Book 5

Table of the fifth book.

Here begins the fifth book, in which several articles are treated, namely that Christ truly had a rational soul and a human body; and that the human nature was not to him a bare garment, but was personally joined to him; and that in his assumption it was not converted into the divine nature. Here begin the chapters of the same, etc.

The first chapter sets out testimonies of the gospel that Christ had a rational soul.

The second chapter likewise contains further gospel testimonies on these things.

The third chapter sets out testimonies taken from the book of Psalms.

The fourth chapter contains testimonies of Isaiah, chapter 2 of his book.

The fifth chapter contains an argument, and gospel testimonies, and [testimonies] from the first epistle of John.

The sixth chapter contains objections from Scripture that Christ did not have a true body.

The seventh chapter proves by testimonies of the book of Genesis that Christ had a true body, and contains the objection about Joseph, how he was called the father of Christ, with its solution.

The eighth chapter contains gospel testimonies that Christ had a true body.

The ninth chapter is on the same.

The tenth chapter contains arguments from Christ's sufferings.

The eleventh chapter contains testimonies of the epistle to the Romans for Christ's true body.

The twelfth chapter objects how he was made judge of the living and the dead on account of his passion, and solves the objection.

The thirteenth chapter contains testimonies of other epistles of Paul, and from the Acts of the Apostles, and from the gospel.

The fourteenth chapter solves the objections of the sixth chapter.

The fifteenth chapter is also [?] on the solution of the objections.¹²

The sixteenth chapter objects from the scripture of Matthew that the human nature in Christ was only a garment to him.

The seventeenth chapter, in solving, shows the contrary from the assumption of bodies by angels and from the sufferings of Christ.

The eighteenth chapter objects against the reply.

The nineteenth chapter, in solving, shows the difference between the assumption of bodies by God and by angels, proving by manifold argument that God neither is nor can be part of any truly single suppositum.

The twentieth chapter objects against the preceding and resolves [the objection].

The twenty-first chapter objects that God and an angel, before the coming of Christ, had bodies united [to them] by personal union.

The twenty-second chapter, in solving, shows that the assumption of a body into the unity of the person can be argued from acts or sufferings.

The twenty-third chapter shows by argument, from the incarnation of the Son and not of the Father or of the Holy Spirit, the principal article.

The twenty-fourth chapter objects against the preceding article and solves the objection, giving a rule of faith as to the unity of [?] and also the Trinity.¹³

The twenty-fifth chapter sets out an argument proving that Christ was a true man.

The twenty-sixth chapter proves the same from Deuteronomy and from the book of Jeremiah.

The twenty-seventh chapter proves the same from Psalms 1, 3, 8 and 15.

The twenty-eighth chapter proves the same from Psalms 19, 20 and 44.

The twenty-ninth chapter proves the same from Psalms 21 [and] 39, and Isaiah 5.

The thirtieth chapter treats the last article, showing that the human nature in Christ was not changed into the divine.

The thirty-first chapter shows the same by other arguments.

The thirty-second chapter shows the same, etc.

Book Five.

John. Now, if you please, let us make another beginning; and against the view of the heretics Apollinaris and Arius, who affirm that there was no rational soul in Christ, but that the divine Word was [its] form in all things, show the contrary, if you can, from the Scripture of the New and Old Testament.

Richard. He himself says, as is read of himself in the gospel, Matthew 26, and in the other gospels: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death"; and John 12: "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say?" Which is shown no less from another [passage] that follows; for there follows: "He fell upon his face, praying and saying: My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." If he had no soul, whence was that will by which he shrank from death, asking the Father that this chalice, that is, the enduring of the passion, might pass? For no one is so mad as to dare say that the divine nature in him had two wills: one by which he desired and prayed that the chalice pass, and a will of obedience conformed to the will of the Father, namely to death: "but," he says, "as thou wilt." Hence in John 6 he says more expressly: "I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me." For the Son of God could not, according to the divinity, have another will than the Father had; and therefore these two wills, or at least one of them, must belong to some created nature. Again, Matthew chapter 27 says: "And Jesus, crying with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost"; and John says: "he gave up the ghost." Now what would the spirit be but the soul, which is the breath of life? "And he breathed [?] into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul," Genesis 2.¹⁴ That spirit there is also taken for his rational soul is evident from this, that Luke in the same place says thus: "And Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Now we believe that animal spirits of whatever kind cease to be with the body; therefore according to his wisdom he did not commend such a spirit to God, but a rational spirit, which could remain after the dissolution of the body. For he commended his spirit to God for this, that God might defend and also guard it; no doubt, for otherwise he would have commended it superfluously. Hence in Psalm 21:¹⁵ "But thou, O Lord, remove not thy help to a distance from me; look towards my defence. Deliver, O God, [my] soul from the sword: my only one from the hand of the dog." Again, the word of yielding up and of giving up does not allow that the spirit yielded up or given up then wholly ceased to be, but necessarily implies that the very thing yielded up or given up remains after the giving up, at least for a time. This yielding up of his spirit, namely of his rational soul, he himself describes more expressly in chapter 10 of the gospel of John:¹⁶ "Therefore," he says, "doth the Father love me, because I lay down my soul, and take it again. No man taketh it away from me, but I lay it down, and of myself I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again." Hence by this he shows there, before, that he is the good shepherd, because he laid down his soul for his sheep. Whoever therefore denies that he had a soul and laid it down for his sheep is a hireling, not belonging to the sheep which Christ redeemed by laying down his soul for them, etc.

Chapter 2.

Again, in John chapter 11 it is said of him, when he came to raise Lazarus: "Jesus, therefore, when he saw her weeping, and the Jews that were come with her weeping, groaned in the spirit and troubled himself"; and it follows: "And Jesus wept." And John 13 says: "When Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in spirit."¹ Groaning belongs only to a soul; for the divine nature could not groan, nor could any spirit but a rational one trouble Christ himself, since to trouble oneself is a free act, and an act of free will; and likewise to weep from such trouble. Therefore Christ is shown by these [texts] to have had a rational soul, since these things do not befit the divinity, nor can they be brought about by an animal power. Nor, again, can any but a rational nature give thanks to God the Father, as Christ says of himself in the same place shortly after: "Father, I give thee thanks that thou hast heard me." Nor did thanksgiving befit Christ according to his divine nature, because that nature was not heard of grace; rather the human nature, or the suppositum itself by reason of the human nature, was heard of grace.² Therefore Christ gave thanks to his Father through a rational soul, since there was in him no other principle to which giving thanks, or thanksgiving, belonged. Again, the angel says to Joseph, as we read in Matthew 2: "They are dead that sought the soul of the child";³ and let us take this saying, with others like it, to mean that they sought to separate his soul from his body, that is, to kill him. And he himself says expressly in Matthew 20, speaking of himself: "The Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his soul a redemption for many";⁴ so also Mark 10. Of which redemption Isaiah, speaking of him,⁵ says in chapter 53 of his book: "If he shall lay down his soul for sin, he shall see a longlived seed, and the will of the Lord shall be prosperous in his hand. Because his soul hath laboured, he shall see and be filled"; and it follows: "Therefore will I distribute very many, and he shall divide the spoils of the strong, because he hath delivered his soul unto death, and was reputed with the wicked: and he hath borne the sin of many, and hath prayed for the transgressors."⁶ Now it is evident that that whole passage is said of Christ, from the testimony of Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch of Queen Candace, of whom Acts chapter 8 speaks, where we read that Philip expounded that whole passage of Christ.

Chapter 3.

Again, in Psalm 15 it is said of him thus: "Therefore my heart hath been glad, and my tongue hath rejoiced: moreover, my flesh also shall rest in hope. Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption"; which Peter, in Acts 2, affirms was said of Christ. Hence it is evident that he had a soul, which went down to hell. And in Psalm 21 the prophet says in his person: "They parted my garments amongst them; and upon my vesture they cast lots," which John, in chapter 19 of his gospel, affirms was said in his person; and his appeal to the Father follows: "But thou, remove not thy help to a distance from me; look towards my defence. Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword: my only one from the hand of the dog," as I set down above.⁷ Also in Psalm 39 he says in his person: "But a body thou hast fitted to me,"⁸ and it follows: "Burnt offering and sin offering thou didst not require: then said I, Behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of me that I should do thy will: O my God, I have desired it, and thy law in the midst of my heart." What is "in the midst of my heart" but the soul? As it is written elsewhere: "Incline my heart into thy testimonies," since only a rational soul is inclined into God's testimonies; and he himself says in the gospel, Matthew 15: "From the heart come forth evil thoughts." It is evident, therefore, that the law of God exists only in a rational soul; therefore he had a rational soul, because he had, or willed to have, the law of God in the midst of his heart. Again, in Psalm 19 the prophet says thus of him: "May the Lord hear thee in the day of tribulation: may the name of the God of Jacob protect thee. May he send thee help from the sanctuary: and defend thee out of Sion. May he be mindful of all thy sacrifices: and may thy whole burnt offering be made fat. May he give thee according to thy heart; and confirm all thy counsels. We will rejoice in thy salvation; and in the name of our God we shall be exalted. The Lord fulfil all thy petitions: now have I known that the Lord hath saved his Christ."⁹ There he says that Christ had a heart, by which, in the common manner of speaking, as I said above here, he understood the soul; and foreseeing the tribulations of his passion, and so great a sacrifice of his body, and the great number of the faithful that followed from it, he cries to God for him, "May the Lord hear thee in the day of tribulation," and then confidently affirms his raising up when he says, "Now have I known that the Lord hath saved his Christ." Again, Psalm 29 says: "I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou hast upheld me: and hast not made my enemies to rejoice over me. O Lord my God, I have cried to thee, and thou hast healed me"; which sense the apostle states in Hebrews 5 in these words: "Who in the days of his flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications to him that was able to save him from death, was heard for his reverence." And here [the psalm] goes on to add: "Thou hast brought forth, O Lord, my soul from hell: thou hast saved me from them that go down into the pit," where it says that his soul was brought out of hell.

Chapter 4.

Again, in Isaiah 11 we read of him: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root," where another text has "there he shall be called Jesus of Nazareth";¹⁰ and it follows in Isaiah: "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, of counsel, and of fortitude, of knowledge, and of godliness. And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord." How did the Spirit rest upon him, filling him with grace (as John 1 says of him, "Of his fulness we all have received"), unless he had a rational soul? For it is evident that this was not done according to the deity: for the deity can receive nothing, nor be filled, nor be anointed, since it is not susceptible of anything. And so this perfection of the grace of the Holy Spirit Isaiah himself calls an anointing in chapter 61, saying in the person of Christ: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me," etc., which Christ himself says was said of himself, Luke 4. And so David the prophet calls it, saying of him: "Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness," which the apostle, in Hebrews, affirms was said of Christ.¹¹ Nor is anyone so foolish as to say that this anointing is in an irrational spirit or in Christ's flesh, in neither of which can there be knowledge and wisdom, or the spirit of counsel or of fortitude, or any other gift of sevenfold grace. It is evident, therefore, that these were in the rational soul of Christ, etc.

Chapter 5.

Again, his advance in knowledge in human fashion, which I treated above in book 2, chapter 22, shows well enough that he had a rational mind. Again, human passions, such as cannot exist except in a soul, or not without a soul (such as pain, sadness, marvelling, drowsiness, hunger and thirst; that he grew [and] was strengthened; and the weeping of compassion, of which Luke 19: "Jesus, seeing the city, wept over it"), sufficiently affirm that he had a soul. For strengthening could not take place in him according to the divinity, nor according to an irrational soul either, because, according to the evangelist's words, that strengthening came from without, as appears from the words about the angel: "There appeared," he says, "to him an angel of the Lord, strengthening him";¹² and so, consequently, it was done to one who had reason, by which he could receive, or clearly perceive, the signs of strengthening. Again, how is what he himself says in Luke 22 true: "With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you, before I suffer"? Now it is evident that this desire, as regards him,¹³ was not in his deity as its subject, under which there could be no hunger or thirst, since the desire to eat is hunger; nor could a desire to eat with such a circumstance of reason, namely "before I suffer," be in one who lacked reason. So it follows in consequence that that desire was in a rational nature. And so it is evident that besides the deity, since he did not have an angelic nature, he had a rational soul. Again, John says in his first epistle, chapter 3: "In this we have known the charity of God, because he hath laid down his soul for us: and we ought to lay down our soul for our brethren."¹⁴ See, here he affirms that Christ had a soul; and if anyone says that this saying takes "his soul" as the sensitive or nutritive soul, not the intellective or rational, he must in consequence say that Christ was irrational, or an irrational animal, since he would have had an irrational soul without a rational soul. This, I think, suffices from Scripture to show that a rational soul was in Christ.

Chapter 6.

John. If you please, now show me, against Mani, and against Eutyches¹⁵ and Dioscorus, who follow Mani, that Jesus had a true human body. For they are moved, not wholly without evidence, to assert that he had only a phantasmal body, on account of the sayings of the apostles and on account of his own deeds. For see, Paul says of him in Romans 8: "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." What else is "the likeness of sinful flesh" than flesh appearing to be sinful flesh, which yet is not of the same nature? Again, Philippians 2, of him: "being made in the likeness of man." Again, a true body could not walk upon the sea, as they say, as we read of him in Matthew 14: "And in the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking upon the sea"; nor could it have entered to his disciples when the doors were shut, and stood in their midst. Again, as we read in John 2: "And the wine failing, the mother of Jesus saith to him: They have no wine. And Jesus saith to her: Woman, what is that to thee and to me? For my hour is not yet come";¹⁶ where he seems to deny that he has anything from her, when he says, "Woman, what is that to me and to thee?" He seems also to hint that he is God only, when he says, "For my hour is not yet come." Again, he says in John 8: "I am not of this world"; but if he had had a true human body, he would have been of this world. Again, in Ephesians 1 the apostle says: "And hath made him head over all the church, which is his body." Here he says that the church is his body; yet the church is never a true body; hence it seems one could likewise understand that he had a body of human nature, that is, not truly but by likeness. Again, he himself refuted the Jews because, when he asked them, "What think you of Christ? Whose son is he?", they all said to him, "David's," Matthew 22, Luke 20 and Mark 12.¹⁷ Again, John 1: "The Word was made flesh"; from which it follows that, since the Word could not be changed or converted into flesh, the flesh was converted into the Word, and so the flesh did not truly remain in him.

Chapter 7.

Richard. Let us take of Christ that promise to Abraham, Genesis 18: "In him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed," and chapter 26, to Isaac: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed"; as the apostle says, Galatians 3: "To Abraham were the promises made and to his seed. He saith not, of seeds, as of many, but as of one: And in thy seed, which is Christ";¹ and Romans 1: "who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh." If Christ did not have a true body, how was he the seed of Abraham? Again, how was he the son of Abraham and the son of David, according to this in Matthew chapter 1: "The book," he says, "of the generation of the son of David, the son of Abraham"? Or how was he begotten, as Matthew says in chapter 1, there: "Now the generation of Christ was in this wise," going on to show, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, that he was born and conceived of the Virgin Mary? How would he be the son of the Virgin Mary if he had not had a true body?

John. In this way you could equally prove that Christ was truly the son of Joseph, because it is written in Luke 2:² "And his father and mother were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning him," and below: "And his parents went every year to Jerusalem, at the solemn day of the pasch."

Richard. This same evangelist expounds these sayings in chapter 3, which follows, and properly, saying: "And Jesus was about the age of thirty years, being (as it was supposed) the son of Joseph." See, he says "as it was supposed, the son of Joseph"; understand the others in the same way, then. But nowhere did he say of the Virgin in this way that he was supposed to be her son; rather, repeating³ the words of the angel Gabriel spoken to her in chapter 1 of his gospel, he says: "Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a son: and his name shall be called Jesus"; and below: "And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."⁴

Chapter 8.

Here let the Manichaeans and Dioscorians attend to how the modest Virgin, anxious for her chastity, answered the angel: "How shall this be done, because I know not man?", and how the angel assured her that she would conceive by the working of the Holy Spirit; as the angel said to Joseph: "For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son: and his name shall be called Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins."⁵ And let them be ashamed to affirm that all the sayings and deeds stand on account of a phantasm or phantasmal body. For what else follows from this but that Christ did phantasmally whatever we read he did in the body, and so died only in phantasm, not truly? From which it follows that whoever affirms this is redeemed only in phantasm, since the whole New Testament holds that we are redeemed through his death. But what greater madness is there than to assert that? Hence Peter was called Satan⁶ because he said, "Lord, be it far from thee," when Christ asserted that he must die and rise again, as is said in Matthew 15.⁷ Again, what he himself says in John 12: "When I am lifted up, I will draw all things to myself";⁸ which lifting up the evangelist expounds, saying: "Now this he said, signifying what death he should die." And in John 3 he himself says: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting." Again, of his death he himself says, Matthew 20: "The Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his soul a redemption for many." What else is it to give his soul a redemption for many than to undergo death for them, by which death the soul is given to God and separated from the body? All of which clearly declares that he had a true body, in which he underwent these things.

Again, how is what he says at supper to his disciples true, as the evangelists describe it, "This is my body" and "This is my blood," if he had neither flesh nor blood? Or how is what he says true, "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you," John 6, if he had neither? Or what follows there: "For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him"? For whoever denies that Christ had true flesh destroys the sacrament of the altar, in which, according to his word quoted above, is his [body and] blood;⁹ and if this is not really and truly so, it is not a true and real sacrament but an illusion. Did Paul, then, mean to delude the Corinthians when he wrote to them in the first epistle, chapter 11: "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke and said: Take ye and eat: This is my body. This do for the commemoration of me. In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood. This do ye, as often as you shall drink"; and it follows: "Therefore, whosoever shall eat the bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord"?¹⁰ Or did God himself mean to delude his disciples when he said to them, in the last chapter of Luke: "Handle, and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have. And when he had said this, he shewed them his hands and feet"? If these were not true but phantasmal, a spirit, good or evil, could have such flesh and such bones; and so he would not only have told a lie, but where he undertook to show his disciples a firmer faith concerning himself, there he deluded them the more. For he had said before: "Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself"; and then follows what I set down above. "But while they yet believed not and wondered for joy, he said to them: Have you anything to eat? And they offered him a piece of a broiled fish and a honeycomb. And when he had eaten before them, taking the remains, he gave to them. And he said to them: These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms, concerning me. Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures. And he said to them: Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead, the third day, and to preach in his name remission of sins among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things."¹¹ See, the Lord himself, according to the tradition of the Jews, who say that it is an infallible sign of a true resurrection that the one risen should eat with them, ate, and told them that according to Scripture Christ had to suffer and rise again, and that remission of sins was to be preached in his name, and that they should be witnesses of these things. If anyone says these things were done in pretence, he truly sets a pretence as the foundation of the Christian faith as regards the remission of sins, founds the whole preaching of the apostles on illusions, and declares them false witnesses.

Chapter 9.

Let him look at the Acts of the Apostles, where Peter lays down as the foundation of his preaching that Jesus was slain by the Jews and raised by God, so that his flesh did not see corruption, Acts 2 and 3. And Paul, in Hebrews chapter 2, affirming that it was said of Christ, "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels," says: "Him who for a little was made lower than the angels, we have seen, Jesus, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour: that, through the grace of God he might taste death for all."¹² And at once he adds a most express foundation concerning his flesh [and] blood: "For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: I will declare thy name to my brethren: in the midst of the church will I praise thee. And again: I will put my trust in him. And my children, whom the Lord hath given me. Therefore because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner hath been partaker of the same: that, through death, he might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil: and might deliver them, who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to servitude. For nowhere doth God take hold of the angels: but of the seed of Abraham he taketh hold. Wherefore, it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren."¹³ See, most plainly: that he had in all things to be made like his brethren; that God took hold of the seed of Abraham; that by his death he destroyed the devil; and that he shared in flesh and blood as his brethren do. Hence in chapter 9 he says that Christ, "being come an high priest of the good things to come," etc., "by his own blood entered into the Holies"; and below: "For if the blood of goats and of oxen, and the ashes of an heifer, being sprinkled, sanctify such as are defiled, to the cleansing of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered himself unspotted to the living God, cleanse our conscience from dead works?"¹⁴ How did the blood of Christ cleanse men's conscience from sins if it was not true blood? For so it would also follow that there will be no true cleansing of conscience from sins through it. Again, in chapter 5 he says of Christ: "Who in the days of his flesh, with a strong cry and tears, offering up prayers and supplications to him that was able to save him from death, was heard," in asking deliverance from the death which he underwent for us.¹⁵ And in chapter 10 he says, of the good will of Christ: "In the which will, we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Christ"; if it was not a true body, neither was a true sanctification made through it. And below: "A man making void the law of Moses shall die without any mercy under two or three witnesses: how much more, do you think, do they deserve worse punishments who have trodden under foot the Son of God and call the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified?"¹⁶ Why should one who treads underfoot the blood of Christ be judged to suffer worse punishments than one who makes void the law of Moses, if it is not true blood? And below, in chapter 12: "You are come to mount Sion," etc., "and to Jesus the mediator of the new testament, and to the sprinkling of blood which speaketh better than that of Abel." Let him who denies that this is true blood fear what follows: "See that you refuse him not that speaketh," etc. Again, in the last chapter: "Wherefore Jesus Christ, that he might sanctify the people by his own blood, suffered without the gate"; and below: "And may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the pastor of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the blood of the everlasting testament, fit you in all goodness." He strays far from this fitting in goodness who denies the blood of Christ in which it is fitted. I have brought these from this epistle because in it above all the apostle treats of our redemption, made through the offering of the body and blood of Jesus Christ by the high priest.

Chapter 10.

Again, if Christ did not have a true body, he could not advance in age, nor be strengthened, nor grow, contrary to what is said of him in Luke 2: "And the child grew and waxed strong, full of wisdom"; and below: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and grace." For it is evident that in a phantasmal body he could not grow or be strengthened, nor could age bring him any advance. Again, without a true body, how was he wearied with his journey, as we read in John chapter 4: "Now Jesus, being wearied with his journey, sat on the well"? Or how could he sleep without a true body, as is said of him in Luke 8: "And when they were sailing, he slept"? For sleep is a passion proper to an animal. Therefore John says at the beginning of his gospel that "the Word was made flesh"; which he explains more properly in his first epistle, chapter 1,¹ heading off the destruction wrought by Mani,² and saying: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, of the word of life. And the life was manifested." For a phantasmal body, even if perhaps it could be seen or heard, yet could not be handled with hands, since it does not have solid tangible qualities, but only subtle ones.

Chapter 11.

Again, Romans 3: "Being justified," he says, "freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath proposed as propitiator, through faith in his blood."³ See, here you have that he was the propitiator through faith in his blood; and that faith is false if he did not have true blood. Again, chapter 5: "Because when as yet we were sinners according to the time, Christ died for us: much more, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from wrath through him." And here you have that Christ died for us, and that we are justified by his blood. But if he did not have true blood, then neither did he truly die, but phantasmally; and our justification is phantasmal, and our salvation likewise, which were brought about through it; and baptism is empty, which we received in the power or merit of his death, as he says in chapter 6: "For all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death. For we are buried together with him by baptism into death: that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness. Knowing that Christ, rising again from the dead, dieth now no more."⁴ And in chapter 8: "Christ Jesus that died: yea that is risen also again." See, you have that we are baptized through his death; here, if it was not a true death, neither is our baptism effective, which no Christian dares to say. See, here we also have that he truly rose, which could not be without a true body. Hence in chapter 9 he goes on to speak of his body: "For I wished myself to be made an anathema for my brethren, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites: to whom belongeth the adoption as of children and the glory and the testament and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises: whose are the fathers and of whom is Christ, according to the flesh."⁵ So this, according to the apostle, is the glory of the Jews or Israelites: that Christ is from them and had true flesh. Again, chapter 14: "For to this end Christ died and rose again: that he might be Lord of the living and of the dead." And to the Philippians he says expressly, chapter 2: "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him and hath given him a name which is above all names: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth." And Hebrews 2: "We have seen Jesus, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour." But if he did not have a true body, he did not truly die; for as he could not die without a body, so he could not truly die without a true body; and if he did not truly die, he was not truly exalted for his obedience unto death, nor truly Lord of the living and the dead, nor crowned with glory and honour for his patient endurance of death, so that every knee should bow to him as to a true Lord; since he says expressly, chapter 4,⁶ that he had these things from the Father on account of his obedience unto death.

Chapter 12.

John. We believe that before his passion, from the beginning when he was man, he was Lord of the living and the dead; for he often said this of himself before his death: "All my things," he says (speaking to the Father), "are thine, and all thine are mine," John 17; and 16: "All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine"; and in John 13 John says of him: "Knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands"; and many similar things are said which expressly indicate that he was lord of all before his death. Therefore you argue here [?]⁷ that if he had not truly died he would not truly have been Lord of the living and the dead.

Richard. Distinguish the times and the Scriptures will agree.⁸ It is true that before his death, existing as true man, he was lord of all, as the texts you set down above, and many similar ones, show; but after his death he was not, existing as true man, lord of all, since he first had to be truly raised through the merit of his death.⁹ And so the power and lordship which he had in the human nature taken into the suppositum¹⁰ before his death, he received a second time after his death on account of the merit of his death, as the apostle says in the two authorities I cited above; which power or lordship he did not have in that human nature during the three days of his death. And so it was rightly concluded above that if he did not truly die, neither was he truly exalted after death, and so [neither] was he truly made Ruler in the human suppositum;¹¹ which I think the apostle meant.

John. I do not regret this objection of mine. Go on, etc.

Chapter 13.

Richard. Hear the apostle in First Corinthians 15, arguing: "If there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen again: our preaching is vain, our faith is vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God: because we have given testimony against God, that he hath raised up Christ, whom he hath not raised up. For if the dead rise not again, neither [is] Christ [risen again]; … our faith is vain: for you are yet in your sins. Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished."¹² See the conclusion that follows: if Christ did not have a true body, he did not truly die nor truly rise. Hence here, further on, the apostle says: "Senseless man, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die first." And if Christ did not truly rise, we remain in our sins, and the dead in Christ have perished, and our faith is vain. These are the apostle's conclusions, not mine. Again, how was Christ, "being rich, made poor" for us, as the apostle says to the Corinthians, chapter 8, if he did not have a true body? By assuming a phantasmal body¹³ he was not made poor. Or how "was he crucified through our weakness," as he says in the last chapter?¹⁴ Or how "did he empty himself, taking the form of a servant," as is said to the Philippians, chapter 2? For if he did not take our form, how "did he reconcile us in the body of his flesh," that is, "through his death," as is said to the Colossians, chapter 1? If he did not have a true body, nor flesh, then neither did he truly undergo death. Or how was he "made of a woman, made under the law,"¹⁵ Galatians chapter 4, if he did not have a true body? You see how he who denies that Christ had a true body destroys the whole New Testament, and the whole Old Testament too, which was given precisely for his coming. Hence Peter, in Acts 3, affirms that Christ truly died and rose again: "And all the prophets, from Samuel and afterwards, who have spoken, have told of these days." And the apostle,¹⁶ Acts 7, says: "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them who foretold to them of the coming of the Just One." He himself also says in the last chapter of Luke: "that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me." And earlier in the same chapter he himself said: "O foolish and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered and so to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the things that were concerning him." And in John 5 he says to the Jews: "Search the scriptures: for you think in them to have life everlasting. And the same are they that give testimony of me." And then he adds: "For if you believe Moses, you will perhaps believe me also: for he wrote of me." Hence it is evident that the Old Testament was put forth for his sake.

Chapter 14.

John. Now resolve the things I brought against the foregoing at the beginning of this article.

Richard. This first [text] that you bring from Romans, "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh," does not imply what you said; for the likeness is referred to sinful flesh, not to flesh alone. Hence Christ's flesh was [not]¹⁷ true sinful flesh, yet it was true flesh, as follows from what he adds there a little after: "And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead," etc. For if he was raised from the dead, he had true flesh, not only the likeness of flesh, truly; and in the following chapter: "and of whom is Christ, according to the flesh." And if, moreover, the likeness is referred to flesh, you would not rightly conclude from the likeness that he did not have true flesh, since true flesh is more like true flesh than phantasmal flesh is. Were Paul and Barnabas not true men, who said, "We also are mortals, men like unto you," Acts 14? Rather, by the very fact that they were like, they meant to show that they were men. So the apostle, before the text from Philippians that you brought above, "being made in the likeness of men," put: "He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant"; in which taking he would not have been emptied if he had assumed only a phantasmal likeness of flesh and not true flesh; and to that same saying he adds: "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him," etc. From these he plainly shows that he had a true body, not a phantasmal one. Nor ought it to move you that he walked upon the sea, since [Peter] walked upon the water with a true body, Matthew 14.¹⁸ Nor ought the fact that he entered to the disciples when the doors were shut move you to assert that his body was not true, if you believe that he gave his true body to his disciples under the species of bread, and that before that he held it in his own hands; for this is far more wonderful of a true body. And so too we believe that he came forth from his mother's womb with his mother's integrity preserved. For what is not incompatible with a glorified body, you ought not to deny can be done, through his omnipotence, with the true body of Christ.

Chapter 15.

[RICHARD.] But what you bring forward from the Gospel of John, "Woman, what is that to me and to thee?" (John 2:4), does not serve your purpose. For the Lord himself meant to show that the remedy his mother wished to apply could not come from what he had taken from his mother, but from his divinity alone, whose hour for doing this had not yet come when his mother was asking, or had asked. And therefore he says, "Woman, what is that to me and to thee? My hour is not yet come," as if he had said openly: "My mother, you entreat me as your son to come to the aid of the guests with wine; but I am not your son except according to a finite nature, according to which I cannot apply [the remedy]. For this belongs to my divinity, which is of infinite power; but my hour is not yet come, that is, the hour in which I shall do what you ask according to my divinity." Moreover, it is according to his divinity that he says, "I am not of this world" (John 8:23), that is, I am not earthly, although I bear a body from the earth, but heavenly. Or you may take that saying according to manner of life, as he says of the disciples in John 15[:19], "You are not of the world": your manner of life is not after the fashion of those who love the world, but your manner of life is heavenly. And what you adduce, that the church is his body (which, as it seems to me, is to be understood not properly but by likeness), does not prove that the body which he bore in his person was not his body, and that only the church is called his body, since Scripture says that he had a true body. Also, what you adduce, that he rebuked the Jews (as it seems to you) who said that he was the son of David, you do not rightly understand; for the evangelists call him the son of David, and the Lord himself said, "The Lord hath sworn truth to David, and he will not make it void: of the fruit of thy womb I will set upon thy throne" (Psalm 131:11).¹ This fruit very many of the saints take to be Christ, of whom he had said immediately before, "Turn not away the face of thy anointed" (Psalm 131:10). But he reproved them because in their answer they understood him to be man and not God; and therefore, to prove that he was God, he adduced the testimony of David the prophet himself, "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand" (Psalm 109:1), not to prove that he was not man, or that he did not have a body from the seed of David. Hence Paul, in the person of God, in Acts 13[:22–23], says, speaking of David, "I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man according to my own heart, who shall do my wills; of whose seed God, according to his promise, hath raised up to Israel a Saviour Jesus."² And what you adduce from the Gospel of John, "The Word was made flesh" (John 1:14), is rather for us than against us. For that which becomes something else ceases [to be] (to speak according to your view), if "to become" is "to be converted"; therefore it follows that the Word ceased to be, if it was made flesh by conversion. And since this cannot stand, it follows that it must be understood otherwise than by conversion, so that by "flesh" man is taken, as in Genesis 6[:12], "All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth," and in the place, "All flesh shall see the salvation of our God,"³ and in like places; so that the sense is, "The Word is man," which I think can be said without cavil.

Chapter 16.

John. If you please, let us now see how it might be maintained from Scripture that the human nature was in Christ only as the clothing of the divinity, or its garment or habit, as the Apostle, according to some, seems to take it in Philippians 2[:7], "In habit found as a man,"⁴ in the way in which we say that angels, good and bad, assume a human nature, in which they are read to have done many things with men. Again, Isaiah in the sixty-third chapter of his book, speaking of him, says, "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra, this beautiful one in his robe?" (Isaiah 63:1), and afterwards, "Why then is thy apparel red, and thy garment like theirs that tread in the winepress?" (Isaiah 63:2),⁵ calling the human nature his apparel and his garment. Again, Zechariah 4⁶ seems to mean the same, who, according to some, speaks thus of him: "And Jesus was clothed with filthy garments" (Zechariah 3:3), and afterwards, "Take away the filthy garments from him," Zechariah 3[:4], where he seems to call the body, that is, the mortal [body], filthy garments. Again, the prophet David calls his body a tabernacle, saying, "He hath set his tabernacle in the sun" (Psalm 18:6),⁷ as you yourself affirmed above; and a tabernacle seems further removed from a personal union than a garment or clothing. When this has first been made clear, it will be evident that the human nature was united to the divinity hypostatically or personally, so that Christ can properly and truly be called man; and for this you will bring forward proper testimonies.

Chapter 17.

Richard. It seems to me that if you consider the things I adduced to show that Christ had a true body, and especially those which affirm that he suffered and died and rose again and redeemed us by his death, which could not be done by means of a garment and clothing, you would by no means need other proofs. Are not the sayings of the Gospels and of the apostles full of this, indeed chiefly about this: that Christ died for us and rose again and freed us from sin by his death? Nor do I think you so foolish as not to see that this cannot be done by means of a garment. For even if the garment or clothing of anyone alone suffers, or is laid aside by him and taken up again by him, it is not on that account said, nor can it truly be said, that he himself suffers, or dies, or rises again. This you can plainly understand in the angels, good and bad, when they assume true, gross and corpulent human bodies as clothing, as happens in demoniacs, in whom the devil inhabits the whole man, and unites him [?] to himself,⁸ and moves him, speaks through his members, and works many evil deeds through him. And so it was with the angel who wrestled with Jacob, of whom Genesis 32; and the angels whom Abraham fed, and whom Lot received in hospitality and washed their feet, of whom Genesis 18 and 19; and the angel Raphael, who led Tobias to his father Tobias, of whom Tobit 6 and following. In these and like ministrations the angels had corpulent and gross human bodies; or else they assume subtle bodies, or bodies fashioned in human form, as in many other innumerable apparitions of angels. For in all these assumptions it cannot be said that the good or bad angel suffers, nor that the angel dies by laying [the body] aside, or rises again by taking it up again; for in that case good angels and demons would frequently, sometimes in one day, suffer, die, and rise again, since in one day they thus assume and lay aside bodies many times, which is too foolish to believe. The reason of this is plain: for to die and to rise again are passions of supposita, persons or hypostases, since to die is nothing else than for the life or soul of some one individual or suppositum or hypostasis to be separated, or dissolved, or to perish; and to rise again is nothing else than for the life or soul of some suppositum or hypostasis, after the death of the whole suppositum, to be reunited hypostatically to its body. In this all the philosophers agree, and sense too shows it. For example, if between a spirit and the body to which it is united there is no hypostatic union but only a garment-union,⁹ then I say that, just as nothing dies there by the separation of the one from the other, so nothing rises again by the taking up again, as neither [does anything die or rise] when someone lays aside or puts on his garment: as you understand to be the case in the angel, so in the body and in any spirit united to a body by way of its clothing or garment. Hence it is clearly evident that if the divine Word assumed the human nature only as clothing or a garment, so that it was not united to him hypostatically, the divine Word would not suffer on account of the suffering of the human nature, nor did God die by its being laid aside, or rise again by its being taken up again. Therefore, since it was shown above, when we were treating of his true body and true soul, that God truly suffered and died and afterwards rose again, it follows that the human nature was not merely as clothing or a garment to him, but was also truly united to him personally or hypostatically, and that on account of that union God could most truly be called man, and a person, hypostasis, suppositum, individual, or one in number in the human species,¹⁰ and could suffer and die after the manner of men and truly rise again, as Holy Scripture very often testifies.

Chapter 18.

John. Do not, I beg, hurry, but let us proceed more slowly. See, I grant that it is clear from what has been said that an angel does not die or rise again when it lays aside the body it has assumed as clothing and takes back what it laid aside. This moreover would be true even if the angel had been hypostatically united to that body, so that from the angel and the assumed body one person came to be, as [one does] from the human soul and body. For then the angel would not die by laying aside that body, just as the rational soul does not now die when it lays aside the human body through the death of the man himself; nor would the angel rise again when that body was hypostatically taken up again, just as the soul of Lazarus did not rise again, but Lazarus did, when his soul was personally or hypostatically reunited to his body. Therefore it follows on this head that if the divine Word was united personally to the human nature, then when that nature was laid aside the Word did not die, nor did God, nor, when it was taken up again in the resurrection, did God rise again, just as neither an angel nor a rational soul dies or rises again in such a case. But if anything must thus die or rise again, it seems that this is the person composed of the divine Word and the human nature; just as in a like case the whole man dies and rises again,¹¹ [so] the hypostasis composed of the angel and the assumed body by a personal union, if it came to be, would die and rise again, not the angel, etc.

Chapter 19.

Richard. You would conclude well if the assumptions of the human nature by the Word, and of a body by an angel and by the rational soul, were wholly alike; but as it is they are very unlike. For in such a case, where a personal union came about, both the angel and the soul would truly become part of one person composed of the angel or the soul together with the assumed body; but God, or the divine Word, is in no way part of a composite person, nor can he in any way be a part.¹² Attend to the proof of this. For if it were so, that person of which God was one part would be of equal power with God, since it would have the whole power of all its parts, of which one part would be God. It follows also that some person who was not God would be of equal power with God, which no sect whatever admits; for nothing besides God is equal to God, as all proclaim. A second argument: every thing that is not God depends in its being on God, as on the sustaining, founding and supporting power of its essence, as will be shown more plainly in the seventeenth [book] of this [work];¹³ hence Paul says in Acts 17[:28], "In him we live and move and are." But God, or the person of God, cannot depend on himself as on a person supporting or subsisting within; therefore neither can that person of which God is a part thus depend on God in its being, since it is equally powerful in existing as God. Therefore God is not, nor can be, part of any such person. Again, if the person of the divine Word, namely God the Son, were part of one person, since the Word of God is always and necessarily a person, a person would be part of a person; which nature does not bear, just as nature does not permit that one man be part of another angel.¹⁴ For that person or hypostasis or individual would then not be one person but several. Therefore God could not be part of one person. Again, if God had thus assumed the human nature, he would then not truly have been man or a human hypostasis, but part of it; just as in the case you posit the rational soul is not man, nor is the angel the rational animal composed of the angelic spirit and the body; and we truly say that God is man. Again, every hypostasis or person that is not God is a creature. If then God is part of one person, since he cannot be the matter of anything, he would be its form. But a true person or hypostasis does not come to be from form and matter except when the form is joined to the matter by a natural union; and there can be no natural union of the infinite with a finite nature, since between them there would be no natural relation or proportion. Therefore God can be the form of no suppositum or person. Again, if God were part of one person, that person, like other natural things, would have some natural operation. That operation would be finite or infinite. Not finite,¹⁵ because it would be of infinite power; and it is evident that the natural action of an infinite person must be infinite. Nor would the operation be infinite, because it would depend on a finite part, namely the body; and nothing infinite can depend on the finite. Hence it follows, since such a person would not have and could not have a natural action, that such a person could not exist at all. You see, therefore, that the Word of God cannot be in the human species as the human soul [is], and as an angel could be part of one hypostasis if God joined an angel to some body by hypostatic union; but the Word himself so assumed the human nature that he was called man and a human hypostasis: a mode of natural union that can by no means exist in an angel, or in a soul, or in any other creature; rather, any creature whatever would necessarily, by hypostatic union with something, become part of one thing composed of both of them. That is why God is said truly to have died and risen again in the human nature assumed by him, although an angel or a soul could neither die nor rise again in such an assumed nature. Yet do not think that God is said to have died because he laid aside the human nature united to him, nor to have risen again because he took it up again; but he is said truly to have died because his soul laid aside his body, and truly to have risen again because his soul hypostatically put on his body again. I think, therefore, that I concluded solidly enough above (and you too can conclude it) that, since Christ truly died and truly rose again in the human nature, the nature was not to him as bare clothing or a garment, but was truly united to him, so that he himself was man and a human hypostasis.

Chapter 20.

John. I do not know where you are leading me. For now you say that the Son of God is a human hypostasis or nature, that is, one singular man in the human species, whom we call Jesus, as the angel taught us in Luke 1[:31]; and besides this you affirm that God, or the divinity, is not a part of the hypostasis but is the whole hypostasis and true man. From which it plainly follows, to my mind, that God has no other parts, or no other part, than another man has, since he has no part except soul and body, seeing that the deity is not a part of him; and so God does not have two natures, namely the divine and the human, in his hypostasis, but only the human. This error you ought rather to make void, since this whole disputation arose for me from it. RICHARD. Here you do not conclude well. Did I not prove above that Jesus is God,¹ and from this deduction you are compelled to admit that he is man? Therefore it follows necessarily that he contains in his hypostasis two natures, namely the divine and the human. I do not say as parts: for neither is the divine nature a part of him, as I proved, but it is Jesus himself; nor is the human nature (I mean the whole of it) a part of him, because, as I said, he has no part except the parts of the human nature itself, and therefore that whole human nature in him is not a part of him. But in a certain manner ineffable, inestimable, and wholly unthinkable by human wit, the divine and the human nature are thus contained and are in Jesus himself; and he is the divine nature and God, and is not the human nature; and yet, on account of the manner in which he united it to himself, he is truly, like another man, a human hypostasis and one singular man like the rest. JOHN. I now seem to understand that the human body, assumed by the divinity and united to it personally, could also fittingly be called the clothing, habit, garment, or tabernacle of the divinity or of God, as I adduced above; yet it cannot be called clothing only, in such a way, namely, that it is not hypostatically united to the divinity. Nor do I regret that I feigned to doubt on this; hence the things I set down above are not contrary to this view, and so they need no solution.

Chapter 21.

John. But yet another thing occurs to me to be resolved by you. For here you set down as firm that neither God before the assumption of the body from the glorious Virgin, nor the good angels nor the bad, before that assumption or after, had human bodies united to them hypostatically or personally. How then are those things true which we read of God and of the angels good and bad, who appeared to men, walked with them, talked with them, and ate with them, and did other like human works in human nature, as men do? See, we read in Genesis 3[:8] that Adam and Eve, when they had committed sin, heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, who addressed them and rebuked them for the crime committed, and punished them. It is read also in Genesis 18 and 19 that angels appeared to Abraham and ate with him, and with Lot, as is also read there. Hence the Apostle, Hebrews, last chapter[:2]: "Some have pleased God by entertaining angels."² That an angel wrestled with Jacob, which it is certain was done in human form: of which deed Genesis 32. That the angel Raphael went as a man with Tobias, drinking and eating with him, and led him there and back: of which Tobit 6. That an angel met Balaam with a drawn sword: of which the book of Numbers 22. That an angel appeared to Gideon and sat under an oak and spoke, and touched his sacrifice with the tip of the rod which he held in his hand, which sufficiently shows that he had human form: of which Judges 6. That he appeared to Manoah and his wife and spoke with them, and they did not know that he was an angel, but called him a man and invited him to food, which sufficiently shows that he appeared in the form of a man: Judges 13. That an angel appeared to Peter, opening the prison and leading him through the streets of the city, which it is evident was done in human form from what is said in Acts 12[:9], that "he knew not that it was true which was done by the angel: but thought he saw a vision." That two men stood by the apostles in white garments as the Lord ascended, who said to them, "Ye men of Galilee," etc., as is read in Acts 1[:10–11], whom it is evident were angels in human likeness. That demons dwelling in men spoke through men, whom the Lord and his disciples are read to have cast out: Matthew 8, Mark 1 and 3 and 5, and Luke 4, and Acts 16, and in many like places; and especially [the places] of Abraham, Lot and Tobias, in which it is expressed that they ate, walked, and did other like human works. I do not well understand how those things which are read to have been done could be done without personal union; or if they could, I do not well see how from any works or acts of our Lord Jesus Christ in human nature suppositation or personality in human nature could be proved,³ since from like acts in the apparitions of angels, in which they exercised like acts, such suppositation or personation in human nature cannot be proved of the angels, nor even of God before the incarnation from the Virgin, as you say. Hence it seems that it can be understood in the same way of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, that he exercised all such acts without suppositation in human nature. Unless, therefore, you first exclude this doubt and show me clearly which acts spirits can exercise in a human body without personal union and which not, it seems to me that what you set down will not be a solid enough foundation, etc.

Chapter 22.

Richard. Attend to what was set down above in chapter 8⁴ and elsewhere, where I nowhere proved true suppositation of the human nature, or a true body or a true soul in Christ, from speech or walking or eating; though, according to the mind of the Jews, I set down eating as an infallible sign of a man raised from the dead, which sign I by no means approved as infallible. And therefore you do not see why from those things which we read of God before Christ's conception or after it, it could be proved that they [?] were at the same time suppositated or personated in human nature;⁵ nor does the impossibility of this proof on that head weaken anything of the proofs I set out above, since I proved everything concerning his suppositation in human nature, and concerning his body and also his soul (that he had them truly and not by likeness), from these causes: namely from pain and sorrow, from fatigue, from sleep, from hunger and thirst, and from the growth of the body according to the age of time, from strengthening by an angel, from weeping in the passion, and from the desire of reason to eat the pasch with his disciples, and from his true death and resurrection. None of these, so far as it seems to me and occurs to me, is anywhere read in Scripture of any angel that appeared to men in human form, unless perhaps you suspect it of sleep, since in Genesis 19[:4] it is read of the angels who had come in to Lot, "before they went to bed, the men of the city beset the house." That saying does not prove that the angels slept; they could also, in a human and phantasmal body, go to bed after the manner [of men] without sleeping there. Nor is it anywhere read, so far as occurs to me, of the demons who spoke in men and through the members of men and dwelt in men, that they did or suffered any of the things I have adduced. And that I may plainly describe what seems to me on this article: attend that an angel, good or bad, or even God himself, in assuming a human body, as is wont to happen in the apparitions of angels, without personal or suppositive union, can move that body locally and can exercise the members of that body that are fitted for various operations, and whatever pertains to motion, and whatever can be accomplished by local motion alone. Hence he can, according to the common usage of speech, walk, fly, eat, that is, take food into the mouth and swallow it inwardly, although this is not properly eating. Hence in Tobit 12[:19] the angel Raphael says, "I seemed indeed to eat and to drink with you: but I use an invisible meat and drink, which cannot be seen by men";⁶ in saying "I seemed" he intimates that he did not truly eat. And he can speak, that is, form sounds through instruments fitted for this; which sounds are called voices by men because through them they receive a meaning, and they signify it, though perhaps such are less properly called voices, as the sounds of birds that make sounds like human voices are by usage also called voices, though less properly. Or such sounds, made by angels through fitting instruments in human nature or in some other way, ought properly to be called voices, because they are made by an angel with the intention of signifying. Whether they are properly called voices or not, at least an angel could form such voices without personal union through natural human members, or even in a spiritual body and through a spiritual body; and such works are accomplished by the local motion of human members alone. Therefore from no act that an angel can exercise by local motion in some nature to which it is united can its suppositation in that nature be argued; but from acts that cannot be done without action or passion of a soul, suppositation in human nature can well be argued, when such acts are exercised in it by it. If therefore you can find in Holy Scripture that God himself or an angel did some act which could not be done in a human body without a human soul, confidently conclude that that act proceeded from a human suppositum; which I think you can never find in the sacred Scriptures of God or an angel, apart from this person of the Lord Jesus Christ. For all the things you adduced above from Scripture about the works of God and of angels could evidently have been done by the local motion of human members alone, and by those things that follow naturally in the members from local motion. JOHN. I confess that you have removed no small doubt from my mind. Go on further to where you were heading.

Chapter 23.

Richard. If the humanity assumed by the Son of God was truly a garment or clothing to him, not personally united to him so that by that union he was truly man like other men, it is not found that that humanity was united otherwise to the Son of God than to God the Father or to the Holy Spirit; since in that humanity God the Father dwelt and was, and likewise the Holy Spirit, by sanctifying indwelling and by sustaining, vivifying and moving indwelling. For the Father sanctified that soul and body, and likewise the Holy Spirit, just as the Son did, according to that text of John 14[:23], "We will come to him and will make our abode with him," and according to what the Apostle says in Acts 17[:28], "In him we live and move and are." So the human nature of Christ lived and moved and was in the Father and the Holy Spirit just as in the Son, because none of these belongs to the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit except by reason of the divine power or goodness, which is one equally in these three persons. Therefore, according to this, the Father would be called man and son of man, and also the promised Christ, and emptied, and lower than the angels, and lower than the Holy Spirit; and likewise the Holy Spirit, like Christ, would be called the Son of God, which our faith abhors. For nowhere in the whole New or Old Testament is there talk of the incarnation of the Father or of the Holy Spirit, in both of which the incarnation of the Son is treated principally and simply, as the foregoing shows. Hence to affirm that the Father or the Holy Spirit is incarnate destroys the faith and all our Scripture.⁷ Now it is evident that this follows if the humanity in Christ was only the clothing or garment of Christ's divinity; for then it would equally have been the clothing and garment of the Father and the Holy Spirit as of the Son. For the indivisible unity of the divine essence in three persons requires that everything that befits one person befit the three as well, unless it should include confusion of the persons, as will be treated in the next book, on the procession of the Holy Spirit.⁸ But it does not include or imply confusion of the persons, or lack of distinction between them, that they have the same clothing or garment; because, just as when they sanctify some soul by making their abode in it, as is said in John 14, all three persons inhabit that soul and have it as clothing, indeed they then have it as clothing and dwelling more nearly and intimately than Christ had the human nature, if it was only the clothing of the deity in him; since the Apostle says, "He who is joined to God is one spirit with him," in 1 Corinthians 6[:17];⁹ and the Saviour himself asks the Father that his own may be one with them, as they also are one, John 17[:21].¹⁰ Now it is evident that he willed that they should dwell in, or have, a greater unity with them than a garment has with the one whose it is. But he who uses another nature only as clothing is one with it by reason of its union only as one who has a garment is [one] with his garment, just as an angel is thus one with the body assumed by it. Hence, the distinction between two angels remaining, [each] can well put on the same body, which demons often do: he appeared first, says Scripture, to Mary Magdalen, out of whom he had cast seven devils, Matthew, last chapter; and from one man Christ himself cast out a legion of demons, as is read in Mark, last chapter, and Luke 8.¹¹ So therefore it follows, if the human nature is in Christ as bare clothing, that the Father and the Holy Spirit must likewise be called incarnate, emptied, made lower than the angels, and the like, just as God the Son; and since this is too absurd, it follows that the human nature is so united to God the Son that he suppositates it and is properly called man like the rest, etc.

Chapter 24.

John. It seems at first sight that, from the argument you set down, you could prove, according to our faith, that the Father was incarnate, and likewise the Holy Spirit, and that each is man and son of man, and the other things that are said of the Son, namely Christ; because in these three persons there is one essence, simple, indivisible and inseparable. Hence it seems that all these things befit one person as much as another, since all things befit the one simple God. Therefore there is need to unfold your foregoing argument. RICHARD. The argument is not alike in every respect but very unlike, and I gave the reason, though you did not notice it. I will therefore say it more openly. For if¹ the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are simply one God and are three persons, as John says most openly in his first canonical [epistle], chapter 5[:7], "And these three are one" (and also the whole course of his Gospel shows that the Father is not the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, nor is the Holy Spirit the Son, nor the Son the Holy Spirit, who is called the third of these three; for so they would not be three but two, or only one), then nothing is to be admitted or granted in our faith from which there follows this confusion of these three, or of two of them. By confusion I mean lack of distinction, such that one is the same as the other, or likewise that these three are one, whom we Latins call three persons and the Greeks three hypostases, understanding a trinity in them; and since, positing in them no distinction of essence but complete simplicity, unity and indivisibility, and holding this with firm faith, they are called one God, it follows that these three are one essence, one substance, one power, one goodness, etc., in all things that are said of God absolutely; and for this reason nothing is to be admitted in our faith that sets forth any distinction in any such thing. Hence it follows that these three are not three gods, nor three goodnesses, nor three wisdoms, nor three powers, nor anything similar said absolutely, from which there could follow in these three a diversity or divisibility or distinction of essence in them. From this it follows necessarily that when the Son was incarnate, or assumed human nature in the Virgin so as to be man by that assumption, the Father was not on that account incarnate in that same nature assumed in the Virgin, so that the Father by that assumption is man. For if this is a consequent, it follows that God the Father would be one and the same man as the Son, since he would be God composed of precisely the same human parts; and so God the Father would be God the Son, so that they would not be two but one. For if both were one man, there is no doubt that one of them would be the other. Or if you say that the Father, since he is a person other than the Son, would, if he put on the same human nature by suppositation, be a man other than the Son, and yet from precisely the same parts (which seems too hard to understand), at least what we want follows, namely that it is not on account of the unity of essence of these two that, when one is suppositated in some nature, the suppositation of the other follows in the same. For since unity of essence does not infer one suppositation of both, it is much more remote that it should infer a distinct suppositation; which it would yet do if, through the incarnation of the Father in the numerically same nature, he were yet a man other than the Son and not the same man that the Son is. So therefore there follows in these, namely in the Father and the Son, confusion or lack of distinction, if the foregoing inference is posited as good. In like manner it is evident what would follow concerning the Holy Spirit, if this inference were posited to be good: "The Son, God, is man; therefore the Holy Spirit is man." But this confusion or lack of distinction of these three by no means follows if the inference is posited as good in the assumption of a bare garment. For it does not follow that the Father is the Son, or one and the same man as the Son, because each has the same nature as clothing or garment; for it is not on account of the assumption of such a garment or clothing that the Father or the Son is called a personal suppositum or hypostasis in the species from which the garment is taken. For so the Holy Spirit would have been a suppositum in the species of a dove, since he appeared above Christ in the nature of a dove as in a garment, as is read in John 1 and Matthew 3; and elsewhere he would have been fire, when he appeared to the apostles in the species of fire, Acts 2; so God [would have been] man when he walked in paradise at the afternoon air, as is read in Genesis 3; and the Father would have been a voice when he appeared in a voice above Christ at his baptism, as is read in Mark 3 and Matthew 1 and Luke 3;² so moreover angels, both good and bad, would be true men when they assume the nature of man as a garment, which it is evident is not true.

Chapter 25.

John. It pleases me that, on the occasion of my objection, you have handed me so brief and so firm a teaching of the faith as to the things that befit the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit by reason of the simple unity of the divine essence, and as to those also that are said of them by [personal] property and without confusion.

Say more, if you please. RICHARD. If the nature assumed by the Son of God was only clothing or a garment to him, since that nature alone was suppositated or personated in the species of man, so that from the parts of that nature, namely soul and body, a singular man came to be, whom we call Jesus and Christ, from whom we are called Christians, it follows that that man, namely Jesus Christ, was not God but a true creature like other men, though assumed as clothing by the Son of God. And yet [it has been shown] that the Messiah must be God,³ and also that our Christ was the Messiah in the law, as Philip says to Nathanael, John 1[:45]: "Him of whom Moses in the law did write, we have found, Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth";⁴ unless perhaps someone should say that from the soul and body of Christ no one man came to be, and consequently that the Virgin Mary did not conceive or bear a man, but only a nature [not] suppositated.⁵ Now it is evident that she gave to her offspring or conception this name, Jesus, as is clear from Luke 2[:21]. According to this, therefore, Jesus is neither God nor man, but a human nature not personated at all; and since Jesus and Christ are the same, it follows that our Christ was neither God nor man. But this is so absurd that he ought not to be called a Christian who affirms this of his Christ, since the whole Gospel contains nothing else but the works of Christ that he did, which belong only to supposita. For there cannot be an action except when it is the act of a suppositum, or of a thing existing simply as a suppositum, or of an individual, as all the philosophers confess. Again, either the soul of Christ was naturally united to his body, and it follows that what was composed of them was a true man like other men; or it was not naturally united to the body, and it follows that nothing truly one came to be from them, just as nothing truly one in some natural species comes to be from an angel and the body assumed by it. Hence the asserter of this view must not only deny that his Christ is God or man, but must altogether deny that he is anything truly one, and is compelled to affirm a monster or an imperfect redeemer. And what more insane than this can be said? Now it is evident that from the soul of Christ and his body there truly came to be one, whom we call Christ Jesus. Hence it is manifest that the human nature in him was not only the clothing of the divinity, since he himself was God and man, etc.

Chapter 26.

Again, Moses says of him in Deuteronomy 18[:15], as the apostle Peter testifies in Acts 3[:22]: "The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a prophet of thy nation and of thy brethren like unto me"; and below: "I will raise them up a prophet like to thee out of the midst of thy brethren" (Deuteronomy 18:18).⁶ See, he says that he is a prophet raised up from the nation of the Jews and from their brethren, like to himself. Hence it is evident that he must be a man; and he who denies him this incurs what follows: "And he that will not hear the words of him who speaks in my name, I will be the revenger" (Deuteronomy 18:19). And Peter says, "Every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among his people" (Acts 3:23). Again, Jeremiah says of him (since his saying cannot be understood of another), "The Lord hath created a new thing upon the earth: a woman shall compass a man," Jeremiah 31[:22]. For no one was ever a perfect man in his mother's womb but he. For if anyone should understand by "man" a human infant and others indiscriminately, what the prophet says is not new but ancient, from the beginning of the world. Or if he is called a man by the prophet on account of a male body united to him as clothing, neither then was this new, since God and the angels from the beginning of this world had bodies as clothing, as was made clear in chapter 21 here, etc.; since many demons dwelt in women before the times of Jeremiah, as in the pythoness who is read to have raised Samuel, or the devil bearing the likeness of Samuel, for there is no doubt that the devil dwelt in her; and likewise of the others of whom it is said in 1 Kings 28 that pythons should not be consulted, and in Leviticus 20[:27], "A man or woman in whom there is a pythonical or divining spirit shall die the death."⁷ "Man," therefore, the promised one was called, because he was to be called a perfect man in his mother's womb, etc.

Chapter 27.

Again, the first psalm cannot literally be understood of another, since of no other is it true, "All whatsoever he shall do shall prosper" (Psalm 1:3). And what is said in that psalm in his commendation, "His will was in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night" (Psalm 1:2), would be a very unworthy commendation of Christ if he were God and not man, namely that he should meditate day and night on his own law. So that the commendation may be worthy and fitting, therefore, it follows that this is said according to his humanity. And to meditate on the law could not befit him if said according to a garment only, just as it could not befit an angel, or even God the Father or the Holy Spirit. Therefore it follows that he was truly man. Again, Psalm 3, "Why, O Lord, are they multiplied that afflict me?" etc., is taken of Christ, not of David, since [David] never rose from death; but here it is said, "I have slept and have taken my rest: and I have risen up, because the Lord hath protected me" (Psalm 3:6), speaking of the sleep and rest of death. For it would be unworthy to offer in a divine hymn that he slept and took his rest, as is commonly done by a man; moreover, his rising from this sleep would not have had this cause, namely that the Lord protected him, since individual sinners rise so every day whom God has not protected. Since therefore this psalm is said of Christ, who in his divinity could not be afflicted, nor sleep, nor take rest, nor rise from sleep, it follows that he who suffered this was a true man. This is confirmed also by his saying that he had a soul: "Many," he says, "say to my soul: There is no salvation for him in his God" (Psalm 3:3); a sentence spoken by the Jews as Christ was dying on the cross: "He trusted in God: let him deliver him now if he will," Matthew 27[:43].⁸ Again, Psalm 8 speaks thus of him: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou hast made him a little less than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour: and hast set him over the works of thy hands. Thou hast subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen: moreover, the beasts also of the fields" (Psalm 8:5–8). This testimony the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, chapter 2[:6–8], and in 1 Corinthians 15[:27], adduces to prove that he is true God, and nonetheless affirms him true man, calling him man and son, and for this reason he says that he was made less than the angels. But if he had taken human nature as a habit or garment, he would not for that reason have been made lower than the angels, since those angels who, appearing to men, had conversed with men were not diminished in relation to the rest by such an assumption of a body by way of clothing or habit. Again, Psalm 16⁹ says, "I set the Lord always in my sight: for he is at my right hand, that I be not moved. Therefore my heart hath been glad, and my tongue hath rejoiced: moreover, my flesh also shall rest¹⁰ in hope. Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt fill me with joy with thy countenance" (Psalm 15:8–11). This saying Peter, in Acts 2[:25–31], proves to be said of Christ, not of David; and the proof is clear, because David's flesh was corrupted and turned to ashes, and was in the sepulchre among the Jews. Again, it is not true of David that he always set the Lord in his sight, since it is evident that he sinned gravely and many times and was moved. Therefore these things must necessarily be taken of Christ. But if he had the human nature only as clothing, the Lord would not have made known to him the ways of life in it, nor filled Christ with joy in it, as he says here; for through a garment alone he would neither know more nor rejoice more abundantly, however much he might be in it; nor do these things befit him according to clothing. Therefore he was truly man, etc.

Chapter 28.

Again, the prophet in Psalm 19 addresses Christ in this way: "May the Lord hear thee in the day of tribulation: may the name of the God of Jacob protect thee. May he send thee help from the sanctuary: and defend thee out of Sion. May he be mindful of all thy sacrifices: and may thy whole burnt-offering be made fat. May he give thee according to thy own heart; and confirm all thy counsels. We will rejoice in thy salvation; and in the name of our God we shall be exalted. The Lord fulfil all thy petitions: now have I known that the Lord hath saved his anointed."¹ It is evident that David did not say this of himself, namely "we will rejoice in thy salvation," since he could not save himself, and he plainly addresses another than himself in saying "in thy salvation." Hence it is evident that these things were said of Christ, the Saviour and King, of whom he says next that the Lord hath saved his anointed, and of whom he said before, "and in the name of our God we shall be exalted." For the one in whom he says that he rejoices and is exalted with the others is one [and the same] with the one of whom he says that he will have tribulations and will offer sacrifice and burnt-offering;² hence he prays God to hear this king, Christ, to protect and defend him, to send him help, to give him according to his heart, and to confirm his counsel. All of this would have been done improvidently if Christ had not been a man but God only, having human nature as a clothing; for so he could not be in tribulation, nor need help, defence or protection, nor would it befit him to offer sacrifice or burnt-offering to anyone, nor could his counsel be confirmed, since his counsel would be the divine counsel and he could not lack anything he willed, just as God cannot lack anything he desires; nor could the prophet fittingly and aptly pray that God give him [anything] according to that heart. It is evident, therefore, from this psalm that Christ had to be a true man, and that such things could befit him. Of him there follows in the [next] psalm:³ "In thy strength, O Lord, the king shall joy; and in thy salvation he shall rejoice exceedingly. Thou hast given him his soul's desire: and hast not withholden from him the will of his lips. For thou hast prevented him with blessings of sweetness: thou hast set on his head a crown of precious stones. He asked life of thee: and thou hast given him length of days for ever and ever. His glory is great in thy salvation: glory and great beauty shalt thou lay upon him. For thou shalt give him to be a blessing, and for ever and ever thou shalt make him joyful with thy countenance.⁴ For the king hopeth in the Lord: and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved." David did not say this of himself but of the person of the Messiah, on whom falls the blessing promised to Abraham and Isaac: "For thou shalt give him," he says, "to be a blessing for ever." Of David, too, it is not true that "thou hast given him length of days for ever and ever," since he has not been raised up to this day. Again, he plainly speaks of Christ when he says, "Thou hast prevented him with blessings of sweetness." What is this but what he says of Christ in Psalm 44: "God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows"?⁵ Again, what he says, "His glory is great in thy salvation: glory and great beauty shalt thou lay upon him," is taken of the glory of Christ among the nations of the world on account of their salvation through him, since the cause of this glory has been fulfilled through Christ and was bound to be fulfilled through the Messiah.⁶ But if he was not a true man, but, existing as God, had human nature united to him only as a clothing, these and the other things said here would in no way befit him. For God in his divinity could not be prevented with blessings, he who had been supremely blessed from eternity; nor could he receive in himself from God a glory which he had before, as it says, "glory and great beauty shalt thou lay upon him." Nor would he ask life of God, just as [he would] not [ask] the hope of a state [?],⁷ he who was in himself blessed life; nor could length of days be granted him anew by anyone, since he was in himself true eternity. For these things cannot befit the divinity by reason of itself, nor the divinity of Christ on account of a mere clothing; therefore he to whom the foregoing were to befit had to be a man.

Chapter 29.

Again, Psalm 21 says of Christ: "O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my sins."⁸ In this psalm the prophet himself described the circumstances of Christ's passion in agreement with the gospels [?];⁹ thus, when in death he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" he went on to say how they dug his hands and feet, how the soldiers parted his garments among them, casting lots upon his vesture, and how those who saw him laughed him to scorn, wagging their heads, just as the evangelists describe. If these things are considered without cavil, it will appear most manifestly that he was a true man and had human nature united to him by a suppositive, or personal, or hypostatic union, and not merely as a clothing of the divine nature. For if he was God and not man, how could he be forsaken by God, since neither any good angel of his nor anyone else was ever forsaken by God? Or how could the sins of his own make him far from salvation, unless¹⁰ he lost his salvation, that is, for them? As Isaiah describes of him clearly enough in chapter 53 of his book: "Surely," he says, "he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows... But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins"; and below, "for the wickedness of my people have I struck him." Or how was his strength dried up like a potsherd, or how did his heart become like wax melting in the midst of him,¹¹ if he was not a man? The divine power could never dry up, or melt for grief, as he says of his soul, calling it his heart in the usual manner of Scripture. Or, if he was God only, why did he fear that help would be wanting, when he cried, "But thou, O Lord, remove not thy help to a distance from me; look towards my defence"? Or how could he be saved from the lion's mouth if he was not a man but God only? "Save me," he says, "from the lion's mouth; and my lowness from the horns of the unicorns." Or how could he who was God only have lowness? Hence it is plainly evident from this psalm that he existed as a true man and had human nature united to him by a personal union.

Again, Psalm 39 speaks thus of him, as the apostle expounds it in Hebrews 10: "Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire; but thou hast pierced ears for me." The apostle's text, however, has "but a body thou hast fitted to me." "Burnt offering and sin offering thou didst not require: then said I, Behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of me that I should do thy will, O God." From which the apostle concludes thus: "He taketh away the first, that he may establish that which followeth."¹² For if he was not a man but had a body merely as a clothing, he could merit nothing by it; hence it would be to no purpose that, to take away the old sacrifice, he said, "Behold I come, and a body thou hast fitted to me, that I should do thy will"; which God could not do if the body had been united to him only as a clothing. For an angel cannot merit at all in an assumed body or through an assumed body. But since both the gospel and the apostolic Scripture are full of testimonies affirming that Christ existed as a true man, therefore let these suffice for the present. It follows, therefore, necessarily, since he came in the flesh, that God did not will the old sacrifice but spurned it, and to this end consequently fitted a body to himself, that he might do his will; for in the body and through the body he merited and pleased God.

Chapter 30.

John. Let it be as you wish; and now I should like you to treat the opinion of that Dioscorus who affirms that in Christ there is one sole essence, as there is one person, namely the divine nature only, and that his human nature was converted into the divine.¹³

Richard. By the last three articles already treated his saying is plainly enough struck down. For if Christ had a true soul in the time of his converse with his apostles, and also a true body, and if there was a true and personal, or hypostatic, union of the whole human nature with the divine Word, that is, with the natural Son of God and true God, up to his passion, then it manifestly follows that neither the soul was changed or converted into the divinity, nor the body, nor the nature composed of them. For what has been changed or converted into another does not remain after the change or conversion; for if it really remains, it is quite ineptly or improperly said to be converted or changed into another; on which no one with natural wit, I think, could hesitate. None of those natures in Christ, therefore, was changed into the divinity, since it is evident that after the conception, and at the time of his death or passion, they were truly and really in him. But if he understood that the substance of the human nature was converted into the divine, as we say that by the words of consecration the substance of bread is converted into the body of Christ, in such a way, namely, that all the accidents remained without a subject, or substance bearing them, and this by divine power: that [opinion] is broken in this way, for so it follows, as before, that just as in the sacrament of the body and blood the substance of bread and wine does not remain, so in Christ the substance of the body or soul did not remain after the conversion, contrary to the three aforesaid articles. For although it were conceivable, and possible with the Lord, that it had been so—namely that the Word of God, or the Son of God, had been under the accidents of human nature and had also appeared a man, so that those accidents of human nature were by divine power active and passive as if human nature underlay them, as is the case in the accidents of bread and wine after their substance has been converted, by the words of sanctification and conversion, into the substance of the body and blood of Christ—and this is not to be denied as possible by divine power; yet, since it is plainly evident from the foregoing articles that Christ had a true body and a true soul up to the time of his passion, and not only the accidents of human nature, it follows that his human nature was not changed into the divine.

Chapter 31.

Again, it is commonly asked of him when this conversion took place. For it did not take place after Christ was incarnate and made man: for if it existed for some time and afterwards his human nature was converted into the divine, then his noble nature ceased to be after it had been; which seems very far from the highest good, namely that he should make a natural creature and afterwards withdraw it from among things without fault, since neither an angel nor a wise man would act so with such a work, if he had such [a work].¹⁴ Again, it is evident that it could not be thus united for a time to the divine Word and not be blessed, at least through the vision of God, since it was more intimately united to the divinity than any blessed angel. From which it necessarily follows that it was blessed for that time, and consequently it was just; for it is not fitting that it be unjust and blessed; and so it justly possessed, and justly possesses, beatitude and whatever it had. Hence it is proved that God dealt unjustly with it, if he at some time withdrew beatitude from it without fault and without its own benefit; which yet he did, if he converted it into another nature so that it wholly ceased to be. For it does not befit the highest justice to take away from anyone what he justly possesses and can justly possess forever, unless perhaps in a given case on account of fault, or for the benefit of the one from whom he takes it; and such is not the case in one from whom beatitude is withdrawn by having its being withdrawn from it without fault. Again, that holy soul, in the time of its beatitude or blessed vision, either foreknew that it would be destitute and at some time would not be—and it follows that it was very wretched, knowing that it would lose not only so noble a being but also beatitude and so blessed a union; or, if it did not foreknow this but supposed that it would remain otherwise, then by that false supposition it was also very wretched and deceived; and these are far removed from such a state. But if it was without any supposition of the other alternative, simply ignorant of what was to happen regarding it and its beatitude, it was less well with it than with the blessed angels; for it was not truly blessed if it was ignorant about the things essential to beatitude, namely of what kind its state would be in future; which seems very far from so excellent a union with God. It is evident, therefore, that this conversion did not take place after Christ was incarnate and truly made man. Nor can it be said that this conversion took place before he was incarnate; for so his nature would never have been converted, but another, which then did not belong to him; for his nature could not be converted except after it was his. Again, it cannot be said that this conversion took place when he began to be man, namely in the moment or instant of his incarnation; for so it follows that in that moment his nature was not human, since through that conversion it received non-being [?].¹⁵ Hence it manifestly follows that his human nature never was in him: for neither in that moment in which he is said to have been incarnate, nor after the conversion, nor before the moment of the incarnation, as is self-evident; therefore, on this account, he was never incarnate. Again, it follows that his human nature was never changed or converted into another, since he never had human nature in himself.

Chapter 32.

But if Dioscorus understood such a conversion not as one by which the essence of human nature ceased to be, but its species only—namely, that in Christ's incarnation the substance of flesh and blood, generated from the blood of the Virgin after it had been shaped in human shape in the Virgin's womb, and after the human soul too had been created, were in the moment of their union with each other so converted into the divine nature that afterwards they were God and not human nature, though [remaining] in themselves, or according to their essence, what it had been before the union¹—for it could be understood that this happens so by divine power, or rather it could be feigned that this is possible: even so this sense is broken by the foregoing; for so he never had a rational soul, nor flesh or bone or blood, nor could he die or suffer, since no power remained in him but the impassible divinity. Again, it follows from this that a creature is God. If [it is said that] the existence or essence of human nature remains in Christ mixed or confused—namely, so that it be understood to remain as a little water remains when it is mixed with wine in greater quantity, so that by the vigour of the divinity with which the human nature is mixed or united it as it were loses the force of its nature and remains only mixed and confused, having a nobler being on account of the union with the divinity than if it retained the force of its human nature, as many say that a little water mixed with much wine remains although it loses the vigour of water—this cannot stand with the three articles above; for it has been proved that, with the vigour of its own nature and its natural actions and passions perfectly preserved, there was thus in Christ a human soul and a human body, and flesh and blood, and especially at the time of his passion, and also when in death he gave up the spirit, namely the rational soul, while his body nevertheless hung on the cross, from which came out blood and water when it had been pierced with a lance, as is read in John 19. You see, therefore, that this assertion can stand in no sense.

Here ends the fifth book.²