Dist. 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/2/q/bon-sent-III-d2-littera
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# DISTINCTION II.

### Chapter I.
*Why He assumed the whole human nature, and what is to be understood by the name of humanity or human nature.*

And because in man the whole human nature had been corrupted by sin, He assumed the whole, that is, soul and flesh, in order to heal and sanctify the whole. — But that by the word of human nature or *humanity* soul and flesh ought to be understood, Jerome plainly teaches in his Exposition of the Catholic Faith, saying: "Thus we confess in Christ that there is one person of the Son, in such a way that we say there are two perfect and integral substances, that is, of deity and of humanity, which [latter] is constituted of soul and body." — Behold, he plainly shows that by the name of *humanity* are understood soul and body, which two the Son of God is understood to have assumed, wherever He is read to have assumed man, or humanity, or human nature. — They err, therefore, who contend that by the name of *humanity* is signified not a substance, but a certain property, from which a man is named, wherever Christ's humanity is mentioned. For John Damascene says: "It must indeed be known that the name of deity and of humanity is representative of substances, that is, of natures." For nature is not taken in Christ in the way it is when one nature is said to be of all men; which the same John evidently shows, assigning a different account of the statement, when human nature is named in Christ, and when one nature of all men is spoken of. For he says: "When we say one nature of men, it must be known that we say this without regard to the account of soul and body. For it is impossible to call the Lord's body and soul of one nature, compared to one another. But because there are many persons of men, and all receive the same account of nature — for all are composed of soul and body, and all participate in the nature of soul and possess the substance of body — we call the common species of the many and differing persons one nature, namely of each person having two natures and existing perfectly in two natures, namely of soul and of body. But in the Lord Jesus Christ there is no common species to be taken. For He was not made, nor is, nor ever will be *another*. But Christ, of deity and of humanity, in deity and humanity perfect God, is likewise perfect man." — Therefore God assumed the whole nature of man, that is, soul and flesh, and their properties or accidents — not flesh without soul, nor soul without reason, as the heretics wished, but both flesh and soul with their senses. Hence John Damascene says: "All things that God planted in our nature the Word assumed, namely body and intellectual soul, and their idioms." "For the whole assumed the whole of me, that He might bestow salvation on the whole of me. For what is unassumable is incurable."

### Chapter II.
*On the union of the Word and the flesh through the medium of a soul.*

The Son of God therefore assumed flesh and soul, but flesh through the medium of a soul: "United to flesh through the medium of the intellect is the Word of God." For the divine essence is of such great subtlety and simplicity that it would not have been fitting for it to be united to a body formed from the slime of the earth, except through the medium of a rational essence. And that union is so inexplicable that even John, sanctified from the womb, confesses himself not worthy to loose the strap of Jesus' sandal, because he was not sufficient to investigate the mode of that union and to explain it to others. "Therefore those are not to be heard who say that the Son of God did not take up a true man, nor was born of a woman, but showed false flesh and a simulated image of a body to those who saw." Into which error they rush headlong because they fear what cannot happen, namely, that the truth and substance of God should be defiled by human flesh; "and yet they preach that this visible sun scatters its rays through all the dregs and filth of bodies and keeps them clean and pure. If, therefore, clean visible things can be touched by filthy visible things and not be polluted, how much more did the immutable and invisible Truth, taking up a soul through the spirit and a body through the soul, assume the whole man without contamination of itself and free him from all infirmities." — Behold, here he says that the Wisdom of God assumed a soul through the spirit, and a body through the soul. For the spirit, namely the superior part of the soul, approaches God by a greater likeness than the soul, namely the same [soul] in its inferior part, and the soul more than the body; and therefore not unfittingly is the soul said to be assumed through the spirit, and the body through the soul.

### Chapter III.
*That the Word assumed soul and flesh simultaneously, and the flesh was not conceived before it was assumed.*

But if it is asked whether the Word assumed flesh and soul simultaneously, or the soul before the flesh, or the flesh before the soul; and whether that flesh was first conceived in the Virgin's womb and afterwards assumed; it is said most truly and without any ambiguity that, from the moment God assumed man, He assumed the whole and at once united to Himself soul and flesh; nor was the flesh first conceived and afterwards assumed, but conceived in being assumed and assumed in being conceived. Hence Augustine in the book On the Faith to Peter: "Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that the flesh of Christ was not conceived in the Virgin's womb without the divinity, before it was taken up by the Word, but that God Himself was conceived by the assumption of His flesh, and that the very flesh was conceived by the incarnation of the Word." The same in the book On the Trinity: He would not be the mediator of God and men, were He not the same God, the same man, in both one and true — which servile form, taken up by the Son alone, the whole Trinity, whose will and operation is one, made. Nor in the Virgin's womb was the flesh first taken up and the divinity afterwards came into the flesh, but as soon as the Word came into the womb, the truth of His proper nature being preserved, He was made flesh and perfect man, that is, was born in the truth of flesh and soul. — Concerning this Gregory also in the Morals says: "When the angel announced and the Spirit came, at once the Word was in the womb, at once within the womb the Word was flesh."