Dist. 1, Art. 1, Q. 4
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/3/d/1/q/bon-sent-III-d1-a1-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether each of the three persons could be incarnate of itself.*

Fourthly it is asked whether each of the three persons could be incarnate of itself. And that it can, it seems:

1. A creature is just as distant from the person of the Son as it is from the person of the Father and of the Holy Spirit: therefore, by whatever ground the person of the Son can be incarnate, the distance not impeding, by the same ground it seems that the person of the Father and of the Holy Spirit can be too.

2. Likewise, to be able to be incarnate pertains to dignity, otherwise it would not belong to the Son; but whatever the Son can do that pertains to dignity, the Father can also, since the Son has his whole power from the Father: therefore if the person of the Son can be incarnate and assume flesh to himself, it seems that the Father can do this too by a like ground.

3. Likewise, for bringing about the incarnation no more is required than the extremes capable of being united and a unity in the person and an immensity in the power that may join those extremes; but the nature of the Father is just as capable of being united as the nature of the Son, since it is one and the same, and the person of the Father is just as much one as the person of the Son, and the power is immense: therefore, etc.

4. Likewise, if the person of the Son can be incarnate, either by the very fact that he is the Son, or by the very fact that he is a person. Not by the very fact that he is the *Son*, because "Son" states only a relation to the Father, not to a creature: therefore if he can be incarnate by the very fact that he is a divine person, then, since the Father and the Holy Spirit are a divine person, it follows necessarily that the person of the Father and of the Holy Spirit can be incarnate just as the person of the Son.

**On the contrary:** 1. "If the person of the Father or of the Holy Spirit were incarnate, then there would be two Sons in the Trinity"; but this is unfitting, "and whatever is unfitting, as Anselm says in the book *Why God Became Man*, is with God impossible": therefore it seems likewise to be impossible for the person of the Father or of the Holy Spirit to be incarnate.

2. Likewise, to be incarnate is nothing other than to be sent into flesh, as Augustine holds; but it is impossible for the Father to be sent, since he has no other from whom he is: therefore it is impossible for the Father to be incarnate.

3. Likewise, what is proper to one person it is impossible should belong to another; but to be incarnate is proper to the Son and belongs to him alone: therefore it is impossible that it should belong to another person.

4. Likewise, the nature assumed by the Word has a greater agreement with the other persons than another nature that is not assumed: therefore if the other persons cannot assume that nature which is assumed by the Word, it seems that they cannot assume any other either. But they cannot assume that nature, as was shown in the foregoing: therefore it seems that they can assume no other.

### Conclusion.

> Each of the divine persons could be and can be incarnate.

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said, it must be noted that some have wished to say that no person could be incarnate except the person of the Word. And they assign the ground for this: that, if another person were incarnate, a certain confusion of the Trinity would arise, since several in the Trinity would be called Sons. There would also arise a certain diminution of equality, since there would be two Sons in the Trinity, of whom one would have a more excellent nativity than the other. There would also arise a certain non-distinction of opposites, because then one and the same Son would be called begotten and unbegotten, if the Father were incarnate. And all these are unfitting; and because nothing unfitting can be posited in God and about God: therefore they said that no other person than the person of the Son could be incarnate, not on account of a defect of power, but on account of the dignity of the power, which does not admit anything unbecoming about its own work. — But although in this position they seem to follow blessed Anselm, yet they do not truly follow him, because Anselm does not wish to say this, that it is impossible with God for another person than the Son to be incarnate; but he wishes to show this, that it is not as fitting concerning another person as concerning the person of the Son: and this is true, as will be better seen below.

But that the Father or the Holy Spirit could be incarnate without any repugnance is plain. For he could form a body, which he would unite to himself, from the human race, not by way of generation, just as he formed the body of Eve, who is not said to be the daughter of Adam. — Furthermore, granted that another person had assumed

flesh from the Virgin, as the Word assumed it, even so there would not be there confusion or diminution of equality in reality, because from this no change would be made about the divine persons. For there is no confusion when we believe that one and the same is temporal and eternal, immortal and dead, immense and circumscribed. There is also nothing unfitting when we say that the Son is equal to the Father and less than the Father according to the duality of natures. — And therefore it must be conceded, as the Master says in the text, that each of the three persons can be and could be incarnate.

1. To that, then, which is first objected to the contrary, that if the Father were incarnate, then there would be two Sons; it must be said that this argument proceeds on the supposition that God could not assume flesh otherwise than by assuming it from a woman as from a mother. But this is false, because God could assume flesh to himself otherwise, if it pleased him. — Furthermore, granted that another person had assumed flesh from the Virgin and were the son of the Virgin, this would in no way derogate from God, because the divine person would lose nothing there; and therefore, if it is unfitting, this is only on account of our reckoning and reasoning. — But when Anselm says that "however small a thing unfitting in God is impossible"; it must be said that this is understood of that which is unfitting in God in itself; and such is the unfitting that can in no way be fitting, and therefore is impossible. But it does not hold true of that which is unfitting according to our estimation, because God could make it fitting. Hence just as we concede of some evil that God can do it, inasmuch as it can well be done, as is an evil in itself; but not of another, which is evil according to itself, which can in no way be done well; so also in the matter at hand it must be understood, when it is said that whatever is unfitting in God is impossible.

2. To that which is objected, that incarnation is nothing other than to be sent into flesh; it must be said that it is true, insofar as incarnation is said of the Son. But to be incarnate, according to its general meaning, says no more than to be united to flesh in the unity of the person. And although the person of the Father cannot be sent, yet he can be united; and therefore that argument does not hold, because it proceeds from the lower to the higher by destruction.

3. To that which is objected, that to be incarnate is proper to the Son; it must be said that just as, if Peter is the only son of Paul, to be the son of Paul is proper to Peter, not because it could not belong to another, but because it does not now belong to another; so also in the matter at hand it must be understood that to be incarnate is said to be proper to the person of the Son, not because another person could not be united to flesh, but because no other person is actually united to flesh than the person of the Son.

4. To that which is objected, that the nature assumed by the Word agrees more with the other persons than the unassumed; it must be said that, as was said in the foregoing, although such a nature agrees more with the other persons by reason of eminence and dignity, yet it agrees less by the agreement of order, because, since it is actually assumed by the person of the Word, it does not have possibility for a further assumption. But it is not so concerning the nature that is not assumed; and therefore that argument does not conclude.

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