2. To the Arguments on the Part of that which Assumes

70. [To the first] - As to the next argument [n.9], he who would say that person differs only in idea from essence would have this argument [n.9] against him; but there is some positive distinction between nature and personal property, as is plain from I d.2 nn.388-410. But if the first position is taken [sc. person and essence differ only in idea], one could still reply to the argument [n.9] on the ground of fallacy of amphiboly (see 1 d.26 nn.52, 73, 78-77, about ‘absolute persons’).

71. [To the second] - To the next argument [n.10], as to the part that ‘a respect does not terminate the dependence of an absolute nature’, the response is made [by William of Ware] that a divine person, insofar as he is relative, does terminate the dependence on him of a created nature - and that in two kinds of cause, namely efficient and formal cause:

The first is clear thus, that the Word assumes, that is, ‘takes to himself’, but the other persons do not do so; and further, because to be incarnated is to ‘descend on’ in a special way, and descending on pertains to efficient causality; and because the Word is the operative power of the Father, and so can have a proper operation beside that which is common to the whole Trinity.

72. The second is clear because the Word is the formal cause for the reason that he terminates formally; but he terminates insofar as he is a relative person, such that the relative property is the reason for the terminating; so he should not be understood to be the formal cause in this sense, that he is the other part of a composite, or that he is a formal cause supervening on a composition, or that he is the exemplar form (because this is common to the whole Trinity), but that he is the formal cause formally terminating -that is giving - the form specifically to the distance that is between the nature united and himself as term.

73. Against what is said about the proper efficiency of the Word [n.71], that it is not common to the whole Trinity, there are the authorities adduced by the Master in the text [3 d.1 ch.3 n.2], that the whole Trinity operated the incarnation equally.

74. And if you say [William of Ware] that there is some special mode of acting in the Word by which he is said to instantiate a nature in a different way from that in which the Father and Holy Spirit instantiate it - on the contrary:

In actions directed outwardly there is no distinction in the three persons in their acting, save that which follows the origin, namely that one person acts from himself, another not from himself but from another; but this distinction is not the reason that some person, as the Son, is said to assume human nature, or to be the person of the nature, and not another person, because if the Father were incarnated and the Trinity effected the incarnation, this distinction would exist in their operating just as it does now, because the Father would act from himself and the Son not from himself.

75. Besides a personal respect cannot be the proper reason for acting outwardly (as is clear in 1 d.18 on Gift, and d.27 on the Word [the first is not in the Ordinatio but in the Lectura]).

76. Further, a created supposit does not act in respect of the nature it belongs to, because according to them [William of Ware and his followers], ‘nature naturally precedes the supposit, but not as actually acting’; therefore neither is that which supplies the place of the supposit, insofar as it does so, an agent with respect to such nature.

77. As to what is said second, about form [n.72], it seems to misuse the words ‘form’ or ‘formal cause’, because according to it the eternal Father - insofar as he is Father - would be the formal cause with respect to the Son, namely insofar as the Father terminates the relation of the Son to the Father.

78. As to what is also said there [n.72] about the supposit, that it has the idea of the whole and so has the idea of form (as the form is the whole, Metaphysics 5.26.1023b26-28) - the antecedent is false and the consequence null.

The first point is plain from what has been said, that person does not add any absolute entity over and above the singular nature, and therefore neither does the supposit in general do so, just as neither does person in intellectual nature [nn.55-56, 59, 69]; and consequently it is not the whole with respect to the singular nature.

79. Second, the proof has no validity [n.78]; for the whole is form for the reason that any part is as it were potential with respect to the perfection of the whole; in the issue at hand, however, the Word is not potential with respect to a quasi composite person. Also, if the Word ought to be this whole, the way DamasceneOrthodox Faith ch.49: “We confess in Christ two natures, divine and human, agreeing with each other and united in hypostasis, but one perfect hypostasis composed of two natures; and we say that the two natures are also preserved after their union in one composite hypostasis, namely in one Christ, and that they truly exist.” ² concedes the composite nature to be the Word, this is not true of ‘person taken absolutely according to personal entity’ when compared to the nature, but of ‘person in the nature’ when compared to the nature. The conclusion ought to be, then, that the Word was incarnate as form but not as formal cause; for if the entity of the supposit and of the nature with respect to the whole created entity are considered absolutely, the proper entity of the supposit is not formal with respect to the nature, but rather material.

80. But as to what is adduced for the statement ‘to assume is to take to oneself’ [n.71], I reply that ‘to take’, as it signifies action absolutely, belongs to the whole Trinity equally, without any distinction besides the one that follows origin; but ‘to oneself’, as it signifies the term of the action, signifies as it terminates the respect of the Word.

81. Likewise, as to what is said about ‘descend on’ [n.71] I reply that if that ‘descending’ is taken for some condition of the efficient or producing or conserving cause, the whole Trinity descends on the nature in the same way; but if it is taken for some other intimacy, of the sort that is of the supposit to the nature that depends on it, then in this way only the Word descends on, because he terminates the dependence of the nature. But this ‘descending on’ is not any efficiency but is a priority of an altogether different idea.

82. Also as to the addition that ‘the Word is the operative power of the Father’ [n.71], it is true that he acts otherwise than the Father as to the action that follows origin, namely the Father acts ‘from himself’ and the Son ‘not from himself but from another’, for which reason the Father creates through the Word and not conversely [2 d.1 n.33, 1 d.27 n.98]. But there is not, on account of this distinction, one person who as incarnate acts thus and another person who as non-incarnate does not act thus.

83. To the principal argument [n.10], therefore, I say that if a divine person is an absolute, the absolute terminates the dependence of the nature; but if it is a relative, although a relative as such cannot terminate a dependence that is of a caused thing to the cause, yet it can terminate a dependence that is of a different idea, namely the dependence that is on a supposit as supposit. So, in order to terminate the dependence, any entity is sufficient that can be the proper idea of a supposit, and such is this positive entity posited to be.