Dist. 5, Art. 1, 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/5/q/bon-sent-III-d5-a1-q1
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### ARTICLE I. *On the assuming itself, on the part of the one assuming.*
### QUESTION I. *Whether to assume is an act befitting the divine nature.*

Concerning the first, one proceeds thus and asks whether to assume is an act befitting the divine nature. And that it is, it seems:

1. (*Foundations.*) On the authority of Augustine in the book *On the Faith, to Peter*: "That nature, which always remains begotten with the Father, took up our nature without sin"; but to take up and to assume are the same: therefore the nature of God took up our nature.

2. Likewise, more expressly in the book *On the Trinity*: "The form of God received the form of a servant"; but the form of God is nothing other than the nature of God: therefore if the form received a form, the nature assumed a nature.

3. Likewise, it seems by reason. This is true and proper: the divine nature is united to the human; therefore in that union it stands either as *agent* or as *patient*; it is established that it is not as *patient*: therefore it stands as *agent*. But in that very union to *act* is nothing other than to assume the nature itself: therefore it seems that to *assume* befits the divine nature.

4. Likewise, the divine and human natures are united in the unity of a person; but from that union the human nature is truly and properly said to be assumed: therefore by parity of reasoning the divine nature too ought to be called, from that union, either *the one assuming* or *the one assumed*. But it is not *assumed*: therefore *to assume* is its own.

**On the contrary** 1. (*To the opposite.*) there is the authority of the Council of Toledo, which the Master sets down in the text: "Although the whole Trinity wrought the formation of the man taken up, yet the Son alone took up the man into the unity of person, not into the unity of nature": therefore if this befits the Son alone, it does not seem that it befits the divine nature.

2. Likewise, Anselm: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit differ in no way in nature: therefore what befits the divine nature befits the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; but the assumption of the human nature in no way befits the Father, or the Holy Spirit: therefore in no way does it seem to belong to the divine nature.

3. Likewise, the divine nature is something most simple; but what is most simple, when it is united, is united wholly: therefore if the divine nature is united to the human and assumes it, it seems that this befits any person whatsoever.

4. Likewise, if some one thing, in which several things are united, is united to something, it is necessary as a consequence that those too be united, as is evident. For if a point, to which many lines are united, is joined to something, it is necessary that those lines too be united; if also a soul, to which the powers are united, is united to something, it is necessary that the powers be united to the same. Therefore if the divine persons are united in nature more than a line in a point, or the powers in the soul; if to assume befits the divine nature, it is necessary that it befit any person whatsoever; but it is established that it does not befit any person whatsoever: therefore neither the nature.

5. Likewise, this is simply false and in no way conceded: *the divine essence, or nature, generates*, since that act is a proper act befitting one person alone: therefore if to assume is an act befitting one person alone, namely the person of the Son; it seems that this is to be denied as false: *the divine nature assumes the human.*

6. Likewise, there is a rule, and it was held in the first book, that the essence does not supposit for the person, nor conversely: therefore the divine essence or nature cannot render a statement true with respect to a person, nor with respect to anything else; this is established, because to assume befits the Son alone: therefore it seems that the aforesaid statement is simply to be denied.

> **CONCLUSION.** The term *to assume* cannot befit the divine nature except insofar as it expresses only a relation toward the relation of union, which is in one person, but not in the nature itself.

**I respond:** For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that both by the word *to unite* and by the word *to assume* the union of the divine nature with the human is signified, yet differently as to the mode of signifying (*To unite and to assume differ in two ways.*): for the word *to unite* is named from union, which imports *relation* more than action; but the word *to assume* is named from assumption, which more principally imports *action.* Hence although it be conceded that the divine nature *unites* the human to itself, and is even *united* to it; yet in no way is it conceded that the divine nature *is assumed* (*To be noted.*). — There is also another difference: for *to unite*, of itself, does not express the term of a relation or of an action *determinately*; for someone can unite something to *himself* and to *another.* But *to assume* imports an *intrinsic term* both of the action and of the relation; for *to assume* is *to take to oneself.*

Since therefore the word *to assume* imports at once *relation* and *action*, that term, inwardly understood, can be referred to *both*, or to *one* only, namely to the *relation* (*Distinction.*). If it is referred to *both*; since *that action* is terminated at some unity, then *to assume* said of something signifies not only the *union*, but also that the union *is terminated at the unity of the one assuming.* And since that union is not terminated at the unity of *nature*, but rather at the unity of *person*; therefore according to that understanding *to assume* does not befit the divine nature (*Conclusion 1.*). For the divine nature did not assume the human into the unity of nature; and therefore in this way it is not conceded that the divine nature assumed it, that is, *took it to itself* or to its own unity. — But if that term has reference to the *relation of union*; then it is conceded that the divine nature assumed the human, that is, united it to itself (*Conclusion 2.*). For it united the human nature to itself, though not *in itself*, but *in one person.* — And in this way the reasons and authorities adduced for this proceed; and therefore they are to be conceded.

1. To that which is objected, that the Son alone took up the human nature; it must be said that *alone* does not there exclude the *nature*, which is in the person and is predicated of the person, but excludes the *other two persons*, namely the Father and the Holy Spirit (*Solution of the opposing arguments.*). — Moreover, that authority does not say *simply* that the Son alone took up, but that the Son alone took up *into the proper unity* (*Otherwise.*); and then there is no counter-instance from the nature, since, as has been said, the divine nature did not take up the human into the unity of nature, but into the unity of person.

2. To that which is objected, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit differ in no way in nature; it must be said that this is twofold (*Twofold sense.*). In one way it can be understood thus: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit differ in no way in nature, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, having one nature, differ in no way; and this is false, because the Father and the Son differ personally and have distinct properties. — In another way it can be understood, so that the sense is: the Father and the Son do not differ in nature, that is, they do not differ by a diversity of nature; nevertheless they differ from one another *in reality*, and from the essence or nature itself they differ *by reason* or *by attribution.* For something is attributed to the person which is not attributed to the nature, and conversely. And therefore, just as it does not follow: *the divine nature is in three persons: therefore the person of the Father is one in three persons*; so it does not follow: *the divine nature unites or assumes the human to itself: therefore the person of the Father assumes*; nay, there is here the sophism of *accident*, or the sophistical topic of *accident*.

3. To that which is objected concerning the divine nature, that it is something most simple; it must be said that although it is most simple in form, yet it has distinction in the hypostases or in the persons. When therefore we understand that something is united to something, we can understand this either as to a union according to *form*, or as to a union according to *suppositum* (*A distinction to be noted.*). I say therefore that if the divine nature were united to something according to *form*, it would necessarily be wholly united, that is, in any person whatsoever, since it is most simple. But because this union or assumption is not as to a union in *form*, but as to a union in *person* and suppositum; therefore it does not follow that, although it be most simple, it is wholly united, in the sense in which *whole* is distributed over the persons. Hence that process is invalid, by which one proceeds from the simplicity of the nature to the plurality of persons.

4. To that which is objected, that the nature is that in which the persons are united: therefore it being united, the three persons are united, and it being the assumer, they assume; it must be said that it does not follow. For when it is said that to the union of that in which others are united there follows the union of those, this is true when they are united *according to that and in it*, in which the others are united in it (*To be noted.*), as is the case in a point, in which lines are united as in a terminus, and the point itself as terminus can be united to another; likewise also in the soul and in its powers. But it is not so in the matter at hand, because those persons are united in nature as to a natural or essential unity; but the divine nature is not united to the human in one essence, but is united in the unity of a hypostasis, in which unity of a hypostasis indeed the other persons are more distinguished than they agree.

And an example of this can be had in the eternal reasons, according to which God produces (*Example 1.*), which are all one in the essence and substance of God; yet it does not follow that if God makes something according to one reason, He makes all other things according to that same one. Hence the idea of man and the idea of an ass are the same in the divine substance; yet when the divine substance makes an ass, it does not make it according to the idea of man, but according to the idea of an ass. — Anselm also gives another example, in a spring, a stream, and a lake (*Example 2.*), which are of one nature, and one flows from the other. Hence the Nile is called a spring and is called a stream and is called a lake; and the Nile is one, and the water is one, and of one nature, although the spring and the stream and the lake are not one. And it happens that the Nile is channeled as it is a stream, not as a spring nor as a lake; and this is because, although the same water is first in

the spring, afterward in the stream, afterward in the lake, yet it has a different mode of being. But in the ideas there is a multitude with respect to the connotates. And these two are posited in the divine persons, namely a plurality of respects, and a distinction of the modes of being from another and not from another. — And so it is evident that it does not follow: *the divine nature assumed, therefore any person whatsoever assumed*, on account of the intrinsic relation.

5. To that which is objected, that in no way is it conceded: *the essence generates*, because that is proper to a person; it must be said that it is not similar: for *to generate* imports a distinction, which in no way befits the nature; but *to assume* expresses an action and a relation, which befits the divine nature according to one understanding, as was seen before.

6. To that which is objected, that the nature does not supposit for the person; it must be said that it is true; and as for what is said: *the divine nature assumed the human*, this term *nature* does not render the statement true with respect to the person, but rather there the nature stands for itself. For to the nature itself it belongs to perform the assumption, and it belongs to be united to the human nature; and these two the word *to assume* imports according to one of its acceptations.

### SCHOLION

**I.** Peter Lombard, at the beginning of this distinction, sets down four questions, of which the three former, granting the catholic faith, can be solved easily; but concerning the fourth article he says there is a scrupulous question even among the learned. Hence St. Bonaventure disputes this fourth question at length, and indeed in the first four questions of this article. The solution of the proposed difficulty flows of itself from the determination of the difference which exists between *to assume* and *to unite.* St. Thomas (here q. 1, a. 1, quaest. 3) enumerates five differences between the assumption and the union, of which the principal ones are also reviewed by St. Bonaventure in the first question, or are touched on in the following ones. Moreover it is to be noted that the word *assumption*, to use the words of Richard of Mediavilla (here a. 1, q. 1), "can be said in three ways, namely *commonly* and *properly* and *more properly.* In the first way it is taken for *to take*; and so it must be conceded that the whole Trinity assumed the human nature for the Son himself, because it made the union of the human nature with the person of the Son himself. In the second way *to assume* is taken for *to take to oneself*; and so it must be conceded that the divine nature assumed the human nature in the person of the Son, inasmuch as through it it was brought about that the human nature was together with the divine in the same person. In the third way *to assume* is taken for *to take to oneself and to take into oneself as into a suppositum*; and so it must be said that the divine nature did not assume the human nature, nor did any person except the person of the Son himself."

**II.** This and the two following questions the later Scholastics dispatch in one, or in two, questions. Concerning these three questions, then, the following treat: Alexander of Hales, Summa p. III, q. 4, m. 1. 2. 3. — Scotus, here q. 1. — St. Thomas, here q. 2, a. 1. 2; Summa III, q. 3, a. 1. 2. — Blessed Albert, here a. 1. 3. 4. 6. — Peter of Tarentaise, here q. 1, a. 1. 2. — Richard of Mediavilla, here a. 1, q. 1. — Giles of Rome, here q. 2, a. 1. 2. — Durandus, here q. 1. — Denis the Carthusian, here q. 1. 2. — Biel, on these and the following questions, here in one question.

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