II. To the Principal Arguments

92. To the principal arguments.

To the first [n.48] the answer is plain, because the authorities are to be understood as speaking about the medium ‘by which’ and not the medium ‘which’.

93. To the second [n.49] I say that something can be prior in itself to another when not comparing them to a third thing, as the parts of my nature are prior to my whole nature in the order of generation or execution, but not when comparing them to being a person, because my parts are not a person before my whole nature is. So too is it in the case of being a person in an extraneous person; and the reason is that, in the instant of nature in which the whole is whole, it is able to be a person in itself or in another - and therefore, whatever precedes it does not precede in ability to be a person, because it is not, as prior, able to be a person.

94. To the next [n.50] I say that not everything that is prior in consequence is naturally prior, that is, causally prior (or prior as something is said to be prior in execution by priority of material cause, or said to be prior in intention by priority of formal cause). Likewise, according to the Philosopher in the Categories 12.14b11-22,Aristotle, “...there is another way of being prior; for, in the case of things that convert according to consequence of essence, that which is in some way cause of the other is rightly said to be prior in nature., for being a man converts in consequence of substance with true speech about it.; but the thing seems to be in some way the cause that the speech is true, for speech is said to be true or false because the thing is or is not.” ³⁵ what is prior in causality can be simultaneous in consequence, “for being a man converts in consequence with true speech about man,” and yet the being of the thing is prior in causality, “for speech is true or false by the fact that the thing is or is not.” So here, priority in consequence can stand along with non-priority in causing, as is universally the case with an accident that is necessarily consequent to a number of things, as hot is to fire and air; that is why fire and air are consequent according to consequence and yet in causality the hot is posterior to both of them; so it is in the issue at hand, that although the being-assumed of the parts follows the being-assumed of the whole and not conversely, yet the second is not prior in causality. However, it could be said that, in the way in which the parts are assumed, the being-assumed of the parts and the being-assumed of the whole are convertible.

95. To the next [n.51] I say that if Christ truly died then, since the corruption of the body is not nothing, one can truly say that he had some entity in death that he did not have alive; but he did not, as far as concerns the essential parts of the nature, put aside the nature he assumed. And such is the understanding of Damascene (as is plain there in ch.71), and not something different; he means in ch.73Damascene, “In death.neither soul nor body had their own hypostasis besides that of the Word, but there was always the one hypostasis of the Word and not two.” ³⁶ that the soul and body in death were never in their own hypostasis but in that of the Word.

96. But a doubt remains, because it seems that in death there was a new assumption of a part in itself that was not united before.

97. On this point see the solution in d.16 n.39 infra.

98. To the last argument [n.52] I say that, if ‘grace’ is taken for the gratuitous will of God, then God is said to do this from grace because he is said to do everything gratuitously that is included the less in a thing and exceeds the faculty of it the more; and, in this way, because ‘subsisting in the word’ exceeds the faculty of created nature, so God does this gratuitously and with supreme grace, that is, with his supreme condescending gratuitous will, because conferring on nature what nature can least attain of itself and what most exceeds it. But if ‘grace’ is understood as an informing created habit, then, although this is concomitant to the united nature, it is yet not necessary for the union. And so, when it is then argued [n.52], as by an argument a minore, that grace is necessary for the beatific union, I say that, as to the hypostatic union, the conclusion does not follow, because beatific union is through operation and second act, and for this union the soul has no power unless it have the form [sc. grace] - but this [hypostatic] union is to first existence, and for this no accident in the united nature is presupposed, just as also for first supernatural existence, which is had through the habit of grace, nothing further raising up the nature is required; for thus there would be a process to infinity, as always one natural thing would be disposing it for another. And just as what gives first act in this case could perfect nature immediately, so can the existence communicated by the Word be the immediate principle of the [hypostatic] union.