Whether the personal subsistence of the Logos is communicated to his human nature; and whether they speak rightly who say Christ's humanity subsists everywhere by that subsistence

Article XII. Whether the personal subsistence of the Logos is communicated to his human nature; and whether they speak rightly who say Christ's humanity subsists everywhere by that subsistence.

1. From the common saying that the hypostasis, or subsistence, of the Logos is communicated to Christ's flesh, two corollaries are drawn. First, the Ubiquitarians gather from it that omnipresence — indeed all the properties of the Logos — are communicated to the human nature. The reason of the consequence is that the hypostasis of the Logos does not really differ from its essence, and therefore not from its essential properties either: if therefore it is true that the hypostasis of the Logos is communicated to the flesh, it must also be granted that his properties are communicated to it in the same way. Second, some even among our own theologians, who think Christ's flesh can be said to subsist in every place by the subsistence of the Logos although it exists in one place alone, reason from the same foundation thus: the subsistence of the Logos is communicated to Christ's human nature; since therefore the subsistence of the Logos is infinite and is enclosed by the bounds of no place, Christ's flesh, by that subsistence communicated to it, can be said to subsist everywhere. This latter argument is more dangerous than the former, because it so greatly pleases certain Orthodox theologians that they profess that in this controversy concerning the local presence of Christ's flesh we differ from the Ubiquitarians only by a dispute about words, and by a merely verbal disagreement — which, whether it be true, let those judge who have more carefully considered the history of the colloquy of Mompelgart and the polemical writings of Beza and of Jacob Andreae on this matter.

2. In order, then, that those two arguments may be clearly dissolved, the verb 'to communicate' must be distinguished, and it must be taught in what sense Christ's subsistence is communicated to the flesh. It is therefore to be held that something is said to be communicated to another in three ways. First, both inhesively and denominatively, in the way the odor of an apple is communicated to the hand; for that odor, at least the same in kind, inheres in the hand and denominates the hand — that is, is truly predicated of the hand. Second, something is communicated denominatively but not inhesively: in the way kings and emperors communicate the dignity of empire to their wives; for those wives are denominated Empresses and queens, not because they have imperial power or authority in themselves, but because their husbands have that authority. Third, something is communicated to another neither inhesively nor denominatively, but either effectively — in the way God is said to communicate himself to created beings, for those beings are called beings and goods by participation of the first being and the first good, as Zanchius speaks — or sustentatively, in the way a subject is communicated to its accidents, namely by sustaining them and receiving them into itself; or in some other similar mode. I say these are communicated neither denominatively nor inhesively, because God neither exists in creatures as an essential form, or as an accidental form in its subject, nor is predicated of them by true and affirmative predication; and the subject likewise neither inheres in its accidents nor denominates them, but on the contrary is denominated by them.

3. The hypostasis or subsistence of the Logos is communicated to his human nature in this third way: that is, it is communicated to it neither inhesively nor denominatively, but sustentatively only. The prior part of this assertion is declared thus: Christ's human nature (as Martinius well notes against Menzer) is void of all proper personal subsistence, and in no way subsists — that is, neither by itself nor by accident; or, to speak more plainly, neither by its own nature nor from the union. Therefore the subsistence of the Logos is communicated to it neither inhesively nor denominatively. The antecedent is proved: if Christ's humanity somehow subsists, it is somehow a suppositum or person, and therefore in some sense it will be true that Christ assumed a suppositum or a person; but the latter is absurd; therefore the former also. The connected claim is proved, because suppositum and subsistence reciprocate, so that every suppositum has subsistence, and everything that has subsistence is a suppositum. Someone will say: therefore Christ's flesh is plainly stripped of personality. It is answered that it is not stripped of personality in this sense, as if it were not united to some person — for it is united to the person of the Logos — but that subsistence properly and formally neither inheres in it nor can be attributed to it.

4. The same can also be demonstrated thus: if Christ's human nature subsists, either it subsists by itself — that is, has subsistence from itself — or it subsists insofar as it exists in the person of the Logos. The former will be admitted by no one; but neither is the latter free of manifest absurdity. Which is proved thus: Christ's flesh, insofar as it exists in the person of the Logos, has a certain mode of existing contrary to subsistence; therefore it does not subsist. The antecedent is proved: to be in another suppositum, and to subsist — that is, to be by oneself and outside every other suppositum — are two opposite modes of existing; but Christ's flesh, insofar as it exists in the person of the Logos, has the former mode of existing, that is, it exists in a suppositum; therefore it cannot have the latter, which is diametrically opposed to it.

5. The posterior part of our assertion is declared thus: the Logos graciously received and assumed our nature to his hypostasis, so that his hypostasis has the flesh intimately present to itself and bears it personally united to itself; but on the contrary the flesh clings in that hypostasis and is sustained. From which it follows that Christ's hypostasis, or personal subsistence, is rightly said to be communicated to the human nature sustentatively.

6. From this distinction of communication it is clear what is to be answered to either argument proposed at the threshold of this article. For since Christ's hypostasis is communicated to his humanity neither inhesively nor denominatively, it is evident that the Ubiquitarians cannot gather from the communication of the hypostasis of the Logos that his essential properties have been communicated to the assumed flesh, either inhesively or denominatively; and therefore all those inferences are to be denied by which, from that foundation, they conclude that Christ's flesh is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and so on. Likewise, since all those statements are false by which to subsist, or to have some personal being, is attributed to Christ's flesh — because, namely, it has no subsistence proper to itself, and no personal being, but a certain mode of existing contrary to them — it follows that Christ's humanity can neither be said to subsist everywhere by the subsistence of the Logos, nor to exist everywhere according to its personal being. Someone will say: Christ's human nature is joined to the person of the Logos, who is omnipresent and omnipotent; therefore the human nature can be called omnipresent and omnipotent personally. Answer: if that consequence is admitted, by equal reason these consequences also must be admitted: Christ's human nature is united to an infinite and eternal person; therefore it itself is infinite and eternal personally, or according to its personal being. Likewise, it is joined to that person who is God and Creator, and redeemer of the world; therefore these things belong to it personally.

7. Someone will ask here whether, just as the act of subsisting, so also the act of existing is to be removed from Christ's flesh. Answer: by no means. For Christ's flesh, although it does not subsist, nevertheless in truth has its own existence, distinct from the existence of the Logos, but dependent upon it. I say that it has an existence distinct from the existence of the Logos, because every created being has both an essence and an existence distinct from the essence and existence of the creator. I say that it has an existence depending on the existence of the Logos, because it cannot exist by itself and outside the person of the Logos.