Folia Theologica 9. (1998)
Tibor Somlyói Tóth: "Habitu inventus ut homo"
186 T. SOMLYÓI TÓTH Word.22 Chapter twenty-nine, in turn, is directed against the Manichaean heresy, which held that Christ had only the appearance and not the reality of a human body. Here, Philippians 2,7 is juxtaposed with Romans 8,3, Deus filium suum mittens in similitudinem carnis peccati, to show that Christ in similitudinem hominum factus had, not the fictitious appearance of a body, but a veritable human nature, because forma in forma servi indicates human nature, including its defect, in the same way that forma Dei indicates the divine nature. Once again, as in his commentary on Philippians, Thomas argues that the Son of God descended from heaven not by local movement, but by uniting himself to flesh, “insofar as he took on the form of a servant”, without setting aside his divine nature. Chapter thirty-four is the beginning of a section on problems relating to the union of God and man in Christ. Here, Thomas begins by refuting what he understood to be the position of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, that God inhabited the man Jesus by grace, instead of uniting himself to human nature in the person of Jesus Christ. As a consequence of this position, Christ would seem to be divided into two hypostases or persons of the man who was the adopted son by inhabitation, and the Word, or Son of God, by nature. This, Thomas argues, contradicts Philippians 2,6-7, where the pre-existing Word of God is said to empty himself and take on the form of a servant, without any mention of an initial exaltation or inhabitation of a man. Thus, the “emptying” cannot be understood merely as inhabitation, because the divine Word inhabits all the saints by grace without being said thereby to empty himself. Instead, the self-emptying must be understood as the union of the Word with human nature, “not by the setting aside of his own magnitude, but by the assumption of human smallness”.23 A further consequence of a position that seemed to divide Christ into two different hypostases is that, since the Son of God cannot be said to 22 AQUINAS, Summa contra Gent., lib. 4, cap. 30, vol. 3, p. 305 (3652): “Similiter fictionis intellectus excluditur ab hoc quod dicit ’in similitudinem factus’ per hoc quod dicitur, ’formán servi accipiens’. Manifestum est enim ’formam’ pro natura poni, et non pro similitudine, ex hoc quod dixerat, 6 ’Qui cum in forma Dei esset’, ubi pro natura ponitur ’forma’...” 23 AQUINAS, Summa contra Gent., lib. 4, cap. 34, vol. 3, p. 316 (3715): “...id est parvum factum, non emissione propriae magnitudinis, sed assumptione humanae parvitatis...”
