Dist. 5, Art. 1, 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/5/q/bon-sent-III-d5-a1-q2
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### QUESTION II. *Whether to assume befits the divine person.*

Secondly it is asked, whether to assume befits the divine person. And that it does, it seems.

1. (*Fundamenta.*) Augustine, *On the Faith, to Peter*: « God the Only-begotten, while He was conceived, received the truth of flesh from the Virgin » ; but God the Only-begotten is nothing other than a person: therefore, etc.

2. Likewise, by reason it seems: for assumption says nothing more than an action with respect to a creature and a relation; and each of these is naturally suited to befit the divine person: therefore, etc.

3. Likewise, assumption is for some union; but that union does not terminate at a nature, but at a person, since divinity and humanity cannot be of the same nature: therefore it seems that assumption itself truly and properly befits the person itself.

4. Likewise, assumption is for the redemption and satisfaction on behalf of the human race; but it befits the same person to be the one who ought to make satisfaction and pay the debt, and who is able to: therefore it seems that assumption truly befits the person itself.

5. Likewise, to whom mission and incarnation befit, to that same one assumption befits; but mission, or incarnation, befits the person: therefore assumption also.

**On the contrary:** 1. (*Ad oppositum.*) Wherever there is assumption, there is a union to another and a communication; but a person says something distinct and incommunicable: therefore the notion of a person is repugnant to union and assumption: therefore it cannot truly be attributed to it.

2. Likewise, « a person is an individual substance of a rational nature » ; but "individual" is said not only of what is undivided in itself, but of what is divided

from others: therefore if assumption says union and conjunction, it seems that it in no way befits a person.

3. Likewise, every natural union is ordered to that which is so one in itself that it is not unitable to another, otherwise there would be no stopping-point; but that one thing is the individual of a rational nature, which indeed is a person and has the highest completion in the genus of creature: if then it pertains to the dignity of a person that it be united to no other, and the divine person has whatever of dignity there is; it seems that nothing can be coupled to it, and so that it assumes no nature.

4. Likewise, nothing temporal can become eternal; but the unity owed to a creature is temporal, the unity of the divine person is eternal: therefore the divine person cannot take any creature to the unity of its person. But this is to assume: therefore assumption cannot befit the divine person.

### CONCLUSION.

> Assumption in the incarnation befits the divine person.

**I respond:** It must be said that, as has been said (*Conclusio.*), assumption says an action and a relation and the term of each; and by reason of all these it can befit the divine person. — For it befits the divine person (*Probatio.*) to be an active principle and the supposit of a rational nature; and each of these pertains to its dignity and nobility. And therefore the divine person can fashion the human nature as an effective principle and establish it as its own supposit, in such a way that it will be the causal principle and the personal supposit of the same nature; and so through this it stands in the account of (*Solutio.*) a principle and in the account of a medium and in the account of a term. By reason of the first, or principle, action befits it; by reason of the medium, relation; by reason of the term the termination of each befits it. For the divine person brought it about that several natures should be united in itself. — And therefore it must be conceded that assumption itself befits the divine person. Hence the reasons adduced for this are to be conceded.

**To the arguments:**

1. (*Solutio oppositorum.*) To that, then, which is first objected to the contrary, that where there is assumption, there is communication and union; it must be said that (*Communicabile dicitur tripliciter.*) "communicable" can be said in three ways: either by the constitution of one thing, or by predication, or by the communication of properties and idioms. When therefore it is said: where there is assumption, there is communication; it must be said that it is true in the third way, but not in the first way, or the second. But when it is said that a person says something (*De persona.*) incommunicable and distinct; it must be said that this is said by opposition to the first, or the second; for it neither comes to the constitution of a third thing, nor has the predication of universality. And so it is clear that a person has no opposition to assumption.

2. To that which is objected, that a person is an individual substance; the same response must be made, that it is said by privation of composition and of common predication, not by privation of union; unless perhaps a union with respect to something worthier be spoken of, as will appear better below. But none of these is to be found in the matter at hand.

3. To that which is objected, that every union is ordered to one thing which lacks unitability; it must be said that it is true, speaking of a union in the same genus, namely of the union which is by composition. But it is not so in the matter at hand; and therefore those reasons compel in nothing.

4. To that which is objected, that the temporal cannot become eternal; it must be said that it is true (*Notandum.*) by identity of essence; yet nothing prevents this from being by virtue of a gratuitous union. For just as the temporal can be caused temporally by an eternal principle, so also it can rest upon an eternal supposit, so that, just as God is the principle of every creature, so the Son of God is the supposit of a rational nature. And to this extent that unity is said to be terminated at the unity of the person, not because a new unity accrues to the person of the Son of God, but because from the assumption of the human [nature] it comes about that of the two natures there is one hypostasis and person.