Chapter 2 (35): 1. If God Could Have Taken On Another Human Nature Or From
Distinction XII | 47 deed a figurative one by which Christ is called a creature, whether simply or with qualification.
DISTINCTION XII
Chapter | (34) 1. WHETHER THAT MAN ALWAYS WAS OR BEGAN TO BE. After the above, it is asked whether that man began to be or always was, just as we simply say that Christ or the Son of God always was and did not begin to be.
2. Concerning this, Augustine speaks as follows, in On John: "There was a time when the Son of God had something which that same man and son did not yet have, because he had not yet become man."' Also, in the same: "Before the world was, neither we, nor the very mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, existed."** The same on the Psalm: "Our
Christ, although he is perhaps a recent man, yet he is eternal God."*—But elsewhere we read that "that child created the stars";? and Christ says that he is the beginning, and that he was before Abraham.°
3. And so, in no way departing from these authorities, we say that that man, insofar as he is a man, had a beginning; insofar as he is the Word, he always was. For here a response is not to be handed down without distinction. Indeed, Augustine himself makes use of this distinction in several places, saying that all things were made through Christ, insofar as he is the Word; but according to his being man, he himself was made and glorified. And so, if you look to the person, confidently say that that man always was; but if to the human nature, grant that he had a beginning.
Chapter 2 (35)
1. IF GOD COULD HAVE TAKEN ON ANOTHER HUMAN NATURE OR FROM
OTHER THAN THE STOCK OF ADAM. It is also usual to ask whether God could have taken on another human nature or from other than the stock of Adam.
2. RESPONSE. To which it may certainly be said that he could have taken another soul and another flesh, because it was by grace alone that that soul and flesh were taken by the Word of God.—AUGUSTINE, IN ON THE 'Augustine, /n Joannem, tr. 106 nS. ae litite., *Augustine, /n loannem, tr. 105 n7.
"Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, on Ps. 80, 10.
°Cf. Fulgentius of Ruspe, Sermo 4 nné and 8.
°Cf. Jn. 8, 25 and 58.