Dist. 10
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-littera
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# DISTINCTION X.

### Chapter I. *Whether Christ, insofar as he is man, is a person, or something.*

It is also wont to be inquired by some, whether Christ, insofar as he is man, is a *person*, or even is *something*. — On both sides of the question arguments run together. For that he is a person, they set forth by these reasonings. If, insofar as he is man, he is *something*; he is either a *person*, or a *substance*, or *something else*. But *something else* he is not: therefore either a *person* or a *substance*. But if he is a *substance*; it is either *rational* or *irrational*; but it is not an *irrational* substance: therefore *rational*. But if, insofar as he is man, he is a *rational substance*, then a *person*, for this is the definition of a person: "An individual substance of a rational nature." If therefore, insofar as he is man, he is *something*, then also, insofar as he is man, he is a *person*.

But on the contrary: if, insofar as he is man, he is a *person*, he is either the *third* in the Trinity, or *another*; but *another* he is not: therefore the *third* person in the Trinity. And if, insofar as he is man, he is the third person in the Trinity, then he is God. — On account of these incongruities and others, certain ones say that Christ, insofar as he is man, is not a *person* nor *something*, unless perhaps "insofar as" be expressive of the unity of the person. For "insofar as" has a manifold sense. For sometimes it expresses the condition or property of the divine nature, or of the human; sometimes the unity of the person; sometimes it denotes a *habit*; sometimes a *cause*. Let the reader diligently attend to the ground of this distinction and store it away in the recess of his memory, lest its sense be confounded when speech about Christ shall occur.

Yet that does not follow which was adduced in the foregoing argumentation, namely that if Christ, insofar as he is man, is a *rational substance*, then a *person*. For even now the soul of Christ is a rational substance, yet not a person, because it does not subsist of itself, but rather is conjoined to another thing. That description of a *person*, however, was not given for those three persons.

But still in another way they strive to prove that Christ, insofar as he is man, is a *person*: because Christ, insofar as he is man, *was predestined to be the Son of God*; but that is what he was predestined to be: therefore if he was predestined, insofar as he is man, to be the Son of God; then also, insofar as he is man, he is the Son of God. — To which it can be said that Christ is that which he was predestined to be. For he was predestined to be the Son of God, and he truly is the Son of God. But *insofar as he is man* he was predestined to be the Son of God, because he has this by grace, insofar as he is man; yet not *insofar as he is man* is he the Son of God, unless perhaps "insofar as" be expressive of the unity of the person, so that the sense be: he who is man is the Son of God; but that he himself, being man, should be the Son of God, he has by grace. But if a *cause* be denoted, it is false; for it is not by that whereby he is man that he is the Son of God.

### Chapter II. *Whether Christ, insofar as he is man, is an adoptive son.*

But if it be asked whether Christ is an *adoptive son*, insofar as he is man, or in some other way; we answer that Christ is in no way an adoptive son, but only a natural one, because he is a son by nature, not by the grace of adoption. He is not, however, called a son by nature in the way that he is called God by nature. For he is not a son by that whereby he is God, since he is a son by the property of his nativity, but God by the nature of the divinity; and yet he is called a son by nature, or a son of a nature, because he is naturally a son, having, namely, the same nature as he who begot him. But he is not an adoptive son, because he did not first exist and afterwards was adopted into a son, as we are called adoptive sons, because, whereas we were born sons of wrath, by grace we have been made sons of God. But Christ never was a non-son; and therefore he is not an adoptive son.

But against this it is objected thus: Christ is the son of man, that is, of the Virgin, either by *grace*, or by *nature*, or in both ways. But if by *nature*, either divine or human; but divine, no: therefore he is the son of man either by a human nature, or by no nature. If by no nature, then by grace only; and even if by a human nature, none the less by grace. If therefore he is the son of the Virgin by *grace*, he seems to be an adoptive son, so that the same one is the natural son of the Father, and the adoptive son of the Virgin. — To which it can be said that Christ is the son of the Virgin both by nature, or naturally, and by grace; yet he is not the adoptive son of the Virgin, because he is said to be the son of the Virgin not by adoption, but by union. For he is called the son of the Virgin because in the Virgin he took up the man into the unity of the person, and this was of grace, not of nature. Hence Augustine on John: "That the Only-begotten is equal to the Father is not of grace, but of nature. But that the man was assumed into the unity of the person of the Only-begotten is of grace, not of nature." Christ therefore is the adoptive son neither of God nor of man, but the son of God naturally, and the son of man both naturally and by grace. And that he is naturally the son of man, Augustine shows in the book *On Faith to Peter*: "He, namely God, was made naturally the son of man, who is naturally the only-begotten Son of God the Father." But that he is not an adoptive son, and yet is a son by grace, is proved from what follows in the testimonies. Jerome on the *Epistle to the Ephesians* says: "Of Christ Jesus it is written that he always was with the Father, and the paternal will never preceded him that he might be"; "and he indeed is a son by nature, but we by adoption. He never was not a son; we, before we existed, were predestined, and then we received the Spirit of adoption, when we believed in the Son of God." Hilary too, in the third book *On the Trinity*, says: "The Lord, in saying, 'Glorify thy Son,' attested not by name alone that he is the Son of God, but also by property. We are sons of God, but not such as this Son. For he is a true and proper son by origin, not by adoption; by truth, not by appellation; by birth, not by creation." Augustine also on John says: "We are sons by grace, not by nature; but the Only-begotten is a son by nature, not by grace. Is this also, in the Son himself, to be referred to the man? Yes indeed." Ambrose too, in the first book *On the Trinity*, says: "Christ is a son not by adoption, but by nature; by adoption we are called sons, but he is by the truth of nature." — From these it is evidently shown that Christ is not a son by the grace of adoption. For that grace is understood when Augustine asserts that he is not a son by grace; for it is by grace, but not of adoption, nay rather of union, that the Son of God is the son of man, and conversely.

### Chapter III. *Whether the person, or the nature, was predestined.*

Next, if it be asked whether that predestination which the Apostle mentions is of the *person*, or of the *nature*; it can rightly be said both that the person of the Son, which always existed, was predestined according to the man assumed, so that it, namely being man, should be the Son of God; and that the human nature was predestined to be personally united to the Word of the Father.

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