Christ the Saviour - Question 2

Christ the Saviour - Question 2

CH 4: QUESTION 2

Prologue: The Mode Of The Union Of The Word Incarnate St. Thomas has the following considerations about this mode of union.

1. The union itself (q. 2).

2. The person assuming the human nature (q. 3).

3. The nature assumed and the perfections or defects of this assumed nature (q. 4-15).

Then the consequences of this union will be discussed, namely, as regards being, volition, and operation.

Hence this second question is about the essence of the Incarnation, or about the hypostatic union.

This second question contains twelve articles, and is divided into three parts.

The first part (a. 1-6) discusses what is and what is not the nature of this union. It inquires 1. whether the union took place in the nature; 2. or in the person; 3. or in the suppositum; 4. whether the person of Christ is composite; 5. what is the union of body and soul in Christ?

Thus the question is gradually solved, and the sixth article, which is of great importance, unites the preceding articles, by asking whether the human nature was united to the Word accidentally.

The second part considers the union with reference to the divine actions, which are creation and assumption (a. 7, 8).

The third part considers the union with reference to grace: Is it the greatest of unions (a. g)? Did it come about by grace (a. 10)? Was it the result of merit? Was the grace of union natural to the man Christ (a. 12)?

This second question virtually contains the whole treatise on the Incarnation, just as the third question of the first part of the Summa in which God is defined as the self-subsisting Being, virtually contains the whole treatise on the One God.

As regards the order of the questions, it must be noted that in the Summa Theologica St. Thomas follows the logical order rather than the historical, whereas in the Contra Gentes (Book IV, q. 27 f.) he follows primarily the historical order by refuting the various heresies that arose concerning the Incarnation.

Heresies concerning the Incarnation. For an understanding of the articles of this question, a brief explanation must be given of the principal heresies condemned by the Church: Arianism, Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, and Eutychianism.[383]

A threefold division is made in these heresies, inasmuch as some erred concerning the divinity of Christ, others denied His humanity, and finally some erred about the union of the two natures.

God permits errors so that by opposing them the truth may be presented in clearer light.

[diagram 109]

ERRORS

divinity of Christ:

This was denied by the Ebionites, Cerinthians, Arians, and others. The Arians and Apollinarians denied that Christ had a soul.

humanity of Christ:

The Docetae and Valentinus denied that Christ had a real body

the union of the natures:

The Nestorians denied that the union was personal

The Eutychians and Monophysites denied that there were two natures in Christ

Thus it was that already in the first four or five centuries of Christianity almost all the errors possible against the Incarnation were proposed.

1. The divinity of Christ was denied.

In the first century, by the Ebionites and Cerinthians. In the second and third centuries by the Adoptionists and Gnostics.

In the fourth century, by the Arians. They declared that Christ is not the Son of God consubstantial with the Father but is a creature; that the Word (Logos) pre-existed, but was created, and is a mediator, who assumed in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary only a body and not a soul. Thus the Arians concluded that Christ is neither truly God nor truly man. Hence St. Athanasius replied[384] that such a conception of Christ made it impossible for Him to satisfy for the human race or free it from sin. This means that the denial of the mystery of the Incarnation includes the denial of the mystery of Redemption, and thus there is left but the semblance of Christianity.[385]

Later on, in the sixteenth century, the Socinians denied the divinity of Christ, and the same must be said in our times of the Unitarians, who deny the Trinity, and also liberal Protestants and Modernists of the present day.

2. The humanity of Christ. Some denied that Christ’s body was real, others that He had a soul. The Docetae, such as Marcion and the Manichaeans, said that Christ merely appeared to have a body.

Appelles and Valentinus in the third century said that Christ’s body was real but celestial, sidereal or aerial, and therefore He did not derive His human nature from the Virgin Mary.

The Arians and Anomoeans taught that the Word did not assume a soul. In the fourth century the Apollinarians held that Christ had only a sensitive soul, and that the Word performed the functions of the rational soul, though they admitted, contrary to the Arians, that the Word was not created.[386]

3. Some denied the unity of person in Christ, others the twofold nature. In the third century, the unity of person was denied by Paul of Samosata. In the fourth century, Diodorus of Tarsus said that the Word was only accidentally united to Christ. So also Theodore of Mopsuestia and the Nestorians, teaching a sort of personal union, rejected it really, however, inasmuch as they posited merely a moral union between the two natures. In this way they sought to refute Apollinarianism. The consequence of these errors was the view that Mary is not the Mother of God.

The prominent opponent of the Nestorians was St. Cyril of Alexandria who, in refuting them, availed himself of the principal argument used by St. Athanasius against the Arians, namely, that, if Christ is not God, but only morally united to Him, as a saint is, then how could He satisfy for us or free the human race from sin?[387]

In our times, too, the disciples of Gunther denied the unity of person in Christ, since they defined a person as a self-conscious nature, for in Christ there are two self-conscious natures.

So also, Rosmini acknowledges between the Word and the human will in Christ merely an accidental union, inasmuch as the human will, since it was completely dominated by the Word, ceased to be personal. Rosmini says: “Hence the human will ceased to be personal in Christ as man, and, since it is personal in other men, in Christ there remained but the human nature.”[388] Thus the union in Christ between the Word and the human will would be merely accidental and moral. The error of Rosmini and Gunther is that both do not seek to define person ontologically by reason of subsistence, but only psychologically through self-consciousness, or by reason of liberty. This error is the result of the nineteenth-century psychologism.

The Modernists say about the same, since they reduce the hypostatic union, if they give it any thought, to God’s influence upon the human conscience of the historic Christ, or to the subconscious self in Christ by which He perceived that He was loved by God above all others.

Finally, the Eutychians or Monophysites denied that there were two natures in Christ. Eutyches posed as the adversary of Nestorius and the defender of the theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria, which he did not understand. He was a man of little learning, and obstinate, and so he went to the other extreme of Nestorianism. He was so insistent in affirming the unity of person in Christ against the Nestorians that he ended in denying His twofold nature. He said: “I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union; but after the union I acknowledge one nature,“[389] either because the human nature was absorbed by the divine nature, or because each nature commingled to form a third nature, distinct from each before the union, or because the human nature and the Word were absolutely united as the soul and the body are. Hence Eutyches by this method succeeded in proclaiming something that the Nestorians denied, since they denied that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of God.

In the fourth century, however, the Monothelites, professing that Christ had but one will, by this very fact rejected the doctrine that there were two natures in Him. The followers of the modern heresy that declares the Word really emptied Himself, also deny a twofold nature in Christ, since they hold that the Word, at least partly and for a time, set aside His divine attributes.[390]

Thus several heresies made their appearance as excessive reactions against the preceding ones; so also not infrequently it happens that the human mind in its aberrations passes from one extreme to the other.

1. Arius says that Christ is the created Word united to a human body, without a soul. St. Athanasius says correctly: then Christ could not have satisfied for us.

2. But Apollinaris says that Christ is the uncreated Word united to a human body, without a rational soul, since this latter was capable of sinning, and consequently could not satisfy for us.

3. Then Nestorius, in a reactionary spirit, says that Christ has a rational soul which is morally united to the Word. Thus the union of the natures is no longer personal.

4. Finally, Eutyches goes to the other extreme and asserts that the union of the natures is not only moral but also physical, meaning that after the union there is only one nature. This doctrine is Monophysitism.

These last three mentioned heresies deny that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of God, and they do so for various reasons. Apollinaris says that Jesus is not a man, Eutyches says that His body is not of the same nature as ours, whereas the Nestorians assert that Jesus is not God, but morally united to Him.

The dogma strikes a medium between Nestorianism and Monophysitism, transcending both of them, inasmuch as it states that both natures in Christ are united in one person.

Teaching of the Church. It is evident from the Gospels, the Apostles’ Creed, and the condemnation of the above-mentioned heresies.

1. Already even in the Apostles’ Creed it is stated that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man, inasmuch as it says: “I believe… in Jesus Christ His only Son, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.”[391]

2. In the First Council of Nicaea (325) and the First of Constantinople (381), the consubstantiality of the Word with the Father is explicitly declared. The First Council of Nicaea says: “God of God, light of light, true God of true God, born not made, of one substance with the Father, which the Greeks call homoousion.”[392] It is likewise declared against the Docetae, Gnostics, and Apollinarians that “Christ had a complete human nature.”[393]

3. In the fifth century, the Athanasian Creed declares all that is of faith on this point, in these few words: “Jesus Christ the Son of God is God and man. God, of the substance of the Father, begotten of the Father from all eternity; and man, of the substance of His Mother, born in time… Who, although He be God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ; one, not by conversion of the Godhead into the flesh, but by the assumption of the manhood into God; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.”[394]

The Council of Ephesus (431) proclaims against Nestorius that there is one person in Christ, and two natures hypostatically united,[395] and also proclaims “that this same Christ is both God and man.”[396]

Likewise, not long afterward (451), the Council of Chalcedon defines against Eutyches and the Monophysites that “One and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, must be acknowledged to be in two natures, without confusion, change, division, separation; the distinction of natures being by no means destroyed by their union; but rather the distinction of each nature being preserved and concurring in one person and one hypostasis;[397] not in something that is parted or divided into two persons, but in one and the same and only-begotten Son of God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.”[398] This text is quoted almost verbatim in various subsequent councils, the Council of Florence being the last to refer to it (1441).

Finally Pope Pius X condemned the following proposition of the Modernists: “The Christological teaching of SS. Paul and John, and of the Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon is not Christ’s own teaching, but that which the Christian conscience conceived concerning Jesus.”[399]

Let us now undertake the philosophical analysis of these definitions of the Church.

First Article: Whether The Union Of The Incarnate Word Took Place In The Nature

State of the question. The meaning is: Does this union, referred to in the heading of this article, result in only one nature, as Eutyches and Dioscorus taught? In this article we have the refutation of Monophysitism.

The reason why St. Thomas refutes Eutyches before Nestorius is that he is following the logical order and not the historical order. It is in accordance with logical procedure to state first in what this union does not consist, and afterward what constitutes it.

The difficulties presented at the beginning of this article are arguments of Eutyches, who sought to defend the teaching of St. Cyril of Alexandria against the Nestorians, but Eutyches had a wrong conception of St. Cyril’s teaching.

First difficulty. The text quoted by St. Thomas in this first objection is not St. Cyril’s, as found in the acts of the Council of Chalcedon, but is to be attributed to the heretic Dioscorus. However, since the words can be interpreted in a good sense and are attributed to St. Cyril, they are examined by St. Thomas here. The text reads: “We must understand not two natures, but one incarnate nature of the Word of God.” It does not say simply “one nature,” but “one incarnate nature”; and this is true, since only the divine nature became incarnate, as explained afterward in the Second Council of Constantinople,[400] and the words of the council on this point are quoted by St. Thomas in his reply to the first objection.

St. Cyril had said that this union was not moral but physical.[401] By calling the union physical, St. Cyril by no means meant that it signified a commingling of the two natures, but that the union was more than moral and accidental, and as used by St. Cyril the expression came to be commonly accepted as equivalent to hypostatic union.[402]

In the Latin Church, the terms “person” and “nature” have a distinct meaning already from the time of Tertullian, who admits in Christ one person but two natures, almost as clearly as St. Hilary and St. Augustine declared after him.[403]

Second difficulty. It is taken from the Athanasian Creed, in which it is said of Christ: “As the rational soul and the flesh together are one man, so God and man together are one Christ.” But the soul and the body unite in constituting one nature. Eutyches applied this remote analogy in the literal sense.

Third difficulty. St. Gregory Nazianzen says: “The human nature[in Christ] is deified,” just as St. Cyril had said, “the divine nature is incarnate.” But some could understand the expression to mean a certain transmutation and blending of the natures.

Eutyches understood the expression in the following sense: “That our Lord was of two natures before the union; but after the union there was one nature.” Eutyches said: “Christ is of two natures, not in two natures, nor is He consubstantial with us according to the flesh; the deity suffered and was buried.”

The reply of St. Thomas, notwithstanding these difficulties, is as follows: The union of the Word incarnate did not take place in the nature or essence, such that in Christ there is only one nature. In fact, this is absolutely impossible; but there are in Christ two distinct natures.

This conclusion is a dogma of our faith defined as such against Eutyches in the Council of Chalcedon in these words: “We teach that Christ… is perfect as God and that He is perfect as man, true God and true man… and that He is in two natures,[404] without confusion, … the properties of each nature being preserved, and that He is in one person and one subsistence.”[405] The Second Council of Constantinople defines similarly.[406] Likewise the Athanasian Creed declares: “One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.”[407] Subsequent councils and professions of faith give similar definitions.

Scriptural proof. From the many passages already quoted, it is evident that Christ is truly God and truly man. It suffices here to give the following text from the Old Testament: “A child is born to us… and His name shall be called… God the Mighty.”[408] Thus also in the New Testament, the greater and especially more sublime prophets were already illumined to perceive the divine nature of the promised Messias.

From the New Testament we have the following texts: “I am the way and the truth and the life.”[409] “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.”[410] Here we have the twofold form or nature, namely, of God and the servant, each distinct, without confusion (of natures). Again we read: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.”[411] Here again we have the two natures distinctly mentioned, namely, the one divine in the words “of the Word of life,” the other the human nature, in the words “which we have looked upon and our hands have handled.”

Proof from reason. It is given in the body of the article, in which, from an analysis of the notion of nature, the absurdity of Monophysitism is shown, which is just as absurd as pantheism. There are two parts to this article. The first part considers what is meant by the word “nature.” The second part shows the impossibility of the union taking place in the nature.

First part. It determines, by the way of invention, following Aristotle[412] and Boethius, the various acceptations of the term “nature.”

This noun signifies: 1. birth or begetting of living beings; 2. the principle of this begetting; 3. whatever intrinsic principle of motion essentially belongs to the subject in which it is, such as the principle of the vegetative life, or of the sensitive life, in each and every subject; 4. The substantial form, which is this radical principle of natural operations, for instance, in the plant; 5. matter, which is the principle of natural passivity; thus it is said that the animal is naturally mortal; 6. the essence also of spiritual things and of God Himself, inasmuch as this essence is the radical principle of their operations. So says Boethius, who is quoted in this article, and St. Thomas concludes: “But we are now speaking of nature as it signifies the essence.”

Second part. It is shown to be impossible for the union to take place in the nature. The argument of St. Thomas may be reduced to the following syllogism. There are only three possible ways for the union to take place in the nature, namely: 1. by the composition of things that are perfect in themselves and that remain perfect; 2. by the mixture of things perfect in themselves that have undergone a change; 3. by the union of things imperfect in themselves that have been neither mixed nor changed.

But these ways are incompatible. Therefore it is impossible for the union to take place in the nature.

[diagram page 117]

UNION

of two perfect things

that remains such, as a heap of stones or a house: called composition. One nature does not result from this union

that have changed, as a combination of elements resulting in a mixture; but the divine nature is absolutely unchangeable; for Christ would be neither truly man nor truly God.

of imperfect things

that have been neither changed nor mixed, as man is composed of soul and body. But both the divine and the human natures are in themselves perfect. But the divine nature cannot be even a part of the compound as form, for then it would be less than the whole

The whole article must be read.

More briefly: This union does not take place in the nature, so that there results from it but one nature:

1. Because Christ would not be truly man and truly God, but a sort of chimera.

2. Because the divine nature is unchangeable and cannot constitute a part of any whole, not even as form, for thus it would be less perfect than the whole.[413]

Objection. Some have said that there can be a transubstantiation of the human nature into the divine, just as there is a transubstantiation of the bread into the body of Christ, without any corruption in the process.

Reply. Even if this transubstantiation were not incompatible, the result of this would be that after the Incarnation the human nature would cease to exist. and thus Christ would not be truly man, which is against the faith. Christ is truly man, for He was born, suffered, and died.

The reply of St. Thomas is confirmed from the solution of the difficulties presented at the beginning of the article.

Reply to first objection. This difficulty is taken from the text attributed to St. Cyril and explained by the Second Council of Constantinople,[414] in the sense that the physical union,[415] which St. Cyril spoke of when arguing against the Nestorians, who admitted only a moral union, was meant by St. Cyril as referring not to a union in the nature, but in the person, or to a subsistential union, as the words themselves denote.[416]

Reply to second objection. When the Athanasian Creed says, “As the rational soul and flesh together are one man, so God and man together are one Christ,” the analogy has its foundation in the similarity between the parts, namely, inasmuch as soul and body constitute one person, but not in the dissimilarity, namely, inasmuch as the soul and the body constitute one nature.

Reply to third objection. Damascene explains correctly the words attributed to St. Cyril, who says: “The divine nature is incarnate,” inasmuch as it is united personally to flesh. He gives a similar interpretation to the words of St. Gregory Nazianzen, who says that “the human nature is deified”; namely, not by change, but by being united with the Word, the properties of each nature remaining intact.

Second Article: Whether The Union Of The Incarnate Word Took Place In The Person

State of the question. The meaning is: whether this union took place in such manner that there is only one person.

In this article we have the refutation of Nestorianism, a heresy that denied there was only one person in Christ, and that admitted only a moral union such as found in saints united by love with God.

The first two difficulties posited at the beginning of this article, are arguments raised by the Nestorians.

First difficulty. In God there is no real distinction between person and nature. If, therefore, this union did not take place in the nature, as the Nestorians say, then it did not take place in the person.

Second difficulty. Personality is a dignity that belongs to us as human beings. Hence it is not attributed to irrational animals or to other beings of a lower order, for these have individuality, but not personality. But Christ’s human nature has no less dignity than ours. Therefore it was much more reasonable that Christ’s human nature should have its own personality.

This difficulty is still proposed in our days by many theologians who disagree with Cajetan’s interpretation of St. Thomas’ teaching. These theologians, as we shall see, in advancing this difficulty against Cajetan, seem to be unaware of the reply to the second objection of this present article.

Third difficulty. It is taken from the definition of person as given by Boethius, who says: “a person is an individual substance of a rational nature.” But the Word of God assumed an individual human nature, namely, this humanity belonging to Christ. Therefore this humanity belonging to Christ has its own personality.

This difficulty of necessity calls for the making of a profound distinction between individuality, or individuation, and personality. St. Thomas most fittingly makes this kind of distinction in his reply to the third objection, which is thoroughly explained by Cajetan.

Nevertheless, even many Scholastics seem to have only a superficial knowledge of this reply to the third objection, perhaps because they did not begin by examining with sufficient care the state and difficulty of the question, as St. Thomas did in his presentation of these difficulties, which constitute, so to speak, the very problem to be solved in this article.

The reply, in spite of these difficulties, is: The union of the Word incarnate took place in the person of the Word, such that there is only one person in Christ. This declaration is a dogma of our faith.

This reply was defined against the Nestorians in the Council of Ephesus, in which the union was declared to be hypostatic, or personal,[417] and it condemned the assertion of two persons morally united in Christ. It likewise condemned the Nestorian expression, Christ the man is theophoron, that is, God bearer.[418] Likewise it declared that, “if anyone does not confess that the Word of God suffered and died in the flesh, let him be anathema.”[419] It also defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of God,[420] since she is the mother of this man Jesus who is God, constituting one person.[421]

These definitions are confirmed in the Council of Chalcedon, which says: “One and the same Christ… acknowledged to be in two natures, without confusion… and concurring in one person and one hypostasis, not in something that is parted or divided.”[422]

Similarly the Apostles’ Creed confesses that one and the same person is the Son of God and of man; particularly the Creed of St. Athanasius, which says of the union, “absolutely one, not in confusion of substance, but in unity of person.”[423]

Sacred Scripture. This doctrine of the faith is already clearly expressed in the New Testament; for it attributes the properties of both the divine and the human natures to one and the same Christ, since it is the same Christ who is conceived, born, baptized in the Jordan, who fears, is sad, hungry and tired on His journey, who suffers and dies on the cross. This same person is called the Son of God, God above all, the Author of life, for He Himself says: “I am the truth and the life.”[424] Hence we see that the properties of each nature are attributed in Sacred Scripture to the same intelligent and incommunicable subject, that is, to the same person. But this person is the eternal person of the Word, as expressed by the Evangelist in these words: “The Word was made flesh,“[425] that is, the Son of God became man. Therefore the Son of God and man are not two persons, but one person.

The common notion of person suffices for an understanding of the preceding statements, namely, that a person is an intelligent and sui juris[426] or free agent. This subject can be merely a man, an angel, God, or any divine person.

Nestorius objected that a moral union was sufficient.

Reply. A moral union is established by means of affection. But, however intimate is the friendship between two persons, one friend is not said to have become the other friend, neither is a saint who is united with God by a bond of most fervent love said to have become God, nor is God said to have become either Peter or Paul, although there is a moral union between them and God.

In fact, Christ could not have said truthfully: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”[427] In other words, speaking of Himself, He could not have attributed truly to Himself divine attributes and also those that belong to the human nature. The pronoun “I” denotes the person speaking, and there is only one person; for if there are two persons? it cannot be said that one is the other. In affirmative judgments, the verb “is” expresses real identity between subject and predicate. Thus: I am the truth, signifies: I, who by my mouth, am speaking, am the same person who am the truth. Otherwise the judgment is absolutely false, and it is as if Paul were to say: I, who am Paul, am Peter.

Testimony of the Fathers.[428] Tertullian, Origen, St. Ephrem, St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Jerome, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Leo I, and St. John Damascene quoted by St. Thomas in the counter-argument of this third article have all affirmed clearly and most explicitly that there is one person in Christ.

It must be noted that in the liturgy of the Church the termination of the orations frequently is, “Through our Lord Jesus Christ who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, forever and ever.”

Body of the article. It contains two parts. In the first part a distinction is made between person and nature. The second part proves that the union of the Word incarnate took place in the person.

First of all the article must be explained, and then we shall consider the erroneous system of several modern philosophers concerning personality, and also the systems freely discussed among Catholic theologians.

In the first part of this article, as regards the distinction that is made between person and nature, by a gradual process the argument proceeds from common sense or natural reasoning, to the establishment of a philosophical proof that acknowledges and defends the real validity of natural reasoning against either empiric or idealistic phenomenalism.

The first part of this article must be read. It is divided into three parts: 1. the conclusion; 2. definition of suppositum; 3. definition of person, which is completed in the reply to the third objection.

First conclusion. It may be expressed briefly as follows: There is a real difference between suppositum and nature in every creature, just as there is a real difference between the whole and its parts.

The reason is that the nominal definition of suppositum or the subject of predication signifies the whole, and in every creature existence and accidents are not included in its essence. Such is the case in the angels, for Michael is not his existence nor his action.[429] Moreover, in corporeal things, in addition to the essence of the species, each has individuating principles that are derived from quantified matter, such as these bones, this flesh.

Hence this real distinction between the created nature and the suppositum that contains it, is not a distinction between two separate things, but it is a distinction that prevails between a real and actual whole, and its real, formal, and perfective part.

Contrary to what has been said, there is, a real distinction in God between suppositum and nature.

The real definition of suppositum is given in the following words. The suppositum is taken to be a whole which has the nature as its formal part to perfect it; and as stated in the reply to the third objection, the suppositum is the whole that exists and acts separately by itself. This point must be carefully considered, because it constitutes the philosophical foundation of the whole treatise.

Thus the suppositum is that which is, namely, the real subject of attribution, so that the suppositum is not attributed to any other subject; whereas nature is that by which a thing is such as it is, in such a species. Similarly, existence is that by which a thing is placed outside of nothing and its causes; a faculty is that by which the subject can operate, and operation is that by which it actually operates.

All the above-mentioned are attributed to the suppositum, and this latter is not attributed to any other subject. Moreover, it must be noted that the following divers affirmative judgments: Peter is a man, Peter exists, Peter can act, Peter does act, all these affirmative judgments assert real identity between subject and predicate by the word “is.” They are equivalent in meaning to: Peter is the same real subject that is the man that exists, that can act, that does act. For these judgments to be true, this real identity between subject and predicate must be verified outside the soul, although Peter’s essence is not his existence, nor the faculty by which he acts, nor his action. Hence there must be something by which the subject is the same real subject, or that by which something is “that which by itself (separately) exists and acts,“[430] as stated in the reply to the third objection.

Farther on we shall see how that by which a thing is a quod (or subject of attribution)[431] is subsistence, for which reason the suppositum is that which is competent to exist by itself separately. This truth constitutes the philosophical foundation of this entire treatise.[432]

Person is defined as an intelligent and sui juris or free subject, namely, a suppositum having a rational, or intellectual, nature.

This definition is given at the end of the first part of this article in the following equivalent words: “And what is said of a suppositum is to be applied to a person in rational, or intelligent, creatures; for a person is nothing else than an individual substance of a rational nature, according to Boethius.”

In addition to this it must be said that a person is an intelligent sui juris subject by itself separately existing and by itself operating, such as Peter, Paul. St. Thomas says similarly: “Person is a subsistent individual of a rational nature.”[433]

This definition is explained at the end of the third objection. The objection states that according to Boethius, person is an individual substance of a rational nature; but Christ assumed an individual human nature; therefore He assumed a human person, and so there are two persons in Christ, namely, the person assuming and the person assumed.

In the solution of this objection, St. Thomas in his reply most splendidly illustrates the definition of Boethius, by distinguishing accurately between individuality, or individuation, and personality.

This reply to the third objection must be read.

Not every individual in the genus of substance, even in rational nature, is a person, but that alone which exists by itself, and not that which exists in some more perfect thing. Hence the hand of Socrates, although it is a kind of individual, is not a person, but the part of a person, the part of a person and the part of a substance.

On the other hand, we know that according to St. Thomas[434] quantified matter is the principle of individuation, that is, as Cajetan explains: “Matter capable of this particular quantity so that it is not susceptible of that other quantity; for it is in this way that we distinguish between two drops of water that are most alike: not having the same quantified matter, they are thus in different parts of space. Hence individuation, which is derived from matter, is of the lowest order in man, whereas personality, as stated in the reply to the second objection, pertains to the dignity of a thing and to its perfection, so far as it pertains to the dignity and perfection of that thing to exist by itself.”[435]

In Christ, as we shall see, individuation, as in our case, is effected by matter, whereas His personality is uncreated and thus there is an infinite difference between the two. St. Thomas discusses this point in his reply to the third objection, and elsewhere he says: “Person signifies what is most perfect in all nature, that is, a subsistent individual of a rational nature.”[436]

Therefore we must not confuse the individual nature, individuated or singular, with suppositum and person. For even the individuated nature is not that which is, but that by which anything is constituted in a certain species that is limited or contracted to an individual grade of being, for example, an individuated nature is this humanity. Similarly matter is that by which anything is material.[437] On the contrary, by suppositum or person is meant this person separately existing by himself and acting, to whom this humanity is attributed, as constituting a part of him; hence we do not say that this man is his humanity, for the verb “is” expresses by a logical distinction real identity between the whole and its parts. We truly say that this man is not his humanity, but has humanity, or has his nature. Thus the common sense or natural reason of all men, by so speaking, distinguishes in a confused manner between person and nature, or between that which is, and that by which something is constituted in a certain species.

Hence St. Thomas[438] and the Thomists, in explaining the definition of person as given by Boethius, make some addition and say that a person is an entirely incommunicable individual substance of a rational nature, inasmuch as a person is the first subject of attribution, which is predicated of no other subject, and to whom is attributed whatever pertains to person, such as nature, existence, properties and actions. But communicability is threefold.[439]

[diagram page 126]