but by manhood being assumed by Godhead. Further, He who is man
is called Son of God not in virtue of divine but of human substance,
which latter none the less was conjoined to Godhead in a unity of
natures. And although thought is able to distinguish and combine the
manhood and the Godhead, yet one and the same is perfect man and God,
God because He was begotten of the substance of the Father, but man
because He was engendered of the Virgin Mary. And further He who is man
is God in that manhood was assumed by God, and He who is God is man in
that God was clothed with manhood. And although in the same Person the
Godhead which took manhood is different from the manhood which It took,
yet the same is God and man. For if you think of man, the same is man
and God, being man by nature, God by assumption. But if you think of
God, the same is God and man, being God by nature, man by assumption.
And in Him nature becomes double and substance double because He is God-
man, and One Person since the same is man and God. This is the middle
way between two heresies, just as virtues also hold a middle place.[75]
For every virtue has a place of honour midway between extremes. For if
it stands beyond or below where it should it ceases to be virtue. And so
virtue holds a middle place.
Wherefore if the following four assertions can be said to be neither
beyond or below reason, viz. that in Christ are either two Natures and
two Persons as Nestorius says, or one Person and one Nature as Eutyches
says, or two Natures but one Person as the Catholic Faith believes, or
one Nature and two Persons, and inasmuch as we have refuted the doctrine
of two Natures and two Persons in our argument against Nestorius and
incidentally have shown that the one Person and one Nature suggested by
Eutyches is impossible--since there has never been anyone so mad as to
believe that His Nature was single but His Person double--it remains
that the article of belief must be true which the Catholic Faith
affirms, viz. that the Nature is double, but the Person one. But as I
have just now remarked that Eutyches confesses two Natures in Christ
before the union, but only one after the union, and since I proved that
under this error lurked two opposite opinions, one, that the union was
brought about by conception although the human body was certainly not
taken from Mary; the other, that the body taken from
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