6. To ascend into heaven is clearly an attribute of Christ as man, who in their sight was taken up (A6ts i, 9). And to descend from heaven is an attri- bute of the Word of God. But he who descended, the same is he that hath ascended 1 1. Though a man be called 'Lord' by participation in the divine dominion, still no man, nor any creature whatever, can be called 'the Lord of glory': because the glory of happiness to come is something which God alone by # Persona is a rational nature complete by itself. Supposition is any nature so complete, whether rational or irrational.
nature possesses, others only by the gift of grace: hence it is said: The Lord of mighty deeds, he is the king of glory (Ps. xxiii, I o). But, had they known, never toould they have crucified the Lord of glory (i Cor. ii, 8). It is true then to say that God was crucified.
12. Scripture attributes suffering and death to the only-begotten Son of God: He spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all (Rom. viii, 32): God so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son (John iii, 16: cf. verse 14 17. The Word was made flesh (John i, 14). But the Word was not flesh except of a woman. The Word then was made of a Vroman (Gal. iv, 4),— of a Virgin Mother, for a Virgin is the Mother of the Word of God.* 19. Phil, ii, 5-1 1. If with Nestorius we divide Christ into two— into the Man, who is the Son of God by adoption, and the Son of God by nature, who is the Word of God, — this passage cannot be understood of the Man. That Man, if he be mere man, was not, to begin with, in the form of God so as afterwards to come to be in the likeness of men, but rather the other way about, being man, He became partaker of the Deity, in which participation He was not emptied, but exalted. It must then be understood of the Word of God, that He was, to begin with, from eternity in the form of God, that is, in the nature of God, and afterwards emptied himself by being made in the likeness of men. That emptying cannot be understood to mean the mere in- dwelling of the Word of God in the man Christ Jesus. For from the begin- ning of the world the Word of God has dwelt by grace in all holy men, yet not for that is it said to be emptied: for God's communication of His goodness to creatures is no derogation from Himself, but rather an exaltation, inasmuch as His pre-eminence appears by the goodness of creatures, and all the more the better the creatures are. Hence if the Word of God dwelt more fully in the Man Christ than in other saints, there was less emptying of the Word in His case than in the case of others. Evidently then the union of the Word with human nature is not to be understood to mean the mere indwel- ling of the Word of God in that Man, but the Word of God truly being made man. Thus only can that emptying be said to take place; the Word of God being said to be emptied, that is made small, not by any loss of His own greatness, but by the assumption of human littleness.f 24. The man Christ, speaking of Himself, says many divine and super- natural things, as, I will raise him up at the last day (John vi, 40): I give them life everlasting (John x, 28). Such language would be the height of pride, if the speaker were not Himself God, but only had God dwelling in him. And # " Enough," says St Thomas, " that the body is but in the manner of life chosen by the Word Inof the mother, though the soul is not. Suitably there- carnate, a life fraught with the miseries, needs and fore is the Blessed Virgin said to be the mother of liabilities of ordinary humanity, whereas the glory the Word of God, and even of God, though the and impassibility, which He assumed only at His divinity of the Word is not borrowed from a mother, resurrection, was His by right from His mother's There is no need of a son borrowing all his substance womb. This is the meaning of that term, so celefrom his mother, but only his body " (above, n. 1 3). — brated in modern theology, kenosis. If we regard the Mary is the mother of Him who is God. She is not divine nature, the Incarnation itself was, as St Thomother of the Godhead, or divine nature. Neither is mas says, " no loss of God's own greatness," which any man's mother mother of his soul. nothing can possibly diminish. Again, if we regard tin note on p. 361 a somewhat different interpreta- the human nature assumed at the Incarnation, that tion is offered according to more modern views of this humanity, again to employ St Thomas's words, "was important passage. St Thomas and the older school not emptied, but exalted," — and that much more by take the emptying (exinanitio, kIw^o) to consist in the the hypostatic union than by any Nestorian inhabi- Incarnation itself. The more modern view repre- tatio dfttnitatis. Either way explained, the passage sents it as consisting, not in the Incarnation itself, tells against Nestorius.
still Christ says of Himself: Learn of mey because I am meek and humble of heart (Matt, xi, 29).* 26. In him all things were made (Col. i, 16) is said of the Word of God; and frst-bornof the dead (ib. 18) is said of Christ; in such context as to show that the Word of God and Christ are one and the same person.
27. The same conclusion appears in 1 Cor. viii, 6: And one Lord Jesus Christy by whom are all things.
The opinion of Nestorius on the mystery of the Incarnation differs little from the opinion of Photinus. Both asserted that the man Christ was God only through the indwelling of grace. Photinus said that Christ merited the name and glory of Godhead by His passion and good works. Nestorius avowed that He had this name and glory from the first instant of His con- ception on account of the full and ample indwelling of God in Him. But concerning the eternal generation of the Word they differ considerably; Nestorius confessing it, Photinus denying it entirely.
EUTYCHES,t to save the unity of person in Christ against Nestorius, said that in Christ there was only one nature. He went on to explain how before the union there were two distindt natures, one divine and one human; but in the union they both met so as to form one. He said then that the person of Christ was of two natures, but did not subsist in two natures. The falsity of this statement is apparent on many counts.
1. In Christ Jesus there was a Body, and a natural Soul, and the Divi- nity. The Body of Christ, even after the union, was not the Divinity of the Word: for the Body of Christ, even after the union, was passible, visible to bodily eyes, and distin6t in lineaments and limbs, all of which attributes are alien to the Divinity of the Word. In like manner the Soul of Christ after union was distindt from the Divinity of the Word, because the Soul of Christ, even after the union, was affedted by the passions of sadness and grief and anger (Mark iii, 5: xiv, 34), which again can in no way be adapted to the Divinity of the Word. But soul and body make up human nature. Thus then, even after union, there was a human nature in Christ, other than the Divinity of the Word, which is the divine nature.
2. Being in the form of God, he too\ the form of a servant (Phil, ii, 6, 7). It cannot be said that the form of God and the form of a servant are the same, for nothing takes that which it already has. In Eutyches's view, Christ having already the form of God, could not have taken the form of a servant, the two being the same. Nor can it be said that the form of God in Christ was changed by the union, for so Christ after the union would not be God. Nor again can it be said that the form of the servant was mingled with the form of God, for mingled elements do not remain entire, but both are partially changed: hence it should not be said that He had taken the form of a servant, but some- * This is the thesis, Cbristus si non Deusf non bonus, cedon in 45 1. The Monophysite heresy, which he urged in Liddon's Bampton Lectures on the Divinity started, continued to trouble the peace of the Eastern of Christ, where also many of these texts are handled. Church and Empire for two centuries. It pervaded t Eutyches, a monk of Constantinople, an extreme Alexandria and even Antioch, under such worthy opponent of Nestorius and of the Antiochene school, prelates as Timothy " the Cat " (Alexandrin.) and — and as such supported by the patriarch of Alexandria, Peter u the Fuller " (Antiochen.) Dioscorus, — was condemned in the Council of Chal- CHAPTER XXXV-Against the Error of Eutyches OF GOD IN HIS REVELATION thing of that form. Thus the Apostle's words must mean that in Christ, even after union, there were two forms, therefore two natures.
3. If we suppose a blending of both natures, divine and human, neither would remain, but some third thing; and thus Christ would be neither God nor man. Eutyches then cannot be understood to mean that one nature was made out of the two. He can only mean that after union only one of the natures remained. Either then in Christ only the divine nature remained, and what seemed in Him human was merely phenomenal, as the Manicheans said; or the divine nature was changed into a human nature, as Apollinaris said: against both of whom we have argued above (Chapp. XXIX, XXXI).
5. When one nature is constituted of two permanent components, these components are either bodily parts, like the limbs of an animal, a case not in point here, or they are matter and form, like body and soul: but God is not matter, nor can He stand to any matter in the relation of form. There- fore in Christ, true God and true Man, there cannot be one nature only.
7. Where there is no agreement in nature, there is no specific likeness. If then the nature of Christ is a compound of divine and human, there will be no specific likeness between Him and us, contrary to the saying of the Apostle: He ought in all things to be made liJ^e to his brethren (Heb. ii, 17).
9. Even this saying of Eutyches seems inconsistent with the faith, that there were two natures in Christ before the union: for as human nature is made up of body and soul, it would follow that either the soul, or the body of Christ, or both, existed before the Incarnation, which is evidently false.
CHAPTER XXXVl-Ofthe Error o/Macarius ofAntioch, who posited one Operation only and one Will only in Christ* TO every nature there is a proper activity: for the form is the prin- ciple of activity, and different natures have different forms and different adts. If then in Christ there is only one operation, there must be in Him only one nature: but to hold that is the Eutychian heresy.
2. There is in Christ a perfect divine nature, whereby He is consubstantial with the Father; and a perfedt human nature, whereby He is of one species with us. But it is part of the perfe6tion of the divine nature to have a will (B. I, Chap. LXXII); and part of the perfedtion of human nature to have a will, whereby a man is capable of free choice. There must therefore be two wills in Christ.
3. If in Christ there is no other will than the will of the Word, by parity of reasoning there can be in Him no understanding but the understanding of the Word: thus we are brought back to the position of Apollinaris (Chap. XXXII).
4. If there was only one will in Christ, that must have been the divine will: for the Word could not have lost the divine will, which he had from eternity. But it does not belong to the divine will to merit. Thus then Christ would have merited neither for Himself nor for us by His passion, contrary to the teaching of the Apostle: He was made obedient unto deaths therefore hath God exalted him (Phil, ii, 8, 9).
6. In one ordinary man, though he be one in person, there are never- • This error made the heresy of Monothelisra, condemned at the sixth General Council, the third of Constantinople, in 680-1, where Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, was its principal supporter.
theless several appetites and operations according to different natural prin- ciples. In his rational part there is in him will: in his sensible part there is in him an irascible [0v/«fc] and a concupiscible appetite \hw&vp*ru&v\: and again there is physical tendency following upon physical powers.* In like manner he sees with the eye, hears with the ear, walks with the foot, speaks with the tongue, and understands with the mind, all so many different activities. And the reason is, because a&ivities are not only multiplied according to difference of aftive subje6ts, but also according to the difference of the principles whereby one and the same subjedt works, from which principles also the activities derive their species. But the divine adtivity differs much more from the human than the natural principles of human nature from one another. There is therefore a difference of will and a difference of operation between the divine and the human nature in Christ, although Christ Him- self is one in both natures.
7. The authority of Scripture shows plainly two wills in Christ: Not to do my will, but the will of him that sent me (John vi, 38): Not my will but thine be done (Luke xxii, 42). These texts show that Christ had a will of His own, besides the will of His Father. On the other hand there was a will common to Him with the Father: for Father and Son have one will, as they have one nature. There are then in Christ two wills.
8. And in like manner of operations, or activities, — there was in Christ one operation common to Him with the Father, of which He says: What- soever things the Father doeth, the same the Son doeth also (John v, 19); and there was in Him another operation which attached not to the Father, as sleeping, hungering, eating, and the like things that Christ did or suffered in His humanity, as the Evangelists record (Mark iv, 38; xi, 12: ii, 16).
Monothelism appears to have sprung from the inability of its authors to distinguish between what is absolutely one and what is one in subordination to another. They saw that the human will in Christ was altogether subordi- nate to the divine will, so that Christ willed nothing with His human will otherwise than as the divine will predisposed Him to will.f In like manner Christ wrought nothing in His human nature either in doing or in suffering, except what the divine will arranged, according to the text, I do eTter the things that are pleasing to him (John viii, 29). The human operation of Christ gained a divine efficacy by His union with the Divinity, in consequence of which everything that He did or suffered made for salvation: wherefore Dionysius calls the human activity of Christ c theandric.' Seeing then that the human will and operation of Christ was subordinate to the divine, with a subordination that never failed, they [the Monothelites] judged that there was only one will and operation in Christ; although it is not the same thing to be one by subordination and one absolutely. J • Physical tendency {naturaTts appetitus) does not foil, perfecl, and absolutely determined, not of those involve consciousness: it is the unconscious nisus of first motions of the will which He renounces in nature, found in all material agents according to their Luke xxii, 42, saying, Not my mil. several kinds. I As a wife, however obedient to her husband, t Understand this of the human will of Christ, is never quite the same person.
CHAPTER XXXIX- The DoEtrtne of Catholic Faith concerning the Incarnation ACCORDING to the tradition of Catholic faith we must say that in Christ there is one perfect divine nature, and a perfedt human nature, made up of a rational soul and human flesh; and that these two natures are united in Christ, not by mere indwelling of the one in the other, or in any accidental way, as a man is united with his garment, but in unity of one person. For since Holy Scripture without any distinction assigns the things of God to the Man Christ, and the things of the Man Christ to God, He must be one and the same person, of whom both varieties of attributes are predicable. But because opposite attributes are not predicable of one and the same subjedt in the same respect, and there is an opposition between the divine and human attributes that are predicated of Christ, — as that He is passible and impassible, dead and immortal, and the like, — these divine and human attributes must be predicated of Christ in different respc&s. If we consider that of which these opposite attributes are predicated, we shall find no distinction to draw, but unity appears there. But considering that according to which these several predications are made, there we shall see the need of drawing a distinction.* Since that according to which divine attributes are predicated of Christ is different from that according to which human attributes are predicated of Him, we must say that there are in Him two natures, unamalgamatcd and unalloyed. And since that of which these human and divine attributes are predicated is one and indivisible, we must say that Christ is one person, and one suppositum, supporting a divine and a human nature. Thus alone will divine attributes duly and properly be predi- cated of the Man Christ, and human attributes of the Word of God.
Thus also it appears how, though the Son is incarnate, it does not follow that the Father or the Holy Ghost is incarnate: for the incarnation does not have place in respeCt of that unity of nature wherein in the three Persons agree, but in respect of person and suppositum, wherein the three Persons are distinCt. Thus as in the Trinity there is a plurality of persons subsisting in one nature, so in the mystery of the Incarnation there is one person subsis- ting in a plurality of natures.
CHAPTER XLI-Some further Elucidation of the Incarnation EUTYCHES made the union of God and man a union of nature: Nestorius, a union neither of nature nor of person: the Catholic faith makes it a union of person, not of nature. To forestall objections, we need to form clear notions of what it is to be united ' in nature,' and what it is to be united * in person/ Those things then are united ' in nature/ which combine to constitute the integrity of some specific type, as soul and body are united to constitute the specific type of 4 animal.' Once a specific type is set up in its integrity, no foreign element can be united with it in unity of nature without the breaking up of that specific type.f But what is not of the integrity of the specific type is # Of nbick and according to which would be rcprc- had not horns, clearly our present specific type of sented in Aristotelian Greek by naff o$ and toff o. elephant would be broken up, and a new type subt eg., if horns came to be part of elephant nature, stituted. so that no animal could count as an elephant that readily found in some individual contained under the species, as whiteness and clothedness in Socrates or Plato.* All such non-specific attributes are said to be united 4 in unity of suppositum, or in the case of rational beings, 4 in unity of person,' with the individual.
Now some have reckoned the union of God and man in Christ to be after the manner of things united 'in unity of nature/ Thus Arius and Apollinaris and Eutyches. But that is quite an impossibility. For the nature of the Word is a sovereignly perfect whole from all eternity, incapable of alteration or change: nothing foreign to the divine nature, — no human nature, nor any element of human nature, — can possibly come to thrust itself into that unity, t Others saw the impossibility of this position, and turned aside in the con- trary direction. Whatever is added to any nature without belonging to the integrity of the same, may be reckoned to be either an accident, as white- ness and music, or to stand in an accidental relation to the subje<5t, as a ring, a dress, a house. Considering then that human nature is added to the Word of God without belonging to the integrity of His nature, these [Nestorians] thought that the union of this supperadded human nature with the Word was merely accidental. Manifestly, it could not be in the Word as an accident, for God is not susceptible of accidents; and besides human nature itself stands in the category of substance, and cannot be an accident of anything. The alternative which they embraced was to conclude that the human nature stood in an accidental relation with the Word. Nestorius then laid it down that the human nature stood to the word in the relation of a temple to the Deity whose temple it was; and that union with human nature meant a mere indwelling of the Word in that nature. And because a temple has its indivi- duality apart from him that dwells in it, and the individuality proper to human nature is personality, it followed that the personality of the human nature was one, and the personality of the Word another; and thus the Word and the Man were two persons: all which conclusion has been set aside by our previous arguments.
We must therefore lay it down that the union of the Word with the Man was such, that neither was one nature compounded out of two; nor was the union of the Word with human nature like the union of a substance with something exterior to it and standing in an accidental relation to it, like the relation of a man to his garment and his house: but the Word must be con- sidered to subsist in human nature as in a nature made properly its own, so that that Body is truly the Body of the Word of God, and that Soul the Soul of the Word of God, and the Word of God truly is man. And though such union cannot be perfectly explained by mortal man, still we will endea- vour, according to our capacity and ability, to say something towards the building up of faith and the defence of this mystery of faith against unbe- lievers.
In all creation there is nothing so like this union as the union of soul and body. So the Athanasian Creed has it: "As the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ." \ But whereas the rational soul * Of these extra-specific attributes in the indivi- t St Thomas here remarks that this comparison, dual, the more permanent, e.g., the colour of his — in itself not without difficulty, as it may be pressed skin, go to constitute his noUt indiViduantes. Read sub and perverted to an Apollinarist or Eutychian sense, aUqua specie^ not sub alia specie. — would hold better if Averroes's theory were t This argument would hold less against Arius tenable, of the unity of all human intellect. On that than against Apollinaris and Eutyches, who admitted theory, as St Thomas points out, " a pre-existent the divinity of the Logos. intellect enters into a new union with a human conis united with the body, (a) as form with matter, (6) as chief agent with instrument (B. II, Chapp. LVI, LVII); this comparison cannot hold in respedt of the former mode of union, for so we should be brought round to the [Eutychian] conclusion, that of God and man there was made one nature. We must take the point of the comparison then to be the union of soul with body as of agent with instrument. And with this the sayings of some ancient Dodtors agree, who have laid it down that the human nature in Christ is an instrument of His divinity, as the body is an instrument of the soul.* The body and its parts, as instruments of the soul, come in a different category from exterior instruments. This axe is not my own proper instrument as is this hand. With this axe many men may work: but this hand is set aside for the proper adtivity of this soul. Therefore the hand is a tool conjoined with and proper to him that works with it: but the axe is an instrument extrinsic to the workman and common to many hands. Thus then we may take it to be with the union of God and man. All men stand to God as instruments wherewith He works: For he it is that worketh in us to will and accomplish on behalf of the good will (Phil, ii, 13). But other men stand to God as extrinsic and separate instruments. God moves them, not merely to adtivities proper to Himself, but to activities common to all rational nature, such as understanding truth, loving goodness, and working justice. But human nature has been taken up in Christ to work as an instru- ment proper to God alone, such works as cleansing of sins, illumination of the mind by grace, and introduction to everlasting life. The human nature therefore of Christ stands to God as an instrument proper and conjoined, as the hand to the soul.
The aforesaid examples however are not alleged as though a perfedt likeness were to be looked for in them. We must understand how easy it was for the Word of God to unite Himself with human nature in a union far more sublime and intimate than that of the soul with any 'proper instrument/ CHAPTERS XL, XUX-Ofyeflions against the Faith of the Incarnation, with Replies ARG. 1. If God has taken flesh, He must be either changed into a body, or be some power resident in a body. Reply. 1. The Incarnation does not mean either the conversion of the Word into flesh, or the union of the Word with a human body as the form of the same.
Arg. 2. If the person of the Word of God acquires a new subsistence in a human nature, it must undergo a substantial change, as everything is changed that acquires a new nature.
Reply 2. The change is not in the Word of God, but in the human nature assumed by the Word.
Arg. 3. If the personality of the Word of God has become the person- ality of a human nature, it follows that since the Incarnation the Word of God has not been everywhere, as that human nature is not everywhere.
cept, so that out of the two there results one person, # The comparison, we see, is founded rather upon just as we hold that the Word, pre -existent to human a Platonic than upon an Aristotelian view of the nature, is united to form one person with it." Aver- relation between soul and body; which, considering roism is, perhaps not altogether unconsciously, a the devotion of the ancient Fathers, of the Alexantravesty of the Incarnation. For Averroes see B. II, drines particularly, to Plato, is not surprising. Chap. LIX.
Reply 3. Personality does not extend beyond the bounds of that nature from which it has its subsistence. But the Word of God has not its sub- sistence from its human nature, but rather draws that human nature to its own subsistence or personality: for it does not subsist through it, but in it.
Arg. 4. One and the same thing has only one quiddity, substance, or nature. It seems impossible therefore for one person to subsist in two natures.
Reply 4. The assertion is true, if you speak of the nature whereby a thing has being, absolutely speaking; and so, absolutely speaking, the Word of God has being by the divine nature alone, not by the human nature. But by the human nature it has being as Man.
Arg. 8. Soul and body in Christ are of not less potency than they are in other men. But their union in other men constitutes a person: therefore also in Christ.
Reply 8. The human soul and body in Christ being drawn into the per- sonality of the Word, and not constituting another person besides the person of the Word, does not mark a diminution of potency, but a greater excellence. Everything is better for being united to what is more excellent than itself, — better than it was, or would be, if it stood by itself.* Arg. 1 o. This man, who is Christ, considered merely as made up of soul and body, is a substance: but not a universal, therefore a particular substance: therefore a person.
Reply 10. Yes, He is a person, but no other person than the person of the Word: because the human nature has been so assumed by the person of the Word that the Word subsists as well in the human as in the divine nature: but what subsists in human nature is 4 this man': therefore the Word Himself is spoken of f when we say 6 this Man.'