Chapter 2 (18)
24 | THE SENTENCES, BOOK 3
DISTINCTION VI
Chapter | (17)
1. ON THE MEANING OF THESE EXPRESSIONS: GOD WAS MADE MAN,
GOD IS MAN; WHETHER OR NOT BY THESE EXPRESSIONS GOD IS SAID TO
BE MADE SOMETHING [ELSE] OR TO BE SOMETHING [ELSE]. But from the foregoing emerges a question which contains much usefulness, but also a great deal of difficuity and confusion. For since it is established from the foregoing and many other testimonies, and all Catholics unanimously profess, that God was made man, and that Christ is true God and true man, it is asked whether by these expressions: 'God was made man,' 'the Son of God was made son of man,' 'God is man' and 'man is God,' God is said to be made something [else], or to be something [else], or something is said to be God. And is it as suitable to say: 'Man was made God' and 'the son of man was made the Son of God,' as is it to state the converse. And if by these expressions God is not said to be made anything or to be anything [else], what is the meaning of these expressions and of others like them.
2. THAT THE LEARNED DIFFER IN THEIR EXPOSITION OF THIS QUESTION.
The learned are found to differ very much in their plumbing of this depth and their exposition of this thorny question.
Chapter 2 (18) 1. HE REPORTS THE VIEW OF SOME. For some say that, in the very incarnation of the Word, some man was formed from a rational soul and human flesh: from these two, any true man is formed. And that man began to be
God, not indeed by the nature of God, but by the person of the Word; and God began to be that man. They also grant that that man was assumed by the Word and united to the Word, and yet that he was the Word. And they hand down that it was for that reason that it is said that 'God was made man' or 'is man,' because God was made (that is, began to be) some substance subsisting from a rational soul and human flesh; and that substance was made (that is, began to be) God. And yet not by the passage of [one] nature into [another] nature, but, with the property of each nature being preserved, it was brought about that God be that substance and that substance be God. And so it is truly said that God was made man and man was made God, and that God is man and man is God, and that the Son of God is son of man and vice versa. And although they say that that man subsists from a rational soul and human flesh, yet they do not profess that he was composed from two natures, namely the divine and the human, nor that his parts are two natures, but only that they are soul and flesh.
Distinction VI | 25
2. HE SETS OUT AUTHORITIES BY WHICH THEY DEFEND THEIR VIEW.
And lest they be held to speak only from their own understanding, they defend their view with several testimonies. For Augustine says, in the book On the Trinity: "When we read, the Word was made flesh,' by the Word | understand the true Son of God, by flesh I acknowledge the true son of man, and both at once one person, God and man, joined by the generous bestowal of ineffable grace."
3. The same, in the Enchiridion: "Jesus Christ is God from God, but as man was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary. By either substance, namely the divine and the human, he is the one Son of God the Father almighty, from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds.'* "Both are one, but one on account of the Word, the other on account of the man; not two sons, God and man, but one Son of God: God without beginning, man from a certain beginning."
4. Also in the same: "What did the human nature in the man Christ deserve, that it should be singularly taken into the unity of person of the one
Son of God? What good will, what good works went before that this man should deserve to become one person with God? Had he been a man before, and had this singular benefit been given to him, so that he should be singularly worthy of being God? Assuredly not! As soon as he began to be man, this man did not begin to be anything other than the Son of God, and the only one; and so he began to be the Word of God, because the flesh that was made and taken in him is certainly God. And just as each man is one person, namely a rational soul and flesh, so Christ is one person, Word and man."
5. The same [Augustine], in On John: "Let us acknowledge the twofold substance of Christ: namely the divine one, by which he is equal to the Father, and the human, by which the Father is greater; and yet Christ is both at once, not two, but one, lest God be not a trinity, but a quaternity. And through this, Christ is God, rational soul, and flesh."°
6. The same also in the book On the Predestination of the Saints:
"Whence did that man deserve that, having been assumed into the unity of person by the Word coeternal with the Father, he be the only-begotten
Son of God? What good of his preceded that he should come to such ineffable excellence? It was by the doing and taking of the Word of God that that man, from the moment that he began to be, began to be the only
Min. 1714, Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 13 c19 n24.
>Augustine, Enchiridion, c38.
'Tbid., c35.
*Ibid., c36.
°Augustine, /n [oannem, tr. 78 n3.