1. The Opinion of Others

57. [Exposition of the opinion] - As to the first article, what is said is that the Word assumed the body by the intermediary of the soul [Bonaventure, Aquinas, Richard of Middleton, Henry of Ghent].

58. And the point is expounded in the following way [Henry of Ghent], that the soul was first assumed by the Word, and in the second instant the soul was united with the body, and thereby the Word in the second instant unites the body to his person by the intermediary of the soul, which he united to himself first.

59. Likewise, as to the parts compared with the whole, what is said is that, in the order of execution, the parts were assumed first, but in the order of intention the Word first assumed the whole, just as the whole is by intention prior to the parts.

60. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against the first of these points [n.58], namely about the soul in respect of the body, I argue:

That it seems to follow that Christ is not a man first; for [Henry] argues, against the opinion of the Master of the Sentences, that Christ was not a man during the Triduum [the three days in the tomb], because ‘the assumer is not a man save because what is assumed is a man’ - which can, if it be well understood, be expounded as ‘because what is assumed is human nature’; therefore if what is first assumed is not human nature but a part of human nature, the assumer will not be first a man and, as he is disposed to the whole and the parts in the second instant of assumption, so is he disposed now as well [sc. the assumer is not first a man either before he assumes all the parts of human nature or after he has done so, for, by supposition, he is first a part of human nature and only secondly the whole of it]; therefore now too he is not first a man as Socrates is first a man - but this seems unacceptable, since there seems to be no difference in idea on the part of the predicate in the one case [sc. Christ is a man] and in the other [sc. Socrates is a man], although there is a different mode of predicating, as will be touched on below in d.7 nn.16-17. Indeed further, second, it seems to follow that Christ is not a man; the proof is that, if an accident were a composite of essential parts, of a potential a and an actual b, the subject would not be denominated by the accident, because it would be denominated by b alone - for if it were a, it would be a subject in respect of an accident composed of a and b, because a is denominated actually by b; therefore, by similarity, a human nature composed of soul and body is not asserted denominatively of the Word because of the mere union of the soul with the Word, which union is supposed to be the idea of such denomination, for only then [sc. when body is united with soul] could the body be called ‘man’.This argument is stated rather elliptically, but its point seems to be as follows. Suppose that the accident ‘brown’ in ‘brown horse’ were a composite of the subject and the quality, and that the subject were actual and the quality potential with respect to the subject. This supposition is strictly false, for ‘brown’, as an accident said concretely, is actual and actually includes the subject, though obliquely and not directly. However, it creates a parallel with Henry’s supposition about the Word’s assumption of human nature. For, if the accident ‘brown’ is so understood then it is potentially brown before being united to horse and actually brown afterwards (as the body is potentially human before being united to the soul in the Word and actually so afterwards), so that ‘brown’ gets its meaning from ‘brown horse’. ‘Horse’, then, cannot properly be called ‘brown’ for, as subject, it is not the accident but the subject of the accident, and the subject, as such, does not include the accident in its idea. The same problem applies to Henry’s supposition. For since, according to Henry, the Word assumes the soul first and the body through the soul, the Word plus soul is the subject of body. But Henry also says that body in separation from soul (and soul in separation from body) is not human nature, because Christ was not properly a man when his body and soul were separated during the three days in the grave. The assumed body, then, in order to be human body, must include soul in its idea and must mean something like ‘bodied soul’. Thus the assumed body directly includes the subject in its idea, for its subject is the Word plus soul, and, just as the horse cannot properly be the subject of brown and be called brown if ‘brown’ means ‘brown horse’, so the Word plus soul cannot properly be the subject of man and be called man if ‘man’ means ‘bodied soul’. Henry’s supposition, then, must be false and, in order for the Word properly to be called man, the Word must be the subject of ‘bodied soul’ directly and not through the soul, which is to say that the Word must assume soul and body immediately and not the second through the first. ³¹

61. Again, incommunicability belongs to the idea of person, and this by reason of the ‘by what’ as has frequently been expounded [3 d.1 n.50, 1 d.2 nn.379-380, d.23 nn.15-16]; this [incommunicability] belongs more to matter than to form, because form is communicated to matter in the whole as giving being to matter; therefore, just as this incommunicability in a nature that is a person in itself is appropriated more to the body than to the soul, so, when a nature is a person in another, then it seems (if there is any order in this case) that the dependence of the body - in order for it to be thus subsistent in itself - is terminated before the dependence of the soul is.

62. Further third: a body is of a nature to subsist in itself; therefore this ‘subsisting in itself’ is not supplied in a body unless the body is assumed directly; for the body is capable of such assumption just as it is capable too of subsistence in itself; when therefore the union of the soul with the Word exists, then, since the body is not immediately assumed through that union, the potency in the body to be assumed by the Father still exists, and thus the same man may be assumed by two persons - which seems unacceptable because in this way no person will be the man. And yet from these parts, when united, the man exists; therefore he is a man and not a person unless he is a person in himself - which is unacceptable because then the parts will be hypostasized twice, namely intrinsically and extrinsically.

63. Further, there would have then been a new assumption in death, because then the body was united with the Word immediately and not united through the soul, because its order to the soul was in potency only.

64. Further, he was not a man because of these two unions, as was shown in the second reason [n.61], so a third union is required, which would first be the union of the whole, and because of this third union the Word would be a man; but this third union is sufficient by itself without the other two; therefore the other two are superfluous.