Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

WHETHER THE BLESSED VIRGIN IS TRULY AND PROPERLY TO BE CALLED MOTHER OF CHRIST.

Note 1. That Theodorus of Mopsuestia preceded the Nestorian heresy and as it were shone before it, disciple of Diodorus of Tarsus, fellow-student of S. John Chrysostom, as Theodoret narrates lib. 5 Historiae cap. 30; whom moreover, born of a most ample family and in the highest riches, was drawn at Antioch by that same John Chrysostom to the institute of Monks, as Hesychius Presbyter of Jerusalem reports in the Ecclesiastical History. Nay the same asserts with Nicephorus lib. 13 c. 2 that he was that Theodore to whom S. Chrysostom wrote two books, to call him back fallen again from the more sacred purpose of living into the common life: and this one finally obtained the Episcopate of Mopsuestia, which is a city of Cilicia, which he ruled happily for 36 whole years with unwearied labor contending against any Heretics whatever, chiefly Arians and Eunomians, as also Origenists and Apollinarists, as Facundus reports lib. 3 cap. 3, and Theodoret lib. 5 cap. 39; who for this reason wonderfully commends this Theodore; nay Facundus remembers lib. 5 cap. 4 an honorable testimony concerning him even from Cyril, although he is reported later to have noted him in his writings, because after Nestorius was condemned in the Ephesine Synod together with his heresy, his books proscribed by edict of the Emperors, the writings of that master and of certain Bishops his disciples, in which the poisons of Nestorian error had been sprinkled, were disseminated abroad, especially those of Diodorus of Tarsus and of Theodorus of Mopsuestia, who was held pestilentest of all, and who was reported to have been author of that dogma to Nestorius. Wherefore Proclus of Constantinople forbade such books to be read by the faithful, and Cyril himself published books against Theodorus, which are referred to in the fifth Synod coll. 5, and of which Liberatus Diaconus makes mention in the Breviary in these words: Four, he says, were written by him (Cyril), three against Theodorus and Diodorus pious authors of the Nestorian dogma, and another book de Incarnatione, in which he demonstrates among others the testimonies of Dionysius the Areopagite placed therein. Nor does it matter that they ought to be called so by very many, as Rabbulla Bishop of Edessa teaches in the Epistle to Cyril, where he recites the heretical opinions of Theodorus, plainly the same which the Ephesine Synod had condemned in Nestorius: First he exposed, he says, that it is not to be believed that the holy Virgin is Mother of God; as if God the Word did not receive nourishment according to us. Nevertheless John of Antioch took up his parts; for a Synod having been gathered whereby he might curb certain instant ones, that Theodorus be condemned on account of certain depraved and heretical heads noted in the excerpts which were circulated, he wrote to Cyril persuading him by many reasons not to permit an illustrious man, who had performed glorious labors for the Church, to be condemned as heretic; rescribing to whom Cyril has these things: Dialogues, he says, and the depraved and unpraiseworthy opinions of Theodorus, or of certain others, whom it were better not praised lest I say anything harsh, because they bore in full manner as it were words against the glory of Christ — let no one, I beseech, ascribe to the holy and orthodox Fathers. Whence the same Cyril Epist. to Acatius Bishop of Melitene wrote that this Theodore had a blasphemous tongue and a pen ministering to it. Wherefore he complains that he is esteemed so great by the Orientals that acclamations such as these about him were made by the people in the Churches: The faith of Theodorus shall be followed: So we believe as Theodore believes: when nevertheless the same daring once to speak some small thing wrongly in the Church, they assailed him with stones. But as it pleases the shepherd, thus feels the flock, adds Cyril twitching John silently. Scarce therefore can we sufficiently wonder that Facundus lib. 3 cap. 3 asserts Theodore to have been praised by Cyril, nor blamed by anyone; for from S. Cyril he reports these written things of thine: There were written by the great Theodore against the heresies of the Arians and Eunomians perhaps twenty and yet more books, and other besides these Gospel and Apostolic writings he interpreted. And these labors indeed no one dared to rebuke, but with right decree to honor the study of right dogmas which is in them. These things however cohere not at all with the writings of S. Cyril just praised.

Note 2. That the Nestorians agreed with Catholics that the Word truly was made flesh or man: but whether this assumption of human nature, or incarnation, was to be called properly and truly generation, the Nestorians did not so consent: since Nestorius confessed indeed that the Son and Word of God passed through the Virgin; but obstinately denied Him to have been begotten of the B. Virgin, as S. Cyril reports lib. 1 Contra Nestorium: fearing indeed lest the people understand that passage as true generation, before whom he had said: he does not envy that voice to Christ's genetrix the Virgin, but knows her to be reverenced who received God, through whom the omnipotent Lord made His passage, presently he corrected his saying thus: In what mode at last did you understand that passing of the Word? he says: I did not say He passed, in place of what He is, He was begotten: for my opinion was not so quickly obscured? that God passed from Christ's genetrix the Virgin, I am taught from Sacred Letters: That God Himself was begotten of her, nowhere did I learn. Truly against the impious and nefarious opinion of the archheretic there was outcry from all Catholics, and the blasphemous error of that man was proscribed not only by contemporaries and posteriors but also by primary and anterior holy Fathers.

For all these with one voice testify that the divine Word was truly begotten of the B. Virgin, and that she is properly to be called genetrix of God, as will appear below.

Note 3. That certain Nestorians, that they might the more easily cover their nefarious dogma under a masked species of Catholic doctrine and similitude of words, did not refuse to call the B. Virgin Θεοτόκον. For when they saw themselves traduced into odium and held for heretics because they refused to admit that little word, as if this one appellation sundered them from Catholics: for certainly all contention of faith between Catholics and Nestorians consisted in constituting this one appellation, as testifies S. Cyril Epist. 1 to John of Antioch, and Ephraemius Patriarch of Antioch writing in Photius. That faith might be made certain of Catholic piety sur omnimoda, to hold and profess that the most holy Virgin is genetrix of God: that the Nestorians might repel this mark of heresy from themselves, they admitted this appellation upon this plan, that they might signify prior and separately to have been man in the womb of the Virgin, then assumed by the Word into communion of the same dignity and name: and thus by that plan they admitted the Virgin to be genetrix of God because she had begotten Him who was raised up to society and fellowship with God, as Vincentius Lirinensis lucidly expounds in these words:

It is to be confessed with singular gift, veriest and most blessedly Θεοτόκος, of the Lord and our God, and His Son: but not in that mode Θεοτόκος which a certain impious heresy suspects, which asserts her to be called Mother of God in mere appellation, who namely brought forth the man who afterwards was made God: as we say the mother of a Presbyter, or mother of a Bishop, no longer begetting a Presbyter or Bishop, but truly generating the man who afterwards was made Presbyter or Bishop.

These things thus premised, two things chiefly remain to be determined in this Question: The first, that truly the Virgin is to be called genetrix of God: second, how she concurred toward that generation, whether through purest blood, or through some cut-off little portion of her virginal flesh.

First Conclusion. — THE MOST BLESSED VIRGIN IS TRULY TO BE CALLED DEIPARA. This is of faith determined in various Councils, chiefly indeed the Ephesine, in which against Nestorius the B. Virgin Θεοτόκος, that is, genetrix of God, was proclaimed. The Angel Gabriel had signified the same denouncing the mystery of the Incarnation to Mary in these words: That which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God, Luke 2. Hence ibidem blessed Elisabeth at the visitation of Mary exclaimed: Whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?

With the same title of divine dignity and glory all the holy Fathers celebrated her from the very beginnings of the nascent Church, who either called God truly born of the Virgin, or the Virgin herself genetrix of God. Thus, to commemorate some out of very many, speaks Justin Martyr in dialogue with Trypho, where he says: Christ previously existed son of the Maker of all things, and God, who was born man through the Virgin, etc. Whence to Trypho the Jew objecting that he wished to demonstrate a thing incredible and nearly impossible, that he sustained God to be begotten and to become man: he answers that He willed to be begotten and lifted upon the cross for humankind. Ignatius Martyr subscribes, not indeed in the Epistle to the Romans, as Theodoret reports in Dialogue 1, but in that which is to the Smyrnenses, he says: Thoroughly persuaded concerning our Lord, who is of the race of David according to flesh, Son of God according to Deity, born of a Virgin. So Petavius reports from the apograph of the Florentine codex in the Library of the Grand Duke lib. 5 cap. 11. Irenaeus assents lib. 3 Adversus Haereses, cap. 31, where among other things he has:

If Adam was taken indeed from earth, of the Virgin and word of God he was formed: it behoved the same Word making recapitulation of Adam in Himself, to have similitude of the same generation. Why then did not God take again clay, but worked from Mary the formation, that not another formation should be made, nor another be the formation which should be saved, but the very same should be recapitulated, similitude preserved.

The same has Dionysius of Alexandria in the epistle against Paulus of Samosata: For already, he says, He dwelt (the Word, in those in whom more mothers were found: but one only Virgin daughter of life begot the living Word. — S. Athanasius also subscribes in the book De Salutari Adventu Iesu Christi: Who existed before ages God, he says, from Nazareth was seen man, born of Mary the Virgin, and the Holy Spirit. And presently, that God, he says, the Only-begotten decreed, by fullness of His Divinity, that the formation of that first and exemplar man, and a new work, be raised out of the womb of a virgin to Himself by natural generation. More distinctly declares this truth in Oration 1, where making discourse concerning the Word, splendor and wisdom of the Father, he says: Then afterwards for us that same one having taken flesh from the Virgin genetrix of God, Mary, was made man. S. Basil teaches the same lib. De Spiritu Sancto, cap. 5, and Hom. 25 on the human generation of Christ, in which he distinctly calls the most blessed Virgin genetrix of God. Gregory Nazianzen also consents Orat. 5, as also in the former Epistle to Cledonius, where likewise he constantly affirms blessed Mary genetrix of God.

The same is the unanimous opinion of the ancient Theologians and Latin Fathers: for Tertullian in Apologetic chapter 21 De Christo writes: That beam of God therefore, as it was ever preached before, let down into a certain Virgin, and in her womb flesh figured, is born man mixed with God. And lib. De Carne Christi, cap. 17: But before all things the reason will have to be commended which presided, that the Son of God should be born of a Virgin. S. Cyprian subscribes lib. 12 against the Jews: This, he says, was to be the sign of His nativity, that of a Virgin should be born man and God, Son of man and Son of God. — Hilary lib. 9: God therefore was born of a Virgin man, and according to the fullness of times about to proceed in Himself into God man. Ambrose lib. De Incarnat. cap. 5: Not otherwise of the Father, otherwise of the Virgin: but the same otherwise of the Father, otherwise of the Virgin in generation? Jerome lib. Contra Helvidium: We believe God to be known of a Virgin, because we read it. Augustine is wholly engaged in expounding this truth, chiefly Sermon 15 De Tempore: How, he says, in the rule of faith we confess that we believe in the Son of God, who was born of the Virgin Mary, if not the Son of God but the son of man had been born of the Virgin Mary? For what Christian denies that of that woman was born son of man, yet God made man, and thus man made God? Whence deservedly S. Cyril lib. De Recta Fide, concludes: Behold, he says, all best and wise Fathers who existed at divers times before us name the holy Virgin genetrix of God: and since they asserted the divine Word to be joined to flesh with natural union, they teach both that He was begotten in the womb of the Virgin, and proceeded from her according to flesh: although He who is without beginning and every prior age submitted generation from the Father. — Hence also appears Ephraemius Patriarch of Antioch to have written less truly in the work which he wrote against the Monophysites for the authority of the Synod of Chalcedon and of Pope Leo, when he says Leo first among Fathers with express words uttered this thing. For witness is John of Antioch in the Epistle to Nestorius, wherein he exhorts him, contention laid aside, to cease attacking that appellation, which by very many Fathers has been composed, written, and pronounced. Then he thus proceeds: For this name no one of Ecclesiastical Sayings repudiated. For many used it, and they celebrated: and who used it not, reproved not its users. Theodoret likewise in the Nestorian heresy writes, that the most ancient heralds of Catholic faith, from Apostolic tradition, taught the Mother of the Lord to be named and believed genetrix of God. Behold, Theodoret affirms that B. Mary of old was named genetrix of God from Apostolic tradition.

The Nestorians objected: The Blessed Virgin cannot be called Mother of God unless she have begotten Divinity: but it is false that she begat Divinity: since this is ungenerateable and unproducible: therefore false likewise that she is genetrix of God. They proved the major, as S. Cyril reports lib. 1 Contra Nestorium, by this example: As a woman indeed begets body: but God infuses soul: nor can the woman be called genetrix of soul because she begat the animated; rather she must be called genetrix of man: so the B. Virgin although she brought forth man — passing over together with Him this Word of God, for with this voice she used it — is judged not therefore to be called genetrix of God. Hence their voice was, as Maxentius reports Tomo 1 of the Library of the PP.: If by nature the Virgin Mary begat God, now she is not genitrix of flesh but of Divinity: and how do you preach not the Word God serum Divinitatis, which is common to Him with the Father; according to flesh, Him born of the Virgin. — I distinguish the minor: That B. Mary begat not Divinity as if Divinity through that generation had received anew to be, and had obtained new existence, I concede: thus that that man who was begotten of the most blessed Virgin was not truly and properly God, I deny. For as mothers are properly called genetrices of those whom consisting of body and soul they begat in their wombs and brought forth into light, although God alone produced the soul, because man begotten consists of body and soul; so the most holy Virgin even if she begat not Divinity nor gave it beginning, no less for that reason is to be called genetrix of God; since she begat that man who was not man before He existed God, that is, whose soul and body did not previously exist in nature than joined among themselves and hypostatically coupled with the Word. Which distinction and solution S. Cyril weighs gloriously lib. 1 Contra Nestorium, as also in the Epistle to Monks concerning true maternality of the B. Virgin, where he has:

The mystery of the Word. For the mothers of earthly men serving nature to beget, hold flesh in the womb, which little by little compacted, and advanced by certain inexplicable efficacies of God into human species is absolved. God moreover breathes animal spirit in ways He knows how. For He fashions the spirit of man in him, as the Prophet speaks: But there is another reason of flesh, another likewise of soul. Truly although these women are mothers only of earthly bodies; nevertheless when they have brought forth the whole animal composed of soul and body, they are said not to have brought forth only its part. Nor would anyone say, for example, Elisabeth mother of John, to be genetrix of flesh, not however of soul. For she brought forth the animated Baptist, and thus as one something out of both, man namely with soul and body. Something of this kind we shall confess to have been done also in the generation of Emmanuel. Since indeed there was born, as I said, of the substance of God the Father the Only-begotten His Word. But when He took flesh and made it proper to Himself, that He might be son of man and become like unto us, then it is by no means absurd to say, nay necessarily to be professed, that He was begotten of woman according to flesh: just as the soul of man is begotten together with its own body, and is reckoned one with it: although understood in nature, and diverse from it according to its proper reason.

They urged: Of him only whom she truly and properly begat is the B. Virgin to be called genetrix: but truly and properly she begat only the man who was united to God: therefore she is to be called genetrix of man alone. — I distinguish the major: whom she truly and properly begat as well according to nature as according to person, I deny: whom she properly begat according to nature through divine person subsisting, I concede. Similarly I distinguish the minor: truly and properly she begat man alone, that is, begat him who was only man as well according to nature as according to person, I deny: that he was man according to human nature, but God by reason of Divinity united hypostatically to Himself through the personality of the Word which sustained human nature, no otherwise than as if it were its own personality, I concede. Therefore since generation per se and properly terminates in person, or hypostasis, as in terminus, that is, in subsistent nature; thence properly is the B. Virgin to be called genetrix of God, seeing she begat nature which subsisted with the divine subsistence of the Word: for, as Ferrandus teaches gloriously, Epist. Ad

In both: Purely Divine is born of the Father, the same Incarnate Divinity properly born of mother. And this is the difference between the two generations of the one Son of God, that in divine generation there was no humanity, in human generation Divinity was joined to humanity properly being born.

For if I said, or wished to say, that Mary ever Virgin properly begat humanity, not properly begat Divinity, it would be conceded under some mode that she begat pure man, whom in no mode she so begat, that the Word made flesh properly begat. — By this reason therefore is the B. Virgin to be judged genetrix of God, that from her cut-off substance and formative and nutritive virtue the foetus contributed to the compagination and organization of Christ's body, which in that instant in which it was informed with rational soul and living, both the very body and soul united were united to Divinity by hypostatic union through the person of the Word; so that the very human nature, as personated and subsisting with the subsistence of the Word, was the total and adequate terminus of that fecundity of the B. Virgin. But whether the Deipara Virgin contributed toward formation of Christ's body by furnishing some cut-off particle of her flesh or blood or seed, is now to be determined.

Second Conclusion. — ALTHOUGH VERY MANY FATHERS SEEM TO TESTIFY THAT THE BODY OF CHRIST OUR LORD WAS FORMED FROM THE FLESH OF THAT MOST BLESSED VIRGIN HERSELF, YET IT APPEARS MOST PROBABLE THAT IT WAS FRAMED OF HER PUREST BLOOD. This consists of two parts, whereof

The first is persuaded. First indeed by the authority of S. Jerome (if however he be author of the Epistola De libro perfecto, which very many attribute to Thesiphon), where he says: I receive absolutely no seed, except that which the Apostle says: made of woman, made of flesh: by which words he admits blood not toward formation of Christ's body, makes no mention of seed, signifies expressly that the flesh of the Virgin was the matter for compaging that most sacred body. S. August. consents Psalm. 98, where making brief discourse concerning either mystery of Incarnation ⟦strictim?⟧, he says: From the flesh of Mary He took flesh, and that flesh itself of Mary He gave us to eat unto salvation. Which opinion certainly Serm. 30 corroborates saying: Therefore Mary was elected fertilized with all graces, filled in womb with all virtue and holiness, that of most clean flesh the cleanest Son should be born. — In the same manner speaks S. Bernard, Homilia 2 super Missus est, for expounding those words, Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum, he says: Fiat mihi de Verbo secundum verbum tuum: The Word which was in the beginning with God, let it be made flesh of my flesh according to thy word. And about the middle declaring no intellect can seize how the splendor of the divine Word poured Himself into the bowels of the Virgin, he says: So could Mary bear that inaccessible light drawing near to herself, that from a little portion of the same body to which He tempered Himself to her soul, the rest became shadow of the mass. Saint Anselm subscribes, lib. De Excellentia Virginis, cap. 12, where addressing the Virgin he says: Surely God who assumed man, of thy most chaste flesh did this for thy salvation and ours all. — In the same manner speaks S. Ildephonsus, lib. De Perpetua virginitate et parturitione Virginis, where among other things he says: Most glorious Virgin Mary nim**nimirum, because it was not by common law of nature: neither from the first origin of nature a Son, nor from seed of man, but of the Holy Spirit divinely procreated from her flesh, without any defilement of parents she brought forth God and man. — The same has venerable Bede, lib. 1 cap. 19 in Lucam, where concerning the incarnate Word he writes: Body from virginal womb drew flesh not from nothing, not elsewhere, but maternal from flesh. Similar things Rupertus writes, lib. 7 De Divinis officiis, cap. 25, where weighing the joy of B. Virgin over resurrection of Christ, among other things he says: Sweet wounds of her flesh she offered to be kissed, whom she bore living flesh conceived from her own bowels. — But most clearly of all posterior Doctors expound this truth, chiefly S. Bernardine, Serm. 61 art. 1 cap. 10: In a part, he says, cut off of the virginal body consists, is perfected and terminated the whole God, and the weight of the Sacraments of the Church. Richard of S. Laurentio consents, lib. 1 De Laud. Virg., cap. 2: Of the flesh of the Virgin, he says, a particle was taken, from which, by artifice of the Holy Spirit, the body of Christ was formed. — But our Alensis teaches this of all most clearly 2 par. qu. 27 memb. 3 art. 1, where he says: When it is said, that Christ was made according to body from the purest bloods of B. Virgin, as Dumascenus says, and the Master recites (in 3 d. 3) it is not understood of blood, which is one of four humors, but blood is there taken for flesh. The common consent of the Church also seems to favor, while in the Collect of the feast of Incarnation or Annunciation it is thus prayed: O God, who from the womb of blessed Mary the Virgin didst will Thy Word announcing by the Angel to take flesh, etc. It says not blood but flesh, that it may seem to signify the body of Christ to be taken not from seed or blood but from flesh of the Virgin itself. — To these accedes our Galatinus, who lib. 1 c. 1 reports the opinion of ancient Hebrews to have been, that a particle of flesh in Adam still innocent was preserved uninjured from contagion of sin, and derived to the Virgin, that from her purest flesh the body of Christ our Lord should be formed. Which opinion certainly the Doctor reports also in 3 dist. 3 q. 2 in these words: It is said according to the Master (in 2 d. 80) that some portion was in Adam of which all his sons were propagated: and some place that something of that portion was not infected in Adam, but preserved clean until the generation of Christ. Which opinion although the Doctor approve not, nevertheless, for his wonted modesty, he willed not to note it with censure. Hence some of his disciples, chiefly the most illustrious Ioannes Baptista a Campanea once General Minister of our whole Seraphic Order, afterwards Bishop of Puteoli, held as certain that the body of Christ our Lord was formed not from blood of Virgin but flesh, and defended that opinion most strongly in public disputations, as the most illustrious Franciscus Belligerus Bishop of Cadiz of our Order reported in encomio of B. Mary Virgin Tom. 1 disp. 13 fragm. 2 punct. 2, who equally adheres to this opinion, and confirms it with very many authorities and some reasons.

Nevertheless I prefer to subscribe then to the Subtle Doctor, with other Theologians affirming the body of Christ our Lord to have been formed not from flesh itself of the most blessed Virgin, but from purest blood. For the Doctor supposes this as indubitable in the place soon praised, saying: From blood of the Virgin, of which the body of Christ was formed according to Damascenus, cap. 15, since they were never animated with soul of any man, consequently never contracted stain from an animating soul. — Whence to the holy Fathers and praised authors I answer with S. Thomas, in 3 d. 3 q. 1 art. 5 ad 1. Therefore it is said Christ took flesh from the Virgin, not that the matter of His body was actually flesh, but blood, which is flesh in potency: for what is such in potency can be said absolutely such.