Question Three. Whether Christ began to be

56. The third question is whether Christ began to be.

57. That he did:

‘Christ’ names the supposit of the two natures, according to Damascene ch.49/47; but the supposit of the two natures began to be;     therefore etc     .

58. Further, what began to be according to existence of substance began to be simply, because the existence of substance is existence simply; Christ began to be according to human existence, which is the existence of substance;     therefore etc     .

59. Further, what is generated began to be simply because, according to Aristotle Physics 5.1.225a16-17, generation proceeds from non-being to being simply; the whole Christ was generated;     therefore etc     .

60. Further, the Word began to be man; therefore Christ began to be. Proof of the consequence: for when a ‘begin’ determined by some predicate is said of something, ‘begin’ is said of the whole of it, as in the case of ‘if Socrates began to be white, then white Socrates began to be’; so the like holds of the matter at hand.

61. On the contrary:

John 8.58, “Before Abraham was, I am” - so he is from eternity; therefore he did not begin to be.

62. Again, Damascene ch.50/48, “This man was without beginning;” beginning to be requires a beginning; therefore he did not begin to be.

I. To the Question

63. Here there are two things to consider, one on the part of the subject and the other on the part of the predicate.

64. On the part of the subject the question is whether a whole ‘per accidens’ being can stand with respect to the predicate by reason of the whole per accidens being, and [sc. if so] by reason of the whole or by reason of the formal part or by reason precisely of the principal part. For example, if ‘white man’ is said to begin to be, can the subject with respect to the predicate be taken for the whole per accidens being or only for the whiteness itself, so that ‘white man’ is said to begin to be because whiteness begins to be in the whole, or can it be taken for the subject itself of which whiteness is said?

65. And because this difficulty does not seem to be in the subject with respect to other predicates, the difficulty seems thus to be on the part of the predicate, namely whether the beginning asserted by such a predicate signifies the whole by reason of the whole’s totality or by reason of one or other part, and if by reason of a part, which part? Now it seems that, from the force of the expression, the subject cannot be more restricted with respect to this predicate than with respect to some other predicate, because what is put in one extreme does not determine for itself what is put in the other extreme. Now with respect to some other predicate it could be taken according to the idea of its totality or according to the idea of the formal or principal part. Thus, if whiteness were to make a per se one with man then this proposition ‘a white man is colored’ would be per se in the first mode - although the proposition ‘man is colored’ is not per se the way the proposition ‘a rational animal is capable of laughter’ is per se in the second mode, although ‘an animal is capable of laughter’ is not per se in any mode -, so if ‘Christ’ is a name used to signify the man-Word, according to Damascene ch.49/47, then something could be predicated of this subject either by reason of the whole or by reason of either part. Therefore, just as ‘Christ is dead when dead according to his humanity’, so if Christ begins to be according to his humanity then Christ is said to begin to be. If this predicate, then [sc. ‘begin to be’], can truly be asserted of this subject by reason of this part of the subject, then it seems it could be simply asserted of it.

66. So the result is that it is all on the part of the predicate whether ‘begins to be’ states a beginning according to the first being of that of which it is said, or according to some being simply of it; because if it does so in the first way the proposition ‘Christ began to be’ is false, just as the proposition ‘Christ is created’ is also false; if it does so in the second way, then since any being of substance is being simply and Christ began to be according to being human, which is the being of substance, then Christ began to be simply. The second seems, by virtue of the expression, to be more the case because, just as this second being [sc. being human] asserts being simply but does not assert, by virtue of the expression, the first being of that of which it is said (if the subject has several beings simply, as Christ does), so also ‘to begin’ - determined by the second being - seems to state a beginning in being simply, but not a beginning in the first being of the subject.

67. It can be simply conceded then that by the virtue of the expression Christ as to what the term ‘Word-man’ involves did begin to be; that is, he has some being simply that he did not have before, although this being is not Christ’s first being.

68 The ‘began to be’ could in this way also be conceded to hold of the subject term ‘this man’, which, though it indicates the supposit, does not indicate it as it is purely in divine nature. But in the case of the human nature it is true to say that the subject began to be, provided one not have to concede that ‘the Son of God began to be’ in the way Christ or this man began to be; for his temporal being is the being simply of Christ or of this man, but not of the Son of God or the Word, because although this being simply is said of the Word (for this being is the being of substance), yet it is not the being simply of the Word; with respect to the Word this being simply is as it were an adventitious being and a being of accident so to say with respect to its subject; it is not however adventitious with respect to Christ or to this man.

69. And if you say that ‘this man’ can only supposit for the supposit of divine nature - one can reply that although it can only supposit for a supposit of divine nature, yet it supposits for it as the supposit exists in human nature, just as ‘white Socrates’ supposits for a supposit of substance as it exists in whiteness.

70. The saints, however, refused to allow this proposition on account of the heretics who said that Christ began to be simply as to his first being, making him to be a pure creature; but ‘begin to be’ does not imply the same as ‘creature’ does.

II. To the Arguments

71. The arguments [nn.57-62] are plain, because they proceed as to the fact that the properties of each nature are said of Christ by reason of the two natures; and thus, by reason of nature divine and human, Christ was able to begin to be simply.