Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

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.