Dist. 10, Art. 1, Q. 2
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/10/q/bon-sent-III-d10-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether this is true: Christ, as man, is a person.*

Secondly it is asked concerning this: Christ, as man, is a person; and let that qualification *as man* be taken properly. For in its other acceptations there is no doubt that it has truth, as the Master says in the text. And that it is true seems so.

1. Christ is not man except because he is this one; but Christ, insofar as he is this man, is a person, because it is proper to a pronoun to be put in place of a proper name and to designate a definite person (*To the contrary*): therefore this is true and to be conceded: Christ, as man, is a person.

2. Likewise, Christ, as man, is a thing complete with every completion that can be found in a rational creature; but personality is the dignity and property of nobility found in a complete rational creature: therefore it is found in Christ, insofar as Christ is man.

3. Likewise, more noble and more perfect is the union by which the Word is united to the assumed nature than the union by which the whole Trinity is united through grace to any just soul; but the union through indwelling grace takes away from no one the dignity of person, indeed every just man, as man, is a person: therefore much more so Christ.

4. Likewise, the union of the divine nature to the human takes away nothing from the divinity, which nevertheless is said to be *humbled*,

and much more it takes away nothing from the *humanity*, since the humanity is said to be *exalted* through that union; but this is true: Christ, as God, is a person: therefore much more will this be true: Christ, as man, is a person, since the man loses nothing of dignity, but acquires it through that union.

5. Likewise, suppose by the impossible that the Word should release the human nature, then that man who is called Jesus, as man, would be a person; but it is established that nothing would accrue to him on account of that separation: therefore it is true now that Jesus, as man, is a person.

**On the contrary:** 1. Nothing belongs to Christ, as man (*The foundations*), that is not assumed or co-assumed; but that the Son of God assumed a person is false and heretical, as the Master says above in the fifth distinction, and Augustine, and it has been proved in many ways: therefore it is false that Christ is a person, as man.

2. Likewise, if Christ, as man, is a person; and the humanity began in Christ: therefore also the personality: therefore Christ began to be a person: therefore he is not an eternal person: therefore he is not the only-begotten Son of the Father, since the Son is co-eternal with the Father. But this is impious: therefore it remains that that from which this follows is false.

3. Likewise, it is impossible that the same predicate be in the same thing according to differing natures: since therefore Christ is a person, as *God*; either it would not belong to him to be a *person*, as *man*, or *another* person will be, as man; and if there is another person, as *man*, and another, as *God*: therefore Christ is two persons: therefore he is not one, and so he is not. But this is false: therefore it remains that the other member is true, namely that it does not belong to Christ to be a person, as man.

4. Likewise, personality is in any thing by reason of that which is most worthy in it — for the name of person pertains to a notable dignity — but it is established that the most worthy thing in Christ is not the human nature, but the divine; therefore it is false that Christ, as man, or according to his human nature, is a person.

5. Likewise, this same thing is shown through the etymology of the name. For thus the Master argues in the text: *Persona* is so called as it were *per se sonans* (sounding by itself), or *per se unum* (one by itself); but nothing of this kind is joined to another, at least to something more worthy: therefore if the human nature in Christ is united to something more worthy, namely the divine, it seems etc.

> ### Conclusion.
> The locution: Christ, as man, is a person, is to be denied.

**I respond:** It must be said that, beyond doubt, if this word *secundum* (according to) is taken insofar as it imports the account of *form* or of *cause*, it is to be denied without qualification (*First conclusion*); because personality cannot belong to Christ according to the human nature. For it itself is *joined* to something more worthy, and therefore it cannot have the account of person, which is regarded according to the excellence of dignity in that of which it is said; nor is it merely joined to something more worthy by any kind of conjunction whatever, but by a conjunction or union that is *personal*. And therefore it is necessary that in Christ, with respect to the two natures, there be one person; but that person cannot be regarded on the side of the created nature and of the assumed nature: it is necessary therefore that it be regarded (*Second conclusion*) according to the assuming and uncreated nature. And for that reason this is admitted: Christ, as God, is a person; this is rejected: Christ, as man, is a person, as the reasons adduced for the second part prove; and therefore they are to be conceded.

**To the objections for the affirmative part:**

*To 1.* To that which is objected concerning this: Christ, insofar as he is this man, is a person (*Solution of the objections*): it must be said that this is to be distinguished, therefore etc.; because *this* (*A distinction to be noted*)

can demonstrate the human nature *in atomo* (in the individual), namely the composite of that soul and that body; and in this way it is false that Christ, insofar as he is this man, is a person. Nor is what he objects valid, that the pronoun demonstrates a definite person; for *persona* there has only as much force as *suppositum*, whence it is fittingly said: this whiteness. But if that which is *this* demonstrates a person, then it is true, and the sense is: Christ, insofar as he is this one who is man, is a person. But then it does not follow: therefore as man — rather it is a fallacy *secundum accidens* (of accident). — (*Otherwise.*) Generally, however, this manner of arguing could be resisted. For it does not follow: Peter is an individual, as this man: therefore he is an individual, as man.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that Christ, as man, is a thing complete with every completion; it must be said that it is true of *absolute* completion (*To be noted*), but of *relative* completion, which is the dignity of supereminence, it does not have truth; for the human nature in Christ is not the most noble thing in him, as it is in other men. Nor from this does it follow that the dignity in Christ, as man, is less than in other men, on this account, because that dignity is compensated by a dignity disproportionately more noble. For it is much more noble to be a person by an eternal personality than by a created personality.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that the union through grace does not take away the dignity of person; it must be said that it is not similar, because, although the soul through grace is united to something more worthy, namely God, nevertheless it is not united by a *natural* union, but rather by a *voluntary* one; nor is it united into the *unity of hypostasis*, but into a *conformity of will*. And therefore it is not necessary that the Spirit be of one person with the soul which it inhabits, but of conformed will. It is not so, however, in Christ, in whom the union is personal.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that although the divine nature is united to the human, nevertheless Christ is a person, as God; it must be said that it is not similar, for a twofold cause: for person indeed says two things (*Person says two things*), namely the *hypostasis*, in which is the substance of the whole being of the thing, and the *property* of supereminent dignity; and in that blessed union each of these (*To be noted*) is found in Christ, as God. For the divine hypostasis is that in which the whole *being* of Christ is substantiated, not the human; the *property* also of *dignity* is in him according to that nature which cannot be united to something more worthy; but each of these is lacking to the human nature, since it itself is substantiated in the hypostasis of *another* nature, on account of which it is in a certain way said to *verge into an accident*; it is also united to a *more worthy* nature. And therefore from its very union and nobility it lacks the property of person *in itself*, although it does not lack it, indeed has it, in the *assuming* one.

*To 5.* To that which is objected, that if the Word should release the human nature, then Jesus, as man, would be a person; it must be said that it is true, because then that nature would have *another mode of existing* (*To be noted*); for it would not be united to something else more worthy, nor would it have the suppositum of another nature. But now it is the contrary; and in that process there is no necessity of inferring, because the fittingness of the likeness is not preserved. And if you object that no dignity accrues; it must be said that, that the man would be a person, as man, this is not on account of an *increment of dignity*, but on account of the *lessening* from that separation, because then that nature would previously have for its suppositum an eternal person, but now after the separation it has a temporal person. But it is much more worthy to have an eternal person of another nature than a temporal person wholly connatural to oneself. For in the first way the person made him to be truly called and to be God, in the second way a mere man.

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