Dist. 2, Art. 2, Q. 1
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/2/q/bon-sent-III-d2-a2-q1
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### Article II. *On the assumed nature with respect to the integrity of its parts.*

Next there is inquiry concerning the assumed nature with respect to the integrity of its parts. And concerning this three things are asked.

First it is asked, whether Christ assumed true flesh.

Second it is asked, whether Christ had a true rational soul.

Third it is asked, whether Christ, in assuming human flesh, had a common species.

### Question I. *Whether Christ assumed true flesh.*

Concerning the first one proceeds thus, and it is asked, whether Christ assumed true flesh. And that he did is proved:

1. By that which is said in the last [chapter] of Luke: *Handle and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones:* if therefore Christ after the resurrection had true flesh, it necessarily follows that he had it before.

2. Likewise, Damascene: « What was unassumable was incurable »: therefore what was curable was assumable, and what was cured was assumed; but not only the soul, but also the flesh received healing through Christ: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, a man is not born of a man except from flesh; but Christ was born and conceived of the Virgin Mary: therefore he drew true flesh from her.

4. Likewise, true flesh belongs necessarily to the true constitution of a man: therefore if Christ lacked true flesh, he lacked true humanity; and if he lacked true humanity, he lacked true blood and the true price of redemption: therefore our whole faith is vain. But if to say this is of heretical impiety, it is heretical and an adversary of the true faith to hold that Christ did not have true human flesh.

**Sed contra:** 1. In the fifth [chapter] to the Galatians: *The flesh lusteth against the spirit;* but in Christ there was no concupiscence or disorder: therefore neither true flesh.

2. Likewise, in the third [chapter] of John: *He that is of the earth speaketh of the earth; he that cometh from heaven is above all.* But in this is marked the difference of Christ from other men; but other men are of the earth, because their body is of the earth: therefore Christ's body was not of the earth nor of the other elements, as are other bodies: therefore it does not seem that he had true human flesh.

3. Likewise, union presupposes in what is unitable the character of an image — whence an irrational creature does not have in itself a fittingness for union — but human flesh does not have in itself the image of God, because that is in the higher portion of reason: therefore it does not seem that it may be assumed by the Word of God.

4. Likewise, the grace of union is more excellent than [the grace] of fruition; but fruition does not belong to flesh itself: therefore much less union to the deity: therefore Christ did not assume true flesh.

5. Likewise, union effects a communication of idioms; but the flesh of Christ does not receive the communication of idioms with respect to the divine properties, for the flesh is not God: therefore it does not seem that it is united or assumed by the Word of God.

### Conclusio

> Christ had true human flesh and a true human body.

**Respondeo:** It must be said that concerning this there were three ways of speaking; and two are heretical, the third is catholic.

Some wished to say that the flesh of Christ was not true flesh, but phantasmal flesh; and this indeed they said, because it seemed unfitting to them that God should be united to a corporeal nature. — But these, while they wished to avoid an apparent unfittingness, fell into a true unfittingness; and while they wished to render praise to God apparently, they fell into blasphemy truly.

For to hold that Christ had phantasmal flesh is to attribute imperfection to the perfect, and deception to the truth. For if he did not have a true body, he was not a perfect man. — Likewise, if he did not have a true body, he did not truly suffer: therefore he deceived all who believe in him. If therefore to say this is to blaspheme God impiously, it is plain that it is a manifest error to hold that he did not assume a true body.

And therefore others said that Christ had a true body and true flesh; but that flesh was not earthly, but heavenly. For they said that Christ brought that flesh from heaven, because it was not fitting for him to have sinful flesh, both because it lusts against the spirit, and also because it has the devil as its author. And they wish to fortify this error of theirs by that text of the first [letter] to the Corinthians, the fifteenth [chapter]: *The first man was of the earth, earthy; the second man, from heaven, heavenly;* and by that which is said in the third [chapter] of John: *He that cometh from heaven is above all.* — But this most wicked error contradicts the truth of the incarnation and of the reparation: the truth of the incarnation, because Christ, according as the sacred Scriptures testify, was of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was born of the Virgin Mary, who was of the stock of David. — But it contradicts the truth of the reparation, because, if he did not have earthly flesh, but heavenly, he did not have passible [flesh]; if also he did not have earthly flesh, he did not have flesh of our kind; and if these things are true, neither did he truly suffer, nor was man truly redeemed through him. If therefore these two are of impiety and blasphemy, it is clear that this way of speaking is false and heretical.

And therefore there is a third way of speaking, true and catholic, that Christ had true human flesh, in such wise that that flesh was both a true body and truly like to our flesh in nature. — For it was not fitting to find in the truth itself deception and a deluding of the eyes, because truth knows not how to deceive. Nor was it fitting to find imperfection in the most perfect Son of God, because the most perfect knows not how to fail; and therefore, as it appeared, so he most truly assumed a true and perfect body of our kind and from the womb of the blessed Virgin. — And the reasons showing this are to be granted.

1. To that, therefore, which is first objected to the contrary, it must be said that that is true of flesh in which the tinder of concupiscence is vigorous, and such flesh is sinful; but such flesh was in Adam after sin and in his posterity begotten concupiscently. But such flesh was not in Adam before sin, nor in Christ, who was not conceived in lust, but by the power of the Holy Spirit; and to that extent his flesh is said to be heavenly and to come from above, because it is likened to the height of human nature, which was in Adam with respect to the privation of all uncleanness.

2. And by this the response to the following objection is plain. For Christ is not said to come from heaven because his flesh descended from heaven, but because he was sent by the Father; for the flesh was formed according to the divine operation, lacking original sin and all rebellion. And in this the impious Manichees erred, as was shown above in the second book; for they believed that earthly flesh by its own nature was repugnant to the spirit, as though it had its origin from an evil god; and they fell into this error, because they did not know how to distinguish between vice and nature.

3. To that which is objected, that union presupposes the character of an image in what is unitable; it must be said that this is true either *in itself*, or *in the character of what is annexed*; and although human flesh *in itself* does not have the character of an image, nevertheless it is united to a soul made to the image of God.

4. To that which is objected, that the grace of union is more excellent than [the grace] of fruition; it must be said that this is true by comparison to the same thing, namely to the soul, which enjoys God and is united to God, because the grace of union is more excellent than [that] of fruition and presupposes it; nevertheless with respect to the body it is otherwise, because the grace of fruition is not born to be in the body or about the body, since it posits only a *created habit*, which has [the function] of enabling the cognitive power. But the grace of union in the body does not posit the conferral of any habit, but only the *substantification* of the assumed body itself in the divine person, as in a hypostasis, which indeed is from the mere and gratuitous

goodness of God; and therefore it does not so contradict nor is it so foreign, as the grace of fruition.

5. To that which is objected concerning the communication of idioms, it must be said that, as will appear below, the idioms are not communicated to the assumed nature itself, or to its parts, but are communicated to the *thing of the nature* itself. For this is false: The Son of God is flesh, or a rational soul, although this is true: The Son of God is man.