10. If the rejoinder is made that the processions of Son and Holy Ghost differ in principle, inasmuch as the Father produces the Son by mode of understanding, as the Word, and produces the Holy Ghost by mode of will, as Love, the opponent must go on to say that according to the difference of understanding and will in God the Father there are two distinct processions and two distinct beings so proceeding. But will and understanding in God the Father are not distinguished with a real but only with a mental dis- tinction (B. I, Chapp. XLV, LXXIII). Consequently the two processions and the two beings so proceeding must differ only by a mental distinction. But things that differ only by a mental distinction are predicable of one an- other: thus it is true to say that God's will is His understanding, and His understanding is His will. It will be true then to say that the Holy Ghost is the Son, and the Son the Holy Ghost, which is the impious position of Sabellius. Therefore, to maintain the distinction between Holy Ghost and Son, it is not enough to say that the Son proceeds by mode of understanding and the Holy Ghost by mode of will, unless we further go on to say that the Holy Ghost is of the Son.
13. The Father and the Son, being one in essence, differ only in this, that He is the Father, and He the Son. Everything else is common to Father and Son. But being the origin of the Holy Ghost lies outside of the relation- ship of paternity and filiation: for the relation whereby the Father is Father differs from the relation whereby the Father is the origin of the Holy Ghost. Being the origin then of the Holy Ghost is something common to Father and Son.
CHAPTER XXVI- That there are only Three Persons in the Godhead^ Father and Son and Holy Ghost FROM all that has been said we gather that in the divine nature there subsist three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and that these three are one God, being distindt from one another by relations alone. The Father is distinguished by the relation of paternity and by being born of none: the Son is distinguished from the Father by the relationship of filiation: the Father and Son from the Holy Ghost by spiration; and the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son by the procession of love whereby He proceeds from both. Besides these three Persons it is impossible to assign in the divine nature any fourth Person.
1. The three divine Persons, agreeing in essence, can be distinguished only by the relation of origin. These relations of origin cannot obtain in respe<5t of any process tending to things without, as whatever proceeded without would not be co-essential with its origin; but the process must all stay within. Now such a process, abiding within its origin, is found only in the a6t of understanding and will.* Hence the divine persons cannot be multiplied except in accordance with the requirements of the process of understanding and will in God. But in God there can be but one process of understanding, seeing that His a<5t of understanding is one, simple, and per- fect, whereby, understanding Himself, He understands all other things; and so there can be in God only one procession of the Word. In like manner the process of love must be one and simple, because the divine will also is one and simple, whereby in loving Himself God loves all other things. There can therefore be in God but two Persons proceeding: one by way of under- standing, as the Word, or Son; the other by way of love, as the Holy Ghost: there is also one Person not proceeding, namely, the Father. There can only therefore be threeJVrsons in the Trinity.
2. The divine Persons must be distinguished according to their mode of procession. Now the mode of personal procession can be but threefold. There may be a mode of not proceeding at all, which is proper to the Father; or of proceeding from one who does not proceed, which is proper to the Son; or of proceeding from one who does proceed, which is proper to the Holy Ghost. It is impossible therefore to assign more than three Persons.
3. If any objicient says that, the Son being perfect God, there is in Him perfect intelledtual power, whereby He can produce a Word; and in like manner the Holy Ghost, being infinite goodness, which is a principle of communication^ must be able to communicate the divine nature to another divine person, he should take note that the Son is God as begotten, not as begetting; hence the power of understanding is in Him as in one proceeding as a Word, not as in one producing a Word. In like manner the Holy Ghost being God as proceeding, there is in Him infinite goodness as in a person receiving, not as in one communicating infinite goodness to another. The whole fulness of Godhead then is in the Son, numerically the same as in the Father, but with a relation of birth, as it is in the Father with a rela- tion of a<5tive generation. If the relation of the Father were attributed to * In other words, the process must be by an t According to the axiom, ' Good tends to diffuse 'immanent,' not by a 'transient* adt; and the only itself.' immanent ad is that of understanding and will.
the Son, all distinction would be taken away: for the divine Persons are distinguished one from another solely by their mutual relations. And the like argument holds of the Holy Ghost.
A likeness of the divine Trinity is observable in the human mind. That mind, by actually understanding itself, conceives its 4 word ' in itself, which * word ' is nothing else than what is called the 4 intellectual expression ' (intentio intellefta, cf. B. I, Chap. LIII) existing in the mind; which mind, going on to love itself, produces itself in the will as an object loved. Further it does not proceed, but is confined and complete in a circle, returning by love to its own substance, whence the process originally began by formation of the * intelledtual expression ' of that substance. There is however a process going out to exterior efFeCts, as the mind for love of itself proceeds to some aCtion beyond itself. Thus we remark in the mind three things: the mind itself, whence the process starts within its own nature; the mind conceived in the understanding; and the mind loved in the will. And so we have seen that there is in the divine nature a God unbegotten, the Father, the origin of the entire procession of Deity; and a God begotten after the manner of a 4 word' conceived in the understanding, namely, the Son; and a God pro- ceeding by mode of love, who is the Holy Ghost: beyond Him there is no further procession within the divine nature, but only a proceeding to exte- rior effedts. But the representation of the divine Trinity in us falls short, in regard of Father, Son and Holy Ghost being one nature, and each of them a perfedt Person.* Hence there is said to be in the mind of man the 4 image* of God: Let us mafe man to our image and likeness (Gen. i, 26). But as for the irrational creation, on account of the remoteness and obscurity of the repre- sentation as found in them, there is said to be the 4 foot-print ' of the Trinity, but not the 4 image ' (vestigium, non imago).
CHAPTER XXVII-0/ the Incarnation of the Word according to the Tradition of Holy Scripture OF all the works of God, the mystery of the Incarnation most trans- cends reason. Nothing more astonishing could be imagined as done by God than that the true God and Son of God should become true man. To this chief of wonders all other wonders are subordinate. We confess this wonderful Incarnation under the teaching of divine authority, John i, 14: Phil, ii, 6-1 1. The words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself also declare it, in that sometimes He says of Himself humble and human things, e.g., The Father is greater than I (John xiv, 28): My soul is sorrowful e^en unto death (Matt, xxvi, 38): which belonged to Him in the humanity which He had assumed: at other times lofty and divine things, e.g., / and the Father are one (John x, 30): All things that the Father hath are mine (John xvi, 1 5): which attach to Him in His divine nature. And the aCtions that are recorded of Him show the same duality of nature. His being stricken with fear, sadness, hunger, death, belongs to His human nature: His healing the sick by His own power, His raising the dead and effectually commanding the elements, His casting out of devils, forgiving of sins, His rising from the dead when He willed, and finally ascending into heaven, show the power of God that was in Him.
* In the human mind neither is there so perfect a unity nor so distinft a trinity.
CHAPTER XXVIII-O/* the Error of Photinus concerning the Incarnation PHOTINUS and others pretend that the divinity was in Christ, not by nature, but by a high degree of participation in divine glory, which He had merited by His works. But on this theory it would not be true that God had taken flesh so as to become man, but rather that a fleshly man had become God. It would not be true that the Word was made flesh (John i, 14), but that flesh had been made the Word. gnosis and coming down would not be predicable of the Son of God, but rather glorification and being lifted up would be predicated of man. It would not be true that, being in the form of God, he emptied [c^W^] himself taking the form of a servant (Phil, ii, 6), but only the exaltation of man to divine glory would be true, of which presently we read, wherefore hath God exalted him. It would not be true, / descended from heaven (John vi, 38), but only, I ascend to my Father (John xx, 17): notwithstanding that Holy Scripture joins both assertions together: None ascendeth into heaven but he who descendeth from heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven (John iii, 1 3): He who descended, the same also ascendeth abo*Pe all the heavens (Eph. iv, 10). Nor would it be true to say of the Son that He was sent by the Father, or that He went out from the Father to come into the world, but only that He went to the Father, although He Himself makes the two declarations together: I go to him who sent me: I went out from the Father, and came into the world; and again 1 leave the World and go unto the Father (John xvi, 5, 28).
CHAPTER XXIX-Of the Error of the Manicheans concerning the Incarnation THE Manicheans said that the Son of God took not a real but an apparent body; and that the things which He did as man, — being born, eating, drinking, walking, suffering, and being buried, — were not done in reality, but in show. To begin with, this theory robs Scripture of all authority. For since a show of flesh is not flesh, nor a show of walking walking, the Scripture lies when it says, The Word was made flesh, if the flesh was only apparent: it lies when it says that Jesus Christ walked, ate, was dead and buried, if these things happened only in fantastic appearance. But if even in a small matter the authority of Holy Scripture is derogated from,* no point of our faith can any longer remain fixed, as our faith rests on the Holy Scripture, according to the text, These things are written that ye may believe (John xx, 31).
Some one may say that the veracity of Holy Scripture in relating appear- ance for reality is saved by this consideration, that the appearances of things are called figuratively and in a sense by the names of the things themselves, as a painted man is called in a sense a man. But though this is true, yet it is not the way of Holy Scripture to give the whole history of one transa6lion in this ambiguous way, without there being other passages of Holy Scripture from whence the truth may be manifestly gathered. Otherwise there would follow, not the instruction but the deception of men: whereas the Apostle says that whatsoever things are written, are written for our instruction (Rom. xv,4); and # Understand, * in anything which Holy Scripture, as God's word, really does say.'
that all Scripture, dhinely inspired, is useful for teaching and instructing (2 Tim. iii, 16). Besides, the whole gospel narrative would be poetical and fabulous, if it narrated appearances of things for realities, whereas it is said: We hal>e not been led by sophisticated fables in making fyiown to you the power of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter i, 16). Wherever Scripture has to tell of appearances, it gives us to understand this by the very style of the narrative, e.g., the appari- tion of the three men to Abraham, who in them adored God and confessed the Deity (Gen. xviii). As for the visions of the imagination [imaginarie visa) seen by Isaias, Ezechiel, and other prophets, they originate no error, because they arc not narrated as history, but as prophetic pictures: still there is always something put in to show that it is but an apparition (Isai. vi, 1: Ezech.
When divine truths are conveyed in Scripture under figurative language, no error can thence arise, as well from the homely character of the simili- tudes used, which shows that they are but similitudes; as also because what in some places is hidden under similitudes, in others is revealed by plain speaking. But there is no Scripture authority to derogate from the literal truth of all that we read about the humanity of Christ. When the Apostle says: God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. viii, 3): he does not say, in the likeness of flesh, but adds sinful, since Christ had true flesh, but not sinful flesh, there being no sin in Him; but His flesh was like sinful flesh, inasmuch as He had flesh liable to suffering, as man's flesh was rendered liable by sin. So the expression, made in the likeness of men (Phil, ii, 7), conveys no idea of illusion: that is shown by what follows, taking the form of a servant, where ' form* is clearly put for 4 nature,' as the adjoining clause shows, being in the form of God: for it is not supposed that Christ was God only in resem- blance.* Moreover there arc passages in which Holy Scripture expressly bars the suspicion of Christ being a mere appearance, Matt, xiv, 26, 27: Luke xxiv, 37-39: Adts x, 40, 41: and St John's words, What was from the beginning, what toe have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life (1 John i, 1). In fa6t, if Christ had not a real body, He did not really die; neither therefore did he really rise again: And if Qhrist be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain, yea and we are found false 'Witnesses of God, because we haT>e given testimony of God that he bath raised up Qhrist, whom he hath not raised up [if He never really died] (1 Cor. xv, 14, 15).
# The term likeness, and its synonym figure, should His humanity being found just life any other man.
be pressed more home, as in the original it is evi- This He did in the days of his fleshy i.e., His mortal dently emphatic. The meaning will be clear, if we life, from birth to crucifixion: cf. Heb. v, 7-10, consider the gist of the whole passage, Phil, ii, 3-1 1. which is a parallel passage to this. It is to be borne The Philippians are not to be contentious or vain- in mind that, as God, Jesus Christ had a right to a glorious, but in humility they are to give way to one glorified humanity from the first: but He waived another, and abate their pretensions to personal dis- that right, and went without the glory of His body, tin&ion: this on the example of their Lord, who being until He had purchased His glorification by His God and man, did not think the glory of the God- death. In this consisted His fenosis, a voluntary head, as extended to His human nature, a thing to human aft of self-abasement and self-renunciation on be seized upon without paying a price fir it (apraypovy His part. This kenosis met with its great reward in R.V. prize), but submitted to {enosis in His human the glory of His resurrection, in the triumph of His nature, being made in the likeness of ordinary men, and ascension, and in the divine honours rendered Him in the configuration and general circumstances of age by age in His Church.
CHAPTERS XXXII, XXXlll-Ofthe Error of Arius and Apollinaris concerning the Soul of Qhrist ARIUS held that Christ had no soul, but assumed flesh alone, to which the Divinity stood in the place of a soul. In this he was followed by Apollinaris. Apollinaris however was brought to confess that Christ had a sensitive soul; but he averred that the Divinity stood to that sensitive soul in place of mind and intellect (S. Aug. de haresibus, 55).* 1. It is impossible for the Word of God to be the form of a body.f 2. Take away what is of the essence of man, and a true man cannot remain. But manifestly the soul is the chief constituent of the essence of man, being his form. If Christ then had not a soul, He was not true man, though the Apostle calls Him such: One mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. ii, 5).
4. What is generated of any living being cannot be called its offspring, unless it come forth in the same species. But if Christ had no soul, He would not be of the same species with other men: for things that differ in c form ' cannot be of the same species. At that rate Christ could not be called the Son of Mary, or she His mother: which however is asserted in Scripture (Luke i, 43: ii, 33: John xix, 25).
5. Express mention is made of the soul of Christ, Matt, xxvi, 8: John 9. The body stands to the soul as matter to form, and as the instrument to the prime agent. But matter must be proportionate to form, and the instrument to the prime agent. Therefore according to the diversity of souls there must also be a diversity of bodies. And this is apparent even to sense: for in different animals we find different arrangements of limbs, adapted to different dispositions of souls. | If then in Christ there were not a soul such as our soul, neither would He have had limbs like the limbs of man.
CHAPTER XXXlV-Of the Error of Theodore of Mopsuestia concerning the Union of the TV ird with ZMan BY the foregoing chapters it appears that neither was the divine nature wanting to Christ, as Photinus said; nor a true human body, accord- ing to the error of the Manicheans; nor again a human soul, as Arius and Apollinaris supposed. These three substances then meet in Christ, the Divinity, a human soul, and a true human body. It remains to enquire, according to the evidence of Scripture, what is to be thought of the union • A curious foreshadowing of Avcrroes: see B. II, and therefore must be in proportion with one Chap. LX. Apollinaris, a friend of St Athanasius and of the Sophist Libanius, sat in a synod in 362 as bishop of Laodicea. He was a better classical scholar than theologian; and was the first to attempt to re- write the classics in the service of Christianity. His doctrine was condemned in the second General Council, that of Constantinople, in 380. Arius, making the Word but a creature, had less difficulty in supposing the Logos to do the office of a soul. Apollinaris was anti-Arian, and so came to admit some manner of human soul in Christ.
t Matter and form combine to make one nature, another. But there is no proportion between the Deity and anything corporeal. It will be seen that the error of Apollinaris is akin to that of Eutyches, who posited but one nature in Christ.
t This argument suggests at least the likelihood of a rational soul being only possible in a body of human shape: a good instance of an intrinsic con- nexion in the nature of things between this and that, over and above the facls of number and space, to which we are too apt to confine such necessity. Cf. B. Ill, Chap. XCVII, note, p. 262.
of the three. Theodore of Mopsuestia, then, and Nestorius, his follower, brought out the following theory of this union.* They said that a human soul and a human body were naturally united in Christ to constitute one man of the same species and nature with other men; and that in this man God dwelt as in His temple by grace, as He does in other holy men. Hence He said Himself: Dissolve this temple, and in three days I will raise it up: which the Evangelist explains: He spoke of the temple of his body (John ii, 19). Hereupon there followed a union of affe&ions between the Man Christ and God, the Man adhering with hearty good will to God, and God willingly accepting Him, as He says Himself: He that sent me is with me; and he hath not left me alone, because I do afaays the things that are pleasing to him (John viii, 29): giving us to understand that the union of that Man with God is as the union of which the Apostle speaks: He that adhereth to God, is one spirit (1 Cor. vi, 17). And as by this union the names that properly apply to God are transferred to men, so that they arc called gods, and sons of God, and lords, and holy ones, and christs, as appears by divers passages of Scripture (e.g., Pss. lxxxi, civ); so are divine names duly applied to the Man Christ, and by reason of the indwelling of God and the union of affedtions with Him He is called God, and Son of God, and Lord, and Holy One, and Christ. Moreover, because in that Man there was greater fulness of grace than in other holy men, He was above others the temple of God, and more closely united with God in affedtion, and shared the divine names by a peculiar privilege of His own; and for this excellence of grace He was put in participation of divine honour and dignity, and has come to be adored along with God. And thus one is the person of the Word of God, and another the person of that Man who is adored along with God. Or if there is said to be one person of them both, that will be by reason of the aforesaid union of affe&ions, on the strength of which that Man and the Word of God will be one person, in the same way in which it is said of husband and wife that they are no more two, but one flesh (Matt, xix, 6). And because such a union does not authorise us to predicate of the one whatever can be predicated of the other — for not whatever is true of the husband is true of the wife, or vice versa, — therefore in the case of the union of the Word with that Man this Nestorian dodtrine has it we should not fail to notice how the properties of that Man, belonging to His human nature, • The great feature in the theology of the fourth and wrote against St Jerome and St Augustine. Theoand fifth centuries was the opposition between the dore, like Bishop jansenius of Ypres, enjoyed the school of Alexandria, allegorical, mystical, Oriental, reputation of orthodoxy all his life, and died in the and the school of Antioch, matter-of-facl, literal, peace of the Church. As the Jansenists took up accurate, Western-minded. There were Saints and the book of jansenius, drew their heresy from it, Doctors of both schools, and heretics in both, the and involved themselves and it in a final condemnalatter carrying the tendencies of their respective tion; so the Nestorians fell back upon Theodore, the schools to excess. From Alexandria came Origen, protagonist of the Antiochene school. Thus Theodore Athanasius, Cyril, Arius, Apollinaris, Dioscorus. and his works came to be condemned in the fifth From Antioch, John Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theo- General Council, the second of Constantinople in dore of Mopsuestia, Nestorius. Theodore in his 553. Since their condemnation, the greater part of early career was a friend of St John Chrysostom, them have perished.
who addressed to him the still extant treatise, Ad Nestorius, a Syrian, educated at Antioch, became Tbeodorum Up sum, against the forsaking of monastic bishop of Constantinople in 428, the year of Theolife. He was a priest with Chrysostom at Antioch, dore's death. He was condemned and deposed in the then in 392 bishop of Mopsuestia (Mm/<ov cona) in Council of Ephesus in 43 1. Nestorianism is the most Cilicia, and died in his bishopric in 428, three years rationalistic, and in that way the acutest, of all before the Council of Ephesus. Theodore was a heretical perversions of the Incarnation. At this day, voluminous writer and biblical commentator, fond east and west, beyond the visible pale of the Cathoof the literal sense, hating allegories. He was a vigo- lie Church, thousands of professing Christians are, rous opponent of Arius, and especially of Apollinaris. consciously or unconsciously, Nestorians. On the other hand, he countenanced the Pelagians, cannot fitly be predicated of the Word of God, or God. Thus it is proper to that Man to have been born of a Virgin, to have suffered, died, and been buried: all of which things, Nestorians say, are impossible to predicate of God, or of the Word of God. But because there are some names which, while applying to God in the first place, are communicated to man in a sense, as Christ, Lord, Holy One, or even Son of God, they see no difficulty in terms expressive of the above incidents of humanity being united as predicates with these names. So they think it proper to say that ' Christ/ 1 the Lord of glory,' ' the Saint of saints,' or even 'the Son of God/ was 'born of a virgin/ 'suffered/ 'died/ and 'was buried/ Therefore they say that the Blessed Virgin should not be called ' mother of God/ or ' of the Word of God/ but ' mother of Christ.'
i. Any thoughtful person may see that this theory cannot stand with the truth of the Incarnation. The theory holds that the Word of God was united- with the Man Christ only by the indwelling of grace and consequent union of wills. But the indwelling of the Word of God in man does not mean the Word of God being Incarnate: for the Word of God and God Himself dwelt in all the saints from the beginning of the world, according to the text: Ye are the temple of the Irving God, as God says: I will dwell in them (2 Cor vi, 16: Levit. xxvi, 12). But this indwelling cannot be called an incarnation: otherwise God must have become incarnate frequently from the beginning of the world. Nor is it enough to constitute an incarnation, if the Word of God and God dwelt in the Man Christ with more abundant grace: for greater and less do not make a difference of species in point of union.
3. Everything that is made anything is that which it is made, as what is made man is man, and what is made white is white. But the Word of God has been made man (John i, 14). Therefore the Word of God is man. But, of two things differing in person, or suppositum,* the one cannot possibly be predicated of the other. When it is said 'Man is an animal/ that self-same being which is an animal is man. When it is said, ' Man is white/ some particular man himself is pointed at as being white, although whiteness is beyond the essential notion of humanity. But in no way can it be said that Socrates is Plato, or any other of the individuals either of the same or of a different species. If then the Word has been made flesh, that is, man, it is impossible for there to be two persons, one of the Word, the other of the Man.
4. No one would say, ' I am running/ when some one else was running, except perhaps figuratively, meaning that another was running in his place. But that man who is called Jesus (John ix, 11) says of Himself, Before ^Abraham was, I am (John viii, 58); I and the Father are one (John x, 30); and sundry other phrases, manifestly proper to the divinity of the Word. Therefore the person of that Man speaking is the person of the Son of God.