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Objection 1: It would seem that the union of the Incarnate Word
did not take place in the person. For the Person of God is not
distinct from His Nature, as we said (FP, Question 39,
Article 1). If, therefore, the union did not take place in the
nature, it follows that it did not take place in the person.
Objection 2: Further, Christ's human nature has no less dignity
than ours. But personality belongs to dignity, as was stated above
(FP, Question 29, Article 3, ad 2). Hence, since our
human nature has its proper personality, much more reason was there
that Christ's should have its proper personality.
Objection 3: Further, as Boethius says (De Duab. Nat.), a
person is an individual substance of rational nature. But the Word of
God assumed an individual human nature, for "universal human nature
does not exist of itself, but is the object of pure thought," as
Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii, 11). Therefore the human
nature of Christ has its personality. Hence it does not seem that the
union took place in the person.
On the contrary, We read in the Synod of Chalcedon (Part ii,
act. 5): "We confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is not parted
or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-Begotten
Son and Word of God." Therefore the union took place in the
person.
I answer that, Person has a different meaning from "nature." For
nature, as has been said (Article 1), designates the specific
essence which is signified by the definition. And if nothing was found
to be added to what belongs to the notion of the species, there would
be no need to distinguish the nature from the suppositum of the nature
(which is the individual subsisting in this nature), because every
individual subsisting in a nature would be altogether one with its
nature. Now in certain subsisting things we happen to find what does
not belong to the notion of the species, viz. accidents and
individuating principles, which appears chiefly in such as are composed
of matter and form. Hence in such as these the nature and the
suppositum really differ; not indeed as if they were wholly separate,
but because the suppositum includes the nature, and in addition certain
other things outside the notion of the species. Hence the suppositum
is taken to be a whole which has the nature as its formal part to
perfect it; and consequently in such as are composed of matter and form
the nature is not predicated of the suppositum, for we do not say that
this man is his manhood. But if there is a thing in which there is
nothing outside the species or its nature (as in God), the
suppositum and the nature are not really distinct in it, but only in
our way of thinking, inasmuch it is called "nature" as it is an
essence, and a "suppositum" as it is subsisting. And what is said
of a suppositum is to be applied to a person in rational or intellectual
creatures; for a person is nothing else than "an individual substance
of rational nature," according to Boethius. Therefore, whatever
adheres to a person is united to it in person, whether it belongs to
its nature or not. Hence, if the human nature is not united to God
the Word in person, it is nowise united to Him; and thus belief in
the Incarnation is altogether done away with, and Christian faith
wholly overturned. Therefore, inasmuch as the Word has a human
nature united to Him, which does not belong to His Divine Nature,
it follows that the union took place in the Person of the Word, and
not in the nature.
Reply to Objection 1: Although in God Nature and Person are not
really distinct, yet they have distinct meanings, as was said above,
inasmuch as person signifies after the manner of something subsisting.
And because human nature is united to the Word, so that the Word
subsists in it, and not so that His Nature receives therefrom any
addition or change, it follows that the union of human nature to the
Word of God took place in the person, and not in the nature.
Reply to Objection 2: Personality pertains of necessity to the
dignity of a thing, and to its perfection so far as it pertains to the
dignity and perfection of that thing to exist by itself (which is
understood by the word "person"). Now it is a greater dignity to
exist in something nobler than oneself than to exist by oneself. Hence
the human nature of Christ has a greater dignity than ours, from this
very fact that in us, being existent by itself, it has its own
personality, but in Christ it exists in the Person of the Word.
Thus to perfect the species belongs to the dignity of a form, yet the
sensitive part in man, on account of its union with the nobler form
which perfects the species, is more noble than in brutes, where it is
itself the form which perfects.
Reply to Objection 3: The Word of God "did not assume human
nature in general, but 'in atomo'"---that is, in an
individual---as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii, 11)
otherwise every man would be the Word of God, even as Christ was.
Yet we must bear in mind that not every individual in the genus of
substance, even in rational nature, is a person, but that alone which
exists by itself, and not that which exists in some more perfect
thing. Hence the hand of Socrates, although it is a kind of
individual, is not a person, because it does not exist by itself, but
in something more perfect, viz. in the whole. And hence, too, this
is signified by a "person" being defined as "an individual
substance," for the hand is not a complete substance, but part of a
substance. Therefore, although this human nature is a kind of
individual in the genus of substance, it has not its own personality,
because it does not exist separately, but in something more perfect,
viz. in the Person of the Word. Therefore the union took place in
the person.
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