Homo assumptus at St. Victor: Reconsidering the Relationship between Victorine Christology and Peter Lombard’s First Opinion

The Thomist 72 (2008): 595-624 HOMO ASSUMPTUS AT ST. VICTOR: RECONSIDERING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VICTORINE CHRISTOLOGY AND PETER LOMBARD'S FIRST OPINION FRANKLIN T. HARKINS Fordham University Bronx, New York AROUND THE YEAR 1270, Thomas Aquinas began composing the Tertia Pars of his Summa Theologiae, which treats of Christ the Savior. Here, after an opening question on the "fittingness of the Incarnation," he delves into a detailed consideration of the mode of the union of humanity and divinity in the Incarnate Word. In the sixth article of his second question, which inquires "whether the human nature was united to the Word of God accidentally," he reviews the ancient Christological heresies of Eutychianism and Nestorianism before explaining that "some more recent masters, thinking to avoid these heresies, through ignorance fell into them."1 Summarizing the first position set forth in book 3 of Peter Lombard's Sentences (which modern scholars know as the homo assumptus theory), Thomas continues: "For some of them conceded one person of Christ, but proposed two hypostases or two supposita, saying that a certain man, composed of soul and body, was from the beginning of his conception assumed by the 1 Summa theologiae III, q. 2, a. 6: "Quidam autem posteriores magistri, putantes se has haereses declinare, in eas per ignorantiam inciderunt" (S. Thomae Aquinatis Summa Theologiae, 3 vols., ed. P. Caramello [furin and Rome: Marietti, 1952 and 1956], 3:17). All subsequent Latin quotations will be taken from this edition. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the Summa will be my own. 595 596 FRANKLIN T. HARKINS Word of God."2 After briefly explaining the Lombard's second and third opinions (now known as the subsistence theory and the habitus theory, respectively), Thomas concludes: "Therefore, it is clear that the second of the three opinions that the Master proposes, which affirms one hypostasis of God and man, should not be called an opinion, but an article of Catholic faith. Similarly, the first opinion which proposes two hypostases, and the third which proposes an accidental union, should not be called opinions, but heresies condemned by the Church in Councils."3 What is perhaps most striking here to the student of the twelfth-century theology on which Thomas is drawing is the way in which the thirteenth-century Dominican master, writing a little more than half a century after the Fourth Lateran Council, imposes the categories of orthodoxy and heresy on an earlier Christological presentation from which such distinctions were markedly absent. Indeed, scholars of the Sentences consistently note the Lombard's refusal to make a final determination among his three positions. Philipp Rosemann, for example, affirms, "From a reading of the Sentences themselves, it is not possible to determine with certainty which of the theories Peter preferred."4 Similarly, Marcia Colish observes that even on this central doctrine of Christianity, "Peter really does think that the three opinions he outlines can truly be maintained within the orthodox consensus."5 Such a holding together of differing positions or explanations within the bounds of acceptable belief, summarized 2 Ibid.: "Quidam enim eorum concesserunt unam Christi personam, sed posuerunt duas hypostases, sive duo supposita; dicentes hominem quondam, compositum ex anima et corpore, a principio suae conceptionis esse assumptum a Dei Verbo." 3 Ibid.: "Sic igitur patet quod secunda trium opinionum quas Magister ponit, quae asserit unam hypostasim Dei et hominis, non est dicenda opinio, sed sententia Catholicae fidei. Similiter etiam prima opinio, quae ponit duas hypostases; et tertia, quae ponit unionem accidentalem; non sunt dicendae opiniones, sed haereses in Conciliis ab Ecclesia damnatae." For an overview of Aquinas' theology of the hypostatic union as it developed throughout his career and in relation to the Lombard's three opinions, see Joseph Wawrykow, "Hypostatic Union," in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 222-51. 4 Philipp W. Rosemann, Peter Lombard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 130. 5 Macia L. Colish, Peter Lombard, 2 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 1:399. HOMO ASSUMPTIJS AT ST. VICTOR 597 in the phrase diversi sed non adversi, was characteristic of twelfthcentury theological thought.6 Peter Lombard describes what has...