Dist. 5, Art. 2, 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-a2-q2
----------------------------------------
### Question II. *Whether God assumed a human person.*

Secondly it is asked whether God assumed a human person. And that he did, it seems.

1. Boethius, defining person, says that it is "an individual substance of a rational nature"; but Christ assumed an individual substance of a rational nature — as Damascene says: "For he assumed a nature in an atom [an individual]" — therefore he assumed a person.

2. Likewise, it belongs to the dignity of a singular that that singular be a person, for "person" is a name of dignity; but the nature assumed in Christ is equally or more noble than it is in any other man: if therefore in others it does not lose the account of person, it seems that in Christ it has it most of all: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, a rational soul united to flesh makes a person; but when God assumed human flesh, he joined a rational soul to the flesh: therefore if he assumed a soul joined to flesh, it seems that he assumed a person.

4. Likewise, a person begets nothing but a person; but the Son of God assumed what the Virgin bore: therefore if the Virgin was a person, it seems that God assumed a person from her.

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine, *On the Faith, to Peter*: "God assumed the nature of man, not the person." (*Fundamenta.*)

2. Likewise, Boethius shows this same thing by such a reasoning: in Christ there is but one person: therefore if the Son of God assumed a person, he assumed the very same as himself; but this is false and unintelligible: therefore also that from which it follows, namely that a person was assumed by the Word. And he proves the first proposition thus, namely that Christ is one in person: everything that is, is for this reason, because it is one: if therefore Christ is, it is necessary that he be one; but he is not one in nature: therefore it is necessary that he be one in person.

3. Likewise, this same thing is shown through *the account of the name.* For "person" signifies something complete and distinct with an ultimate completion; but what is assumed, by the very fact that it is assumed, is ordered to something more complete: therefore it seems that in itself it does not have the account of person.

4. Likewise, if he assumed, either he *consumed* or he *conserved.* It is established that he *did not consume,* because the divine nature took away nothing of nobility from the human. If he *conserved:* therefore, since the one assuming is not the thing assumed, it remains that in Christ there are two natures and two persons, namely human and divine: therefore neither is God man, nor is man God: therefore there is not there any union, and through this neither an assumption. If therefore there is there a true assumption, it is manifest that a person is not assumed.

### Conclusion.

> It is altogether false that a divine person assumed a human person.

**I respond:** It must be said that it is in every way false that a person assumed a person. (*Conclusion 1.*) — For this can be understood in three ways: either that the very thing assumed was a person before the assumption, or that it was a person in the assumption, or that it was a person after the assumption. (*Threefold sense.*)

(*Conclusion 2.*) Taken in any of these three ways, the meaning of the aforesaid statement is false. — For the first is repugnant to *the truth of the conception,* the second to *the truth of the assumption,* and the third to *the truth of the union.*

(*It is proved with respect to the three members.*) For the first, which posits this, that before the assumption there was a person, is repugnant to the truth of the conception. For if there was a person before he was God, the Virgin Mary did not conceive God, but a mere man; which is against the Gospel and the article of the conception. — But the second mode, which posits that that man at the time of the assumption was a person, is repugnant to the truth of the assumption. For if in the assumption there was a person, and after the assumption he ceased to be a person; rather in the assumption itself the person was consumed than assumed; therefore that was not a true assumption, but rather a consumption. — But the third mode of understanding, that the person was, after the assumption, that which was assumed, is repugnant to the truth of the union. (*Notandum.*) For if the one assuming differs from the thing assumed; and that which is assumed is a person; and the one who assumed is likewise a person: therefore in Christ there are two persons; and there are two natures in the same, this is established: and through this there is no union there; and if this, there is no incarnation nor reparation of the human race; which is so absurd that it destroys the foundation of the whole Christian faith.

But into this most evil error Nestorius fell, as Boethius says, because he did not know how to distinguish between person and nature. (*Nestorius. Eutyches.*) For because he saw that in Christ there is a twofold nature, he understood that there was a twofold person. But Eutyches erred from the same cause, yet not in the same way. For because he did not know how to discern between person and nature, and saw that in Christ there could be but one person, from this he was compelled to posit that in Christ there is but one nature. (*Arius and Sabellius.*) And therefore, just as there were two errors in things divine, namely those of Arius and of Sabellius, because they did not know how to distinguish between nature and person; so there were two errors concerning the incarnation of Christ, namely those of Eutyches and of Nestorius. — (*The middle way of the Church.*) But the Catholic Church passed through the midst of these errors, saying that in the deity there are several persons and one nature, and in Christ several natures and one person. And therefore it simply concedes that a person assumed a nature, and denies that a person assumed a person, as the Master says in the text. — Hence the reasons adduced for that side are to be conceded.

(*Solution of the opposing arguments.*) 1. To that which is objected to the contrary, that a person is an individual substance of a rational nature; it must be said that "individual" in the description of person carries a threefold distinction, namely of singularity, of incommunicability, and of supereminent dignity. (*Notandum.*) For "individual" is said to be that which is in itself undivided and distinct from others. I call distinction of singularity that something be not common to many, but be said of one alone; on account of which "Socrates" signifies an individual, but "man" does not signify an individual. — I call distinction of incommunicability that something be not a part of something else or coming into the composition of a third; whence a foot or a hand of a man, properly speaking, is not called an individual. — By distinction of supereminent dignity I understand that which is taken from a more worthy property. For this name *person* is taken from the more worthy things; whence it is not found except in the individual of the most noble creature, namely the rational one, and by reason of its most noble property. Since therefore the human nature, assumed by Christ, is ordered to a nobler property of the same person according to the other nature; hence it is that it does not hold there the property of personality. For it falls away from one property, which indeed is of supereminent dignity, from which property the person of the Word does not fall according to the divine nature. And so it is clear that the distinction of person and that reasoning have no force, because the description of person, rightly understood, does not belong to the assumed humanity.

2. To that which is objected secondly, the response is already clear from what has already been said, because the nature assumed in Christ is by that very fact more noble, because it is established in a more noble person, since it is not in a created person, but in an uncreated person. (*Notandum.*) Hence ordination to something more worthy, although it takes away the account of superposition, does not take away the property of dignity. For it is better to be under a superior than to be over some inferior: just as the soul is more perfect when it is possessed by God than when it possesses created things; and a noble virgin marries better when she contracts marriage with a king, to whom she is subject, than when she contracts with a peasant, over whom she presides. (*Example.*) Hence let it be granted that God assumed someone who is already a person, or a being in act; that one, when he would cease to be a person, would nevertheless lose nothing of dignity; for he would be a person according to the assuming nature, although not according to the assumed nature.

3. To that which is objected, that a rational soul united to flesh makes a person; it must be said that

it is true when the soul and flesh are not joined to something more worthy; for then not only is the *nature* itself constituted from soul and flesh, but from the nature itself the *hypostasis and person.* (*Notandum.*) But it is not so in the present case; because the soul and flesh were united to each other in the Word himself, nor in any instant was that soul not united to the Word; and the hypostasis itself was eternal, in which the body and soul were brought together: and therefore they did not constitute a person, but only a nature. And therefore it does not follow that, if the Son of God assumed a soul united to flesh, he assumed a person; because it was not united to that flesh before it was assumed, whatever may be the case concerning the order according to nature.

4. To that which is objected, that the blessed Virgin bore a person; it must be said that it is true, because she bore the Son of God; but since a person is generated by reason of nature, and the nature in that person is twofold, namely created and uncreated; therefore by reason of the twofold nature a twofold generation belongs to him, namely temporal and eternal: temporal, in which he is made like to his Mother; eternal according to nature, in which he is made like to his Father. Therefore that reasoning does not constrain. (*Notandum.*) For although generation belongs to a person, it belongs to him nevertheless by reason of nature; this is most true in created generation, in which there is not only a personal distinction, but a natural multiplication.