Authors/Duns Scotus/Ordinatio/Ordinatio I/Prologus/P3Q1/A6

Translated by Peter Simpson.

Latin	English
Art. 6
172 $a Ex his dictis patet improbatio illius opinionis quae ponit Christum esse primum subiectum, quia tunc necessariae veritates de Patre et Spiritu Sancto - puta 'Pater generat', 'Spiritus Sanctus procedit' - non essent veritates theologicae, nec contingentes veritates de eis, puta 'Pater creat per Filium', ' Spiritus Sanctus temporaliter missus est visibiliter et invisibiliter'; nec veritates necessariae de Deo trino, ut quod est omnipotens, immensus, nec contingentes, ut quod Deus creat, Deus gubernat mundum, remittit peccata, punit, praemiat, et huiusmodi. - Consequentiae omnes probantur, quia ad nullam scientiam pertinet per se aliqua veritas nisi sit de subiecto primo eius, vel parte eius subiectiva vel integrali vel essentiali, vel de aliquo essentialiter attributo ad ipsum subiectum. Patet quod Pater vel Trinitas non est Christus, nec pars aliquo dictorum ƿ modorum, nec aliquod attributum ad Christum essentialiter: tum quia Christus cum dicat duas naturas - et hoc in quantum est subiectum, secundum ponentes illud - sequitur quod ut habens naturam creatam erit essentialiter prior Patre vel Trinitate, quia essentialis attributio non est nisi ad essentialiter prius, quod falsum est; tum quia Christus etiam secundum divinitatem non habet aliquam talem prioritatem secundum quam posset Pater vel Trinitas ad ipsum attribui.	172. [The Opinion of Bonaventure] From what has been said the refutation of the opinion that posits Christ as first subject is plain, because then the necessary truths about the Father and the Holy Spirit – to wit, ‘the Father generates’, ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds’ – would not be theological truths, nor would the contingent truths about them be, to wit ‘the Father creates through the Son’, ‘the Holy Spirit is sent in time visibly and invisibly’; nor the necessary truths about the triune God, as that he is omnipotent, boundless, nor the contingent truths, as that God creates, God governs the world, remits sins, punishes, rewards, and the like. – The proof of all these consequences is that no truth belongs per se to any science unless it be about its first subject, or about a part of it, whether integral or essential, or about something essentially attributed to the subject. It is plain that the Father or the Trinity is not Christ, nor part of him in any of the stated ways, nor anything essentially attributed to Christ; both because since Christ signifies two natures – and that insofar as he is subject, according to those who posit him as subject – it follows that, as having a created nature, he will be essentially prior to the Father and to the Trinity (because an essential attribution is only made to what is essentially prior), which is false; and because Christ even in his divinity does not have any such priority according to which the Father or the Trinity could be attributed to him.
173 Contra etiam istam opinionem sunt rationes ultimo positae supra in solutione secundae quaestionis contra positionem respectus ad extra. - Contra idem est prima ratio posita ad solutionem primae quaestionis, quia veritates necessarias de Patre, de Spiritu Sancto et de Trinitate impossibile est contineri primo in Christo virtualiter, quia si Verbum non fuisset incarnatum, illae veritates non fuissent necessariae, quod est falsum. Tertia etiam, ibidem, valet hic, quia non esset tradenda aliqua notitia de Deo nisi ut includitur in Christo; haec est de Verbo tantum, et ita non distinctissima notitia quae posset tradi; ergo esset alia prior requirenda. ƿ	173. Against this opinion too are the reasons placed last in the solution of the second question against the position about relation to what is extrinsic [nn.164-166]. – Against the same is the first reason set down for the solution of the first question [n.151], because the necessary truths about the Father, about the Holy Spirit, and about the Trinity cannot be virtually contained first in Christ, because if the Word had not been made incarnate, those truths would not have been necessary, which is false. The third reason too in the same place [n.153] is valid here, because no knowledge would have been handed down about God except as it is included in Christ; this knowledge is about the Word only and thus is not the most distinct knowledge that could be handed down; therefore some other knowledge prior to it would have to be required.
174 Ad hoc faciunt aliquae persuasiones ibi positae, quia illa unitas quae est Christi ut est suppositum unum in duabus naturis non est unitas aeterna; illam autem ponere oporteret formalem unitatem primi subiecti; ergo primum subiectum ut primum non est tantum aliquid aeternum. Illa etiam persuasio de fide videtur concludere; non enim est creditum vel verum theologicum hunc hominem esse crucifixum, non implicando Verbum in subiecto, quia hunc hominem potuerunt in cruce iudaei naturaliter videre. Sed creditum est et verum theologicum Verbum esse hominem natum de Virgine, Verbum esse hominem crucifixum, Verbum esse hominem resurgentem, et sic de articulis ad humanitatem pertinentibus; pertinentes autem ad divinitatem, patet quod non conveniunt primo Christo ut Christus est, sed aliqui aliis personis, aliqui Trinitati. Ergo adaequatum obiectum theologiae non est Christus, sed aliquid quasi commune Verbo, de quo primo creduntur articuli pertinentes ad reparationem, et Patri et Spiritui Sancto, de quibus sunt aliquae theologicae veritates. ƿ	174. The same point is shown by some of the persuasive reasons there set down [nn.154-156], because the unity which belongs to Christ as he is one supposit in two natures is not an eternal unity; but it would be necessary to assert that formal unity of the first subject; therefore the first subject as first is not something eternal only. The persuasive reason about faith seems also to be conclusive; for it is not a theological belief or truth that this man was crucified, as it does not in the subject term implicate the Word, because the Jews were able naturally to see this man on the cross. But it is a theological belief and truth that the Word was a man born of a Virgin, that the Word was a man crucified, that the Word was a man rising from the dead, and so on about the articles pertaining to his humanity; but as for those that pertain to his divinity, it is plain that they do not belong first to Christ as he is Christ, but some to the other persons, some to the Trinity. Therefore the adequate object of theology is not Christ but something that is as it were common both to the Word, about whom primarily are believed the articles pertaining to reparation, and to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, about whom are some other theological truths.
175 Videtur igitur dicendum quod sicut si in medicina corpus humanum sit primum subiectum de quo consideretur ibi ut passio sanitas et infirmitas: si species corporis humani essent corpus sic mixtum et sic, puta corpus sanguineum et corpus phlegmaticum, etc., hoc totum, corpus sanguineum sanum, non esset ibi primum subiectum, tum quia nimis particulare, tum quia includit passionem considerandam de subiecto, quae non potest esse ratio subiecti, quia subiectum ut subiectum est est prius naturaliter eius passione, et ita passio esset prior se ipsa. Et breviter, quidquid diceretur de aliqua medicina tradita quod esset de tali, licet particulari et ente per accidens, saltem impossibile esset primam scientiam de corpore hominis esse de corpore sanguineo sano. Immo si qua esset de isto, alia posset esse prior: sive de corpore hominis in communi, quia ipsum in communi habet quasdam passiones cognoscibiles de ipso per rationem communem, ut est prior inferioribus; sive de corpore sanguineo, cuius ratio naturaliter est prior sanguineo sano, et ista ratio prior virtualiter continet aliquas passiones; sive de corpore hominis sano, quia eius ratio praecedit corpus sanguineum sanum. Ita in proposito. Christus dicit Verbum hominem, secundum Damascenum; ante ergo notitiam quae esset de Christo ut de primo subiecto nata esset esse alia prior de ƿ Verbo, si qua sibi insunt per rationem qua Verbum, et ante illam, alia de Deo quantum ad illa quae insunt per rationem Dei ut est communis tribus personis.	175. It seems then that one must say that things are like the way they are in medicine, on the supposition that the human body is the first subject about which health and sickness are there considered as the property: if the kinds of human body were body mixed thus and so, to wit blooded body, phlegmatic body, etc., this whole thing, healthy blooded body, would not there be the first subject, both because it is too particular and also because it includes the need to consider a property about the subject, and a property cannot be the nature of the subject, because a subject, as it is subject, is naturally prior to its property, and thus a property would be prior to itself. And in brief, whatever might be said about any medicine handed down that was about such a subject, although this subject was a particular and a per accidens being, it would at any rate be impossible for the first science of the body of man to be about a healthy blooded body. Nay rather, if there were a science about it, some other science would be prior: either about the body of man in general, because it has in its generality certain knowable properties that belong to it in its general nature, in the way it is prior to the things that come under it; or about blooded body, whose nature is naturally prior to healthy blooded body, and this prior nature virtually contains the other properties; or about the healthy body of man, because its nature precedes healthy blooded body. Thus also is it in the proposed case. Christ signifies the Word-man, according to Damascene [De Fide Orthodoxa 3 ch.4]; therefore before knowledge about Christ as about the first subject there would naturally be another prior knowledge about the Word, if there are things present in Christ by reason of the fact he is the Word, and there would, before that knowledge, be another knowledge about God as to what is present in him by reason of God as God is common to the three persons.
176 Igitur si theologiam tenemus esse secundum se primam notitiam, ipsa non erit primo de Christo; et si aeque est de veritatibus communibus et propriis tribus personis, ipsa non esset de aliqua persona ut de aliquo subiecto adaequato, sed de Deo ut communis est tribus personis. Et tunc salvabitur quod omnis veritas theologica vel est de primo subiecto, puta quae inest Deo per rationem Dei, vel quasi de parte subiectiva primi subiecti, puta quae inest proprie alicui personae, vel de eo quod attribuitur ad subiectum primum vel quasi partem subiecti, puta de creatura quantum ad respectum quem habet ad Deum ut Deus, et de natura assumpta quantum ad respectum quem habet ad Verbum sustentificans.	176. Therefore, if we hold theology to be in itself a first knowledge, it will not be first about Christ; and if it is equally about truths common and proper to the three persons, it would not be about any person as about some adequate subject, but about God as God is common to the three persons. And then the thesis will be saved that either every theological truth is about the first subject, to wit any truth that is in God by reason of God, or is about a subjective part, as it were, of the first subject, to wit any truth that is properly in one of the persons, or is about what is attributed to the first subject or to a part 86 as it were of the subject, to wit about the creature as to the relation it has to God as he is God, and about the assumed nature as to the relation it has to the Word who sustains it [n.172].
177 Aliter tamen ponitur Christum esse primum subiectum secundum Lincolniensem in Hexaemeron, et ƿ hoc secundum quod Christus est unum triplici unitate, quarum prima est ad Patrem et Spiritum Sanctum, secunda Verbi ad naturam assumptam, tertia Christi capitis ad membra. Et pro ista opinione de Christo videtur esse prima ratio posita ad primam quaestionem, et paenultima, quia septem articulos fidei pertinentes ad humanitatem non continet Deus ut subiectum, quia per naturam deitatis sibi non conveniunt. Illud autem subiectum continet passionem per cuius formam passio sibi inest. Christus autem illos continet, quia secundum humanitatem sibi insunt, et hoc realiter; continet etiam alios pertinentes ad divinitatem, quia secundum divinitatem illa videntur sibi inesse.	177. [The Opinion of Lincoln] – However Christ is in another way posited as the prime subject according to Lincoln in his The Work of Six Days, and this way is that in which Christ is one by a triple unity, of which the first is unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the second the unity of the Word with the assumed nature, the third the unity of Christ the head with his members. And on behalf of this opinion about Christ seems to be the first reason and the second to last reason set down for the first question [nn.151, 156], because the seven articles of the faith that pertain to Christ’s humanity are not contained in God as subject, because they do not belong to him by nature of his divinity. However that subject does contain the property by whose form the property is present in him. But Christ does contain those articles, because they are present in him according to his humanity, and really so present; he also contains the other articles pertaining to his divinity, because they are seen to be present in him according to his divinity.
178 Confirmatur, quia subiecta partium doctrinae debent contineri sub subiecto totius vel ut partes subiectivae, vel ut quasi integrales; ƿ non sic continentur sub Deo subiecta partium Scripturae. Quod probatur per glossas multas in principiis librorum, assignantes causas materiales aliqua quae non sunt aliquid Dei, puta super Osee dicit glossa quod materia Osee est 'decem tribus'.	178. A confirmation is that the subjects of the parts of the doctrine should be contained under the subject of the whole of it, either as subjective parts or as integral parts; the subjects of the parts of Scripture are not thus contained under God. The thing is proved by many glosses at the beginnings of books, assigning as their material causes certain things that are not anything in God, to wit, a gloss on Hosea says that the matter of Hosea is ‘the ten tribes’.
179 Item, tertio: nihil proprium de Deo narratur in aliquo loco Scripturae, quia nullum factum ibi narratur ubi requirebatur aliquid ex parte Dei nisi tantum generalis influentia; ergo liber talis non est de Deo.	179. Again, third: in some places of Scripture nothing proper to God is narrated, because no fact is there narrated where anything is required on the part of God save only his general influence; therefore such a book is not about God.
180 Ad primum dico quod veritates contingentes enuntiatae de Christo in nullo subiecto continentur virtualiter sicut subiectum dicitur continere passionem, quia tunc essent necessariae; tamen habent aliquod subiectum de quo immediate enuntiantur et primo, et illud est Verbum, nam veritates theologicae de incarnatione, nativitate, passione, etc., sunt istae: 'Verbum est factum homo', 'Verbum est homo natus', 'Verbum est homo passus', etc. Cum dicis 'passio inest secundum naturam humanam', respondeo: humanitas non est prima ratio subiecti ad quam stet resolutio, sed est quasi passio prior, medians inter primum subiectum ƿ istarum veritatum, quod est Verbum, et alias posteriores passiones, ut 'natus', etc. Patet quod non potest esse humanitas ratio subiecti respectu primae passionis quae est 'esse incarnatum', quia illud dicitur de Verbo non praeintellecta humanitate in ipso ut subiecto; haec est ratio prima.	180. To the first argument [n.177] I say that the contingent truths asserted of Christ are not contained virtually in any subject in the way a subject is said to contain a property, because then those truths would be necessary; yet they do have a subject of which they are immediately and primarily said, and that subject is the Word, for the theological truths about the incarnation, nativity, passion, etc. are these: ‘The Word became man’, ‘the Word was born a man’, ‘the Word suffered as man’ etc. When you say that ‘the property is present according to his human nature’, I reply that humanity is not the first idea in the subject wherein the resolution of the property rests, but is as it were a prior property, which mediates between the first subject of those truths, which is the Word, and the other later properties, as ‘born’ etc. It is plain that humanity cannot be the idea of the subject in its relation to the first property, which is ‘was incarnate’, because that property is said of the Word without humanity being preunderstood as present in it as in a subject; this is the first reason.
181 Ad secundum dico quod sufficeret partium scientiae attributio ad primum subiectum, qualis attributio ad Deum potest salvari cuiuscumque materiae assignatae per istas adductas glossas. Aliter: materia cuiuslibet libri est Deus, de quo ibi narratur quo modo genus humanum gubernaverit; sed gens vel persona gubernata est materia remota. Ita intelligendae sunt glossae tales.	181. To the second [n.178] I say that it would be enough if the attribution of the parts of the science to the first subject is of the sort that the attribution to God can be saved in respect of any matter assigned by the glosses. Otherwise put: God is the matter of any book at all that narrates there about him how he governed the human race; the race or person governed, however, is the remote matter. The glosses are to be understood in this way.
182 Per hoc patet ad tertium, quod licet aliquis liber esset nullum Dei miraculum continens, tamen quilibet continet providentiam et gubernationem Dei circa hominem in communi vel determinatam gentem vel personam, in tantum quod si eandem historiam de Pharaone scribat Moyses in Exodo, et aliquis Aegyptius in chronicis Aegyptiorum, subiectum historiae Moysi est Deus, de quo traditur ibi gubernare hominem, misericorditer liberando Hebraeos oppressos, iuste puniendo Aegyptios oppressores, sapienter ordinando formam liberationis congruam et, ad hoc ut populus liberatus legem gratanter acciperet, potenter signa tot faciendo proƿpria sibi; subiectum vero historiae historiographi esset regnum, vel rex, vel populus aegyptius, cuius actiones et casus circa ipsum contingentes ipse intendit scribere, ita quod incidens est sibi quid Deus fecit, sed principale quid gens sua fecerit vel passa sit. Principale est Moysi quid Deus egerit vel permiserit, quasi autem incidens sibi circa quam materiam hoc contigerit. Et dato quod alicubi nullum miraculum enarretur, tamen quid Deus permiserit, assistendo secundum communem influentiam, non impediendo, hoc principaliter intenditur in libro illo in quantum est pars Scripturae; et qualiter illud convenienter ordinatum sit ad bonum aliquod, si fuit ordinabile, vel iuste punitum si fuit malum, hoc frequenter additur in eodem libro vel alio, aut si permissum fuit nec hic punitum, non tacet Scriptura alibi de illo in generali quod alibi punietur. a$ ƿ	182. Hereby is clear the response to the third [n.179], that although there be some book containing no miracle of God, yet any book contains God’s providence and government of man in general or of a determinate race or person, so much so that if Moses writes about Pharaoh in Exodus the same history as some Egyptian writes in the Egyptian Chronicles, the subject of Moses’ history is God, whose government of man is treated of there, in his merciful liberation of the oppressed Hebrews, in his just punishment of the Egyptian oppressors, in his wise ordering of an appropriate form of liberation, and in his performing, with a view to making the liberated people receive the law with joy, so many signs proper to himself. But the subject of the Egyptian historiographer’s history would be the kingdom, or the king, or the Egyptian people, whose actions and the events that happen to them he intends to write, such that what God did is incidental to him, but what the race did or suffered is principal. For Moses the principal thing is what God did or permitted, and the matter in which it happened is for him as it were incidental. And granted that in some places no miracle is narrated, yet that which God permitted, by giving assistance through his ordinary influence and not preventing, is what is principally intended in that book insofar as it is part of Scripture; and the way this thing was fittingly ordered to some good, if it was capable of being so 89 ordered, or the way it was punished, if it was made, is frequently added in the same or another book; or if the thing was permitted and not in this place punished, Scripture is not silent in other places about it in general that it will be punished somewhere else.
183 Ad primum argumentum primae quaestionis dico quod illa auctoritas exprimit materiam huius scientiae, non subiectum huius scientiae primum et formale, esse res et signa, et huiusmodi.	183. [To the Arguments from the First Way] – To the first argument of the first question [n.125] I say that the authority states that the matter of this science, not the first and formal subject of it, is things and signs and the like.
184 Ad secundum dico quod quicumque sensus in una parte Scripturae non est litteralis, in alia parte est litteralis; ideo licet aliqua pars Scripturae habeat diversos sensus, tamen tota Scriptura habet omnes istos sensus pro sensu litterali.	184. To the second [n.126] I say that whatever sense is not literal in one part of Scripture, is literal in another part of Scripture; therefore, although any part of Scripture may have diverse senses, yet Scripture as a whole takes all those senses for the literal sense.
185 Ad tertium dico quod argumentum est ad oppositum dupliciter. Primo, quia ponitur homo subiectum moralis scientiae vel medicinae pro eo quod continet virtualiter omnes veritates illius scientiae. Nam corpus humanum continet virtualiter rationem sanitatis; ideo enim sanitas hominis est talis, quia corpus humanum est sic complexionatum. Similiter anima hominis continet virtualiter rationem felicitatis naturalis, sicut patet I Ethicorum, ubi ex ƿ anima vel ex ratione animae concluditur ratio felicitatis naturalis hominis. Non sic homo continet rationem finis huius scientiae, quia felicitas supernaturalis vel obiectum eius non includitur in ratione hominis; et ideo homo non potest esse primum obiectum huius scientiae; ergo etc.	185. To the third [n.127] I say that the argument is to the opposite conclusion, in two ways. First, because in moral science and medical science man is posited as subject for that which contains virtually all the truths of the science. For the human body contains the idea of health virtually; for that is why the health of man is the sort it is, because the human body is the sort of complex it is. Likewise, the soul of man contains the idea of natural felicity virtually, as is clear in Ethics 1.9.1097b22-98a20, where the idea of the natural felicity of man is deduced from the soul, or from the idea of the soul. It is not in this way that man contains the idea of the end of this science (of theology), because supernatural felicity or the object of this science is not included in the idea of man; and therefore man cannot be the first object of this science; therefore etc.
186 Secundo sic: homo est finis ultimus scientiarum istarum, ad quem tam sanitas quam felicitas naturalis ordinatur. Probo, quia omnis amor concupiscentiae praesupponit amorem amicitiae; sanitas autem vel felicitas amatur amore concupiscentiae; igitur illud quod amatur amore amicitiae a concupiscente est finis ulterior quam aliquod istorum. Tale est corpus, ex una parte, et anima, ex alia parte. Igitur si homo secundum corpus vel animam est subiectum huius scientiae, sequitur quod finis est subiectum huius scientiae.	186. Second thus: man is the final end of the sciences just mentioned, and to this end both health and natural felicity are ordered. The proof is that all love of concupiscence presupposes love of friendship [2 d.6 q.2 n.3]; but health and felicity are loved with love of concupiscence; therefore what is loved with love of friendship by him who has love of concupiscence is a further end beyond any of these ends. Such a further end is the body, on one side, and the soul, on the other. Therefore if man in his body or soul is the subject of this science, it follows that his end is the subject of this science.
187 Ad quartum dico quod prima propositio est falsa, quia nihil aliud est finis scientiae nisi attingere per actum proprium obiectum illius scientiae, non quod inducat aliquam formam in obiectum per actum suum, quia scientia non est aliqua qualitas factiva.	187. To the fourth [n.128] I say that the first proposition is false, because the fact that nothing else is the end of a science except what, by its own act, attains the object of the science is not because it induces some form in the object by its act, for science is not a quality for making things.