Chapter IX: The personal propositions result from the union and communication of natures, § 155.
CHAPTER IX: ON THE PERSONAL PROPOSITIONS
§ 155. Thesis: From the union and communication of the natures, there result personal propositions that are predications in which the concrete of one nature is predicated about the concrete of the other nature, such as “God is man” and “the man is God.”
It could appear right to someone that we should refer to the personal propositions also those in which the whole person is described from one or from both natures. Three classes of these can be established: (I) In some, the concrete of the divine nature is predicated about the person, as, for instance: “Christ is God,” “Christ is the Son of God,” “This one is the true God,” “You are the Son of God.” (II) In some, the concrete of the human nature is predicated about the person, as, for example: “Christ is man,” “Christ is the Son of Man,” “This one is true man,” “You are true man.” (III) In some, the concrete of both natures is predicated about the person, as, for example: “Christ is the God-man,” “This one is Immanuel,” “You are God and man.” This three-part distinction is established with respect to what is predicated, for the subject in all instances is the same, namely, the person that is expressed, either through the name of the person (such as “Christ”) or through the personal [
] pronoun (such as “You are the Son of God”) or through the demonstrative [relativum] pronoun (“This one is true God”).
These propositions may be related in a certain regard to the personal propositions, because the two natures do not subsist in Christ as separate but are most closely united. When it is predicated of Christ that He is God, we must also understand that He is God manifested in the flesh, that He is the Son of God born as man of the Virgin Mary according to His human nature. When it is predicated of Him that He is man, we must also understand that He is the man assumed into God, that He is the sort of Son of Man who also in the unity of the person is the Son of God. For this reason, in the third class, Christ is being described from both natures taken jointly and in unity.
Nevertheless they can be discerned from the personal propositions properly and carefully speaking: (1) Because these propositions express precisely and formally not so much the unity of the person as the duality of the natures in Christ. For Christ is and is called “man” because the human nature is in Him, and He is called “God” because the divine nature is in Him, and He is called “the God-man” because not only the human but also the divine nature is in Him. (2) Because these propositions have been opposed more to those who deny either the divine nature in Christ (as do the Arians, Photinians, and Jews) or the human nature in Him (as do the Marcionites, Valentinians, and Manichaeans) than to those who take away the mystery of the personal union. (3) Because Nestorius, the foe of the personal union, conceded each and every one of these propositions: “Christ is man,” “Christ is God,” “Christ is God and man.” But he attacked the personal propositions, properly and carefully speaking: “God is man” and “the man is God.” What is left, then, is that the personal propositions, properly and carefully speaking and flowing immediately from the personal union, are only those in which the concrete of one nature is predicated about the concrete of the other nature or, what is the same, in which one nature is predicated about the other in the concrete.
§ 156. With regard to these personal propositions, observe: (1) Their origin and foundation consists solely and uniquely in the personal union and communication of the natures, from which they uniquely and immediately flow forth and from which alone they must be evaluated and explained. You see, because the human and divine natures have been united in Christ personally, and because there is an intimate interpenetration between those two natures that have been personally united, so that the divine nature of the Word does not subsist outside of the assumed human nature nor does the assumed human nature subsist outside the divine, therefore God is man and the man is God. Because the hypostasis of the Word is the hypostasis not only of His divine nature but also of His human nature, therefore God is and is called “man.” Because the assumed human nature subsists in the hypostasis of the Word, therefore the man is and is called
“God.”
(2) These predications must be explained not from their starting point but from their ending point, because they explain not so much the act of uniting as the status of the union. When we use predications expressing the act of union, the name of the simple person is placed as the subject, such as “The Son of God became man.” For the sense is that the Son of God, who was from eternity without flesh, took up the flesh into the unity of His person and thus became incarnate. In the personal propositions about which we are speaking here, however, the name of the composite person is placed as the subject, such as “The Son of God is the Son of Man.” For the sense is that the incarnate Son of God is the Son of Man.
(3) The personal union does not remove the distinction of the natures. Instead, the two natures personally united in Christ—the divinity and the humanity—remain distinct in essence. Therefore we do not say in the abstract, “The deity is the humanity, or the humanity is the deity” (Scholastics). Whatever things are united in one subject are predicated of each other, if they are taken concretely. The union resulted not in just one nature—for in this way the other would be destroyed or there would be a confusion or mixing—but in one composite person. Just as in the article on the Trinity I do not say, because of the distinction of persons, “The Father is the Son, the Son is the Father,” so also in the article on Christ I do not say, because of the distinction of natures, “The deity is the humanity, and the humanity is the deity.”
(4) If the abstract is placed as the subject, then the abstract cannot be placed in the predicate absolutely. Instead, it requires some variation, as, for example, “The Word (namely, without flesh) became flesh” or “The divine nature of the Word assumed the human nature.” “Humanity was assumed into God,” “the assumed human nature is in the hypostasis of the Word” [
], just as I do not say in the article on the Trinity, “The Father is the Son,” but “The Father is in the Son” and “The Son is in the Father.”
(5) They are called “personal propositions” because they originate from the personal union, they express the mystery of the personal union, and it is from the personal union that their force, nature, truthfulness, and [logical] connection must be judged. They are said to be “unusual” because they are not congruent with a usual mode of predicating as taught in the Praedicabilia of Porphyry. After all, this is not the predication of genus about species, nor of species about an individual, nor of difference, property, or accident about an individual, a species, or a genus. Cisterciensis, Sent., 1, dist. 5, q. 2, art. 1: “The rules of Aristotle do not hold in divine matters.”
(6) The following examples of these propositions occur in the Scriptures: “The seed of David is Jehovah, our righteousness” (Jer. 23:5). “The Son of Man is the Son of God” (Matt. 16:13, 16). “The Son of Mary is and is called ‘Immanuel’ “ (Matt. 1:21, 23). “Truly, this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39). “The holy thing that is born of Mary is called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). “The Son of Mary is the Lord” (Luke 2:11). “The second man is the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47).
(7) On the basis of this foundation it is also correct to say that Christ the man, or according to His human nature, is the Son of God, that is, personally, not essentially. For if the man truly and really is God, if the Son of Man truly and really is the Son of God, surely also Christ the man, or according to His humanity, is the Son of God, namely, hypostatically.
Theophylact, on Luke 1, fol. 212, in the Greek: “He who appeared as man is called the Son of the Most High. For because He was one hypostasis in being, the man, the Son of the Virgin, was truly the Son of the Most High.” Alcuin, De Trinit., bk. 3, ch. 9:
Christ did not have the Word of God in Himself as other saints do, but He Himself is the Word of God. The Word in the flesh is one thing; the Word made flesh is another. God in man is one thing; the God-man is another. Therefore the Son of God is believed and proclaimed to be true God by all catholics not only according to the true divinity that He has from the nature of God the Father but also according to the flesh, which true flesh He has naturally from His blessed mother. This is because the eternal divinity of the Son with His own full humanity and the same full humanity of the Son with His own eternal divinity is one person in the Holy Trinity—and not an adoptive but a proper and perfect one.
Bernard, De laud. virg., homily 1:
“What is born of you will be called the Son of God,” that is, not only will He who is coming from the bosom of the Father into your womb overshadow you, but also that which He will join to Himself of your substance, from this He will be called the Son of God, just as He who was born of the Father before the ages will also in some way be considered to be your Son. For this reason, Mary is called the God-bearer [
], because according to the flesh she gave birth to the Word of God made flesh.
This is the way also that the Council of Ephesus explains this (canon 1). Fulgentius says (De fide ad Petrum, ch. 18): “Hold most firmly and in nowise doubt that the flesh of Christ was not conceived without divinity in the womb of the Virgin before it was assumed by the Word, but that the Word of God was conceived by accepting His own flesh and that the flesh was conceived by the incarnation of the Word.”
§ 157. Antithesis: (I) Nestorius rejected the personal propositions. For this reason he had the habit of saying as a proverb, “Do not gloat, Jews! You have crucified not God but man!” (See Evagrius, Hist., bk. 1, ch. 2.)
(II) According to Aimonius Monachus, in some published writings, Felix Orgelitanus (or the bishop of Urgell) asserted that Christ with respect to His human nature was merely the “adopted Son of God.” But in a council called in Rome because of that, he was convicted of error and condemned. (See the Council of Frankfurt held in the year 794, c. 5, and the Tomus singularis auctorum insignium published by Stevartius.)
(III) The Scholastics analyze those personal predications in this way: “The Son of Man is the Son of God, and the Son of God is the Son of Man. That is, the Son of God, who sustains the human nature, is God.” Yet: (1) The discussion here does not concern the essential distinction of natures but their personal union. (2) The Son of God, sustaining the human nature, is God essentially through the eternal begetting of the Father. But in a personal proposition, the question is not concerned with this. The Son of Mary is the Son of God personally, that is, through and because of the personal union, because this human nature subsists in the Word Himself. In a personal proposition, the question is concerned only and properly with this. (3) The Son of God is the Son of Man not through the bare sustenance of the human nature but through the fullest communication of the hypostasis, through the intimate communication of the natures, through the closest interpenetration and passing-into. Some of the Scholastics argue that the personal propositions are identical, so that the sense is “God is He who is man, and He who is man is the Son of God.” Some of them want the propositions to be accidental: “For as by accident it is predicated of man that he is white, so also it is predicated by accident of the Son of God that He is man.” Yet an accident is not predicated about its subject directly. But now, “Son of Mary” is predicated about the Son of God. If the human nature were an accident of the Word, one would have to say only that the Word was human, but not a man. (We brought out more against this hypothesis earlier.) Therefore Bonaventure is more correct in claiming that one cannot reduce this predication to other customary and usual modes of predicating either of itself or by accident, for it is not a predication through essence nor through inherence nor through cause nor through itself nor through accident, but it is a mode of predicating that is singular because of the hypostatic union into one subsisting thing. The opinions of Occam and Aquilanus are the same (Sent., 3, dist. 7, q. 1, art. 2), and they add this explanation: “Just as the mode of being in Christ is marvelously singular and singularly marvelous, so also the mode of predicating in Christ is unusually marvelous and marvelously unusual, for the mode of predicating follows the mode of being.”
(IV) The Papists do not explain the personal propositions correctly. Bellarmine, De Christo, bk. 3, ch. 4, compares the proposition “The Word was made flesh” with these propositions: “Aaron was made priest by God” and “David was made king.” Yet to be made priest or king is pure accident and, indeed, is separable and changeable. The priesthood does not constitute one subsisting thing with Aaron, nor the kingship with David. In ch. 15 he compares the Word assuming the human nature with a king putting on his purple clothing. The meaning of the proposition “The Son of God is the Son of Man,” therefore, will be the same as this proposition: “The king is wearing purple.” But the hypostasis of the king is not communicated to the purple clothing nor does it constitute one person with the king. Gregorius de Valentia (Comm. in Thom., vol. 4, disp. 1, q. 2, p. 365) says that the proposition “God is man” is identical. In his Defens. disput. contra fund. Ubiquit., p. 42, he denies that “Christ according to His humanity is God.”
§ 158. (V) In their analysis of these propositions, the Calvinists waver wretchedly. (1) Some say that they are verbal predications. Danaeus, Contra Chemn., ch. 12, p. 295:
We must explain and understand these statements, “God really is a man” and “The man is God,” in this way: that they are really said about the very person and about the entire united thing. Yet regarding the entire united thing and the individual natures of that person, they are enunciated either only verbally and through interchange of names or through exchange or communion of properties, even through words that make concrete and denote the person. You see, the fathers speak of this verbal predication or communication of names using all these terms. Therefore this proposition, “This God is man,” is indeed real with regard to the person, but it cannot be a real predication with regard to the divine nature because the deity of Christ is not humanity.
He repeats the same thing in his collected works, p. 1419. The Admonit. Neostad. de libro concord., p. 68: “The man is God partly in actuality and partly nominally.”1 Page 70: “The predication of human things about God and divine things about man is only verbal as far as the natures are concerned.” (Cf. Beza, Resp. ad acta Coll., preface, part 1, p. 19, and the Orth. consens., p. 297, published in Zurich in 1585.)
On the contrary: (a) If those personal propositions are not real but only verbal, then the union, too, which is the foundation for those propositions, will not be real but verbal. (b) In whatever way the Word became flesh, in the same way is God said to be a man. However, the Word became flesh truly and really, namely, through the assumption of the flesh into His own hypostasis. Therefore God truly and really is and is called man. Christ our God is man through the true and real communion of natures, and Christ the man is truly and really God through the same communion. (c) If the predication “God is man” is verbal, surely also this, too, will be verbal: “God suffered,” and our redemption provided through the suffering of the very Son of God will be verbal as well.
What Paraeus objects in Iren., p. 264, is frivolous:
If we should say concerning the predications that the sophistry is inept, since there are no predications except verbal ones because they consist of words and not things, for we do not speak and philosophize about things themselves but about words that are the symbols of things. However, if we are speaking about the mystery of the union of the natures that is enunciated by verbal predications, we should understand that the accusation is false, since they themselves teach that Christ the man is God not verbally but really and, in fact, most really.
We respond: (a) The state of the question is being changed, for the question is not whether the predications are verbal but whether they are only verbal and not real. Danaeus, loc. cit.: “This sort of predication is not real, but only verbal or dialectical.” (b) Because they claim that those propositions are only verbal, we draw the unshakable conclusion that they are claiming that God is man only verbally, even if they deny this with their words. (c) They do not leave the terms of the proposition “God is man” in their proper and native meaning; rather, in place of “man” they substitute “God,” and in place of “God” they substitute “man.” For this reason they call them identical, as will become clear later. (d) Indeed, they teach with their words that Christ our God is really man, but because they undermine the form of the personal union in many ways, they also accordingly pervert the personal propositions.
§ 159. (2) Some call the declaration “proper” and “regular.” (See the Orthod. consens., pp. 18 and 122, and Grynaeus, Disp. de sermone incarnato, held in 1587, thesis 14.) We respond. If the question concerns the grammatical propriety of the words, we concede that the predications are proper, because both predicate and subject retain the proper and native meaning of the words. However, if the question concerns the propriety of the logical disposition (which is clearly what they mean, because they add that these are regular predications), we deny that they are proper, because they are not essential nor accidental, nor do they agree with any of the five ways of predicating. The material of those propositions is and remains proper because no word is changed into a foreign meaning. But the form, that is, the actual connection of subject and predicate, is not proper, because it does not agree with any regular and proper mode of predicating.
§ 160. (3) Some say that these are essential and univocal propositions, such as Crellius (Isag. log., bk. 2, part. comm., ch. 3, sect. 2), Keckermann (System. theolog., p. 319), and Piscator (Ad Hoffman., pp. 22 and 28, where he says, “This proposition, ‘God is man,’ is made according to the predication of species about an individual”). On the contrary: (a) The union is not one of essence; therefore its predication will not be essential. (b) If the predication is essential, then the man will be of the essence of God, because in essential predications the predicate has to do with the essence of the subject. “Man” is not being predicated about God as species or as genus or as essential difference; therefore this proposition is not essential. (c) Whatever can be said about an attribute in essential predications, the same thing can be affirmed about the subject. Yet about the attribute (man) it can be said that man is essentially a body, though about God (namely, the subject) it cannot be said that He is essentially a body. (d) Propositions in which a species is predicated about an individual cannot be converted so as to make a subject out of the predicate. You see, I cannot say, “[A] man is Peter,” in the same way that I can say, “Peter is [a] man.” But personal propositions can be changed. You see, it is just as correct for me to say, “The man is God” as “God is the man.”
Piscator objects: “In the predication ‘God is man,’ the subject ‘God’ is the same as ‘Christ,’ and ‘Christ’ is the same as ‘the human nature of Christ.’ “ From these, this proposition finally emerges: “The human nature of Christ is man.” Yet: (a) This proposition is no longer personal, because the human nature of Christ is man not personally but essentially. (b) Nestorius accepts this analysis for both: “God is man,” that is, “The human nature of Christ is man” and “The divine nature of Christ is God.” Beza, Resp., part 1, pp. 94 and 131: “Nestorius confessed one Christ, both God and man.” (c) If “the human nature of Christ” and “man” differ, as an individual and a species, the consequence will be that the human nature of Christ is a hypostasis and, consequently, that there are also two hypostases in Christ. (d) This analysis in one and the same word in the subject (“God”) establishes three figures: first, a synecdoche, to indicate that the word “God” is not being taken for the entire Trinity but only for the Second Person of the Trinity. Second, a synecdoche of a part for the whole, for when only one part of the composite person is being posited, they understand the entire Christ remaining in each nature. Finally, it establishes the contrary synecdoche of the whole for a part, because though the whole Christ is being posited, they are understanding only His human nature. Only with so many circumlocutions, so many tropes, so many distortions is the proposition “The human nature of Christ is a man” finally elicited from the scriptural words and from the personal proposition “God is man.”
§ 161. (4) Some say that they are accidental propositions. This is something that all are forced to do who say that the flesh is an adjunct or accident of the Word. On the contrary: (a) The union is not accidental; therefore neither is the predication. (b) In an accidental predication, what pertains to the hypostatic being of the subject is never put as the predicate. But in personal propositions, what pertains to the hypostatic being of the subject is put as the predicate, as is evident. Therefore. (c) The union is mystical, unique, singular, unusual. Therefore that is how its predication will also be.
They make this exception: “A predicate that is outside the essence of the subject is predicated about it accidentally. Yet the human nature is outside the essence of the Word. Therefore it is predicated about the Word accidentally.” We respond: (a) Even if that rule had a place in all natural things, it still could not be accommodated to the mystery of the personal union and the resulting personal predications arising from it. In natural things, the mode of being-in-something [modus inessendi], which is the principle of predicating, is only twofold, for it is in something either as an essential constituent or as an accidental consequence, from which the twofold mode of predicating, essential and accidental, arises. Yet in the personal union, neither mode of being-in-something has a place, for the human nature of Christ is in the Word neither essentially nor accidentally. From this mode of being-in-something, therefore, I cannot seek either an essential or an accidental mode of predication in this mystery. (b) Although the assumed nature of Christ is outside the essence of His deity—that is, it is not essentially the deity itself nor has it been changed into the essence of the deity—nevertheless according as it has been united with the Word (and it is in this respect that it is considered in the personal propositions), it is not outside the diety and hypostasis of the Word but has been united with the same by an intimate and supremely close link, for the mutual interpenetration excludes the outside. (c) In predications, we must pay attention not so much to the nature of the extremes—namely, of the subject and predicate separately and apart, whether the predicate is within or outside the essence of the subject—as to the mutual cohesion and coupling of the subject and predicate. If that cohesion or coupling is essential, it produces an essential proposition; if accidental, an accidental one. However, between the divine and human natures in Christ there is not an accidental cohesion but a personal union. Therefore the propositions “God is man” and “The man is God” are not accidental but personal. (d) If the proposition “God is man” had to be called accidental because the predicate is outside the essence of the subject, I would not be able to say reciprocally, “The man is God,” because the word “man,” which was adjoined in the prior proposition, would stand as the subject, and the word “God,” which in the prior proposition stood as the subject, would stand as an adjunct, and thus the subject would be in an adjunct. Therefore we must draw the nature and explanation of these propositions not from the mode of being-in-something taken logically, but from the mode of the union.
§ 162. (5) Some say they are identical predications. The Conf. orth., f. 18 and 123:
In the proposition “That man is the Son of God,” the subject “man” is understood not as “Christ the man” but as “the man that is in Christ,” that is, as the hypostasis and person—that is, the very Son of God, having within Himself the assumed and subsisting humanity by which He is man. From this it is clear that, because of the sameness [identitas] of the same hypostasis in the subject and predicate, the man Christ is the Son of God by a truly identical predication, namely, one by which the same thing is predicated properly and essentially about itself, that is, the Son of God about His own hypostasis, from the other and assumed nature.
Grynaeus (in the aforementioned disputation) and Paraeus (Controv. Euchar., bk. 3, ch. 8, p. 126) also call this “an identical proposition.” From that, they propose the following analyses: “ ‘The Son of God is man,’ that is, He who is the Son of God is also man. The person that is the man is also God. The Son of God, who sustains the human nature, is God.” Beza (Coll. Momp., p. 173) holds it to be Eutychian doctrine when one says that “that man, the Son of Mary, is really God through the hypostatic union, not in itself but in the Word to whom it is united hypostatically.” On p. 294, he analyzes it as follows: “If we say, ‘That man is God,’ we take the word ‘man’ to mean ‘the deity’ or ‘the Son of God’ in this way: ‘The Son of God, who is united with the humanity, and His deity, is God,’ for the deity has not been communicated to the humanity.” Martin[i]us proceeds in this way: “ ‘This man is God.’ ‘Man’ is the name of the person named from the other nature, that is, from the human nature. But how is He God? According to His humanity or according as He is man? Not at all, but according as He is God. Therefore the Son of Mary is God according to His deity. The Son of God is man according to His humanity.”
On the contrary: (a) In the personal propositions the question is not whether the Son of God is the Son of God, whether God is God, but whether the man born of the Virgin Mary is truly the Son of God in the unity of the person. That is, the discussion is not about the verity of either or both natures but about the personal union of the two.
(b) Nestorius readily embraces such an analysis: “ ‘God is man,’ that is, He who is the Son of God is also man. Christ, who is man, is also God.” By what right, then, has Nestorius been accused and condemned for having taken away the mystery of the personal union?
(c) From the simple proposition “This man is God” there is created a double axiom: “This person is truly God and truly man.” The latter proposition describes the two distinct natures in Christ, but the question here does not concern this, properly speaking. However, the prior proposition expresses the personal union of those natures, which the question here properly concerns. (d) In the personal propositions, the question is not what each nature is or whether they remain distinct, but how they are in their mutual union, communion, and interpenetration. “Being God according to His deity” befits Christ our God naturally or essentially, because He was born of the eternal essence of the Father. “Being man according to His humanity” also befits Christ the man essentially, because in the fullness of time He was born true man of the Virgin Mary. But when the Son of Man is called the Son of God, then “the Son of God” is not being predicated about “the Son of Man” essentially, because the Son of Man is the Son of God not essentially but personally, that is, through and on account of the personal union. (Cf. our De Gloria Dei, disp. 7, § 21.) (e) Contrary to himself, Beza acknowledges the truthfulness of this analysis, Resp. ad Colloq. Mompelg., p. 1: “Because of the unity of the person, this man—not as man or with respect to His own nature, but because of His subsistence in the Son of God—is truly the Son of God.” (f) Therefore we must very carefully note and constantly set this against the corruptions of our adversaries: that in the personal propositions the discussion is not about the nonincarnate Word but the incarnate Word, who assumed the flesh into the unity of His person. Nor is it about the human nature considered with regard to its own essence, but about the human nature according as it has been assumed into the hypostasis of the Word and subsists in the hypostasis of the Word Himself. (g) If these propositions are claimed to be identical, the mystery of the union is taken away, because it is described in and through these propositions. After all, if they take the subject and predicate as the same thing, then the man assumed from Mary will not be God by personal, primary actuality, but only by secondary actuality, that is, by reason of the sustenance by which the man is sustained by God. Nor will there be any distinction between the propositions “The man is God” and “God is man,” except that the limitation by which the person of the Son is said to have humanity is added sometimes to the word of the subject and sometimes to the word of the predicate. Sigwartus urges this argument (Contra Paraei Iren., p. 550).
§ 163. (6) Akin to this analysis, by which the personal propositions are claimed to be identical, are those that claim they must be explained according to another, or according to alteration [
], which Zwingli calls “holy” (Opera, vol. 2, f. 453). Paraeus, Iren., p. 264: “Do they indeed want us to say that Christ the man is God even by His own humanity and that Christ our God is man even by His deity? Let Eutyches be accursed!” Again, in Method. controv. Ubiquitar., preface, p. 8, Paraeus thinks that we must explain them through a figure of exchange, namely, that “the denomination of one nature be attributed to the other nature in the concrete.” In their Panharmonia, the Hungarians say that “this is figurative through the communication of attributes.” According to Paraeus, therefore, this will be the meaning of the propositions “God is man” and “man is God”: “Christ the man is God by His own deity; Christ our God is man by His own humanity.”
Yet: (a) In this way, one again presupposes that in these propositions the discussion involves not the union of the two natures but the verity and distinction of both natures in Christ; and therefore they will not be personal, properly and accurately speaking. (b) In the words immediately preceding, Paraeus asserts: “Christ the man really and substantially is God by His own deity; and Christ our God is really and substantially man by His own humanity.” But he speaks ambiguously. You see, if that limitation “by His own divinity” is referred to the subject “man,” namely, that the assumed man is God substantially by His own divinity, he supports Eutyches, who nevertheless is accursed because man cannot be God substantially or essentially without confusing the natures. On the other hand, if it is referred to the predicate “God,” namely, that this man is God by His own deity, the first analysis returns, that it is an identical proposition: “God is man,” that is, “God, who sustains the man, is God.” (c) Christ the man is God by His own deity essentially, Christ our God is man by His own humanity essentially. However, the question here does not concern this, but rather whether man is God and God is man personally. (d) If the man by His own humanity or according to His human nature is not God personally, the consequence will be that the Son of God did not truly and really communicate His own hypostasis to the assumed human nature, that that holy thing which was born of Mary is not the Son of the Most High [cf. Luke 1:32, 35], that the second man is not truly the Lord from heaven [cf. 1 Cor. 15:47], that Mary is not the God-bearer [
], etc.
§ 164. (7) Some claim that these are figurative and metaphorical propositions. On the contrary: (a) If the predications are figurative and metaphorical, the union itself will be figurative and metaphorical, and as a consequence, even the redemption performed through Christ, the God-man, will be metaphorical. (See Luther’s very serious refutation in his Confess. major. de coena, vol. 3, German edition of Jena, f. 478.) (b) Figurative propositions are not convertible. But the personal propositions are convertible. (c) In figurative propositions, the property of the words is changed. However, in the personal propositions the subject and predicate retain the proper meaning of the words. “Man” means the human nature, consisting of a rational soul and body, which the Word assumed. “God” means the Son of God or the whole and complete divine nature of the Word, into whose hypostasis the human nature was assumed. (d) A figure of speech would be either in the subject or in the predicate or in the copula or in the entire predication. But it exists in none of these: Not in the subject or in the predicate, because they keep their proper meaning. And a figure of speech cannot be in the copula or the whole predication.
They make the exception: “The words retain their literal meaning, but the things [signified] become metaphorical and improper.” Yet an improper use exists only in words, not in things. In fact, the things remain unchangeable and cannot be altered, because the essences of things cannot be changed into other essences.
§ 165. (8) Some want them to be synecdochical propositions, “because the word ‘God’ is used for ‘the Second Person of the Trinity,’ and ‘man,’ the name of the species, for the individual.”
We respond: No synecdoche occurs here. The word “God” is being used for the Son of God, for the Word Himself, who is neither part nor species of the divinity but is the true, whole, and perfect God, because in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). By “man,” also, we do not understand man as he is a species, but here we take it to mean this man, the Son of Mary, though the demonstrative particle is not always added. Thomas, [ST,] part 3, q. 4, art. 3: “The noun ‘man’ signifies the human nature as it was born in the hypostasis [suppositum].” “Man” in the subject does not signify the bare humanity but the humanity that subsists in the person of the Word. Concerning this person, because He is truly God, it is said about Him in the predicate without any trope and outside of any2 synecdoche that He is God.
§ 166. (9) Some contend that these are causal propositions and “do not consist of disparates but of cause and effect.” Yet: (a) One cannot deny that the divine and human natures are disparates. (b) Causal propositions are not convertible, because a cause does not become the effect of that of which it is a cause and vice versa. (c) The Son of God is man because He assumed human nature into the unity of His person. Because the Word Himself, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, formed this humanity, up to this point and in this respect the Word can be called its cause. However, the human nature can in no wise be called the cause of the divine nature. (d) The personal propositions have to do not so much with the formation of the human nature (which is common to the entire Trinity), as with its termination, that is, with its assumption into the hypostasis of the Word (which is proper to the Son of God).
§ 167. (10) Because they do not think rightly in the union and communication of natures and in the true meaning of the personal propositions, they say, “Christ is not the Son of God according to His humanity personally or through and because of the personal union.” (See Piscator, Not. ad amic. collat. Vorstii, p. 191; Paraeus, Iren., ch. 28, art. 11; etc).
Yet we set against them: (a) The statements of Scripture. “What will be born of you will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Christ according to His humanity was born of Mary. Therefore according to His humanity He is the Son of God, that is, personally. “The Son of Man is the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). Yet the Son of Man is not and cannot be without His humanity. Therefore the Son of Man according to His humanity is the Son of God, that is, personally.
(b) The consensus of holy antiquity, which condemned as error in Nestorius, Felix Orgelitanus, and Elipandus the notion that Christ according to His human nature is not the Son of God. We cited some statements of the ancients earlier.
(c) The confession of our adversaries. Quite a few of the Calvinists acknowledge and confess that “Christ, according to each nature, is the true and proper Son of God: according to the divine nature essentially, according to the human nature personally.” (See Calvin, Institut., bk. 2, ch. 14, sect. 4; Zanchi, De tribus Elohim, part 1, bk. 5, ch. 1, p. 263; Polanus, Partit. theolog., p. 37; Chassanion, Loc. com., bk. 2, ch. 1, sect. 3.) However, in this, some of them wander away from the path of the truth by citing His conception by the Holy Spirit as the cause of why Christ according to His humanity is God, though the cause thereof is only and uniquely the personal union.
(d) Rational arguments. If the human nature really and truly became a partaker of the hypostasis of the Word, surely also Christ according to His human nature must truly be the Son of God, namely hypostatically. If there is a true and real communication between the divine and human natures, surely Christ according to His human nature must also truly be God, because the hypostasis of the Son and His divine nature do not differ in reality. If Christ the man is truly God, surely Christ according to His humanity is truly God, because man is not without humanity. If Christ according to His human nature is the Lord of the Law, surely He must also according to His human nature be the Son of God, because being the Lord of the Law and being the Son of God cohere together with an indivisible link in the person of Christ. Note here that “according to” does not express the cause, as if the human nature itself were the cause for which Christ is and is called the Son of God; nor the mode, as if Christ as man or according to His human nature is God essentially. Rather, it expresses the subject of the predication, that Christ, as man, is God, that is, that not only is He God essentially by His deity but that He is also God personally by His humanity, namely, because the humanity has been assumed into the Word and has been personally united with the divine nature.
Questions about the personal propositions.
§ 168. (I) Here, the question arises: How should “concrete” and “abstract” be taken in the personal propositions? It is very well-known and customary that in the personal propositions the concrete of a nature is predicated about the concrete of a nature or, what is the same, nature is predicated about nature in the concrete but not in the abstract. Therefore we must explain what is understood by the words “concrete” and “abstract” here. We shall skip the philosophical meaning of “concrete” and “abstract” and shall consider the meanings that are proper to this place. (The philosophers have five kinds of “abstract”: 1. grammatical, 2. metaphysical, 3. mathematical, 4. natural, and 5. logical, the last of which is either synonymous or by a derived name.)
The Scholastics take “abstract” to mean “nature” (such as “deity,” “humanity”) and “concrete” to mean “person” (such as “God,” “man”). Some establish two abstracts, as well as two concretes, namely, material and formal. By material abstract they mean that which designates simply the nature itself enunciated by the word of the abstract (such as “deity,” “humanity”). By formal abstract they mean that which denotes the natural mode of considering the form or nature. To them, the material concrete is that which designates simply either the nature expressed through the word of the concrete (such as “God,” “man”) or the entire hypostasis [suppositum], sometimes named from one of the natures—whether divine (such as “God”) or human (such as “man”)—and sometimes from both natures (such as “Jesus Christ”). To them the formal concrete is that which designates both the natures and the person, considered not in themselves but in the union and with respect to the union. It is also twofold: either the concrete of nature (such as “God,” “man”) or of person—named not only of the simple person (as “the Word was made flesh”) but also of the composite person—either from one nature (such as “God suffered”) or from both simultaneously (such as “Christ is eternal”).
For us here, in order to explain the personal propositions genuinely, it is sufficient to distinguish between the concretes of the person and of the natures and the abstracts of the person and of the natures. The concretes of the person are those that note both natures of Christ subsisting in one hypostasis (such as “Christ,” “Immanuel,” “mediator”). The concretes of the natures are those that note the natures themselves with a connotation of the hypostasis. Because there are two natures in Christ, the divine and the human, the concretes of the natures are also of two categories. Some are concretes of the divine nature (such as “God,” “Son of God”), and some are concretes of the human nature (such as “man,” “Son of Man”). The abstracts of the person are those that do not express both natures from which the person consists (such as “man,” which is a concrete of nature but an abstract of the person, because it does not denote both natures formally). Abstracts of the natures are those that signify the natures without connotation of the hypostasis and are also twofold in accord with the number of the two natures in Christ: the abstracts of the divine nature (such as “deity,” “divinity,” “divine nature”) and the abstracts of the human nature (such as “humanity,” “human nature”). An abstract of nature signifies not the nature simply, but considered naturally and of itself, according to its principles and natural attributes. A concrete of nature signifies a nature considered with respect to the union and because of itself. (Cf. Meisner, Sobria philosoph., part 1, sect. 4, ch. 5, quaest. unic.)
On the basis of this foundation, it is easy to understand why it is said that nature is not predicated about nature nor should it be predicated about nature in the abstract, because without the connotation of the subject [suppositum] or hypostasis, the two natures cannot be predicated about each other, because they do not constitute a single essential thing. Rather, [nature is predicated of nature] in the concrete, because when the humanity is considered with connotation of the hypostasis of the Word (of which it really and truly became a partaker), then, along with the Word, the divine nature of the Word constitutes one personal thing. And, consequently, in this respect, it is correct to predicate “man” about “God” and “God” about “the man.” (Blessed Luther is referring to this when he writes in his commentary on Isaiah 53: “The distinction between the concrete and the abstract was introduced by God.”) Accordingly, in the personal propositions person is not predicated about person, for that would introduce a doubling of the person, or we would have to claim that the personal propositions are identical. Instead, the concrete of a nature is predicated about the concrete of the other nature, or, what is the same, one nature is predicated about the other nature in the concrete. That is, by the word “man” the human nature is understood, but along with the hypostasis in which it subsists. By the word “God” the divine nature is understood, but likewise along with the hypostasis that it communicated to the assumed nature. Because the common hypostasis unites them3 to each nature most closely, therefore they are predicated about each other also in the concrete, that is, with respect to the hypostasis. You see, the genuine sense of the propositions “God is man” and “The man is God” is this: that there is one common hypostasis of both the divine and human natures in Christ, and by it they are unified most closely and indissolubly; that God or the Son of God assumed human nature into His own hypostasis; and that man or the human nature has been exalted into the very hypostasis of the Son of God.
§ 169. (II) The question arises: In the personal predications, is all that subsists [totum 
], or the whole person, set in the place of the subject? Crellius affirms this (Isag., bk. 2, ch. 3, disp. 3): “In those enunciations that concern Christ the Son of God, whether ‘God’ or ‘man’ is set as subject, the hypostasis of the Word is always understood, and the predicate is enunciated about it—but ‘the man’ with regard to the assumed flesh and ‘God’ with respect to the assuming Word. Thus there is nothing disparate here, nothing unusual.”
Yet: (1) Crellius is confusing the propositions in which a concrete of the person is set as the subject and the entire person is described from one or both natures (as when I say, “Christ is man,” “Christ is God,” “Christ is the God-man”) with the personal propositions, properly and carefully speaking, which we are discussing here. (2) In these, it is not the concrete of the person that is being set as the subject but a concrete of nature, that is, the human nature with the connotation of the hypostasis in which it subsists or the divine nature likewise along with the connotation of the hypostasis that it has communicated to the flesh. (3) If in all the personal propositions we must take a concrete of the nature, set as the subject, as a concrete of the person, then we shall have to do this also in this proposition: “The Word became flesh” [John 1:14]. Yet this cannot be possible, for this explanation would emerge: “The Word with the flesh became flesh.” (4) If, in the personal propositions, one of the two natures were predicated about the person, then they would express not the union of the two natures but the verity of each nature. Then, according to Crellius, “God is man” and “The man is God” would mean “This person is God and man.” Yet they are called personal propositions because they express the mystery of the personal union, that God is man personally and that the man is God personally. (5) If, in the proposition “God is man,” we take the word “God” for the concrete of the person, that is, for all that subsists, including both natures, then the same thing will apply to propositions belonging to the first genus of communication. Hence, when we say, “God died,” the meaning will be that suffering and death are being predicated about the whole person. However, our adversaries do not concede this. Rather, they want people to understand the concrete of only one nature, namely, of the human. (6) If the subject in the personal propositions is all that subsists [totum 
], then one of the two natures, as a part of the whole person, will be enunciated as of a whole. Yet a part is not predicated about the whole in the nominative case but in an oblique case. But God in the nominative case is called “man,” and the man in the nominative case is called “God.”
§ 170. (III) The question arises: In the personal propositions, are disparate things predicated about each other? Luther affirms this (Disput. de dicto: “Verbum caro factum est,” Latin edition of Jena, vol. 1, p. 567, thesis 3): “The proposition ‘God is man’ is more disparate than ‘Man is a donkey.’ “ He took this from Biel, Senten., bk. 3, dist. 7: “In the Philosopher, ‘God’ and ‘man’ are disparate terms, because he would say that ‘God is man’ is impossible, just as ‘man is a donkey’ is impossible.”
Luther’s position is proved: (1) From the definition of disparates. Damascenus (Dial., ch. 37 and 48) defines 
[“disparate, of another kind”] as what “differs in the definition of the essence.” However, both “deity” and “humanity” differ in the definition of their essence. Therefore they are opposite or disparate species. (2) From a comparison of similar examples. Iron and fire remain disparate even in fiery iron. Body and soul remain disparate even in a man. So also the two natures are and remain disparate in the union. (3) From the distinction of properties. Those things whose properties are disparate and opposite are themselves also disparate and opposite. But the properties of the two natures are disparate and opposite, for the deity is infinite but the humanity is finite, the deity is invisible but the humanity is visible. (4) From the consequence of absurdities. If, in the personal propositions, disparates were not predicated about each other, they would be identical propositions, and the entire mystery of the union would be taken away.
Some of the Papists claim the contrary, such as Bellarmine, De Euchar., bk. 3, ch. 9, where he says, “A disparate cannot be predicated affirmatively about a disparate.” Also some of the Calvinists, such as Goclenius (Controv. logic., bk. 1, ch. 15, q. 2; Miscell., part 1, p. 71).
Their arguments can readily be satisfied by observing the following hypotheses: (1) The two natures in Christ are disparate, but they are not, or do not subsist, as separate.4 (2) We must distinguish between the “what” [quod] and the “how” [quatenus], or between the material and form of predication. The two natures in Christ remain distinct in the union; therefore they also remain disparates in predication. But to the extent that they are predicated in the concrete about each other, to that extent they are not disparate but are connected most closely through the uniting terminus [terminus 
] of the hypostasis.5 For this reason, too, they are predicated about each other not in the abstract but in the concrete. (3) As the sameness of the hypostasis does not remove the difference of the natures, so also it does not keep the natures, predicated in the concrete about each other, from being established as disparates. (4) We must distinguish between the judgment of the intellect on the basis of natural principles without the light of the judging Word—which judges the proposition “God is man” to be impossible (because it is a proposition of disparates declared affirmatively about each other), just as impossible as the proposition “The man is a donkey”—and between the judgment of the intellect that has been illumined by the light of the Word and the Holy Spirit, which judges that this proposition is considered true with regard to the personal union. (5) If disparates are defined as things that have been completely separated and come together at no real common point, we deny that in this sense the two natures of Christ are disparate, because they are one in the person, which intervenes as something that unites them. Likewise, if, in rational matters, two or more disparates are said to be personally distinct, we also deny that in this sense the two natures in Christ are disparate, because they are not distinguished personally but naturally.
§ 171. (IV) The question arises: Are the personal propositions paronymous and denominative?6 In De una person. and in his Resp. ad libellum anonymi, Schegkius affirms this, and others follow him.
We must distinguish between any kind of reduction whatsoever and full agreement. The personal propositions can in some way be reduced to derivative propositions. (1) That which is a subject [suppositum] in common and natural examples is, in this mystery, the person. You see, as two accidents are united in a common subject [subjectum], and these accidents cannot be predicated about each other in the abstract, but in the concrete they can (to the extent that they include the unity of the subject), so the two natures in Christ are united in one common hypostasis, and they cannot be predicated about each other in the abstract, but in the concrete they can. Just as it is incorrect for me to say, “Theology is philosophy,” but rather [I can say], “The theologian is a philosopher,” so also it is incorrect for me to say, “The divinity is the humanity,” but rather [I can say], “God is man.” (2) The words “abstract” and “concrete” are proper to denominatives. “Abstract” is that from which the derivative is taken [denominans]; “concrete” is that which is derived [denominativum]. Therefore, because terms that are proper to denominatives are conceded in this mystery, the propositions that explain this mystery can be reduced to the denominative mode of predicating. (3) The common rule about denominative predications—that whatever is united with and communicated to something else according to coupling [
] is predicated about it derivatively [
]—is applied to this mystery. (4) The denominative mode of predicating is general and formal, founded in the absolute consideration of beings by which they are considered either as they are or as they finally exist in any mode. Therefore, though the material, natural, and specific mode of predicating may not be present in the personal propositions, nevertheless we can note the general and formal mode—that is, the denominative—in them. (5) Not only is the denominative mode a mode of accidents, but there are also examples of it in which what is derived and predicated is a substance, such as “the body is animate.” You see, we must distinguish between a predicable and categorical accident. The latter indicates something inherent; the former, everything that is predicated about the subject, whether it adheres to it or inheres in it or is in it in some other way.
Nevertheless full agreement between paronymous predications and the personal propositions cannot be claimed: (a) Because the two natures united in Christ are not two accidents united in a common subject, as philosophy and theology are united in the human mind. Rather, the two natures are united in one hypostasis. (b) Body and soul, which are predicated about each other derivatively [
],7 are not two complete substances, nor are they naturally diverse species, but they are ordained to constitute one essential thing. (c) The personal propositions consist of nouns, not of adjectives, as the body is said to be animate. They consist of substantives that express the very union of the two natures in one person. The man is not just called “divine” or “deified” but “God.” God is not just said to be “human” or “humanified” but also “man.” (d) The union is utterly unusual, and in the entire universe there is no example of two perfect natures forming a single subsisting thing. Therefore the mode of predicating that results from the union is said to be unusual. (e) In all other denominative modes of predicating, the cohesion of subject and predicate is accidental. But in the personal propositions, “God” is predicated about “the man” and “man” is predicated about “God” not accidentally, but personally. (f) Because “the manifestation of God in the flesh,” or the hypostatic union of the two natures, is, “we confess, a great mystery” (1 Tim. 3:16), it is better to call and establish the propositions that express this union uncommon than it is to refer them to logical modes of predicating.
§ 172. (V) The question arises: Is Christ according to His human nature the natural Son of God? There are some who accuse this expression of Eutychianism. However, orthodox theologians have used it in a sound sense. Therefore note: (1) We must distinguish between the thing and the mode of the thing. If the word “natural” is related merely to the thing, the meaning is that Christ according to His human nature is the true and proper Son of God. But if it is related to the mode of the thing, the meaning is that Christ according to His human nature naturally is the Son of God. We concede the first meaning, but we deny the second because Christ according to His human nature is the Son of God not naturally, not essentially, but personally.
(2) We must distinguish between the subject [suppositum] and the cause. “Christ according to His human nature is the natural Son of God.” That is, Christ the man or Christ according to His human nature is the same subject, the same person, and consequently also the same natural and proper Son who is Christ our God. After all, there are not two sons in Christ, but the Son is one. However, if this determination8 is referred to the cause—that is, if the cause because of which Christ according to His human nature is called the Son of God would be claimed as His nature or His natural and eternal begetting by the Father—then this meaning is repudiated by us. For the cause because of which and with respect to which Christ according to His human nature is called the Son of God is not nature nor His eternal begetting by the Father, but the hypostatic union, namely, because the assumed human nature became a partaker of that hypostasis according to which Christ as true God is begotten from eternity by the Father and hence is His natural and only-begotten Son.
(3) If we establish an immediate opposition between a natural son and an adopted one, then it is correct to say that Christ according to His human nature is the natural Son of God, for He is not an adopted Son. (This opinion was once condemned in Felix Orgelitanus and Elipandus and, before them, in Nestorius.)
(4) “Natural” is used for “essential,” for that which is “proper in the fourth mode,”9 for that which is “born with us,” or what “is in us from birth itself,” because “nature” signifies the essence of a thing, a part of the essence, the essential property and birth. Therefore Christ is said to be the natural Son of God according to each nature, but not in the same mode. When He is called “the natural Son of God” according to His divine nature, “natural” signifies the same thing as “essential,” just as if you said, “Christ is the essential Son of God,” that is, of the same nature and essence with the Father. When He is called “the natural Son of God” according to His human nature, however, “natural” is used for that which He is in and is, from His nativity, just as if you said, “Christ according to His human nature is the Son of God who was born” or “from His nativity,” for He was not adopted to be the Son of God after His birth as we are. “We are by nature the children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3), and then later we received our adoption (John 1:12). He was born the Son of God; He did not become that. (See Lubbertus, Comment. ad 99 error. Vorst., p. 48.)
Practical use.
§ 173. The practical use is admonishing, that in our analysis of the personal propositions we may follow the glowing torch of the heavenly Word, not the darkness of reason; and that we not rely on the usual rules of logic to examine propositions expressing that supreme mystery, which is beyond the mind, beyond expression, beyond every comprehension not only of men but even of angels. Leo says (Sermon de nativ.): “Unless faith believes it, human reason will not explain that both natures, divine and human, have come together into one person.” Cyril, bk. 4 on John 15: “The Word is united with humanity ineffably and beyond what the human mind can understand.” Damascenus calls the work of incarnation “the newest of all new things, the only new thing under the sun” (Orth. fid., bk. 3, ch. 1). Therefore who will listen patiently while the personal propositions, which are to be explained solely from the mystery of the union, are being turned about by so many twists and turns of tropes and referred to the usual modes of predicating that are without any mystery, and that this is done with the whip of logic?
1 Read nominetenus with Cotta instead of nomine tenus.
2 Read ullam with Cotta instead of illam.
3 Read easdem unit with Cotta instead of eas demunit.
4 Read separatae with Cotta instead of disparatae.
5 That is, the ending point of the unification of the two natures into one hypostasis.
6 That is, “derivative.” Paronyma or denominativa are concrete nouns derived from abstract nouns, such as “wise man” (sapiens), which is derived from “wisdom” (sapientia).
7 For example, “The soul is embodied”; “The body is animate.”
8 That is, when parts of a proposition or propositions themselves are modified, restricted, amplified, or explained.
9 That is, proper to the whole species, proper only to that species, and always proper to that species. See Etienne Gilson, Index scolastico-cartesien (New York: Burt Franklin, 1913), s.v. “Propre, Propriété.”