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Objection 1: It would seem that this is true: "Christ is a
creature." For Pope Leo says [Append. Opp. August., Serm.
xii de Nativ.]: "A new and unheard of covenant: God Who is and
was, is made a creature." Now we may predicate of Christ whatever
the Son of God became by the Incarnation. Therefore this is true;
Christ is a creature.
Objection 2: Further, the properties of both natures may be
predicated of the common hypostasis of both natures, no matter by what
word they are signified, as stated above (Article 5). But it is
the property of human nature to be created, as it is the property of
the Divine Nature to be Creator. Hence both may be said of
Christ, viz. that He is a creature and that he is uncreated and
Creator.
Objection 3: Further, the principal part of a man is the soul
rather than the body. But Christ, by reason of the body which He
took from the Virgin, is said simply to be born of the Virgin.
Therefore by reason of the soul which is created by God, it ought
simply to be said that He is a creature.
On the contrary, Ambrose says (De Trin. i): "Was Christ made
by a word? Was Christ created by a command?" as if to say:
"No!" Hence he adds: "How can there be a creature in God? For
God has a simple not a composite Nature." Therefore it must not be
granted that "Christ is a creature."
I answer that, As Jerome [Gloss, Ord. in Osee 2:16]
says, "words spoken amiss lead to heresy"; hence with us and
heretics the very words ought not to be in common, lest we seem to
countenance their error. Now the Arian heretics said that Christ was
a creature and less than the Father, not only in His human nature,
but even in His Divine Person. And hence we must not say absolutely
that Christ is a "creature" or "less than the Father"; but with a
qualification, viz. "in His human nature." But such things as
could not be considered to belong to the Divine Person in Itself may
be predicated simply of Christ by reason of His human nature; thus we
say simply that Christ suffered, died and was buried: even as in
corporeal and human beings, things of which we may doubt whether they
belong to the whole or the part, if they are observed to exist in a
part, are not predicated of the whole simply, i.e. without
qualification, for we do not say that the Ethiopian is white but that
he is white as regards his teeth; but we say without qualification that
he is curly, since this can only belong to him as regards his hair.
Reply to Objection 1: Sometimes, for the sake of brevity, the
holy doctors use the word "creature" of Christ, without any
qualifying term; we should however take as understood the
qualification, "as man."
Reply to Objection 2: All the properties of the human, just as of
the Divine Nature, may be predicated equally of Christ. Hence
Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii, 4) that "Christ Who God
and Man, is called created and uncreated, passible and impassible."
Nevertheless things of which we may doubt to what nature they belong,
are not to be predicated without a qualification. Hence he afterwards
adds (De Fide Orth. iv, 5) that "the one hypostasis," i.e.
of Christ, "is uncreated in its Godhead and created in its
manhood": even so conversely, we may not say without qualification,
"Christ is incorporeal" or "impassible"; in order to avoid the
error of Manes, who held that Christ had not a true body, nor truly
suffered, but we must say, with a qualification, that Christ was
incorporeal and impassible "in His Godhead."
Reply to Objection 3: There can be no doubt how the birth from the
Virgin applies to the Person of the Son of God, as there can be in
the case of creation; and hence there is no parity.
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