Chapter 3 (16): 1. Why [The Word] Did Not Take The Person Of A Man, Even
22 | THE SENTENCES, BOOK 3
as it is said to have become incarnate.—RESPONSE. To which we say that, if that expression were to be found in sacred Scripture, it would be taken in the same sense as when the divine nature is called incarnate. But because authority passed over the matter in silence, and, what is more, the mode of speech would seem excessively bold if the divine nature were said to have been made flesh, I believe it better to be silent concerning this or to deny it than to assert it rashly, lest, if that were said, it might be held to signify the convertibility of the one nature into the other—From the foregoing, it is indubitably clear that the person or nature of the Word took on a human nature, namely flesh and soul, but not a human person.
2. But if the divine nature took a human nature, why is it not said to have been made or to be man, as the Word of God is?—To which it can be said that the Son of God is said to have been made man or to be man not only because he took the form of a man, but because he took it into the unity and singularity of himself, that is, of his person. But although the divine nature did indeed take human form, that is, united the form of man to itself, it did not take it into the singularity and unity of itself. For the singularity of the person remained while the property and diversity of the two natures were preserved. And so the divine nature is not said to be man or to have been made man, in the same way as the Son of God is.
But some grant both of these interchangeably.
Chapter 3 (16)
1. WHY [THE WORD] DID NOT TAKE THE PERSON OF A MAN, EVEN
THOUGH IT TOOK A MAN. But [the Word] did not take the person of a man because that flesh and that soul which it would have taken were not united into the one person. For there was no person composed of those elements when the Word was united to them; indeed, they were united to each other at the same time as they were united to the Word. And yet the union by which those two, namely the soul and the flesh, were united was one thing, and the union by which they were united to the Word was another; because the first is the union of that soul to the flesh, the second is the union of the Word to that soul and flesh. And so the Word of God did not take the person of a man, but the nature, because there was no person composed of that flesh and that soul whom the Word took, but the Word united by taking, and took by uniting.
2. OBJECTION TO THIS, BY WHICH SOME WISH TO PROVE THAT A PERSON
TOOK A PERSON. Here the objection is made by some that a person took a person: "For a person is a rational substance of an individual nature."!
But that is what a soul is; and so, if the Word took a soul, it also took a 'Boethius, Opusculum V: Liber contra Eutychen et Nestorium, 3.
Distinction V | 23 person.—But this does not follow, because the soul is not a person when it is united personally to another thing, but when it exists by itself. For when it is freed from the body, it is a person, like an angel. But that particular soul never existed without being joined to another thing; and so it was not the case that the taking of that soul was the taking of a person.
3. ANOTHER PROOF OF THE SAME. They also strive in another way to prove that the Word of God took a person: because it took a particular man. For it took the man Jesus Christ; and so [it took] a particular man.—
AUGUSTINE. Augustine, in his Exposition of the Creed, under threat of anathema, hands down that the Word took the man Jesus Christ; he says:
"If anyone has said and believed that the man Jesus Christ was not assumed by the Son of God, let him be anathema."' He also uses expressions taken from several passages of Scripture,' like the following: 'That man was assumed by the Word,' 'That man was made the Christ.' And the Prophet, speaking to God of the man Christ, says: Blessed is he whom you have chosen and taken.* From which it appears to follow that a particular man was taken by the Word, and in such way that a person was taken by a person.
4. RESPONSE DETERMINING THE ABOVE EXPRESSIONS. But because it is impious to say or hold this, the above expressions and others like them surely ought to be taken in the following sense: that the man Christ, or that man, or some man, is said to have been taken by the Word, or united to the Word, not because the person of a man was taken or united to the Word, but because that particular soul and that particular flesh were taken and united to the Word, and in them subsisted the person of God and of man: so that you look to the nature of man, not to the person, when Scripture, in phrases of this sort, says that some man or a particular man was taken or united.—And so, when it is asked without the support of authority whether some man or a particular man was taken by the Word or united to the Word, no response is here to be made without distinguishing what is meant because the aforesaid question is multifaceted. But once the limits of the questioner's intention have been determined, then, if you are asking about the person of the man, I answer: no; if about the nature of the man, I say: yes, indeed.
*Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo 233, n2 (rather, the Creed of the Council of Toledo I).
3See below, dist. 6 c2 né6.
"Ps. 64, 5.