Dist. 12, Art. 3, 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/12/q/bon-sent-III-d12-a3-q2
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### Question II. *Whether He ought rather to have assumed flesh from man and woman together than from a woman alone.*

Secondly it is asked whether He ought rather to have assumed flesh from man and woman together than from a woman alone. And that it was so seems to be the case.

1. To the Hebrews, second [chapter]: *He ought in all things to be made like to His brethren*; but fraternal likeness consists chiefly in generation: therefore it seems that, just as others are generated from father and mother, so too in like manner [should] Christ [be].

2. Likewise, Christ assumed human nature in order to cure us from the disease of original sin: if therefore original sin is transmitted by way of generation from male and female; it seems that He ought so to be
born, that, as by His death He freed us from the death of damnation, so by His origin He might heal the corruption of our origin.

3. Likewise, Christ came equally to heal both sexes, therefore it seems that He ought to have assumed both sexes, or [to be] from both; but not both, because [it would be] either in one person, for then He would be a hermaphrodite, which is abominable; or in two, and then there would be superfluity: therefore He ought to have taken up human nature from both sexes.

4. Likewise, a nobler principle of generation is the man than the woman: if therefore others are generated from man and woman, and Christ from a woman alone; in a nobler manner are other men generated than Christ. If therefore it is not fitting that anyone should excel Him in the nobility of generation, it seems, etc.

**On the contrary:** 1. Those begotten according to natural propagation from man and woman contract the original disease; but Christ ought to have been wholly immune from that disease: therefore it was not fitting for Him to assume flesh from both sexes.

2. Likewise, dignity is especially in the Virgin Mary, that she be mother and virgin: if therefore Christ ought not to take away dignity from His Mother, but to increase it; it seems that He ought not to be born from her by commixture.

3. Likewise, Christ came to regenerate us by a new and spiritual regeneration, therefore He ought to be born in a new and spiritual manner; but the manner of being born from man and woman is carnal and customary: therefore, etc.

4. Likewise, if Christ were thus begotten, then He would have a father on earth and a father in heaven: if therefore it is not fitting that one son should have two fathers, it remains that it was not fitting for Christ to assume flesh in this manner.

### Conclusion.

> It would not have been so fitting as it now is, for Christ to take flesh either from man and woman, or even from man alone.

**I respond:** It must be said that Christ without doubt could have assumed flesh, had He willed, from man and woman, or even from man alone, just as He assumed it from a woman alone. For as He purified by the operation of the Holy Spirit the virginal womb, so also could He have purified and sanctified, had He willed, the generative power in man and woman alike, so that from them a holy and immaculate one might be born without any foulness. He could therefore, without incongruity, had He willed, have assumed flesh according to the law of nature instituted, from man and woman.

But nevertheless it would not have been so fitting as it now is; and this for a manifold reason of fittingness, on account of which it was more becoming that He should take flesh from a woman alone. The *first* is for preserving the *dignity of the Mother*, who, on account of the conception of the Son of God, did not lose the privilege of virginity. — The *second* is on account of preserving the *honor of the Father*; for Christ according to His eternal generation had a Father; and since He sufficed fully for Himself in heaven, He did not come on earth to seek a father, but only a mother, lest, the Son existing with two fathers, He should be fully the son of neither, and thus an injury be in a certain manner done to the first Father. — The *third* is on account of completing the *perfection of the universality* in the modes of bringing man into being: because, since there were a fourfold mode of bringing man into being, namely, from man and woman, neither from man nor from woman, from man without woman, and from woman without man; the first three had gone before; and therefore there remained nothing, except that God should add the fourth mode; which He would not have done, had He been conceived in another manner. — The *fourth* reason [is] on account of the *correspondence of the congruity of the fall and the reparation*, that, as the fall was made in both sexes, but first in the woman was it begun and in the man consummated; so it might be in the reparation, that the woman by believing and conceiving might begin to overcome the devil in hiding, and afterward her Son in the open might conquer him in single combat, namely on the gibbet of the cross. — And the reasons which are adduced for this side are to be conceded.

1. To that, then, which is first objected to the contrary, that it was fitting for Him to be made like to His brethren in all things; it must be said that this is true of those things which are ordained to our salvation and instruction; but such a manner of being born would not so befit either our salvation or our instruction, as that one which Christ chose; and therefore as to the manner of being born He ought not to be made like. — *Moreover*, there is another reason: that we by such a manner of being born contract the disease: and Christ as a good physician ought to be im-
mune from the disease: hence it is that in such a manner of being born He ought not to be made like to us nor to agree with us.

2. To that which is objected, that He ought so to be born, that He might cure us; it must be said that God so came to cure and so disposed, that He might cure the person, not that He might cure the nature itself. Hence the medicine of Christ has no efficacy in us in the act of generation, but in the act of regeneration, which regeneration, I say, is not from flesh and blood, but from water and the Holy Spirit. And therefore it was neither necessary nor fitting that He be born as we are born, since He did not dispose to change that manner of being born by His coming, in order that faith might have merit; otherwise faith would be apprehended by human experiment, as has elsewhere been shown both in the fourth and in the second.

3. To that which is objected, that He had come equally to save both sexes; it must be said that this is true; nevertheless He ought in a certain way to esteem the male sex the more, as being the worthier, and He assumed the male sex, because it was the more befitting. But since the woman was by no means to be excluded from the sufficiency of His redemption; therefore He assumed flesh from a woman. — Therefore it must be said that that division is not sufficient, by which one says: either He ought to assume both sexes, or [to be] from both sexes. For there is a middle: either the one from the other, as the male from the female; and then it is worth as much as if from both, and it accords more with right reason.

4. To that which is objected, that the father is the nobler principle; it must be said that Christ the Lord is not without a father, nay rather He has the eternal God for His Father, whose excellence and dignity inestimably exceeds every created father; and therefore that others have a created father, but Christ by no means [has one], is not on account of a greater dignity of others in respect of Christ. For Christ has someone in place of a created father, who is so noble, that from Him is named all paternity in heaven and on earth.

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