Dist. 5, 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/5/q/bon-sent-III-d5-a2-q1
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### Article II. *On the assumption on the part of the thing assumed.*

Next there is inquiry concerning the second principal matter, namely the assumption on the part of the thing assumed. And concerning this five questions are asked.

First it is asked whether the Person of God assumed a human nature.

Second, whether He assumed a human person.

Third, whether one must posit a complete intention of personality with respect to the separated soul.

Fourth, whether it is to be conceded that God assumed a man.

Fifth and last, whether it is to be conceded that He assumed humanity.

### Question I. *Whether it is to be conceded that the human nature was assumed by God.*

Concerning the first, one proceeds thus, and it is asked whether it is to be conceded that the human nature was assumed by God. And that it is so, it seems.

1. To the Philippians 2: *He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant;* but the truth of a nature is attended to with respect to its proper form: therefore if He assumed the form of a man, He assumed the nature of a man. (*Fundamenta.*)

2. Likewise, Augustine *On Faith, to Peter*: «God took the human nature into the unity of the Person».

3. Likewise, no one is a true man unless he truly has a human nature; but the Son of God is a true man: therefore He has a human nature in Himself. But He does not have it through the eternal generation: therefore He has it through assumption: therefore He assumed a human nature.

4. Likewise, whoever is someone's natural son shares with him in nature; but the Son of God is the natural son of the Virgin: therefore He shares with her in nature. Therefore He had that nature either from eternity or in time; it is established that not from eternity, but in time. If in time, then either by His own power or by another's; it is established that by His own power; but what one receives by his own power he is said to assume: it remains, therefore, that the human nature was assumed by God.

**On the contrary:** 1. Everything that is assumed exists before it is assumed; but the human nature of Christ did not exist before its union with the Word: therefore it does not seem that it was assumed by the Word. (*Ad oppositum.*)

2. Likewise, everything that is assumed by something becomes in some way one with that by which it is assumed, because assumption is ordered to union: therefore if the human nature is assumed by God, it becomes one with God. But things that are the same — the one can be predicated of the other: therefore the human nature is God, and conversely; but this is false: therefore that also from which it follows is false, namely that the human nature was assumed by God.

3. Likewise, everything that is assumed by something unto union acquires some property of that by which it is assumed and to which it is united; but the human nature does not acquire any property of the Word — for no property of the Word is said of the human nature — therefore it does not seem that it was assumed by the Word of God.

4. Likewise, Boethius in his book *On the Two Natures and the One Person of Christ* sets down four definitions of nature, none of which seems to befit the divine assumption: therefore if he defines nature rightly and sufficiently, it does not seem to be conceded that the human nature was assumed by God. This is evident by running through the individual notifications, of which the first is: «Nature is of those things which, since they are, can in some way be grasped by the intellect». In this way it cannot be taken when it is said: the human nature is assumed; because, if He had assumed one property or part of a man, He would seem to have assumed the human nature. — The second definition of nature is: «Nature is that which can either act or be acted upon». And again this notification does not befit it, because in this way it would suffice Him to have assumed the soul alone, in order that He be said to have assumed the human nature. — The third notification is: «Nature is the principle of motion and rest *of itself*, and not according to *accident*». Again neither does this befit, because it would suffice if He had assumed the body alone. — The fourth notification is this: «Nature is the specific difference informing each thing». But not even in this way does it seem to befit the assumption, because, as Damascene says in his third book, chapter eleven: «The incarnate Word did not assume the nature considered in bare contemplation — for this would not be incarnation, but a feigning and a deception of incarnation — nor the one considered in its species, but the one which is in the individual»: therefore in no way does it seem to be conceded that God assumed the human nature. (*Definitiones naturae.*)

### Conclusion

> Speaking truly and properly, it can and ought to be conceded that the human nature was assumed by God.

**I respond:** It must be said that, speaking truly and properly, it can and ought to be conceded that the human nature was assumed by God, for this reason: that, as the Philosopher says, «Nature is taken both for true matter and for true form», and these are spoken of according to a certain analogy. (*Conclusio.*) Since, therefore, God assumed flesh and a human soul, and the flesh is the material principle of a man, while the soul is the formal; hence it is that He is said truly to have assumed not only the human nature, but even the *whole* human nature. — And the reasons adduced for this are to be conceded.

1. To that which is objected, that nothing is assumed unless it is a being; it must be said that this can be understood in two ways: in one way thus: nothing is assumed unless it is a *being in the assumption itself*; and this indeed is true and has no counter-instance in the matter at hand, because the human nature had being and *being-assumed* at the same time. In another way it can be understood that nothing is assumed unless it *first* exists before it is assumed; and if this is understood of *being in potency*, it holds true, because the assumed nature first exists in the potency of matter, or of the efficient cause, before it is united to the one assuming it. But if it is understood with respect to *being in act*, then it does not hold true, especially in that potency which can at once fashion a thing and unite it to itself. Hence if someone could make a garment on his own back, the fashioning of the garment and the assumption of the garment would be simultaneous. In this way it must be understood in the matter at hand. (*Solutio oppositorum. Duplex sensus. Notandum.*)

2. To that which is objected, that assumption makes a unity, etc.; it must be said that it is true; yet it does not make a unity in every way, but according as it befits in the comparison of the one assuming to the thing assumed. But if in any assumption a union is found, it is most fully found in the assumption of the human nature by the Word; because there is there not only a unity *by adjacency*, but there is also there the unity which is that of the nature itself *to its hypostasis*. But this unity in some way admits a difference in every created nature; whence concerning no hypostasis whose nature is created is it conceded that it is its own essence or nature in abstraction, but only by the mode of *concretion*; whence it is not said that Peter is humanity, but that Peter is a man. In this way it must be understood in the matter at hand, because, although God is not *a human nature*, He is nevertheless *a man*. And therefore that argument does not compel: the one is not predicated of the other in abstraction, therefore they do not have the identity or unity befitting the assumption. (*Notandum.*)

3. To that which is objected, that everything which is assumed by something acquires some property; it must be said that it is true that it acquires some property; but this can be *in the direct* [case], or *in the oblique*; or by reason of the *supposit*, or by reason of the *form*. And although it does not seem that a property is acquired by the human nature from the account of *form*, it is acquired by reason of the *supposit*; and although a property does not befit it *in the direct*, it befits it *in the oblique*, according as the nature is taken abstractively. (*Notandum.*)

4. To that which is objected: according to which of those notifications is nature taken there? I say that it can be taken according to *every* one, yet most of all according to the *last*, because He had the completive and specific difference of a man. Nor do those counter-instances avail, because Christ is said to have assumed not only the human nature, but the *whole* human nature; nor is He said to have assumed the specific difference, according as the specific difference is taken *by abstraction* from singulars, but He assumed the specific difference *in the particular*, truly existing; and in this way it is given to be understood by the name of nature. — For in this *essence* differs from *nature*; because *essence* names the form of a thing in a certain *abstraction*, while *nature* names it as *a being* in motion and matter, as the principle of natural operations. (*Differt essentia a natura.*) And therefore the catholic doctors preferred to use this word: God assumed a human *nature*, rather than this: God assumed a human *essence*, although both are true; for the former is more proper.