Tertia Pars
Lecture 83: Birth as Nature or Person: Christ's Temporal and Eternal Nativity

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, speak through the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Amen. And help us to understand all that you have written. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thomas is talking about, in the Summa Concentilis, is how men, left to themselves, you know, would make many mistakes, in trying to understand God. And he says, but he gives two reasons for it. And one, he says, is the debilitas, the weakness, and their ability to judge. And the other is the pervixio, of phantasms of images, right? So I was thinking about that, in reference to this prayer we say. We ask the angels to, what, drink from the light of our mind. Because it's the light of our mind, that, what, enables us to judge. And then order our images, right? That keeps us away from getting led astray from images. So it ties in a little text there, from the third chapter, I guess it is. No, fourth chapter. The chapter of the first book of the Summa Concentilis. Where the Christ, in the first instant of his conception, was able to, what? Merit. To the third one goes forward thus. It seems that Christ, in the first instant of his conception, was unable to, what? Merit, huh? For just as free judgment, or free will, is to meriting, so it is to, what? But demeriting, huh? But the diabolism, the devil, in the first instant of his creation, was not able to, what? Sin. As has been had in the first part. Therefore, neither was the soul of Christ in the first instant of his creation. Which was the first instant of the conception of Christ, huh? Neither was he able, then, to, what? Merit, right? You couldn't demerit, you couldn't merit, right? That first instant. And, of course, as Plato says, likeness is a slippery thing, right? And so, the devil and Christ may not be altogether alike in the first instant of their creation, right? But we have to wait for the master to enlighten us on this matter. Moreover, that which man has in the first instant of his conception, seems to him to be, what? Natural. And this is part of the reason why we say the devil, right? His first act is natural, right? And there is not one that's going to be merited by, huh? Because this is that to which natural generation ends up with, huh? But by natural things, we do not, what? Merit. So, I didn't merit today by digesting my food, right? Or my grandchildren didn't merit by growing today, huh? Therefore, so this is going back to the reason behind why we said that about the devil, right? So, it's interesting the way he develops this there. Therefore, it seems that the use of free judgment, which Christ had as man in the first instant of his conception, could not have been meritorious. It would have had a natural act there rather than a free act, huh? That's interesting to apply this to the question about God and his love, right, huh? Because God loves himself by natural necessity. And at the same time, if you use the word time there, right? The same eternal now, right? Could he also freely love us? It would be by the same, what, act though, right, huh? Yeah. Yeah. But in us, in the devil, right, the natural act is not the, what, free act, huh? They're the same. They're the same? Yeah. In one, the same act is natural and free? Yeah, but not with respect to the same things. Yeah. So, it's very hard for us to understand. The simplicity of God is hard to understand. It's not necessary to love us. It's right, that's clear. It's a point in us. It's free. It's a free. So, nevertheless, we have to know the simplicity of God in a composite way, right? Just like we say, you know, why does God have a will? Because of his understanding, right? But it's not that one is really the cause of the other. Because his understanding and his will are the same thing, right? You have to understand it that way, huh? If I was reading, I was reading Augustine's letter 120 there today. And he's talking about how you should try to help people to understand what they believe, right? But according to their capacity of understanding, right? Some which is much and some is little, you know? And he kind of gives people a distinction there about what the mind might be like, right? And some can't really understand at all what they believe, but they can still believe it, right? Some can understand a little bit, some more, and so on. And you have to, you know, have some, you know. Quiet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I probably get in trouble with trying to instruct the grandchildren, right? I'm trying to think to them understand more than they're capable of just getting these at their young ages, right? Moreover, that which someone, what? At once, is it? Merits? He already makes, in some way, his own, right? And thus, it does not seem that, again, he's able to merit that same thing, right? Because no one merits what is his own. So, if, therefore, Christ, in the first instant of his conception, merited, it is foul that afterwards he merited nothing, which is clearly false. Therefore, Christ, in the first instant of his conception, but did not merit, huh? I start to remember Father Baumgartner talking about the significance of this, you know, that Christ, you know, is already able to merit for us, you know, from the instant of his creation, right? But, again, this is what Augustine says upon Exodus, huh? That Christ did not, what? Have altogether, right? According to the merit of the soul, by which he was able to request. What does that mean? He's saying he can go or not. No, no. What does Augustine say there? Increase of merit was absolutely impossible to the soul of Christ. He could be able to progress in merit if, in the first instant of his conception, he had not understood it. Therefore, in the first instant of his conception, Christ merited, huh? Hmm. I know I tried to read Augustine's Latin, it's harder for me than St. Thomas'. I was looking at this letter, 120 there, and I kind of found and said, am I phrasing that correctly? Yeah, definitely. That's where that text comes, you know, from the Latin, 120 there, it says, Intellectum volde ama. Volde ama. Yeah, love the understanding. I see that quoted by, I think, Paul VI, maybe, or John XXIII, or her being John Paul II, you know, that text of his soul. Intellectum volde ama. Put these, put these, uh, Franciscans in their place. Love, love. Love very much the understanding. Love the understanding very much. Answer, it should be said, that... In the first, as has been said above, Christ in the first instant of his conception was what? Sanctified by grace, huh? And I suppose some modern scholars would want to say that, you know, taking away the relief we have. The first moment of his conception. Okay. These are a two-fold sanctifying, huh? One of adults, right? Who are sanctified according to their own act, right? The other of boys, right? The children. Yeah. Okay. The children, yeah. Who are not sanctified according to their own act of faith, right? But according to the faith of the parents of the church, huh? Now, the first sanctifying is more perfect than the second, huh? I mean, they're adults, right? Just as act is more perfect than habit. And what is per se, then that is the knowledge is per element, right? Incidentally, they're there, per se, right? In the fifth book of wisdom, huh? In the third part of the fifth book of wisdom, which is the book about names, right? Equivocal by reason that are used in wisdom especially, but also in the axioms and so on. When he gets to the third part, he takes up the words perfect and the word whole, which mean almost the same thing, right? He takes up the word perfect first. And then after that, he takes up three words that are connected with perfection, huh? And one is end, and one is per se, and the other is half, okay? So notice he's saying here, huh? Actus es perfectior quam habitus, right? And more generally, what is per se than what is per element, right? Since, therefore, the sanctifying of Christ was perfectissima, because he was thus sanctified, that he might be the sanctifier of others, huh? Consequently, is it that he, according to his own motion of, what, free will towards God was, what, sanctified, huh? So what does he mean, that he moved towards God in his will, in the very instant of his, what, yeah? And not just habitual, you know? Like St. Paul would say to somebody who's a little getting slack, you know? Stir up the grace that's in you, but the habitual grace, right? Into something that's more actual. Which motion of free will is meritorious? Once, it follows, in the very first instant of his conception, Christ, what, meritorious? And did we have enough there to save us, right then? No problem, I don't think so. Yeah. He didn't have to do much. Yeah. That's what I've been reading a lot about lately. Yeah. He didn't have to do much to anything, to say this to myself. But he chose to do, like, most of the worries, most painful, so that we would have no doubt. Yeah. No excuses. Yeah. But you don't have to get your breath here now, see, you can breathe freely once you know he's been conceived, right? Okay. Now, what about this likeness between the, that the first objection is given between the devil and Christ, right? Well, very interesting what the great Thomas does here. To the first therefore it should be said, that free will, not in the same way, has itself to good and to bad. Now you're seeing the difference there, huh? For it has itself to the good, per se, and naturally. But to the bad, by way of defect, and outside of nature, huh? I ran across a text there from Cicero, right, huh? And I kind of added to that little thing I was writing a poem, the fall of the devil, remember? And Shakespeare, right? Where Thomas is saying the same thing about the fall of the devil, that Shakespeare says about evil, that you're departing from your nature. And Cicero is saying that, and he's talking, I guess, in the, in the Republica there about the natural law, right, huh? And if a man goes against that, he's, what, departing from himself and going against his nature, right? And if he's not punished, he says, you know, in the ordinary sense that people think of punishment, he is really going to be punished very severely for this, huh? Kind of a striking passage for me, huh? But Thomas is touching upon here again here, right? Bonum se habet, what, to the, to the good, free will has itself per se, right, at naturalite, right, huh? To the bad by way of defect and apart from nature, right? So it's not a defect in God's will that he can't will the bad. But as the philosopher himself says in the second book about the universe, that is, what, afterwards, that is outside of nature, right? From that which is according to nature. Because that which is outside or apart from nature, against nature in a sense, right? Is a certain, what, cutting off or falling down from what is according to nature, huh? And therefore, the free will of the creature in the very first instant of creation is able to be moved to, what, meriting the good, not, however, what, to evil by, what, sinning. If, however, the nature is, what, is whole, right? Which the angel was, right, when he was created. You know, the second objection is going down to the reason order. To the second should be said that that which man has in the beginning of his creation, according to the common course of nature, is natural to man, right? But nothing prevents but that some creature in the beginning of its creation achieves or acquires some benefit of grace from God, right? And in this way, the soul of Christ in the beginning of his creation attained to a grace by which he was able to, what, merit. And for the same reason, that grace, according to a certain, what, likeness, is said to have been natural to that man, right? As is clear by Augustine in the ingredient, huh? That's a very interesting way of speaking, right? That it says we're natural to him, right? Being co-natural. Mm-hmm. Given grace. Well, given that the second person of the Trinity has taken the song, right? How about in the case of Adam? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah, no, why don't these, well, maybe there's something, yeah, we have to go to take the tutus of that, but. Because he was created in grace, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's what I would use. I tend to use the word, if it's that I'm picking this up right, that I would be co-natural, meaning given grace, that's the natural progress of grace. But it was pretty much more so in the case of Christ, because of being joined into his person. Right. I'm thinking of that text in the Gospel of St. John, where he said, we saw him, what? It's the only begotten Son of the Lord. Then full of grace and truth. And Thomas says, well, one is following upon the other, right? You know? So because his human nature is joined into the second person, then you might say it's natural that it be full of grace and what? Truth, huh? Now the third about merit. Nothing prevents something from being a someone from diverse, what? Causes, right? And thus, and according to this, Christ, the glory of immortality, which he merited in the very first instant of his conception, right? He was able also, by later acts and passions, sufferings, to merit, huh? Not that it would be... What? More owed to him, but they'll be owed to him from many causes. Jared got very indebted to somebody, right? You couldn't be indebted to them more. My daughter's birthday there yesterday, or the 6th there, I should say, February. And my wife called her up on the phone, you know, because I said hello, you know, and so on. And I thought she said, you know, thank you for giving life to me. That's what she said, yeah. Okay. Now, going to Article 4 here, right? To the Christ was a perfect comprehensor in the first instant of his, what? Conception, right? To the 4th one goes forward thus. It seems that Christ was not a perfect comprehensor, huh? In the first instant of his conception, right? You can have a full vision or something. For merit precedes reward, or reward, just as guilt punishment. But Christ, in the first instant of his conception, merited as has been said. Since, therefore, the status of comprehender is the principal or chief reward, it seems that Christ, in the first instant of his conception, was not a, what? Comprehensor, huh? Moreover, the Lord himself says, these things is necessary for Christ to undergo, to suffer, and thus to enter into his glory. But glory pertains to the status of comprehension, right? St. Thomas says there was glory there, you know, in those prayers, huh? Rhythmus of St. Thomas, huh? The last one. The last one. Yeah, yeah. So, he was not in the state of comprehension in the first, what? Instant of his conception, when not yet had he undergone any, what? Passion, huh? I suppose I would refer to this human being. Well, yeah, it doesn't mean his divine nature, but I mean... Body, body, body, body, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oops. It's like, we were doing logic last night, you know, I had these two guys at the house there, you know, and we're doing the A, B's, and C's, you get all the stuff, you know, and you see what you ought to say, you know, and they keep on changing, you know, huh? Because you get an argument in one soldierism through the impossible, and then you say, that can be shown directly in another figure, and you've got to figure out what the other soldiers might be. Well, then the letters are in a different arrangement, you know, and you tend to remember the first letters. It would be great to be in stuff. Well, it would make me fun of Obama now, you know, because he's been saying, corpsman, huh? For the corpsman? Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. And apparently, he's done it, you know, three or four months ago, and then recently he did it again, you know? And so everybody's making fun of him, you know, for this. You see, they would correct him, you know, for this other thing, and he's, you know, he was at the Naval Academy one time, and another time, soldiers there and so on. Corpsman, I mean. Bunch of cadavers laying out there. And Biden was trying to claim, you know, the success that they had in Iraq, it was, you know, a great accomplishment of our administration. He was opposing the surge, you know. Yeah. One thing I know, these guys are kind of clowns in the south. Third objection now, right? More of that, which belongs neither to man nor to an angel, right, seems to be proper to God, right? And thus, it would not seem to belong to Christ according as he is man. But to always be blessed does not belong neither to man nor to the, what? Yeah. That's not double negative there that takes away it. It's emphasis upon the negative there, right? For if they had been conditioned blessed, right? Or constructed, I mean created, yeah, blessed. Afterwards, they would not ascend, right? Therefore, Christ, according as man, was not blessed in the first instant of his conception. That sounds like a modern scriptural scholar would be saying that, right? Yeah. He had urnages like the rest of us, right? He was like us in all things of sin. Yeah, yeah. But against this is what is said in Psalm 64. Therefore, beatus quam et agisti, yeah, blessed whom you have chosen and assumed, right? Which, according to the gloss, they refer to Augustine, I guess, refers to the human nature of Christ, right? Which was taken on by the word of God in unity of person. But in the first instant of, what, his conception, human nature was taken on by the word of God. Therefore, in the first instant of his conception, Christ, according as his man, was, what? Blessed, huh? Which is to be a comprehensor, huh? When Thomas argues there in the Supercondition to Gentiles, that nothing is more perfect, huh? Than the pursuit of wisdom, right, for man. And he says, as the reason why it's more perfect is that, in a way, man is already partaking of his end. Which is beatitude, right? And then he quotes Ecclesiasticus, right? Where it says, blessed is the man who dwells with, what, wisdom, right? So it already has something of the end, right? That's the third meaning of Aristotle gives in the fifth book of perfect, right? Has reached its end, right? So if the man who dwells with wisdom isn't already blessed, as it says, it says how perfect this pursuit is, huh? Let's see what Thomas says now in the Badiq article, huh? I answer it should be said, as it's clear from before I said, I think it's said already. It was not suitable that Christ, in his conception, would receive, what? Grace habitual only, right? Without the act, huh? For he received grace not to some, what, measure or limit, huh? But the grace of the wayfarer, how do you translate that, huh? Via? Wayfarer. Yeah, that's probably the way I do it. The grace over the wayfarer, since it is, what, falling short of the grace of the one who comprehends, has a lesser measure with respect to the one who is a comprehender, huh? Well, then Christ has got to have what the comprehender has. Whence it is manifest that Christ, in the very first instant of his conception, accepted not only so much grace as the comprehensors have, but also greater than that of all comprehenders. Well, they translate comprehenders in that text. And because that grace was not without act, it follows that he was an act, a comprehensor, seeing God, right, through his essence, more clearly than other, what, creatures, huh? Now, to the first, it should be said, you know, it says merit precedes for a war, right? The first, it should be said, you know, it says merit precedes for a war. Therefore, it should be said, as has been said above, Christ did not merit the glory of the soul by which he is said to be a, what? Comprehensor. But the glory of his, what? Body. To which he arrived at through his, what? Action. And then, Thomas, you can answer the same way, I guess, the second one, right? He says, these things are necessary for God to, what? Suffer, undergo, and thus enter into his glory, right? Into his glory of his body. Now, the third objection says, well, neither man nor angel, right? Okay. To the third, it should be said that Christ, from the fact that he was both God and man, even in his humanity, had something apart from other creatures, or more so than other creatures, that to wit, stopped him at once. From the beginning, he was, what? Blessed, yeah. That he was full of grace and truth, as it says in the Gospel of St. John. Does the Church say that's the greatest Gospel or not? Does the Church say that? I know Vatican II says that even among the books of the New Testament, the Gospels, yeah, so they didn't put the Gospels before all the books of the New Testament, all the rest of the books in the Old Testament. But it doesn't go and say, it doesn't pick among the Gospels. I was talking last night to him a little bit about that, I was talking to you earlier there, about Peter's confession of faith, you know, and how St. John has it also, in a way. But in the account of Mark and Luke, you just say, there art to Christ. It doesn't get as far as Matthew does. But only in Matthew do you have the account of, and therefore you're going to build a church upon this, right? So you only have an account of complete confession, you know? So you can't build a church and just say, you're Christ, you have a sight, but you're going to say, you are Christ, the Son of God, huh? You can build a church on that. I think they're a little scandalized. It wasn't in Mark and Luke, right? It says Christ. That's why they say, you know, they have the two apostles at the two inns there, you know, to hold up the guys in the middle, right? I guess they said that, I think, yeah. One of them said it, but they also mentioned that you get two idols, Matthew and John, you get two disciples, as a two chief, I would say the disciples of St. David and St. Mark, the disciples of St. Paul, and St. Mark. Yeah. Well, here's saying, and then direct. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I kind of wonder why, why Thomas did the commentary on John and Matthew, you know? I thought they would have not, they had not done the other thing, I didn't do it. Why did those two first, you know? Well, Christ is saying that, too. Matthew and John, they didn't do Mark and Luke. Yeah, he only has homilies on Matthew and John. And he has homilies on, I think, almost every other book in the Testament except the apostles. Yeah. But they're not, it's not like a complete comic, they're just sort of rambling, his typical father's, rambling homilies, but it's taken from those gospels or those books. But in the Mass there, in the last month or so, they've been doing Luke and Mark, and I say, see, I remember that in John, you've never got to do that in John. I remember that one, I don't know. Very interesting. To give you an idea of the generation I grew up, when, when they start, you know, they, different years, they have different gospels now, because that's my whole life, the cycle of gospels and so on, and I'd hear someone come from the Passion I hadn't heard, and immediately, my first assumption was, the priest was changing something. I didn't hear that before. He said, you know, he dropped something out, or maybe, that's a month's impression. We were talking about that kind of thing. I just thought it was very cool. I remember it kind of, you know, badly scandalized by, seeing there's no account of the Eucharist there, and John, at the Last Supper, I mean, there was in the chapter 6, but there's no account of the, the institution of the sacrament there, you know, see. Why do you just look so important? I think he had, he must have been the last gospel to be written, isn't it? And he's filling in things that they didn't, you know? That's what I always, Yeah, he thinks of an earlier time with Christ, I think, too, in his public life. Yeah. So I always notice, there's a disproportion between, the account of the Last Supper, and John's Gospel, where it's not the other house, because it's almost a quarter of the whole gospel, it's just the Last Supper. The Supper today is our Lady of Lords. Yes, it's Father God's birthday today. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so that, in a sense, is in that text again of St. John, right? We saw him as the only begotten Son of God, right? Full of grace and truth, right? So that unique thing. So he's like us in all things then, or what? Pretty much. And he's like us in a lot of things, but he's got a lot more. Yeah, yeah. A lot more good things. I assume that the modern scholars who have denied these things would be using those kind of texts, right? My impression is, they say, well, if he had to be a supervision, then he wasn't like us in all things. That's sort of their reasoning. He wasn't like us in all things, he had to be a supervision. Well, we're not there yet. But that doesn't mean something wrong. It's like he's not like us. That's not something foreign to human beings. It's supernatural, it's a gift, but we're engineers. When is this letter 120 of Augusta in there, you see? When he says, intellectum valde ama, right? Now, whether you take intellectum to be the power, you know, or the understanding, right? But he's talking about scripture, and he says, well, he says, the heretics accept scripture too, right? But they don't understand it. And they follow themselves in that scripture. So, intellectum valde ama, right? You know? Scripture's not going to do any good if you don't understand it. So, God likes understanding very much, because scripture will become actually harmful, like it does to the heretics, right? It leads them astray, because they don't have the understanding of scripture. The prerequisites are for understanding if they don't want to go. Yeah, yeah, you've got to follow the church as a guidance in understanding of scripture. That's what, that's what, that parable of the seed falling on the footpath, and the birds come and take it away, in other words. So, that's the one, you're the word, but they don't understand it. Yeah. And the demons come and take it away. So, if they don't cultivate what's required to understand it, then God will let the demons take it away. And Thomas goes through, you know, all these heretics, like Arias and Sebelius, you know, the father is greater than I, and he doesn't understand what this means, and apply it to him in his divine nature, period, and then intellectum valde ama. Yeah. Well, I found, like, the other quote about humility is in letter 118, and it's done by it. So, you can go back two letters. And now we come to the birth of Christ, huh? Tivitas, right? I'm from the Tiviti Parish there in St. Paul, Minnesota. Tiviti of our Lord. Now, consequently, after the conception of Christ, we're not to tweet about his, what? Birth, huh? And first, as regards the birth itself, second, as regards the manifestation of the birth, which will be in the next question, huh? About the first, eight things are asked, huh? First, whether birth is of nature or the person. You want to ask that kind of question? Okay. Second, whether to Christ should be attributed another birth apart from the eternal birth that he has, huh? Well, sometimes, in the Christmas Masses there, the first Mass was celebrating his eternal birth, wasn't it? The Mass during the middle of the night or something, and then, huh? Yeah. And then there was, you know, they had the Gospel remade with John's Gospel, right? And then you get that, get the human birth and so on. So they were marked with two different births. Whether, and third, whether according to the temporal birth, so that's going to answer yes to the second one, yeah. The Blessed Virgin is, what? His mother, huh? Fourth, because she ought to be called the Mother of God, huh? Some of the persons don't like to call the Mother of God. Have you heard that sometimes? They like to or don't? They don't like to. No, generally they don't. It seems like, you know. They don't like him. Yeah, yes, yeah. That's what Father Haddon says, but we have a blessing every night in prayer. When we go to bed and we have a blessing with the icon, you know, because it's the black and I'll bless the mother. Through the access to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. He always tells us about the Protestant was here for the night prayer, pulled aside after, did you call her the Mother of God? And I said, yeah. Amen. Five, for the Christ, according to two, what, sonships, right, is the Son of God the Father and of the Virgin Mary. I don't think he's going to be two sons, I don't think. Why shouldn't he be his two births, huh? He's the Son of Man and the Son of God, so we'll see what the Master says, so you don't take my word for it. Six, oh, sixth question, about the manner of the nativity of birth, huh? And seventh, about the place of it. And fourth, about the time of the nativity, huh? Very thorough Thomas, huh? That's the word, you know, the word diligent, intelligent student. He's a loving one, huh? He's one of the little details, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was looking at a couple of little pamphlets I picked up when they're over in England there, at the Stratford and Avon there, you know. One on Stratford and Avon, the one on Shakespeare, you know. And then kind of, a few little interesting details about Shakespeare, you know, that I kind of forgot in there, didn't know, you know, and so on and so on. All these little, you know, tidbits, yeah. And no one seems to know exactly when Shakespeare, or how he got tied up with the actors there. But, you know, they have records now of the, you know, this one year right around Shakespeare, there were five different companies of actors that came to perform in Stratford and Avon, right, and we know some of them were short of, you know, personnel, and any civil personnel. So, very likely he might have picked up, you know, one of them, volunteered, and loaded position, and got back with them to London, and that was the start of these great, yeah. So, all these interesting things, you know. And they had a picture there of a painting, I guess, with Sir Walter Scott, who was a very famous artist at the time, and he came down to Stratford and Avon, you know, and he said some things, you know, noble things about Shakespeare. But anyway, one of his painter friends did a painting of him, you know, there in the church there, you know, kind of standing there in front of Shakespeare's grave, you know, looking down. It's a beautiful picture, just activated, so, too. It just captures, you know, the lighting and everything, just captures, you know, the reverence that he has there, you know, for Shakespeare, just amazing. So, if you have a diligent love of this man here, Christ, then you want to know all these little details, you know, however, you can see if they may look at first, you know, but all these little things about him. It's the way, you know, Alphonsus does their passion, right? You know, even Isaiah and everybody, you know, songs, you know. And he does that Christmas sign again, just meditation right after Christmas on Christ being laid in the straw, and how poor that was, how painful it must have been for a newborn child. What in the world inspired it was for another to put down a newborn infant on a hard circus? This is what he quotes in one of the saints that says there's a mystery. He inspired him to do that so he could suffer. To the first, then, one proceeds thus, it seems that nativity belongs to nature more than to the person, right? Of course, the word comes from nature, right? So, that's one of the words taken up in the fifth book of wisdom, right? The word nature, which first means birth. For Augustine says in the book on faith to Peter, the eternal nature and divine, right, cannot be what? Yeah, conceived and born from human nature, except according to the truth of human nature, right? Thus, therefore, it belongs to the human nature. to what? The divine nature to be conceived and born by reason of the human nature. Much more, therefore, does it belong to what? Human nature. But is human nature born or is it the person that's born? Oh, here's a reference now to the fifth book of wisdom here. Moreover, according to the philosopher, according to the philosopher in the fifth book, the name of nature is taken from what? But denominations come about according to the suitableness of likeness. Therefore, it seems that birth more pertains to nature than to the person, right? So birth is coming to what? Get your nature, right? Moreover, that is properly born that through birth begins to be. But through the nativity of Christ does not begin to be the person of Christ, but is human nature. I know his person does come to be in that nature. Therefore, it seems that nativity properly belongs in nature, not to the person. But against this is what Damascene says in the third book on the orthodox faith, right? It ran across a text of Thomas there. It takes orthodox not to mean a right opinion, right? But right glory. I don't know, I've never seen that before. I mean, it can have that sense, I know, but I mean, you know, I've always thought in terms of what you think, you know, you think rightly, you know, glory in the right things. Interesting. You know, we'll see. So nativity is not, is of the hypostasis, right? Not of nature, right? You know, those Greeks use the word hypostasis there for the person, right? Okay. I answer, it should be said, that birth can be attributed to something in two ways. In one way as to the subject of the birth, right? Another way as the term or end of this process, but to the subject is attributed that it is born, right? And this is properly the hypostasis, not the what? Nature. For sense to be born is in a certain kind of being generated, right? Just as what is generated, something is generated in order that it might be, right? So something is born, that it might be, huh? But being is properly of a thing that, what? Subsists. For the form which does not subsist is to said to be only that, to, is said to be only because by it something is, huh? But the person or the hypostasis is signified in the manner of the thing subsisting, right? The thing that subsists is a thing that exists, not in another as in a subject, right? Nature of her is signified by a manner of what? Form in which something subsists, huh? Not as that which subsists, but the form in which it subsists, right? And therefore an activity of birth as to a subject, right? Properly of being born is attributed to the person or the hypostasis, not to the nature, right? But as to the term, nativity is attributed to what? Nature. For the end of each generation and of every birth is the form. That's one way Aristotle argues that forms be called nature as well as matter, right? He shows in the second book there, natural hearing, right? That nature is both matter and form in the genus of substance. Nature, however, is signified by what? Man or form, right? Whence birth is said to be a way into what? Nature. As is clear through the philosophy in the second book of natural hearing, right? So the intention of nature ends at form or the nature of the what? Species, huh? Someone asked me, why do you say natural hearing instead of physics, right? Thomas says physics. Of course, in his day, you wouldn't have the same confusion you have today, right? Because of our use of the word physics, huh? Of course, the word natural hearing is is more revealing, right? That's actually the title of the Greek, natural hearing. To the first, it should be said, just a text now from Augustine there, right? That an account of the identity which there is in divine things between the nature and the hypostasis, huh? Sometimes nature is placed for a person or hypostasis, right? And according to this, Augustine says that the divine nature to be what? Conceived and born, right? Because the person of the Son is conceived and born according to what? Human nature, huh? A little decline there in Augustine's been speaking sometimes, huh? I mean, Augustine, I mean, what's his name? St. John says, and the word was made what? Flesh, yeah. You don't say that the divine nature was made flesh, do you? You never say that, do you? Yeah. Or the divine nature was made man? Yeah, yeah. God is the divine nature, right? But God's way, the word God signifies as that which has divine nature, right? Even though the same thing, right? So in some sense, it's more appropriate to say God, right? Just like when you talk about Trinity, remember that problem? You don't want to say that the divine nature generates, but you can say God generates, huh? Because the Father who has the divine nature generates, right? But the divine nature itself doesn't generate, although it's that by which it generates, huh? It's not what generates, huh? Remember that? So you can say more that God became man, who said, right? God became man so man might become God, as Dustin says, yeah. But I wouldn't say that divine nature became man, and this is speaking of identity there, right? But because of the way it's signifying the divine nature, right? It's not really appropriate, huh? Not particularly on that? It's the only qualified way. Yeah. This quote is attributed to us. Okay. So we save the day of St. Augustine. Okay. Mine says, Evel Fugentius, right? Who from the use of the custom of the Greeks seems to have taken that, what? Speech, huh? It's not good, huh? What was it? Basil speaks of the Father as being the cause of the Son. That's kind of a way of speaking. It should be piously exposed or expounded. Now, what about what the philosopher says in the fifth book? To the second, it should be said that no motion or change is named from the subject that is moved, right? Right? But from the, what? End of the motion for which it has, what? Species rate. Yeah.