B. A Doubt

25. But about this proposition, ‘Christ is man’, there is a doubt that it is per se, because here the subject does include the predicate, for, according to Damascene ch. 49, “Now we say that ‘Christ’ is the name of the hypostasis, not stated in a uniform way, but an existence significative of two natures;” so Christ signifies ‘an existent in human nature’, and thus it includes the predicate ‘man’, as Peter does.

26. It is said [William of Ware] that this is per accidens on account of an implication in the subject, which implication is per accidens; for Christ implies about the Word that he is man, because Christ is the Word-man or ‘the Word who is man’, because a ‘who is’ falls as a middle between the demanding and the demanded terms,Peter Helias, Commentary on Priscian 18, “Where the grammarians say that diction regiments diction, there Priscian says that diction demands diction; and what others call ‘regimen’ he calls ‘demand’, using a more explicit locution.” Cf. Scotus 1 d.21 n.16. ⁷⁴ according to Priscian [Grammatical Foundations, 18.1 n.6, “When it is said ‘Achilles son of Peleus slew in fight many Trojans’, the participle of the substantive verb, ‘being’ [ens], is understood (which is not now in use among us [sc. ‘ens’ is now used as a noun and not as the participle of the verb ‘esse’]), and in its place [sc. in place of ‘Achilles, being son of Peleus,.’] we can say or understand ‘who is or who was the son of Peleus’. In like manner.. .‘a friend agreeable to me is coming’, that is, ‘a friend who is agreeable to me.’; the ‘who is’ is understood. And these constructions, indeed, which the nature of the words demands, vary in this way in their cases, to which we may join pronouns or participles in the same cases.”].

27. But this statement of Priscian is not the purpose, because a substantive does not demand its adjective to be at the same time through an intermediate implication, nor conversely, but substantive and adjective are together construed intransitively. And so, although an intermediate implication occurs in the phrase ‘the cappa of Socrates’ [sc. ‘the cappa that is of Socrates’], yet it does not occur in the phrase ‘white man’, otherwise determining any extreme by any accident or adjective added to it would be impossible, and there would be a process to infinity.Tr. That is, if ‘white man’ should be construed as ‘a man who is white’ and if ‘white’ should be construed as ‘a white who is a man’, then ‘a white man’ becomes ‘a man who is a white who is a man’; and since ‘white’ appears here again and so must be construed in the same way as before, the sentence becomes ‘a man who is a white who is a man, who is a man’, and so on ad infinitum. ⁷⁵ Therefore one may say that such an implication is not introduced by this name ‘Christ’, and that there is no need, because of it, to posit that the proposition [sc. ‘Christ is man’] is true per se; however, since, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.29.1024b26-28 ‘an account false in itself is true of nothing’, then also, by similarity, a concept that is not in itself per se one is not asserted per se of anything one, nor is anything asserted per se of it. So this proposition ‘Christ is man’ can be conceded to be not altogether per accidens, for the subject includes the predicate, nor altogether per se, for the subject does not have a concept altogether per se one. And the like would be said of this proposition, ‘a white man is colored’.