1. On Abstractive Knowledge

108. To speak, then, of abstractive knowledge, that is, knowledge which is of an object, whether singular or universal, one can say that Christ’s soul has, through infused species, habitual knowledge of all universals or quiddities. For since this sort of knowledge is a mark of perfection in a created intellect -because a created intellect is passive with respect to any intelligible object (a created intellect does not have the perfection of all intelligibles in itself, and the lack of a perfection possible to it in respect of some object makes the intellect to be in some way imperfect) - it seems reasonable to attribute to Christ’s intellect the sort of perfection with respect to every intelligible that is attributed to angels. For such perfection is not repugnant to a created intellect, nor is it an imperfection in it, nor even is it incompossible with the perfection of the knowing in the Word which is posited as belonging to Christ’s soul, because, according to Augustine Literal Commentary on Genesis 4 ch.30/47, “there, in the creature’s knowledge taken in itself, it is always day, always evening.” Therefore knowledge in the Word and knowledge in its proper genus can stand together.

109. But by knowledge in this way, namely abstractive and habitual, Christ’s soul, on the one hand, either does not know all singulars in their proper idea - if, that is, it has infused species only of quiddities, for these are not principles of knowing singulars in their proper idea; for just as the universal does not state the whole entity of singulars, nor consequently their whole knowability, so neither is the proper principle for knowing the universal the proper principle for distinctly and properly knowing the singular. Or, on the other hand, if Christ’s soul is posited as knowing singulars abstractively and habitually (to the extent singulars are knowable by a created intellect), then one must concede that there is in Christ’s intellect a proper species for each singular, and so several species for the same species of thing, and even an infinite number of species for the infinite number of possible singulars.

110. But if someone thinks one should not attribute to Christ’s soul a confused knowledge of singulars, nor a distinct infinite knowledge through infinite species [n.109], he can say that this soul knows some singulars habitually and abstractively through infused proper species, and does not habitually know other singulars, though it can know them habitually if they come to exist in reality (in the way that was stated in Ord. 2 d.9 nn.52, 97, 103 about the ability of angels to acquire knowledge of some objects through the action of their intellect about those objects). However, it is not necessary to posit that Christ’s soul knows quiddities and singulars at the same time actually; for actual knowledge of things in their proper genus is through the natural virtue of the intellect in itself, and a finite intellect cannot, by its natural virtue, turn itself to any number whatever of distinctly perceived objects at the same time.