Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

It is certain, and to be believed by faith, as we shall prove in the following Disputation, that the divine Word assumed a true human soul, a true body, and all its integral parts conducing to the ornament and necessity of the body. It is equally certain by priority of time that he did not assume one part of man before the other: since it is established by faith that soul and body were assumed by the Word at one and the same time, so that neither was the soul before in time than the body, nor the body than the soul, but both together, and in the same instant in which the humanity of Christ was produced in the womb of the Virgin, or in which the soul of Christ was created and united to flesh, flesh and soul were assumed. Flesh indeed: for as St. Damascene most excellently teaches, book 3 On the Faith, c. 2: As soon as it became flesh, it likewise at once became the Flesh of God: flesh animated with a rational soul and partaking of intelligence. Or as St. Fulgentius speaks, book On the Incarnation, cap. 3: The very acceptance of the flesh was the Virginal conception.... There is therefore no interval of time to be reckoned between the beginning of the conceived flesh and the advent of the Majesty to be received. The same must be said of the soul; wherefore the fifth General Council, canon 2, setting forth the errors of Origen, who said that the soul of Christ had been created with the other souls at the beginning of the world and had merited by his own works to be hypostatically united to the Word of God, and had in fact been united to him long before he was joined to the body, thus says: If anyone says or holds that the soul of the Lord pre-existed and was united to God the Word before the Incarnation and Nativity from the Virgin, let him be anathema. Wherefore Leo the Pope in his Epistle to Flavius against Eutyches says: I find myself compelled to declare that certain persons have been persuaded to hold that the soul which the Savior assumed abode in heaven before it was born of the Virgin Mary, and that the Word joined it to himself in the womb: but this Catholic minds and ears do not tolerate. It is evident therefore that humanity, as well as body and soul, were assumed in the same moment of time. But there remains a difficulty to be solved: whether these three, namely humanity, body, and soul, were assumed with the same simultaneity of nature, or whether some one of them was prior by priority of nature. For St. Thomas, Part III, q. 6, art. 5, contends that the parts were united before the whole: but the Subtle Doctor, in dist. 3, q. 2 of Book III, teaches that humanity was assumed by priority of nature before the parts.

Note 2. From the same Doctor in the same place, that something can be called medium between one thing and another in two ways: first as that-which: secondly as whereby. The medium as that-which, or medium quod, is that which is a distinct thing mediating between one thing and another: thus between substance and bodily qualities quantity mediates, in which (as is commonly taught) those bodily qualities are received immediately, and through it they inhere in the substance. The medium as whereby, or medium quo, is the formal account by which an agent can act, or a recipient receive; for just as an agent could not act unless it had the power of acting, hence it can be said that it acts through the mediating active power, which is the medium whereby it acts: so neither can a subject receive anything unless it has in itself a receptive power or potency, which can be called the medium whereby it receives something; and just as the power of acting is not a medium quod between agent and effect, so neither can the power of receiving be called a medium quod between recipient and received. From which it follows that something can be said to be assumed in two ways: first indeed as medium quod, that is, what is truly and immediately assumed, and through which something else is assumed. For example, the vessel in which some liquid is contained is a medium quod, because through it the liquid is assumed and carried. Secondly, something can be assumed as medium quo, insofar as it is the reason why something else is assumed: which is subdivided into the medium quo from necessity of nature, that is, what is a reason arising only from necessity of nature why something else is assumed, and the medium quo from congruence, which is a reason arising only from fittingness why one thing should be assumed before another. The present difficulty therefore is whether the parts of humanity were assumed by priority of nature before as medium quod than humanity itself, or conversely.

Note 3. That parts can be considered or compared in two ways, namely toward each other, or in the order to the relation they maintain among themselves: and toward humanity, or in the order to their union and the constitution of the whole humanity. The first comparison is made when it is asked whether the soul was united to the Word before the body: the second when it is asked whether the parts were united to the Word before the whole, or conversely. Hence arises the question, whether by the assumption of the whole, and by the sole union of the Word with the whole humanity on the hypothesis that it was assumed before the parts, union with the parts resulted through a certain natural resultant; or rather whether, given union with the whole humanity prior in nature to that with the parts, special unions of the Word himself with the very parts were also necessary. Now the reason for this difficulty is founded in this: that if three unions are admitted, entities seem to be multiplied without necessity: for since the parts are in the whole formally and intrinsically, it seems consequent that from the union of the whole to the Word there must necessarily result the union of the parts to the Word: on the contrary, however, if those three unions are not admitted, it follows that, the whole destroyed, the unions of the Word with body and soul also perish: and thus, from the destroyed humanity, as came to pass in the three days of death, the consequence would be either that the Word would not have remained united to body and soul, or that new unions of the Word himself with body and soul would have had to be made.

These things premised, three points especially come to be determined: First, whether the parts of humanity were medium quod. Second, whether they were medium quo of that assumption. Third, whether and how the soul was the medium quo of the assumption of the body.

First Conclusion. — THE PARTS ARE NOT MEDIUM QUOD IN RESPECT OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE WHOLE HUMANITY: NEITHER IN THE ORDER OF INTENTION NOR IN THE ORDER OF EXECUTION.

This stands in two parts, of which the first is common among Theologians; for that was assumed first in nature in the order of intention whose assumption was per se intended first: but the assumption of humanity was intended first, rather than that of the parts: for in this mystery what is intended first is that the Word become man; since man cannot come to be except by assuming humanity, which to be true must consist of body and soul: thence it is that in the order of intention the whole humanity is assumed first; then the parts of which it consists.

But the second part is against the Thomists, and the Doctor proves it thus: That is first assumable by the Word as medium quod which is in itself first capable of being personated: but the whole humanity is priorly capable of being personated than the parts: therefore, etc.

Of this major: because in the same instant both of time and of nature the Word supplied the created personality at the point where it ought to arise: whence if the personality of the whole ought to arise before that of the parts, the whole humanity also ought to have been assumed before the parts.

But the minor is proved: because although the parts, even as united, have partial subsistences, still for this reason they cannot be said to be assumed prior in nature than the whole: because the parts ought not to have been assumed before they were united among themselves; for their assumption has no account of cause or condition toward their union among themselves: but in the same instant in which they are united, or at least in the instant of nature immediately following, the whole nature is assumed: therefore prior in nature the parts were not assumed before they were united with the whole.

Then, the personality of the divine Word is perfect and complete: therefore it demands to be communicated prior in nature to a complete substance, such as the whole humanity is, than to an incomplete substance, such as the rational soul or the body; and consequently it ought not prior in nature to have assumed body or soul than the whole humanity.

Finally, the Word is man by the primacy of his union: but he is not man except through what is assumed: therefore through that which is assumed he was first man: but if he had prior in nature assumed the parts than the whole, he could not be called man by the primacy of his union: because something is called man first through the whole humanity, and not through the parts: therefore he first assumed the whole humanity.

You will say: In the same way divine subsistence was communicated to the whole humanity and to its parts as human subsistence connatural to them accrues to them: but human subsistence in the order of execution accrues prior in nature to the rational soul: then to the body, to which it is united through information; and finally to the whole humanity resulting from both: therefore in the order of execution the parts of humanity were prior in nature assumed than the whole humanity. The major is evident, for there is no ground for inverting the natural mode and order in the assumption of humanity to the Word. But the minor is proved: because human subsistence accrues prior in nature to the rational soul than to the whole humanity; for the rational soul comes to be through creation: therefore through it it receives the being of subsistence: but through being united to the body it does not lose that being, otherwise it would be produced in vain by God through creation: therefore prior in nature it subsists than it is united to the body, and consequently prior in nature subsistence accrues to it than to the whole humanity.

Then it is confirmed: because a cause, at least by priority of nature, antecedes its effect: but the parts are as it were the cause of the whole: therefore they necessarily antecede the whole. — I distinguish the major: that divine subsistence was communicated prior to the parts than to the whole humanity, but that the parts of humanity were assumed prior in nature as medium quod than the whole humanity, I deny: as medium quo, I concede. Because, says the Doctor, just as the rational soul is the medium quo, or the account by which man is risible, yet it itself is not risible, but man himself, because risibility does not accrue except where humanity is complete: so although the parts are the medium quo man becomes subsistent, and prior in nature to the whole humanity: still they are not in themselves priorly subsistent, at least with complete subsistence: but what is subsistent is man, to whom subsistence, or personality, does not accrue unless man has his total and complete being.

You will urge: The part is prior to the whole along the way of generation, or in generation the part is produced before the whole: therefore also in assumption the part is assumed before the whole. — The Doctor answers, granting the antecedent, denying the consequence: for it is not consequent that if one thing be prior to another according to the order of generation, it is also prior according to the order of subsistence and the account of personation, since there is no reason whence it can be gathered that they must preserve such an order. Then personality is the complement of the composite nature itself; whence it ought not to accrue to anything prior than to that same nature.

You will say 2: That is prior to another from which the consequence of subsisting is not convertible: but it is not converted from the assumption of the parts to the assumption of the whole; for it does not hold to say: he assumed the parts: therefore he also assumed the whole: but well it follows: he assumed the whole: therefore also the parts: therefore the assumption of the parts is prior than that of the whole. — The Doctor distinguishes the major; prior according to consequence, he concedes: according to causality, he denies. And the minor conceded, he similarly distinguishes the consequent: for not everything that is prior according to consequence is prior according to causality, of which the Doctor brings forward an example: because an accident that follows upon many things, such as heat, which follows from fire and sun, does not infer necessarily and determinately the existence and presence of the sun or of fire; for indeed well it follows: fire is, therefore heat is; the sun is, therefore heat is: but it does not follow: heat is, therefore fire is. Whence heat is prior by that priority from which the consequence of subsisting is not converted; and yet it is posterior in causality. Another example can be brought forward: because the whole, for instance, cannot be in place without the parts being in place too, yet it does not follow that the parts are posited in place before the whole: therefore although the whole cannot be assumed without the parts, nor the parts without the whole, it does not follow that the parts ought to be assumed before the whole. — He answers 2, distinguishing the minor: from that assumption of the parts by which it was made for all the time during which the whole was assumed, he denies the minor: from another assumption, which could be made, he concedes the minor: and denies the consequence. Which answer is founded on this, that he holds that de facto there is no special union of the parts of humanity with the personality of the Word beyond the union of humanity itself; although the parts could be united by another immediate union, as they were united in the three days of death.

You will say 3: If the Word had first assumed the whole humanity, at some time he would have abandoned what he once assumed: because in death he did not have the whole humanity assumed; since that had been dissolved through the separation of body from soul: but the consequent seems to clash with that common theological axiom drawn from St. Damascene: What he once assumed he never abandoned: therefore, etc. — The Doctor denies the minor: since, he says, all Theologians agree that the Word in the three days of death did not have the whole assumed: because then there was not the whole of humanity, which had been dissolved through death; whence St. Damascene only wished to say that the Word never abandoned any part of humanity which he had once assumed.

You will say finally: St. Augustine in book On the Christian Struggle, cap. 18, says: Unchangeable truth through spirit the soul, and through the soul the body: and thus by the same he assumed the whole man: therefore he assumed the parts before the whole. — The Doctor answers, that St. Augustine is to be understood concerning the medium quo of congruence: not however of the medium quod; since it was fitting that the soul be assumed before the body, and the body before humanity, as shall be shown.

Second Conclusion. — THE PARTS WERE THE MEDIUM QUO OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE WHOLE HUMANITY. This is common among all, and is proved: that is the medium quo of the assumption of another which is the cause or reason why that other is assumable: but the parts of humanity are the cause why it is assumable: therefore, etc. The major stands firm. The minor is proved: that is the cause why something is assumable which is the cause and reason of its entity, and of its congruence why it rather be assumed than something else: but this the parts of humanity perform: for they themselves constitute humanity and make it apt, so that it rather be assumed than another nature: for the body serves toward the end of the Incarnation, namely the salvation of men to be wrought through the sacrifice of the death of Christ; while the soul, because it especially serves toward fulfilling the offices of Doctor and Legislator, etc.; therefore those parts of humanity are the medium quo of the assumption of that whole humanity.

Third Conclusion. — THE SOUL IS NOT THE MEDIUM QUOD OF THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BODY, BUT ONLY THE MEDIUM QUO, AND THAT NOT FROM NECESSITY, BUT FROM CONGRUENCE. This stands in three parts. The First is proved first indeed: If the soul had been the medium quod of the assumption of the body, it would have been necessary that in the instant of death a new assumption of the body should have had to take place, for in the three days of death the body of Christ was united to the Word: but not through the mediation of the soul, from which it was severed. — Then, incommunicability belongs to the account of person: but this belongs rather to nature than to form, because in the whole the form is communicated to matter, as giving being: therefore just as in a nature personated in itself that incommunicability is more appropriated to the body, because the body is not communicated to another after the manner of a form, as the soul is communicated to it: so when it is personated through another, subsistence is owed prior to the body than to the soul; therefore so far is it from being said that the body of Christ was assumed through the soul as through a medium quod, that rather it would have to be said to have been assumed before the soul. — Finally, the body is born to subsist in itself: but not precisely through the soul: therefore of itself it demands to be terminated by divine subsistence. For the soul itself likewise, and thus in the same instant both body and soul were assumed by the Word: nor ought one to be called medium quod in respect of the assumption of the other.

The second part appears sufficiently from what has been said; for by whatever reason the divine Word was able to assume any bodily nature whatsoever, so too he could have assumed a human body destitute of a rational soul, and thus the soul is not a medium of the assumption of the body from necessity of nature, but only from fittingness; whence

The third part is evident: for it was fitting that the rational soul be assumed together with the body informed by a rational soul. Whence the divine Father, setting aside the small sacrifices offered from irrational victims, fitted a body to the Word in which there should suffice for sins: likewise it did not become satisfaction to be made through a body destitute of a rational soul: therefore congruently the soul was the medium quo of the assumption of the body.

From these things it is gathered that the parts of humanity were not assumed through the assumption of the whole, as it were through a certain redundancy and resultant: both because it would follow that new unions were made in the three days, since then the parts were not united to the Word through the whole: and because partial subsistences are owed to those parts, seeing that they can exist severally and separately: therefore they ought to have been supplied immediately and first by the Word: hence it must be said that beyond the total union two partial unions are given, one toward the soul, the other toward the body.

You ask: Whether in the resurrection a new union of humanity with the Word was produced, or rather whether that total union resulted from the partial unions of the Word with the soul and the body?

I answer, that it seems probable to me that neither must be said, but that the same union which existed before was reproduced. Nor must it therefore be said that in the resurrection the incarnation was reproduced: because incarnation signifies union not only with the whole, but also with the parts; whence since in the three days of death the Word always remained united to soul and body, the incarnation ought not be judged reproduced. Here the Authors inquire whether the Word assumed all the parts of the body, both animate and deprived of life. But in a more convenient order we shall make sufficient answer to this inquiry in Disput. 2 following, treating of the truth of the humanity of Christ.

You ask 1. Whether a created nature can be assumed together with its own proper personality?

I answer that this question can be taken in a threefold sense: first indeed, whether personality itself can be assumed immediately just as the nature. Second, whether at least nature affected with its own personality could have been assumed in such wise that that personality would not be destroyed and perish. Finally third, whether a nature existing with its proper personality can be so assumed that nevertheless that personality perishes.

I SAY TO THE FIRST, that it is beyond doubt that personality itself cannot be assumed per se and immediately to subsist together with divine personality: both because subsistence is the last terminus of nature in the account of subsisting: but with the last terminus posited, any further termination absolutely conflicts: and because personality cannot be assumed unless it be assumed unto subsistence: but it implies contradiction for a person to be assumed unto subsistence, since person is the individual subsistence of rational nature, that is, incommunicable to another: finally also because, as we have said more than once, the formal account of created person consists in a twofold negation of communicability, both whereby and what: but it conflicts that a negation be assumed and terminated by divine subsistence.

TO THE SECOND I say that nature affected with its own personality could have been so assumed by the person of the Word that in the instant of assumption it would not subsist, but its proper personality would perish; both because there cannot be greater repugnance that nature joined to its proper personality be deprived of it than that it be produced without it: but truly nature can be produced without its proper personality: therefore that personality already existing can be destroyed. The major is evident: because no greater power is required for destroying a subsistence already produced than for preventing its being produced: but divine power prevented its being produced and resulting from individual nature in the very instant in which that nature was produced: therefore it could also destroy one already produced. — It is confirmed from a similar case: for God can deprive an accident previously inhering in a subject of its mode of inherence, namely by destroying the subject, as comes about through transubstantiation in confecting the Sacrament of the Eucharist; so too he can deprive humanity already subsisting in the Word of the mode of union, so that that humanity, left to itself and subsisting through no other personality, may begin to subsist through its own: therefore conversely God could strip a nature of its proper personality and confer an extrinsic one upon it.

TO THE THIRD I say with the Doctor in dist. 5, q. 2 of Book III, that not even by divine power can a nature affected with its own personality be assumed unto hypostatic union. Which is gathered from the V. General Synod, Coll. 8, Can. 5, where it is said: If anyone confesses not that the Word of God is united hypostatically, and on this account has one subsistence, or one person, let him be anathema. From which I argue thus: The Council gathers that there is only one person in Christ from the fact that humanity was assumed unto the subsistence of the Word: but that inference would be null if created nature, retaining its proper personality, could be terminated by divine subsistence, as is evident: therefore the Council judges this to be impossible. Likewise reason convicts it, because personality is the last complement and adequate complement of created nature: therefore a nature having that complement cannot be affected by any further one, otherwise the first complement would be last and not last. The antecedent stands firm: both because otherwise it would follow that a nature affected with its own personality would still be incomplete, and would lack some substantial complement: and because the whole which a nature can have from several personalities it can have from one alone: therefore one personality alone is the adequate complement of nature. —

Then, proper personality either consists in a twofold negation of actual and aptitudinal communicability, as we contended with the Doctor; or it consists in some positive mode, as the Thomists pretend: but from either opinion it stands that nature so affected cannot be further personated. Not indeed on account of the first: because thence it would follow that nature would be joined and not joined, and that it would be incommunicable and communicable. It would indeed be incommunicable, because it would already be personated by human personality: it would also be communicable, because as personated it would still be communicated to another. The same follows likewise from the other opinion, for if personality consisted in something positive, nevertheless it ought formally of itself to infer a twofold incommunicability, both whereby and what: consequently wherever that person were, there would follow a twofold incommunicability. — Finally, if human nature terminated by its proper personality were assumable by a divine person, the consequence would be that the divine Word ought to have assumed it, and consequently that he did assume it: but that consequent is against the Catholic Faith, wherein it was defined against Nestorius that human nature stripped of its proper personality was assumed by the Word: therefore also that whence it follows. The major is evident: both because if the proper personality of human nature were compatible with the personality of the Word, it would have been far more fitting to assume it than the nature stripped of it: since the Word from man assumed what it befitted to be assumed from man: and because entities must not be multiplied without necessity: but it would be a greater miracle to take away from human nature its proper personality, or to prevent its flowing from it in the instant of its formation: therefore it would have been more fitting to assume the nature together with its personality than denuded of it.

You will say: St. Damascene in book On why we are according to the image, says: The Son of God according to the will of the Father became man, and joined human nature to himself together with human will, which belongs to his nature; but he did not join the hypostasis of man. And he subjoins this reason for his assertion: lest the will of human nature, attributed to his nature, should depart from the prescription of the divine will by that will which touches the hypostasis, but should obey it spontaneously in all things. From these things one may argue thus: St. Damascene teaches that the Word for this reason assumed human nature, but not the hypostasis of man, lest there be made an assumption with which peccability could stand: therefore he supposes absolutely and physically that assumption to be possible. The consequence is evident: for if he had judged that assumption impossible, he would not say the hypostasis was not assumed in order that peccability might be avoided, but because it was impossible.

I answer, that St. Damascene in the cited place only intends that the divine Word coupled human nature and its will to himself physically through union unto divine subsistence: but when he subjoins that he did not join the hypostasis of man to himself, he speaks of the conjunction which heretics taught: namely through affection and love alone; and he gives this reason, lest the will of human nature depart from the will of God: but this affective and moral conjunction, although truly it is excluded against Nestorius, nevertheless is possible. Add that if these are genuine words of St. Damascene, scarcely can it be understood what he intends; for there he distinguishes a twofold will, one of the hypostasis, another of nature, which is altogether fictitious.

You ask 2. Whether this proposition, God assumed man, is true?

I answer, that it is at times frequently used by the holy Fathers and Councils. For St. Augustine lib. 9. De Civit. Dei, c. 17, speaking of God, has this: Who indeed as unstainable God, far be it that he feared contamination from man, whom he clothed himself with, or conversed among men from among men. Similarly St. Anselm in book On the Incarnation of the Word, cap. 23, does not hesitate to assert that God assumed man; yet not the person of man, nor this man. Moreover the first Council of Toledo in its Confession of faith says: We believe the Son of God from the womb of the Virgin assumed man. Similar things are found in Toledan VI, cap. 1; likewise in the Frankfort Council, in the Epistle to the Bishops of Spain. And this is gathered from several holy Fathers, book 15 On the Trinity; Damascene book 3 On the Faith cap. 1; Leo the Great sermon 2 On the Incarnation, and very many others. Finally, this manner of speaking is used by the Church in the Canticle Te Deum laudamus, where it is said: Thou, about to take upon thyself man for deliverance, didst not abhor the Virgin's womb. Wherefore Ludovicus Vives, on the prefatory passage of St. Augustine, mocks the scholastic Theologians asserting the contrary, as though they knew better and more soundly how one should speak of divine things than the holy Fathers: but with sounder judgment he himself rather deserves mocking, who, a mere Grammarian thrusting his sickle into theological doctrine as into another's harvest, passed a silly and rash judgment on a matter unknown to him: for, as appears, that formula of speech cannot stand in propriety of language. Therefore

I answer secondly: this proposition, God assumed man, is not to be approved in the rigor of speech, because thence it would follow that the Word assumed not only human nature but also the person: but the consequent is erroneous, for thence it would follow that in Christ there would be two hypostases and two supposits, because the assumed remains in the assumer, and therefore if the human supposit was assumed by the Word, it is necessary that it remain in him: therefore this proposition properly is not to be asserted. This stands firm, because although homo signifies only humanity formally, nevertheless in its proper sense, whether formal or material, it signifies the supposit having humanity and supposits for it: for if it did not suppose for a supposit having nature, those propositions would not be true: Peter is man, Paul is man. Therefore the following propositions are not true: Peter is humanity, Paul is humanity, because humanity does not supposit for the possessor of nature, but for the nature: therefore the name man does not supposit for nature, but for the supposit possessing nature.

But to the formula of speech of the holy Fathers, I say that when they speak of the Word as having assumed man, they are to be benignly interpreted; namely that they used part for whole, and concrete for abstract, because surely the nature of man was assumed, and because the assumption of that nature was terminated unto this, that the Son of God become man.