject, it does not need some medium really distinct in order to inhere.

You will say 4. The divine Word is united actu and formally to the assumed humanity through that by which it exercises in it the role of term and ultimate complement: but it exercises this formally through its personality, without any other intermediary: therefore it is united formally to it through that, without anything even modally distinct. The major is evident: for since the Word is united to the human nature after the manner of an ultimate term and complement, it is necessary that that through which it is united to it be the very actual exercise of terminating. But the minor is proved: nothing created can be the actual exercise, or second act, of the terminative power of the personality of the Word toward the outside: therefore the divine Word exercises formally the role of term of the human nature through its sole personality. — I distinguish the major: the divine Word is united actu through that by which it exercises the role of term quod, I deny: quo, I concede. Similarly I distinguish the minor: through its personality it exercises the role of term quod without any medium, since namely it is itself which terminates the communication of the human nature, I concede: quo, I deny: for it terminates that communication by reason of the union of itself with it: but that union is not formally the term, but the ratio through which as through a medium the Word terminates that communication.

You will say finally. Proper subsistence is united to its own nature by itself, and by no other medium: therefore much more the subsistence of the Word is united immediately to the humanity. — I deny the consequence; and the reason of the disparity is that proper subsistence results necessarily from the very particular nature, unless it be impeded from elsewhere; but the subsistence of the Word comes from without, therefore it requires union in order to be conjoined to the humanity.

Second conclusion. — The hypostatic union is a relation extrinsically adventitious. So the Doctor, in 3. dist. 1. qu. 1. num. 1., where he says:

I say that this union does not signify of itself something absolute: because with whatever absolute understood in one extreme the perfect rationale of union is not understood, since union is not understood with respect to itself; therefore it accompanies the absolute in one extreme, or in two, since it is not nothing, at least union signifies a relation, etc.

By which words the Doctor openly teaches that union is a relation; for a relation is that whose whole esse is to be toward another: but union is wholly toward another: therefore it is a relation. The major stands from the Logical works. The minor is proved: for just as a relation cannot be conceived except through order to that of which it is a relation, so neither can union be conceived except through order to those things of which it is the union. — Further, with whatever absolute concept in the extremes, still the union of the extremes is not conceived: therefore it is not something absolute. The antecedent is plain, because the absolute is conceived through order to itself: but union cannot be conceived except through order to the extremes which are united. — Finally, that entity must be called pure relation which cannot be conceived except after the manner of an actual determination of one extreme toward another, and has no other function: but the entity superadded to the united extremes cannot be conceived except after the manner of an actual determination of one extreme toward another, nor is any other function to be found in that union; therefore utterly it is pure relation. The major stands: since similitude is pure relation, and does not involve formally anything absolute, since it cannot be otherwise understood than after the manner of the determination of one subject, e.g., toward another. The minor also appears: because no other function of union can be thought than that one extreme determine toward another, so that it make one with it: therefore on this account it is pure relation. — It is confirmed: if union is not a relation, especially since it must be either a supernatural quality superadded to the humanity, as Gregory wills; or some substantial mode, as Suarez teaches: but neither can be affirmed. Not indeed the first: both because, as the Doctor presently cited num. 12 teaches, that supernatural quality would be required chiefly after the manner of a disposition, that the human nature might become proximately apt for union with the Word: but this is foreign; because since it is in obediential potency to that union it is unifiable by itself, and therefore requires no dispositive quality; and because union in its formal concept signifies intrinsically order to two: therefore it is either a relation, or intrinsically includes one; for the whole esse of union is in order to another: but that quality neither is a relation, nor intrinsically includes one; therefore it cannot have the rationale of union. The second also cannot be said; because either such a substantial mode is admitted, such that the Word and the human nature are said to be mutually united; or that it be the foundation of the union: but neither of these is rightly affirmed. Not the first, both because the same substantial mode would have to be admitted in the other unions, putatively between matter and form, which is false; for Aristotle did not know such a mode; but in the composite he distinguished only three things, namely matter, form, and the composite; and because such a substantial mode would be something besides the humanity and the Word, and thus it would be either assumed by the Word, or not: if so, then there is something assumed by the Word besides the humanity: if not, then there is something in Christ which is not assumed: but both of these are absurd. Nor yet the second, because the human nature is a sufficient foundation of that relation, and union, of itself with the Word: therefore that substantial mode seems useless.

You will say 1. What regards the complement of created substance is a substantial and absolute being: but the hypostatic union regards the substantial complement of the humanity assumed by the Word, seeing that it supplies the place of that personality: therefore, etc. — I answer by distinguishing the major: What regards the substantial complement after the manner of something intrinsic is a substantial and absolute being, I concede: that it regards the complement after the manner of something extrinsic is an absolute and essential being, I deny. Similarly I distinguish the minor: the hypostatic union regards the complement of the humanity after the manner of something intrinsic, I deny: extrinsic, I concede: wherefore the hypostatic union indeed can be denominated substantial extrinsically, and by order to the extremes which are said to be united, and of which it is the bond: but not with respect to its own entity, seeing that it is a relation, and equally an accident.

I answer 2. The minor can be denied: since, as we proved in the Metaphysics, a supposit is not some substantial and absolute mode, but only a negation of double communicability, as quid and as quod: therefore it is false that on this account it belongs to the substantial complement of the humanity.

You will say 2. From Aristotle, 5. Physics, no motion is given for a relation: but the hypostatic union is produced as it were through motion: therefore it cannot be a relation. — The Doctor answers in 3. dist. 1. qu. 1. n. 15., that the Philosopher is to be understood of relations arising from the position of the extremes, for which no action is necessary, such as result: but not of relations extrinsically adventitious. For one kind of relation, he says, three genera can be distinguished; for some are identified with the foundation, such are all those without which the foundation cannot exist, such as the dependencies of the creature upon the Creator: others are not indeed identified with the foundation, because this can be without them; but necessarily result from the positing of the term and foundation, and the rationale of founding, such are similitudes between two white things; finally there are certain relations which are neither identified with the foundation, nor follow necessarily from it; but beyond the existence of foundation and term they require still some extrinsic condition: thus approximation of fire to wood is required, that there be made the relation of agent to patient; but the Philosopher speaks of relations taken in the first and second mode; but not of extrinsically adventitious ones; for, says the Doctor, the Philosopher there commits motion to ubi, and yet ubi signifies no absolute form, but only a respect in the circumscribed body toward the circumscribing place.

You will say 3. No thing can be otherwise disposed in order to another, unless it first be otherwise disposed in order to itself: but human nature by the hypostatic union is otherwise disposed in order to the Word by reason of the union, whereby it is referred to him: therefore it ought also to be otherwise disposed in order to itself. Yet it cannot be otherwise disposed in order to itself, unless it receive something absolute which it did not have before: therefore it cannot have the union, through which it is otherwise disposed toward the Word than before, unless it have in itself something absolute which it did not have before. — I distinguish the major: Unless it be first otherwise disposed in order to itself when it is disposed toward another by a relation of the first or second genus, I concede; by a relation of the third genus, or extrinsically adventitious, I deny. For by such a relation someone can very well be otherwise disposed toward another de novo, without being otherwise disposed in order to himself by some form distinct from the relation itself, because the relation itself accrues to him from without, and through an efficient cause.

You will say 4. The hypostatic union is not accidental, but substantial, as was determined in the Council of Ephesus, Canon 2: therefore that union ought to be something substantial, and not an accident: but every relation is an accident: therefore the hypostatic union is not a relation. — I answer, that the hypostatic union is called substantial, not because the union itself is not an accident, but because it is a substantial and intrinsic conjunction of the person of the Word with human nature, so that that union is brought about not merely by affection and sanctifying grace, as Nestorius wished, but is brought about substantially from this, that the personality of the Word makes of itself, substantially, the human nature of Christ subsistent; or insofar as in the personality of the Word, who is substance, human nature is united with the divine; which certainly suffices for resolving the oracles of the Councils; for they intend nothing else than that the Word is substantially united to humanity, and that the substance itself of human nature subsists through that substantial subsistence of the Word; just as the divine nature subsists by the same subsistence of the Word, and by that same medium both natures, divine and human, are substantially joined together.

You ask. To which of the six last predicaments must this relation of the hypostatic union be reduced? — I answer, that it is more probable that it should be reduced to the predicament of Passion: for by the uniting action human nature is, as it were, transmuted, while it receives that union of itself with the Word: therefore the union is in humanity after the manner of the term of a relation of the transmuted toward the transmuting; in which relation consists the rationale of the predicament of passion.

You will say 5. The union is the terminus of the Incarnation effectively, or inasmuch as it is an action: but passion is not the term of action, but of transmutation: therefore the union is not a passion. — I answer, that just as in the hot thing produced by fire there is a twofold relation, one indeed of the producer toward the hot thing produced, which is intrinsically adventitious, because it results from the positing of the foundation and the term; the other of the transmuted subject, e.g. of wood, toward the fire transmuting it, which is an extrinsically adventitious relation, by which formally the subject is said to be united to heat: so in the person of Christ, with two natures remaining, there is a twofold relation: one of the produced toward the producing, which is called Christ; or the union itself by order toward the whole Trinity; and this relation is intrinsically adventitious, which is posterior to the union, and to Christ, namely by a posteriority of nature: the other is of the transmuted toward the transmuting, by which humanity, which is as it were the subject, is referred to the Trinity uniting, and to the Word, as to the term and extreme of the union; by which relation it is extrinsically adventitious, and is the bond by which humanity is denominated united to the Word.

Third conclusion. — The hypostatic union, taken formally and properly, is a relation not mutual, and of disparity. So the Doctor in the place cited above, where he says:

At least the union signifies a relation, but not a common one, which would be of the same rationale in both extremes, such as similarity; nay, it is not a habitude of the same rationale in the assumed nature and the assuming person: moreover the assuming person has no real relation to the created nature, from dist. 30, book 1; and conversely, unless the nature thus assumed had a relation to the assuming one, nothing would be understood per se by that union: nor is that relation in the assumed nature merely a thing of reason, because then the union itself would not be real. Therefore this union is a real relation of disparity in one extreme: to which in the other no relation corresponds, or at least none real. So the Doctor.

By which he plainly teaches, first, that that relation is not mutual, because it does not have a real correlation on the part of the Word: second, that it is a relation of disparity, because if any correlation exist on the part of the Word, it is neither real, nor of the same rationale with the relation by which human nature is referred to the Word.

But the first part is proved, namely that the relation is real on the part of human nature, but not on the part of the Word. It is real, I say, on the part of human nature, because the Word and humanity are really united: therefore by union, and real relation: but the relation cannot be real on the part of the Word, as we shall say presently: therefore it ought at least to be judged real on the part of human nature, to which it is united. Add that human nature in the Incarnation was capable of receiving a new entity, by which it would be really otherwise disposed than before, and the nature previously existed before that union itself: but by no absolute entity could it thus be really changed; indeed no such entity can be devised, which would be a principle of mutation: therefore such mutation, or affection, must be referred back to the real relation itself of union. But that a similar real relation is not to be sought on the part of the Word is evident: both from this, that the Word is God, and hence on account of his immutability is incapable of absolutely every new entity; yet he would receive a new entity if that union were real on his own part: therefore, etc. Then also because every real relative in mutual relations depends upon its correlative; indeed correlatives are together in nature and in cognition: but the Word, since he is God, is also wholly independent: therefore he cannot have the rationale of a depending relation, nor consequently any real correlation. Finally, because God is a being of supreme necessity of existence: but a being of supreme necessity of existence does not require anything other than itself, but is most sufficient unto itself: yet this can in no way belong to a real relation; since it necessarily requires a foundation and a term, both in order to be, and in order to be conserved.

The second part is proved, namely that that relation is of disparity: for that relation is of disparity which is not of the same rationale and denomination in the extremes: but so it is with the relation of the hypostatic union, for in human nature it is called the relation of a depender, and of the personated; but in the Word the relation of an independent, and of the personating; and these denominations and relations are diverse: therefore the relation of the hypostatic union is a relation of disparity. The minor is evident; for human nature depends on the Word as upon its proper sustainer: for since it lacks its own subsistence, it borrows all its force of subsisting from the Word.

You will say against the first part. The Word is said to be united to humanity just as really as humanity to the Word: therefore if the relation of union is real on the part of the human relation, such will equally be on the part of the Word.

Some respond, indeed, that the union is real on the part of the Word, nor on that account is he changed by the Incarnation, since from eternity he prehad that union on account of the eminential containment, whereby God contains all things. But this response introduces a greater difficulty: for it would follow, that if by that eminential containment the Word could be said to be really united, he would be incarnate from eternity; indeed he had from eternity the eminential containment of that real union; which since it is false — because it would have been necessary that there be a passage from eminential containment to formal containment, in order that he be said to be formally united; and thus by this reasoning become subject to mutation — therefore I respond by distinguishing the major: the Word is said to be really united to humanity just as humanity to the Word, in the rationale of terminating, I concede: in the rationale of subject, I deny. For really the Word terminates by his subsistence the communicability of human nature, and renders it personally incommunicable; and by reason of that termination he is said to be personally united to humanity, because he performs the same offices as a proper hypostasis would perform: but he is not said to be really united subjectively, because that real relation of union is not subjected in him, as in human nature.

You will insist. Not only terminatively, but also formally is the Word united to humanity; therefore he must necessarily have in himself the formal union; for nothing is denominated formally except from an inexisting form: therefore if the Word be formally united, it is necessary that he have in himself the formal union, that is, the relation of union.

I distinguish the antecedent: That is said to be formally united, inasmuch as it formally signifies the substantial and personal union of the human nature with the divine, mediated by the person of the Word, whether meanwhile that union resides subjectively in the Word, or only terminatively: I concede; it is said to be formally united, inasmuch as it is formally required by a form existing subjectively in the Word itself: I deny. Nor should it seem wonderful that sometimes something is denominated formally such from a form existing in another, and terminated only to that other: indeed this is common to relations of the third genus: for thus God is said to be formally Creator by reason of the relation of the creature terminated to Him. Add that this union is singular, and utterly ineffable; nor does nature present any clearest example of it.

You ask: To which genus of cause, whether efficient, formal, or material, ought the relation of dependence and union of the human nature to the Word to be reduced?

The Doctor replies at the place cited that the solution of this question is difficult, because no similar dependence can be assigned in the whole order of nature; nevertheless he says it can fittingly be referred to the efficient cause, because the particular dependence of the human nature assumed by the Word is of distinct reason from every dependence of an effect upon a cause, inasmuch as every dependence of an effect upon a cause is founded in entity received from a cause; but humanity depends not only upon the Word, but upon the Father and the Holy Spirit according to its entity, and even according to its effective union; because the operations of the Trinity ad extra are indivisible. Add that the divine Word sustains the role of the proper supposit of the human nature itself: but a supposit does not terminate the nature of which it is the supposit in the genus of efficient cause: therefore neither will the supposit of the Word terminate the dependence of the human nature in the genus of efficient cause. Nor can it be referred to the genus of formal cause, because the Word cannot have the reason of form with respect to humanity; since form is a part of the composite; but the Word cannot have the reason of a part, inasmuch as a part is an incomplete being implying an order to another part, through whose union it may be completed and perfected. Therefore it remains that the dependence of the human nature upon the Word be assimilated to the dependence of an accident upon a material cause, not inasmuch as that cause is receptive of the accident, but inasmuch as it is sustaining thereof in the reason of subject.

For, says the Doctor,

an accident has a twofold relation to substance, or to its subject: one as to the subject which it informs and perfects, and without which it would not have the complete reason of form: the other truly as to the subject by which it is sustained, and without which it would not exist. The first of these two dependencies argues imperfection not only in the accident, but also in the subject; because it argues potentiality in the subject for receiving the accident by which it is informed and perfected; but the other dependency does not argue imperfection in the subject; because to sustain another, or to terminate its dependency, precisely does not imply imperfection.

Therefore we can assert that the dependence of the nature upon the Word is assimilated to this second dependency of the accident upon its subject, but not to the first: because the latter implies imperfection, since it connotes the necessity which the subject has of being perfected by the accident; but the former not so: rather it signifies that a power inheres in the subject whereby it can terminate and sustain the accident.

You ask: Whether the creation of the soul of Christ, the generation of His humanity, and the union of the same with the Word, are three really distinct actions?

I affirm, against certain Thomists contending that the productive and unitive action of humanity is the same; so that that union would be productive of humanity not in itself, but in the Word; which they assert in order to exclude created existence from the humanity of Christ, and maintain that it exists with the existence of the Word. So especially Cabrera, 3rd part, art. 11, disp. 2.

Proof of our assertion: The real and specific distinction of actions is sought from the real and specific distinction of their terms: but the creation of the soul of Christ, the generation of the humanity, and its union with the Word, have distinct terms: therefore they are really diverse actions. The Thomists admit the major: the minor is proved: the term of creation is the very soul of Christ produced out of nothing: the formal term of generation is the humanity considered in itself: but the term of union, or of the unitive action, is the very union by which those two natures are said to be formally united: but these terms are distinct; for humanity says more than the soul alone: and likewise Christ, inasmuch as He consists of two natures mutually united, says more than those two natures considered severally say: therefore those actions are really diverse. Further, those actions are diverse inasmuch as they are of diverse order: but such are the aforesaid: for the creation of the soul of Christ, and the generation of His humanity, are of natural order, while the union of the same humanity with the Word is of supernatural order: whence the creation of the soul has God alone as principle, as author of nature, while generation has also the blessed Virgin, as cause at least less principal: but the hypostatic union acknowledges God alone as principle, as author of grace and of supernatural order: therefore those actions are diverse. Finally, the creative action is really distinguished from that which is not creation: but the production of the soul of Christ is a creative action: while the generation of the humanity is not creation, but generation: likewise the hypostatic union is neither creation nor generation, but the union of extremes already existent: therefore they are diverse actions.

You will object 1. The holy Fathers teach that the humanity of Christ was simultaneously produced and united to the Word. Thus St. Leo, Epistle 11, which is to Julian, Bishop of Cosentia: Our nature, he says, was not so assumed that, being first created, it was afterwards taken up: but that by its assumption itself it might be created. Likewise St. Fulgentius, book On the Incarnation and Grace, chapter 8: The very taking of flesh was a virginal taking.

I answer. The holy Fathers are not treating of the unity or distinction, but only of the coexistence or concomitance of those actions: for they teach against heretics that the soul was not created before, nor the humanity born earlier in time, than it was united to the Word: but that it was formed and united at the same instant of time, as they themselves clearly hand down: for St. Leo treats against Eutyches, whom he judges to renew the dogma of Origen, that the soul of Christ had been placed in heaven before it was born of the Virgin. Hence after the aforesaid words he subjoins:

Whence what in Origen was justly condemned, who asserted that souls, before they were inserted into bodies, had not only various lives, but various actions, it is necessary that Eutyches too lament in himself, unless he prefer to renounce his opinion.

Therefore he does not attack our opinion, but rather defends it, for he subjoins:

For the nature of the Lord in itself, although it has certain properties whereby it transcends the beginnings of the human condition: either because He alone, with the Holy Spirit, was conceived and born of the inviolate Virgin without the concupiscence of the flesh: or because He was brought forth from the womb of His mother in such a way that fecundity gave birth and virginity remained: yet His care was of no other nature than ours, nor was a soul breathed into Him at the beginning other than that breathed into the rest of men.

Therefore the formation of the soul and of the humanity of Christ had the same principle, and consequently the same productive action by which we also are produced, namely true creation and generation. And forthwith the holy Fathers exclude only preexistence of time, not indeed of nature, as Saint Fulgentius clearly signifies in the same place in these words:

This flesh, therefore, the nature of the conceiving Virgin then exhibited from herself, when God, to be conceived, came unto her. There is not, therefore, to be reckoned any other interval of time between the beginning of the flesh conceived and the advent of the majesty to be conceived.

You will urge: If the humanity was not produced in nature before it was united to the Word, then by the same action it was united and produced. The antecedent is proved: if the humanity of Christ were produced before it was united to the Word, the blessed Virgin would not truly have to be named Mother of God: because her generation would be terminated at the humanity before it was assumed by the Word; and thus she would nowise concur toward that union: for if some agent produced heat, for example, and another united that heat to a subject, the prior agent would indeed produce heat, but would not make it truly hot: therefore if the generative and unitive actions of the humanity of Christ are diverse, the Blessed Virgin must indeed be called mother of the man whom she begot; but not Mother of Christ, or of the man-God, since she nowise concurs toward that composite resulting from the union of the divine nature with the human.

I deny the antecedent, and the major of its proof: for that the Blessed Virgin may be said to have begotten God, it suffices that her active conception be terminated at the same instant of time upon the person of the Word, which terminated the communication of her humanity; for then the supposit of the Word is held ultimately to complete and terminate the generative action of the Blessed Virgin: especially since the personality of the Word supplies what His own personality would have supplied, had it resulted. To the example of the agent producing heat I say that there would be parity if that agent were of itself unitive of the heat with the subject: for although by divine power another agent were substituted which would unite such heat, nevertheless the prior agent would no less be said to effect something hot; but otherwise if it did not possess an unitive power over the heat which it produced. But the Blessed Virgin, who possesses a productive power over the humanity, possesses also an unitive power over such humanity with the subsistence which would result from the begotten humanity, unless it were impeded by divine power through the substitution of another subsistence.

You will say 3: When a corporeal form is educed from the potency of matter, and an accidental form from the potency of the subject, the same is the action by which it is educed and united: therefore similarly, even if the substance of the humanity or of the soul be distinct from their union with the Word, nevertheless they can be made by the same action. The antecedent is proved: when a form is educed from the potency of the subject, whether that educive action takes place with the concurrence of the subject, or not: if not, then it takes place independently of the subject, and thus from nothing: and consequently it is creation, which no one has said: if so, then that action depends upon the subject, and the production of the form takes place in it, and consequently is united to it: for a form cannot naturally be in a subject and not be united to the subject: therefore by the same action by which the form is produced, it is also united.

I answer, whatever may be said of the antecedent, denying the consequence. And the reason of the disparity is, that not only are the entities of the soul, of the humanity, and of the hypostatic union distinct ex natura rei, but they are also of different orders: whence between the humanity and the Word there is not a natural conjunction, as there is between a form and the subject from which it is educed; whence there cannot be one action productive and unitive of both.

WHETHER THE HYPOSTATIC UNION WAS MADE IN THE UNITY OF NATURE, OR OF PERSON, AND WHETHER BY TRUE AND PROPERLY SO-CALLED COMPOSITION, OR BY A COMMIXTION OF BOTH.

We must recall what we said in the prelude of this Treatise, that there were formerly two errors concerning the hypostatic union which were extremely opposed to one another: the first was that of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who contended that in Christ there were two persons, just as also two natures, namely the created or human one, and the uncreated or divine one; and consequently that Christ was a created person and a mere man, to whom the divine Word was united only by an accidental union: first indeed according to indwelling and presence, inasmuch as the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him corporally, as in a tabernacle and temple: and this in a more special manner than in other just men: secondly, according to the conformity of wills and affections, insofar namely as the will of that man was always conformed to the will of the divine Word: thirdly, according to operation; because, he said, the humanity of Christ was like an instrument, which the divine Word used in working out his wondrous operations: fourthly, according to a certain participation of honorable dignity, insofar namely as the honor shown to the Word redounded to the man united to him, on account of his intimate union with the Son of God.

The second capital error was that of Eutyches, Monk of Constantinople, who asserted that the hypostatic union had been made in the unity of nature: so that although before the union there had been two entirely distinct natures, namely the divine and the human, yet in the union they came together into one nature, either by the conversion of the humanity into the Divinity, as was reported of Eutyches by Pope St. Leo in Epistle 10 to Flavian, and by Flavian to him: by Virgil, books 1 and 2 against Eutyches, and by Augustine, Heresy 90; or by the conversion of the Divinity into the humanity, as Apollinaris had taught before Eutyches himself: nay, even before Apollinaris certain heretics had done so, as is clear from St. Irenaeus, who in his Exposition of the Faith censures those errors in these words:

You who pretend to aspire to Baptism, who in order to take away two natures propose such questions: you who invent a mixture, a confusion, and a change into the Deity from the body, so that you may confound these things: who now assert that the Word has been turned into flesh, now that flesh into the essence of the Word, and with such great depravity you show that nothing remains for you, &c.

Finally, he contended that that union was made not by the transmutation of one nature into another; but that from two natures one had resulted by composition, each nature remaining whole in its own being, and only such mutation having been made in the union as that by which from soul and body one nature arises; of whose asserted error Justin the Emperor makes mention in the Edict of Faith to John 2, and Moster Castro, under the word Christus. Heresy 4. Therefore, in order that we may shut out those capital errors, three things come to be resolved in this Question: First, whether the hypostatic union was made in the unity of nature: secondly, whether it was made in the unity of person: Thirdly, whether that union is to be called properly composition, or commixtion. That these things may appear more clearly,

Note 1. That although the name nature was originally derived from being born, and imposed to signify the very generation of things born, and thence transferred to designate the principle of generation; nevertheless the name of nature was thence derived to signify any intrinsic principle of motion, wherefore by the Physicists after Aristotle, Nature is said to be the principle of motion and of its rest in that in which it is, first, and per se, and not per accidens. Now this principle is matter, or form: whence sometimes form is called nature, and sometimes matter; but since form and matter constitute the essence of a natural thing, the name of nature has been transferred to signify the essence of any existing thing, complete and constituted by its adequate intrinsic principles: and concerning nature thus taken, insofar namely as it signifies an essence complete in every respect, we ask whether in the Mystery of the Incarnation, through the union of the two natures, namely the divine and the human, one unique nature has been made.

Note 2. That the supposit, or person, is the ultimate complement of substantial nature, whereby it becomes incommunicable to another, and it is defined: an individual substance of incommunicable existence, both as that which, and as that whereby; that is, just as universal natures are communicated as superior to inferior, and as substantial and accidental forms are communicated to their subjects; so that an impersonated nature cannot be communicated to another nature as superior to inferior, nor as part to part, so as with that other to make one per se. Moreover Christian Philosophers agree that nature and supposit are distinguished really from one another in creatures, whether by a greater and actual distinction, as the disciples of the Subtle Doctor hold; or by a lesser real distinction and merely virtual, as the rest contend; about which controversy there has been treatment in the Metaphysics, nor does it pertain to the present place to dispute about it; but only to resolve whether the hypostatic union was made in the unity of person, that is, whether by that union the divine and human natures have been so united to one another as to be subsisting in one only person; or whether rather each nature has had its own proper and native subsistence.

Note 3. Besides the various modes assigned in the first Notable of the preceding Question, by which it happens that several things are united to one another; three, as regards our present undertaking, are assigned as principal, namely by composition, or by commixtion, or by transubstantiation: by composition, I say, namely when the parts united come together in natural order, and have the four following conditions: first, that they are related to one another as act and potency: secondly, as perfectible and perfecting: thirdly, that they have a natural inclination toward one another, so that one naturally demands to inform, and the other to be informed, so that their natural appetite may be plainly satisfied, and they may be in quiet being: finally, that that which results from the two extremes united be something nobler than either extreme taken separately. Union by mixtion occurs when some third thing is made from parts ceasing according to substance and nature, yet remaining according to their virtue, as a mixture is made from the elements, which persevere virtually in it. Finally, by transubstantiation, when the whole substance ceases, and passes into another. These things premised, it must be determined of what sort was the union of the humanity with the Word.

First Conclusion.

THE HYPOSTATIC UNION HAS NOT BEEN MADE IN THE UNITY OF NATURE, AND CONSEQUENTLY CHRIST THE LORD CONSISTS OF TWO NATURES, NAMELY THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. This is defined of faith in the First Council of Ephesus, and especially in that of Chalcedon, Act 5, and in the V Synod, Act 1, Collation 8, and in the VI Synod, Act 11, and likewise in other subsequent general Councils. This truth is also established from the Symbols, in which Christ is affirmed true God and true man: but most clearly from the Symbol of Athanasius in these words: Perfect God, perfect man, subsisting of a rational soul and human flesh: who although he be God and man, nevertheless is not two, but one Christ: one, however, not by conversion of the Divinity into flesh, but by assumption of the humanity into God. The same truth the holy Fathers taught, as many as fought against the Eutychian dogma; especially St. Leo, Epist. 12. ad Flavianum; Vigilius supreme Pontiff, Damascene, book 3. De Fide, chapter 3.; Boethius, in the book De Duabus naturis, etc.

Proof first from the Scriptures bearing witness that Christ the Lord is true God, and true man: for the Divinity of the latter is plainly handed down Matth. 3, where the eternal Father says: This is my beloved Son: Ioan. 10. I and the Father are one: Matth. 16. Thou art Christ the Son of the living God. Likewise the humanity of this same is asserted Ioan. 8. You seek to kill me, a man who have spoken the truth to you. Ioan. 9. The man who is called Christ. Psalm. 44. Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness. Whence St. Damascene, praised above, chapter 17, distinguishes in Christ two natures, one anointed, which is the human, the other anointing, namely the divine. It is established also from Deuteronomy 18, where Moses promises to the Israelitic people that Christ would come, and says: The Lord will give thee a Prophet of thy nation and of thy brethren.

— It is confirmed from the Scriptures, which teach that Christ is equal to the Father, and less than the Father, on account of the form of God, and the form of a servant. Thus St. Paul to the Philippians 2.

Who, although he was in the form of God — that is, although he subsisted in the divine nature — thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself: not indeed losing the nature of God, but taking the form of a servant, that is, the human nature, through which he was made in the likeness of men, and was found in fashion as a man.

It is likewise evident from those testimonies in which Christ is now said to be equal to the Father, now less than the Father: for these things must be said on account of his diverse natures, for he cannot be equal to the Father according to the human nature, nor less than the Father according to the divine: therefore he must embrace two natures.

— It is proved also by those texts in which it is affirmed that Christ is the Mediator of God and men, 1 Timothy 2. For, says St. Leo, Epist. 11. He would not be the mediator of God and of man, unless the same one were both God and man in each respect, and true.

— It is likewise evident from all those oracles by which divine and human attributes are asserted of Christ, namely power and infirmity, immortality and subjection to death; whence it must be concluded with St. Leo, chapter 3. of the Epistle to Flavian:

The property of each nature being preserved, and both concurring into one person, humility was assumed by majesty, infirmity by power, mortality by eternity: and, to discharge the debt of our condition, the invincible nature was united to the passible nature, so that what was fitting for our remedies, one and the same mediator of God and men, the man Jesus Christ, might be able both to die from the one, and not be able to die from the other.

The reason also supports this; for if the union effected through the mystery of the Incarnation had been made in the unity of nature, it would be necessary either that one nature had been converted into the other, or that both together had ceased and perished, so that from them a third and different one might arise, as usually happens in mixture; or finally that both had remained together, yet concurring to compose some third thing, just as from soul and body existing simultaneously in act there results one man: but none of these can rightly be affirmed. Not indeed the first, for if that union had been effected through conversion, especially either of the divine nature into the human, or of the human into the divine. The first cannot be said, both because the divine nature cannot be transmuted or corrupted, since it is altogether immutable and incorruptible; for neither, says St. Leo, Epist. 11. was the Word converted in any part of himself into flesh, or into a soul, since he, simple and unchangeable in the nature of his Deity, is wholly and always in his own essence, receiving neither loss of himself nor increase. And because when certain things are very far distant, such that one is in power stronger than the other, the latter cannot be changed into the inferior; for it is evident that a little water poured over a cask of wine does not convert the wine into water, but is itself transmuted into wine. Finally, because what is eternal cannot be subject to temporal mutation.

— Nor could that mutation be made through the conversion of the human nature into the divine, both because from this it would follow that Christ was not a true man, but only God, if the human nature had ceased to exist in him, for it is impossible for a thing to exist or remain in act without its essence and nature: but the Scriptures openly testify that Christ was a true man, as has just been said, and they truly attribute human operations and passions to him: for he is said to have been born, to have fasted, eaten, labored, suffered, died, been buried, and to have offered himself to be touched before and after the resurrection: all of which prove in him a true body and a true humanity. Finally, because it involves a contradiction for something to be changed and converted into God, for that conversion would be either only partial, and as regards the form, the matter and common subject remaining, as is customary in physical mutations, when from seed a tree is made, from wood fire; or it would be a conversion of whole into whole, as regards matter and form simultaneously, which is called transubstantiation: but each of those modes of conversion simply conflicts with God; the first indeed, for otherwise God would have to consist of matter and form, act and potency; and consequently he would no longer be the simplest being, nor incorporeal: it would also be necessary for God to be changed in reality itself, and to begin to be substantially something which he previously was not; for while something is converted into another thing, there must be a mutation not only in the terminus a quo, but also in the terminus ad quem; and as the terminus a quo truly ceases through that mutation, so conversely the terminus ad quem truly begins: but it is impossible for God truly to begin to exist absolutely, or to be otherwise disposed than he previously was, because he is eternal and immutable.

— Moreover, the latter mutation, namely to be made into God through transubstantiation, cannot occur, because transubstantiation cannot take place except among those things which are subject to the power of an agent effecting transmutation; for what has being fully subject to both can convert one into the other: but the divine nature is subject to the power of no agent, and therefore neither can it itself be transmuted into something else, nor something else into it.

Then, it would follow from this also that God would begin substantially to exist otherwise than he was; for transubstantiation is a positive and real action: therefore it must have a real and positive terminus; for it implies that some action is given without a terminus, or an action by which nothing comes about, and a production by which nothing is produced: but in such a substantial conversion the humanity would not be produced, as is evident; because through transubstantiation it would cease to be: therefore it remains that either the whole would be produced, or that God would be otherwise disposed than he previously was, just as through Eucharistic transubstantiation either the body of Christ is reproduced, as some Theologians hold, or at least it is brought forth and constituted under the Eucharistic species in a Sacramental manner, with a presence different from that which it has in heaven: but all these things are altogether unworthy of God as utterly immutable: therefore the union of humanity with Divinity could not be effected through the conversion of one nature into the other.

— Nor could it be effected through the cessation of both natures: for if the human nature in Christ did not cease, nor was it altogether consumed, much less were both destroyed. Add that if either both, or any one of those natures in Christ had ceased, he would not be true God, nor true man, nor would he be equal to the Father according to his Divinity, nor less than the Father according to his humanity.

— Finally, that union could not have been brought about by commixture, nor by that composition whereby from two parts remaining whole some third thing is made, distinct from the component parts. Not indeed by commixture, because in commixture it is necessary that some nature cease to exist substantially: for the elements do not remain in the compound according to their proper substance; hence the compound cannot formally be called water, or fire: but the human and Divine natures persevered substantially in Christ, since He was true God, and true man. Nor yet by composition properly so called: because when a third whole is made by composition, it must necessarily be made from incomplete parts, which bear an order to one another so as to be united: but the Divine and human natures cannot have such the character of a part with respect to one another: for every part is necessarily imperfect, inasmuch as it exists for the sake of the whole, and is lesser and more ignoble than the whole: but the Divine nature, since it is most simple, and pure act, and contains in itself all perfections, can in no wise have the character of a part composable with another: therefore the hypostatic union could not have been brought about by composition. The Word therefore was made flesh, says St. Leo, Epist. 11. nor was the flesh changed into the Word: but each remains in the one, and the one in each: not distinguished by diversity, nor confused by admixture: or, as St. Fulgentius speaks, lib. De Incarnatione, et gratia Iesu Christi, cap. 3. When the Word became flesh He made His own the nature He took from us by a wondrous union: yet in that Deifying and wholly wondrous union the Divinity of the Word was not changed into flesh, and the humanity of the Word retained entirely the natural truth of our kind.

They objected 1. The Eutychians: For one thing to be made another is for one thing to be converted into another, according to the manner of speaking of Scripture, as is clear from that passage of John 2. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water made wine, that is, converted into wine: but from John 1. The Word was made flesh: therefore by real mutation and conversion of itself into flesh.

I distinguish the major: fieri, that one thing is converted into another always, I deny: sometimes, I concede. For although that particle factum sometimes signifies the substantial mutation of one thing into another: it does not however always designate that substantial conversion: but at times it signifies the acquisition, or assumption of something anew, as when it is said Genesis 20. He was made into a living soul: and Hebrews 1. Christ was made a Pontiff: whence St. Gregory, lib. 4. Epist. 61. says: We say that the Word was made flesh not by changing what He was, but by assuming what He was not: or, as St. Athanasius speaks, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by the assumption of humanity into God. Wherefore also the Evangelist, after he had said, The Word was made flesh, immediately adds: and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the Only-begotten of the Father. By which he signifies that the Divinity in Christ persevered unmixed with the humanity; nor does that word, or particle, factum, frequently signify anything else in holy Scripture; else it would have to be said that Christ was converted into sin, and into a curse, because 2 Corinthians 5. we read: Him who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us. And Galatians 3. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. Whence St. Ambrose, lib. De Incarnat., cap. 6.: They cease, he says, to say that the nature of the Word was changed into the nature of a body, lest by a pure interpretation the nature of the Word might seem to be changed into the contagion of sin.

They objected 2. That St. Irenaeus, lib. 3., cap. 21., and Cyprian, lib. De Vanitate idolorum, call the incarnation a mixture of God and man: but mixture is a union in nature; therefore the incarnation was wrought in the unity of nature.

I answer, that the holy Fathers are not speaking of proper and true mixture; but only of improper, which name nevertheless they use to designate the intimate and singular hypostatic union of the human nature with the divine; for although that union is not essential, yet it is so immediate and internal that a greater between God and creature cannot be conceived: inasmuch as this union, as we shall say below, is the most perfect of all unions.

They objected 3. That saying of St. Athanasius in the Symbol: As the rational soul and the flesh are one man, so God and man are one Christ: but soul and flesh constitute one complete nature of man: therefore likewise God and man by the hypostatic union coalesced into one nature.

I answer, that that example does not hold in all respects, nor ought complete similitude between the union of the soul with the body, and the union of the Divine nature with the human, to be sought from it: otherwise this union would not be wondrously singular, and singularly wondrous, as St. Bernard speaks: wherefore that example avails only to this, to intimate that just as body and soul, although they are diverse natures, still coalesce into one nature: so although the divine nature far excels the human, nevertheless they are joined together in the unity of person in Christ: or, as St. Augustine speaks, Epist. 3., which is ad Volusianum: As in the unity of person the soul is joined to the body, that there may be a man, so in the unity of person God is joined to man, that there may be Christ. Or, as St. Leo adds, Epist. 11.:

Lest it seem incongruous, or impossible, namely that the Word, and the flesh, and the soul are one Jesus Christ, and the Son of one God-Man, if the flesh, and the soul, which are of dissimilar natures, form one person even without the incarnation of the Word, when it is far easier for the power of the Godhead to effect this unity of itself and of man, than for the weakness of the human substance alone to attain it in its own substances?

They objected 4. Certain sayings of St. Cyril, which they used as a shield as if impregnable: one of which they drew from the former Epistle of the same to Successus, where he declares the mode of the incarnation thus, saying that the two natures came together with one another by an indivisible union without confusion and conversion, etc. After the union, he says, we do not divide the natures from one another, nor do we cut them into two Sons, that One who is one and indivisible, but we confess one Son, and, as the Fathers have spoken, one nature of the Word of God incarnate. The same, in the second Epistle to Successus, when the Orientals had disapproved of that saying, defends it with great zeal, asserting, and this according to his first mind and understanding, in its natural propriety, in that manner which we cannot express in words or utter, that the Word of God united showed us one nature of the Son, but incarnate. And in the Commonitory to Eulogius: We, he says, after we have joined those things together (namely the Word and the flesh) confess one Christ, the same Son, one Lord; and finally one nature of God incarnate. And lib. 1. De recta fide ad Reginas: Not two natures, one which is adored, and one which is not adored: but we confess one nature of the Word of God incarnate, and adorable together with His flesh under one adoration. Moreover the fifth Synod admitted that same saying of Cyril, when it received the profession of Justinian against the Three Chapters, in which a similar manner of speech is used. Indeed even very many of the holy Fathers spoke in the same manner as St. Cyril of the one incarnate nature of Christ; hence Ephremius Patriarch of Antioch, writing in Photius, relates: that heretics were wont to object that Gregory Bishop of Neo-Caesarea, Athanasius, Julius, Cyril, and Erechthius had said there was one nature of the Word of God incarnate: wherefore the first Lateran Synod, in the fifth session, Canon 5, condemns with anathema: If anyone does not confess properly, and according to the truth, one nature of the Word of God incarnate, in accordance with the holy Fathers, let him be anathema.

— I answer 1. With St. Ephremius, in the book which he wrote concerning that saying of Cyril, that the name of nature was used by Cyril for hypostasis: for the use of the word ὑπόστασις for οὐσία was frequent among the Fathers. On which account the same Ephremius writes that Athanasius in the Epistle to the Emperor Julian says that one nature and hypostasis of the Word incarnate is to be confessed; with whom agrees Anastasius Sinaita in ⟦greek: Ὁδηγῷ⟧ cap. 10. where he writes that Cyril elsewhere, explaining himself, teaches that the one incarnate nature of Christ is to be so understood, that it is one person of the holy Trinity incarnate. Justin Emperor also assents in the profession of faith against the Three Chapters, where he thinks that whenever Cyril spoke of one nature of the Word incarnate, he took the name of nature for hypostasis.

— I answer 2. That St. Cyril is expounded in the fifth general Synod, Canon eight, in these words: If anyone, saying one incarnate nature of the Word, does not so understand it as the Fathers taught, because out of the divine and human nature the union was wrought according to subsistence, but attempts from such words to introduce one nature, or substance, of the Divinity and of the flesh of Christ, let such a one be anathema. Moreover St. Cyril used that manner of speaking in order to admonish that guard must be taken against the heresy of Nestorius, who contended that in Christ there are two complete natures, having their own proper subsistences, and consequently that in Him there are two persons.

I answer 3. It is most true that only one nature in Christ is incarnate, namely the Divinity; because the humanity was not incarnate but assumed; and thus it is true what Cyril said, that there is one incarnate nature; because the divinity would not be incarnate unless it were united to the humanity.

You will urge: He who denies division, distinction, and plurality of natures in Christ does not judge that after the union whole natures persevere in Him: but Saint Cyril denies these in Christ, for in Epistle 1. to Successus he says: From two natures the conjunction was made into unity; but after the uniting he does not divide those same natures from one another; but there is one incarnate nature. And in his Commentary on John book 1.: There is not, he says, a duality: one alone is Christ, although He is understood to be from two, contracted out of different things into an individual unity. Therefore S. Cyril judges that in Christ there is no plurality and division of things, and consequently of natures.

I deny the minor: for he denies only the plurality of persons, not indeed of natures: for he professes two natures in Christ, different from one another: yet not divided and separated, because they are united in the unity of the person. Hence in the Commonitory to Eulogius he writes that he was called an object of envy among some of the Catholic party, because he had given assent to an exposition of the faith in which two natures were confessed; for this seemed to favor Nestorius, as if by admitting two natures in Christ he had also admitted a twofold person; inasmuch as every number consists of unities, which seem much diversified and divided from one another. Hence it came about, as Vigilius the supreme Pontiff relates, at the end of the second book against Eutyches, that whereas most of the orthodox retain the sense of both natures catholically when they expound it catholically, they nevertheless do not wish to say two natures, lest according to Nestorius they be thought to confess two persons: departing from the confession of both natures with the mouth only, but not with the heart; which afforded the greatest occasion of dissension among Catholics: for, as he adds, Those who do not wish to confess with the mouth two natures, which they defend in the expression of faith, are reckoned Eutychians, while there are already those who publicly profess the two natures of the one Christ and are thought to be Nestorians though they are not: and he sees us accusing one another under the name of heretics with certain grievous insults worthy of all lamentation: nevertheless in truth neither is a heretic: those signified the duality of natures, their distinction: but those who denied it professed the unity of the person.

— Further, as to Cyril, who wrote that after the union there are no longer two in Christ; this saying of his is interpreted by Saint Maximus, in the Opuscula against the Monothelites, and their parents the Monophysites, saying that he wished nothing else than that those things from which composition is made, both in man, who is like us, consisting of soul and body, and in the Mystery of the Incarnation of Christ, which is brought about out of Divinity and humanity, are indeed two by reason of substance; inasmuch as the substance remains diverse: but that those same, cohering per se in unity and entity, should constitute two — in no way does the dogma of faith permit.

They objected 5. The union of the Incarnation is the greatest of all unions, and consequently greater than the union of the soul of man with the body: but from the union of the soul with the body there comes about one nature: therefore much more through the union of divinity and humanity will one nature arise.

He distinguishes the major Rusticus the Deacon, in the disputation against the Acephali: the union of the Incarnation is the greatest of all, that is, stricter — he denies; that is, more excellent — he grants. For so much, he says, does the uniting of the Deity and the humanity, which was made in the Lord Christ, and the very effect of that uniting, surpass exceedingly that which takes place in man, by how much farther apart the united things stand from one another: for it greatly exceeds, and more than can be said, that there can be one sole person of Deity and humanity, than that out of soul and flesh there be not only one person, but also one nature: nor is there anything closer by reason of the unity into which two distinct things coalesce: Because, he says, it is not necessary that from a greater uniting something greater be made: otherwise, the more some things are united, the more powerfully by reason of union are they united: but those things are confused which, beyond those that are least confused, are more united, as moist things, etc.: therefore he denies that the hypostatic union is not the greatest of all by reason of unity, because those things are more strictly united and coalesce which are joined together by mixture than by composition.

Second Conclusion. — The Incarnation was brought about in the union of Divinity with humanity according to the unity of person. This is determined by faith in very many Councils: especially indeed in that of Ephesus against Nestorius, in that of Chalcedon in the Definition, and in the VI. General Synod, Action 4.

And it is proved from Sacred Scripture, namely by all those texts in which Christ is affirmed to be true God and true man; for God is not called metaphorically, nor improperly, as Moses was called the god of Pharaoh, but strictly and properly: therefore substantially and really; consequently either according to essence or person: not according to the unity of essence, as was said in the preceding Conclusion: therefore it is necessary that He be such according to the unity of person.

It is confirmed: By the Mystery of the Incarnation, God and man are predicated of one another: for these propositions, God is man, and man is God, are most true: not according to essence, because in Christ there is a twofold nature, divine and human: therefore it is necessary that those propositions be true according to the unity of person. The consequence is clear; for two natures cannot be predicated of one another in concreto of themselves except by reason of the unity of the supposit in which they agree; for it is not true to say that white is sweet, except because sweetness and whiteness inhere in the same subject. — Then, Christ as man professes certain things about Himself which cannot belong to Him except by reason of the Divinity, as when He affirms, John 8: Amen I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am. John 6: I am the living bread which came down from heaven, etc. But these cannot be understood of the humanity taken formally; for it is established that He was later than Abraham by more than two thousand years: therefore it remains that we understand them of the humanity according to the person and hypostasis of the Word, which He had in Christ; even as truly the pronoun Ego is personal, and denotes the person of the speaker: Ego sum. — Finally, Christ is said to have descended from heaven and ascended into heaven, Ephes. 4: He that descended, the same is he also that ascended: but Christ did not descend according to the body, as Valentine raved, nor according to the soul, as Origen raved: therefore He descended according to the union of Divinity with humanity: likewise He did not ascend according to the Divinity, but according to the humanity, because, as Saint Luke says, Acts 10: While they beheld, he was raised up: therefore to ascend into heaven according to the human nature, and to descend from heaven according to the divine, belongs to the same Christ, and forthwith by reason of the same person, in which those two natures are joined together.

It is confirmed again: That union of the divine nature with the human necessarily ought to have been made according to the unity of person, if all those modes which Nestorius devised are openly insufficient, and repugnant to Sacred Scripture: but so it is: therefore, etc. The minor is proved: the union of the divine nature with humanity in Christ is so proper to that humanity itself that it does not belong to other men by the same reason: so likewise is it peculiar to the Word, that it does not suit the person of the Father, and of the Holy Spirit: but the modes of union which Nestorius devised are neither proper to the assumed humanity, nor to the Word. Not indeed proper to the assumed humanity: First, for the union of inhabitation belongs to all the just, whom Scripture calls the temple of God, according to that of 1. Corinth. 3: Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy: for the temple of God is holy, which you are. And 2. Corinth. 6: For you are the temple of the living God, as God says: Because I will dwell in them, and walk among them. Likewise the union of operation also agrees with all the just: for 1. Corinth. 12: The same God, who works all in all. Most of all indeed through the just, and holy men, in whom He dwells, He accomplishes marvelous and stupendous works, according to that of John 11: He that believes in me, the works that I do, he also shall do, and greater than these shall he do. Finally, the union of affection, dignity, and excellence is attributed even to most holy men, and also to those eminent in virtue and authority; according to that of Psalm. 81: I have said, You are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High. Nor does it avail to reply that God exists in a nobler manner in Christ through a larger bestowal of grace, and a more abundant communication of divine charisms, than in the other just: because a greater or lesser communication of the same benefit does not change the species, nor produce a diverse mode of existing. — Nor are those modes of the union of God with humanity proper to the Word: inasmuch as they are attributed to the three persons of the adorable Trinity: for Christ testifies, John 14: If anyone loves me, and my Father loves him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him. Add that if that inhabitation sufficed for the reason of the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit would have to be said to be incarnate: for He inhabited most fully in the man Christ, according to that of Luke 4: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan. But this no believer has ever said: therefore, etc.

You will say 1. The humanity of Christ is called the temple of divinity; for Christ said to the Jews in John 2, speaking of His humanity: Destroy this temple, etc.: but the temple is not the same as him who inhabits the temple: therefore the supposit of God and the supposit of Christ the man are not the same.

I answer, the humanity is said to be a temple of God, not properly indeed, but metaphorically, in that way in which our body is called the house of our soul and its tabernacle; according to that of 2 Corinthians 5: If our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, etc. Whence just as it is not lawful to gather from the fact that the soul is in the body as in a tabernacle, that there are two persons in the same man; so also from the fact that Christ calls his humanity a temple, it is not lawful to infer that there are two persons in him. Or I say, that if it is called a Temple properly, it is so called not by reason of the Word, to which it is hypostatically united, but by reason of the Divinity, which dwells in that very humanity, not only through grace and efficiency, as Nestorius wished, but truly and really, as the Apostle explains in Colossians 2, where he says: In him dwells all the fullness of the Divinity corporally, that is, truly and substantially, as St. Augustine explains, Epistle 55. to Dardanus.

You will say 2. Where there is one thing and another, there are two persons and two supposita: but St. Augustine, in the Enchiridion, chapter 36, says that in Christ there is one thing and another; for he says: both natures, divine and human, in Christ are the one Son of God, but one thing on account of the man: therefore he acknowledges two persons in Christ. Similarly St. Leo, Epistle 10., says of Christ: One thing shines forth in miracles, another succumbs to injuries: therefore, etc.

I deny the major: For although where there is one other and another other adjectivally, there are diverse supposita, because an adjective noun especially denotes person: nevertheless not where there is one thing and another substantively: since substantive nouns primarily and especially connote person: therefore Augustine wished only, in this way of speaking, to acknowledge in Christ two natures: the divine, according to which he is equal to the Father, and the human, by reason of which he is inferior to the Father. Moreover, St. Augustine in the same book acknowledges the union of the two natures in the same suppositum of the divine Word: for he says in chapter 35: To the unity of person there was added to the Word a rational soul, and flesh. And in chapter 36: As every man is one person, namely a rational soul, and flesh: so Christ is one person, the Word, and man. As to St. Leo, it is most constant that he acknowledged one single person in Christ; being indeed the chief assertor and defender of that catholic truth.

You will say 3. In God essence and person are the same really: but the Incarnation was not made in the unity of nature: therefore neither in the unity of person: for the same real thing cannot be judged one, and not one.

I distinguish the major: Nature and person are the same really according to true and real identity, I concede: according to formal identity, I deny: for, as we said in the Treatise on the Trinity, the constitutive relations of the divine persons are distinguished formally from the essence: which distinction, since it suffices for instituting a diversity of persons in the divine things, although in them there is identity of essence, will also suffice for instituting the hypostatic union, or union in person, primarily and immediately, although secondarily and consequently the union is made in nature.

You will say 4. Where there are two passive generations, there must be two persons: but in Christ there are two passive generations, namely the divine and eternal one, by which the Word is begotten of the Father in the splendors of the saints; and another temporal and human one, by which he was born of the Virgin Mary: therefore in him there are two persons. The major stands; for every generation is terminated either to a suppositum, or to a person: therefore a twofold generation ought to be terminated to a twofold suppositum.

I deny the major, and of its proof I deny the consequence; for one and the same suppositum, by reason of a twofold nature, can terminate a twofold generation: because the suppositum terminates indeed as that-which, but the nature terminates as that-by-which, and after the manner of a formal and specificative term: therefore since the same suppositum of the Word is twofold virtually, because it has the power of terminating two natures, it can also be the terminus of a twofold generation.

You will say 5. Person is an individual substance of rational nature, but the Word assumed human nature in the individual, or in the atom, as St. Damascene asserts, book 3. On the Faith, chapter 11; therefore he assumed it subsisting by its own person.

I answer, in the definition of person the individual particle signifies the same as singular, or one in numerical unity: but not the same as a substance complete in itself, subsisting, incommunicable to another as a suppositum. In the former way the Word assumed human nature in the individual, that is, singular, but not universal; and one alone, not all and each: but in the latter way he did not assume it.

You will say 6. The Holy Fathers for the most part affirm that the Divine Word assumed man: thus Sts. Ambrose and Augustine in the hymn Te Deum, etc., say: Thou, about to assume man for the sake of delivering him, etc.: but this word man connotes a suppositum: therefore the Word assumed the suppositum of man; and hence there are two supposita in Christ.

I answer, the Holy Fathers used this way of speaking, employing the concrete for the abstract, and saying man in place of humanity, or human nature; for since the Nestorian heresy had not yet arisen, they spoke more freely and securely. Whence it could deservedly be retorted against the Nestorians what St. Augustine once retorted against the Pelagians, book 1. Against Julian, who relied on the authority of St. Chrysostom to defend their error: He did not judge it to be understood otherwise in the Catholic Church: for no one was pressed with such a question: while we were not yet contending, he spoke more securely.

Third Conclusion. — The Person of Christ can truly be said to be composite; yet not by a composition properly and strictly so called. This Conclusion consists of two parts, of which

The first part is proved, first by the authority of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod, which in its fourth Canon, or anathematism, pronounces anathema upon anyone denying the union of the Word with human nature according to composition, that is, according to hypostasis. The same is defined in the Sixth Synod, Act IV, in the Epistle of Pope Agatho to the Emperor Heraclius, and in Act 11, in the Epistle of Sophronius approved by the whole Council, where Christ is called a person composed from an inconfused constancy of temperament. — It is proved likewise by the authority of the holy Fathers. First of all by Dionysius in his book On the Divine Names, chapter 1, where he writes: God truly and wholly communicated Himself to our things in one of His hypostases, recalling to Himself and raising up the human extremity, from which in an inexplicable manner the simple Jesus was composed. Here the name hypostasis signifies not nature but person. In the same manner very many of the Fathers speak; for St. Ephrem, Patriarch of Antioch, as quoted by Photius, says: In the unition which is according to hypostasis, pious faith rightly professes composition: but no one dared to say that the essence is composed, except Apollinaris. Moreover, the Lord showing His hypostasis to be composite, but not His nature, etc. Cyril in his book On the Incarnation says: The Mediator of God and men is composed from our humanity according to its proper reason made perfect, and from Him who proceeds from God the Father according to the nature of the Son, that is, from the Only-begotten. Damascene, book 3, On the Faith, chapter 3: In the Lord Jesus Christ, he says, we acknowledge two natures, but one hypostasis composed from both. This is likewise the frequent manner of speaking among the other holy Fathers.

The second part is proved, namely that this composition is not properly and strictly so called: because true composition, properly so called, must be from act and potency, as from matter and form, or from two potential principles, such as those which with the Philosopher are called elements, and which integrate the total nature, as the Doctor speaks in dist. 3, q. 3, n. 2. But Christ is not composed in any of these ways, since the divine nature can have neither the ratio of act nor of potency, because potential being conflicts with God, who is the most actual and necessary being. The ratio of act also conflicts, because this is proper to created form; therefore composition truly and properly so called also conflicts. Further, every composition truly so called is made from parts: but the divine nature in Christ cannot have the ratio of a part, because every part is an incomplete being implying an order to another copart, that it may be completed by union with it. Hence St. Augustine, against Maximinus the Arian, chapter 10, denies that God is a part of Christ, in these words: Moreover Christ is one person of a twofold substance, because He is both God and man; yet God cannot be called a part of this person; otherwise the Son of God would not have been whole before He took the form of a servant, and His divinity would have grown with the man and been added on. Finally, everything perfectly composed in itself is more excellent than any of its components taken separately: but Christ is not something more perfect than the divine nature, or than the personality of the Word; therefore Christ is not something composed from the divine and human nature, or rather from humanity and the subsistence of the Word.

— Therefore when Christ is said to be composed from humanity and subsistence, it must be thus expounded, says the Doctor:

that there both the human and the divine nature are truly present, as if they composed the person: but they do not compose it, nor does any third thing come to be from them; but they remain distinct and confusedly united, as St. Damascene says in book 3, chapter 3, in these words: If according to the heretics Christ existed from one composite nature, He is turned from a simple nature into a composite one, and is neither called God nor man: just as we speak of man from soul and body, or of body from four elements, and neither component is such. It must therefore be expounded and said that the person is composite on account of the union of two natures, in which it subsists; but composition can more truly be denied: because neither did the one perfect the other, nor is there any third nature from them.

So the Doctor. By these words he plainly indicates that the person of Christ can indeed be said to be composite; yet not by a proper composition, which is made from parts one of which has the ratio of act and the other the ratio of potency; but only by an imperfect composition, whereby out of several things one thing comes to be, namely by a substantial or accidental union in virtue of the supposit, through which the two natures, united to each other, subsist. And this mode of composition St. Athanasius thus explains, in the book On the One Christ, if indeed it be his work: where, introducing heretics objecting that Christ is not composite, since from it it would follow that a part of the Word is the body, and that thereby the hypostasis of the Son of God is completed, and dissolving this argument, he says: God and man are one hypostasis and one person in such wise that the body is not completive of the hypostasis; for that would be impious, seeing that God is incapable of diminution, being uniform and not composite, nor divided into parts, etc.

All the objections usually brought against this Conclusion are easily dissolved by affirming that Christ is indeed said to be composite by an improper composition, which signifies only the union of two natures in one hypostasis; but not by a proper one, which demands that it be made from incomplete parts, one of which has the ratio of act, the other the ratio of potency; one being perfectible, the other perfective, as we said in the third Notable.

Note 1. That the term of the productive action is customarily distinguished as twofold: one namely total and adequate, the other formal. The total term is nothing other than the whole thing itself which comes to be through the action: thus in human generation the total term is the generated man, in whitening it is the white thing. The formal term, however, is that form by means of which the total term is completed and perfected: or the form which is the reason why the action itself is terminated to the total and adequate term: thus in whitening the whiteness produced is the formal ratio, or form, by which the thing becomes white. The former term is also called the term which, namely that which terminates the action totally and adequately; the latter is called the term whereby; because by means of it the action is terminated: thus in substantial generation the term which, or total term, is the supposit, or the composite of nature and subsistence: but the term whereby, or formal term, is the substantial form itself, by which the composite has being.

Note 2. That no controversy, or at least no weighty one, is found among Theologians concerning the total term of the unitive action, that is, of the assumption of humanity to the Word: for all agree that such a term is Christ, or the person composed of divine and human nature; namely the God-man, that is, the Divine Word subsisting in humanity; for He is the total and adequate term of the Incarnation who has being through the Incarnation: but Christ has being through the Incarnation; and therefore He is its term. But a grave difficulty, and one very intricate, is raised, especially among more recent Theologians, as to what is the formal term whereby, or unto which, of the hypostatic union; in resolving whose controversy Authors vary, and are divided especially into four opinions: The first is that of those who hold the formal term whereby, or unto which, of the Incarnation to be the personality of the Word. So Alvarez disp. 13, conclus. 3. The second opinion says that the formal term unto which of this action is the substantial mode of union, by which the Divine Word is said to be joined to the assumed humanity. So Suarez disp. 8, sect. 2. The third opinion contends that the term itself is the humanity, as united to the Word, so that union is a condition prerequisite to that termination. Thus teaches Vasquez disp. 19, cap. 2. Finally the fourth opinion contends that, since the hypostatic union can be considered in diverse ways — namely, either inasmuch as it is a communication of the divine subsistence, or inasmuch as it is an assumption of human nature, or insofar as it is a union of the divine nature with the human — although the Incarnation be one and the same action in reality, nevertheless according to these diverse considerations it has also diverse terms; which opinion indeed, as the more probable and truer, that it may be shown more evidently

Note 3. That although the Incarnation, or the unitive action of the divine nature with the human into the unity of person, be a simple and undivided action, common equally to the three adorable Persons; nevertheless, according to its diverse habitude and relation to diverse things, it also acquires various appellations, in virtue of which it can be called manifold. For if it be viewed with respect to the principle by which it is effected, it is called unition; if with respect to the divine nature, which is joined to the humanity, it is called communication, or transfusion, whereby the Divinity enters into the assumed humanity in a more intimate and peculiar manner than into other beings, to which it is present only by an infusion of immensity, whereby it fills heaven and earth, but not by the bond of personality, whereby it joins the divine nature with the human: finally, if the Incarnation be considered with respect to the nature assumed, it is called humanation, or incarnation: whereby God, summoning humanity into the fellowship of His Divinity, joined it forever with the closest bond of the same person. These things premised, let

First Conclusion. — The total and adequate term of the unitive and conjoining action of the Word with human nature is Christ, namely the God-man.

So commonly all Theologians, and

Proof: The total and adequate term of the unitive action of two extremes is the composite resulting from them: but Christ, inasmuch as He is God-man subsisting in the unity of person, is the composite resulting from the unitive action of the Divinity with humanity: therefore He is the total and adequate term of that unitive action. The major stands by induction, since the total and adequate term either of generation, or of composition, or of resurrection, is nothing other than the very composite resulting from parts united; for nothing else is intended by the unitive action than the composite resulting from the union of the extremes. The minor likewise stands from what has been said: since Christ is the very Word subsisting in our humanity according to the unity of person, by which the divine and human natures are joined together and subsist.

You will say: The total term of the Incarnation must be something created: but Christ is not something simply created: therefore He is not the total term of the Incarnation. The major appears, because every action performed in time is productive of something temporal: but the Incarnation was wrought in the fullness of time: therefore the term produced by it is temporal: but everything temporal is created, and hence the term of the incarnative action is something created. The minor also is true: since Christ connotes the Divine nature, by which He far excels the human, and the supposit of the Word, which is infinite and uncreated, He must even be called something uncreated; since denomination is taken from the nobler part: and consequently another term must be assigned as the total and adequate term of the incarnative action than Christ.

I answer, that the total and adequate term can be considered in a twofold manner: either materially and disjunctively, in virtue of the extremes from which it coalesces; or formally and copulatively, in virtue of the conjunction and union of both extremes. In the former way something uncreated and created, eternal and temporal, can be said, namely in virtue of the human and divine nature, and of the supposit of the Word: in the latter, however, it can be called simply something created, since that union is created — if you use the name creation broadly — not indeed for a thing, which it presupposes nothing of; for in truth union presupposes the divine and human nature; but inasmuch as it signifies the action by which something is made that before was not; for Christ was made in time through the unitive action of the Divinity with humanity in the unity of person: whence, since the composite, or total term of any substantial union, is not denominated from the parts taken in themselves, but from their union together, as is clear from the example of man, who is called mortal although he has an immortal soul, Christ can be said absolutely to be something created and temporal, because the union of Divinity with humanity was made in time; for "uncreated" denotes every negation of beginning and ceasing, and therefore if that adequate term were thus called uncreated in the ratio of term, it would be denied that this hypostatic union was made in time, which is plainly false, as appears from that saying of John: the Word was made flesh, and also from the Creed, wherein Christ is said to be conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and made man. Nor does it matter that neither the Word nor the divine nature, which hold the chief place in Christ, are something uncreated and eternal: for in order that some composite be said to be made formally, it is not necessary that the extremes have been produced through the action from which it results; but it suffices that they were joined together; for if anyone should unite a preexisting whiteness, separate, to a subject, he would truly produce white, although the extremes existed before the union: therefore although through the union of humanity to the Word neither the Word itself nor the divine nature itself be made, nevertheless Christ, resulting from that union, must no less on that account be called produced and temporal, because those extremes were joined together in time by the unitive action.

Second Conclusion. — The Incarnation considered as a communication of the divine substance has for its term the personality of the Word: as humanation or Incarnation, its term is the humanity: as unition, its formal term is union.

The three parts of this Conclusion are evident. The first indeed, for the formal term unto which of communication is that which is communicated: but the supposit of the Word is that which is formally communicated to the human nature: therefore according to this consideration, the supposit of the Word is the formal term of the Incarnation. The second part likewise becomes clear, for the formal term of the Incarnation, as it is humanation, is that which has in the total term quasi the ratio of form: but that from which Christ formally has it that He is man is the very humanity: therefore it is the formal term. Finally the third part stands likewise, namely that union is the formal term of the production, for the formal term of a productive action, as such, is that which is produced through the action itself, but that which is produced through unition is the union itself: therefore it is the formal term of the Incarnation, insofar as it is the unition of the divine nature with the human.

You will say: That has the ratio of formal term in the Incarnation which especially has the ratio of perfective form: but the Divine Word has the ratio of perfective form, for it is act terminating and perfecting the humanity, which is quasi matter terminated and perfected through the personality of the Word: therefore the formal term is the personality of the Word itself.

I distinguish the major: That which has the ratio of perfective form in the ratio of communication, I concede: in the ratio of unition or humanation, I deny. And similarly distinguishing the minor, I deny the consequence. Indeed I confess that the Divine Word can be called the formal term of the Incarnation, inasmuch as it is called a communication of the divine nature and of the personality of the Word, but not inasmuch as it is humanation or production.

You will urge: The Divine Word performs the same that a created personality would perform if present: but if a created personality were present, it would truly be a form actualizing the humanity, inasmuch as it is humanity: therefore the Word is the formal term of the humanity itself, and consequently of the Incarnation inasmuch as it is humanation.

I answer, that the Incarnation can be viewed either insofar as it tends to personal esse precisely and formally, or absolutely insofar as it tends that God be man. In the former way we can say that personality is the formal term, since that is that whereby personal esse is given: but absolutely, and insofar as God becomes man through the Incarnation, personality cannot precisely be called its formal term, since that of a created action and mutation; the Divine Word, eternal and immutable, cannot be called the formal term.

Note 1. That union is called immediate whereby two things are joined to each other without a medium: but by medium I here understand that without whose precedence one extreme would not be conjoined to the other. Now such a medium can be assigned as twofold: one indeed intrinsic, the other extrinsic. The intrinsic medium is that by which a thing is intrinsically coupled with another, namely through a substantial or essential union; and that is for the most part some part, either integral or essential, of one extreme: thus the heart or brain in the human body, since it is the reason of the union of the soul with it, without which the soul would not be united to the body, is called an intrinsic medium. But the extrinsic medium is that whereby the extremes are joined only accidentally: thus a quality disposing one extreme to its union with another — for instance dryness or heat for the introduction of the form of fire into a subject — is called an extrinsic medium. Moreover this extrinsic medium is of two kinds: for one is called of necessity, which is so necessary for the union of two things that, it not being posited, union does not follow, and, it being removed, union dissolves: thus natural heat in the human body is a medium necessary for the union and conservation of soul with body: the other is called a medium of congruity, without which indeed union can absolutely come about; yet it does not befit it to occur without it: such are merits with respect to the beatific union of a rational creature with God through vision and fruition: for God could beatify some adult without merits, yet it would not befit His justice, nor does divine providence prescribe an order whereby it decreed to bestow beatitude either as the inheritance of sons, or as the reward of laborers, or as the crown of victors.

Note 2. From the Seraphic Doctor in dist. 8, q. 6, art. 2, that union can be considered in two ways: either inasmuch as two things concur in nature; or inasmuch as they concur in person:

In the former way we may assert that such unity in Christ is in a certain way none, in a certain way great; in a certain way small, in a certain way supreme. For if we compare the divine nature to the human, so in Christ there is no unity of nature, because these two natures cannot together concur into one nature: but if we speak of the nature of Christ on the part of the body, so the unity is small, because of the multiplicity of parts: but if we speak of unity as regards the soul, so there is in Him a great unity because of the simplicity of the soul: but if we speak of Him as regards the divine nature, so the unity in Him is supreme because of the most excellent simplicity of that nature. — But if the discourse be made concerning the unity whereby certain things are said to be one by concurrence in person, a controversy arises among Authors whether that union be the greatest of all unions.

NOTABLE 3. That some two things are united in some third thing in a twofold way: First, as in a term produced and composed from those extremes; thus matter and form are united in the composite: Second, as by a common nexus and bond: thus two boards are united in glue, and two parts of quantity in a common term. In the former way, the greater the union and unity, the less the extremes differ from each other according to entity or essence. In the latter way, however, the union must be judged greater, the simpler and more indivisible that nexus is; and thus two parts of quantity are more united in an indivisible common term than are two boards in glue.

These things premised, two things are to be determined: first indeed, whether the hypostatic union is immediate: secondly, whether it is the greatest of all unions, both in virtue of the extremes and in virtue of the bond.

First Conclusion. — THE HYPOSTATIC UNION IS IMMEDIATE THROUGH THE EXCLUSION OF EVERY EXTRINSIC MEDIUM. This is gathered from what we said in the preceding Article, wherein we proved that through unition, or the incarnative action, nothing else is produced than a relation adventitious from without, whereby the extremes are said to be united formally.

It is proved moreover: if any medium were present in the union of the divine nature with the human, that medium would especially inhere in the humanity, for this alone is susceptive of accident: but it is not so. I prove it: if any medium had been infused into the humanity before it was assumed by the Word, it would have been either grace or some other accident: but not only was such a medium not infused into the humanity; it could not even have been present: therefore there was none. The major is evident. The minor is proved: that which pertains to the substantial complement of a created nature is prior in it to any accident whatsoever: but the supposit of the Word, as bearing the office of a created supposit, pertains to the substantial complement of the assumed humanity: therefore it is priorly united to it than any accident is received. The major is certain: since it is prior that some subject be complete in the ratio of subject than that it be susceptive of any accident; but a substance is not completed in the ratio of subject unless it has its substantial complement.

You will say 1. Matter and form are not united without prior dispositions, which are extrinsic media: therefore dispositions are likewise required on the part of the humanity, that it be made apt for the hypostatic union. — I deny the parity; since in the humanity to be united with the Word there are no contrary dispositions which must be expelled by contrary qualities; such as exist in matter informed by the form of water or wood, e.g., with respect to the form of fire to be received. For there is no repugnance on the part of humanity, that it be terminated by the personality of the Word: for if there were anything repugnant, it would especially be its own personality, which, since it is absent, cannot stand in the way of this hypostatic union.

You will say 2. For the beatific union of the soul with God some extrinsic medium is prerequisite in the soul; for instance the light of glory in the intellect, and the habit of charity in the consummated will; therefore by equal reason some extrinsic medium is required on the part of the assumed nature for the hypostatic union, whereby it may become capable of that union and assumption. — I deny the parity: because the beatific union comes about through the operation of the faculties of intellect and will, and for that operation it is necessarily prerequisite that those faculties be complete in the ratio of an operator, and proportioned to the supernatural object; and they cannot be so without an accidental medium completing them in first act and elevating them to the supernatural state: but such a medium is not required on the part of the assumed nature; but it suffices that it be in obediential potency with respect to the Word assuming it: for if some supernatural accident were prerequisite, whereby it might be presented in a supernatural state proximately apt for that assumption, a process would go on to infinity; since for the reception of that natural medium it would have to be prepared through another medium, which indeed no one would admit.

Second Conclusion. — THE HYPOSTATIC UNION ON THE PART OF THE UNITED EXTREMES IS NOT THE GREATEST OF ALL: BUT SUCH IT CAN BE CALLED IN VIRTUE OF THE BOND, OR OF THE SUPPOSIT OF THE WORD, WHEREBY THOSE NATURES ARE JOINED TO EACH OTHER. This is common as regards both parts. The Doctor teaches both in dist. 3, 6, n. 9, q. 1, where answering the authority of St. Bernard, who teaches the hypostatic union to be the greatest of all, he says first: Here is not the greatest unity: because here is the greatest distinction of natures. In the second way the greatest unity after the unity of the Trinity can be conceded, because one itself, unity in itself is most perfect, because the one is infinite, and the other is a substance perfect in itself, and from the union of it to the remainder it is most perfect through the communication of idioms, because it is God. — By these words the Doctor says first, that union not to be the greatest of all in virtue of the extremes; because any union is the less great on the part of the extremes the more those extremes differ from each other; hence the union of accident and subject is lesser than that of matter and form, because subject and accident differ more and have a less proportion than matter and form: but the divine and human natures have less proportion to each other; since they have no inclination toward the hypostatic union, and differ more from each other than matter and form: therefore on this account the hypostatic union is not the greatest and strictest of all unions. Further, that union is the less great, the more its extremes recede from identity and unity: but the divine and human natures recede more from identity and unity in Christ than matter and form in a physical composite: since those two natures, wholly distinct according to their entity, have distinct faculties and properties in Christ: but not so matter and form, which coalesce into a third entity. Finally, that union is the less great which makes its extremes less united to each other: but this union makes its extremes, namely the divine and human nature, less united to each other than does the union of substance with its own proper subsistence, because in the latter the extremes are quasi the same with each other really; in the former they are wholly really distinct from each other: therefore the hypostatic union in virtue of the extremes is not the greatest of all.

The second part the Seraphic Doctor above praised thus proves, namely, that the hypostatic union in virtue of the person, in whom the two natures, divine and human, concur, is the greatest of all. He proves it, I say, by a fourfold reason: namely on account of the simplicity of that person, because the union is in the person of the Word, which indeed is most simple. 2. On account of the dignity of the unibles, because both the assuming and the assumed nature hold excellence among the rest of things that are. 3. On account of inseparability, because the union of those natures is fortified by so strong a bond that separation never occurs, nor can occur; for that nature among the other natures adhered to the eternal Word, by which everything that is under Him is borne and sustained. 4. Finally on account of singularity, because never was any union like to this. And St. Bernard confirms this book 5, On Consideration, chapter 5, where having enumerated nine modes of union, he concludes that the union of the Trinity is the greatest, and that next to it is joined the union of incarnation: Among all things that are rightly called one, holds the citadel the unity of the Trinity: whereby three persons are one substance: in second place excels that where conversely three substances are one in the person of Christ. Wherefore the same Bernard, subjoining, asserts Divinity to have been stronger in joining flesh to itself than soul to body, because the soul is separated from the body by death, but not so the flesh from the divinity of Christ by the Passion: for what the Word once assumed, He never laid aside. Hence St. Leo, serm. 17, On the Passion: Into so great a unity has the nature of God and man come together, that it could neither be broken by punishment nor sundered by death.

You will say 1. Things most distant are least unible, and things least unible least make one: but divinity and humanity are most distant: therefore they are least unible; and consequently the union which is in Christ is in the lowest grade of all unions. — I distinguish the major: Things most distant, both according to entity and according to influence, will be least unible, I concede: only according to entity, I deny. To the minor I say that God indeed differs infinitely from the creature according to essence; yet not according to influence and the sustentation of the creature; for on this account He is most approximated to it, and therefore the unity between Creator and creature can be greatest, according to the ratio of the sustainer, such as exists in personal union.

You will say 2. The fewer principles something consists of, the more it is one: but in Christ is found a greater plurality of natures than in any other being, whether created or uncreated: therefore in Him is less unity than in other beings. — I distinguish the major: The fewer principles something consists of, the more it is one by a union made through composition and constitution of parts, I concede: otherwise, I deny. But the unity which is in Christ does not result from the composition of natures and the constitution of parts; but only from their sustentation through the same indivisible and most simple supposit of the Word; and hence the unity of Christ is not the least.

You will say 3. That which is one in nature and person is more one than that which is so in person only: but every man has unity in nature and person: Christ however has unity in nature only: therefore a greater perfection of unity is in every man than in Christ. — The Seraphic Doctor distinguishes the major: When the unity of person follows the unity of nature, he concedes: then indeed composition in nature makes also composition in person: otherwise he denies. But in Christ the unity of person precedes the unity of the assumed nature: hence the assumed nature induces no composition with the assuming Word, at least no composition properly so called and perfect, as we said above.

IN WHAT MANNER, AND BY WHAT, THE DIVINE WORD TERMINATED AND ASSUMED THE HUMAN NATURE.

NOTABLE 1. That although all Theologians agree that only the second Person of the most holy Trinity assumed humanity, and that He terminates it hypostatically as the what, nevertheless they dispute among themselves concerning the primary formal reason by which the Word first and formally terminates humanity; whether namely through absolute subsistence, common to the three divine persons, or through a relative, personal, and proper one; for we said in the treatise On the Trinity that in God there are three relative subsistences, whereby the divine persons are constituted in personal esse and really distinguished from each other. We said likewise that besides those relative and incommunicable subsistences there is given in God, considered in itself and as preintelligized for the persons, an absolute subsistence, whereby the divine nature subsists per se — not indeed incommunicably, in the manner in which the persons do, but communicably, as the essence itself: because God, as preintelligized by relations and persons, operates as the what; for it is said: God creates, governs, conserves: whence since operations belong only to subsistents, God, thus considered, must have subsistence.

NOTABLE 2. That the divine nature agrees in some way with the ratio of assuming; for thus teach very many of the holy Fathers. Augustine *lib. 1. De Trinitate: The form, he says, of God took the nature of a servant, where by the name of form he signifies nature. St. Leo in serm. 5, On the Nativity:

Therefore with the property of both substances preserved, and coming together into one person, is taken up by Majesty humility, by power infirmity, by eternity mortality: and to render due what was owed to our condition, the inviolable nature is united to the passible. And true God and true man are tempered into the unity of the Lord, so that what befitted our remedies, one and the same Mediator of God and men could both die from the one and rise again from the other.

St. Damascene book 3, cap. 6: We say the nature of God has become incarnate, according to SS. Athanasius and Cyril. But since the assumption of nature signifies two things, namely the principle of action and its term, the Theologians agree that the divine nature of itself agrees in being the radical and remote principle of the assumption of humanity; since from it, as from a root, arises the whole proximate and immediate force of terminating, which is found in the relative subsistence of the Divine Word, because the divine essence according to its absolute subsistence is the root and principle of the personality of the Word itself. But the difficulty is whether even to the absolute subsistence itself there properly and immediately belongs the terminating of the assumed humanity, for whose difficulty's resolution the Theologians vary.

NOTABLE 3. That especially a threefold capital opinion of Theologians is assigned for the resolution of the present difficulty: The first is Durandus', in dist. 3, 1, q. 2, contending that the hypostatic union was immediately made to the absolute subsistence of God, and the first ratio of terminating the union is the subsistence not relative and personal of the Word, but essential or absolute of the divine nature: to whom subscribe on their part Capreolus in dist. 3, 1, q. 1, Marsilius in q. 1, art. 1, Francis Victoria, and Dominic Soto, teaching that the Word terminates the union of humanity in virtue of the absolute subsistence, not taken precisely, but as modified by the relative property of the Son: so that the absolute subsistence is the formal ratio of terminating, while the relation or personality of the Word is only a condition sine qua non: in that proportional manner in which generative potency in the Father is constituted through the Divine Essence, which nevertheless requires as a condition the relation of Paternity, by which it is modified. But the second opinion denies the ratio of terminating to be a relative or absolute property, but, so to speak, the whole entity of the Word, which includes both ratios. So teaches Ocham in q. 3, 1, art. 2, to whom Gabriel somewhat assents, dist. 1, notable 5. Finally the third is that of all the other princes of Theology, Alexander of Hales, part 3, q. 4, member 1, St. Bonaventure in dist. 3, 1, art. 1, q. 2, St. Thomas part 3, q. 3, art. 2, the Subtle Doctor dist. 1, q. 5, and all their Disciples, to whom let us subscribe. First Conclusion. — THE FIRST AND IMMEDIATE FORMAL RATIO WHEREBY THE DIVINE WORD TERMINATES HUMANITY IS NOT ABSOLUTE AND COMMON SUBSISTENCE, BUT RELATIVE AND PERSONAL.

It is proved first by the authority of the sixth and eleventh Councils of Toledo in the confession of faith in these words: The Incarnation of the Son the whole Trinity wrought, because the works of the Trinity are inseparable: yet the Son alone took the form of a servant in the singularity of person, not in the unity of divine nature, in that which is proper to the Son, not that which is common to the Trinity: but if humanity had first been united to the absolute subsistence, truly the Son would have received humanity in that which is common to the Trinity, since such absolute subsistence, like the Divine Essence, is common to the three persons: therefore according to the definition of the Council it must be asserted that humanity was not immediately united to the absolute and common subsistence, but to the relative and personal one, whereby the Son is constituted in personal esse and distinguished from the Father and the Holy Spirit. It is confirmed from the sixth general Synod, Act 8, where toward the end it is said that only the Word became incarnate, because the Father and the Holy Spirit have nothing in common in the incarnation except their most benign will: but if humanity had been united immediately to the absolute and common subsistence of God, the Father and the Holy Spirit would have communicated with the Son not only in will and in every operation, but also in the termination of humanity; since that termination would have been common to the three persons: therefore according to the opinion of the Council, humanity was not primarily and immediately united to the common and absolute subsistence, but to the relative and personal subsistence of the Word.

It is proved secondly by the authority of the holy Fathers: and especially of St. Dionysius, book On the Divine Names, chapter 2, whose testimony is praised in the Synod shortly mentioned: for he says:

But it is distinct in the divine works benignly abiding in us, that the supersubstantial Word fully and truly took substance from us and according to us: and wrought and bore those things which are chosen and preeminent in His own assumption of humanity: for neither stone nor spirit communicate in them in any way, unless perhaps one assert that, by benignity and clemency and communication of will, and in every most supereminent and ineffable divine operation, whereby man was made for us immutable, certainly God, and the Word of God, they too were made partakers.

The same opinion, taken from him, St. Damascene sets forth, book 3, On the Faith, cap. 6. But if humanity had been united to the Word of God not only in virtue of His personal property, but also in virtue of the common subsistence, and that primarily, as Durandus opines, not by will alone and efficacy, but also in some manner of real union, the Father and the Holy Spirit would have communicated in the mystery of the Incarnation: which St. Dionysius plainly denies: therefore, etc. To these accedes St. Anselm, book On the Incarnation, cap. 1, where disputing against certain who said that when the Son of God was incarnate, it was necessary that the Father and the Holy Spirit be incarnate too, unless person were distinguished from nature really, says: He who rightly receives His Incarnation believes that He did not assume man into the unity of nature, but into the unity of person: but this man (namely he against whom he was writing) dreams that the man of the Son of God was more assumed into the unity of nature than into the unity of person: for if he held this opinion, he would not say, more is it necessary that the Father be incarnate together with the Son, than possible that He be not incarnate at once, because there are several persons. By these words Anselm plainly concludes that the union of human nature was made in that which is proper to one person, lest we be compelled to assert it was made in nature, and hence with all the persons.

From these authorities I also establish the conclusion by reason, which the Subtle Doctor n. 5 thus weighs: if personal property be not the ratio of terminating immediately the assumed nature, the absolute subsistence of God will perform this: but the consequent is false, therefore also the antecedent. The major stands, since in God there is subsistence of only two kinds: namely absolute and essential, and relative and personal. The minor is proved: if the formal and proximate ratio whereby the Word terminates humanity were the absolute subsistence of God, it would follow that the three Persons of the most holy Trinity terminate the union of human nature, and consequently can be called incarnate: but this conflicts with faith and the definition of Councils and the doctrine of the holy Fathers: therefore, etc. The sequence of the major is proved: that formally terminates in which is the formal ratio of terminating: for the supposit of the Word does not terminate except because it has the formal ratio of terminating: just as it does not create except because the ratio of creating belongs to it formally, etc. But absolute subsistence is formally in the three persons; since each of them is formally God: therefore if that formal and proximate ratio of terminating the union of humanity be the very essential subsistence which is formally in the three persons, then also in them will be the formal ratio of terminating, and consequently they will terminate the assumed humanity; therefore since to become incarnate is nothing else than to terminate the assumed nature, the three persons could truly be called incarnate, which is absurd. — It is confirmed, therefore the person of the Son is immediately united to human nature, because in it is given the ratio of hypostatically terminating immediately human nature: but if that immediate ratio of terminating be absolute subsistence, as Durandus holds, since this belongs equally to all persons — for absolute and essential things are common to the whole Trinity — it follows that no less must the Father and the Holy Spirit be called man than the Word: since the Father and the Holy Spirit have the formal ratio of terminating the assumed nature no less than the Son Himself.

Durandus replies that the consequence does not hold. For, he says, in order that persons be called incarnate, or substantially united to humanity, a twofold union of the humanity itself is required: The first indeed to the absolute and common subsistence: The second truly to the personal and relative property: whence since humanity has been united to the Word not only according to the absolute and common subsistence but also according to the relative and personal property, while the other persons are united to it only according to the absolute and common subsistence; hence it is that only the Son can be called incarnate, but not the Father or the Holy Spirit. — On the contrary, that which belongs to the divine nature of itself and by reason of itself belongs also to the three divine persons, and is predicated of them: therefore if it belong to the divine nature primarily and per se to terminate humanity inasmuch as it is common to the three persons, that same will equally belong to those persons. The antecedent stands; for since creating belongs to the divine nature inasmuch as it is this God, it likewise equally belongs to the three persons. Further, the assumption of humanity taken actively, or as the principle of the union of divine nature with human, undividedly belongs to the three persons, because primarily and per se it belongs to God inasmuch as He is this God subsisting with absolute subsistence: therefore if terminating immediately human nature thus competes primarily to the divine nature, it will by like reason belong to the three persons. Finally, it is unheard-of to admit two unions in Christ: one mediated, whereby humanity is united to the personal property of the Divine Word: another immediate, whereby humanity itself is joined to the divine nature: yet from the hypothesis, that union is made immediately in the divine essence or absolute subsistence, there will be a twofold union, one in essence, another in the personality of the divine Word: therefore, etc. The major stands: since of this twofold union, which Durandus gratuitously invents, no mention is made either among the holy Fathers or among Councils: nay rather most constantly does it appear from them that there is only one union in Christ, whereby humanity is joined to the Word and to the divine essence.

You will reply, that the same argument works against us; for if humanity is terminated primarily to the Word and secondarily to the divine nature, a twofold union must be admitted; one primary between humanity and the personality of the Word; another secondary, of the humanity itself to the divine nature: therefore we argue against our own opinion. — I deny the antecedent: for when we posit that humanity is terminated primarily by the personality of the Word, and secondarily by the divine nature, in this we do not distinguish a twofold union, but only a single one. For in saying that the divine nature is the second term, we do not understand that there is some union terminated primarily to the personality of the Word, and another mediated, which secondarily is terminated to nature; but only that the very same union has two terms: one indeed immediate, namely the personality of the Word: the other truly mediated, namely the divine nature: after the manner in which similarity between two white things is primarily terminated to whiteness, or the concrete white thing; secondarily however to the substance wherein whiteness inheres.

Second Conclusion. — THE DIVINE WORD DOES NOT TERMINATE HUMANITY IMMEDIATELY THROUGH ABSOLUTE SUBSISTENCE, AS MODIFIED BY ITS PERSONAL PROPERTY AS THROUGH A CONDITION WITHOUT WHICH NOT. So the Doctor in the place cited num. 6, which truth he thus proves: No supposit can be a condition required so that the divine essence be in it the formal proximate and immediate ratio for performing something, such that it not be such in other supposits, unless because that supposit, in which it has that it be such a formal ratio, precedes the term unto which that formal ratio is ordered to produce or acquire. E.g., the supposit of the Father would not be a condition required so that the divine essence be in Him the formal and actual ratio of generating the Word, except because the supposit of the Father precedes in origin the term of that divine generation, namely the Word: but each divine person precedes the hypostatic union: therefore if the divine essence be in some supposit the formal ratio of terminating, it will be likewise in the other two divine supposits. The major stands, because therefore the Father and the Son breathe the Holy Spirit, and active spiration, which comes about through the will as through the formal principle whereby, proceeds from both, because the will is in both prior in origin than the Father and the Son have relation to the Holy Spirit; and thus in them the formal ratio of spirating precedes in origin the produced term; and conversely although through circumincession the generative power is in the Son, and the spirative in the Holy Spirit, nevertheless neither does the Son generate nor does the Spirit breathe forth, because the formal ratio of generating and breathing forth is not conceived to be in them before the terms of generation and active spiration are conceived as produced. And therefore the three persons create and operate ad extra indivisibly, because namely omnipotence, which is the formal ratio of producing and the principle of acting ad extra, is equally in the three persons before that production is made and the term to be produced exists: therefore similarly, since the formal ratio of divine subsistence is in the three divine persons before the assumption of humanity is made, if that be the immediate ratio of terminating such an assumption, it will equally belong to the three persons.

Further, if the Son were to terminate humanity not through His own proper and personal subsistence, but through the absolute and common one, as appropriated to the Word, the person of the Word, as distinguished from the Father and the Holy Spirit, could not be said to terminate humanity: but this is erroneous, and condemned in the Third Council of Toledo praised above, where it is said that the Son alone assumed humanity in that which is proper to the Son: therefore, etc. The sequence of the major appears: because since the power of creating, e.g., is common to the three persons, the Son cannot through that power appropriated to Himself, or determined to Himself through the relation of filiation, produce anything without the Father and the Holy Spirit producing the same: therefore since absolute subsistence is common to the three persons, the Son cannot through it specially terminate humanity, however much it be modified toward Himself and determined by personal subsistence.

Finally, if the divine Word were to terminate humanity only through the absolute subsistence, modified by His personal subsistence, it would follow that He communicates to the assumed humanity not His proper personality, but only the common and absolute subsistence. It is proved: therefore the Father, communicating the essence to the Son, does not communicate paternity to Him, because the essence, in which is the primary force of generating, requires Paternity only as a condition sine qua non that the divine generation occur: therefore similarly if the formal and proximate ratio of terminating humanity in the Son be absolute subsistence, and the property or personal relation of the Son intervene only as a condition, the consequence will be that the Son will communicate to humanity only absolute subsistence, not personal.

You will say 1. Through that ratio it agrees with the Word to terminate formally the hypostatic union whereby He virtually contains the perfection of a created supposit, and is capable of terminating the obediential potency of the creature: but these agree with Him in virtue of absolute, not personal subsistence; therefore the Word terminates primarily through absolute, not relative subsistence. — The Doctor denies the major, because, as we have said elsewhere on his authority, the formal terminative ratio in the Word is not sought from virtual containment; but only from independence in the ratio of supposit; since the divine Word does not terminate humanity after the manner of an efficient and producing cause, but only after the manner of a terminating supposit, to whom terminative power belongs precisely because in Himself and of Himself He has the ratio of a wholly independent supposit.

You will say 2. That whereby it agrees with a divine person to be the term of the assumption of human nature is that whereby it agrees with Him to subsist: but it agrees with a divine person to subsist through absolute, not relative subsistence: therefore the Word terminates humanity primarily and immediately through absolute subsistence. — I distinguish the major: That whereby it agrees with Him to subsist essentially, I deny: personally, I concede; for human nature is terminated by that whereby it is lastly constituted in personal esse. Similarly distinguishing the minor, I deny the consequence.

You will say 3. The personality of the Word is something identical with the divine nature: therefore it terminates humanity no more immediately through its proper subsistence than through the common and absolute subsistence. I distinguish the antecedent: Identical really, I concede: formally, I deny: whence the consequence must be denied: for just as the formal distinction, which exists between paternity and the Divine Essence, suffices so that the essence be communicated to the Son, the personality not being communicated; so the formal distinction of filiation from the divine nature suffices so that filiation immediately terminates humanity, although with the same immediacy the Divine Essence does not terminate.

You will say 1. From the immediate union of humanity with divinity does not follow personal union with the three divine persons, nor consequently that the three divine persons are incarnate: therefore there is no ratio whereby especially the two preceding Conclusions are established. The consequence is evident. The antecedent is proved: because if this followed, it would be especially by reason of the connexion of persons in one essence, or from the habitude of the persons among themselves: but not the first, because the divine persons are united in essence, and yet one is not the other, nor in the other, except by reason of essence: nor even the second, because that habitude is of opposition or distinction, whereby one person is distinguished from another, because relatively opposed to it: but this habitude rather shows that human nature can be united to one person, and not another: therefore, etc.

I deny the antecedent: for thence truly follows that human nature would be substantially united to the three persons, because it would be united to them in the common substantial bond, namely subsistence: whence also it would follow that the three persons are incarnate, because the three persons are one God, since they are united in one essence as in a common bond, although one is not the other, nor in the other except by reason of essence. Wherefore just as the three persons are one God because they are united in one common Divine Essence, so the three persons would be man because they would be united in the humanity assumed to essence and common existence. Nor does the parity of the union of the divine relations with the Divine Essence avail, because therefore the divine persons on account of that union are not the same, since the Divine Essence together with those relations has no opposition, and can be identified with them; but those relations are opposed to each other, and therefore constitute distinct persons. Therefore since humanity has no opposition with the relative properties, it is rightly inferred that if it were immediately united to the absolute and common subsistence, it would also be united at least mediately to the three persons.

You will say finally. When the divine Word assumed humanity, either He bestowed upon it absolute and essential esse, or only relative esse: if the first, therefore through absolute subsistence: for what is absolute and essential cannot be bestowed through the relative: but the latter cannot be said, because a human person is something absolute; and hence it could not be supplied by something relative. — I answer. That the divine Word did not bestow upon humanity His relative subsistence; nor does that stand in the way: since humanity indeed subsists absolutely when it has its own subsistence, not when it has an alien one: for then it puts on the ratio of that subsistence communicated to it: whence the person of Christ could be called relative; because that person is nothing else than filiation, which formally is relative.

WHETHER THE ABSOLUTE SUBSISTENCE OF GOD, COMMON TO THE THREE PERSONS, CAN ASSUME HUMAN NATURE AND UNITE IT TO ITSELF IMMEDIATELY.

Note 1. It is certain that if God were not triune in Persons, but existed in one person only, as the Jews and other unbelievers who deny the mystery of the Trinity suppose, He could assume a nature not His own and unite it to Himself immediately; for in that hypothesis He would have omnipotence, and likewise absolute personality, whereby He would be constituted in the rationality of person: and since this would be infinite in subsisting and terminating, He would have the power of terminating and subsisting all that which is sustainable and terminable, because His power in terminating would not be lesser than it now is in the relative personality and subsistence of the Word, whose infinite terminative virtue proceeds from absolute subsistence as from its first root, which is imbibed into the relative subsistences constitutive of the divine persons. The sole difficulty and controversy, therefore, among Theologians concerns whether the absolute subsistence, by which the individual of the Deity, or this God in number, who subsists in three persons, inasmuch as He prescinds from the relative subsistences, could assume human nature and unite it to Himself immediately. That this may be resolved more evidently,

Note 2. A subsistence of two kinds is admitted in God: one indeed absolute and common; others truly relative and personal; such are the subsistences of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Of the latter subsistences there is no controversy among Theologians, for since it is of faith that the three divine persons are really distinct from one another, it follows that each of them has its own subsistence, by which they are constituted in their personal being and distinguished from another. But some Theologians deny that there is in God any absolute and common subsistence which belongs to the divine nature so as to make it truly subsistent per se, inasmuch as it prescinds from the divine persons. Now the nobler and more common opinion of Theologians is that such absolute subsistence must be admitted, as we proved in the tract. De Trinitate: since by absolute subsistence we understand nothing else than that mode of the divine essence by which, as it prescinds from the persons, it is a complete substance existing per se, that is independently of any subject by which it might be sustained, and of any part by which it might be completed, and likewise incommunicable to any extrinsic complement really distinct from itself: but no one can deny that the divine nature, as it prescinds from the persons, is a complete substance existing per se, and incommunicable to any extrinsic complement really distinct from itself: therefore there should be no doubt that there exists that which we understand by the name of absolute subsistence. Under this very name St. Augustine designates it, lib. 1. De Trinit. cap. 4., when he says that the Divine nature subsists toward itself (that is, subsists by absolute subsistence): For every substance grows toward itself; how much more God? Hence Pope Agatho, in the decretal Epistle which is cited in the 6th Synod, art. 1., says: We confess God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, not three Gods, but one God: not the substance of three names subsisting, but one substance of three subsistences, — by which words he does not deny the relative and personal subsistence, about which chiefly at that time was the controversy.

Note 3. Two things can be considered and distinguished in created subsistence: one which completes the nature itself, which without personality would be incomplete and imperfect: another which renders it further incommunicable, so that it is the ultimate term of that nature: which two are so joined in created things that nothing created can cause the one without also effecting the other. But it is otherwise in things divine, for the divine essence, as prescinded from the divine persons, since it is infinite, is completely perfect in every way in the rationality of nature, yet it is not incommunicable: indeed it is communicated to the three adorable persons; whence absolute subsistence signifies the divine nature indeed complete and infinitely perfect; but it is rendered personally incommunicable through the relative and personal subsistences: whence the Doctor rightly says, in 3. dist. 5. q. 1. n. 2., that if it belong to the rationale of the assumer to render the nature incommunicable, God cannot, by His absolute subsistence, be the term of human nature, nor assume it immediately, since by that subsistence He cannot render it incommunicable. Therefore there remains only this difficulty to be solved, whether God can, by that absolute subsistence, so immediately assume human nature as to terminate its dependence with respect to sustentation, and make it perfectly complete.

Single Conclusion. — THE DIVINE NATURE, AS IT PRESCINDS FROM THE PERSONS AND SUBSISTS BY ABSOLUTE SUBSISTENCE, CAN TERMINATE THE DEPENDENCE OF A CREATED NATURE: AND RENDER IT SUBSISTENT. So the Doctor, in the place just praised, and dist. 1. q. 2. n. 6., where he says:

But that the essence itself existing per se could be the proximate term of that union seems so, because it has no being from a person, but is naturally prior to the person's existence and gives being to the person: for it is a nature of itself this, and subsistent per se: although not incommunicably. Moreover, it seems that incommunicability is not necessarily the proper rationale of terminating this dependence, but singular subsistence.

By which I prove the Conclusion thus: Proof: A being subsisting per se by absolute subsistence, and altogether independent of another so as to be completed, and consequently having unlimited and infinite power in the rationality of subsisting, has all that is required to assume and unite to itself an alien nature, and to render it subsistent: now the Divine Essence thus regarded is of this kind; for it is infinite in the rationality of existing and subsisting, and altogether independent of another, both that it exist in another as in a subject, and that it be completed by another as by a part; therefore it has infinite power, and altogether independent, to exist and subsist.

The minor is evident. The major also stands, for on no other account did we say the Divine Word can, by His relative subsistence, assume and unite to Himself human nature, than because He has infinite power and altogether independent in the rationality of subsisting, at least by identical infinity, inasmuch as namely His subsistence is imbued with and identified with the absolute subsistence, by which it is altogether infinite; therefore by equal reason this absolute subsistence will be able to terminate the dependence of human nature, and render it perfectly subsistent.

Proved secondly: If anything stood in the way why that absolute subsistence could not effect a nature absolutely subsistent, it would be chiefly because, since this absolute subsistence is communicable to the three persons, just as the essence is, it could not render the assumed nature incommunicable: but this reason does not obstruct. First, because created subsistence renders a nature incommunicable only with respect to supposites distinct from itself: but that absolute divine subsistence is incommunicable with respect to supposites really distinct from itself; indeed the persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to whom this nature together with absolute subsistence is communicated, are not really distinct from the divine essence and absolute subsistence, for they are one God: therefore that absolute subsistence can render a nature incommunicable to another supposite really distinct from itself; and consequently it will effect it incommunicable with that incommunicability by which it suffices for the rationale of subsistence and supposite. — Then, proper subsistence has this especially peculiar to it, that it renders a nature actually independent of some supposite immediately, and in this immediate independence consists chiefly the rationale of its incommunicability: but by the very fact that human nature would depend totally upon absolute subsistence, it could not depend further immediately upon the divine persons, but only mediately: therefore by this reason it would be no less rendered incommunicable by the absolute subsistence than by the proper one. Add to these, that it is not our opinion that absolute subsistence can of itself supply every effect which a supposite and personality perform; but only that it can perform the primary effect of that, which consists in the complement of the nature; so that the nature is rendered subsistent completely complete and perfect substantially, nor does it need further complement: but this complement the absolute subsistence itself can perform: therefore it can effect a certain nature subsistent; and presently it can assume it.

It is confirmed: For the complement which a singular human nature needs, and which it receives from its own or an alien personality, is a complement prerequisite to actions; whence that common saying: actions belong to supposites: but the divine nature, as it prescinds from personalities, has every complement prerequisite to actions, both ad intra and ad extra: therefore thus considered it can complete a created nature no less than a created personality can.

I prove the minor with respect to actions ad extra: it is certain, for, that God, as one without any multiplication of persons, and consequently without any relative personality of Paternity, Filiation, and active and passive Spiration, could operate by means of absolute subsistence, and produce whatever He produces ad extra: for God acts ad extra not as triune, but as one. The same minor is evident with respect to operations ad intra: for those do not necessarily presuppose personality; for the productive action of the Son, namely the active generation of the Father, and His Paternity, is the very personality of the Father, and presupposes nothing besides the singular Divine Essence as existing per se: therefore the singular Divine Essence has also every complement prerequisite to actions ad intra, nor is it completed through the divine personalities, as created nature is completed through created personality: which is indeed most true in the opinion of the Doctor, teaching that the divine personalities and relations do not import perfection formally; for what does not say formally perfection cannot formally complete, or perfect, the divine nature.

You will object 1. The divine essence, as it prescinds from relations, does not have absolute subsistence: therefore as thus considered it cannot terminate the union of human nature. The antecedent is proved: First, because the divine nature has from its existence all that which it could have from any absolute subsistence superadded to it: therefore that absolute subsistence is admitted in vain and without any foundation. Secondly, if the Divine Essence had absolute subsistence, it would follow that in God there would be given an absolute supposite, and an absolute person, and consequently then there would be four persons in God: which is heretical. Thirdly, subsistence is the ultimate term of the nature which it affects: but the Divine Essence, as prescinded into the personalities, has nothing which may be its ultimate term, otherwise it would be incommunicable to the three persons; therefore it does not have absolute subsistence; and consequently the principal argument of our assertion falls.

I deny the antecedent; and to its first proof I say, that if its antecedent were true, the absolute existence of the Divine Essence would be its very subsistence, which certainly in no way conflicts with us. But as to the truth of the matter, and conformably to the doctrine of the Subtle Doctor, I judge that the absolute subsistence of the Divine Essence is distinguished from its existence in no other way than by name alone, or by a distinction of reason ratiocinative only; for the Doctor, in the places praised above, asserts that the Divine Essence, as existing per se, can terminate the union of human nature; and consequently he uses subsistence for existence.

To the second proof, I deny the sequel of the major: for by supposite and person is commonly understood that which is altogether incommunicable; but since the nature assumed by that absolute subsistence would not be altogether incommunicable, but could further be communicated to the divine persons, and be terminated ultimately by them, therefore properly it could not be called person, but only a singular substance complete substantially.

To the third proof: I distinguish the major: it belongs to the rationale of subsistence to be the ultimate term, inasmuch as it is created subsistence or divine personal and relative subsistence — I concede: it belongs to the rationale of subsistence as such, or inasmuch as it is absolute divine subsistence — I deny. Therefore I deny that it belongs to the rationale of subsistence as such to be the formal complement of nature, because every subsistence would have to complete the nature substantially, and thus divine personal and relative subsistence would complete the divine nature, which is false, because of itself, and per se, it is completely perfect in every way in the rationality of nature. Nor does it belong to the rationale of that subsistence, as such, to be the ultimate term of the incommunicability of nature, because otherwise absolute subsistence would render a nature altogether incommunicable. Whence I do not judge that there can be given any one determinate concept of subsistence as such, which would belong univocally to every subsistence, both relative and absolute.

You will urge: Doctor Subtilis in 3. dist. 1|ordinatio:liber.3/distinctio.1. qu. 1. teaches that a person can assume because it is incommunicable: but the divine nature cannot, because it is communicable: therefore his opinion is that absolute subsistence cannot be the term of an assumed nature. Then, the same dist. 6. qu. 1. affirms that the assumed nature cannot exist by the existence of the Word: but, as we just said, absolute subsistence and existence are the same thing: therefore if that nature could not exist by absolute existence, neither will it be able to subsist by absolute subsistence. — I answer to the first, that this is not the mind of the Doctor, as Lorca feigns, who judges the Subtle Doctor to be adverse to our assertion: indeed in that place the Doctor contends only that it is not well proved by Varro and St. Thomas that a divine person can supply the defect of proper personality from this, that it contains in itself virtually the perfection of any created person whatsoever. For, says the Doctor, a divine person contains virtually any created person whatever no more than the divine nature contains virtually any created nature whatever: but from the fact that the divine nature contains virtually a created nature it does not follow that it can unite with it in unity of nature, nor effect that in place of human nature it make with human personality one per se: therefore neither from the virtual containment of the divine person does it follow that it can so supply the defect of human personality as to make one per se with human nature in its stead and place. To the second, I say nothing against our opinion is evinced, for from the fact that human nature is said to be assumed by absolute subsistence, it would not follow that it should exist by absolute existence, because previously to that assumption and union whereby it would be united to those absolute subsistences, it would necessarily have to prescind, existing by its own existence: and consequently, although subsistence and absolute existence are one and the same, it would not follow that that nature would exist by absolute existence; just as it would subsist by absolute subsistence.

You will object 2. with Vasquez disp. 27. c. 2., that this our assertion is adverse to the Holy Fathers and Councils: indeed to the Holy Fathers, because the Holy Fathers knew no other union of a created nature with God except either in nature, or in person, which alone they admit; but a union with the divine nature by reason of absolute subsistence is a union neither in nature nor in person: therefore our assertion is adverse to the Holy Fathers. The minor appears: for the union of human nature with divine is not made in unity of nature. Neither would that union be made in unity of person; since absolute subsistence has not the rationale of person. Vasquez proves the minor, First, because they made mention anywhere of no other union. Secondly, because the Eleventh Council of Toledo openly says: Yet the Son alone took the form of a servant in the singularity of person, not in the unity of the divine nature; into that which is proper to the Son, not what is common to the Trinity. Thirdly, St. Anselm, cited by us in the preceding question, teaches expressly that he who rightly receives the Incarnation believes the Word did not assume man into unity of nature, but into unity of person. By which words St. Anselm argues against the heretic, who said that since the divine person was incarnate, it was necessary that three persons together become incarnate: which error, that Anselm may refute it, he infers that the heretic held the union to have been made not in person, but in nature: but if besides union in nature or in person there were possible a union of God with man, as common to the three persons by reason of absolute subsistence, the inference of St. Anselm would not hold: indeed from the union of human nature with absolute and common subsistence, it would be true that if that union were attributed to one person, it would also have to be attributed to the two others: therefore etc.

I deny the major, and to its first proof I say, that although the Holy Fathers and Councils did not remember any other union than that which is made either in unity of nature or in unity of person, it does not follow that they judged another impossible: they spoke indeed of actual union, not truly of the possible: because they were contending against the Eutychian or Nestorian heretics: the former asserted that the union of the Word had been made in unity of nature: the latter denied it had been accomplished in unity either of nature or of person. To the second I say, they teach only that the union of the Word with human nature had been made not in nature, but in person: or into that which is proper to the Son, not what is common to the whole Trinity; yet without denying union in nature, they do not infer necessarily that it must have been made in person, as Varquez contends. Add that they speak of union as actually accomplished, not truly of that by which it could be made. To the third proof I say, Saint Anselm does not necessarily conclude that if the union were not made in unity of person, it must necessarily and absolutely have been made in unity of nature: as though no other mode of union were possible to God; but only, that those two modes, namely in unity of nature and of person, were the only ones in act: namely union in unity of nature in creatures which are composed of diverse parts coalescing into one nature; but the other in unity of person, whereby divine and human nature are joined mutually.

You will insist: If divine nature were united to human nature, as subsistent by absolute subsistence, it would be united either in unity of nature or in unity of person: indeed it would be one singular being: therefore either really identical with the divine nature, by which it would subsist: or completed through a person: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first, because otherwise the assuming nature and the assumed nature would be identical: or out of divine and human nature there would be made one certain nature, which is absurd. Not either in unity of person, because the divine nature to which it would be united immediately is not a person: therefore that union is not possible. — I deny the major: for then the assumption or union of human nature would not be made in unity either of nature or of person, but only in unity of the union of divine nature with human nature: from which it would follow that human nature would depend upon divine nature, and be intimately united to it, just as in fact it depends on the Word, because it is intimately united to Him.

You will press: From the fact that a person is the immediate term of the union of nature to the Word, it follows that the nature is united in unity of person: therefore from the fact that divine nature would be the immediate term of the union of human nature, it would follow that that union would be made in unity of nature. — I deny the consequence, because to be joined or assumed in unity of person denotes nothing else than that the nature which is assumed is joined immediately with the person, and is subsistent in that person: but to be united, or assumed in unity of nature signifies, that the assumed nature either be identified with the assuming nature, or make with it a composition, constituting with it some third nature, which certainly utterly conflicts with God. Whence if this consequence holds: Human nature is assumed by a divine person, therefore unto unity of person; yet this would not hold: It is assumed by a nature: therefore unto unity of nature. Because, says the Doctor, dist. 1. qu. 2. toward the end, in the former enthymeme, by the force of the construction of words, it is signified that the subsistence of the divine person is communicated to human nature, without its being identified with it, or making with it any composition: for it is signified only that human nature subsists in the divine person: but in the latter enthymeme, by the force of the construction of words, it is signified that nature is communicated to nature either by identity or by composition; for when it is said that nature is assumed unto unity of nature, it is sufficiently declared that no longer two natures but one single nature from two coalesces: which certainly conflicts with God.

You will object: That absolute subsistence would not impede the resultant of proper personality: therefore this cannot come about. The consequence is evident: for otherwise with the nature a person would at once be assumed. That it is impossible will appear below. But the antecedent is proved: that alone can impede the resultant of created personality which can confer upon it all that which it would have from proper personality: now common subsistence cannot confer upon the assumed nature the incommunicability which proper nature would confer upon it: therefore it cannot impede the resultant of that personality. — I deny the antecedent: for that absolute subsistence may impede proper personality in the assumed nature, it suffices that it confer upon that nature to exist per se, and to be complete essentially, even if it does not confer upon it that incommunicability which is required for the rationale of subsistence; for since the rationale of existing per se is prior in person than incommunicability, which follows only from it, it follows that if the resultant of proper personality is impeded, inasmuch as it is the mode of existing per se and completely essentially, also the resultant thereof will be impeded consequentially, inasmuch as it would be the mode of existing incommunicably. To these add what we said above, either that incommunicability is not of the rationale of subsistence: or that that absolute subsistence would render the assumed nature incommunicable to a supposite really distinct from itself: or finally, that although that assumed nature would not have from its term immediately, namely from absolute subsistence, every manner of incommunicability, nevertheless it would obtain it from mediated terms; for instance from the divine personalities, by which mediately and concomitantly or consequently that nature thus assumed will be terminated, just as the absolute subsistence itself is terminated and becomes incommunicable.

Finally you will object: In that hypothesis, this God is this man: but this man is a person: therefore the nature thus assumed would be assumed in unity of person. — I deny the minor: For just as person is not signified by this term, God; so neither would it be signified by this term, man: whence although this man is ordinarily the name of supposite and of person

You will say: yet it would not be so in the present hypothesis, because namely this man would subsist only by a subsistence which would not be personal, but only such as would effect the nature lastly completed communicably, not truly incommunicably, because this assumed nature, like the subsistence by which it would subsist, would be communicable to the three persons.

You will insist: In that case either each of the divine persons would be man, or not: but both seem absurd: therefore, etc. — I answer, that each would be man, since humanity together with absolute subsistence itself would be communicated to the three persons: nor thence does any inconvenience appear, for if whiteness, e.g. inhering in some surface, existed at once in Peter and Paul, truly Peter and Paul would be white: therefore by equal reason, if the union of divine nature with human were communicated to the three persons together with absolute subsistence itself, without doubt each of those persons would be man, as He is this God subsisting per se.

Note 1. Theologians agree that the three divine persons can together assume and terminate the same humanity with a mediated termination: namely if absolute and common subsistence should assume and terminate that nature immediately: because, as was said in the preceding Question, by the very fact that such common subsistence would terminate that nature and unite it to itself, it would also be terminated by the relative subsistences of the persons, to whom that absolute subsistence would be communicated. They agree moreover that each of the divine persons can assume human nature and unite it hypostatically to itself; since the assumption of nature belongs to person either actively by reason of omnipotence, which is the effective principle of that assumption; or passively by reason of personality, which is the term of that assumption: but each of the divine persons has through omnipotence, and altogether independent personality, infinite power in terminating: therefore each can assume human nature, and become incarnate. Nor would any confusion of persons follow thence, although the Father, were He to become incarnate, would be called Son; for the same person can be called Father and Son under different respects: that divine person would be called Father, inasmuch as He is the principle of the eternal generation of the Word: but He would be called Son, inasmuch as He would be the term of temporal generation from the Virgin: whence He would not be Son of God as the Word is, but only Son of the Virgin.

Note 2. It is certain that the three divine persons reside in the humanity of Christ in a peculiar and nobler manner than in all creatures. Which truth St. Augustine elegantly teaches in Sermon 3. De Tempore, where he says: The Son took flesh, and did not forsake the Father, nor divided Himself from the Father. The Son, I say, took flesh in property: yet the Father and the Holy Spirit were not absent in majesty. In divinity equality, in flesh the property of the Son alone; yet never at any time did divinity depart from the Father or the Holy Spirit. Since therefore there is one Godhead, one divinity, both the Father and the Holy Spirit indeed filled the flesh of Christ: but in majesty, not in assumption, etc. Now this nobler and peculiar residence is gathered from the connection, or rather essential identity, which exists among the divine persons; so that, if per impossibile the three adorable persons did not exist in all creatures, nevertheless on account of the union of one person with humanity, the two others would also reside therein: For just as (says Saint Basil, Epist. 48., in the catena) he who grasps the summit of one ring thereby at once draws along the other inserted into it: so here he who draws the Spirit draws through Him the Son, and with the Father together at once. And if anyone holds he has grasped the Son, he will have Him with both, hence His Father, thence the Holy Spirit compacted on every side. There is therefore no difficulty about the real and personal presence of the three divine persons in the same humanity: but only about their hypostatic union, whether namely all three together could be united hypostatically to the same individual nature.

Note 3. Concerning the present Question there are two principal opinions: The first indeed affirming that the three divine persons can together assume the same nature: which St. Thomas upholds, 3. p. q. 3. art. 6., whom his disciples follow, who to their side summon even from our ranks Alexander, q. 2. memb. 1., St. Bonaventure in 3. dist. 1. art. 1. q. 3., Ockham likewise in 3. dist. 1., and not a few others. But the second opinion the Subtle Doctor upholds in 3. dist. 1. quaest. 2. num. 5., with all his disciples, to whom that we may subscribe, let there be

First Conclusion. — SEVERAL DIVINE PERSONS CANNOT ASSUME THE SAME NATURE IN NUMBER AND TERMINATE IT IMMEDIATELY BY THEIR PROPER SUBSISTENCE.

It is proved first, by the authority of St. Anselm lib. 2. Cur Deus homo, cap. 9., where he says: Several persons cannot assume one and the same man in unity of person: wherefore this must be done in one person only. And in the book De Incarnatione Verbi, cap. 1.: With the Son incarnate, it is not necessary that the other persons also become incarnate, but impossible.

Nor does it avail to reply with St. Thomas, and his disciples, that St. Anselm there takes man for a singular nature personalized by its proper personality; but not for a nature not yet understood as affected by its own personality. — For this response is altogether alien from the mind of St. Anselm: indeed his intent was to investigate in which of the three divine persons the hypostatic union had been made; but he supposes it had not been accomplished in the three divine persons, indeed nor could it have been done, that thence he may gather it was made in one person only, namely the second: and truly indeed, for if by this particle, man, St. Anselm understood human nature affected by its own personality, he would conclude nothing at all; because a hypostasis is equally implied to be assumed by one person as by three. Add that a little later he asserts the Word assumed man, by which word he signifies that nothing else is denoted by the term man than human nature regarded in itself.

It is proved secondly: If the three divine persons could together assume the same nature in number, it would follow that that nature is infinite: but it conflicts that any created nature be infinite: therefore equally it conflicts that it be assumed by several persons. The minor stands. The major is proved: on this account divine nature is concluded infinite, because it itself, the same in number, can be undivided in the three divine supposites: therefore by equal reason, if human nature existed in three supposites, it would be judged infinite. The antecedent is evident, because by what rationale that nature can be in the three divine persons without any division of itself, by the same rationale it could be in infinites, and would have infinite power of existing; because it could exist in infinite persons. The consequence is also evident, because singular human nature, such as is assumed by the Divine Word, is not of itself limited rather to three supposites than to a hundred or a thousand, if there were so many in the divinity: therefore as much as pertains to itself, if it could be in three supposites, it could also be in infinites, if they were given.

The Thomists will reply, that sequel is false: for the same, they say, divine nature is judged infinite, not because it is communicated to three supposites, but chiefly because it is communicated to supposites really indistinct from itself, which it connaturally requires and identifies to itself: but it is otherwise with assumed human nature, which neither would be identified with those supposites, but would be adventitious to them: nor would it require them connaturally, but would be determined to them only by obediential power. — Against this, infinity and illimitation do not arise from that identity alone of one thing toward another, but from aptitude alone, whereby some thing can communicate itself infinitely: for if there were given some whiteness, e.g. which could of itself affect and whiten infinite walls, although it were really distinct from them, and merely adventitious, nevertheless it would no less be judged infinite, because it would contain the power and perfection of infinite whitenesses: therefore by equal reason, if human nature could be communicated to infinite supposites, although it would be adventitious to them, and really distinct from them, it would no less be judged infinite.

It is proved thirdly: Human nature affected with its own subsistence and personality cannot be assumed by the Divine Word: therefore where it is affected with the personality of the Word it can no longer be assumed by the Father, nor by the Holy Spirit. The consequence is evident from parity of rationale; for nature affected with its proper personality is no longer assumable hypostatically because it is completely perfect in every way and terminated substantially: but it is also such by the supposite of the Word: therefore, etc.

The Thomists deny the parity, and bring forward this rationale of disparity, that an open contradiction would follow if a subsistent nature terminated by its proper personality were again terminated by another; for it would be required that it subsist in itself and in another: and thus it would subsist in itself and not subsist; which is contradictory: but it is otherwise if it subsisted in three persons, because it would only subsist in another. — Against this, the contradiction that a nature subsists in itself and in another cannot arise from elsewhere than because, as it subsists in itself, it is totally and adequately terminated and substantially completed, whence it comes about that it can no longer be terminated and completed: now the same rationale of contradiction follows from the fact that nature is terminated by the personality of the Word, because the subsistence of the Word terminates and completes substantially that nature no less perfectly, indeed far more perfectly, than a proper supposite could terminate and complete it; therefore equal rationale on both sides. Add that they gratuitously suppose there is contradiction that a nature subsist in itself and that it subsist in another; for every contradiction must lie in one and the same thing with respect to one and the same: and in that case, human nature would not be in itself and in another with respect to one and the same, because it would be in itself with respect to and by reason of its own subsistence; but in another, by reason of alien subsistence: therefore not only is their reply null, but also less rightly spoken.

The Doctor proves thirdly: One and the same cannot depend adequately upon many: but if created nature were united to three divine persons, it would depend totally and adequately upon many: therefore it conflicts that one and the same nature be assumed by several divine persons. The major seems certain, and the Doctor gathers it by induction. First indeed from the example of total efficient cause: for otherwise it would follow that those causes are total and are not total. They are total, as supposed both by us and by adversaries: but they are not total, since among the intrinsic concepts of total cause is that it produce the whole effect and produce it totally, by the very fact that another cause produced it together with itself, it would follow that either it produced that effect partially with itself, and thus would not be its total cause; or produced it totally, and thus the other cause would influence nothing in the effect, since it would presuppose it produced by the prior total cause. He gathers also by induction in other genera of cause, chiefly indeed in accidents, which since they depend essentially upon subject, one and the same cannot depend upon two first subjects in its genus. But the minor is urged; for that depends totally and adequately upon another which exists with it posited, all other things whatsoever excluded: but created nature assumed by whichever of the three divine persons would truly subsist per se, and would be complete substantially, even if it were not assumed by the other persons, just as in fact it is assumed by the Word alone: therefore if it were assumed by the three, it would depend totally and adequately upon each of those persons. — It is confirmed: because two total efficient causes of the same order cannot produce the same effect in number; because, as was said just now, they would at once be total and not total; therefore by similarity, two extrinsic formal causes, such as the aforesaid persons would be with respect to the termination of that human nature, could not terminate it, because each of them would terminate totally and not totally.

To this rationale the Thomists reply in various ways; but their more common solution is that which Cajetan hands down, saying, that although one and the same effect cannot depend upon two by causal dependence, which is strict; nevertheless it can so depend by non-causal dependence, but terminative, which is non-strict dependence: for the distinction between the two dependences is that an effect produced by a total cause depends totally upon it insofar as it has being from one cause, nor is there left in it a capacity by which it be judged to depend on another, because it borrows no being from that, by reason of which it would be judged to depend upon it: but a nature terminated by alien subsistence does not receive its being from it, but only a certain mode of union, by which it is said to be sustained and terminated by it. Since therefore nature is capable of a triple and diverse mode of union, because it can be united to the three persons at least successively; while it has one mode, and by reason of that is united to one person, it does not remain exhausted according to the extension of its capacity, whereby it can be terminated by another: wherefore another person conferring another mode of union can accede: not indeed out of indigence, but out of capacity alone. Hence that nature would be terminated adequately by one subsistence, indeed by intensive, not however extensive adequation: as is evident in created things from the power of the same relation, whereby it is referred to one son, and by him terminated adequately intensively, while another son is generated, it is again terminated to him by extensive adequation. — Truly against this, first: just as an effect produced by a total efficient cause borrows its being from it totally, so some singular nature receives its total sustentation and termination from its total term: with this sole distinction, that the effect receive being simply from the cause: but nature have only modified being from subsistence: therefore just as the reception of total being from one total cause excludes any other whatsoever total cause of the same order, so the reception of modified being, namely of total sustentation, from one total subsistence ought to exclude any other total subsistence whatsoever. Moreover, nature would be adequately terminated and completed extensively by its proper subsistence: therefore also it is such by the subsistence of the Word, which has no lesser power of terminating nature and exhausting its capacity than proper subsistence. To the example about relation, I say it is false: for just as in each individual of a generated man there is a diverse individual difference determining the specific nature variously, so also there is the adequate rationale of terminating a diverse filiation relation: wherefore it is gratuitously asserted that, sons multiplied, relations are not multiplied: since there are diverse rationales of founding, and all conditions desired for multiplication of relations are found there.

You will object 1: In the mystery of the Incarnation the whole rationale of the fact is of the power making it, says St. Augustine, Epistle 3., which is to Volusianus: therefore in this mystery more is to be attended to the power of the assuming person than the condition of the assumed person: but to Divine Omnipotence it does not conflict that three persons assume one nature: therefore they can accomplish this. The major is evident. The minor is proved: divine persons can assume the same nature if they do not exclude themselves from fellowship of the same nature: but so it is; indeed they subsist in the same divine nature: therefore they also can subsist in the same human nature. — I distinguish the major: the power of the maker is rather to be attended to than the rationale of the fact in those things which do not imply contradiction — I concede: those which do — I deny. But, as we said, it implies that the same nature be terminated totally by several total and adequate terms. To the proof of the minor, I say the rationale is not equal concerning the subsistence of divine persons in divine nature and in human; both because divine nature is infinite, and thus it does not conflict for it to be in several; and because the divine personalities do not confer the rationale of subsisting upon the divine nature, because it subsists of itself through its absolute subsistence, but only upon persons, which are really distinct among themselves: but truly personality confers subsistence upon created nature, which cannot be conferred by several total and adequate subsistences.

You will object 2: Humanity in itself is assumable by any divine person whatever: therefore all together can assume it. The antecedent stands, because, as we said, each of the divine persons can assume human nature. The consequence is proved: in that instant wherein one of the divine persons assumes nature, the other two divine persons can act according to the utmost of their power, that they assume the same nature; in which case, either that nature will be assumed by the three, and thus the intent is had; or by none, which is absurd; since God acting according to every manner of His power cannot be frustrated of effect; or by one only, which cannot be said, since there is no weightier reason why it be assumed by one than by many, since the three divine persons are of equal power, and the assumable nature is in obediential power, to be assumed by any divine person whatever: therefore, etc. — The Doctor answers num. 1. by denying that the three divine persons can expend their power toward the simultaneous assumption of the same nature, on account of their incompossibility in terminating the same nature; for God does not exercise His power about impossibilities and those things which import contradiction, such is that simultaneous assumption. Indeed they can, says the Doctor, the three divine persons together act toward the assumption of that very nature by some person from among them, so that although three act, only one alone assumes and terminates the nature: And if you say, says the Doctor, how each person can at once act toward uniting that nature to itself, I deny: because it is impossible that it be at once united to many: because it is impossible totally to depend with dependence of the same rationale upon several persons, since it is one thing to be terminated toward one person, and persons cannot act at once toward incompossibles.

You will insist: That the three divine persons can accomplish which is in obediential power by order toward any one of them: but created nature is in obediential power, to be assumed by each of the divine persons: therefore the three together can assume it. The major stands. The minor is proved: before nature was assumed by the Son, it could be assumed by the Father: therefore even after it has been assumed by the Son. The consequence is proved: therefore it was assumable by the Father before it was assumed by the Son, because it had obediential power for that assumption: but it has that same power while it is assumed by the Son, for neither could it lose it, since it is really identified with it; therefore it conserves it. It is confirmed: because the obediential power which it had in order toward the Father did not have its act, nor was it fulfilled by its own assumption by the Son; indeed that obediential power was ordered to the union of nature with the Father: but union with the Father is of diverse rationale from union with the Son, as the personality of the Father is of diverse rationale, or at least distinct in number from the personality of the Son: therefore the union which would be made with the Father would be distinguished in number from the union whereby it would be made with the Son; and consequently the power of nature, inasmuch as it respects the personality of the Father, is either of diverse rationale or diverse in number from the power respecting union with the Son; and hence union with the Son does not reduce to act that obediential power of nature, inasmuch as it is ordered toward the Father; therefore notwithstanding the union of that nature with the Son, it still has obediential power, to be united with the Father, and consequently it can still be united. — I distinguish the major: that which is in obediential power, and has no repugnance whatsoever, to be reduced to act — I concede: when it has repugnance for that — I deny. To the minor I say: nature assumed by the Son still has obediential power toward the Father, to be united with Him, in the divided sense — I concede: in the composite sense — I deny: that is, regarded in itself it could indeed be united with the Father; but this it cannot inasmuch as it is assumed and terminated by the Son, because it is now completely perfect in every way substantially, and totally terminated. To the confirmation likewise I deny the final consequence: for although that obediential power did not have act inasmuch as it is ordered toward the Father, it does not follow that it could have it, when already terminated, and reduced to act by the personality of the Son, on account of the incompossibility of total termination, which would be made by the personalities of the Father and of the Son: which truth the Doctor clearly demonstrates answering the aforesaid argument from the example of the wall, which although it has power

You will press: Nature united to the Word has inclination toward proper personality: therefore also toward whatsoever can supply that personality: but the personality of the Father can supply it: therefore it has inclination toward the personality of the Father. — I distinguish the sequel of the major: it has inclination toward all that which can supply its proper personality, if elsewhere there be no impediment and repugnance — I concede: if there be — I deny. And likewise I distinguish the minor: the personality of the Father can supply it, in the divided sense, and on hypothesis that it were not elsewhere assumed — I concede: in the composite sense, where once it is assumed — I deny. Add that the argument can be retorted, because although the nature assumed by the Word conserves inclination toward its own supposite, as supposed, nevertheless it cannot at once with union to the Word have its own personality: therefore although as united to the Word it would have inclination toward the supposite of the Father, it does not follow that it can with union to the Son have union with the Father.

You will object 3: The same accident can be in two subjects: therefore the same nature in two supposites. The consequence is proved by parity of rationale. Also the antecedent stands, because there can be at once two bodies, one glorious, the other not glorious, in the same place, therefore they can have one ubi: but ubi is an accident of them: therefore one accident can be in diverse subjects. But that the same two bodies have the same ubi is evident, because the same place corresponds to them, and consequently the same active circumscription: therefore they also have the same passive circumscription: but passive circumscription is ubi: therefore those two bodies have the same ubi. — The Doctor answers by denying the antecedent, for whose proof he says those two bodies would not have the same ubi, but diverse. And to the proof he answers, that place, in which two bodies would be contained, has two active circumscriptions on the same surface, and consequently there will be two passive circumscriptions in those bodies, because the surrounding surface is a sufficient foundation for grounding several active circumscriptions in several circumscribed bodies, as one whiteness suffices for grounding several similitudes of white in several whites. Truly, since here the Doctor seems to suppose that one accident cannot be in several subjects, whose opposite we ourselves taught from him in Philosophy, therefore I answer by denying the consequence. And the rationale of disparity is, that no contradiction follows from the fact that one accident be posited in several subjects, because this designates only multiplication of presence, and information, which we taught does not conflict in Physics; but it conflicts that the same nature subsist by several subsistences. To the Doctor saying that she denied an accident can be present to several subjects in that mode in which in fact it is present to one unique subject: for in fact it is thus in one subject, that per se and adequately it depends upon it, in which certain mode it cannot exist in several subjects: but in those it can be, so that it depends only partially upon one: but similar things cannot be said of subsistences: because each subsistence confers the whole complete substantial being, and is its ultimate term.

Finally you will object: If simultaneous termination of the same nature to three divine persons conflicted, that repugnance would be sought either from the side of the terminable nature, or from the side of the terminating persons: but from neither head can this repugnance, or contradiction, be found. Not indeed from the side of the terminating persons, because those do not exclude themselves from convening in and terminating the same created nature. Nor yet from the side of nature, because it has obediential power toward all the divine persons: therefore that simultaneous termination by three divine persons does not conflict. — I deny the minor: for that repugnance is sought both from the side of the assuming persons, which since they are total terms with respect to the nature to be assumed, cannot exercise their power at once about the same nature: it conflicts also from the side of the nature, which since it is completely perfect in every way by one subsistence, has not whence it be completed by another. To the proof saying the rationale of divine termination is not the same as human; both because since divine nature is infinite, it can be in several supposites: and because that nature is not completed in its substantial being through relative subsistences, as human nature would be completed: for relative subsistences do not give substantial being to the divine nature, which is already supposed complete on every side through absolute subsistence, but only determine that divine nature toward constituting persons: whence there is no parity between the termination of either nature.

Second Conclusion. — ONE DIVINE PERSON CAN ASSUME SEVERAL CREATED NATURES. As the Doctor in 3. distinct. 1. qu. 5., where he proves the Conclusion thus. That several natures be assumed at once by the Word does not conflict, neither from the side of the Word, nor from the side of the natures: therefore He can assume them. The antecedent is proved first indeed from the side of the Word, because He has infinite power of terminating, thenceforth it cannot be exhausted by the termination of one nature. Add that by that termination only several relations of reason are posited in the Word itself, or the Word itself terminates by its subsistence several real relations of assumed natures. But whether it conflicts with the Word. Not the first, because multiplication of relations of reason argues no change or real dependence in the Word. Nor yet the second, because God, and the whole Trinity, terminate all relations of creatures: therefore the Word can terminate several of those relations. Nor yet does it conflict from the side of creatures, because all are in obediential power, and depend equally upon the divine assuming person: therefore by what rationale one can be assumed, also the other: for actual dependence of one nature does not conflict with the dependence of another nature, says the Doctor.

You will say 1: If the Word assumed several natures, either He would be one man, or several men: but neither can be said. Not the first, because He would have several humanities, and consequently would be multiple man. Nor yet the second because He would be a unique supposite; where there is a unique supposite, there is a unique man, although there be several forms, for he who has several knowledges on account of the unity of supposite is not said to be several knowing ones, but one knowing one. — Richard answers by denying the sequel, namely saying that in that case he would be neither one man, nor several. This response the Doctor attacks: first because one and many are immediate dividing opposites of being: therefore there is no being of which it cannot be said that it is one being, or many beings: therefore of that being which is man, it will be true to say that he is one man, or many men. Secondly, because of every being necessarily must be said that it is one, or not one: therefore since of every being called man it can be said that he is one man, or not one man: but if it be said that he is not one man, it must be said that he is several men, for where one is denied, many are affirmed: namely in affirmation which is made by position. — St. Thomas answers quaest. 3. art. 7. that He would be one man on account of unity of supposite, just as one knowing one is said, although he has several knowledges. Which response the Doctor attacks, because, he says, if the concrete of man ought not to be multiplied when the supposite remains one, it would follow that upon multiplication of the supposite, the concrete ought to be multiplied: but false consequent, because otherwise the three divine persons would have to be called three gods. — Whence the Doctor answers, plurality of concretes is not to be sought from plurality of supposites alone, as Saint Thomas holds, but also from plurality of forms: so that however many supposites may be plural, plurality of concretes should not follow, if the form is single. E.g. from plurality of divine supposites plurality of Gods does not follow, because in divinity there is only a single divinity. For man is said to be an adjectival term with respect to the divine person, as the Doctor teaches dist. 7. qu. 1., and it itself cannot be numbered unless the supposites are numbered. And if it be held that it is a substantive term, and said substantively of its own supposite, nevertheless it is said adjectivally of the supposite of the Word, at least as to mode of predicating: since however every adjective ultimately depends and is terminated toward a substantive, the adjective itself cannot be the ratio of terminating the signification of another adjective of itself. Wherefore since this word homo is adjectival, it cannot terminate the numeral term, two, of itself, because the adjective is reduced to its substantive, nor is it held to be multiplied unless the substantive itself be multiplied. I pass over a fuller discussion of this matter, more grammatical than theological; and I should rather judge that in this case the Word ought not to be called one man, nor several men, but only one supposite having several humanities.

You will say 2: If natures distinct in species were assumed at once by the Word, it would follow that not only two contraries but even two contradictories could be enunciated of the same: but false consequent: therefore, etc. The major is proved: for if the Word assumed fire and water at once, it would follow that heat and cold, which are contraries, exist at once: similarly if He assumed at once a man and a dove, it would follow that one and the same supposite be at once rational and irrational, which are contradictories. — I deny the major: for if the Word assumed water and fire, it would only follow that fire and water be at once simultaneously by simultaneity of supposite and terminator, but not by simultaneity of existence, and interpenetration of the assumed natures. Similarly, if He assumed the nature of man and of dove, no contradiction would follow, which passes only between negation and affirmation regarding one and the same: wherefore indeed it would follow that one and the same being be rational and irrational, not with respect to the same, but with respect to diverse things.

Note 1. From the Doctor in 3. distinct. 1. qu. 4. num. 2., nature can be conceived to be assumed by a created person in two ways: namely either effectively, or terminatively, or formally. Effectively indeed, namely by uniting that nature itself with a created nature, as the whole Trinity united human nature with the Word, and conserves that union; terminatively however, namely by terminating that union and communication of nature, just as the Divine Word terminates and sustains the human nature united to Himself. But it is certain that no created nature can perform either of these by its own power; both because christinity, or created personality, is limited and determined by its proper nature; and because hypostatic union of one nature with another is a miraculous work; but no creature by its own power can accomplish miracles. Therefore neither assume and terminate an alien nature. Whether however either, or both could be done by divine and extraordinary power of God, the Authors do not agree. For Ockham in 3. dist. 1. qu. 1. ad 13. and 11. teaches that a created person can by divine power assume an alien nature, not indeed effectively, but terminatively: to whom very many of ours subscribe: those chiefly who teach that created personality is formally something positive. But the Thomists embrace for the most part the negative part. The Subtle Doctor judges both opinions probable, wherefore he solves the foundations of each. What we should judge truer, that it may become known more openly,

Note 2. Or to be recalled from those things which we taught in Metaphysics: that a created person is the incommunicable existence of rational nature by which and in what manner. That definition, that it may appear more evidently, it must be known that there is a twofold communicability, insofar as at present concerns: the first is whereby something is communicated to another, as form, or as part: in which manner soul is communicated to body, humanity to Peter, and the arm to the integral whole: and this is called communicability as quo, because what is thus communicated is that whereby something is such, e.g. an animate body, Peter a man. The second is whereby something is communicated to another through identity, for instance common nature toward its inferiors: and this is called communicability as quod, because what is thus communicated is really identical with the other to which it is communicated: thus man is communicated to Peter and Paul, and the divine essence to the three persons. Negation of the first communicability, both actual and aptitudinal, is that whereby person is constituted in the rationale of person: hence a separated soul is not a person, because although it is not actually communicated, it nevertheless has aptitude to be again united and communicated to its body: similarly the humanity of Christ cannot be called a person, although it be actually and aptitudinally incommunicable and uncommunicated as quod, since indeed it cannot be predicated of many: nevertheless it is communicable and communicated as quo, as total form of the supposite and person of the Word.

Note 3. That from those two negations the posterior arises from individuation of the specific nature, because therefore a person is not communicable as quod to several individuals actually and aptitudinally, since it has been determined and contracted by haecceity and individual difference to the being of an individual: whence even if this be personalized by an alien personality, as happens in the humanity of Christ, nevertheless it carries with it this negation. But the other negation of communicability, namely as quo, arises not from any positive entity of the individual, or person, but from the defect of the action of an extrinsic agent not uniting that nature itself with an alien person: for from the fact that some extrinsic agent has not caused a union between the individual nature and some alien personality, the individual nature remains without union with alien personality, whence it remains in itself personalized by its own personality.

These things premised, two things are now to be determined: First indeed, whether by divine power a created person can effectively assume and sustain an alien nature: secondly truly, whether it can at least perform this terminatively.

First Conclusion. — A CREATED PERSON CANNOT OF ITSELF EFFECTIVELY ASSUME AN ALIEN NATURE, NOR UNITE IT TO ITSELF HYPOSTATICALLY. So the Doctor in the praised place, and he proves it thus: Created nature can absolutely be assumed effectively unto hypostatic union, with respect to which it has obediential power: but no nature has obediential power toward any creature: otherwise that power would not be called obediential, but natural, inasmuch as natural power is opposed to obediential: therefore no created person can effectively assume an alien nature. The major is evident: since indeed that assumption of nature far exceeds, as was said in the first Notable, and on that account the mystery of the Incarnation is called the greatest of all miracles, and the work of the right hand of the Most High, it is evident that it cannot come about connaturally, but requires for it a virtue exceeding every effort of nature. The minor also stands, since obediential power in a creature respects taking all its efficiency from the first cause, to which as principle of all efficiency it is subordinated and subjected. — Then, no particular creature can overturn, destroy, or impede that which of itself belongs to the universal order of the term immediately subject to the first cause: but the proper subsistence of some nature, and its flux, or emanation, pertains to said order: therefore no creature can invert it, consequently impede that subsistence from flowing from that individual nature, and presently it will not be able to take it effectively to itself. Finally, a created supposite, according to the more probable opinion, says formal negation: but negation cannot have effective virtue, partial or total, with respect to that positive thing: therefore, etc.

You will say 1: As a created person can unite some nature to an alien supposite, so can it unite the same with the proper supposite of that nature: now the latter not only can be done, but is done daily. For while a father produces a son, as he seems to attain union of body with soul, so also he seems to unite the nature of his son with its own supposite, because he produces that nature subsistent and supposited: therefore either he himself, or at least an Angel, could also unite that nature effectively with an alien supposite. — I answer first, denying the minor: for properly speaking it is false that he who produces a singular nature unites it with its proper supposite: just as neither does he properly unite it with its properties, which rather are said to have been produced out of the nature than to be united to it. I answer secondly, denying the major: both because given that the producer of nature unites it with its own supposite, then he would not invert, indeed he follows the universal order of things; but for him to unite it with an alien supposite, the prescribed order of things would have to be inverted, which certainly a second cause cannot accomplish: and because just as a father cannot unite the body of his son with a soul other than that which is proper to the son, so must it be said of nature with respect to its proper supposite.

You will say 2: An agent of superior order which contains the perfection of the inferior can supply its power, and effect: but an angelic person, e.g., is of superior order respectively toward human, and virtually contains every perfection of men: therefore it can supply the human person, and perform its offices, and consequently can unite human nature to itself hypostatically. — The Doctor denies the minor num. 1: for just as an Angel does not contain visual power, so as to be able to supply its defect, although he has powers far superior to the faculty of vision, so although in the rationale of person he be formally more excellent than a human person, it does not necessarily follow that he can supply the defect, and perform the offices, of a human person. Add that it can be denied that the Angelic person in the rationale of person is more excellent than human personality.

Second Conclusion. — IT IS PROBABLE THAT BY THE EXTRAORDINARY POWER OF GOD CREATED PERSONALITY CAN TERMINATE AN ALIEN NATURE, AND BE UNITED TO IT HYPOSTATICALLY.

It is proved first from St. Jerome on chapter 1 of Aggeus: where after he pursues the opinion of certain ones saying Malachy, Aggaeus, and St. John Baptist were Angels in assumed bodies, he adds himself:

It is no wonder if this be believed of Angels: since on account of sins the Son of God Himself took flesh. The same Tertullian had taught before lib. 3. Contra Marcionem cap. 7. Hence it is evidently gathered that the assertion in the Conclusion is at least possible, although perhaps in truth this may never have happened.

It is proved secondly: All that which does not import manifest contradiction, or repugnance, ought to be attributed to extraordinary divine power: but no repugnance appears that created personality terminate beyond its proper nature also an alien nature: therefore, etc. The major stands; the truth of the matter will appear at last from the solution of all the rationales which the Adversaries bring forward for the negative opinion.

You will object first: A supposite terminating an alien nature must be altogether independent: but any created supposite whatever is not independent: therefore it cannot terminate an alien nature. The minor is evident: for whatsoever is a creature, by that very fact is dependent. But the major is proved: both because by this very rationale we proved the divine Word terminates human nature because He be independent in the rationale of person: and because since nature is sustained through supposite, and that only through soul, otherwise per se, so that already the supposite be altogether first, and independent. — The Doctor answers, that it is not so true that a supposite must be altogether independent in order to terminate: for although that be the reason why the Word terminates human nature, nevertheless it could come about that for another reason a created supposite would terminate the dependence of another nature, if it were assumed by God to perform this, just as created substance adequately terminates the dependence of an accident in the rationale of subject, and yet is not simply independent: indeed proper personality itself terminates the dependence of its own nature: although that not be simply independent.

They object 2: Two created natures are not unifiable in the same supposite unless one has the mode of act, the other truly the mode of potency: but in hypostatic union, whereof we now speak, such union of natures would not be given, since the natures must remain unmixed: but natures which are united as act and potency do not remain unmixed, but from them a third entity and composite is made: therefore they cannot mutually convene in one unique created supposite. — The Doctor answers, denying the major: for if on account of the assigned rationale two natures had incompossibility in a created supposite, they would have the same in an uncreated supposite: and consequently they would be incompossible, because those natures subsisting through an uncreated supposite, as is truly so in the Incarnation, do not have the rationale of act and potency: therefore if notwithstanding this a created nature can be terminated through the personality of the Word, also it can be terminated through created personalities: for if two natures, for instance divine and human, can subsist through the supposite of the Word, without one being act, the other truly potency, why would not the very same happen, if two created natures subsisted in the same created personality?

It is objected 3: If two natures could be terminated through a supposite, or created personality, the Incarnation of the Word would be a singular mystery, and without example, nor consequently wonderful: but the consequent is absurd: therefore, etc. — I deny the major: for although perhaps it would not be equally wonderful as now it is, nevertheless no less would it be worthy of all admiration: for what more wonderful can be feigned than that, as the Apostle says, He who is the splendor of glory and the figure of the substance of the eternal Father, coequal to Him in all things, emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men?

You will object 4. If created subsistence could terminate the dependence of human nature, and render it formally subsistent, it would have from its nature the power to do this: but this is false: because thence it would follow that it could naturally perform so great an effect; for what it can intrinsically perform from its nature, that it performs naturally: it would follow also that connaturally it would require to perform this, and would have all concourse required for doing it. — I deny the major: for if it were true, it would likewise follow that the divine Word would require connaturally to terminate the dependence and hypostatic union of human nature, which is absurd. It would follow also that the soul would naturally demand to receive supernatural habits, and to terminate their inherence, because from its intrinsic nature without anything superadded it can receive those habits. Therefore although every natural power can be reduced to act naturally, nevertheless that is not true of obediential power, such as that would be which a created supposite would have toward terminating the union of another nature.

You will object 5. Subsistence terminating several natures must be infinite: but no created subsistence and personality is infinite: therefore it cannot terminate several natures. The minor is evident: both because everything created is finite: and also because created subsistence is limited by that nature whose complement and term it is. But the major is proved: subsistence terminating several natures performs the offices of subsistences which are proper to those natures: but it cannot perform their offices unless it contain them eminently, and consequently unless it be infinite. Therefore, whereby it could terminate one nature, it could also terminate infinites, if they were given: therefore, etc. — The reader denies the major, since indeed the personality of the Word formally speaking is not infinite, but only really, and yet sustains and terminates an alien nature. And to the proof I answer, that it is manifest petitio principii, while it is said that one created subsistence does not virtually contain the perfection of another, so much as required for completing the nature, and rendering itself apt, that it exercise its operations as easily as if it were affected with proper subsistence. In confirmation I say, truly indeed created subsistence could terminate infinite natures, if they were given, yet it would not on that account be judged infinite, because extrinsic and syncategorematic illimitation, such as that would be which would be sought from termination of natures, does not import infinity, but only intrinsic and categorematic illimitation: hence whiteness, which could terminate infinite similitudes, if they were given, would not on that account be judged intrinsically infinite.

You will object 6. One created nature cannot at once be terminated by several persons: therefore neither can one created person at once assume several natures. — I deny the parity, and the rationale of disparity is open: for on this account one created nature cannot at once be terminated by several persons, because, as we said, each of them is final cause of personating, or terminating, nature: but truly one created person with respect to diverse natures causes not the same termination but diverse, since certainly it does not conflict: just as it does not conflict that one efficient cause produce diverse effects, or that one point, which from its own nature is ordered toward terminating a unique line, could terminate, and in fact terminates all those which are drawn from the circumference toward itself.

You will object 7. Subsistence is a mode of nature: but it implies the mode of one thing modifying another: for it implies that I sit through the sitting of another, and that one accident inhere through the inherence of another accident: therefore it implies created nature to be terminated by the subsistence of another. — I answer first, denying the minor: for divine subsistence, regarded formally, is a mode of the Divine Essence, just as, according to some, created subsistence is a mode of singular created nature; and yet it can terminate the subsistence of created nature, and effect it subsistent: therefore some mode can confer its formal effect upon another thing than that of which it is the mode. I answer secondly, the major to be true of intrinsic modification, which is made through inherence; not truly of extrinsic, which is made through termination, such is modification made through subsistence. Add that the major is perhaps true of positive modes, not truly of negative ones, such is the formal rationale of subsistence.

You will object 8. The formal rationale of terminating the dependence and communication of nature ought to be something real and positive: now according to our opinion, a created person is not constituted through something real and positive, but only through a twofold negation of communication, and communicability: therefore it cannot terminate an alien nature. The major stands: both because the relation of humanity assumed by the Word is terminated toward something real and positive, namely toward His subsistence: and because the term of real and positive relation must be something real and positive. — I answer, that in that case, the relation of the assumed nature would be terminated toward something positive, namely toward the singular nature of that created person, not indeed taken naked, but with the adjunct to it of the twofold negation of communicability, whereby it seems sufficient for sustaining an alien nature, and rendering it incommunicable in the composite sense: and thus that relation of real union would not be terminated toward negation, which is personality, as toward a terminus qui, but as toward a terminus quo. But it is not inconvenient that a real relation should have for formal term quo some negation: because relation only requires positive extremes: it does not require that the formal rationales of the extremes be positive; relations of diversity, which pertain to the first genus of relatives, are founded in lack of identity, which lack and negation is the formal rationale whereby those relations are terminated.