Folia Theologica 9. (1998)

Tibor Somlyói Tóth: "Habitu inventus ut homo"

‘HABITU INVENTUS UT HOMO”

189

form of God, did not set aside, by emptying himself, the magnitude of the form of God, but assumed the littleness of human nature.28

In the brief but complex fourth article, Philippians 2,6-7 is used in the second opening argument (againsts) a single esse in Christ. According to this, an act of existence correspond to every form — since it is one thing to be write, and another to be a man — there must then be two acts of existence in Christ, just as there are two forms. The problem is similar to that proposed by the third article of the Quaestio, whether Christ is one or two simpliciter. Thomas’ reply begins by nothing that to be is properly and truly said of the subject, or subsisting suppositum. Attention is then draw to the distinction between accidental forms that are not subsistent, but are said to have esse only insofar as something subsists by them — as whiteness has being insofar as something is white by it — and those forms by which the subsisting thing has esse absolutly, since they constitute the substantial esse of the suppositum or subject. In Christ, the suppositum is the Son of God, whose esse is constituted by the divine nature of forma Dei of his pre-existence. Assumed humanity did not add anything to the esse of the Son of God, although the eternal suppositum was substatified — by becoming that particular man — in human nature. In this sense only there is another, secondary human esse in the person of Christ, similar in kind to the secondary esse of accidental forms.29

By 1266, the year in which he began to write the Summa theologiae30, Aquinas was well acquainted with the Philippians text and the possibilities it offered, both from his commentary on it, and from the use to which he had already put it in the Summa contra Gentiles. Having already made thorough use of the text in the letter, Thomas seems in the Summa theologiae to use it mainly as a point of reference to which he

28 S. Thomas Aquinatis questiones disputatae (Romae: Marietti, 1953), Quaestio disputata de unione Verbi incarnati, art. 1, vol. 2, p. 422, 425: “Praeterea, nihil quod comprehenditur sub alio, extendit se ad aliquid extrinsecum... Cum ergo Verbum sit suppositum divinae naturae, non potest se extrendere ad aliam naturam ut sit eius suppositum, nisi efficiatur natura una.”

29 AQUINAS, Quaestio de unione, art. 4, vol. 2, p. 432: “Resp.: ...Et ideo sicut Christus est unum simpliciter propter unitatem suppositi, et duo secundum quid propter duas naturas, ita habet unum esse simpliciter propter positi, non in quantum est aeternum, sed in quantum est temporaliter homo factum. Quod esse, etsi non sit esse accidentale... non tamen est esse principale sui suppositi, sed secundarium”.

30 See WEISHEIPL, Friar Thomas, p. 352.