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Updated: May 6, 2025
Proprium, continue the schoolmen, is predicated accidentally, indeed, but necessarily; or, as they further explain it, signifies an attribute which is not indeed part of the essence, but which flows from, or is a consequence of, the essence, and is, therefore, inseparably attached to the species; e.g. the various properties of a triangle, which, though no part of its definition, must necessarily be possessed by whatever comes under that definition.
Can these views be reconciled in any other way than this, that what the church teaches is the truth, and what the world teaches is the appearance? For the church establishes its teaching from the Word, but the world its teaching from the proprium; and the Word is God's, and the proprium is man's.
Hence as the organs of the external senses or of the body are receptacles of natural objects, so the organic substances of the internal senses or of the mind are receptacles of spiritual objects. As this is man's situation, what then is his proprium? It cannot consist in his being such or such a receptacle, for then it would only be the man's manner of reception, not the life's proprium.
To preserve intact the latter distinction, the proprium of the Son and His personal subsistence had to be kept distinct from the proprium and subsistence of the Father. We leave here the area of theology and come to that of Christology. We have exhibited the monophysite errors with respect to the doctrine of primal deity; we now proceed to analyse their views with respect to the incarnate Christ.
If they were judges, they pervert judgment and exercise power over the laws. If they were learned, they apply scientific information to confirm nature and man's proprium. If they were merchants they act like robbers, and if husbandmen like thieves. All are enemies of God and scoffers at divine providence.
Proprium and Accidens, on the other hand, form no part of the essence, but are predicated of the species only accidentally. Both are Accidents, in the wider sense in which the accidents of a thing are opposed to its essence; though, in the doctrine of the Predicables, Accidens is used for one sort of accident only, Proprium being another sort.
Every class which is a real Kind, that is, which is distinguished from all other classes by an indeterminate multitude of properties not derivable from one another, is either a genus or a species. And here we may close this part of the discussion, and pass to the three remaining predicables, Differentia, Proprium, and Accidens. To begin with Differentia.
Divine providence operates so secretly that scarcely anyone is aware it exists in order that man may not perish. For man's proprium, which is his will, never acts at one with divine providence, against which it has an inborn enmity. The proprium is the serpent which seduced the race's parents of which it is said, The serpent is evil of every sort; its head is self-love.
The distinction, therefore, between Differentia, Proprium, and Accidens, is not founded in the nature of things, but in the connotation of names; and we must seek it there, if we wish to find what it is.
Animal was by them considered a genus; and man and brute co-ordinate species under that genus: biped would not have been admitted to be a genus with reference to man, but a proprium or accidens only. It was requisite, according to their theory, that genus and species should be of the essence of the subject. Animal was of the essence of man; biped was not.
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