Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

NOTE 1. That the present question presupposes two natures in Christ, divine and human, and likewise two intellects, namely uncreated and created; since the intellective faculty is an undivided property of spiritual nature, it is necessary that that intellective virtue befit every nature having it; whence in the 6th Synod, Action 11, it is defined that the Word assumed a rational soul consubstantial with our souls, and a mind like to our mind; but mind signifies the soul according to that faculty whereby it is intellective; and in the Lateran Council under Martin, Collation 5, it is defined that all things were twofold in Christ; namely two natures, two intellects, two wills and operations: for although there only the Monothelites are condemned, who rejected only the twofold will in Christ; yet since the intellective power is inseparable from the appetitive, this heresy could not be condemned without at the same time determining two intellects in Christ, namely created and uncreated. Whence here it is deservedly asked, whether as there are two intellects in Christ, so also a twofold knowledge must be admitted, namely created and uncreated.

NOTE 2. That, passing over those heretics who denied Christ a human mind and consequently created cognition and science, against whom dispute has already been often held in the preceding pages, certain Catholic Doctors have asserted that the created intellect of Christ our Lord knew all things by no other cognition than divine and uncreated. Which opinion indeed St Bonaventure reports was at one time pleasing to some, in 3 dist. 11 q. 1. A certain John a Ripa taught it before the others, as Capreolus reports in 3 dist. 11 q. 1 a. 1; nay for asserting it Hugh of Victor labored long, Tractate On the Wisdom of Christ our Lord c. 16, where although at first he seems only to ask whether the science of Christ equals the divine; nevertheless he advances to the point that he preferred to deny created science in Christ; for when it had been objected to him: if the soul of Christ knows all things that exist, God has greater sufficiency than his creature in every good; he thus dissolved it: it is true that God excels his creatures in every good, where some good of creature is found other than the good of Creator: but since the wisdom of that soul is not other than divine wisdom, how can comparison be made? Responding to which he says:

It must undoubtedly be said that another wisdom than the divine was not in Christ; for if the wisdom of the soul of Christ were other than divine wisdom, it would be less... therefore that we may hold that truth firmly, that that soul knew nothing not, but knew all things, it must be said that that soul was wise by no other wisdom; but in God by nature, in that soul by grace.

Truly the other Theologians cry out, affirming as a dogma of faith that as there is in Christ a twofold intellect, created and divine, so also there is in Christ a twofold science, uncreated and human.

NOTE 3. That although in establishing this assertion the Theologians agree with unanimous consent concerning the truth of the thing, and that de facto the matter stood in Christ according to the present ordination of God; nevertheless some contend that de potentia saltem extraordinaria et absoluta the human intellect of Christ our Lord could become cognizant of all things through the uncreated cognition and science of God, nor can it be shown to any convincing reason that the opinion of Hugo Victorinus implies contradiction. Which assertion Aegidius a Praesentatione especially defends, book 1 On Beatitude, qu. 1 art. 2; but the contrary teach all Princes of Theology, and likewise their adherents and disciples, to whom let us subscribe with

First conclusion. — CHRIST TRULY DE FACTO HAD CREATED SCIENCE. This is of faith, determined in Councils defining all things to be twofold in Christ, namely two natures, two wills, two intellects, and two operations. And although they do not speak in particular of the intellect, yet by general definition they comprehend it; for Pope Agatho says in the Epistle of the Roman Synod (which is related in the 6th Synod Action 1, and received in the 8th): We confess in Christ all things twofold, insofar as they pertain to the natures, we preach his two natures, and confess each to have its natural properties, the divine all things that are divine, the human all things that are human, without any sin. — It is confirmed from the same Council, where he alleges St Leo saying: Of the two natures of Christ our Lord each form acts with the union of the other what is proper: namely the Word operating what is of the Word, and the flesh executing what is of flesh: which last words prove our opinion thus far, inasmuch as they assert each nature in Christ our Lord to have exercised its own proper functions, and consequently since actual intellection is one of the proper operations of the human nature, Christ our Lord must have understood by his created intellect through created actual intellection alone. Hence is subjoined: For neither do we give one natural operation of God and creature in anything, so as neither to lead up what is created into the divine essence, nor to cast down what is excellent of the divine nature to a place competent to creatures. This also appears most of all from the Lateran Council under ⟦OCR gap: several lines lost here by the OCR; text resumes mid-sentence⟧ it is likewise defined that all things in Christ are twofold, namely not only two wills, ⟦OCR gap: more lines lost; text resumes at the fragment "manam."⟧ manam. For first, since to each will its own cognition corresponds; if there are two wills in Christ, there must also necessarily be two cognitions. Second, by saying two operations, and not determining to the operations of only one or the other power, that action cannot be excluded from this definition which is first among human ones, namely created cognition. Third, by defining that in Christ are all things which pertain to human nature, created intellection was likewise defined to be in Christ, seeing that no one denies it pertains chiefly to human nature.

The conclusion can also be proved from sacred Scripture, especially from John 8, where Christ our Lord says: For I know him (namely the Father), and keep his word: where this particle I know stands for created cognition corresponding to the observation of the precepts of his Father. Moreover in the same Evangelist c. 13, Knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass out of this world to the Father, having loved his own; from which I infer, that as Christ observed the commandment of God as man, and suffered through the assumed nature, so also as man he knew these things by some created act. Add to these that Christ our Lord elicited very many acts of human intellection which cannot fall into divine cognition, for Luke 2 it is said he advanced in wisdom: but this progress however explained cannot be understood of divine wisdom, which is incapable of any increase as of decrease; Matt. 8 it is said he marveled: but admiration supposes a certain ignorance, which certainly cannot fall into divine science. And Hebrews 5, He learned by those things which he suffered: but to learn something conflicts with Christ by reason of divinity; therefore it behooved that Christ have a created intellect, and consequently created cognition.

It is proved also by reason, because if Christ had not science and created cognition, it would follow that the created intellect in him was frustraneous, for the intellect per se is ordered to its proper action: but the proper action of intellect is intellection elicited by itself: therefore Christ ought to have it. — Then, Christ is true and perfect man: but humanity without created intellection is not perfect: therefore Christ ought to have created intellection. The major is evident. The minor is proved: because whatever lacks its end is imperfect: but human nature, insofar as intellective, is on account of created intellection: for every power is on account of its operation: therefore without it it will be imperfect.

You will say. In vain are many things done which can be done by fewer: but Christ knew all things by uncreated intellection: therefore created intellection was frustraneous to him. — I distinguish the major: In vain are things done by the same faculty and power, pass; by different ones, I deny. But Christ through the divine intellect, and as God, understood indeed all things by uncreated cognition; but through the created intellect, and as man, he knew things by created cognition: therefore by reason of diverse faculty he had diverse cognitions, nor in vain was done through one faculty what could not be supplied through the other intellective faculty.

You will urge. Therefore Christ did not have created subsistence, because He subsisted sufficiently through uncreated: but He also knew all things sufficiently through uncreated science: therefore, etc. — I answer denying the parity; and the reason of disparity is that multiplication of subsistences would multiply supposits, and constitute two entirely separate and divided things, and consequently if there had been two supposits in Christ, there would have been no union of Divinity with humanity: but the like does not happen from double nature, faculty, and operation, because through those there are not constituted in Christ two intelligent beings separate and sundered from one another, but one only, by reason namely of unity of supposit.

You will say 2. If it be unbecoming Christ to know only through created science, especially since, as we said, it would follow thence that the created intellective faculty in Him would be vain: but this argument is nothing. Proof; for no inconvenience is it that some power in Christ not have its due operation nor attain the end to which it is ordered, for Christ indeed had generative power which was nowhere reduced to act. — I deny the minor, and to its antecedent I say that in Christ were all faculties and their acts which conduced to the end of redemption; but actual exercise of the created intellect of the soul of Christ most greatly conduced to that end; otherwise however of generative power; therefore no wonder if the act of this faculty was wanting to Christ.

Conclusion second. — THE HUMAN INTELLECT OF CHRIST, EVEN BY GOD'S ABSOLUTE POWER, COULD NOT BECOME INTELLIGENT THROUGH DIVINE AND UNCREATED SCIENCE. This is common among Theologians. It is proved first from the Epistle of Pope Agatho cited above, for therein he proves that in Christ there cannot be one operation of both natures; because it is impossible that the proper operation of one nature become the operation of another. Which can also be proved by the authority of St. Ambrose book 2 De Fide, chapter 4, where he plainly says the operation of one power cannot be another's: for he says: Where substance is diverse, one operation cannot be. In the same way argues St. Damascene book 3 chapter 13 and Pope Leo Epistle 10 to Flavian.

It is proved also by reason: If the human intellect of Christ could become intelligent through uncreated science, especially either habitually or actually: but neither can be said. Not the first, because uncreated science is not a habit but substance. Not even the second, because that uncreated cognition must be produced by an intellect, either created or divine: but it could not be produced by a created intellect: for whatever is from a created and finite principle is created and finite: therefore a created intellect cannot produce uncreated and infinite intellection. Nor yet by an uncreated one, because actual intellection is the proper effect of the intelligent being; for no one understands through the intellection of another, nor consequently through intellection produced by another: therefore the created intellect of the soul of Christ could not become formally intelligent through intellection produced by the divine intellect. — Then, if the created intellect of the soul of Christ could understand through the uncreated intellection of the Word, this would happen either through proper communication of uncreated intellection, or through union of that intellection with the created intellect. The first cannot be said; because by the same reason that created intellection would be said to be truly communicated to the created intellect of the soul of Christ, all other divine operations could be communicated to the assumed humanity by the same reason, and thus that humanity could spirate by communication of spirative virtue and spiration, and create by communication of creation, which are manifestly absurd and impossible. Not even the second: for if through union of the cognition of the divine intellect the created intellect of Christ could become intelligent, also the will of Christ could become willing and free through volition and liberty uncreated intimately united to itself: but this is false: therefore, etc. The sequence of the major appears: for by the same reason that uncreated intellection could be united to a created intellect, uncreated volition and liberty could be united to created will, since the same ratio appears on both sides. But the minor seems certain: for free volition must be in the power and dominion of will: but divine volition cannot be subject to the power or dominion of created will.

You will say 1. For true and perfect cognition nothing else is required than that the soul have science and wisdom intimately united to it actually: but the soul of Christ has intimately united to itself the divine Word, which is the very knowledge and uncreated wisdom of God: therefore truly through it the soul could know all things. — I distinguish the major: united to itself by the mode of form affecting and perfecting it, in the ratio of intellective faculty, I concede: by the mode of terminus hypostatically terminating its dependence: I deny. But the divine Word is not united to the very soul of Christ by the mode of form, but by the mode of hypostatic terminus: for the subsistence of the Word is terminus in its formal concept, not act; but intellection is formally the act of the intelligent being, and therefore it must be after the manner of form. Which answer is confirmed by what the Seraphic Doctor says d. 14 art. 1 q. 1:

Although the uncreated Word be united to the eye of Christ, and to all parts of Christ's body, nevertheless it is not known by the eye: and this because there is not in it disposition for knowing a spiritual thing: therefore by parity, however much the uncreated Word be united to the soul of Christ, unless the soul be disposed to see God through light which makes it Deiform, it will never behold Him.

You will say 2. Divinity can be united no less to a created intellect in the ratio of actual intellection, whereby the created intellect may understand, than be united to the same intellect in the ratio of intelligible species, or in the ratio of subsistence: yet both the divine essence and the subsistence of the Word are united to human intellect in those two ways: therefore also the divine essence can be united to a created intellect in the ratio of actual intellection, whereby it may understand. The minor stands from what has been said both in the present Treatise and in the treatise On beatific vision. But the major is proved as to the first part: for from the fact that the divine essence is united to a created intellect by way of actual intellection, it would not follow that the intellect does not become formally intelligent, just as it does not follow that it is not formally intelligent from the fact that the divine essence is united to it by way of intelligible species. It also appears as to the second part: for as the personality of the Word makes the humanity of Christ subsist in a far nobler manner and satisfies most sufficiently the appetite of humanity, so actual uncreated intellection far better satisfies the intellect of the soul of Christ, since created actual intellection cannot serve it either for knowing objects which it does not know, through that actual uncreated cognition of God; or for knowing them in a nobler manner: therefore the intellect of the soul of Christ knows not only through actual uncreated cognition of God, but also besides it has no other actual created intellection: and consequently it has no scientific habit ordered to such created intellection. — I deny the major regarding both parts; and to the first I say there is not parity of reason between the union of the divine essence in the ratio of actual intellection and the union of the same in the ratio of intelligible species, for the intelligible species is extrinsic to intellect: but intellection is intrinsic and the proper formal effect of the intellect itself. To the second argument I say there is not likewise parity between the union of uncreated subsistence with humanity and the union of uncreated intellection with a created intellect, because human nature is not ordered first and per se to subsisting as to its proper formal effect connaturally owed to it: but the intellect is ordered to its proper intellection, such that if that be taken away it can no longer be conceived how it understands; because to understand through intellection produced elsewhere it would need that it be received in it by way of word of mind: but uncreated intellection cannot be received in a created intellect, otherwise it would exist after the manner of accidental form, which is repugnant. I add that positing the subsistence of the Word in humanity implies the proper subsistence resulting in humanity: but however much uncreated intellection be posited in the created intellect of Christ, it would not imply that this intellect understand also through a created act elicited by itself; because although in that hypothesis it would know all objects which it can know through created intellection, and indeed in the noblest manner; nevertheless there would remain another mode whereby it could still know those objects, namely natural cognition proportionate to itself: just as de facto Christ, although He knows objects by beatific and infused cognition, not less therefore knows them also by acquired and experimental cognition.

You will say 3. A scientific habit is given only that it be known by: but there was no necessity that Christ know through created science, seeing He already knew all things through uncreated science: therefore there is no necessity of admitting created science in Christ. — I distinguish the minor: there was no necessity simply, I concede: secundum quid, and on account of perfection of the created intellect, I deny.

Three things chiefly are to be established in this Question: First, whether truly the soul of Christ had beatific science, or clear and intuitive vision of God, and that from the instant of His conception. Second, whether that science and cognition was so perfect that it can even be called comprehensive. Third, whether through it the soul of Christ knows all that which God knows.

NOTE 1. That the state of Christ can be distinguished as double: one indeed before His death and resurrection: the other after His resurrection. Concerning the latter there is no place for doubting but that Christ had beatific vision and intuitive cognition of the divine essence; for this the Apostle seems expressly to teach Heb. 1, where speaking of Christ he says: He sitteth on the right hand of the Majesty on high: being made so much better than Angels as He hath inherited a more excellent name than they; which text especially, as Theodoret notes, looks to Christ after the resurrection: but holy Angels contemplate the divine essence intuitively, according to Matthew 18: Their Angels in heaven always see the face of my Father, etc. But it is not so clearly found from Scripture whether Christ while still wayfarer and mortal was possessed of delightful vision of God, and that from the beginning of His conception, wherefore this must be determined in the present Question.

NOTE 2. From the Subtle Doctor in 3 dist. 14 qu. 2 nu. 7, that only that vision is called comprehensive whereby a thing is so perfectly known that there is as much perfection in the cognition as there is perfection in the knowable object:

For it seems, says the Doctor, that only that intellect comprehends some intelligible whose perfection in intellectualitas is as great as the perfection or intelligibility of the intelligible: and therefore there is commensuration, adaequation, and on account of this neither is exceeding with respect to the other, and thus each is quasi-finite to the other, because simply adaequate: just as on account of the equality of the divine persons one person could be said finite to another, because not exceeding it, and yet simply is not finite.

Whence he gathers:

Therefore since no created intellect can have such intellectualitas either in first act or in second act as is the intelligibility of God as object, nay rather it exceeds infinitely; therefore no such created intellect, even if it see anything whatsoever visible on the part of God, can comprehend Him, because there is no commensuration hence thence.

Thus the Doctor.

NOTE 3. From the same Doctor qu. 15 quodlibetica, that for some object to be seen in the Word, or in the divine essence, is nothing else than to be represented in the divine essence itself as in a mirror, so that by the same vision by which that secondary object is seen, e.g., man, the Word also, or that divine essence, be seen as representative of man. Moreover objects represented in the divine essence are of two kinds chiefly: for some are purely possible, nor ever will have existence: others will have, or have, or had existence, and are called either future, actual, or past. The former God is said to know through science of simple intelligence, the latter through science of vision: the diversity of which sciences has been abundantly declared in our second volume disputation On science. It is asked presently however whether the intellect of the soul of Christ through beatific science can know both kinds of object known by God through science of simple intelligence and vision, and that either actually or only habitually. Actually, I say, if He sees all things simultaneously in act: and this again, either by one vision, or by many. By one vision indeed, if namely seeing the divine Word He see also all possibles shining forth in it: by many however, if to each visible object individual intellections correspond in the intellect of Christ. Habitually however, if He have something by way of habit, or first act, whereby He could perceive all those objects. Which again can happen in two ways: namely either by having a habit, or light, representative of all things whatsoever visible in the Word: or rather by eliciting one act of vision which is ostensive of all; such is the act of actual vision of God, which can be called habitual, or existing after the manner of first act, with respect to those things which shine in the Word, insofar namely they can be represented.

Conclusion first. — THE SOUL OF CHRIST STILL WAYFARER AND MORTAL HAD INTUITIVE VISION OF GOD, AND THAT FROM THE INSTANT OF HIS CONCEPTION. This is common regarding both parts among Theologians But the first is proved by very many texts of Scripture, especially from chapter 3 of John where Christ speaks thus: No man ascendeth into heaven but he that descendeth from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven. In which words Christ still wayfarer and mortal, and still acting on earth, asserts Himself to be in heaven: but He was not in heaven by local and corporeal presence: therefore by mental and spiritual: but to be in heaven by reason of soul and spirit is nothing else than to see God intuitively: therefore Christ mortal enjoyed intuitive vision of God. It is confirmed from this, that Christ uttered these words, that He might prove to Nicodemus that He ought to be believed by him, as an eyewitness, existing simultaneously on earth and in heaven, which had happened to no Prophet ever; whence He said there: what we know we speak, and what we have seen we testify, ... who came from heaven is above all, what He saw and heard, this He testifies. — It can also be proved from John 12 where the same Christ says: If any man minister to me let him follow me, and where I am there also shall my minister be. He does not say where I shall be, but where I am; signifying that He already enjoyed clear vision of God, which those following His divine footsteps would attain, especially in hardships and torments to be endured. But that He there speaks as man appears hence, that He institutes discourse concerning Himself, as about to die for us, and following through death, then because in what follows He addresses the eternal Father as man.

Some prove the same truth also from the holy Fathers; but very few are express testimonies conceived nominally concerning supreme felicity before death and resurrection of Christ; and those usually brought forward by some, perhaps one excepted, plainly demonstrate the matter not at all. One passage here, which I mean, is Augustine's from question 63 On eighty-three questions, where expounding the allegorical signification of Lazarus raised by the Lord, he says the sudary wherewith his face was covered is the figure of present vision in us, whereby through a glass we see in an enigma: which Christ commands to be taken away, that is, that after this life all veils will be taken away, that we may see face to face. But how great the difference between the man whom the wisdom of God bore, through whom we are freed, and other men, is understood hence, that Lazarus unless going out of the monument is not loosed: that is, even the soul reborn cannot be free from all sin and ignorance except by resolution of body, so long as through a glass and in an enigma it sees the Lord. But the linen cloths and sudary of Him who did no sin and knew nothing not were found in the monument. He alone in flesh was not oppressed in the monument, lest any sin be found in Him; nor entangled in linen cloths, lest anything lie hidden from Him or retard His journey.

The reason is also supported as follows: First, because human nature was sublimated by the incarnation to supreme being: therefore it ought equally to have been raised to the most perfect operation, which is the beatific vision. Next, he who is the cause that others become comprehensors ought himself to possess beatitude in a more excellent degree; yet Christ, even while still mortal, was the cause why the first men became comprehensors, which appears above all from that celebrated promise which he made to the penitent thief, saying: Today you shall be with me in Paradise: for, as St. Augustine observes in epistle 57, although on that very day of death that repentant thief was to be in limbo, nevertheless because there he was going to see God, he is said to have been about to be in Paradise: therefore Christ himself, even while uttering these words and enduring the dreadful torments of the cross, truly enjoyed the vision of God. Finally, it was not fitting that the natural son should be so long deprived of his own inheritance, especially since that suspension of beatitude, as regards the soul, contributed nothing at all to the work of our salvation and restoration.

⟦OCR gap: one or more print lines lost here by the OCR; text resumes mid-word at "-dimus", i.e. the end of a Scripture quotation (Ioan. 1. "…vidimus gloriam eius").⟧ dimus gloriam eius, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father. By these words the Evangelist expressed that the glory of the soul of Christ is derived from the personal union of the Word. Second, from what follows these words, full of grace, and truth. Whence I argue thus: the fullness of grace is glory itself; but grace stands related to glory as the imperfect to the perfect; moreover, the fullness of truth consists in the intuitive knowledge of God. Third, in the same place: No man has seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he himself has declared him. John 3. What we know we speak, and what we have seen we testify. John 8. And if I bear testimony to myself, my testimony is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go: and afterwards: If I should say that I know him not, I shall be like unto you a liar: but I do know him, and keep his word. From these I argue thus: Christ is there set forth as the most perfect witness of the truth, sent by the Father, not only as God, but even as man; but perfect testimony proceeds from sight: hence, upon hearing those who are worthy of belief we give credence, because they declare that they saw with their own eyes the things themselves: therefore he saw the things concerning which he bore witness: therefore he beheld God himself intuitively. Since, however, these things prove that Christ before his passion saw God intuitively, and since there is no reason why at one time rather than another, it follows that he saw him from the first instant of his conception.

It is proved likewise by arguments. First, the glory of the body, which he displayed to the Apostles on Mount Thabor, is a most evident sign of the glory of his soul: nor can any reason be assigned why he had it at this time rather than that. Second, the inheritance is due to the natural Son of God as soon as nothing prevents him from obtaining it: but Christ as man is the natural Son of God: the inheritance is the intuitive vision of God, or created knowledge: nor is there any assignable reason why from the first instant of his conception he did not attain it.

You will object 1. certain passages of Scripture, such as John 7. The Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 17. Glorify, concerning the glorification of Christ on the very day of the Ascension, when in the sight of the Apostles he was lifted up, and a cloud received him from their eyes; and not of the very glory of the soul. So Augustine, tractate 32 on John. To the second and third, I say they are to be understood of the glory of the body and of the exaltation of name, of which the Apostle speaks to the Philippians 2. For which cause God also has exalted him, etc. So Augustine, tractate 101 on John. Which indeed is confirmed by the fact that Christ the Lord there asks the Father for that clarity with which he himself glorified his divine Father; and this was certainly nothing other than the manifestation of the name and majesty of the Father; for he says in the same place: Father, I have manifested your name to men, whom you gave me.

You will object 2. Christ merited for himself knowledge, or the beatific vision: therefore he did not possess it during the time of his mortal life, nor from the beginning of his conception. The consequence is evident; for it is necessary that the reward follow merit, since merit is the way to the reward. The antecedent is proved: that which is more perfect is to be attributed to Christ: but it is more perfect to have something by merit than without merit; for to have something by merit is to obtain it independently of another, and from the motive of justice: whereas to have it without merit is to have it merely dependently upon the liberality of the giver: therefore, etc. — I deny the antecedent: for although Christ merited the glory of his body, he did not however merit the glory of his soul, which he had from the first instant of his conception, not by the title of reward, but by the mode of nature, and by the right of natural filiation. Hence, to the proof I say that, speaking generally, it is indeed more perfect to have a thing by merit than without merit; nevertheless, per accidens it is sometimes better to have something without merit than by merit, namely, when its attainment by merit would derogate from natural dignity and from the perfection naturally due: but that beatitude, by reason of the hypostatic union and of natural filiation, was due to Christ as it were by native right; hence it would have been a certain prejudice to his dignity if he had been bound to earn it by study and labor. The remaining things that are wont to be objected against this assertion will be proposed and resolved in an easier and more suitable order in what follows.

Second conclusion. — THE BEATIFIC KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST THE LORD WAS INDEED PERFECT, BUT NOT COMPREHENSIVE. So holds the Doctor in the place cited, and he

proves it by the same arguments by which he proved that the soul of Christ in fact possessed perfect and supreme grace: for, having asked in q. 2, n. 2, whether the intellect of Christ can be perfected by the most perfect vision of the Word, he answers: I say that it can, for the same reason for which in the preceding question 1 I said that his will can have supreme charity. Now the proof can be formed thus: supreme fruition follows upon supreme grace: therefore the most perfect degree of fruition must correspond to the most perfect degree of grace: but Christ had supreme grace: therefore also supreme fruition: but for supreme fruition, which is wrought chiefly by beatific love, the most perfect vision of God is required: therefore from supreme grace it follows that Christ possessed the supreme vision. — He confirms it by the authority of St. Isidore, who says in chapter 12 on Exodus: The Trinity is known to itself alone, and to the man assumed: which indeed can be true insofar as the Trinity alone, together with the man assumed, knows the Trinity herself with that knowledge than which a more perfect cannot be granted to any creature.

You will say. The more excellent the intellect is with an equal light of glory, the nobler and more excellent the beatific vision can be: but the intellect of an Angel is more perfect in natural things than the intellect of the soul of Christ: therefore, upon the hypothesis that an Angel should have the light of glory equal to that granted to the soul of Christ, he would elicit a more perfect beatific vision: and consequently the beatific vision of the soul of Christ is not the most perfect and supreme of all. The major is evident from what was said in the first volume concerning the inequality of the light of glory: for it was proved that the more vigorous intellect, with an equal light of glory, elicits a more excellent vision. The minor also is certain: since from the Apostle to the Hebrews, Christ was made a little less than the Angels. — I distinguish the major: that it can be nobler and more excellent by reason of the intellective faculty fortified and elevated by the light of glory, I concede: by reason of the light of glory itself, I deny. And with the minor granted, I similarly distinguish the consequent: that the beatific vision of an Angel would be more excellent than that of Christ, by reason of the intellective faculty, I concede: by reason of the light of glory, I deny. For not so much light of glory would be conferred upon an Angel as upon Christ; for since Christ possesses being far more excellent, by reason of the hypostatic union, than any creature whatsoever, therefore he ought to possess a nobler principle of operating, if not natural, at least supernatural. Hence the beatitude of Christ is supreme merely in point of fact, but not in point of possibility, as we said in similar fashion concerning his grace.

The second part is proved, namely, that this knowledge of Christ is not comprehensive of the Divinity; for St. Augustine says in book 83 of Questions, q. 14: Whatever comprehends itself is finite to itself: but the divine essence is not finite in comparison with the soul of Christ, since it exceeds it to infinity: therefore the soul of Christ does not comprehend the divine essence. Second, the infinite is not comprehended by the finite: but the soul of Christ is finite both entitatively, and as regards the intellective power, and the light of glory by which it is corroborated: but the divine essence, as comprehensible, is infinite: therefore, etc.

You will say. The intellect of the soul of Christ, according to the Doctor in the place cited above, n. 6, sees the divine essence as infinite: but to see the divine essence as infinite is to comprehend it: therefore the beatific knowledge

of Christ is comprehensive. The Doctor proves the major: Because, he says, nothing except under the formal aspect of the infinite can quiet the intellect: such that, if the infinite were not formally apprehended as infinite, but infinity only accompanied it, it would no more quiet the apprehensive power than any other intelligible thing; for infinity accrues to it when compared to that power, just as a triangle as white would no more quiet the sight than as black, if the triangle alone, precisely as triangle, were compared with that power, and what accompanies it were apprehended per se. Similarly the essence does not quiet unless as essence existing as seen in three supposita; but this belongs to it only by reason of infinitude: therefore, etc. — I distinguish the minor: that he who sees the divine essence as infinite in an infinite manner, so that there is as much perfection in the beholder as in the visible object, comprehends it, I concede: that he who sees that infinity merely in a finite manner comprehends it, I deny. Now the intellect of the soul of Christ indeed sees the divine essence as infinite; but it sees it in a finite manner, like the other Blessed; hence, by the same reason whereby the other Blessed do not comprehend God: therefore neither does the intellect of the soul of Christ comprehend him.

You will say 2. St. Isidore, cited above, says that the Trinity is known to herself alone, and to the man assumed: therefore he holds that the man assumed, by parity of reason, knows the Trinity in the same manner: but the divine Trinity knows herself comprehensively: therefore Christ also. — I answer, that St. Isidore utters these words to signify that the man assumed can be compared to the divine Trinity in the knowledge of God, not by reason of comprehension, but by reason of a certain most excellent knowledge, whereby the soul of Christ, before all other creatures, beholds the divinity more perspicaciously and sublimely. Or otherwise I say that Isidore means nothing else than that the mystery of the Incarnation is incomprehensible, even as the mystery of the Trinity, as he himself teaches in almost similar words in book 1 of the Sentences, chapter 3, saying: The Trinity alone knows herself integrally, and the humanity received by Christ: by which words he says that the Trinity is known to herself alone, even as the assumed humanity, to signify that each of these mysteries is perfectly known to God alone; wherefore the Apostle calls the incarnation the unsearchable riches of God.

Third conclusion. — IT IS MORE PROBABLE THAT THE SOUL OF CHRIST DOES NOT SEE ALL THINGS WHICH GOD SEES BY THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIMPLE INTELLIGENCE, NAMELY ALL POSSIBLE THINGS. This seems to be the genuine opinion of the Doctor at n. 20, as his Scholiast gathers from the same place, although in truth he rather seems doubtful in resolving this difficulty.

It is proved, therefore, first: If the soul of Christ saw all possible objects, this would be either through many visions, or through one: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first, because since those objects are supposed to be infinite in number, it would be necessary for him also to have actually infinite cognitions: but a finite faculty, such as is the soul of Christ, cannot have actually infinite cognitions, because it conflicts that a finite power should be able to accomplish as much as an infinite one; especially in that which pertains to simply simple perfection: but if a created intellect could understand infinite objects by infinite intellections, it would accomplish that; for it would perceive all that which infinite power perceives: now the cognition of infinite objects denotes perfections without imperfection. Or even according to the second way, because that unique cognition would either of necessity represent all those possible objects formally, by its intrinsic nature, or would accomplish only this by means of certain respects superadded after the manner of accidents, which its intrinsic nature would not require. But the first cannot be said, because truly then that vision would be of infinite perfection, and could be called actual wisdom infinite entitatively, such as belongs to God alone: since that vision would be not only extensively infinite, inasmuch as it would tend to all intelligible objects, but also intensively: for it does not seem to be a greater perfection to see one object most intensely, than to see perfectly all intelligible objects together: for there is no one who would not prefer a perfect vision, as it were one vision, of ten objects, to a vision of eight of one object alone. Moreover, if one intellection could represent infinite objects, it would follow that the intellect also was of infinite intellective power; since it conflicts no less that a created intellect should have infinite power indivisibly for producing an intellection of infinite perfection, than that a created intellection should have infinite power for representing infinite objects: it conflicts that the intellect of Christ have infinite power; otherwise it would in fact be endowed with that power: since everything of perfection ought to be attributed to the soul of Christ which can belong to it without repugnance and indecorum: therefore equally it conflicts that there be given an intellection which has infinite force of representing infinite objects by reason of its own intrinsic nature. It is confirmed by a similar case; because it conflicts that one man should be able to be equivalent to infinitely many men, as regards removing some infinite weight which could be carried by infinitely many men: for that man would need to have infinite power of carrying: therefore equally it conflicts that one vision be equivalent to infinite visions, as regards representing infinite objects. — Neither can the second be said, namely, that that vision would represent all possible objects by means of superadded respects. First, because, as Poncius says on the present question n. 107, it would be necessary that infinitely many respects be added to that vision toward those infinite possible objects, and thus there would be given an actual infinite, which we demonstrated to conflict in the Physics. Second, it would follow that those respects would be formally visions, and thus there would be given many visions of those objects, which is against the hypothesis. The consequence is proved: because through those respects those objects would be seen secondarily, but not through the vision itself; for, such a vision being posited, the objects would not be perceived, but with the respects added they would be perceived: but that by which an object is seen is a vision: therefore it would follow that those respects would be formally visions, and consequently that there would be actually infinite visions of infinite objects. It is confirmed, for nothing else is required that something be called a vision than that it make a visible object be perceived, and that it inhere in the very seeing intellect: but truly those respects would have to be in the intellect, since they would affect the act of the intellect, and by means of those respects the intellect would be said to perceive visible objects, which by those respects alone it would not see: therefore those respects would truly be visions. Then, it would also follow that the vision would not be an absolute form, but a respective one, because if by some superadded respect any visible or knowable object can be represented formally, there is no reason

why it should be limited and determined to a determinate number of objects, beyond which it cannot simultaneously understand more. Which indeed is gathered from the distraction, and lesser attention, of the intellect to many objects; which lesser attention, or distraction, surely does not proceed from the production of the vision, since otherwise it would follow that fire, by the simultaneous production of many fires, would suffer distraction and diminution of its power; nor does it arise from the impotence of the organs, since otherwise that lesser attention regarding many objects, rather than fewer, would not be in Angels; but it arises from the limitation of its power to perceiving simultaneously many objects through distinct visions.

You will say. If distraction of cognition, and lesser attention, were to occur in the knowledge of many things rather than in the knowledge of one object alone, it would follow that Christ would less perfectly know the divine essence, if along with it he simultaneously understood other secondary objects, than if he saw that essence alone; and thus he would not have the supreme vision of the divine essence: but these consequences seem absurd: therefore it is false that through the knowledge of many objects attention is distracted, and a lesser cognition results. I distinguish the major:

that this would follow if that cognition were made through many visions, I concede: if through one, I deny. I confess indeed, that if cognition is made through many visions, then the intellect is distracted, and each cognition will be less perfect; but it is otherwise when by one cognition the intellect perceives many things; for then that cognition, extending itself to many objects, especially when they are mutually subordinated, is not called less perfect, but rather more excellent.

You will urge: If through the knowledge of many objects, which are perceived by one vision, no distraction occurs: then by a single act of vision Christ could perceive all possible objects whatsoever.

I deny that consequence, because that cognition of all possible objects conflicts with him on other grounds; for since that cognition is actual, if he perceived all those objects actually, since they are supposed infinite, it would follow that he has a cognition not only extensive, but also intensively infinite, as was said. You will press further: If the intellect is distracted, and its cognition becomes lesser, while it has diverse cognitions, the consequence will be that Christ will not have so perfect a cognition of the divine essence while simultaneously understanding all other objects by infused, or acquired science, as he would have if he did not understand them through those sciences: but the consequent is false: therefore also the antecedent. I distinguish the major: if he would know through

many cognitions, which would tend to diverse objects, such that the terminative object of one cognition were not the terminative object of another, I concede: otherwise, I deny. I confess indeed, that the intellect is distracted through many cognitions when they tend to diverse objects; but it does not happen thus when those diverse cognitions are referred to the same objects: but the cognitions which Christ has by infused or acquired science do not tend to diverse objects, but to the same objects diversely known; hence no distraction of his intellect ought to occur. I say with Poncius, n. 114, that indeed the beatific cognition of Christ ought to be distracted by the cognition infused, or acquired, of other objects, unless God, out of special favor, willed him to have the beatific cognition in the highest degree: and therefore by the more abundant light of glory, and a singular concurrence, he so braced that intellective power of his, that through the cognition of other objects the beatific cognition would become neither lesser nor less attentive.

You will say 2: If Christ could not see possible objects through a created intellect, chiefly because from the infinity of those objects it would follow that his cognition would be intensive infinite: but this is false: since one could only infer thence that that cognition would be extensive infinite, because indeed it would tend to objects infinite in number: but from an infinitely extensive cognition there is not gathered an intensively infinite cognition: just as although in a continuum there are infinitely many parts divisible in potency by some divider, it does not follow that any created divider has actually infinite power to divide those parts. Then, although the beatific vision is terminated and extends itself to the infinitude of God; nevertheless it is not intensive infinite, because, as we said, it does not see infinitude in an infinite manner. Then the Doctor refutes the arguments by which St. Bonaventure proved that Christ does not see infinite things actually: First, because thence it would follow that the intellect of the soul of Christ would understand as much as the divine intellect, and as such would have infinite power: second, because infinite power sees two more distinctly and perfectly than three, and three than four, and so ascending to infinity, it will always be able to see more things less distinctly and perfectly than fewer: therefore if he saw infinite things infinitely many times, he would see them less clearly and distinctly than if he saw merely infinite things: but what is seen infinitely many times less perfectly and distinctly is just as if it were seen in no way at all: third, because extensively infinite power presupposes intensively infinite power: but the soul of Christ cannot extend itself to objects infinite in number.

The Doctor, I say, at n. 21, resolves and refutes these arguments: but they are the same arguments by which we confirmed our aforesaid Conclusion: therefore our assertion is opposed to the opinion and doctrine of the Subtle Doctor.

I deny all these consequences, and to the first reason I say, that indeed from extensive cognition intensive cognition is not rightly gathered, when extensive cognition is concerned with objects understood actually, but merely in potency, I concede: when that extensive cognition is supposed in fact to be occupied with infinite objects known actually, I deny. For since, as we said, through the cognition of many objects not subordinated, which must necessarily be attained by diverse cognitions, distraction of the intellect occurs, and each cognition is less perfect, it follows that if anyone should know actually, perfectly and distinctly, objects infinite in number, he would necessarily need to have an infinite power of understanding, just as if anyone should in fact divide the infinite parts of a continuum, he would need infinite divisive power. Secondly, in the second place I say, there is a disparity between the cognition of God as infinite, and of infinite objects, namely that the cognition of God under the aspect of the infinite can be made in a finite mode; for it is not required that there be as much perfection in the knower as in the knowable object; for God seen as infinite is not necessarily perceived according to every single degree of his perfection and infinitude: just as, for example, that the sun be seen inasmuch as lucid, it is not necessary that it be perceived according to every degree and perfection of its light; otherwise it could not be seen more perfectly by one eye than by another; but that all possible objects should be seen actually, it would be necessary that the seeing intellect have infinite power, for it would either see them through one vision or through many: if through one, it would be necessary that that intellection be actual infinite in representing, for it would represent infinite objects, which would shine forth in it, and through it become manifest to the intellect: but the productive power of an infinite act must be infinite, and consequently the intellect of Christ, productive of that infinite intellection, would need to have infinite power. The same must be said if he would know those objects through intellections infinite in number, for just as power as it were twofold is required to produce the intellections of two objects, so power as it were fourfold is required to produce the intellections of just as many objects: therefore by parity of reason infinite power would be desired, that infinite cognitions of infinite objects might be produced.

To the third, I say that the Doctor refutes the arguments of St. Bonaventure only to this extent, insofar as the Seraphic Doctor wished not only that no created intellect could produce intellections infinite in number, but also that it could not elsewhere receive such as produced: which indeed the Doctor does not approve; hence he says in the same place: It can be said that to see less distinctly with respect to many things is not necessarily on the part of the intellect as receptive, but only as elicitive: for it could receive visions equally distinct of many things as of few: and thus, if the argument held, it would conclude only that the intellect cannot be elicitive with respect to infinite visions. And below: Extensive infinity toward certain things, or toward forms to be received, does not conclude infinite entity of the receiver, as is evident in matter, if it were receptive of infinite forms: indeed it rather concludes imperfection: but some extensive infinity, as toward effects simultaneously coexistible, concludes extensive infinity, because such plurality concludes greater perfection in that which extends itself to more things; not so of the receptive. By which words the Doctor openly signifies, that even if perhaps the intellect is receptive of intellections infinite in number divinely produced, even as of species intelligible infinite in number, such as some Theologians wish to have been granted to the Angels from the instant of their formation; nevertheless it does not follow that the same intellect could produce intellections infinite in number; which is the very argument by which we confirmed our Conclusion: therefore the Doctor is not opposed to us.

Nor does it matter that he adds in the same place: Yet if the intellect also is posited as elicitive of infinite things; I say that neither does that extensive infinity conclude an extensive infinity of the intellect, but of the object: for the object is the principal active cause with respect to those visions, and not the intellect. That, I say, presents no obstacle, because by those words he intends to signify nothing else than that although the intellect might be said to elicit the cognition of infinite objects, it ought not on that account be called infinite, because it was not the principal cause of the cognition of those objects; but God himself, who concurring in an extraordinary manner with it would produce their vision in the intellect of Christ itself; and thus the intellect would rather be said to be receptive than productive of such cognition.

Fourth conclusion. — IT IS PROBABLE THAT THE INTELLECT OF CHRIST DOES NOT SEE ALL THINGS WHICH GOD SEES BY THE KNOWLEDGE OF VISION, BUT ONLY CERTAIN ONES: AND THIS NOT ACTUALLY, BUT HABITUALLY: INDEED NOT THROUGH THE LIGHT OF GLORY, OR ANY QUALITY, BUT FROM THIS, THAT HE HAS AN ACT OF BEATIFIC VISION TOWARD AN OBJECT REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL THOSE THINGS WHICH CHRIST WISHES TO KNOW. This seems more conformable to the mind of the Doctor, as regards the three parts of which it consists, of which

the first is against the Thomists, who affirm that the soul of Christ, by blessed science, knows in the divine essence all whatsoever things present, past and future. But it is proved, because future objects can be infinite in number, for instance the infinite cognitions and affects of men and Angels throughout all eternity: but, as was said, Christ cannot understand infinite objects, for the same reasoning applies to those future objects as to possibles: therefore, etc.

The second part similarly stands, namely, that Christ does not see those objects habitually, as it were through the light of glory, or some other quality, which would represent to the intellect, after the manner of a habit, all future objects: for neither could the intellect of Christ be determined by itself to seeing those objects any more than by the light of glory, or by some similar quality, which would stand after the manner of a habit: but it cannot be determined by itself to the seeing of all those objects: therefore not either by the light of glory. The major stands, because the light of glory could determine the intellect to the perception of those objects from no other source than because of itself it could concur to the cognition of those cognitions whereby those objects would be perceived: yet by parity of reason the intellect could concur to those cognitions: therefore this can no more occur through the light than through the intellect, especially since the intellect without any light of glory, and with a mere more abundant actual concurrence, can be determined to the cognition of objects: but the light of glory could not concur to that vision except dependently upon the intellect. This part will be confirmed a little below.

The third part likewise stands, namely, that Christ sees future objects to this extent, namely, insofar as he sees the divine essence like a voluntary mirror, and as representative of all those things either among possibles or among futures, which Christ wishes to know; for by this reason the cognition of Christ can be called most perfect, since although he does not actually perceive all objects whatsoever, nevertheless his intellect is always ready in first act to uncover them, whenever, whether for his accidental felicity, or to answer the inquiry of others, he shall wish to know those objects.

FROM THESE GATHER, that the Doctor Subtle is to be understood in this last sense when he says that Christ sees all things habitually in the Word. Moreover he is to be understood according to the second part of the present Conclusion, when he denies, according to the opinion of St. Bonaventure, that Christ sees all things habitually, in that manner namely, in which the Seraphic Doctor affirmed that in the intellect of Christ there is some quality after the manner of a habit, whereby it would come about that Christ could habitually know all objects both possible and future; which indeed the Doctor assaults by showing that that habit, representative of all objects, is impossible; partly because either that habit would be the ratio of knowing infinite objects precisely per se, and thus would have infinite power in representing, which conflicts from what has been said: or it would accomplish this by means of respects founded in the habit itself, by order to those intelligible objects themselves, which equally cannot be said: for, by the same reason that infinite respects are posited in such a habit, lest that habit be granted to be infinite, by the same reason infinite respects can be founded in some act, which nevertheless on that account would not be infinite according to that opinion: but in the same opinion an act founding infinite respects toward infinite objects is not admitted: therefore neither ought a habit to be admitted. Moreover, it is impossible that infinite respects be founded in habits toward objects unless that habit is posited actually infinite; for a habit has no other respect toward its object than either the respect of caused to causing, or of measured to its proper measure: therefore if it has infinite respects measured to measure, that habit will be infinitely measured: but to be infinitely measured is to be infinitely perfect; for to be measured is to be perfected, or at least perfectly known: therefore the habit will be not only infinite extensively, but even intensively. Hence Poncius deservedly censures Suárez, because he said in disputation 26, near the beginning, that the Doctor Subtle departed from the opinion of St. Bonaventure, which he expounded otherwise, in a manner less probable: in which words, says Poncius, though few, Suarez thrice erred grossly: First, when he said that Scotus differed little from the opinion of St. Bonaventure, which he impugned; for he is as far from that opinion as the last part of this conclusion, which is affirmative, differs from the first, which is negative, and one of which has utterly no connection with the other, as is manifest. Secondly, when he said that Scotus afterwards expounded otherwise the opinion of St. Bonaventure impugned by him; for although he expounded habitualiter otherwise than St. Bonaventura, nevertheless he did not expound the opinion of St. Bonaventure otherwise, but established another opinion wholly different. Thirdly, when he said the exposition of Scotus was less probable; for from what has been said the opposite stands. He errs further also, when in the same place he supposes that Scotus said that actual vision would sometimes stand after the manner of a first act, sometimes after the manner of a second act: for Scotus did not dream this; but only said that, by means of the vision whereby, as it were a second act, he sees the beatific object potent and ready to represent all intelligibles, he has applied a first act sufficient for causing with the intellect the cognition of any intelligible whatever; not indeed conjunctively, but divisively; which is without doubt true. Such are the words of Poncius.

WHETHER BESIDES THE BEATIFIC SCIENCE CHRIST HAD AN IN- FUSED SCIENCE, WHEREBY HE WOULD KNOW THINGS THEM- SELVES IN THEIR PROPER NATURE.

Note 1. I attribute to Christ a threefold distinct cognition and science of creatures, namely the Beatific, Acquired, and In- fused. The Beatific is that whereby he knows created things in the divine essence; the A- cquired is so called which he acquired by his own study and experience;

the Infused truly is that which God himself implanted in him by imprinting upon his inte- llect species representative of created things. Moreover, science divi- nely implanted is one thing infused per se, and another per accidens. It is called infused per accidens, which, of itself, could in fact be ac- quired through the study and exercise of the intellect; nevertheless it is infused by God, so that he who obtains it may know things not only more promptly and easily, but more perspicaciously. Such was that science which Adam and Solomon had divinely implanted in them concerning natural things, which in the course of time they could have acquired by their own study; but it must neces- sarily be infused by God, such as is the science, or evident cognition, of supernatural things. The question at present, however, is whether Christ had an infused science, not only per se, but also per accidens, whereby he knew not only supernatural things but also natural ones in their proper nature.

Note 2. I establish the distinction between blessed science and sci- ence in its proper genus: not indeed according to the objects known: for the same objects which are known in the Word, or in the divine essence, can also be known in their proper genus: but they are mutually distinguished by diverse media; for the medium of beatific scientific cognition is the di- vine essence itself, inasmuch as representative of things, which it contains eminently and vir- tually, and it has infinite force of representing them: but the medium of in- fused science are intelligible species divinely implanted, which represent the things to be known no otherwise than if those species had been ac- quired by proper labor. Hence beatific cognition has for its im- mediate object the divine essence itself, and for secondary object the very creatures, which are seen in the divine essence. But A- cquired, or Infused cognition is terminated to the creatures themselves as to its pri- mary object, which is seen per se, and not in another, either intuitively or ab- stractively; and by this same reason things are said to be seen in their proper genus. But since the former medium is far clearer and more excellent, things also are seen in the divine essence in a far clearer and more excellent manner than in their proper genus.

Wherefore beatific cognition is called Matutinal; infused or acquired cognition is called Vespertinal. It must further be observed that the objects of infused sciences are either divine, such as those which pertain to God one and trine, and likewise the Incarnation of the Word; or super- natural, such as grace, etc.; or purely natural.

Note 3. That one and the same intelligible species cannot simultaneously represent distinctly many objects, as the Doctor teaches in the course of his treatment in book 2, dist. 3, q. 1. Which indeed he proves by various arguments: most of all because one and the same thing cannot be the natural representation of dissimilar things: but the natures and quiddities of things are mutually very dis- similar: therefore one species cannot be perfectly representative of them. Then, whatever is the ratio cognoscendi of many things distinctly must necessarily have one object in which those many things are perfectly contained and as it were united: which indeed is clear from the example of the divine essence, which is re- presentative of all creatures, and that distinctly and most perfectly, because it most perfectly contains all things and encloses them in its bosom: but one spe- cies has no first object virtually including all other quiddities according to their whole knowability; for there is no creature which virtually contains other creatures according to all manner of their knowability: therefore one species cannot be representative of all whatsoever other quiddities. Finally, the infinity of the divine essence is ga- thered from the infinity of those things which are represented through it: therefore by parity of reason, if there were given any species having force of representing all possible objects, it would claim infinitude to itself: but this is false.

First conclusion. — BESIDES BLESSED SCIENCE, SOME INFUSED SCI- ENCE WHATSOEVER IS ALSO TO BE ADMITTED IN THE INTELLECT OF THE SOUL OF CHRIST.

The Conclusion can be proved by all those texts of Scripture whereby it was proved above that in Christ were all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, among which indeed are the gifts of wisdom and knowledge. Likewise from that passage to the Colossians 2: In whom are hidden all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God: now infused knowledge is the noblest portion of supernatural knowledge, and it is chiefly signified by the Apostle under the name of the knowledge of God; hence John 7, when the Jews wondered, saying: How does this man know letters, having never learned? Jesus answered: My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me: as if to say: I did not acquire it by my own industry, nor did I learn it from a man tea- ching, but it was implanted in me by my Father.

It is proved also by all the Theologians; most especially by our Alen- sian, part 3, q. 13, member 2, where he distinguishes six modes of science in Christ:

Of which the first, he says, is that whereby Christ knows all things because he is God, and this science is not an accident, but substance, and God himself. > > The second mode is that whereby he knows all things by reason of the grace of union, and this mode denotes only a certain excellence of the science of the soul of Christ necessarily due to it, by reason of the grace of hypostatic union. > > The third mode is that whereby he knew all things with the knowledge of comprehensors and of the Blessed, and concerning that mode we disputed in the preceding question. > > The fourth mode is that whereby he knew all things according to the perfection of integral nature, just as Adam knew all things; and this mode is infused science. > > The fifth mode is that whereby he knew some things through experience on the appetitive part, of which mode the Apostle speaks to the Hebrews 5: He learned obedience from those things which he suffered. > > Finally the sixth mode is that whereby he knew some things through experience on the sensitive part; and this sixth mode differs from the fifth in that the fifth mode denotes only the experience of pains and penal sufferings which Christ endured; whence it is called the mode of knowing according to the penal nature assumed; but the sixth mode denotes precisely the intellective cognition acquired through the benefit of the senses, which we shall prove below that Christ possessed.

It is proved moreover by this argument: As grace stands related to the will, so science to the intellect: but in Christ there was fullness of infused grace: therefore also of science, fullness. But there would not be fullness of science unless some were infused: therefore in the soul of Christ there was some infused science.

Moreover, if such infused science were not to be admitted in Christ, chiefly because it conflicts with the blessed science which the intellect of the soul of Christ has in the Word; or at least because, the blessed science being given, an infused science would be given in vain: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first, because according to St. Augustine, q. 26 to Orosius, The cognition of the creature in itself is vespertinal, in God it is matutinal: but from the same St. Augustine, book 4 on

Genesis according to the letter, In the heavenly fatherland there is simultaneously morning and evening: therefore in Christ, as one of the Blessed, there is simultaneously morning and evening. Nor even the se- cond, because, the blessed science being given, the infused is again given, not for knowing simply, but for knowing through distinct media: but truly, the cognition of something having been given through one medium, it is not in vain to be cog- nitive of the same through another medium; as is evident in the case of the earth, whose roundness once proved by a physical medium is not therefore vainly pro- ved by a mathematical medium: therefore, the blessed science being given whereby the intellect of the soul of Christ sees things in the Word, through the Word, as through one medium, an infused science is not given in vain, whereby he knows the same things through infused species, as through another medium.

You will object 1. Science and opinion cannot subsist simultaneously: therefore much less blessed and infused science. The antecedent is evident from Aristotle, book 1 of the Posterior Analytics, and abundantly proved in the third part of our Logic. The consequence is proved: because uncreated and created ratio differ more from each other than two created rationes: but blessed science is had through a me- dium uncreated; infused science truly through a created medium, namely through implanted species; science and opinion are had through created rationes: therefore, etc.

I deny the consequence, and to the proof I say that created and uncreated science indeed differs more than science and opi- nion do in the reason of being, but not of science; for both sciences make the most firm assent, though through distinct rationes; and therefore it does not conflict for blessed and infused science to exist simultaneously in the same intellect: but opinion and science, although they agree in the reason of created being, never- theless disagree most of all in the reason of assent; since opinion makes a doubtful assent: but science an assent altogether certain.

You will say 2: With perfect cognition present, every imperfect cognition is excluded: but infused science compared to beatific science is imperfect: therefore the latter is excluded by the former. Moreover, lesser light is ex- cluded by greater: but the light of infused science is less than that of beatific science: therefore the latter excludes the former. Finally, one and the same faculty cannot elicit two actions simultaneously: therefore neither can the intellect have two cognitions, whereof one is beatific, the other infused.

I answer to the first, distinguishing the major: cognition absolutely im- perfect is excluded by perfect, I concede: that which is only imperfect comparatively, nor does it of itself oppose perfection, I deny. Infused sci- ence is not absolutely imperfect, but only comparatively; nor does it per se op- pose beatific science, and consequently is not excluded by it. To the se- cond I say the major is true, if the greater and lesser lights are of the same order, by which reason the light of the Sun obscures the light of the stars; but false when those lights are of diverse orders: now blessed and infused science are of diverse order and state; since the blessed pertains to the order of glory, infused truly to the order of grace: similarly the blessed belongs to the state of comprehensor, infused truly to the state of wayfarer. To the third finally I distinguish the major: one and the same faculty cannot have two adequate operations, I concede: inadequate ones, I deny. Beatific cognition, or that which is had through the beatific me- dium, namely through the divine essence, and that which is had through the in- fused medium, namely through species divinely implanted, are not ade- quate, but inadequate, since they can be had about the same object through diverse light, and one is subordinated to the other, as it were the less perfect to the more excellent.

Second conclusion. — IT IS PROBABLE THAT CHRIST THE LORD KNEW BY INFUSED SCIENCE THE DIVINE MYSTERIES, NAMELY THAT GOD IS ONE AND TRINE; NOT ONLY AS REGARDS THE QUESTION WHETHER HE BE, BUT ALSO AS REGARDS THE QUESTION WHAT HE IS.

It is proved: There must be granted to Christ, by infused science, knowledge of all those objects which import with themselves no repugnan- ce or indecorum: but nothing prevents Christ from knowing the divine mysteries through that science: therefore it must be confessed that he knew them.

The major is evident from several statements; namely, that so greatly must the humanity of Christ be dignified and celebrated, and his perfection, as far as can be done without any repugnance. But the minor is proved: if anything prevented the soul of Christ from knowing these divine mysteries by infused science, chiefly since, as the modern Theologians will, the mystery of the Trinity cannot be known quidditatively, for example, unless it also be known intui- tively: but this argument is null. It is proved: quidditative knowledge in ge- neral ought not necessarily to be intuitive; otherwise we would nowhere know the essences of things quidditatively; since it scarcely ever happens that we know them intuitively: therefore neither ought quidditative cognition of a divine object necessarily be intuitive. The antecedent stands. The conse- quence is proved by the Subtle Doctor in book 2, dist. 3, qq. 9 and 10, and we also proved it with him in the Treatise On the Angels, where, treating of the cognition of Angels, we taught that Angels still wayfarers had impressed species, through which they knew God one and trine truly quid- ditatively, yet not intuitively but abstractively. It is proved moreover: if there be any reason why knowledge of God must necessarily be intuitive, especially, as the more Recent hold, because the existence of God is of his intrinsic ratio, and consequently, God seen quidditatively must also be seen inasmuch as actually existing: yet this reason is null. First, because it is not certain that the divine existence is a gra- de formally constitutive of the divine essence: since very many Theo- logians teach it to be merely an intrinsic mode primarily surrounding and affecting the divine essence itself. Then, even if truly the divine existence be of the essence of God, thence it is not consequent that God seen quidditatively and existing essentially must necessarily be seen intuitively; since for quidditative cognition of singulars it suffices that they be known abstractively, especially since they are not per se present to the knowing faculty, although known as actually existing: but God can be known by a created intellect not as present to the knowing faculty, and nevertheless as existing actually, just as he was known quidditatively by the Angels while yet wayfarers through impressed species, which exhibited the divine essence clearly and distinctly to them: therefore although divine existence be an essential predicate of God, thence it does not follow that if God is known quidditatively he must necessarily be known intuitively: and con- sequently the intellect of Christ could know divine mysteries quidditatively through infused science.

It is confirmed from the doctrine of the Subtle Doctor in book 1, q. 3, where he teaches that a Blessed one could have in memory an act of recollection of his beatific vision, provided that vision were not continued: but through that act he could know abstractively divine objects, which through beatific science he knows intuitively. Hence the Doctor himself in book 2, dist. 3, q. 9 teaches that St. Paul, recollecting the past vision of God which he had in ecstasy, could know the divine Trinity distinctly through those species of the past vision preserved in memory: therefore by parity of reason, through infused science, and species divinely implanted in him, the intellect of Christ could know clearly and distinctly the mystery of the Trinity and other divine mysteries.

It is further confirmed: the intellect of the soul of Christ, precisely considered according to the state of wayfarer, ought to have known those things which conduced most to the perfection and delights of that soul, with the hypostatic union safe, and its due circum- stances: but that cognition of divine mysteries conduced most to the perfection of the soul of Christ and its delights, and in no way conflicted with his hypostatic union or its circum- stances: therefore etc. The minor stands as regards the first part; for if perfection, and a certain delight of mind, be found in knowing some natural truth, far greater and ampler will it be to know the supreme truth, namely God and his divine mysteries. But it is proved as regards the second part: for this reason the more recent Theologians deny infused science of divine mysteries to the soul of Christ, either because they judge it superfluous, or because they hold it incompossible with the beatific vision: but neither of those arguments is valid. Not indeed the first: since, as we already said, one and the same thing is not known in vain when perceived by the same intellect under diverse light, through diverse media, and by diverse cognitions. Nor even the second, for no reason of such incompossibility appears. For since Christ the Lord was simultaneously comprehensor and wayfarer, thence it comes that, although as comprehensor he should have knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity as pre- sent; nevertheless as wayfarer he could have abstractive knowledge of that mystery, and know it not under the aspect of present and moving to its cognition by its presence; but he could obtain this either through the species of the light of glory; for perfectly and adequately knowing the light of glory, he could have an impressed species of it and know all its habitudes; and since the light of glory has an intrinsic habitude to God as Trine and One, inasmuch as seen in himself and through himself, therefore the intellect of the soul of Christ, seeing that light of glory, could also see that habitude; and consequently the terminus of the same habitude, which is God as Trine and One: or he could know that mystery through impressed species possible of representing it, not indeed as absent or as present, but merely precisely in itself, abstracting from its absence or presence: therefore nothing prevents, either on the part of the beatific vision, or on the part of that circumstance, that Christ could have known divine mysteries through infused science.

You will say: That cognition of divine mysteries would be either clear or obscure: but it could not be obscure; partly because obscure and ine- vident knowledge of an object cannot subsist with beatific cognition of it, and therefore we said that faith has no place in the intellect of Christ: nor clear either, because clear abstractive cognition of God would be had either through the cognition of some creature, as through impressed species of the Trinity, and of divine mysteries; or through the inevidence in the attesting and re- vealing party, not indeed obscurely, but evidently, namely in some light: but none of these three can be asserted. Not indeed the first, because there is no creature which has a connection in the reason of effect with the divine Trinity, and other divine mysteries, such that from the cognition of itself a created intellect could be led to the cognition of the cause whose it is, and with which it has a necessary connection. Nor even the second, because no impressed species is possible whereby it represents the divine Trinity, since God as Trine is always and everywhere really present through presence and power, and consequently no impressed species is required to represent him; since this only serves as the vicar of the object representing him, when he is not present; for to be represented is to make a thing present. Finally, not the third, because from the evidence in the attesting party evidence of the attested thing is not had: therefore from no head could that cognition be clear and evi- dent: nor consequently scientific.

I answer that this cognition was indeed clear, by reason namely of the impressed species, whose possibility we abundantly and perspicuously proved in treating of beatific vision in the former volume, and likewise in the Treatise On the Angels, and we resolved all the instances which adversaries are wont to form against it; which it would be tedious and idle here to recite and renew.

FROM THESE I GATHER that by that infused science Christ the Lord also knew his own Incarnation; for this cognition conduced most to the perfection of the soul of Christ, nor did it in any way beseem his state. Add that through infused science he could know the extremes united in the Incarnation, namely the Word, and humanity: he could likewise know the actual union itself; since these seem less difficult to know than the mystery of the Trinity; for they are of a somewhat inferior order, if you distinguish the hypostatic order in some manner from the order of the Divinity.

Third conclusion. — THE INTELLECT OF THE SOUL OF CHRIST BY SCIEN- TIFIC KNOWLEDGE INFUSED KNEW ALL ENTITIES WHICH PER SE ARE SUPERNATU- RAL, SUCH AS ARE THE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES, GRACE, THE LIGHT OF GLORY, BEATIFIC VISION, ETC. This is common among Theologians, and

It is proved: Of all these Christ had cognition through infused science, whose species can be had infused per se: but of those supernatural entities infused species can be had: therefore etc.

The major stands: since Christ ought to have been endowed with cognition of those things which conferred most upon the honor of his soul: but knowledge of supernatural things contributed most to illustrating the soul of Christ: therefore etc. But the minor is proved; because supernatural created entities are of finite and limited entity, and consequently have finite representability, and hence can be clearly and distinctly represented through a created species.

Then, their quiddity is clearly perceived through finite cognition; since it is known through the beatific vision, which is created and finite cognition; why therefore should it not by parity of reason be represented and attained through species divinely implanted?

Finally, if those objects could not be represented quidditatively, chiefly (as some of the more Recent hold, even from among our own) because that science is terminated to God as he is in himself: yet this reason is null; partly because, as we shall presently say, God himself as One and Trine can also be quidditatively represented and known through that infused science; partly because even if that order were not thus known which supernatural entities bear to God, it would not prevent these from being known; since, in order that they be so known, it was not necessary that God also be co- gnized quidditatively, for the order of dependence of creatures upon God is known quidditatively without God being so known.

You will say 1: Sanctifying grace, and the light of glory are superna- tural entities: but they cannot be known through infused science; grace indeed, because it is a certain participation of the divine essence, according to 2 Peter 1: He has granted us most great and precious promises, that by these we may be made partakers of the divine nature: therefore sanctifying grace cannot be known quidditatively unless the divine essence, of which it is the participation, be likewise known: but this cannot be known through infused science: therefore neither that. The same holds of the light of glory, since the light of glory exceeds every other created light and is of superior order to it, inasmuch as it pertains to the beatific order, which is supreme among created entities, it cannot be known through another light inferior to it, such as infused science: therefore not all supernatural entities will be able to be known quidditatively through infused science by the intel- lect of Christ.

I deny the minor, and to the first I say that since grace is not a substantial and entitative participation of the divine es- sence, for that is indivisible, but only through a certain imitation, therefore it is not necessary that, for grace to be known quidditatively, the divine essence must also be known quidditatively, and as regards the question what it is: but it suffices that it be known as regards the question whether it is. Then, all creatures according to natural entity are certain participations of divine entity: but these can be known without God being known quidditatively: therefore for the participating thing to be known quidditatively it is not necessary that the participable be by parity of reason known. To the second I say that although the light of glory exceeds every created light: nevertheless it can be known through inferior light: since through that very light God is known intuitively, who nevertheless is of far higher order than that light: therefore through inferior light a thing of higher order can be seen.

You will insist. If Christ could have known the light of glory through infused science, by parity of reason he would also have known the beatific vision eli- cited both by himself and by other Blessed ones; but it is false that the soul of Christ could know the beatific vision through infused science: therefore etc. The major stands from parity of reason: but the minor is proved: whoever knows the vision whereby the object is seen intuitively also knows that object intuitively: but through infused science Christ could not intuitively know God: therefore neither the vision whereby God is seen.

I deny the minor, and likewise the minor of its proof: for it is false that whoever sees the medium whereby an object is perceived also perceives that object: for that medium whereby the object is perceived is not the ratio cognoscendi of that object to every intellect: but only to that in which it is formally according to its proper entity; wherefore, just as Raphael, for example, seeing some species representative of the divine essence existing in the intellect of Gabriel, does not on that account see the divine essence, because such species is not the representative ratio of the divine essence in the intellect of Raphael, since it exists in him only objectively and not formally; so the intellect of the soul of Christ seeing beatific vi- sions existing in other intellects, and terminated by their nature to God, does not therefore follow that he saw God, at least intuitively, but at most abstractively; for the beatific vision is not terminated immediately to God clearly seen unless inasmuch as he is in the intellect formally seeing through it: but the intellect of the soul of Christ does not see formally through the visions of others: therefore however much he may know them through spe- cies, it does not nevertheless follow that he knows God through it, at least intuitively.

Fourth conclusion. — THE SOUL OF CHRIST THROUGH INFUSED SCIEN- CE KNEW THE THOUGHTS OF HEARTS, AND LIKEWISE FUTURE THINGS, EVEN CONTINGENT ONES. This Conclusion is likewise more common among Theologians: most especially as regards the first part, which

It is proved by the authorities of Sacred Scripture, from which it stands that Christ the Lord knew the interior affects of men, and the thoughts of hearts. Thus Matthew 9: And Jesus seeing their thoughts said: Why do you think evil in your hearts? And chapter 12: But Jesus knowing their thoughts, etc.; nor is anything more frequent among the holy Evangelists than that that adorable Savior knew all the secrets of the human heart. Hence St. John chapter 2, where he says that when Christ was at Jerusalem at the Passover, on the festival day, many believed in his name seeing the signs which he did, he immediately adds: But Jesus did not trust himself to them, for that he knew all men, and because he needed not that any should give testimony to man; for he knew what was in man.

Reason also favors this; since that knowledge of the secrets of the heart most befitted the ministry of Christ the Lord. For first he was Judge not only of exterior man but chiefly of interior: but a most rigorous judge must know all those things of which he is about to give sentence. Similarly he was Doctor and master destined for men: consequently he needed to know both those things which pertain to interior acts in order to eternal life, and also those which pertain to exterior acts, that he might provide the means and remedies conducing to that end. Finally, he held supreme dominion over all the actions of man; for he ought to influence the souls of men as head into members: but a lord must know all and singular things which are subject to his dominion: therefore Christ insofar as Judge, Doctor, and Lord ought to know the thoughts of hearts.

The second part also stands: Indeed Christ the Lord knew many future things, as is evident from all his prophecies. Thus Matthew 26, in the night of the passion he said to Peter: Before the cock crow, you shall deny me thrice. And Luke 19, Seeing the city he wept over it saying: because if you had known, and that indeed in this your day, the things that are to your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes: for the days shall come upon you, and your enemies shall cast a trench about you, and compass you round, and straiten you on every side, and beat you flat to the ground, and your children who are in you, and they will not leave in you a stone upon a stone, because you have not known the time of your visitation. To these, there is the same reason as now intimated, namely that he was about to be Judge of all. Add that these things pertained to the perfection of his prudence; for a prudent man ought not only to contemplate present things, but also to remember past ones and foresee future ones, and as much as prudence excels, so much more perfectly and more many past and future things ought he to know.

The third part also appears, namely, that whereas Christ knew future contingents as contingent, or inasmuch as they hang upon the free will of men, not only those which were truly going to occur, but also those which would come conditionally, if such condition were posited. It is evident, I say, concerning future contingents truly going to occur in some difference of time; for Matthew chapter 26 he pronounced to Peter: Before the cock crow, you shall deny me thrice: but that threefold denial was a contingent future wholly freely hanging upon the liberty of Peter; yet it came to pass: therefore Christ knew such future contingents.

But that he also knew futures conditionally contingent is similarly evident from that celebrated reproach, imprinting upon the heart of the inhabitants of Bethsaida and Corozain, and rebuking their hardened mind, where he says Luke 10: Woe to you, Corozain, woe to you, Bethsaida: for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they would long ago have done penance sitting in sackcloth and ashes. By which words he expresses the conditional future repentance of Tyre and Sidon: therefore he knew it.

It is confirmed: for the soul of Christ through infused science knows those things which pertain most to its state and mi- nistry: but some of the conditionally and freely contingent futures can pertain to the state and ministry of Christ the Lord; the aforesaid conversion of the Tyrians and Sidonians pertained to confirming the preaching of his Gospel, and to convicting the singular hardness and obstinacy of those to whom he announced the Gospel: therefore it was very fitting that the soul of Christ the Lord should have cognition of these conditional futures.

You will object 1. The cognition of the thoughts and affects of the heart is proper to God alone, and is attributed to him himself as a mark of divinity: thus 1 Kings chapter 16: Man sees those things that appear. But God beholds the heart. And Jeremiah 17: The heart of man is perverse and unsearchable; who can know it? I the Lord searching hearts. Whence the Holy Fathers proved above all the Divinity of Christ the Lord from this, that he knew and revealed the most secret thoughts of all. So St. Ambrose, book 5 on Luke, upon those words of the Gospel, And he saw their thoughts. So likewise St. Jerome expounding chapter 9 of St. Matthew. The same must be said of futures: for their cognition and revelation pertains to God alone, according to Isaiah 41: Show the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that you are gods: whence Tertullian in the Apologeticus chapter 20 says excellently: A fitting proof of divinity, I think, is the truth of divination: but infused science befits Christ not as God, but as man: therefore he knew neither the thought- s of hearts, nor future contingents through that infused science; but either through uncreated science insofar as God and Word, or at most through blessed science, whereby he saw certain creatures shining forth and represented to him in the divine essence: therefore he did not know these things through sci- ence infused.

I answer, distinguishing the major: It is proper to God alone inasmuch as it naturally befits him alone to have co- gnition of free thoughts and future things, I concede: inasmuch as out of his singular favor it could not also be communicated to another created intellect, as its dignity and condition require, to which it is elevated by him, I deny. Therefore I confess that that cognition indeed is proper to God alone after the manner of naturally due cognition; nevertheless out of privilege it could be conferred upon Christ on account of the dignity and ministry for which he was destined, most especially by reason of hypostatic union, on account of which that cognition was attributed to him in a far more excellent manner than ever it was conceded or to be conceded to anyone else. Whence the Holy Fathers from that cognition meritedly inferred the Divinity of Christ the Lord himself, because no mere man ever with such perspicacity and such certitude penetrated and unlocked the hidden things of the human heart and the future events of things, as Christ the Lord himself; nevertheless the Holy Fathers did not deny that some less perfect cognition of those thoughts or future things could be attributed to some pure creature; for this St. Ambrose testifies in book 2 on Luke from the testimony of St. Paul

1. Corinthians 14, wherein he shows that certain men knew secret thoughts of hearts through special power communicated to them by God. Which is also confirmed by many examples of Saints, who were endowed with that very cognition and revelation.

You will object 2. Christ knows the thoughts of hearts and future con- tingents through beatific science: therefore it is superfluous to admit in him also an infused science whereby he might uncover these.

I deny the consequence: for it helps a thing to be known through many media and modes, when that multiplicity of cognition does not hinder the more excellent cognition: but infused science does not hinder beatific science, nor the hypostatic state of Christ, nay it conduces most of all to illustrating his soul: therefore although Christ knew the secrets of hearts and future contingents through beatific science, he did not idly nor uselessly know them also through infused science.

You will insist: No perfection is to be attributed to Christ unless it can be held due to created intellect according to the order of nature or grace: but cognition of secrets of the heart and of contingent futures is not due to created intellect according to either order: therefore it must not be asserted in the soul of Christ. I answer, first,

that the major can be denied, since Christ by reason of hypostatic union was elevated to an order far more excellent than the order of nature and grace, and consequently was also to be endowed with a more preeminent dignity and knowledge. I answer, secondly, distinguishing the minor: cognition of secrets of heart and of futures is not due to the common order of grace, I concede: to an extraordinary and most preeminent order and state of grace, I deny: for as Christ, by reason of the fullness of grace which he possesses, is far more acceptable to God than all other just men whatsoever, thence it ought not seem wonderful if he is likewise laden with a far more excellent favor of God, and endowed with a more perspicacious knowledge of things.

You will object 3. Future contingents cannot be known by the intellect of Christ except either in their cause; or in the testimony of God saying and revealing them, as he revealed them to the Prophets; or in the decree of divine will determining their futurition, in which manner the Blessed, and God himself know future contingents; or finally in themselves immediately, namely if the cognition of the soul of Christ were terminated immediately to those futures in themselves, and not through some object first known: but by none of these four modes could he know those future contingents. Not indeed in their cause, because the productive cause of those contingent effects is wholly indifferent of itself to producing them or not producing them: but from an indifferent principle nothing can be known certainly and determinately: then because future contingents, as they are in causes, do not have determinate truth, just as neither entity, because contingent causes are no more determined to those effects than to opposites: therefore they cannot any more be rationes cognoscendi some effect than its opposite. Nor even the second, because what is known through testimony of God saying or revealing is known only through an extrinsic medium: but cognition through an extrinsic medium is not scientific: since scientific cognition is inferred through an intrinsic medium, evidently known to the knower. Hence every cognition had through revelation pertains either to faith or to prophecy, but not to science. Nor even the third, because objects ought to be known otherwise through infused science than through the blessed one: but through blessed science they are known in the decree of God, or at least in the divine essence, inasmuch as it has infinite force of representing whatsoever objects. Finally, not the fourth, because future contingents are not representable in themselves through any created species; for that which has no determinate being is not representable through some proper species; since representation of species, being natural, cannot certainly determine that which is indifferent to being or not being. A contingent future, e.g. the threefold denial of Peter, had no determinate being, but was wholly indifferent to being or not being: therefore it could not certainly be represented through some species.

I deny the minor: for truly future contingents were known in themselves through representative species of them, as the Doctor seems to teach in book 3, dist. 14, quest. 3, n. 4, where speaking of Christ he says: It can be said that this soul knew habitually and abstractively certain singulars through proper infused species, and did not know others habitually. By which words he grants that the intellect of Christ had cognition of certain singular contingents: for there he does not speak of necessary singulars, but contingent ones, since he adds: Yet he could know them habitually if they should come into real existence: therefore he speaks not only of singular possibles or existing necessaries, but also of contingents: which indeed is confirmed, because through infused science the soul of Christ knows through proper species all those things which are representable in themselves through proper species; but future contingents are representable through their own proper species: therefore etc. The major stands. The minor is proved: every entity under the aspect whereby it is entity is intelligible: but futurity and contingency truly are something, and consequently entity, and hence intelligible. Then, entity as future and as past is intelligible, therefore also as future contingent. The antecedent is evident per se. The consequence is proved; for as futurity is the relation of future time to present, and as pastness is the relation of past time to present, so contingency is the relation of effect to cause, as in first act indifferent; therefore both futurity and contingency are knowable entities. Nor does it matter that they have no determinate being inasmuch as considered in themselves and as viewed in their cause, which inasmuch as considered in first act is indifferent to the effect contingently posited or not posited: for it suffices that they have some determinate being in the decree of God, not at the time at which it is said to be contingently future, but at the time at which God freely decreed that contingent future to exist: for from this determination of divine will supposed, that future is said to have some determinate being: which thus can be represented through created species supernaturally infused by God, and certainly can underlie cognition, and consequently can be known through some supernatural science.

You will say. The Subtle Doctor in the same place n. 6 absolutely denies that a contingent future can be known: If it be said, he says, that he could have this through infused species, that is false: therefore our opinion is opposed to him.

I deny the consequence; for there he speaks not of abstractive cognition, with which we deal, but of intuitive, which he affirms cannot be had through species: Partly because, he says, infused species represents the object as abstracting from act and existence, for it represents the object in the same manner whether it exist or not exist, and consequently is not the ratio cognoscendi as existing: partly because truths knowable intuitively about existents, as existent, namely contingent truths, cannot be known through whatever innate species: for from cognition of terms the truth of contingent complexes cannot be known concerning those terms, etc. From which one may reason thus: the Doctor holds, according to his mind, that infused species represent the object in the same manner whether it exists or not exists: therefore from that we have that even if a contingent future does not exist, it can be known through species infused per se; not only the very substance of the future, but also its futurity and contingency, and consequently not only specificatively but also reduplicatively.

ADVERT HOWEVER, that the Subtle Doctor in book 2, dist. 3, q. 11 deservedly teaches against St. Thomas that an Angel cannot know a contingent future through universal species, nay not even through species simply and solitarily, because species serve only for simple apprehension of extremes, not for rendering judgment. Wherefore for this, that the intellect of the soul of Christ could render judgment upon this proposition whereby addressing Peter he said: Thrice you shall deny me, besides the species representing Peter and the denial, something conjoining these extremes was necessary; and that was a certain revelation and manifestation through some light.

You ask first: whether that infused science of Christ was actual or habitual?

I answer, that it is the common opinion of Theologians that it was habitual, and persisting continually in his intellect after the manner of a quality concurring with the same intellect toward actual cognition. The reason of which is: that science is habitual whereby the knower is only in first act, and uses such science at pleasure for eliciting act: but the soul of Christ through infused science sometimes was only in first act, and used it at pleasure: therefore it was habitual. Such is admitted by all. The minor is proved: herein besides other differences infused science differs from blessed science, that the latter is always actual; for the intellect of the Blessed cannot suspend or interrupt its act of beatific vision, just as neither can the will suspend the act of love: but the intellect of Christ can suspend and cease from the act of cognition through infused science; for since the state of the soul of Christ, and its mode of understanding outside the beatific vision, is such as to operate in human mode, that is voluntary and free, it was fitting that the intellect of the soul of Christ through infused science be sometimes in second act, sometimes indeed only in first act; for since this science per se infused is ordered solely to perfecting the intellect of Christ inasmuch as he was wayfarer, it was fitting that he have free use of it, even as we have use of sciences which we acquire by our labor; for neither did the intellect of Christ have any principle whereby it would be necessitated to exercise always the act of some science.

You will say. It is more excellent to be always in second act than in first act: therefore since the infused science of Christ was in a most perfect state, it ought to be always in second act. The antecedent is proved: first act is ordered to second as less perfect to more perfect; since the faculty is completed and perfected through second act.

I distinguish the antecedent. That this is more perfect according to every state, I deny; according to the state of comprehensor, I concede: for perfection ought to be proportioned to the state to which it belongs: but the state of wayfarer does not require being always in second act, as the state of comprehensor does, because a wayfarer ought at pleasure to use his faculties and habits; whence it is no small perfection in him that he be most free in eliciting his actions, and consequently that he use his habits at pleasure.

You ask secondly: whether by one unique or by several repeated acts the soul of Christ knew all objects through infused science?

I answer, that the acts were manifold according to the diversity of objects: partly because where there are many intelligible species representing specifically distinct objects, the intellect cannot perceive those specifically distinct objects through a single act by means of those diverse species; for act depends not only upon power, but also upon object: but of specifically diverse objects there were diverse species; since through the species of one object another specifically distinct object cannot be represented, for neither can blackness be represented through the species of whiteness: therefore not through a single act, but through several acts, the soul of Christ must have known those objects.

Then, the act of this science ought to be less perfect even according to intensity than is the act of beatific vision; since it is of inferior order: yet the act of beatific vision has this proper to it, that it is single, commensurate and adequate to all subjects seen by the Blessed: therefore the act of infused science ought not have been single.

Finally, unity or multiplicity of act is sought either from unity of object, or of medium, in which objects are contained and shine forth. Hence beatific act is single: because all objects perceived by the Blessed are united and shine forth in the divine essence representing them: but there is no medium in which all objects to be perceived through infused science are united and shine forth; for if there were such a medium, chiefly some intelligible species of so great perfection and power as to represent all possible objects simultaneously, and render the intellect of Christ ready and prompt to know them: but it is not so; for species are similitudes of objects; hence since objects are specifically distinct, nay even generically, one species cannot simultaneously refer all those objects and express their similitude: hence, as was proved in treating of the knowledge of Angels, universal and generic species are not given which refer objects of specifically distinct inferiors: therefore much less can one species be given which would represent distinctly and clearly so many and so varied objects, diverse even in genus.

You ask thirdly: whether that science was discursive?

I answer affirmatively, since according to the doctrine of the Doctor, for the precise formal reason of discourse only this is required, that there be two propositions, whereof one is inferred through the other: for it is not necessary that the unknown be inferred from the more known, as we proved elsewhere: yet the soul of Christ, using this science, could have two actual cognitions, whereof the prior would be cause of the posterior; for since the species concurring to that science were subjected to his liberty, and represented things at his nod, he could bring it about that the species of some nature first represent that nature, inasmuch as he knew that nature actually; then that the species of the property of that nature represent the nature itself as to be known actually, and thus from the essence known he could gather the actual existence of the property. Moreover, the soul of Christ was rational, and consequently ratiocinative, even as ours: therefore truly he could use the scientific habit infused in him for reasoning and discoursing, even as we can use the same. The consequence is evident: for the soul can use at pleasure cognition inherent in it, especially when that is ordered to perfecting and completing its activity: but infused science is given to the soul of Christ to complete its active potentiality: therefore it could use it in a manner connatural to itself: but the connatural mode of understanding of a rational soul is through discourse: therefore the soul of Christ through infused science could reason.

You ask fourthly: whether the infused science of the soul of Christ was more excellent and more perfect than the science of Angels?

The Doctor seems to affirm this in dist. 14, q. 3, where, supposing the angelic intellect to be specifically distinguished from human intellect, and the intellect of an Angel to be of more excellent activity than the human; he indeed grants that the intellect of Christ could not elicit more excellent cognition than the angelic could with equal infused science, because since the angelic intellect is of greater activity than the human, even with equal light it will be able to perceive things more perfectly unless God elsewhere supply the lesser activity of human intellect through more abundant light and through more infused species: but since Christ is head of the Angels, and through hypostatic union had a mode of being far more excellent than an Angel's, he ought also to have had a far more excellent mode of operating; consequently it was fitting that God supply the lesser activity of that intellect through more abundant and more perfect species.

Note 1. By the name of acquired science, we here understand that which of its own nature is acquirable by the proper study of the knower concerning natural things: which although in fact it is sometimes infused (as the Theologians commonly teach that all natural sciences were infused into Adam from the instant of his formation), can nevertheless per se be compared by the forces of nature: hence when it is infused, it is said to be merely infused per accidens, because namely by its own nature it demands to be acquired by its own acts. In this it chiefly differs from the science of supernatural things, whose cognition transcends the forces of nature, nor could it in any way be had unless God should infuse it by gratuitous favor. Although however it is certain among all Theologians that that acquired science truly existed in Christ, as the Apostle openly signifies to the Hebrews 5, when he says of Christ: He learned obedience from those things which he suffered, nevertheless all do not agree as to the mode whereby he obtained it, whether namely through divine infusion, as Adam; or through human study and labor, as other men expert in natural things; or through both together. Some indeed with the Seraphic Doctor in book 2, dist. 11, art. 3, quest. 2 teach that Christ had from the beginning divinely infused in him that acquirable science, lest he ever lack natural knowledge of very many natural objects, which he perceived through such science; so that besides that habitual science there was no other habitual science in his intellect, but only experimental and intuitive: to which opinion the Subtle Doctor also assents, as we shall demonstrate below. Others indeed with St. Thomas, q. 12, art. 2, commonly teach that although Christ the Lord from the beginning of his formation knew all things through infused science, nevertheless he newly acquired for himself acquired science by his own acts, in almost the same manner as other men acquire it; not indeed through discipline drawn from Angels or men, but by the most excellent acumen of mind wherewith he excelled in perceiving and penetrating things, lest namely the agent intellect in him remain idle and fruitless. Thus teach all Thomists and very many of the more Recent. There are also some who wish, with Hurtado dist. 8, diff. 22, that that science acquirable by the forces of nature was in the intellect of Christ partly acquired by his own labor, partly infused divinely per accidens.

Note 2. That infused and acquired cognition are not of themselves precisely specifically distinguished, as the Doctor teaches dist. 14, q. 3, n. 2: Because, he says, acquired and infused cognition can have the same object, and differ only according to efficient causes, as man created and naturally begotten: but such a distinction of causes does not distinguish cognition formally, according to St. Augustine, epistle to Deogratias, and Ambrose in the book On the Incarnation, saying that disparity of origin makes no distinction of nature, as is evident of Adam and us. Thence the Doctor gathers that infused science per accidens and acquirable science in Christ are not specifically distinguished. Likewise that if Christ, as St. Thomas wishes, had infused science of all things in their proper genus, he could not anew compare to himself science of the same things by his own acts, for St. Thomas teaches that two accidents distinct solely in number cannot subsist simultaneously in the same subject; for one or other would be useless and idle for informing and affecting the subject: thus, e.g., two bipedal quantities would be fruitless in the same part of wood: and consequently since acquired and infused science of natural things differ of themselves only numerically, because they are not specified by the principle through which they are obtained but by objects, therefore either it is false what the Thomists commonly teach, that two accidents of the same species cannot subsist in the same subject: or Christ did not have scientific knowledge of natural things: or he could not by his own powers compare to himself another scientific knowledge of the same things.

Note 3. Experimental cognition is distinguished from scientific in most respects. For first, scientific cognition, being certain and continually persisting, is occupied chiefly with universal things considered in the abstract: experience truly is concerned only with individual things present and moving through their presence to that experimental cognition of themselves; whence experimental cognition is always intuitive. Secondly, scientific cognition of itself can be divinely infused independently from all experience whatsoever; for although experience by the nature of the thing contributes toward acquiring natural science, yet it does not depend wholly and per se upon it; because it does not rest upon experience as in its own principle, but is only as it were a certain way whereby one naturally proceeds from imperfect to perfect: thus Adam in the state of innocence had science of many things which he could not experience for that state. Experimental knowledge truly does not seem able to be infused, but only acquired through experience itself: partly because species serving for experience pertain either to intuitive cognition of presents, or memory of pasts, or conjecture of futures, as the Doctor teaches in the place cited n. 4. Whence, that true and certain experimental knowledge be formed, it is fitting that the intellect know the thing to have been already such as it experiences it in fact; which indeed cannot be accomplished through infused species, for, as we said with the Doctor, infused species is indifferent to representing the thing as existing or non-existing; whence it comes about that if an experimental species were infused, it could lead into false cognition by representing something as perceived through sense, which would not have been so known. Finally, the species which science uses in its representation and cognition abstract from time and from any preceding cognition: but the species which serve experiment represent the present thing, which falls under experience with order to past time, and to intuitive or sensible past cognition; for experience is long-continued and exact observation of singulars, from which certain and constant cognition is gathered.

These things thus premised, three things remain to be established: First, that Christ truly had acquired science. Second, that he had it infused divinely from the beginning of his formation. Third, that it was not of all whatsoever things in individuo.

First conclusion. — BESIDES THE BEATIFIC AND INFUSED SCIENCE, CHRIST ALSO HAD ACQUIRED SCIENCE. This is common among Theologians.

It is proved first by the authority of Sacred Scripture, Isaiah 7, where the Prophet speaking of Christ says: Before he knows to call father or mother, he shall receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria: which words St. Ambrose expounds thus in the book On the Sacrament of the Incarnation of the Lord, where having said: The sense of man advanced; for Christ advanced: as it is written, and Jesus advanced in age, and wisdom, and grace with God and men. How did the Wisdom of God advance? Let the order of words teach you: there was advance of age and advance of wisdom, but of human wisdom: therefore he set age before it, that you believe the word spoken according to man: for age belongs not to divinity but to body. Therefore if he advanced in age, he advanced in human wisdom; but wisdom advances through sense, because wisdom comes from sense. By which he openly teaches that Christ compared to himself some wisdom and science through the senses; which a little after he proves by the oracle of Isaiah just cited, and adds: For futures and hidden things do not deceive the wise: but infancy, devoid of cognition, through human prudence surely does not know what it has not yet learned. By which words St. Ambrose attributes ignorance to Christ not simply, since in book 5 On the Faith, chapter 7, he openly denies that; but attributes to Christ only nescience opposed to that science which arises from experience and sense: he grants therefore that the Prophet here signifies some science in Christ gradually acquired through the benefit of the senses.

Moreover the same Prophet expresses this more luminously when he says there: He shall eat butter and honey, that he may know to refuse evil and choose good: which words St. Jerome expounds thus in the same place: Still wrapped in swaddling clothes, fed with butter and honey, he shall have judgment of good and evil, that refusing evil he may choose good: not that he did, refused, or chose this, but that he knew to refuse and choose: that by these words we may know that the infancy of the human body did no prejudice to divine wisdom. — It is proved also by that passage Luke 2: Jesus advanced in age and wisdom before God and men: which advance surely was not made according to infused science, whose fullness of every kind he had received from the beginning: therefore it must be attended to merely in respect of experimental science; for that advance, as some will, must not be attended to only according to appearance: because, as St. Augustine teaches book 83, q. 8, the words of Evangelists narrating histories are to be taken as they are expressed, and consequently true advance is here signified.

The Seraphic Doctor cited above proves the Conclusion q. 1: From this that the soul of Christ, he says, ought to have been perfect, not only according to the superior portion, but also according to the inferior, and according to the sensible part, not only as regards the state of fatherland, but also as regards the state of the way, which is twofold: namely of innocence and of fallen nature. And accordingly Christ had a triple cognition suited to that triple state, namely the cognition of glory, the cognition of integral nature, and the cognition of penal experience, that he might have something in himself of each state. Again, because the soul of Christ was perfect as regards cognition, not only with respect to things knowable, but also with respect to modes of knowing; therefore since things are knowable in a threefold manner, according as they have a threefold manner of being; they have being in the Word, they have being in created intellect, nevertheless they also have being in their own genus: therefore in order that the intellect of the soul of Christ might have full cognition of things, he knew them with this triple cognition. And thus it is evident that the soul of Christ had not only cognition of things in the Word, but also of things from the Word; cognition, I say, not only of simple knowledge, but also of experience. Also evident is the sufficiency, necessity, and distinction of these three cognitions, which can be taken either from the part of the powers, namely superior reason, interior, and sensuality: or from the part of the states, namely glory, innocence, and fallen nature: or from the part of the modes of knowing, namely in the Word, in itself, and in the proper genus. And thus it is evident that the soul of Christ besides the cognition which she had in the Word had cognition of things in themselves and in their proper genus; and thus further it is evident that the soul of Christ, besides the cognition which she had in the Word, had another cognition from the Word.

You will object 1. The Holy Fathers openly teach that Christ did not truly advance at all, nor have increase of science and interior knowledge, but that his advance in science is to be attended to only in external manifestation of science or divinity. Thus Athanasius in Oration 4 against the Arians, where although at first he seems to acknowledge true progression of science in Christ; yet presently he expressly denies it; for he says: That proper advance of the body then, for while it advanced, the manifestation of divinity in him advanced before those who gazed: but as much more as the divinity was disclosed, so much more abundantly was it increased among all men. By which he signifies that progress of this kind consisted in giving more evident signs of divine wisdom and power; whence he adds: What is that advance, namely, as I said, that Deification, and grace communicated to men by wisdom, while sin and inherent corruption were blotted out in them unto similitude and cognition of the Word: for thus with the body growing according to age, the manifestation of divinity also grew in him, and it was openly shown to all that the temple itself was God's, and God in the body. To the same writes St. Gregory Oration 25: Christ, he says, advanced both in age and in wisdom and grace; not that these took increase, for what could that be which from the beginning existed perfect become more perfect? But that they were gradually disclosed and displayed themselves. This also declares most abundantly St. Bernard Homily 2 on Missus est, where he demonstrates that Christ had in his soul no increment of perfection, for he says: Nor had less wisdom: or rather the wisdom of Jesus conceived was not less than born, small than great: whether therefore hidden in the womb, or crying in the manger, or somewhat grown questioning the Doctors in the temple, or of already perfect age teaching in the people, equally perfectly he was full of the Holy Spirit; nor was there an hour in whatever age of his in which of that fullness which he received in his conception in the womb anything was diminished or anything added to it: but perfect from the beginning, from the beginning, I say, full was he of the spirit of wisdom and understanding, spirit of counsel and fortitude, spirit of knowledge and piety and spirit of fear of the Lord. Presently declaring that word of the Evangelist about the advance of Christ: it is to be understood not according to what he was, but according to what he appeared: not because namely something new happened to him which before he had not; but that it seemed to happen whenever he himself willed that it seem. You, man, when you advance, do not advance when or as much as you will; but without your knowing your advance is moderated, your life disposed. But truly the boy Jesus, who disposes yours, himself disposed also his own; and when he willed, and to whom he willed, wiser: when and to whom he willed, wisest: although in himself he never was otherwise than wisest: similarly also though he was always full of all grace, whether that which he should have before God or before men, yet at his own pleasure he now showed it more, now less, as he knew it congrue with the merits of beholders or expedient for their salvation*. Such are the words of St. Bernard.

I answer that the Holy Fathers wish nothing else than that Christ the Lord had no increase of wisdom and science in respect of divinity, but only in respect of humanity: as Rupert expressly explains book 1 on Genesis chapter 21, where treating the passage of Isaiah 11 in which it is said that over Christ rested the spirit of wisdom and understanding, he writes thus: Because he of whom these things are said, being not only man but God, although according to humanity he advanced in wisdom, age, and grace, nevertheless according to that which he is and was God, he had no advance. Whence also St. Athanasius in the place cited in the objection says that if anyone struggle more pertinaciously to contend that advance in wisdom and age was true, he says this is to be conceded to such extent that it be thought said not of his divinity but of human nature. Yet yet, he says, if they persist more contentiously in that Christ questioned, let them hear from us that in divinity there is no ignorance, but it is proper to flesh to be ignorant.

Or I say the Holy Fathers are to be understood in that manner wherein we shall say in the following Conclusion, namely that Christ the Lord knew all things through infused science, even natural ones; nevertheless he could still know some of them through experimental science, not indeed habitually but actually.

You will object 2. It is superfluous to do through more things what can sufficiently be done through fewer: but Christ through infused science alone, not only sufficiently but far more perfectly, knew all that which he could know through acquired science: therefore this latter in him was fruitless.

I deny the minor: for the perfection of the intellect of Christ pertains not only to knowing all objects but also according to every mode whereby they are knowable; hence since things, chiefly sensible ones, can be known otherwise through phantasms abstracted from them than through species infused by God; thence it is that as in the soul of Christ besides the blessed science, whereby she contemplates things in the Word, infused science is admitted, whereby she may know them outside the Word, because they are knowable in both these modes, so since natural things can be known not only through species infused by God but also through those abstracted from phantasms, therefore this mode of knowing must be asserted in Christ, especially since it is most connatural to the soul of Christ inasmuch as joined to a human body.

You will object 3. Acquired science is incompossible with beatific vision, as gathered from that passage 1 Corinthians 13: Whether prophecies shall be made void, whether tongues shall cease, whether knowledge shall be destroyed: which is understood chiefly of science acquired and compared through phantasms: but Christ had beatific science: therefore he could not have acquired science.

I answer first, as we said elsewhere, that the Apostle is to be understood of the destruction of science not in respect of habit but of act and exercise tending to instruction of others. Secondly, I say that even if the Apostle were to be understood of acquired science, he would signify only that in the state of beatitude, as the soul separated from body knows through acquired science, there will be no need of turning oneself toward phantasms.

Second conclusion. — IT IS MORE PROBABLE THAT CHRIST KNEW THE QUIDDITIES OF NATURAL THINGS FROM THE INSTANT OF HIS CONCEPTION THROUGH HABIT INFUSED IN HIM, WHICH HE COULD HAVE COMPARED BY HIS OWN ACTS HAD HE NOT OBTAINED IT THROUGH INFUSION: NEVERTHELESS SOME THINGS HE COULD KNOW ANEW WITH INTUITIVE AND EXPERIMENTAL COGNITION.

This, as it seems to me, is the genuine doctrine of the Subtle Doctor, as regards both parts, as will appear below.

The first part is proved first by the authority of the Holy Fathers, who attribute to Christ fullness of every kind of science even as an infant, and deny that he, even as a little boy, knew anything not. Thus St. Augustine book 2 On the Merits and Remission of Sins, c. 29, where he teaches that no ignorance indeed existed in that infant, nor those other unquiet motions redolent of the original stain of guilt: Which ignorance plainly, he says, I would by no means believe to have been in that Infant in whom the Word was made flesh to dwell among us, nor should I have suspected in the little Christ that infirmity of mind which we see in little children. This truth Eulogius Alexandrian Patriarch lucidly hands down in the book against the Agnoetae, where treating this question copiously and learnedly he says: To affirm that ignorance existed in him neither according to divinity nor according to humanity is devoid of perilous temerity: which book St. Gregory praises and approves book 8 of Letters, epistle 12, which he wrote to him: Because, he says, in your doctrine impugning the heretics who are called Agnoetae, there was much to admire, but nothing however displeasing. The same truth stands from the Holy Fathers cited in the first objection of the superior Conclusion; for they constantly affirm that no ignorance ever existed in Christ even as man; but it would have been necessary for him to be ignorant of many things if he had not had infused science of natural things, which can be learned and known through study and labor: therefore he must be said truly to have had it.

It is proved also by reason. First, indeed, by that which St. Damascene used book 3 On the Faith chapter 22, where he proves that Christ truly could not, not even according to humanity, have any increment of science, on account of his intimate conjunction with the Word. *For if flesh truly is conjoined to God the Word from the very beginning of existing; or rather existed in him and had hypostatic identity with him; how could it happen that it was not enriched perfectly with all wisdom and grace? Not that itself should participate grace, nor that through grace it be admitted into communion of things pertaining to the Word: but rather for this reason, that on account of hypostatic union, all human and divine things being made proper to one Christ (since God and man were simultaneously one), that very flesh poured forth grace and wisdom, and full abundance of all goods into the world like a fountain. From which one may thus reason: Christ by reason of his union to the Word ought to have full abundance of all goods, and consequently wisdom from that instant at which his humanity was united to the Word: but if he had not through infusion all natural sciences, which can be compared through study and labor, he would not have had full abundance of all goods: therefore from then he ought to have had them.

It is confirmed: hypostatic union demands from its dignity that the assumed nature be perfect in the first instant with every natural perfection not conflicting with its state: yet natural sciences are certain perfections of human intellect, nor do they conflict with the state of Christ; because if they conflicted, chiefly either from defect of use of reason, or because intellect depends upon phantasms and possible species to use natural science, which can be compared through acquisition: but from neither head do natural sciences conflict with Christ from the instant of his formation. Not indeed from the first head, for, as stands from the cited Holy Fathers, Christ even in his mother's womb had perfect use of reason, wherefore Jeremiah chapter 31 calls him while still existing in his mother's womb a man: A woman, he says, shall compass a man: which words St. Jerome expounds thus: According to the increase of age, he says, through the times of birth and infancy, wisdom seems to advance together with age: but the perfect man was contained within the months usual to females. Or as St. Bernard said above, Not less was the wisdom of Jesus conceived than born, small than great, etc.

Some Thomists reply with Cajetan that although Christ did not have infused in him all natural sciences from the beginning of his formation: nevertheless with easy labor he could compare them, by reason of acumen of genius wherewith he excelled before other men, and whereby he could comprehend natures of things, so that having known heaven, e.g., he would know all its effects, and having known one individual he would know others.

Against which, however much anyone excels in genius, he cannot in brief time compare knowledge of natural things to himself: partly because it exceeds natural forces of genius that seeing one or another individual one might gather what is to be thought about others; since many individuals are found similar to themselves, as experience shows concerning medicine for curing diseases; for on account of diverse complexion of men diverse remedies are to be applied for curing the same disease. Add that human science cannot be compared except dependently upon senses and phantasms: wherefore since all things and effects did not occur to the senses of Christ, nay nor could many occur except through long succession of time, it does not appear how Christ could compare their knowledge to himself by his own acts.

They reply again, that phantasms of natural things necessary for this science, chiefly of those which commonly do not occur, were represented to the senses and imagination of Christ by Angels.

Against which, it does not appear how so diverse and so many sensibles could be applied to the senses of Christ by Angels: but Angels cannot infuse phantasms, for as the Theologians commonly teach they can only produce local motion, move phantasms previously produced, and apply actives to passives. Isambert adds, that it is far easier to recur to simple infusion for acquisition of sciences of this kind than to such a congregation of objects done through ministry of an Angel; partly also because these sciences must be admitted in Christ the Lord far more perfect than in any mere man: but from bare supply of some singular objects, done by an Angel out of individual species, this science cannot, even by force of acutest genius, be compared in some brief time in a state so most perfect, insofar as it was acquired by some singular man, e.g. Aristotle, through discipline founded in long experience and the great study of most learned men; especially since individual singulars do not always represent their proper differences so that they can be known without error: therefore since Christ the Lord ought to have had these sciences perfect in the whole latitude of objects, nor is he of worse condition than our first parent, nor could he have had them otherwise than through infusion, he had all of them in fact through infusion.

It is proved secondly: Christ ought not to have been less illuminated by divine charisms and gifts than Adam, since he had come to repair the losses of the former Adam: but Adam from the beginning of his formation had infused in him cognition of all natural things: therefore Christ also ought to have had them.

The Thomists reply by denying parity, and Gonetus with others produces a threefold reason of disparity:

First indeed, that whereas Adam was created by God in perfect age, as head and Doctor of the human race, that he might immediately have those sciences which would be necessary in a man of that age for exercising those offices; Christ although he be head and Doctor of the whole Church and Lord of all, because nevertheless he was born in infantile age, so that not immediately as a perfect man would he converse in this world; there was no need that science acquirable by its own nature should through infusion be received from the beginning; but gradually, like other men, he ought to compare it to himself through the senses. Secondly, Adam was given as Doctor to the whole human race in natural things, and therefore it was fitting that from the beginning of his production he have all natural sciences, even as that he immediately be a perfect man as regards quantity and disposition of body: but Christ was given as Doctor of mysteries of grace, not of natural things. For the Apostle says 1 Corinthians 15: The first man was of earth earthly, the second man from heaven heavenly. And Truth herself says John 3: He who is of the earth speaks of earth, he who comes from heaven is above all, and what he saw and heard this he testifies; and therefore it was fitting that Christ immediately have infused science of mysteries of grace, but truly not science per se acquirable of natural things, even as neither perfect quantity of body. Thirdly, Adam lacked beatific vision, and presently after creation was to be deprived of science infused per se; whence it was fitting that he immediately from the beginning receive natural science infused per accidens, not only according to measure proportioned to the age in which he was created by God, but also as far as bore necessity whereby both he and all his posterity would have labored unless he had been liberally anticipated by that favor of God; but in Christ no such necessity existed, and shining beatific and infused science could abundantly supply him every use of infused science per accidens.

Truly these three replies do not dissolve the force of the argument, nor establish sufficient disparity. Not indeed the first, for although Christ from the first beginning of his formation did not have perfect age, yet truly he had manly mind, and was a man according to the aforesaid prophecy of Jeremiah, that is, he had manly judgment of reason, as befits a man, as St. Jerome teaches: therefore since natural sciences chiefly beseem a man for that state or time at which he has perfect judgment of reason, it was most fitting that even for that time the soul of Christ be illuminated by natural sciences; whence since then he could not acquire them by his own acts, it was necessary that he have them through infusion.

Secondly likewise the reason of disparity is null, for although Christ were destined to be Doctor of grace and justice, truly not of natural sciences, thence it does not follow that he ought not to have perfect knowledge of natural things: partly because natural things chiefly serve toward knowledge of spiritual things: since, says St. Paul to Romans 1: The invisible things of God are clearly seen being understood by those things that are made, etc.; whence Christ needed knowledge of them, that he might make known the mysteries of the kingdom of God through similitudes and parables drawn from things and natural sciences, which he uses most frequently in the Gospel: partly because, as we said, those natural sciences served chiefly toward illustrating the mind of Christ.

To the third I say, it stands alike for the cognition of natural things whether Christ had beatific and infused science; for as besides beatific science infused per se was necessary in him, whereby he himself might know in their proper genus things in their supernatural entity and such as cannot be known through human study, so besides that infused per se it was necessary that he have also infused science per accidens, whereby he would know excellently and most expertly natural things whose cognition can be acquired.

It is proved thirdly: Christ had through infusion moral virtues which conduced to illustrating and perfecting his will: therefore by parity of reason he ought to have intellectual virtues, or natural sciences, infused divinely in him. The antecedent stands from what was said. The consequence is proved from parity of reason, because lack of natural sciences derogates no less from the perfection of the soul of Christ than lack of moral virtues.

The Thomists deny parity, and Gonetus produces a twofold reason of disparity, whereof the first is that natural sciences do not render the subject good simply, but only in some respect; and consequently from lack of them there is not constituted one not-good simply in any order; whence further no more is derogated from the perfection of Christ through lack of natural sciences for a time than accrues to him from connatural acquisition of them; whose opposite happens in acquired virtues, as stands from what was said above. The second reason of discrimination which they produce is that if sciences per se acquirable had been infused into the humanity of Christ per accidens from the first instant of his conception, the agent intellect of the soul of Christ would have remained perpetually deprived of its own proper function and office, which is to abstract intelligible species from senses by illuminating phantasms, as Philosophers teach in the books On the Soul: but it was a great indecency that any power remain in the soul of Christ perpetually deprived of act proper and connatural to itself. From the fact however that Christ received through infusion all moral virtues from the first instant of his conception, it does not follow that synderesis or another power of the soul of Christ was idle in him and perpetually deprived of its proper office; for the powers of the soul of Christ, once informed by those virtues, produced acts of the same species about matters of moral virtues, such as they would have elicited through moral virtues compared by themselves. Such is the word of Cajetan.

Against which first, as moral virtues contribute to perfection of will, so intellectual ones to perfection of intellect: therefore just as Christ would be called imperfect in moral genus if he did not have all moral virtues, so he would be called imperfect in respect of understanding if he did not have all intellectual virtues. Add that prudence is one among moral virtues: but perfect prudence, since it consists in practical cognition, supposes perfect speculative cognition, not only of first principles but also of universal conclusions, upon which judgment in singular events depends: therefore he had moral science of all these things, and consequently he had other sciences; for he was not more impeded toward others, nor can one science without fellowship of others be perfect on every side. For they are somehow connected, like virtues.

I deny likewise the second reason of disparity, for as the Doctor observes dist. 14, q. 3, n. 3, the agent intellect was in Adam and remains in the Blessed, nor is it said to be fruitless in them although it does not abstract species from phantasms: just as neither are the nutritive, augmentative, and generative faculties said to be fruitless in bodies of the Blessed, although those faculties exercise no act and no operation; since they are ordered not only to operation congruent to themselves but even to integrity of human nature: therefore by parity of reason Christ the Lord could have an agent and passive intellect, inasmuch as it conduced to integrity of human nature, and had force of coining intelligible species serving for cognition of natural things, had he not elsewhere had that cognition. Add that the agent intellect could serve for receiving and forming species serving experimental cognition, in which Christ could advance.

Nor does it avail to reply with Cajetan, namely that not always from lack of proper operation of some power is it rightly deduced to be fruitless in its subject, but only from lack of operation due for the state and time. Whence agent intellect was not owed to Adam for the state of first creation, because since he had been formed perfect both according to soul and body, he had no need of the agent intellect itself whereby the intellect grows and is perfected in science, abstracting species from phantasms; whence although he lacked such operation, nevertheless the agent intellect was not fruitless in him. He says the same of the Blessed, because they, he says, are not in a state of acquiring science, whence although they do not lack agent intellect, nevertheless in them agent intellect is not said to be fruitless. This reply, I say, is null: partly because it supposes as certain what is moved into controversy; namely that Christ was not produced from whatever source perfect according to intellect as Adam; for this we contend, which he with other

Thomists denies without foundation: partly because no faculty is held fruitless for whatsoever state although it does not produce its act, because it already has it produced elsewhere; for, as the Doctor just cited says, powers for whatsoever state are not said useless and fruitless which of themselves have force of producing their own act and effect, unless they had it already produced by another cause. Thus e.g. augmentative faculty cannot exercise itself in accretion of the body of a Blessed one, just as neither could it in Adam, because the body of Adam and of the Blessed divinely had produced the perfect state of accretion, to which nothing was left to be added justly: therefore it suffices, that Christ be said to have had agent intellect, that that intellect of itself was capable of producing scientific cognition of natural things had God not implanted it in him.

You will object 1. All those authorities of Scripture and of the holy Fathers, and above all the authority of St. Ambrose, who teaches that Christ advanced in the knowledge received from the senses: therefore Christ could in truth acquire knowledge from natural things by his own study and labor.

I answer that those authorities are to be expounded as concerning progress in experimental knowledge acquired, which certainly depended upon the senses, and daily became greater in the order of experimental knowledge so as to meet objections; but not according to the order of true science; for Christ already had elsewhere that perfect infused science of natural things. Now one is said to have progressed in that knowledge just as a physician, for example, who already knows perfectly through his theoretical science the virtue of a remedy he has prepared, is said to know that virtue better when he experiences it in himself and proves it to be true. Add that if that progress of Christ be understood according to true and perfect science, it may be understood in the manner in which the other holy Fathers explain it, namely as progress in the external and sensible manifestation of that science, whose fullness Christ possessed.

You will object 2. Christ as wayfarer ought to have had knowledge in the manner befitting a wayfarer: but it becomes the state of a wayfarer to acquire knowledge through many acts and experiences: therefore in like manner Christ ought to have obtained it.

I answer first, that the major can be denied: for although Christ was truly a wayfarer, yet since he was at the same time a comprehensor, and since his humanity was hypostatically united to the Word, he ought on that account to have far more ample and nobler prerogatives than other wayfarers. Hence, just as he had infused knowledge of natural things, and an intellect and will expedited for operation from the instant of his formation, which does not belong to other wayfarers, so also he could have acquired knowledge in another manner than other wayfarers.

I answer second with the Doctor praised above, num. 8, by distinguishing the minor: Intuitive and experimental cognition belonging to a wayfarer arises from many acts and experiences — this I pass over; that abstractive cognition is acquired through many acts and experiences, this I deny: for it can be had through infused and abstractive sciences. Christ acquired the former by his own acts, but not the latter.

You will urge: Christ ought not only to have had knowledge, but ought to have had it according to its own and connatural mode, in which it can be had; for thus he is perfect not only through diverse sciences and perfections, but also through diverse modes: therefore just as he had blessed knowledge according to its own proper mode, namely permanent and not merely transient, as perhaps some wayfarers had, and just as he had per se infused knowledge according to its own proper mode, namely by infusion, so he ought to have had human knowledge, or knowledge acquirable by nature, in a human mode, namely by acquisition.

I distinguish the antecedent: he ought to have had it in a connatural mode, if he could not otherwise have it in a more perfect way — this I concede; otherwise, I deny. But it is more perfect to have sciences from the instant of conception by infusion than to acquire them by long labor: therefore it was far more excellent for Christ to have the sciences by infusion than to acquire them gradually.

You will press. It is more excellent to have knowledge by acquisition than by infusion, both on the part of the science and on the part of the knower: therefore the solution proposed above is worthless. The antecedent is evident: on the part of the science indeed, because the acquisition of a science is a generation of such a science per se, while infusion is a generation of a science per accidens; likewise on the part of the knower, for as Aristotle teaches, 1 Ethics, c. 5, citing Hesiod, He is best of all who knows all things of himself: therefore, etc. — I deny the subsumption: for speaking simply and absolutely, it is more perfect never to lack some knowledge suitable to oneself, even if it must be received from God alone, than at some time not to have it, so that it be obtained through one's own acts, especially since this mode of obtaining knowledge adds nothing of perfection. Add that, according to Suárez, d. 30, sect. 2, whatever reason Christ had this infused knowledge by, he must be said to have it from himself, not as something adventitious, but as a connatural property by reason of the union, just as has been said above of grace and the other gifts. And this is secondly explained and confirmed thus: because if Christ had assumed human nature in a state per se due to union without the defects which he assumed in his body for the sake of our redemption, without doubt he would have assumed it perfect with this science, as with the other perfections: therefore now too in fact he assumed it with this perfection upon that principle, since the lack of this science is neither necessarily conjoined with a passible body nor does it per se contribute to the end of redemption.

You will object 3. Christ was discursive: therefore by means of discourse he could come to know anew some scientific conclusions, and acquire knowledge for himself. — The Doctor soon to be cited answers that discourse does not always operate so that one comes to know a conclusion he did not previously know, but so that one knows actually what he previously knew habitually. Hence if Christ did not know all natural things in their proper genus, he could acquire for himself through discourse knowledge of unknown things, but not otherwise, since he had that knowledge infused. Then too Christ could know a scientific conclusion even though he had pre-existing quidditative knowledge of the terms, which knowledge Aristotle calls science, although, says the Doctor, it is not properly the habit of a conclusion.

You will object 1. The Subtle Doctor in the place cited, num. 6, teaches openly that Christ progressed in the knowledge of natural things; for he says:

That intuitive cognition, actual or habitual, in its proper genus cannot be given to that soul concerning all things; and in this respect it is necessary to say > that he progressed, as did another soul, because he knew different objects in different ways, etc.

I answer that the Doctor means nothing else than that Christ did not know all things through intuitive knowledge by means of infused species; nay, that he did not even know contingents, because infused species, since they represent an absent thing no less than a present one, and always exhibit it in the same manner, cannot serve for certain and intuitive knowledge of contingent and present things: hence it was necessary either that Christ know contingent things in the Word, or that he acquire their knowledge. Hence the Doctor concludes that, in order for Christ to have intuitive and experimental knowledge of things, it was necessary that he acquire it by his own acts, and by phantasms and species taken from the senses:

Because, he says in the same place, of a present thing not only is a sensible species left in the phantasy, but also one in the memorative power; and those powers know the object under different aspects: for one knows the object in itself absolutely, apprehending its quiddity; the other apprehends the object as apprehended in the past, so that the past apprehension is the immediate object, and the immediate object of that past apprehension is the mediated object of recollection. So too, even while some sensible thing is present to sense, by virtue of it a twofold cognition can be caused in the intellect: one abstractive, whereby the agent intellect abstracts the species of the quiddity, as quiddity is, from the species in the phantasm, which represents the object absolutely, not as existing here and now, or then; and another can be in the intellect an intuitive cognition, which cooperates with the intellect; and from this there can be left a habitual intuitive cognition impressed upon the intellectual memory, which is not of the absolute quiddity, as was the other, but of the thing known as existing when it was being apprehended in the past, as having passed away. In this way Christ is said to have learned many things by experience, that is through intuitive cognitions, that is of those things known with respect to existence, and through the memories left by them.

Thus the Doctor. In which words he clearly teaches that Christ indeed progressed in experimental and intuitive knowledge, but not in habitual and abstractive knowledge.

Corollary. — From these things gather first that Christ knew through acquired science the quiddities of all existing things; for species and quiddities are finite in number, and consequently they could all be perceived by the intellect of Christ without difficulty; nay, he knew even the most noble individuals of the whole universe of things: but the rest, whose knowledge did not greatly conduce to the dignity of his science, it is not unfitting to assert he did not know by that science innate and acquirable in him, but only through experimental or intuitive knowledge.

Gather secondly. That he did not have that knowledge of the quiddities of things through universal species, which he acquired with the passage of time, so that at once and once for all he had a twofold acquirable knowledge of things: one indeed infused per accidens, the other truly acquired by his own study and labor, as St. Thomas holds: because, as the Doctor subtly argues with an argument ad hominem, two accidents of the same species, distinct only in number, cannot be in the same subject according to the doctrine of St. Thomas; but knowledge infused per accidens and knowledge acquired per se concerning one and the same object in species are two accidents of the same species, distinct only in number; for either they are species, or similitudes, of that object, of which one is had by infusion and the other acquired by acquisition, or habits, which are no more distinct than the species: therefore in the doctrine of St. Thomas there cannot be given an infused science and an acquired science of one object in the same intellect: but according to St. Thomas there was already in the intellect of the soul of Christ an infused science of quiddities not only of all supernatural things but even of natural ones: therefore in that very intellect there must not be admitted an acquired science of the same quiddities.

The Thomists will perhaps say, that infused science and acquired knowledge of the same object are distinguished just as morning knowledge and evening knowledge are distinguished, that is knowledge in the Word and in its proper genus: but morning and evening knowledge can be given concerning the same object in species: therefore also infused and acquired science. — The Doctor answers truly that the case is far unlike, because morning knowledge and evening knowledge are compared through diverse means, or under diverse aspects: morning knowledge namely through the Word, which is both the object known and the reason of knowing; evening knowledge indeed through its own created similitude infused or acquired, which is not the object known, but only the reason of knowing; whereas the infused and the acquired science, which St. Thomas admits of one and the same object in species, are distinguished neither by object, nor by the reason under which, nor by the reason sub qua, nor by the reason through which, but only by various efficient causes, which do not suffice to constitute a specific distinction between certain effects: therefore however much morning and evening knowledge may be given concerning one object in species, still infused and acquired science cannot be given. All these things are confirmed: for if two cognitions of exactly the same species were in Christ, either both would be imperfect, or both perfect, or at least one of them: but to say both are imperfect is to posit imperfection in the cognitions of Christ without necessity; to posit both as perfect is to say that the other, whenever any object is perfectly known, is superfluous, since when a thing is known as far as it is knowable by one cognition, another cognition afterwards given of the same object is superfluous. To say finally that one of them is perfect and the other imperfect seems to be said gratuitously, because each can be proved to be perfect in its genus.

He concludes finally. That Christ learned nothing, neither from men nor from Angels: First, because it was not fitting that he be taught by them whose office is Doctor and not disciple: yet Christ was the Doctor of men and Angels, and not their disciple. Secondly, he properly learns who, being ignorant of something, received the knowledge of it from the teaching, and, since he has not from himself a sufficient principle, acquires species dependently on the concept of the master expounded by him, which like a certain light illuminates and determines him: but Christ was not illuminated by Angels nor by men: rather, when he heard anything from them, he bore himself in the manner of a preceptor to whom a disciple reads out of a book those things which he himself knew.

You will say. To acquire knowledge from a man teaching seems nobler than to acquire it from sensible things: because in the soul of the man teaching there are intelligible species in act; but in sensible things the intelligible species are only in potency: yet Christ received acquired knowledge from sensible things. — I answer: that it is more worthy to receive knowledge from sensible things than from a man: First, because sensible creatures are as it were the voices of God, and therefore to abstract species from them is to be taught by God; secondly, because the knowledge which is had from sensible things is acquired by the mode of discovery without the help of another, and from one's own powers; whereas that which is from men is acquired by the help of teachers.

You will say 2. Anyone hearing the significant speech of another can come to know what he does not know: therefore Christ could learn from men those things which he did not know according to this science. — I answer: the antecedent is true unless at the very time when he hears he knows in another manner that about which he hears, or knew it at a preceding time: such is the condition of Christ, who, since through acquired science he knew all things which according to place and time it was fitting that he not be ignorant of, consequently did not learn from men, but through experience and the ministry of the senses came to know them as soon as it was fitting that they be known by him.

You will say 3. Luke 22 records that an Angel appeared to Christ in the garden, comforting him: but comfort is brought about through comforting words of one teaching, according to that of Job 2, Behold, thou hast taught many, and thou hast strengthened the weary hands: thy words have confirmed the staggering: therefore Christ was taught by an Angel. — I answer, that some Catholics have at times doubted the truth of this history, as is evident from St. Hilary, book 10, De Trinitate, and Jerome, book 1, Contra Pelagianos, who write that in their times it was not found in Greek and Latin codices. And Epiphanius himself in the Ancoratus is witness that some of the orthodox and pious, out of simple zeal but not according to knowledge, erased that history from their codices, because they feared it might favor the Arians. The Anabaptists agreed with them. Nevertheless it must be held certain, especially from the time of the Council of Trent, whose definition is this, session 4, But if anyone shall not receive these books, whole with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the ancient Latin Vulgate edition, as sacred and canonical, let him be anathema. And certainly Epiphanius in the place cited, and Augustine, book 3, De consensu Evangelistarum, cap. 4, acknowledged this passage of Luke as Gospel, and others likewise. Hilary himself did not deny it, nor Jerome; wherefore, supposing the truth of this passage, he answers in two ways: First, the Angel is said to have comforted Christ, not because he added strength to him, but because he praised the virtue and strength of his spirit. Thus St. Chrysostom, Homily On the Trinity: How did he receive strength from an Angel? He received no strength, but the glorification of the Angel saying: Thine is the kingdom and the power, Lord. In the same sense is Epiphanius above. Secondly, he is said to be comforted by the Angel just as a friend is wont to lighten the sadness of a friend by words and familiar conversation, even though he teach his friend nothing at all: moreover Christ allowed himself to be comforted by an Angel, say the holy Fathers, both that he might teach the truth of human nature, which is more interior than the angelic, and thus faith in his Incarnation might be confirmed in us; and also that he might thereby teach men the usefulness of prayer.