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.