Whether the Union of the Incarnate Word Took Place in the Person?
Objection 1: It would seem that the union of the Incarnate Word did
not take place in the person. For the Person of God is not distinct
from His Nature, as we said (I, Q. 39, A. 1). If, therefore, the
union did not take place in the nature, it follows that it did not
take place in the person.
Obj. 2: Further, Christ's human nature has no less dignity than ours.
But personality belongs to dignity, as was stated above (I, Q. 29, A.
3, ad 2). Hence, since our human nature has its proper personality,
much more reason was there that Christ's should have its proper
personality.
Obj. 3: Further, as Boethius says (De Duab. Nat.), a person is an
individual substance of rational nature. But the Word of God assumed
an individual human nature, for "universal human nature does not
exist of itself, but is the object of pure thought," as Damascene
says (De Fide Orth. iii, 11). Therefore the human nature of Christ
has its personality. Hence it does not seem that the union took place
in the person.
_On the contrary,_ We read in the Synod of Chalcedon (Part ii, act.
5): "We confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is not parted or divided
into two persons, but is one and the same only-Begotten Son and Word
of God." Therefore the union took place in the person.
_I answer that,_ Person has a different meaning from "nature." For
nature, as has been said (A. 1), designates the specific essence
which is signified by the definition. And if nothing was found to be
added to what belongs to the notion of the species, there would be no
need to distinguish the nature from the suppositum of the nature
(which is the individual subsisting in this nature), because every
individual subsisting in a nature would be altogether one with its
nature. Now in certain subsisting things we happen to find what does
not belong to the notion of the species, viz. accidents and
individuating principles, which appears chiefly in such as are
composed of matter and form. Hence in such as these the nature and
the suppositum really differ; not indeed as if they were wholly
separate, but because the suppositum includes the nature, and in
addition certain other things outside the notion of the species.
Hence the suppositum is taken to be a whole which has the nature as
its formal part to perfect it; and consequently in such as are
composed of matter and form the nature is not predicated of the
suppositum, for we do not say that this man is his manhood. But if
there is a thing in which there is nothing outside the species or its
nature (as in God), the suppositum and the nature are not really
distinct in it, but only in our way of thinking, inasmuch it is
called "nature" as it is an essence, and a suppositum as it is
subsisting. And what is said of a suppositum is to be applied to a
person in rational or intellectual creatures; for a person is nothing
else than "an individual substance of rational nature," according to
Boethius. Therefore, whatever adheres to a person is united to it in
person, whether it belongs to its nature or not. Hence, if the human
nature is not united to God the Word in person, it is nowise united
to Him; and thus belief in the Incarnation is altogether done away
with, and Christian faith wholly overturned. Therefore, inasmuch as
the Word has a human nature united to Him, which does not belong to
His Divine Nature, it follows that the union took place in the Person
of the Word, and not in the nature.
Reply Obj. 1: Although in God Nature and Person are not really
distinct, yet they have distinct meanings, as was said above,
inasmuch as person signifies after the manner of something
subsisting. And because human nature is united to the Word, so that
the Word subsists in it, and not so that His Nature receives
therefrom any addition or change, it follows that the union of human
nature to the Word of God took place in the person, and not in the
nature.
Reply Obj. 2: Personality pertains of necessity 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 (which is understood by
the word "person"). Now it is a greater dignity to exist in something
nobler than oneself than to exist by oneself. Hence the human nature
of Christ has a greater dignity than ours, from this very fact that
in us, being existent by itself, it has its own personality, but in
Christ it exists in the Person of the Word. Thus to perfect the
species belongs to the dignity of a form, yet the sensitive part in
man, on account of its union with the nobler form which perfects the
species, is more noble than in brutes, where it is itself the form
which perfects.
Reply Obj. 3: The Word of God "did not assume human nature in
general, but _in atomo_"--that is, in an individual--as Damascene
says (De Fide Orth. iii, 11) otherwise every man would be the Word of
God, even as Christ was. Yet we must bear in mind that 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, because it does
not exist by itself, but in something more perfect, viz. in the
whole. And hence, too, this is signified by a "person" being defined
as "an individual substance," for the hand is not a complete
substance, but part of a substance. Therefore, although this human
nature is a kind of individual in the genus of substance, it has not
its own personality, because it does not exist separately, but in
something more perfect, viz. in the Person of the Word. Therefore the
union took place in the person.
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