>YALE«¥ffl¥M&SinrY' Bought with the income of the Ann S. Farnam Fund ANNOUNCEMENT This is the sixth of a series of ten volumes, each complete in itself, designed to constitute a connected treatment of the entire range of Catholic Doctrine. I. Introduction — Published in 1907. LT. Authority, Ecclesiastical and Biblical — Published in 1008. ILT. The Being and Attributes of God — Published in igog. IV. The Trinity— Published in igio. V. Creation and Man — Published in igi2. VI. The Incarnation. VII. The Passion and Exaltation of Christ. VTII. The Church and Her Sacraments. EX. The Minor Sacraments. X. Eschatology: Indexes. Of the unpublished volumes, it is hoped that Volume VII will be pubhshed in the winter of 1916- 1917, and the others at intervals of from twelve to eighteen months. THE INCARNATION ftp the Same author Introduction to Dogmatic Theology: crown Svo. Authority, Ecclesiastical and Biblical: crown 8vo. The Being and Attributes of God: crown 8vo. The Trinity : crown 8vo. Creation and Man : crown 8vo. The Incarnation : crown 8vo. The Kenotic Theory: Considered with particular refer ence to its Anglican forms and arguments; crown 8vo. Evolution and the Fall: Bishop Paddock Lectures, 1900-1910; crown 8vo. Theological Outlines — Three Volumes, «mo. Vol. I. The Doctrine 07 Gon Vol. n. The Doctrine of Man and of the God-Man Vol. HI. The Doctrine of the Church and of Last Things The Historical Position of the Episcopal Church: i2mo, paper covers. The Bible and Modern Criticism: umo, paper THE INCARNATION BY THE Rev. FRANCIS J. HALL, D.D. PROFESSOR OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY IN THE GENEBAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK CITY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. FOURTH AVENUE fir 30TH STREET, NEW YORK LONDON, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS IQI5 COPYRIGHT, IOI5, BY LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. DeSttateS TO THE BLESSED MEMORY OF ST. LEO THE GREAT WHOSE EPISTLE TO FLAVIAN CALLED "THE TOME" HAS FOR MANY CENTDIUES EXHIBITED THE TRUTH CONCERNING THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST PREFACE The writer is glad to live in the twentieth century. He is not, indeed, a "modernist," for he is convinced that the Church's primitive faith is permanently valid, and that the Chalcedonian decree of faith, rightly understood, correctly defines the determina tive elements and premises of sound Christological speculation. But he is also convinced that modern critical scholar ship is throwing much light upon Christological problems; and that when its results have been dis sociated, as in due season they will be, from alien postulates and theories, they will be found to fortify and enrich the now widely misinterpreted Christology of the Ecumenical Councils. The controlling aim of this volume is to set forth the ancient cathohc doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ, in terms which shall be at once true to that doctrme and in line with the forms of thought and language now prevailing. This aim involves some rather difficult work in translating certain ancient terms into modern equivalents. Its difficulty arises from the fact that modern Christological thought has been controlled in large measure by postulates which make a misinterpretation of traditional terms prac tically inevitable. It is not a question of scholarship, nor is it one of intellectual discernment. In no x PREFACE previous age has greater learning and skill been brought to bear on the subjects treated of in this volume. And sincere truth seeking is conspicuously in evidence. The question is one of a changed stand point; and the new standpoint, so far from being dictated by modern results, is largely part of a pro vincial tradition, which will have to be modified before these results can be rightly interpreted and correctly utilized in the development of Christology. There are signs that this is beginning to be realized, and that modern scholarship is ere long to justify itself as a chosen means of the Holy Spirit for the guidance of the Church into a riper understanding of her primitive faith. The writer's task has seemed to require that he should lay considerable emphasis upon certain truths and principles, because of their bearing on modern misapprehensions of catholic doctrine. And inas much as these matters emerge in various connections, it has seemed desirable to resort to some repetition, even at the risk of being tedious. This apphes especially to the ethical aspects of the Incarnation. Undiscriminating adherence to what is ancient, and rejection of everything modern as necessarily errone ous, constitute Bourbonism, and are both indefensible. But there are ancient results as well as modern, and to accept results, whether ancient or modern, is the duty of all who would abide by the truth. And the central truth of Christianity is that the one historic Person Jesus Christ was, and is, both PREFACE xi God and Man — not less fully God than really Man, and not less completely Man than truly God. Fur thermore it is a part of this central verity that through the Incarnation Godhead and Manhood met in Christ in genuine communion; but that this involved neither an obliteration of human Umitations by the divine, nor a reduction of the divine by the human. This is the faith to which modern results have to be re lated; for while they are able to enrich our hold upon it, they are misinterpreted when thought to require its modification. O Lord Jesus Christ, God of God, and Light of Light, guide us by Thy Holy Spirit to an ever increasing knowledge of Thee. And if in this volume any thing has been either mistakenly or irreverently written, pardon and overrule it for the welfare of souls, and for the manifestation of Thy Truth. May Thy Name be glorified above every name forever. Amen. CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Part I. Modem Conditions and Problems PAGE § i. The task here undertaken . . i § 2. Factors determining modern attitudes 4 § 3. Modem demands and our attitude towards them . 7 § 4. Modern problems, and the peculiar anxiety now felt 11 Part II. Standpoints and Methods § 5. The traditional standpoint — apostolic and dog matic 15 § 6. The modern standpoint— Lutheran and ethico- humanitarian . . . 18 § 7. The historical method 23 § 8. Presuppositions in ' the use of this method by catholic theologians 26 Part III. The Position Adopted § 9. Modem critical scholarship an instrument of the Holy Spirit 29 § 10. But its incidental errors must be eliminated. Ex amples 3° § n. Chalcedonian Christology (summarized) is postu lated 33 § 12. Belief in its finality consistent with open-minded investigation 33 xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER II HISTORICAL Part I. The Manifestation of Christ § i. In the Old Covenant 37 § 2. In His incarnate life on earth 39 § 3. In His divine claims and resurrection 42 § 4. By the Holy Spirit's iUuminating work 43 Part II. The Development of Dogma § 5. To protect the truth of our Lord's Godhead ... 47 § 6. And of His Manhood 50 § 7. And of the Unity of His Person 52 § 8. And of the distinctness of His natures 55 Part III. Modem Christology § 9. Mediaeval elaboration 61 § 10. Lutheran departure 62 §'fn. Kenoticism and progressive Incarnation 65 § 12. Recent confusion 68 CHAPTER III THE TAKING OF OUR NATURE Part I. The Fact and its Causation § 1. How described in Creed and Scripture 71 § 2. Causes and conditions 73 § 3. Convenience of the Incarnation in relation to divine purpose 76 § 4. And in relation to immediate aspects 78 CONTENTS xv Part II. Mediatorial Purpose § 5. Salvation .... 81 § 6. Achievement of human destiny 83 § 7. Was the Incarnation caused by sin? 85 § 8. Mediation 88 Part in. The Virgin-Mother § 9. The fact of virgin-birth 89 § 10. The brethren of our Lord 94 § n. Sanctification of the Blessed Virgin . . ... 96 § 12. Her privilege and honour 98 CHAPTER IV THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST Part I. His Person § 1. The doctrine of hypostatic union 102 § 2. The reality of self involved 104 § 3. The substance philosophy 107 § 4. The Person of Christ eternal and unchanged . . . 108 Part II. Reasons for Belief § 5. The manner of the Man no § 6. His claims and their naturalness 112 § 7. His works and resurrection 114 § 8. Apostolic verification in spiritual experience ... 116 Part III. Implicates and Values § 9. Theological 118 § 10. Mediatorial 120 § n. Ethical 124 § 12. Dispensation^ and sacramental 128 xvi CONTENTS CHAPTER V THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST Part I. Catholic Doctrine § i. As against certain errors 131 § 2. Its Ego the divine Son 134 § 3. Sinlessness 137 § 4. Christ's Manhood permanent 140 Part II. Its Properties § 5. His body real and passible 144 § 6. His human mind both like ours and unique ¦ • • 147 § 7. His truly human will and moral experience ... 150 § 8. The grace of Christ 153 Part HI. Implicates and Values § 9. In relation to human history 156 § 10. Mediatorial 159 § 11. Ethical 162 § 12. Sacramental 164 CHAPTER VI THE UNION OF NATURES Part I. The Doctrine § 1. Godhead and Manhood meet in one Self . . . .^167 § 2. But are mutually incommensurable 171 § 3. Each operates in communion with the other 173 § 4. The communicatio idiomatum 176 Part II. Modern Difficulties § 5. The Lutheran departure 179 § 6. Psychological Christology 182 CONTENTS xvii § 7. The reality of self implied in Chalcedonian Christ ology 184 § 8. Is Chalcedonian Christology dualistic? 188 Part III. Implications and Values § 9. Effective union between God and man 191 § 10. Without obliteration of difference 192 § n. The unseen Self the clue to the problem of inter action 194 §12. All the respective values of Godhead and Manhood are found in Christ, without reduction or con fusion 198 CHAPTER VII THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST Part I. Development of the Kenotic Theory § 1. Inconsistent with ancient doctrme 202 § 2. Alleged patristic support 205 § 3. Lutheran standpoint raised the problem of com patibility 208 § 4. The views of Dr. Martensen and certain Anglicans 212 Part II. Kenotic Arguments § 5. Of mutual incompatibility of the two natures . . 215 § 6. Of Kenfisis in creation: relative attributes . . . 217 § 7. Of ethical requirements 221 § 8. Of juxtaposition of the divine and the human . . 225 Part IH. New Testament Teaching § 9. Non-emergence of the divine within human scrutiny 228 § 10. St. Paul's phrase eavrbv eKtvoioev 229 xviii CONTENTS § ii. Effaced Himself 232 §12. The doctrine of His humiliation 235 CHAPTER VIII THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST Part I. His Twofold Operations § 1. Divine and human wills 237 § 2. Divine and human knowledge 239 § 3. Two modes of self-determination in one self . . . 242 § __ 4. His sinlessness explained only by unique resources 246 Part II. His Temptation § 5. Temptation defined 250 § 6. Its reality consistent with impeccability 252 § 7. Christ not exempt from moral effort 254 § 8. The need that He should be morally invincible . 257 Part III. The Goal of Christians § 9. Christ exhibits that towards which we are to grow 259 § 10. The examples of penitent saints needed branches of His example 262 § n. He gave a divine example. . . 263 § 12. The possibility of our imitating Christ 265 CHAPTER LX THE OFFICES OF CHRIST Part I. His Prophetic Office § 1. His mediatorial function 268 § 2. The Prophet in all divine dispensations 271 § 3. In His incarnate earthly life 274 § 4. In the Church as guided by the Spirit 277 CONTENTS xix Part II. His Priestly Office 5. The transactional element of mediation 281 6. The sacrificial rites of the Old Covenant .... 284 7. Their fulfilment by Christ 288 8. Our participation and benefit 289 Part HI. His Kingly Office 9. Eternal, cosmic and moral 293 10. In the Old Covenant 296 In His earthly life 297 From the day of Pentecost 301 n12 CHAPTER X OUR LORD'S EARTHLY LIFE Part I. Methods of Treatment § 1. Gospel method . . 304 § 2. Mediaeval method 308 § 3. Modern historical method 310 § 4. Theological method 313 Part II. Postulates and Principles § 5. Our Lord's earthly life human in form and connec tion 315 § 6. But the life of very God-incarnate 318 § 7. It was supernatural and miraculous 320 § 8. Conditions to be fulfilled in a "life of Christ". . 326 Part III. The Mysteries of Christ § 9. A life of signs and fulfilments 332 § 10. Mysteries previous to His public ministry . . . 335 § 11. Of His public ministry 342 § 12. Of His redemptive work 347 THE INCARNATION CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY I. Modern Conditions and Problems § i. The Christological literature of our time is almost wholly either critical, speculative or apolo getical. It seems desirable, therefore, to remind the reader that this volume constitutes one of a series of treatises in Dogmatic Theology. It embodies an attempt to give a logically connected exposition of the positive content of our knowledge of Christ — of the taking of our nature by the eternal Son of of God, and of the personal properties and functions which were revealed to His disciples while He walked on earth.1 1 On the history of Christology: J. F. Bethune-Baker, Early Hist, of Christ. Doctrine; C. J. Hefele, Hist, of the Christ. Councils (Transl. 5 vols.); J. Tixeront, Hist, of Dogntas ; J. H. Newman, Arians; W. Bright, Age of the Fathers ; H. R. Percival, Seven Ecumen. Councils ; J. A Dorner, Hist, of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ (Transl. 5 vols.); A. B. Bruce, Humiliation of Christ, Lees, ii-v; A. Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus. Patristic and Mediaeval: St. Athanasius, de Incarnatione ; Orationes IV contra Arianos; de Incarnatione contra Apollinarium Ubri II; etc.; St. Basil, Five Books contra Eunomium; etc.; St. Gregory 2 INTRODUCTORY This is also a catholic treatise, inasmuch as it pre supposes the substantial truth of the ancient catholic doctrine concerning the Person of Christ. Being a scientific treatise, however, it is more than a mere exposition of catholic dogmas. It is concerned with whatever can be known concerning the Person of Christ, being designed to exhibit this knowledge in connected order and comprehensive unity. Naz., Orationes Theologies; St. Gregory Nyss., Libri XII contra Eunomium; Antirrheticus adv. Apollinarem ; etc.; St. Sophronius, Epistola Synodica; St. John Damasc, Expositio Fidei Orthodoxm; TertuUian, Adv. Praxeam; and de Came Christi; St. Hilary of Poitiers, de Synodis; and de Trinitate; St. Augustine, de Trinitate; John Cassian, de Incarn. Christi; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theo logical, Pars III. Later, but of traditional type: Richard Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, Bk. V; Bishop Andrewes, Sermons on the Nativity; Bishop Pearson, Exposition of the Creed, arts, ii— iii; Bishop Bull, Defence of the Nicene Faith; and Judgment of the Catholic Church; Daniel Waterland, Works; Archd. Wilberforce, The Incarnation; A. P. Forbes, Nicene Creed, pp. 106-209; H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord; P. G. Medd, One Mediator; H. V. S. Eck, The Incarnation; W. Bright, Sermons of St. Leo on the Incarnation (notes valuable); Darwell Stone, Outlines of Christ. Dogma, ch. vi; Suarez, Summa; Petavius, Theol. Dogmat., Bk. IV; Franzelin, de Verbo Incarnato; Wilhelm and Scannell, Cath. Theology, Bk. V; Jos. Pohle, Christology (transl. by Preuss). Modern types; Chas. Gore, The Incarnation; and Dissertations on Subjects Connected with the Incarnation; R. L. Ottley, The Incar nation; W. Sanday, Christology and Personality; F. Weston, The One Christ; E. D. la Touche, The Person of Christ; H. R. Mackin tosh, Dock, of the Person of Jesus Christ. Additional bibliography, esp. German, in Schaff-Rerzog Encycl., s. v. "Christology." Ecumenical documents, in H. R. Percival, op. cit. ; C. A. Heurtley, On Faith and the Creed ; and T. H. Bindley, (Ecumenical Documents of the Faith (both original text and Eng. transl.). MODERN CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS 3 But theology is a progressive science — not less so because, like other sciences, it accepts a limited number of "dogmas" as constituting estabUshed "results"; — and a modern theological treatise must reckon with advancing critical inquiry, and with wider scientific knowledge, so far as they pertain to its own subject-matter. But in a con structive exposition of this kind the progressive — that is, the critical and apologetical — aspects of its subject-matter must be relegated to a secondary position. This does not mean that their importance may be ignored, and that we need not reckon with the demand for a reconstruction of positive theology, such as will bring it into line with modern critical knowledge and mental perspectives. It means simply that there must be a division of labor, and that the discussion of modern problems must be kept within severe limits. The writer appreciates most deeply the importance and value of modern Christological inquiry, and is in full sympathy with the demand that modern knowledge and improved methods of investigation shall be taken advantage of in a fresh scrutiny of the fundamental truths of our rehgion, in particular of Christological doctrine. It is by means of such scrutiny that unwarranted accretions are eUminated, essential truths are more convincingly estabUshed, and theology is made more serviceable as the hand maid of intelUgent faith and of true reUgion. It is hoped that these remarks will explain why the 4 INTRODUCTORY writer will often refrain in the foUowing chapters from discussing the critical processes which determine the conclusions adopted by him, and also will justify his devoting this chapter to a rapid survey of the factors, demands and problems of modern Christo logical thought. § 2. That new factors of epoch-making importance have helped to determine modern Christological thought is a patent fact, whatever view we may take of it. These factors have raised new problems, have revolutionized previously prevaihng forms of thought and language, and have materiaUy reduced the intelUgibiUty in influential circles of ancient dogmas and of traditional theology. These effects have by no means been confined to rationaUstic and sceptical schools. The conceptions, mental perspectives and aptitudes of thinkers in general have been materially altered. (a) The confusing babel of Confessions of Faith which the protestant revolution engendered, the rise of critical philosophy, and the wonderful successes of non-ecclesiastical scholarship, have combined to bring about widespread indifference to cathoUc dogma — to reUgious dogma of any type, — and traditional terms have become increasingly hable to misinterpretation. The ancient assertion that novelty is a proof of error * has'been displaced by the conviction that ecumenical definitions, because of 1 TertuUian de Prase. Haer., 31; adv. Prax., 2; adv. Marcion, v. 19. Cf. Authority Eccles. and Biblical, p. 119, note. MODERN CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS 5 their antiquity, are necessarily immature, and incapable of standing the test of wider knowledge and critical scrutiny. The deference formerly shown to ecclesiastical authority is now given to scholarship — scholarship, that is, which ignores catholic dogma. (b) Yet modern Christianity has not wholly escaped the influence of traditional presuppositions, although some of these date from the sixteenth century, and have been determined to a significant extent by the fact that German protestant theolo gians have initiated the chief Unes of contemporary Christological investigation and speculation. These theologians have inherited and been influenced by the postulate of Martin Luther, that the Incarnation has imparted divine attributes to our Lord's human nature.1 This postulate has not been scrutinized with sufficient care; and it has determined the Christological views of many who would reject it, if they reckoned with its divergence from the catho Uc faith and tested its truth by scriptural induction. (c) BibUcal criticism has upset the older imphcit dependence upon the aUeged inerrancy of Gospel narratives, has nuUified the appeal to the four Gospels as to so many wholly independent authorities, and has discredited much traditional exegesis by the historical method of interpretation. This method takes account of contemporary conditions and conceptions and of the human Umitations of New Testament writers, refusing in its more destructive 1 See § 6 (c), below. 6 INTRODUCTORY forms to reckon with any supernatural guidance. It is now perceived to be impossible to ascertain in every instance the ipsissima verba of Christ, and the supernatural elements of the Gospel narratives are apt to be minimized even when not rejected. The historical value of the fourth Gospel is assailed by various critical schools.1 (d) The wonderful success of modern physical science has made its influence felt in Christology. In particular, the principle of continuity has received in many quarters an exclusively naturaUstic inter pretation. The modern mind demands that all history shaU be construed in terms of natural evolu tion. It asks for a historical Christ — a Christ, that is, whose advent and experience can be ex plained in terms of human experience, and in Une with human development. It is required, therefore, that the mind of Christ shaU be susceptible of psychological analysis and interpretation, to the exclusion of all other subjective elements. The influence of these factors is most observable among Protestants, but is by no means confined to them. Ordinary thinkers of today of every type are influenced by new presuppositions, and approach Christological questions in a new way.2 It is the modern mind to which the Church's theologians must adapt their expositions, if the historic faith is to be 1 See W. Sanday, Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, ch. i. 2 Alfred Loisy's The Gospel in the Church affords a notable non- protestant iUustration. MODERN CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS 7 accepted — or even understood — by men of modern mental equipment. § 3. This requires that apologetical theologians shall sympatheticaUy reckon with what are called modern demands; and that Dogmatic Theology shaU adjust itself to the conditions of thought which they reveal. These demands are of unequal value. Some must be rejected, and some require modifica tion; but others exhibit undeniable requirements of a truly progressive cathoUc theology. They all represent so many conditions of mind which have to be faced, if the cathoUc faith in Jesus Christ is to be propagated, and if certain defects in traditional expositions of that faith are to be remedied. (a) Moderns demand freedom to return to primitive sources of knowledge concerning Christ, to undertake a fresh examination of His earthly life without reference to ecclesiastical definitions, and to make such theological reconstruction as the results may show to be needed. This demand is often based upon, and accompanied by, misunderstanding and rejectipn of ecumenical definitions and of the dogmatic office and authority of the Church, but this is not always so. In any case the right and, for competent theologians, the duty of reexamining from time to time the historic foundations of Christian doctrine ought to be acknowledged in reckoning with this demand. In spite of the rationaUstic vagaries which often control and vitiate such reexamination, it constitutes one of the chief 8 INTRODUCTORY methods by which the Holy Spirit protects the Church from innovating error. As to the need and Umits of theological reconstruction something wiU be said in a later section.1 (b) As has already been shown,2 it is demanded, as a condition of behef in Christ, that He shall be exhibited as really human and historical — subject to the conditions of human experience, and suscep tible of interpretation in terms of such experience and of human history at large. So far as this repre sents the demand for a purely human Christ, it is neither necessitated by any estabUshed results of modern science and criticism nor possible to be granted by a sound theologian. But when inter preted sympatheticaUy, as requiring simply that the subjection of Christ to human conditions and Umitations shall not be minimized and emptied of reaUty, and that a rational and credible place in history shall be found for His birth and self-manifes tation, we are bound to reckon with and to satisfy the demand. (c) A third demand is that the Person and work of Christ shall be described in ethical terms, as distinguished from those of metaphysical paradox, of inscrutable majesty and of appalUng power. Those who make this demand are apt to be under the impression that the definitions set forth by the ecumenical councils are prejudicial to an ethical interpretation of Christ. We hope to show in the ' In § 8. 2 In § 2 (d). MODERN CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS 9 proper place that this is a mistake, and that, although the ethical aspects of Christ's Person and work did not constitute the subject-matter with which these councils were concerned, the truths which they defined in the best terms then available are essential to a true understanding of the ethical significance of the Incarnation. The demand for an ethical Christ is obviously justifiable, and we may not exhibit Him as a metaphysical puzzle instead of as a moral Saviour. We have need to make it perfectly clear that the drama of the Incarnation was one of wondrous love, and that Christ was touched with the feeUng of our infirmities in order that He might bring divine sympathy to the rescue of weak and sinful humanity. It may not be forgotten, however, that if the love of Christ is to have the divine value which an ethical interpretation of the Incarnation requires, the Christ Who displayed that love must be one with God and truly divine. (d) FinaUy, it is demanded that the Christ of our faith shaU not be one whose Ufe, achievements and claims violate natural law and the continuity of events. The inviolabiUty of natural law, and the subjection of aU possible events to the principle of continuity, are necessary postulates of natural science; and a Christ whose manifestation seems to be irreconcilable with these postulates is an incred ible Christ. Unless He can be given an inteUigible place in relation to cosmical development and to a world wherein natural law prevails, He cannot be 10 INTRODUCTORY acknowledged as historical, but must be regarded as at least legendary if not wholly mythical. We might respond shortly and truly that the Christ of cathoUc dogma violates neither natural law nor the principle of continuity. But the demand in question requires more sympathetic and careful handhng. It is based upon the supposition, not always escaped from by Christian apologists, that miracles are violations of natural law. This error can be removed only by a more elaborate treatment of the subject of miracles and of the supernatural in general, than can be here undertaken. We must content ourselves with brief remarks. The inviolable postulate of natural science with which we are con cerned is this: that the same unhindered causes shaU always bring about the same effects. This pos tulate is not violated by the coming in of new factors and a consequent modification of the events which previously operating factors would have produced. Nor is it violated by the supposition that the Lord of nature may bring into play other and higher factors than the forces previously resident in the physical order. Whether He will do this depends upon the general plan and purpose for which the physical order was created, and upon whether that order affords aU the factors which He employs in fulfilling His plan. The whole question hinges upon the philosophical conception of the world-drama which we adopt. If the naturaUstic philosophy is true, the intrusion of supernatural factors is impossible MODERN CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS n and the Christ of the Gospels is not a historic Christ. But if the theistic and Christian philosophy of history is true, the coming in of such factors was inevitable — a part of the general continuity of things, — and the Incarnation furnishes the key to aU the developments of history. In brief, no conflict has been estabUshed between cathoUc Christology and natural science. The conflict Ues wholly be tween the theistic and naturaUstic philosophies. NaturaUsm is a speculative philosophy. Its scien tific Uvery has been misappropriated.1 There have been attempts to eUminate miracles from the Gospels on critical grounds, but these attempts have been hopelessly vitiated by the naturaUstic postulates by which their results have been prede termined.2 § 4. So stupendous a mystery as the self-manifes tation of God-incarnate is necessarily too profound 1 On naturalism and its denial of the supernatural, see Evolution and the Fall, pp. 21 et seq.; Creation and Man, ch. ui. § 12; Introd. to Dogm. Theol., ch. ii; R. Otto, Naturalism and Religion; Jas. Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism. The subject of the miraculous wiU be considered again with reference to its evidential bearing on our Lord's Godhead, in ch. iv. § 7; and with reference to the treatment of our Lord's earthly life and the aUeged contra-naturam quality of certain Gospel miracles, in ch. x. § 7. The terms by which our Lord's miracles are denoted in the Gospels, and their sign-values, will be considered in ch. x. § n (c). 2 See E. D. la Touche, Person of Christ, Lees, i— ii; T. B. Strong, The Miraculous in Gospels and Creeds; G. P. Fisher, Grounds of Theistic and Christ. Belief, chh. viii-x; A. S. Peake, Christianity, Its Nature and Its Truth, chh. ix-xii; J. G. Simpson, Creative Revelation. 12 INTRODUCTORY and complex to be exhaustively explored by human inquirers, and every attempt to define what we know of Christ must suggest problems which our definitions do not answer. Most of the Christological problems which now engage the attention of scholars and thinkers are not peculiarly modern. But the degree of anxiety with which they are regarded by theo logians is something new, as is also the immense amount of investigation and thought which is de voted to their solution. The modern temper is impatient in the presence of unsolved questions, and many are apt to regard insoluble problems as conclusive reasons for rejecting propositions which obtrude them. All the graver Christological prob lems are involved in the question, How can the same Jesus Christ be at once truly God and reaUy human? This problem is insoluble by us because the higher element in it is infinite, and therefore insusceptible of direct human scrutiny. Moderns find it difficult to acquiesce in the conclusion that the baffling mysteries of Christ's Person must not be reduced in order to interpret Him adequately in terms of human experience. Accordingly they are often led to condemn the Chalcedonian definition of what we must beUeve concerning Christ simply because it places the elements of the problem in antithetic juxtaposition, thus obtruding questions which it does not help us to answer. This difficulty is accentuated by the mistaken impression that the presence of metaphysical terms in ancient definitions MODERN CONDITIONS AND PROBLEMS 13 requires us to read into them the metaphysical con ceptions with which these terms were originally associated. It is the Christian purpose and context which determines their meaning in concihar defini tions — not their metaphysical origin. The purpose of these definitions is often overlooked. They were designed not to afford a rationale, but to protect Christian beUevers from abandoning either of the factors in the mystery of Christ's Person in the inter ests of simpler but onesided, and therefore erroneous, doctrine.1 We shaU have occasion in this volume to define more fuUy the cathoUc point of view in relation to the central problem of the union of divine and human attributes in one Person, and to the connected problem of His coincident possession of divine and human inteUigence and wiU — each real, and neither infringing upon the other. In addition to these deeper problems are others, chiefly of a critical nature, in the solution of which some progress is being made. So far as our very limited space wiU permit, attention will be paid to some of them in this volume. Among these ques tions are the foUowing. (a) The synoptic problem, or the sources of the first three Gospels, their comparative historical values, and the questions suggested by the unique pecuUarities of the fourth Gospel. (b) The chronological sequence of Christological developments in New Testament days, and the 1 Cf. Authority, ch. iv. § 5. 14 INTRODUCTORY measure of agreement or divergence between earher and later apostoUc conceptions of Christ's Person. (c) Questions concerned with details of fact and of chronological sequence in our Lord's earthly Ufe, and with the ipsissima verba of Christ. (d) The growth of our Lord's human mind, and the question as to its consciousness at given moments of His personal rank in being and of His mission. (e) The significance of His casting out of devUs, in particular of His sending devils into swine. (/) Whether the temptation in the wilderness should be interpreted objectively. (g) The relative place in His teaching at large, and the precise meaning, of our Lord's eschatological utterances; also whether Christ supposed that a cataclysmic consummation of things was to take place during the lifetime of His Usteners. Several of these problems depend for such solution as we can reach upon the Christological postulates by which we are controlled in considering them. It is sufficient at this point to say that no solution can be satisfactory which limits the illumination of Christ by purely human conditions and resources. We are deaUng with real Man, but with one who was at the same time very God; and the reaUty of His human Umitations should not make us forget the unique and Uluminating conditions of His human increase in wisdom. STANDPOINTS AND METHODS 15 II. Standpoints and Methods § 5. There is much truth in the statement some times made that doctrinal controversies are largely due to the difference between the standpoints from which the doctrines in question are regarded, and that if controversialists took pains to understand the points of view of their opponents, their supposed divergences would either disappear or be materially reduced. At aU events, when standpoints are reck oned with, the real nature and degree of opposition in doctrine is more correctly understood. Some at least of the Christological controversies of to-day are due to mutual misapprehensions, arising from failure to examine and aUow for different, but not entirely contradictory, points of view. It seems worth whUe to describe four standpoints which appear to be most influential in controUing current Christological thought and opinion. Two of them are ancient and two of them modern. (a) The apostoUc standpoint was preeminently one of personal discipleship, based upon immediate experience of one whom this experience had led them not only to love as a Friend and Example, but to adore as a Uving and glorified Christ, their God and Saviour. This standpoint has been retained to this day by countless behevers, who, although they have never seen Him in the flesh, have put on Christ, and, through their own spiritual experience of Him, have learned that, when He is accepted and obeyed as 16 INTRODUCTORY being what the apostohc Church thought Him to be, life gains new value and its problems cease to terrify. It was this standpoint of personal loyalty, based upon convincing experience, that fired the zeal of St. Athanasius 1 and other ancient champions of orthodoxy, and which moved them with undying ardor, no doubt with imperfectly regulated tempers, to vindicate by turns the divine rank of Christ's Person and the reahty of His human self-mani festation. It is a standpoint which no one can consistently forsake who has once become convinced of the truth of apostohc testimony, for that testimony imposes upon those who accept its truth the un- escapable obhgation of becoming disciples of Christ and defenders of His claims. Orthodoxy thenceforth becomes a personal matter, its protection being per ceived to be involved in maintaining, justifying and extending priceless personal relations. The deepest feeUngs of which men are capable are necessarUy en- Usted, feelings which among human beings wih inevi tably at times be attended by fierce demonstrations, when what are deemed to be subversive propagandas threaten, or seem to threaten, loyalty to their truest Friend, their God and their Saviour. However unbalanced and bitter the defenders of orthodoxy may prove to be, behind the personal animus of a true Christian disciple is personal experience of Christ, causing personal loyalty based upon this 1 W. Bright, Lessons from the Lives, etc., pp. 16-19; H. P. Liddon Divinity of our Lord, pp. 443-445. STANDPOINTS AND METHODS 17 experience. Having verified his beUef concerning Christ by iUuminating and upUfting experience of the effects of such beUef when it is employed as the working hypothesis of Ufe and thought, his faith becomes impervious to negative criticism. To him it is not an open question whether Jesus Christ is the eternal and only-begotten Son of God, who has taken our nature so as to become real Man, without thereby ceasing to be fuU God. (6) A second standpoint, also ancient although not strictly primitive, is the dogmatic. One who assumes this standpoint takes for granted the per manent truth and vaUdity of the interpretations of the apostoUc experience of Christ which are em bodied in the definitions of the catholic creeds and of the ecumenical coundls. These definitions con tain terms borrowed from phUosophy; but they are used in order to preserve for the faithful the primi tive and apostoUc interpretation of Christ. Catholic Christians beUeve that in arriving at this interpreta tion the apostles were led by the Holy Spirit, and that the Church was guided by the same Spirit in protecting apostoUc Christology by denning its determinative elements. This standpoint does not preclude attempts to translate ecumenical definitions into terms more inteUigible to modern minds, nor does it prejudice fresh examinations of the data which these definitions were designed to interpret. Speaking in scientific parlance, it means that the definitions referred to, 18 INTRODUCTORY when taken in their original or historic sense, are accepted as registering results which theological science can safely assume to be estabUshed — results which have borne the test of manifold experience and investigation, and which are not beUeved to be in danger of overthrow by fresh consideration. In brief, they constitute the working hypotheses of cathoUc Christology.1 The two standpoints above described are intimately connected. In fact for many centuries they have been fused into one standpoint, which may be described as the traditional and cathoUc point of view. § 6. In contrast to this point of view is what is vaguely described as the modern standpoint, the causes of which have been already indicated. It is in reahty a combination of two standpoints — the Lutheran and the ethico-humanitarian. (c) The Lutheran standpoint, which because of the immense influence of German scholarship and speculation is everywhere to be reckoned with, is practicaUy monophysite, although after a dis tinctively modern manner. The ancient monophy- sites conceived of the Manhood of Christ as absorbed into the Godhead, whereas "moderns," beginning with Dr. Martin Luther, conceive of our Lord's Godhead as somehow infused into the Manhood.2 1 Cf. Introduction to Dogm. Theol., ch. i. § 20; Authority, chh. ii (§ 8), ix (| 1). 2 See ch. ii. § 10, below. STANDPOINTS AND METHODS 19 This has indeed raised the problem of compatibility, and kenoticists have sought to meet the difficulty by hypothecating an abandonment by our Lord of certain divine attributes when He became Man.1 But the current tendency to measure the Person of the Word-incarnate by the content of His Man hood, in particular by the results of analysis of His human consciousness, is historically due to the postulate adopted by Luther and stiU retained, al though with a shifting of emphasis from the divine to the human — the postulate that the Incarnation consisted in some kind or degree of infusion of the divine into our Lord's Manhood. This can be seen in the habit of looking for the divine whoUy in Christ's human self-manifestation, and of refusing to acknowledge in the Incarnate any divine properties and powers which cannot be exhibited in the forms of human life and experience. In particular, it can be seen in the tendency to Umit our Lord's knowledge while on earth to His human consciousness, or the refusal to admit that He possessed two knowledges at the same time, the divine omniscience as touching His Godhead and finite human knowledge as touching His Manhood. In brief, whereas cathoUc theology interprets the earthly life of Christ from the standpoint of His divine Person, and treats the union of natures in His Person as involving no mutual confusion, "moderns" start with the natures, viewed as em- 1 See ch. vii, below. so INTRODUCTORY braced in one human Ufe and experience, and build up their conception of Christ's Person by induction from the phenomena of His earthly Ufe. In Chalce donian Christology the Person of Christ is the bond of unity, conceived of as the self-same subject and centre of divine and human functioning. In "modern" Christology the consciousness of Christ is the unifying principle, and His Person is the composite product of the coalescing of Godhead and manhood. (d) The ethico-humanitarian standpoint repre sents a demand that the life of Christ on earth shaU be treated as in the strictest sense a genuinely human life, having place in human history at large. Had it not been this, moderns truly urge, it could not have represented a real Incarnation, nor could it have made an intelligible appeal either to His immediate followers or to those who in subsequent ages have learned to accept Him as ideal Man and sympathetic Example. The ethical and exemplary meaning of the Incarnation as a drama of con descending love and sympathy depends upon His victory over temptation being a really human victory and upon His entire life on earth being capable of description in human terms. No other than a human Ufe could have come within human experience so as to afford inspiration and salvation to human beings. The scientific principle of continuity, now so strongly emphasized, tends, of course, to accen tuate these contentions. STANDPOINTS AND METHODS 21 That they embody truths to which fuU justice ought to be done, wiU be maintained in this volume; but the distinguishing mark of the standpoint with which we are here concerned is the more or less exclusive emphasis which is apt to be placed upon them, and the marked tendency to limit the divine in Christ — at least while on earth — to what is susceptible of direct exhibition in a human Ufe. CathoUc theology recognizes that the phenomena which came within apostoUc observation of Christ were one and all truly human, and that the divine in Christ was not, and could not be, openly flashed forth to men. Rather it was involved and implied, and thus revealed, in the unique manner in which our Lord Uved the human Ufe, and in the claims which He made and which He vindicated by His works and spiritual perfection. How easUy these two standpoints blend in the modern mind can easily be perceived, and the new point of view, once adopted, has gained plausibihty and influence partly from repudiation of dogma in the interest of what is supposed to be unbiased investigation, and partly from reaction against a somewhat exclusive, unethical and dehumanizing emphasis upon our Lord's divine attributes, which, it is alleged, characterizes traditional theology. It would be quite untrue and misleading to say that the cathoUc and the modern standpoints are in every vital respect mutuaUy exclusive. Some of the more significant of modern postulates can, 22 INTRODUCTORY and ought to be, welcomed by catholic minds. They wiU enrich cathoUc theology; and cannot, when rightly understood, require a surrender or modifica tion of the substance of cathoUc Christology. More over, the more valuable and defensible assumptions of the modern mind, so far from precluding an intelligent acceptance of what is vital to the cathoUc standpoint, are really valuable aids in acquiring a just and appreciative hold upon the fundamental elements of catholic behef in Jesus Christ. But unfortunately the so-called modern and tra ditional standpoints are in practice defended in terms of more or less mutual opposition, and this conflict explains the existence today of what Dr. Sanday describes as a fuller and a reduced Christ ology.1 These are distinguishable by the success of the one, and the failure of the other, to do suffi cient justice to the evidences discoverable in the Gospels and elsewhere that our Lord was not less truly divine because He condescended to accept in very truth the Umitations of a really human life and experience. It wiU be the writer's task to combine what is true in modern contentions with the funda mental elements of traditional Christology, for the purpose of expounding catholic doctrine in terms intelligible to those who are influenced by the modern standpoint. The task is a dehcate one, and the writer cannot hope either to avoid aU imperfections of statement or to commend his conclusions to all x In Christology and Personality, Lees, ii— iii, esp. pp. 97 el seq. STANDPOINTS AND METHODS 23 Christological schools. His language will in some respects, no doubt, be open to adverse criticism even by those theologians who share with him , in his acceptance of the divine claim of Jesus Christ and in his acknowledgment that our Lord lived a truly human Ufe, subjecting Himself in His Manhood to the necessary Umitations of such a life and experience. § 7. Modern critical inquiry almost invariably presupposes that the New Testament documents, interpreted by the historical method, constitute the primary sources of Christological doctrine and its only trustworthy and determinative external basis. This presupposition is not precisely equivalent to the protestant rule, that the Scriptures are the sole source and rule of faith, for moderns are disinclined to accept any external authority, whether eccle siastical or bibUcal, as absolute and as foreclosing further inquiry and judgment. It means simply that a sound Christology is necessarily to be based upon the apostoUc experience of Christ, and that this experience is to be ascertained by a study of New Testament documents. In such study the interpretations which the apostles made of their experience of Christ must be reckoned with in ascer taining the nature of this experience; but the modern mind feels free to reconsider these interpretations, in view of the human Umitations under which they were made. The historical method is somewhat exclusively employed. The aim of this method is to ascertain 24 INTRODUCTORY the exact thought and meaning which the several writers of the New Testament documents personaUy intended to express. That is, it seeks to arrive at an accurate literal and grammatical interpretation of the New Testament, viewed as consisting of human documents, produced under entirely human condi tions of a certain age and intellectual atmosphere. To this end the historical conditions of that age are reckoned with, in so far as they account for the forms of thought and for the terminology employed by New Testament writers; the immediate circum stances are investigated, as throwing Ught upon the general purpose of each document and upon its incidental allusions and arguments; and each writer's mental training and affiUations are allowed for, in order to understand his personal point of view and the bearing of his methods of argument and of illustration. The historical method did not originate in modern days; but modern conditions, including a vastly improved Unguistic scholarship, greatly enlarged materials for textual criticism, and an immense widening of knowledge concerning the New Testament age, have so greatly enhanced the skill and fruitfulness of its application that it wears all the appearance of a modern discovery, and its Umitations are apt to be overlooked. Its value is limited by its aim, which is to minister to an exact and Uteral exegesis of New Testament documents, severally considered, and to improve our knowledge of the development of theology in STANDPOINTS AND METHODS 25 the first century. The importance of accomplish ing this aim can hardly be overestimated, of course, for every legitimate branch of New Testament exegesis depends for success upon first ascertaining the human writer's thought and upon not disre garding it. But the divine meaning of Holy Script ure, qua Scripture, is determined by wider factors than the conscious thought of biblical writers. The sacred context and biblical connections in which God has preserved and given us the New Testament documents impart meanings for Christian readers which Uteral exegesis alone cannot adequately un fold; and we may not assume that divinely inspired documents are inspired with no fuller purpose than their human writers understood. In brief, while the doctrinal interpretation of the New Testament with which a dogmatic theologian is concerned must begin with historical and literal interpretation, and may not lead to conclusions which are reaUy in consistent with such interpretation, it must go on to reckon with the Scriptures in their fulness, as re- veaUng purposes and meanings which in many instances transcend the human thoughts exhibited in the several documents, separately and narrowly scrutinized.1 This means, among other things, that analytical exegesis of separate documents must be supple mented by an inductive method, by a comparison of Scripture with Scripture. In saying this we 1 See Authority, ch. vii. § 12 (cf. ch. vi. § 13). 26 INTRODUCTORY assume, as cathoUc doctrine requires us to assume, that one divine mind and purpose Ues behind all the Scriptures, qua Scripture, and that an exegesis which disregards this fact is untrue to the meaning with which God has made the Bible as a whole to be His Word. In this induction the progressiveness of the revelations embodied in the Scriptures wiU be allowed for, but aU the several documents will be treated inductively as pertaining to one coherent process of divine revelation. Each biblical writer displays a personal point of view, with its Umita tions; but his thoughts are so placed in Scripture as to become organic features of a growing exhibi tion of doctrine which is at unity with itself.1 § 8. The historical method, Umited in its aim and result as it is, has fully vindicated its right to stay; and it is proving itself to be an indispensable and increasingly valuable handmaid of Dogmatic Theology. But even within its proper sphere, its value depends upon the soundness of the pre suppositions by which its application is influenced and by which its results are conditioned. History shows clearly that the New Testament constitutes an ecclesiastical hterature, written from the stand point of the apostoUc Church, and selected from other Christian literature by the post-apostolic Church. Ecclesiastical exigencies explain its pro duction, even on the human side, and the first century traditions of the Church are both drawn upon and x Cf. Authority, ch. vii. §§ 2, 7, n. STANDPOINTS AND METHODS 27 crystallized in its documents. Accordingly the historical method is soundly employed only when these ecclesiastical conditions and bearings are faced and allowed for in ascertaining the purpose and meaning of New Testament writers. St. Paul's Epistles afford the most significant illustration of this principle. If they are dealt with as so many independent essays of an individual thinker, as in fact they are apt to be regarded, the results will be somewhat different from what they will be if they are interpreted as episcopal letters, which they really are, called forth by the exigencies of an eccle siastical ministry, and devoted in large measure to the purpose of fortifying Christians in the traditional doctrine of the apostoUc Church of God. This traditional doctrine grew out of an apostolic experience which antedates the New Testament; and neither its first nor its second century contents were determined by its documents, which were selected, compUed and approved by the Church largely because they agreed with, and bore inspired witness to, the Church's faith, otherwise derived and transmitted. These are historic facts, a con sideration of which wiU make clear the genesis and meaning of the ancient rule of faith. This rule requires, on the one hand, that the Church shall be consulted as the teacher and definer of saving truth, ecclesiastical doctrine being illustrated, tested and verified by an appeal to Scripture. It requires, on the other hand, that in case of doubt concerning 28 INTRODUCTORY the meaning of Scripture, its ecclesiastical origin shaU be borne in mind, and it shall be interpreted in harmony with the Church's fundamental faith.1 A cathoUc expounder of doctrine concerning Christ takes for granted the trustworthiness of this rule of faith. It is true that in so far as he is concerned with scientific theology, he does not stop here. A wider range of data has to be reckoned with in his science than the necessary credenda of Christians, and aU scientific work requires scientific methods of procedure. Catholic dogmas in scientific theology become working hypotheses, to be verified by scien tific methods, or "results" which Christian experi ence and investigation have sufficiently estabUshed, and which may be taken for granted as the prem ises of further inquiry. The terms in which these premises are ecclesiastically defined may indeed require translation into modern equivalents, but a scientific catholic Christology accepts them as results which are too firmly established to be disregarded. This assurance does not preclude fresh investiga tions into their truth; and modern unsettlement makes such investigations imperative. In these investigations the historical method must occupy the first place, being protected from misuse, however, and supplemented, by the presuppositions and Unes of inquiry which have been indicated in this and in the previous section. As this volume is expository 1 Authority, ch. viii, where further refs. are given. THE POSITION ADOPTED 29 rather than investigative, the processes by which the cathoUc doctrine is verified in Scripture can only be summarily indicated, but it is hoped that this limitation of treatment wiU not be misunder stood as meaning any disparagement of the part which critical exegesis, as now conducted, must play in defending Christian doctrine and in purging it of unprimitive accretions. III. The Position Adopted § 9. The position adopted in this volume includes a firm beUef in the value and providential function of modern Christological investigation, and an equally strong conviction that the Chalcedonian Christology is vaUd. Its terms are indeed not readily understood by the modern mind, but when translated into modern equivalents, they afford the best avaUable working hypothesis of Christo logical inquiry. (a) The writer beheves that the Holy Spirit is employing the labors of modern scholars to purge from the Church's traditional faith aU post-apos- toUc and unwarranted accretions, to bring certain neglected elements of it into clearer Ught, to enhance its ethical value, and to increase its persuasive power. These things are not yet fully accomplished, and before they can be achieved the vaUd results of modern investigation wiU have to be dissociated from the rationaUstic vagaries in which they are 30 INTRODUCTORY sometimes concealed, and their essential harmony with the apostoUc faith will have to be more clearly established in the judgment of the Church. But to doubt that this can and wiU be brought to pass is to doubt both the power of truth to prevaU and the permanence of the Holy Spirit's guidance of the Church. Critical scholarship, even when it is influenced by rationaUstic presuppositions and anti-cathoUc animus, is one of the providential instruments by which the Spirit guides the Church into a riper understanding of her faith. This does not mean that such scholarship can outweigh and displace the judgment of the Church in spiritual things. It means that even an alien scholarship can and does provide data the knowledge of which enlightens the Church's judgment, and emancipates her the ologians from the hampering influence of antiquated methods of argument. The Spirit is overruling modern inquiry and speculation for the develop ment of a more mature and persuasive cathoUc Christology. Such a Christology will be a legitimate development of ancient doctrine, but will exhibit that doctrine in a new perspective — the perspective of the wider and more exact knowledge which modern science and historical criticism have made avaUable. § 10. (6) With all its advantages, however, the modern mind is not infalUble. And the writer's sympathetic optimism with regard to the possibil ities of contemporary Christological investigation THE POSITION ADOPTED 31 does not prevent him from perceiving that, before modern methods can achieve their destined per manent results, they must be dissociated from certain mistaken presuppositions and from widely prevalent misconceptions concerning the Chalcedonian Christ ology. In this volume an effort wUl be made to avoid these pitf aUs — errors which constitute pass ing accidents rather than necessary elements of the modern mind. i. Accordingly, we shah decline to be influenced by the naturaUstic phUosophy, which we regard as unscientific and untrue to experience. Therefore its rejection of the supernatural will not in the sUghtest degree alter our dependence upon the Gospel narratives, and our belief that such events as the Virgin-Birth and the resurrection of our Lord in flesh from the dead really took place, and con stitute determinative data of a true philosophy of history and of a sound Christology. U. WhUe realizing that what is commonly meant by "critical" exegesis affords indispensable aid in the theological use of Scripture, we shall refuse to treat such exegesis as adequate when it interprets bibUcal documents in mutual isolation, and when it disregards the supernatural factor. Exegesis of this kind cannot ascertain in its fulness the ulti mate meaning of a bibUcal passage, which to an important degree is determined by the providential place of the document in the organic structure of the Bible at large. 32 INTRODUCTORY Ui. We do not admit that Christological specu lation can issue in sound results when based upon, or determined in its conclusions by, the assumption, often unreflectively made, that a real Incarnation of the eternal Son involves and signifies some kind of infusion of Godhead into manhood and a com munication of divine attributes, idioms, to the man hood. Such a postulate raises problems which are both irrelevant to New Testament teaching and rationally stultifying in their theological basis. iv. Finally, we feel driven by the facts of history to put aside certain widely current interpretations of Chalcedonian Christology, interpretations which go far to explain the frequent disparagement and neglect of that Christology by contemporary theo logical writers. We do not, for instance, beUeve that the use of philosophical terms by the Council of Chalcedon requires us to interpret its decree of faith as importing alien metaphysics into Christian doctrine. Nor can we accept an interpretation which starts with the modern psychological use of the term person, or personaUty, in determining the meaning and value of the term person in traditional Christology. Important changes in the terminology of thinking men make it necessary to translate Chalcedonian terms into equivalents which shaU be more intelUgible to modern minds, but they do not require us to read modern and changed meanings of Chalcedonian terms into the Christology of Chalcedon. THE POSITION ADOPTED 33 § 11. (c) This Christology, taken in what we be Ueve to be its real meaning, is the working hypothesis of our theological science : — that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, having taken and made His own whatever pertains to a real and perfect man hood, is from the moment of the Incarnation, and forever, true God and true Man. He is both be cause He is the Subject, Ego or Self of true and full Godhead, on the one hand, and of unmutilated and real manhood, on the other hand. Employing ancient terms, we say that in Him two natures are united inseparably and unconfusedly in one Person. This does not mean that two psychological entities are united in, and make up, one psychological per sonaUty in the modern sense of that term, an in credible supposition. It means that one and the same Ego or Self constitutes the Self of both divine and human properties and operations — their centre and subjective meeting point. His Godhead and Manhood are inseparable because they have but one Self. They are unconfused because of their difference — a difference which precludes mutual infringement or the disturbance of the operations of the one by the operations of the other. § 12. That this preUminary and condensed de scription wiU prove to be free from obscurity to modern minds can hardly be expected, and it wiU have to be amplified in its various particulars in subsequent chapters.1 But the doctrine in question 1 See especiaUy ch. iv. §§ 1-4; ch. v. § 2; ch. vi. §§ 1-4. 34 INTRODUCTORY constitutes the most central part of the historic faith of catholic Christendom. Because it does con stitute this, and is therefore a closed question to catholic beUevers, the objection is made that to describe it as a working hypothesis of scientific investigation is misleading. A working hypothesis, it is urged, is one which is accepted for practical purposes, but which is acknowledged to be possibly liable to modification, and to abandonment, in the light of wider induction. On the other hand, an article of faith is deemed to be final, and cannot, it is said, so long as it is thus regarded, serve the pur pose of a working hypothesis, but must close the mind to any change of conviction which investiga tion might cause in an open mind.1 This objection cannot be made good. It is true that scientific methods require an open mind in one who would employ them fruitfully; but open ness of mind is not dependent upon a lack of con victions. Every scientist worthy of the name regards certain of the hypotheses which he employs as embodying completely and finally established results. It is because he regards them in this light that he gives them a central place and determinative value among his working hypotheses. He sees that they work, and that they are Ukely to prove peculiarly valuable in the interpretation of new data. It is 1 This argument is pushed by M. M. Pattison Muir, in Hibbert Journal, Apr., 1911, "Can Theology Become Scientific," and July, 191 2, pp. 824-834. THE POSITION ADOPTED 35 not uncertainty but the degree of assurance which one possesses that a given hypothesis is substantially true that commends it to him as Ukely to be a really valuable working hypothesis for scientific purposes. Yet the strongest conviction as to the finality of a scientific dogma leaves a reaUy sincere seeker after fact and truth open to new knowledge and to any change of conviction which such knowledge may demand. Hypotheses which have been thought to be finally estabUshed are not less cheerfully aban doned in the Ught of contrary evidence because those who abandon them were previously convinced of their finality. What commends a conclusion as a working hypothesis is the belief that it will work, and the stronger the conviction is that it is a finally estabUshed result the more readily will it be regarded as suitable for employment as a working hypothesis. The cathoUc standpoint does not require us to accept Chalcedonian doctrine on the basis of dicta tion, regardless of truth. Rather it represents a conviction that this doctrine embodies competent and balanced judgment concerning truth, and the truth of the doctrine is what constitutes the final ground of its acceptance. Truth is the determin ing principle not less with catholic theologians than with other investigators. They are indeed convinced that no new data will require an abandonment of Chalcedonian Christology. But to accuse them in advance of incapacity to estimate the significance of new data, and of unwilhngness to accept any modi- 36 INTRODUCTORY fications of the catholic position which these data may prove to be necessary, is in reaUty to accuse them of mental stupidity and of insincerity in their professed love of the truth. If the Chalcedonian doctrine were proved to be erroneous, such result would no doubt carry, with it some far-reaching implications, and would require catholic theologians to reconsider their general position. But it is not a scientific method of argument to aUege beforehand that they would not in such event be guided by the truth, and to deny that the Chalcedonian standpoint permits a fruitful investigation of the data by which its finaUty can be tested.1 1 Cf. W. Sanday, Ancient and Modem Christologies, pp. 234-239; R. C. Moberly, in Lux Mundi, pp. 219-220; J. R. lUingworth, Reason and Revelation, pp. 6-7; E. D. la Touche, Person of Christ, pp. 45-46. CHAPTER II HISTORICAL I. The Manifestation of Christ i. This chapter wiU be devoted to a rapid survey of the development of Christological doctrine, in cluding its bibUcal, ecclesiastical and modern critical stages.1 The Bible constitutes a God-given memorial of the progress of the supernatural manifestation of Christ, a manifestation which has four stages : — (a) Messianic prophecy and the messianic hope; (b) the incarnate manifestation of Christ to his disciples; (c) His resurrection and glorification; (d) the illu minating work of the Holy Spirit, whereby the Apostles were enabled to interpret their experience of Christ, and to transmit their interpretation in a body of doctrine which constitutes the authoritative basis of subsequent ecclesiastical teaching. The Old Testament, when regarded from the New Testament and Christian standpoint, is perceived to have for its determinative subject-matter and principle of continuity the preparation of Israel for a messianic kingdom, in the blessings of which all 1 For bibliography, see p. i, above. 38 HISTORICAL nations should participate,1 and for its King, who should be of the human seed of David,2 but around whose sacred Person a series of prophetic descrip tions gradually accumulated that could only be justified by the revelation of David's son as being also David's Lord, the "Fellow" of Yahveh and "mighty God."3 This Redeemer of Israel was to be a "Man of Sorrows," on whom the iniquity of all was to be laid, and yet a glorious king in whose hand the pleasure of the Lord should prosper, and of whose kingdom there should be no end.4 We may not suppose that the fulness of divine meaning which the Incarnation enables us to per ceive in Old Testament prophecy was apparent either to those to whom it was originally pubUshed or even to the Old Testament prophets themselves.6 Israel was being given lessons the full meaning of which could be realized only when the educational process was completed by the open self-manifestation of the God-Man. But a messianic hope was being 1 Gen. xxii. 18; Psa. lxxii. 8-n; Isa. ii. 2-3; lvi. 6-7; lx; etc. 2 2 Sam. vii. 12-16. 3 Psa. ex. 1 (cf. St. Matt. xxii. 42-45, etc.); Zech. xiii. 7; Isa. ix. 6. 4 Isa. liii. On Messianic prophecies, see Hastings, Die. of Bible, s. w. "Messiah" and "Prophecy and Prophets"; C. A. Briggs, Messianic Prophecy; A. B. Davidson, Old Test. Prophecy; E. W. Hengstenberg, Christology of the Old Test.; F. Dehtzsch, Messianic Prophecies; H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, pp. 74-94; Bp. Pearson, Creed, fol. pp. 81-92. Cf. The Trinity, ch. iv. § 7; Crea tion and Man, ch. a. §§ 3-5. 6 1 St. Peter, i. 10-12. Thus the pre-Christian Jews did not look for a suffering Messiah. See T. J. Thorburn, Jesus the Christ, ch. i. THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST 39 developed,1 and a basis of conjecture was afforded which, in the period between the end of Old Testa ment prophecy and the advent of Christ, brought to birth what may reasonably be regarded as a prov- identiaUy induced Logos speculation.2 This spec ulation was indeed somewhat vague and incoherent. In no sense did it reaUy anticipate Christian revela tion. But it was, especially in its Palestinian form, a continuation of Old Testament development; and, although wanting in determinate results, it afforded a form of thought and a terminology which proved to be serviceable in the subsequent interpre tation of the apostohc experience of Christ. In brief, when Christ came an atmosphere of messianic expectation had been created among the Jews, and ideas had been developed among them, which enabled the more spirituaUy-minded to recog nize in Him the Redeemer for whom Israel had been waiting, and to perceive in His combination of humihty and divine claim the solution of all the enigmas of prophecy. § 2. The open manifestation of Christ was given wholly in human terms, because, if for no other 1 Hastings, Die. of Bible, s. w. "Jesus Christ" (pp. 608-609, by W. Sanday), and "Messiah," I (by V. H. Stanton); J. Drummond, The Jewish Messiah. 2 W. Fairweather, in Hastings, Die. of Bible, extra vol., s. v. "Development of Doctrine," ii, v; and s. v. "Trinity," p. 308 (by H. M. Scott); Jas. Drummond, Philo Judceus ; C. Bigg, Christ. Platonists of Alexandria, pp. 7-26; Die. of Christ, Biog., s. v. "Philo," vii (by A. Edersheim). 40 HISTORICAL reason, these are the only terms which are intelU gible to human beings. The disciples of Christ neither did nor could observe anything in Him that was not human.1 Even the miracles which they saw Him perform, in spite of their proving the presence of superhuman power, laid bare to their observation nothing in Christ which was not properly human. They knew that He was of human descent; and, so far as they could observe, He was subject in the manner of His Ufe to human conditions. He grew up hke a human being, increasing both in wisdom and stature,2 and exhibiting the Umitations which pertain to human nature and experience — not less truly, because within these natural limitations He exhibited a combination of human perfections, and a sinlessness, which had never before been displayed by man. If they discovered anything superhuman in Him, it was not by direct observation, but by inference from the truly human actions and words which made up the subject-matter of their experience of Him. If He was divine, His Godhead, and its functioning, neither was nor could be laid open to observation. Yet His self-manifestation, human though it was, contained elements which revealed His possession of a higher nature and of higher powers and functions than they could directly experience. Indisputably sincere and humble, He practised a self-assertion and made claims which no one lower than the Al- 1 Cf. ch. iv. § 5. 2 St. Luke ii. 52. THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST 41 mighty can practise and make without utterly dis crediting his character and sanity.1 Nor is the evidence of this confined to the fourth Gospel, which merely gives prominence to what is undeniably present in our synoptic Gospels. Only by an d priori criticism which begs the question, and assumes that the higher Christological elements in these Gospels are interpolations, can this contention be disputed.2 The Gospel narratives show that the self-mani festation of Christ was aU of a piece. The apostolic experience of Him was coherent, and His stupendous claims did not disturb the naturalness and consist ency of what the apostles saw of His human hfe and conversation. On the contrary, they constituted a clarifying background to the unfailing and tran scendent wisdom with which He spoke, to His general teaching, to His avowed mission as Revealer and Redeemer, to the method of His works and to their spiritual sign-values. No doubt the apostles faUed at first to realize the meaning of their experi ence, it was so stupendous, transcending all their previous habits of thought. The glorious fact of the resurrection was needed to complete the reve lation and to clarify their understandings. But when regarded from the standpoint afforded by that crowning experience, they could see that the 1 See ch. iv. §§ 5-6, below. 2 H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, pp. 247-258; C. F. NoUoth, Person of our Lord, pp. 306 et seq.; H. R. Mackintosh, Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ, pp. 234-235. 42 HISTORICAL Manhood and human life of Christ was a revela tion to them of one who was no other than their Lord and their God.1 § 3. That Christ claimed to be fully divine is hardly open to serious dispute by those who accept the Gospels as containing a substantially true account of apostolic experience of Him. It is true that He never made the unqualified assertion, "I am God," which by Jewish minds would have been taken to mean either an identification of His Person with that of the Father (Sabellianism) or the proclamation of a second God (polytheism) . He described Himself in terms of divine sonship — a sonship that was sharply distinguished from any in which His hsteners could participate, and one that involved internal relations to the Father which cannot be enjoyed by created persons.2 From this frequently reiterated standpoint Christ advanced claims which justified the impression of His hearers that He made Himself equal with God,3 and which, as has frequently been noted, obtrude the dilemma that He was either God or not good, si non Deus, non bonus. His disciples had over whelming evidence of His goodness and wisdom, and their experience of Him therefore pointed to the vaUdity of His claims.4 1 The confession of the at first incredulous Thomas, St. John xx. 27-29, was a true inference from his experience. Cf. Rom. i. 4. 2 The Trinity, pp. 139-140. 3 St. John v. 18. 4 The Trinity, pp. 125-126; H. P. L ddon, Divinity of our Lord, THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST 43 § 4. This conviction, in which the apostolic inter pretation of Christ is summarized, from the nature of things, could not be immediately grasped in aU of its necessary impUcations. These implications emerged gradually as time and circumstances gave the apostles opportunities and occasions for con sidering them under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The development of apostoUc Christology is usually described as passing through the Petrine, Pauline and Johannine stages.1 The Petrine stage is repre sented by the predications concerning Christ which St. Luke teUs us were made by St. Peter on the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit. Christ was then described by St/Peter as "a man approved of God," who could not be holden of death, God's "Holy One," whom " God hath made . . . both Lord and Christ." 2 On another occasion St. Peter describes Him as "the Prince of Life."3 The Christology which these descriptions embody is obviously primi tive and to a degree unreflective, but it plainly implies that Christ is at once human and superhuman, to whom the divine name of Lord can be applied without hesitation. And one who can be described Lee. iv; H. B. Ottley, The Great Dilemma. Cf. ch. iv. § 6, for a description of these claims. 1 On these Christologies, see E. D. la Touche, Person of Christ, pp. 325-343; H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, Lees, v-vi; H. R. Mackintosh, Doctr. of the Person of Jesus Christ, Bk. I; Jas. Denney, Jesus and the Gospel; W. Sanday, Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, Lee. vii; A. M. Fairbairn, Place of Christ in Modern Theol., Bk. II. Div. i; Hastings, Die. of Bible, s. v. "Christology." 2 Acts ii. 22, 24, 36. 3 Acts iii. 15. 44 HISTORICAL truly as the "Prince of Life" cannot be given a lower personal rank in being than that which pertains to Deity. In brief, the more expUcit Christology of the Pauhne and Johannine stages is implicitly involved in that of the Petrine stage. St. Paul's experience of Christ declared Him to be glorified Lord,1 and this fact determined his method of Christological thought. The conceptions at which he arrived were realized and formulated graduaUy, but his final thoughts plainly constitute nothing more than an exphcit unfolding of the Christology which controlled his mind from the moment of his acceptance of Christ as his Lord and Saviour. The Pauline Christ is the unique Son of the Father's love, the image of the invisible God,2 Himself "over aU God blessed forever."3 He is the First born in relation to all creation, in whom, through whom and unto whom all things have been created, and in whom they cohere.4 The Mediator between God and men,5 He took on Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men.6 "Born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem them which were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons," 7 "He effaced HimseU" and "became obedient even unto death," and was there fore "highly exalted," His human name Jesus being placed above every name.8 "And He is the Head 1 Acts ix. 5. 2 Col. i. 13, 15. Cf. 2 Cor. iv. 4; Heb. i. 3. 3 Rom. ix. 5. 4 Col. i. 15-17. 6 1 Tim. ii. 5. 6 Phfl. ii. 7. 7 Gal. iv. 5-6. » Phil. ii. 8-1 1. THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST 45 of the Body, the Church, ... the Firstborn from the dead." x Raised from the dead, He is " the First- fruits of them that are asleep."2 "For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dweU, and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross."3 In brief, "in Him dwelleth aU the fulness of the Godhead bodily," and Christ in us is "the hope of glory."4 Such a Christology, whUe it bears witness to the genuine ness of our Lord's humanity and submission to human conditions, assigns to the Person of Christ a rank in being which clearly identifies Him with the Supreme God.5 The Johannine Christology neither did nor could go further; but, appropriating the Logos terminology then generaUy current, it describes and interprets Christ's earthly Ufe in the fourth Gospel as it had come to appear when sufficient time had elapsed for the apostohc mind to mature in its understanding of that Ufe, under the iUuminating guidance of the Spirit. We cannot in every instance accurately distinguish between what is description of the author's experience of Christ and what is his inter pretation of it; nor can we prove that his narrative is always minutely accurate. But that the fourth Gospel has historical value, and that there is no •Col. i. 18. z 1 Cor. xv. 20. 3 Col. i. 19-20. 4Col. ii. 9; i. 27. 6 S. N. Rostron, Christol. of St. Paul; A. M. Fairbairn, Place of Christ, Bk. H. Div. i. ch. i. 46 HISTORICAL lack of fundamental harmony between its Christology and that of the synoptic Gospels, has been abun dantly established by critical and theological scholars. The Christ of the four Gospels is plainly one and the same.1 This Christ is described by the fourth Gospel 2 as not less truly divine than really human, and as not less fully human than genuinely divine. He is eternal Logos, for He was in the beginning. He. is distinct from God the Father, for He was with Him, and is His only begotten Son; and He is God. Through Him all things were made, and in Him was hfe. And He "became flesh and dwelt among us," manifesting Himself as "the Only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." 3 He came to do the Father's will,4 but is conscious of internal relations with the Father which justify His saying, "I and the Father are one." 6 In brief, He is true God and real Man, the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world,6 having life in Himself,7 and communicating it to us in His flesh and blood,8 the Way, the Truth and the Life, through whom alone men are able to come to the Father.9 Such is the Christ of history, as interpreted by those who enjoyed direct experience of Him, and 1 W. Sanday, Criticism of the Fourth Gospel (gives a survey of hterature and opinion in Lee. i). 2 H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, Lee. v, is stiU the best on this subject. ' St. John i. 1-14. 4 St. John iv. 34; v. 30; vi. 38. 6 Ch. x. 30. . 6 Ch. i. 29. » Ch. v. 26. 8 Ch. vi. 48-58. 9 Ch. xiv. 6. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA 47 who were sent forth in His name to bear witness of Him under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.1 II. The Development of Dogma § 5. The dogmatic definition of apostoUc teaching concerning the Person of Christ 2 was not voluntarily undertaken by the Church. It was wholly due to the necessity of protecting the faithful from erroneous conceptions, which threatened to banish the truth from common Christian knowledge. These errors were the outcome of an aUen metaphysic, and could not be shut out except by resort to metaphysical terms. But these terms are determined in their dogmatic meaning not by their implications in ancient phUosophy, but by the use to which they were put, the use, that is, of reaffirming apostolic beUef. According to this behef Jesus Christ is both very God and very Man, whole in what is God's and whole in what is man's, one Lord Jesus Christ, but without obhteration in Him of the difference between 1 Their interpretation of Him is better evidence of His Person than the synoptic Gospels, which contain only broken memoirs. See H. L. Goudge, Moral Perfection of our Lord Jesus Christ, pp. 10-12, who quotes Harnack as saying (in What is Christianity? p. 10), "The more powerful the personahty which a man possesses, and the more he takes hold of the inner life of others, the less can the sum total of what he is be known only by what he himself says and does. We must look at the reflection and the effects which he produced in those whose leader and master he became." * Bibliography of the history of Christological developments in the Church is given on p. 1, note, above. v 48 HISTORICAL the Godhead and the Manhood and between His divine and His human properties and operations. For three centuries the Church battled with error without resort to dogma, and her experience during this period furnished her with part of the needed terminology for her dogmatic work. It remained that during the period of the Ecumenical Councils she should appropriate suitable terms, and by in corporating them into a new context crystallize them in meanings calculated to define and protect her primitive faith. It was the Godhead of Christ which first required to be asserted in this manner. Arius was willing to acknowledge that the Son is the first of creatures, and was even willing to worship Him as represent ing God in creation and redemption. But arguing sophisticaUy, after human analogies and from the fact of His sonship, he maintained that the Logos was a creature, once non-existent, and subject Uke other creatures to change.1 This was really a re pudiation of the claims of Christ, and to worship a creature, however exalted, was a reversion to paganism.2 1 On Arianism and the issues involved, see The Trinity, ch. iii. §§ io-ii; J. F. Bethune-Baker, Early Hist, of Doctrine, ch. xii; W. Bright, Age of the Fathers, chh. v et seq.; J. Tixeront, Hist, of Dogmas, Vol. II. ch. ii; J. H. Newman, Arians; H. M. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism. 5 W. Bright, Lessons from the Lives of Three Great Fathers, pp. 16-25. St. Athanasius pointed this out: Orat. c. Ar. i. 8; ii. 23; iii. 16; Ep. ad Aegyp., 13. Cf. The Trinity, pp. 80-81. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA 49 At Nicea the one problem was to declare the very Godhead of Christ in terms which Arian shiftiness could not evade. The meaning of scriptural language being obscured by ahen philosophy, non-biblical terms had to be utilized, and no available phrase served the purpose of unambiguous assertion of the truth which was at issue except o/jloovo-iov, of the same essence with the Father.1 The majority of those present at Nicea were not ahve to the need of such a term, and were soon easUy persuaded by Arian leaders that a SabelUan confusion of the Persons of the Father and of the Son was involved in its adoption. Fifty years of controversy were required before aU who beheved in the doctrine which it symbolized could be brought to perceive its value and to accept it. During that period the term im6(TTa(ns, used in the Nicene anathema as equivalent to ovcria, was given the meaning of Person or subsisting Self,2 and the growing habit of declaring that there are three hypostases in the one ovcrCa of God — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, — removed any possible justification of a SabelUan interpretation of the orthodox use of O/XOOVCTLOV.3 1 On the meaning of biumvauav, see J. F. Bethune-Baker, op. cit., pp. 193-194; and Texts and Studies, Vol. VH. No. 1; J. H. Newman, op. cit., II. iv. 3; III. i. 3; H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, pp. 438-447. Cf. The Trinity, pp. 81-82, where other refs. are given. 2 More strictly, mode of subsistence; but the idea of three sub jects, distinguishable by personal pronouns, was clearly present. Cf. § 8, fin., below. 3 The Trinity, pp. 68-69; W. Bright, Age of the Fathers, Vol. I. pp. 323-328; C. J. Hefele, Hist, of Christ. Councils, Vol. II. pp. So HISTORICAL This term, as used in the Nicene Creed, signifies that the Son shares to the full in the one indivisible essence and being of the Father, so that although the Father and the Son are two mutuaUy distinct Persons or hypostases, they are Subjects of one and the same God. The Son is not temporally but eternaUy be gotten of the Father, so that these two are co-eternal together and co-equal. It is a serious mistake to treat the use of the term opoovcriov as giving dog matic authority to a substance philosophy, and to the notion that in God there is a substance which is prior to and separable from the divine Persons. OvctCcl stands in trinitarian theology for the total reality of God, whatever that may be ; 1 and " Persons " signifies mutually inseparable but distinct Subjects of that reality.2 Each Person is self of whole God, and therefore truly divine. "The Father's essence is the Being of the Son." 3 § 6. Before the Arian conflict was wholly past, the truth that Jesus Christ is very Man was obscured by ApoUinaris, who in his effort to combat Arianism sought to find a place in the Manhood for the eternal 276-278; J. F. Bethune-Baker, Early Hist, of Christian Doctr., pp. 235-238. Classic passages are St. BasU, Epis. xxxviii; St. Greg ory Naz., Orat., xxi. 35. 1 The Trinity, pp. 67-70, 202-203; R- L- Ottley, Incarnation, Vol. II. pp. 255-256; St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I. iii. 5; Cath. Encyc. s. v. "Essence and Existence." 2 The Trinity, chh. hi (§ 15), vi (§§ 6, 10, 12); Kenotic Theory, pp. 49-51; St. Thomas, op. cit., I. xxix. 3 St. Athanasius, Orat. c. Arian., iii. 3. Cf. iii. 6; ad Adelph., 8 near the end. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA 51 Logos by excluding its higher part or rational soul. Its place, he maintained, is taken by the Logos. This was the first of a long series of efforts to solve what in ultimate issue is an insoluble problem for finite understandings — the problem of the manner in which Godhead and Manhood are united in one Jesus Christ. His explanation sacrificed the human in the interests of the divine, and those who sup ported his theory not only denied our Lord's posses sion of the human vovv4{io-is; J. F. Bethune-Baker, Nestorius and His Teaching, pp. 48-49. Cf. p. 60, below. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA 55 union; 1 (b) that the idioms or properties of either the Godhead or the Manhood may be predicated of the one subject, Jesus Christ, regardless of the personal title by which He is named — communicatio idiomatum, avrCSocris.2 Thus God was borne by the Blessed Virgin, and the second Man is the Lord from heaven. To caU the Blessed Virgin ©cord/cos did not mean, as Nestorius thought, that she bore the Godhead, but that He whom she bore, as touching the Manhood which He took from her, is no other than He who, as touching His eternal nature, is truly God. § 8. The death of St. Cyril in 444 a.d. removed a needed restraint of the onesidedness of many of the opponents of Nestorianism; and his successor in Alexandria, Dioscorus, a violent partisan, became the supporter of the opposite error — a denial of the existence of two natures in Christ, monophysit- ism. This error came before the Church in the form of Eutychianism,3 maintained by Eutyches, the archimandrite of a monastery near Constantinople. His view was that the Manhood of Christ was ab sorbed by the Godhead in Christ; and his formula was, "Before the Incarnation I acknowledge two natures, but after the Incarnation I confess one nature." He feU back upon St. Cyril's famous 1 Cf. chh. iv. § 1; vi. § 1, below. 2 Cf. ch. vi. § 4, below. 8 On the Eutychian controversy, see J. F. Bethune-Baker, Early Hist, of Christ. Doctr., ch. xvi; C. J. Hefele, op. cit., Vol. III. Bks. x-xi; R. Rainy, op. cit., pp. 392-404; W. Bright, op. cit., Vol. II. chh. xliii-xhx. 56 HISTORICAL phrase, "one nature of the Word which was incarnate," but left out the qualifying phrase "which was incarnate," and thus fell into a genuine monophysitism — regarding our Lord's Manhood as deified. Eutyches was not an accurate thinker, and his assertion of two natures before the Incarna tion was obviously one which could not be entertained seriously. But his monophysitism represented an important and somewhat widely prevalent error which had to be faced, if the reality of our Lord's human nature and passion was to be maintained. Eutyches was condemned by a local synod under Flavian in 448; and on his appeal to Pope Leo I, that prelate issued the famous Tome, or Epistle to Flavian, a splendid and well-balanced exposition of the two natures in Christ, their inseparable but unconfused union and operation in Him. "Very God," he wrote, " was born in the entire and perfect nature of very man, whole in His own, whole in ours."1 "For each nature (forma) in communion with the other performs the actions which are proper to it." "For although in the Lord Jesus Christ there is one Person of God and Maii, that from which there is of both a common contumely is one, that from which a common glory another." 2 The Tome exhibits the difference of natures by a series of antitheses, wherein the manifestations of the divine and human factors in our Lord's earthly Ufe are contrasted. Certain modern writers have 1 Ch. iii. 2 Ch. iv. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA 57 referred to these as iUustrating an alleged view among the ancients that the Godhead and the Manhood operated by turns, the human giving way while almightiness was exercised, and vice versa.1 This interpretation is certainly unwarranted. It is true that the Tome in speaking of the lowliness of man and the loftiness of God says, invicem sunt, but this admits of being rendered "mutually penetrate" as weU as "are by turns." The statement which almost immediately foUows, that each nature per forms what is proper to it "in communion with the other," cum alterius communione, forbids the supposition that St. Leo considered the natures to take mutuaUy exclusive turns in the actions of Christ. Moreover, we have no evidence that that writer would have repudiated the thought that our Lord's earthly Ufe was genuinely human throughout. His point was that in that hfe both divine and human factors concurred, and that the one factor revealed its presence in this and the other in that phase of the coherent and human drama — these two being dis tinct in the midst of their concurrence.2 After a momentary triumph of the Eutychian faction at Ephesus in 449, the monophysite error was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon, 451 1 E.g. B. F. Westcott, Epis. to the Hebrews, p. 66 ; A. J. Mason, Conditions of our Lord's Life, pp. 84-85. 2 The mode of the functioning of the Godhead is such that it cannot emerge as a disturbing factor in human consciousness and operation. Cf. chh. vi. 2-3; vii. 8. 58 HISTORICAL a.d. At this Council the Tome of Leo was given ecumenical sanction, along with St. Cyril's Second Letter to Nestorius and his Letter to John. A decree of faith was also set forth, in which it was declared that, "we confess . . . one and the same Son . . . at once complete in Godhead and complete in Man hood, truly God and truly Man, ... of one essence with the Father as touching His Godhead, and at the same time of one essence with us as touching His Manhood, in all respects like us, apart from sin; as touching His Godhead begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as touching His Manhood . . . begotten in the last days of Mary the Virgin, bearer of God; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only- begotten, manifested in two natures, iv Svo (f>vo~eo-Lv, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the difference of the natures being in no way destroyed on account of the union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one person and one hypostasis, «s a/ itpocrumov Kal fiiav vttoo~- Tao-tv o-vvTpex°vo-in<;, not as though parted and divided into two persons, but one and the same Son," etc. Apart from unnecessary subtleties, it is clear that the phrase "in two natures" was designed merely to affirm what St. Leo had declared in his Tome, that the Incarnate is whole in what is His (i.e. in Godhead) and whole in what is ours (i.e. in Manhood), so that we may neither deny His being full God in order THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA 59 to maintain His being really human, nor repudiate His being fuU Man in order to acknowledge His being truly divine. And this obvious purpose of the decree determines the meaning of "nature," <£uo"is, in Chalcedonian Christology — a meaning which was still further accentuated and determined in the range of its apphcation by the subsequent condemnation of monothelitism by the sixth Ecumen ical Council.1 Monothehtism 2 was a species of monophysitism which in the interest of the personal unity of Christ, and His sinlessness, denied His possession of a human wiU as distinguished from His divine wiU.3 To-day the tendency is to sacrifice behef in His possession, whUe on earth, of the divine will, in the interest of the reahty of His temptation and human victory over sin. But if Christ remained whole in what was His, that is, if He remained God, He must have retained the divine wiU, and if He took all that was ours and became reaUy human, He must have acquired also a genuinely human will.4 The sixth Council accordingly declared that in Christ "there are two natural dekijaet? or OeKrjfjuaTa and two 1 Cf. p. 54 and the refs. there given. . 2 On Monothehtism, see C. J. Hefele, op. cit., Vol. V. Bk. XVI; Cath. Encyc, q. v.; H. R. Percival, Seven Ecumenical Councils, pp. 325-352; Jas. Orr, Progress of Dogma, pp. 199-205. 3 This denial had been made by ApoUinaris. See § 6, above. 4 Operating, however, after the divine and eternal manner, the divine wUl could not emerge within His human consciousness so as to disturb His human willing. See ch. viii. § 1, below. 60 HISTORICAL natural epepyeias, . . . And the two natural wills are not opposed to each other, . . . but His human will followed, and it does not resist and oppose, but rather is subject to the divine and almighty will." The decree bases this declaration on the truth that there are "two natures in one hypostasis, of which each in communion with the other wills and works what is proper to itself." It requires no great trouble to see that the dis tinction between person, virdcrrao-is, and nature, 286-288. 88 THE TAKING OF OUR NATURE the need of redemption was also eternal, so that the Incarnation may have been ordained in view of sin, eternally fore-known. (c) The Incarnation constitutes the most effective display of love for man that we can imagine, and it seems unreasonable that such a display should have depended for its actualization upon human sin.1 The reply is that our imagination is quite too inadequate to determine the resources of divine love. The most that can be acknowledged is that we know of no method so convenient for its purpose as is the Incarnation. Other considerations have been advanced, but they are either reducible to the heads we have given, or unimportant. We leave the subject as a prob lem of the schools, which Dogmatic Theology neither needs, nor is able, to solve. § 8. The purpose of the Incarnation may be summarily described as mediatorial. The eternal mode of divine subsistence, and the finitude of man, ahke require that, if man is to gain genuine access to the invisible God, this must be achieved through a personal Mediator — one who shall be able at once fully to represent God to us, and to be a proper representative in our behalf to God; — and the eternal Son of God we have seen to be the proper Person to fulfil this office. If man had not sinned 1 Bearing on this, a Latin hymn used at the blessing of the Easter candle says, "O felix culpa quae tantum ac talem meruit habere redemptorem." Given in Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnol. 1. c. 303. THE VIRGIN-MOTHER 89 this necessity would none the less have existed; and since man was made for communion and fellow ship with God, the fact of his creation became a pledge that such mediation would be afforded. The incident of sin added the mystery of redemptive suffering to the Son's mediatorial office. It accen tuated, but did not cause, the love wherewith He persisted in His gracious purpose. The Incarnation has been the means by which the Son of Gochhas equipped Himself for the his torical part of His mediatorial work. Possessing in Himself the fulness of the Godhead, and thus able to bring God within our reach by manifesting Himself to us, He has also taken for His own a truly human nature. By this condescension He has not only achieved an effectual manifestation of Himself to men, but also has constituted Himself a true re capitulation and representative of our race before God the Father. In Him the Creator and the crea ture meet in one indivisible and personal centre; and our union in Him by sacramental means constitutes the appointed and effectual method whereby, under the conditions of faith and repentance, we are enabled to obtain the intended benefits of His gracious intervention and redemptive suffering. III. The Virgin-Mother § 9. The method of the Incarnation on its phys ical side, according to two Gospel narratives, was that of a virgin-birth, and something has already 90 THE TAKING OF OUR NATURE been said as to the fitness of this method, regarded as the method and sign of the entrance of very God into human history.1 But the fact of the Virgin- Birth is disputed by certain modern writers2 — ostensibly on critical, really on a priori, grounds. It is the a priori standpoint which these writers assume — that of naturalism — which gives to their negative criticism what plausibility it possesses. That the two narratives to which we refer 3 are later interpolations, or at least have been altered in the interest of later behef in a virgin-birth, is a contention for which no evidence worthy of the name has been discovered. And no proof appears that these narratives were regarded, when they appeared, as inconsistent with existing Christian knowledge. Whatever may be the precise dates of the Gospels in which they appear, they were written and gained circulation, within the life-time of persons who could, and undoubtedly would, have corrected them, if they were as radica]ly_false as a denial of the 1 In § 4, above. 2 E.g. by Paul Lobstein, The Virgin-Birth of Christ — a complete thesaurus of the negative argument. The fact is defended by Chas. Gore, Dissertations, I; Jas. Orr, The Virgin-Birth of Christ; R. J. Knowhng, Our Lord's Virgin-Birth; T. J. Thorburn, Crit. Exam, of the Evidence of the Doctr. of the Virgin-Birth; Ch. Quarterly Review, Oct. 1904, art. LX; W. Sanday, in Critical Questions, 2d ed., pp. 123 et seq. (written before he assumed a negative attitude in Bishop Gore's Challenge to Criticism); G. Streatfield, Incarnation, ch. x; E. H. Day, "The Doctr. of the Virgin-Birth," in Eng. Ch. Review, commencing Jan., 1913. ' St. Matt. i. 18-25; St- Luke i- 26-38. THE VIRGIN-MOTHER 91 Virgin-Birth necessarily assumes them to be. The ultimate sources of information on the subject must have been Joseph and Mary, and the narrative of the first Gospel reflects the standpoint of Joseph, whUe that of the third reflects Mary's point of view. In both cases the narratives, when examined as to their literary pecuUarities, seem to consist to an important extent of borrowed documents, and not to be whoUy composed by the Gospel writers them selves. To those who beUeve in the possibihty of miracles, and who approach the question from the standpoint afforded by the apostohc conception of our Lord's Person, the evidence which these narratives afford that He became incarnate by a virgin-birth seems sufficient, — especially in the absence of contrary evidence, and in view of the strength of what appears to be independent tra dition found in sub-apostohc Uterature.1 Much is made of the sUence of all other New Testament writers,2 and it is sweepingly assumed that this sUence proves ignorance. It of course proves nothing of the kind, unless found in docu ments purporting to describe our Lord's human birth; and no other such documents or passages occur in the New Testament. It is indeed quite possible that the earher portions of the New Testa- 1 See on this, H. B. Swete, Apostles' Creed, pp. 42-55, in reply to A. Harnack. 2 A possible exception in St. John i. 13 has been referred to in § 2, above. 92 THE TAKING OF OUR NATURE ment were written before the fact of the Virgin- Birth was pubUcly made known. But this affords no difficulty. Premature pubUcation would have in vited scandal, and the Virgin-Mother — Joseph would seem to have died before the pentecostal period — may well have continued to ponder the mystery secretly in her heart until the reahzation among Christian circles of the significance of her Son's submission to any form of human birth had sufficiently developed to make her story credible and edifying. It is reasonable to think that, when she did speak, she was able to produce Joseph's account, as well — an account which was perhaps furnished by Joseph for her protection from scandal. We do not, of course, know that the narratives emerged precisely in this manner; but it is one of several possible ways in which both the character istics of the two Gospel narratives and the post ponement of their publication might reasonably be explained. It has been urged, however, that in the genealogies our Lord is described as the son of Joseph, and that the general impression of the Jews that He was the carpenter's son emerges several times in the Gospel narratives without being corrected by the Gospel writers. The latter circumstance is but one of many evidences of the general faithfulness with which these writers adhered to the purpose of exhib iting Christ as He appeared to those who saw Him, abstaining as a rule from unnecessary comment. THE VLRGLN-MOTHER 93 As to the genealogies, the fact that they are given by the very writers who tell us of the Virgin-Birth shows that they at least did not perceive the dis crepancy which modern objectors allege. Our only knowledge of these genealogies is in their Gospel forms, which appear to be controUed by belief in the Virgin-Birth, in spite of their tracing the line of descent through Joseph. That they did trace it through him appears to be dictated by the fact that they give the putative descent, which was in any case through Joseph. But in both genealogies the Gospel writers avoid describing Jesus Christ as begotten of Joseph.1 FinaUy it is objected that the story of the Virgin- Birth has paraUels in ancient pagan myths, which may weU explain the manner in which it was de veloped, and may perhaps betray its source. But the whole attitude of the first generation of Christian behevers towards paganism forbids the supposition that the story of the Virgin-Birth was genetically related to pagan myths, as does also the manifold, especiaUy the spiritual, contrast between them and the Gospel narratives. The Jews of that time were not myth-makers, and the interval between our Lord's birth and the publication of the Gospels was too brief for the development of mythical accounts of that event. 1 The chUd of a man's wife, even if a mamzer — i.e. adulterous, — would be reckoned putatively as his son in any case. See Jewish Encyc, s. v. "Adultery," p. 218. 94 THE TAKING OF OUR NATURE But, it is urged, why attach so much importance to the Virgin-Birth? Can we not, as the earUest Christians did, accept the divine claim of Christ, and acknowledge His eternal pre-existence with the Father, independently of questions concerning the manner of His human birth? The answer is not difficult to make. The conditions under which we accept our Lord's claims are significantly dif ferent from those of pentecostal days. The fact of the Virgin-Birth has been proclaimed, and ages of reflection and criticism have elapsed. Once pubhshed, the story of the Virgin-Birth came quickly to be recognized as an important and fitting sign of the entrance of God into human history. It has rightly been felt that to reject such a sign is to weaken our faith in the Incarnation, and this is borne out by the fact that those who have rejected it have also fallen short of full acknowledgment of the mystery with which it is connected.1 § 10. Closely associated in Christian imagination with our Lord's Virgin-Birth, although not to be regarded as being an article of the faith, is the ancient and very widespread opinion that the Blessed Virgin bore no other children after giving birth to Jesus Christ — her perpetual virginity.2 1 See. Chas. Gore, Dissertations, pp. 63-67. 2 The most weighty argument against her continued virginity is given by J. B. Mayor, Epis. of St. James, pp. v.-xxxvi. J. B. Lightfoot, Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, pp. 1-45, defends the traditional veiw here taken, and gives a fuU survey of patristic opinion. Cf. Hastings, Die. of Christ, s. v. "Brethren of our Lord." THE VIRGIN-MOTHER 95 Three views have been held: (a) That the "breth ren" of our Lord were His cousins — the view of St. Jerome, but having too many difficulties to be con sidered seriously; (b) The Helvidian view, that these "brethren" were younger children of Joseph and Mary; (c) The common or Epiphanian view, that they were chUdren of Joseph by a previous marriage — legal brethren of our Lord and, in view of the contemporary behef that He too was be gotten of Joseph, commonly but mistakenly thought to be His "brethren" as begotten of the same father. The issue hes between the second and the third views, either of which gives a credible explanation of the use of the descriptive term "brethren." To those who beheve in the Virgin-Birth of our Lord the reasons which explain His being caUed the son of Joseph can be advanced with equal force to explain the fact that Joseph's children were known as the "brethren" of Christ, without resorting to the supposition that they were also Mary's children. The statement that Joseph knew not his wife "till she brought forth a son," 1 as paraUels show,2 does not prove that he knew her afterwards. And the fact that Jesus is caUed a "firstborn" son can be explained as having reference to the Jewish law which consecrated to God every chUd that opened the womb rather than to the subsequent birth of 1 St. Matt. i. 25. 2 Gen. xxviii. 15; Deut. xxriv. 6; 1 Sam. xv. 35; 2 Sam, vi. 23; St. Matt, xxviii. 20. 96 THE TAKING OF OUR NATURE other children.1 No New Testament evidence exists which can be regarded as reaUy determinative of the question; but attempts to account for our Lord committing His mother to the care of St. John instead of His "brethren," on the supposition that they were the children of Mary, seem unsuccessful. The fact of general tradition, in spite of the explan ations of it which supporters of the Helvidian view advance, determines the state of the question; and until contrary evidence is forthcoming, it seems most reasonable to adhere to the traditional view, that the Blessed Virgin had but one child — Jesus Christ. The widespread feeling that the Helvidian supposition is contrary to the spiritual fitness of things cannot be reckoned as having evidential value for the traditional view. But it may represent a true instinct none the less, and the writer beheves, that this is the case.2 § n. The mother of Jesus Christ was a virgin mother, and her virginity has been regarded by pious minds not only as the divinely appointed sign of the taking of our nature by the eternal Son, but also as a suitable symbol of her own sanctification for such a sacred function and privilege. The announce ment to her of the part which she was to fulfil was attended by witness to the fact that she was "endued 1 See Bishop Pearson, Creed, fol. pp. 173-177. 2 On the perpetual virginity, see also St. Thomas, Summa Theol. III. xxviii; xxix. 2; A. T. Wirgman, The Blessed Virgin, etc., pp. 150-165; W. Bright, Sermons of St. Leo, n. 9. THE VIRGIN-MOTHER 97 with grace." 1 Governed by a deep spiritual in stinct the Church has ever abhorred the thought that the Holy One should have been born of a sinful mother. It has therefore been held with cathoUc consent that somehow, and before the conception of her divine Son took place, she was by virtue of His merits, anticipatively apphed, purified from sin. This is not susceptible of formal proof, but is a matter of spiritual perception of the fitness of things — a perception so general as to have all the practical value of demonstration. The question as to when she was thus sanctified, whether immediately before the Incarnation, from her mother's womb, or in her very conception, so as never to have inherited a sinful nature, does not admit of so confident a solution. Provided the truth be guarded that her sanctification, whenever it occurred, was dependent upon, and constituted an anticipative effect of, her Son's redeeming work, either one of the opinions indicated may be cherished without violation of any article of the faith. The opinion that the Blessed Virgin was immacu lately conceived is asserted by papal authority2 in terms that bear exphcit witness to her dependence for sanctification, hke the rest of us, upon the merits of her divine Son. In its papal form it may there fore be recognized as an aUowable pious opinion. Beyond this we cannot go. The doctrine is com- 1 St. Luke, i. 28 (R. V. Margin). 2 Pius LX, in his BuU Ineffabilis, Dec. 8, 1854. 98 THE TAKING OF OUR NATURE paratively modern, has never had catholic consent, and is confirmed by no biblical evidence. To the writer it seems to disagree with the law of parsimony which governs divine operations, so far as we know them. God apparently does not work greater mi racles than the circumstances in each case demand, and the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin at any time before she had unfitted herself for her privilege by formal sin would seem to constitute an adequate preparation on her side for the vocation to which she was called.1 § 12. Inasmuch as He who condescended to be born of the Blessed Virgin is no other than He whom we acknowledge to be God of God, the Church has, for the protection of this truth, declared her to be ©cord/cos, Bearer of God. The Latin and EngUsh phrases, Mater Dei and "Mother of God," are not exactly equivalent, but cannot logically be repudiated without the implication that the child of Mary was not truly divine. No doubt the unqualified address "Mother of God" is subject to misconstruction; but in view of the humanitarian tendencies of our time, it seems wiser to expound the true use and impUcations of the phrase, rather than to discourage its employment. Abuse need not preclude use, 1 See DarweU Stone, Outlines of Christ. Dogma, pp. 57-61, 287- 290; St. Thomas, op. cit., III. xxvii. 2; E. B. Pusey, First Letter to Newman. In behalf of the immaculate conception, Abp. UUathorne The Immac Concep. of the Mother of God; Geo. F. Lee, The Sinless Conception of the Mother of God. THE VIRGIN-MOTHER 99 especiaUy when repudiation is Uable to have erro neous implications of a dangerous kind.1 The truth which especiaUy needs to be safe guarded in calUng the Blessed Virgin "Mother of God" is the fact that she is a human mother — not ^ less human and creaturely because by the power of the Highest one who is very God condescended to take our nature of her and to become her ChUd. Reasonably interpreted, the word "mother" im phes that one thus caUed is human, both in her own nature and in her motherhood. This will appear when we remember that such a notion as divine maternity is contrary to the Christian's idea of God, and appears only in pagan mythology. The Mother of God was human, although her Child, being also more than her Child, was divine. And this truth determines her present relationship to her Child. She is evermore His mother because He is evermore the one she bore. But this is a human relationship, and is subject to the limitations of human motherhood. The authority and the pre rogatives of a mother expire with the attainment by her chUd of adult years. If any authority is sub sequently retained, it is based upon special conditions which in any case cease to have either force or mean ing after death. The maternal authority, therefore, to which Christ submitted had vahdity only in earthly connections and for a brief period. The fact that He was her 1 Cf. on this subject ch. ii. § 7, above, and ch. vi. § 4, below. ioo THE TAKING OF OUR NATURE Maker and Redeemer as well as her Child, cannot reasonably be treated as enlarging and perpetuating her prerogatives as mother. These prerogatives necessarily obey the laws of human motherhood, and have long ceased to exist. That the relations between Christ in glory and His human mother are coloured, and made pecuharly tender, by His having been her ChUd may freely be acknowledged, although the manner of their enjoyment is quite beyond our ken. But there is no warrant whatever for sup posing that her being His mother gives to the Blessed Virgin the slightest "prerogative" in the counsels of our heavenly Mediator. She is a mediatrix in no other than the purely metaphorical sense in which any feminine saint can thus be called. We rejoice to think of the Blessed Virgin as interceding for us, and to beheve that her prayers have much avaihng power; but this power is derived from her sanctity. "The effectual and fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," 1 and the power in prayer of holy souls must be greater when they have become perfect, and have been admitted to such participation in heavenly visions as can be given them before the resurrection. And if this is so, the Mother of God may weU be regarded as pre-eminent in her power in prayer. But after all is said, her power in heaven is that of saintly prayer, neither that of maternal prerogative nor that of mediatorial function. 1 St. James v. 16. THE VIRGIN-MOTHER 101 As pre-eminent among human saints we honour her, and are not afraid of conceding to her too rev erent a regard, so long as we do not give her the honour which is exclusively due to Tier Son. And in honouring her under this hmitation we are hon ouring her Son, whose grace has made her what she is, next among creatures to His perfection.1 1 See Bp. Pearson, Creed, fol. pp. 177-179; A. T. Wirgman, The Blessed Virgin, pp. 103-107 (where quotations are given from T. T. Carter, E. B. Pusey and A. P. Forbes). CHAPTER IV THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST I. His Person § i. Conceiving of personality as a comprehensive symbol for the totality of a rational and self-deter mining individual's psychical functioning, moderns are apt to describe Christ's Person as a complex of divine and human elements — a product of the Incarnation and of His earthly development. So it is that the modern method is to start with the manifold elements of our Lord's earthly Ufe, and by combining them to attain a conception of His personality. Cathohc theology begins at the other end. Ac knowledging that it is through apostohc experience of Christ's earthly life and conversation that the Church learned what she knows of His Person, the ancients made the conclusion thus reached — that Christ is the eternal Son of God — the starting point and determinative premise of their final and abiding interpretation of apostoUc experience. They came to distinguish person or woo-rams from nature, ucris, and to denote by that term the ego or self, avrds, of Christ, as distinguished, although not as separable, from His vohtional, emotional and HIS PERSON 103 inteUectual functioning. That this is so can be seen from two of their frequently expressed behef s: — that the Person of Christ is divine; and that this one Person possesses two distinct wills and two natural energies.1 It is obvious that if the Person of Christ is described as one and divine, while His wiUs are said to be two — divine and human — the will is not in such terminology reckoned as part of personahty, even though it has to be acknowledged that the ancients never imagined such a thing as a Person who does not possess a wUl. They distinguished, then, between person, as the self or subject who functions, and nature, as the functioning which is proper to the person in a given order of operation, whether divine or human. And a careful regard for this distinction is neces sary in order to understand and do justice to the ancient doctrine of the hypostatic union, Kaff VTroo~Ta.o~iv evojcnv.2 According to this doctrine, there is but one Person or self in Jesus Christ — an eternal or divine self, the Son of God. In Him two natures or modes of functioning are united so as to have a common 1 Cf. ch. ii. § 8, above, on the monothelite controversy, and ch. viii. § 1, below, on the two wUls. 2 On the hypostatic union, see St. Cyril, Second Letter to Nestorius; Coundl of Chalcedon, Decree of Faith (quoted in ch. ii. § 8, above); St. Thomas, Summa Theol., III. ii. 1-3; Rich. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, V. Iii; liv. 10; H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, pp. 259-267; Archd. WUberforce, Incarnation, ch. vi; DarweU Stone, Outlines of Christ. Dogma, pp. 73-86. 104 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST centre or subject — one of them being truly, a\r)0d)<;, divine, and the other completely, TeXeiws, human. And these two natures are united inseparably, ctSiaipenus, so as never to be divided, yet uncon- fusedly, ao-vyxyTCtiS, so as never to infringe upon each other. The limitations of the human are not swaUowed up in the divine, nor are the properties of the divine reduced by the human; but "each form fulfils what is proper to it in communion with the other," 1 the integrity of each being preserved by reason of the mutual difference in modes of their functioning. Because of this difference the divine operations of the Son do not emerge or come within observation as nullifying factors in His human con sciousness and life, and His human nature remains subject to its laws without interrupting the eternal operations of the Word, whereby all things consist and persist in being and function. § 2. We are confronted at this point by the doubts of contemporary psychologists as to the existence of self as distinguished from psychical functioning, and by objections related to the substance-phi losophy which is said to be postulated in Chalce donian Christology. The denial of self as a distinct reality finds its classical form in Hume, who inferred from his in ability to detect his own self, except in some form of perception, that self is "nothing but a bundle or 1 St. Leo, Tome, ch. iv. HIS PERSON 105 coUection of different perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement." x It is not, however, by such a philosophy that human hfe is or can be practicaUy guided. A stream of con sciousness, having no self, cannot be a subject of real moral responsibility; and what is called self- consciousness cannot be described in harmony with common experience as consciousness of mere con sciousness. The laws which determine the practi caUy invariable interpretation of terms in common speech are laws of human thought which cannot ordinarily be impugned except upon the basis of scepticism. A pertinent example is to be seen in the interpretation which men give to terms by which persons are denoted, such as personal names and pronouns. They are not understood to signify bundles of perceptions, feehngs and the like — streams of consciousness — but always selves, to whom the phenomena of consciousness are to be 1 Treatise on Human Nature, Bk. I. Pt. IV. § 6. Supported by J. S. MiU, Exam, of Sir Wm. Hamilton's Philos., ch. xii. Replies by T. H. Green, in Ed. of Hume, Vol. I, Introd., § 342; W. G. Ward, in Encyc. Brit. (9th Ed.), s. v. "Psychology,'' p. 39. Cf. H. Calder- wood, Moral Philos., pp. 12, 102-108, 118-122; C. F. D'Arcy, Christianity and the Supernatural, pp. 53-55; W. Sanday, Person ality, pp. 12-26; W. L. Walker, Christ. Theism, pp. 219-222, 227, 425-427; R. T. Smith, Man's Knowledge of Man and God. The bearing of this subject on the meaning and reasonableness of Chal cedonian Christology is considered in ch. vi. §§ 7-8; and its relation to recent discussions of our Lord's "subliminal consciousness" in § 11 of the same chapter. 106 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST referred. And a real distinction between these selves and their psychical functionings, whether the distinction is reflected on or not, is taken for granted. If this distinction is an Ulusory trick of fancy, it is one from which none escape in ordinary practice — not even those who theoretically deny its validity. Unless there be an abiding self, which functions in, but is distinct from, consciousness, there is no bridge to connect, in personal identity and continuity, consciousness before and conscious ness after dreamless sleep. It is urged, however, that the most searching psychological scrutiny fails to bring wi(thin our subjective observation any such object as a self other than the phenomena of consciousness. This is, of course, perfectly true. What is caUed self- consciousness is not perception of self as a distinct object of observation, but perception that what are observed, the phenomena of consciousness, are to be interpreted as functionings of a self which we do not see. The reason why self cannot be made a distinct object of observation is clear. From the nature of the case the only subjective realities which consciousness can scrutinize consist of the phenomena of consciousness. In interpreting these phenomena we postulate a self as their centre and agent; but just because this self is distinct from the phenomena of consciousness, it forever escapes our scrutiny. It is invisible spirit. The theory which denies dis tinct reality to self because it escapes psychological HIS PERSON 107 objectification is analogous to, and as fallacious as, the theory which denies distinct reality to mind because it escapes physiological objectifi cation. The sum of the matter is that we ought not to be blamed when we describe Jesus Christ in terms which the necessities of common experience suggest and justify. In any case we are safe in saying that all the functioning of Jesus Christ, whether divine or human, is to be referred to a common personal centre, and He Who was eternally begotten of the Father is no other than He who submitted in the manhood to experience our natural Umita tions. § 3. As to the substance-phUosophy, we may say that there is no sign that the term substance in Chalcedonian Christology carried with it any meta physical theory. The term was current coin, as it still continues to be, and signified the underlying reahty of things,1 regardless of particular meta physical conceptions as to the nature of this reahty. When Christ is declared to be consubstantial with the Father as touching His Godhead, the meaning is that the reaUty denoted by His Godhead is one and the same with the reahty of the Father's God head. And when He is said to be consubstantial with us as touching the Manhood, the reality of His Manhood is asserted to be generically the same 1 J. F. Bethune-Baker, in Texts and Studies, Vol. VII. No. 1, pp. 21-23. 108 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST with the reahty of ours. In brief, the term con substantial is used to affirm that Jesus Christ is at once real God and real Man — an affirmation which leaves us free either to accept or to reject any particular substance-philosophy, whether it be ancient or modern. At this point it may be well to notice that, in so far as the Christological use of the term substance is concerned, its connotation of anything separable from person is necessarily confined to the human side of the mystery. The Godhead is incomposite and contains no such thing as a body, and the reality in God denoted by the term referred to subsists in each of the divine Persons. Each of them is fuU God, and full God constitutes the indivisible centre of Jesus Christ. It is only the Manhood in Him which can rightly be described in terms of circum ference — of extension and parts. Accordingly, the relation of the Godhead to His Manhood, like that of His Person to His Manhood, is analogous to that of the centre of a circle to its circumference, rather than to that of one of two concentric circles to the other. And just as a centre cannot be a dis turbing element in a circumference, so the Godhead of Jesus Christ cannot be a confusing part and aspect of His Manhood and human Ufe, which in any case is completely human. §4. The Person of Jesus Christ, the Self, con sidered in se, is eternal, unchangeable and divine. In the language of the Church, He is "one Lord ms PERSON 109 Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; be gotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made." 1 He declared Himself to His disciples in terms of a unique divine sonship, in which they neither had nor could have share; 2 as existing in the Father, and the Father in Him;3 and as being one through whom alone men can approach the Father.4 He is declared by the fourth Gospel also to be the Word of God, existing in the beginning, co-existing with God, and being God. AU things were made by Him; 5 and, as St. Paul declares, in Him "all things con sist."6 He is "the image of the invisible God"7 and "the express image of His Person," 8 and there fore is fittingly designated as the Mediator between God and men.9 The Spirit of the Father is also His Spirit,10 and as second in the eternal order of divine Persons He subsists with Them in an indivisible Trinity, in which there is no essential inequahty, 1 On the true Godhead of Christ, see The Trinity, chh. iv. 7, 10-12; v. 2-5, n-13; viu. 6; H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord; Bp. Pearson, Creed, fol. pp. 105-144; A. P. Forbes, Nicene Creed, pp. 126-153; Archd. WUberforce, Incarnation, ch. v; E. D. la Touche, Person of Christ, Lee. hi; H. R. Mackintosh, Doctr. of the Person of Jesus Christ, Bk. III. chh. iv-v, vii, xii. 2 St. John xx. 17; iii. 16, 18. Cf. St. John i. 14; 1 St. John iv. 9. 3 St. John xiv. 10. 4 St. John xiv. 6. B St. John i. 1-3. 6 Col. i. 17. 7 Col. i. 15. 8 Heb. i. 3 (written by a disciple of St. Paul). 9 1 Tim. u. 5. 10 Rom. viii. 9; Gal. iv. 6; Phil. i. 19; 1 St. Pet. i. 11. no THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST but one common Godhead. It is true that, unhke the Father, He is God by derivation, but this deri vation is eternal, and He is full God. The Incarnation was not a conversion of His Person into something else, but was His submission in the nature which He assumed to the conditions and experiences of our race. He therefore remained very God while on earth, and His human experiences and sufferings were the experiences and sufferings of very God as touching His own flesh. II. Reasons for Belief § 5. It was not through observation of His God head, however, or of its functioning, that the apostles came to beheve that Jesus Christ was divine. Neither the divine essence nor Christ's divine operations — these being infinite in mode — could come within their contemplation. They could see only what was human, and, as has been shown in a previous chapter, the self-manifestation of the Lord was given whoUy in terms of human action, conversa tion and experience. It was the perfect manner in which Jesus lived His human life, the spiritual wisdom that He displayed, the claims that He made, and their perfectly sane naturalness, that converted His miracles into signs which needed only His victory over death to assure them that their friend and master was their Lord and God.1 1 Cf. ch. ii. § 2, above. REASONS FOR BELIEF in The manner of the Man, entirely true to human conditions though it was, revealed perfections which cannot be explained on exclusively human grounds. There was His sinlessness, a phenomenon never 1/ before or since observed in human hfe. It is true that a universal negative cannot be demonstrated, and the claim that He wholly avoided even the most venial fault does not admit of formal proof. But such proof is not necessary in His case. What men saw of Him convinced those who had spiritual capacity and readiness to give fair judgment that His utter lack of sense of sin was due to its entire absence from His hfe. But even more convincing than His sinlessness was the amazing splendour and harmony of the / positive graces and virtues which were combined'' in His character. The most opposite virtues were united in perfect proportions, without the slightest unnaturalness betraying itself in His conduct and conversation. Humility, fiUal obedience and loving sympathy were combined with majestic self-asser tion, absolute authority and judicial sternness, in a manner which would be impossible and self-con tradictory in any purely human saint, but which revealed no discord and no trace of unreality in Him.1 1 H. L. Goudge, The Moral Perfection of our Lord (Modern Oxford Tracts); C. H. Robinson, Studies in the Character of Christ, chh. i— ii; Emile Bougaud, Divinity of Christ, ch. iv; H. R. Mackintosh, Doctr. of the Person of Jesus Christ, pp. 9-12, 35-38; A. M. Fairbairn, Philos. of the Christ. Religion, Bk. II. Pt. I. ch. iii. 112 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST § 6. It was such an one who is described as making a series of claims which would have been to the last degree sacrilegious if they were false, but which in no wise reduce the impression of spiritual perfection that the Gospel protrayal of Him has always made upon unprejudiced readers. These claims emerge most clearly in the fourth Gospel, but are sufficiently apparent in the synoptic Gospels. It is certainly not characteristic of a merely human saint to claim freedom from sin, and to offer himself without reserve as an example for all to follow,1 as Jesus did. Nor may a creature rightly claim from others a deeper love and a more exclusive allegiance than they owe to father and mother and to their nearest kindred.2 Not even a prophet, unless he be more, is entitled to describe himself as the Way, the Truth and the Life, and as present wherever two or three gather together in his name.3 To judge all men at the last day is certainly a divine prerogative,4 and only His possession of inherent divine authority could justify Christ in displacing Old Testament requirements with a mere, "But I say unto you." 5 He declared Himself to be greater than Jonas and greater than Solomon, greater than the Temple of God.6 Such claims inevitably raised in His Usteners' 1 St. John vhi. 46; St. Matt. xi. 29. 2 St. Matt. x. 37-38. 3 St. John xiv. 6; St. Matt, xviii. 19-20. 4 St. Matt. xvi. 27; xxv. 31 et seq. e St. Matt. v. 27-28. 6 St. Matt. xii. 41-42; St. Luke xi. 31-32; St. Matt. xu. 6. REASONS FOR BELIEF 113 minds the question as to His personal rank in being, and He was understood to make Himself equal with God.1 He did not indeed say in bald terms, "I am God," for this would have conveyed a meaning incon sistent with divine unity.2 He therefore described Himself in terms of His relation to the Father, as the Son, employing these terms in connections which distinguish His sonship sharply from any in which His hsteners could have share. Thus He frequently said "My Father" and "your Father,"3 but never "our Father" except when dictating a prayer to be used by others than Himself.4 In the parable of the wicked husbandmen, given by all the synoptic Gospels,5 Christ clearly separates Himself as beloved Son from the servants of God. He declared Him seU, indeed, to be one with the Father,6 and was rightly understood to be making Himself God — one who is in the Father and the Father in Him.7 So close was the identity with God of which He was conscious that He could say, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," 8 although the context shows that He is not claiming to be the same Person with the Father.9 He taught that men were to 1 St. John v. 18. 2 Cf. The Trinity, pp. 139-140. This has already been pointed out in ch. ii. § 3, above. 3 In St. John xx. 17 the two phrases occur together. 4 As in St. Matt. vi. 9. Cf. St. Luke xi. 2. 6 St. Matt. xxi. 33-44; St. Mark xii. 1-12; St. Luke xx. 9-18. 8 St. John x. 30. 7 St. John x. 31-38. 8 St. John xiv. 9. • Cf. verse 10. 114 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST honour the Son even as they honoured the Father;1 and that no one could come to the Father except by Him.2 He claimed a unique knowledge of the Father, likening it to the knowledge which the Father had of Him,3 and claiming to be the only revealer of the Father to men.4 Such relations to the Father obviously pertain to an eternal sphere of being, and Christ did not hesitate to say, "Before Abraham was, I am." 5 "All things whatsoever the Father hath," He said, "are Mine."6 And among the possessions of the Father which He claimed to have received was to have "Ufe in Himself." 7 The only sense, in fact, in which He ranked Himself as inferior to the Father — that is, apart from His submission to the hmitations of the nature which J He assumed — was this: that what He was He was as Son, and derivatively from the Father.8 § 7. Our Lord's miracles derived the evidential value which was perceived in them by His followers from the circumstances and connections under which they were performed, from their lofty spiritual quahty and significance, and from the perfection of their worker. There have been such things as lying wonders, but those who came to know Jesus Christ intimately could not thus estimate His works. In the light of a unique but obvious harmony in 1 St. John v. 23. 2 St. John xiv. 6. » St. John x. 14. 4 St. Matt. xi. 27. Cf. St. Luke x. 22. • St. John viii. 56-58. 6 St. John xvi. 15. 7 St. John v. 26. 8 Cf. ch. ii. §§ 2-3, above. REASONS FOR BELIEF 115 His case between perfection of character and divine seU-assertion, and in that of His avowed mission, and of His manner of working, they discovered a congruity between what He asserted Himself to be and His miracles which justified His appeal to them as signs and evidences of the vaUdity of His claims,1 and of His right to be heard and beUeved as the Way, the Truth and the Life. Many attempts have been made to reduce the Gospel miracles to the natural level; and, as we have seen in a previous chapter, the position has been taken that a supernatural event — an event which can never be explained by the factors and forces resident in the existing order of nature — is incredible because unrelated to history at large and constituting a breach of continuity. The phUosophical postulate of naturahsm alone can justify such dogmatism, and the Christian view of history enables us to perceive a rational place in the continuity of aU things for the miraculous birth, the works and the resurrection in flesh of Jesus Christ. It does more than this, for it enables us to perceive that these events are the most signifi cant, and therefore the most credible, of all history — the most helpful in explaining its otherwise stul tifying enigmas. And it is this iUuminating value of the supernatural elements in the Gospel narratives which completes for us their evidential value, con- 1 Clear instances of such appeal occur in St. Matt. xi. 3-5; St. Mark ii 9-12; St. John v. 36; x. 37-38; xi. 4, 42. 116 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST sidered as signs of the coming of very God into human history.1 These narratives plainly declare that Jesus Christ was not holden of death, but that at a definite moment He resumed "flesh and bones" 2 and, after appearing in them during forty days to chosen wit nesses, visibly ascended in flesh into the clouds of heaven, no more to be seen of them untU His pre dicted coming at the end of the world to judge mankind. The subject of the resurrection and of the problems connected with it will have to be con sidered in our next volume. But that He did rise in flesh from the dead, as distinguished from Uving on in an invisible sphere as disembodied spirit, is the testimony for the truth of which the apostles faced martyrdom. And their belief in its truth became the mainspring of their courage and of their notable triumph over carnal limitations. The res urrection verified itself to them, as it has also done to multitudes in subsequent ages, by their experience of its spiritual effects upon themselves; and it became an iUuminating fact, in the hght of which both they and their spiritual successors to the present time have become finaUy assured that Jesus Christ is Lord and God. § 8. This spiritual effect of beUef in the apostoUc 1 Cf. ch. i. § 3, above (where refs. on Naturalism are given), and ch. x. §§ 7, ii (c), below. 2 St. Luke xxiv. 39. Not flesh in its previous state, but obviously exhibited as being the same that hung on the Cross. REASONS FOR BELIEF 117 witness to Christ, and to the truth of His divine claim, constitutes the crowning evidence to in dividual believers that He is indeed very God, the only begotten Son of God, co-eternal and co-equal with the Father. This evidence appeals to men in general only in an indirect way, through their obser vation of the effect of behef upon the lives of those who sincerely strive to govern their conduct by their faith. Accordingly, the inconsistencies of the Uves of multitudes of professing Christians constitute formidable hindrances to the success of Christian preaching. But these difficulties faU away in the case of those who sincerely adopt the behef in Christ astLord and God for their working hypothesis, and put it to the test of earnest apphcation to their daily conduct and spiritual culture. By Uving the hfe they come to know the doctrine, that it is true, and the mists of doubt disappear before the joyous sunlight of assured conviction. This process of personal verification has scientific vahdity. Truth is objective, and is more than its value for us; but the working value of a truth is undoubtedly a scientific and convincing test of its vahdity. The experience of Christ in us "the hope of glory" 1 affords evidence of this kind, against which no manner of critical attack can avail. And it enables us to discover in the Gospel narratives verisimUitudes of truth which forever escape the 1 Col. i. 27. 118 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST notice of those who, in the supposed interests of freedom from bias, disqualify themselves to perceive the coherent and spiritual clarity of the self-mani festation of the eternal Word-made-flesh.1 III. Implicates and Values § 9. The implicates and values of the doctrine that Jesus Christ was and is truly divine — the eternal Son of God — may be summarized under four heads: viz. theological, mediatorial, ethical and dispensational. Under the theological head we notice, in the first place, that inasmuch as Christ revealed Himself as other in person than God the Father, His being truly divine implies a plurahty of persons, avroi, in God. And this revelation was completed by the promise of the Holy Spirit, who is distinguished by Christ from both the Father and Himself, without being given an inferior or creaturely rank. In brief, the doctrine of the Trinity is imphed in, and depends upon, the truth that Jesus Christ is very God; and this doctrine determines our idea of God in its most radical and significant aspects. Those who misapprehend the meaning of trini tarian terms declare them to be tritheistic, and tendencies of a tritheistic nature sometimes infect 1 H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, pp. 127-152; EmUe Bougaud, Divinity of Christ, chh. ix-x; H. R. Mackintosh, Doctr. of the Person of Jesus Christ, pp. 408-412. IMPLICATES AND VALUES ng the minds of unthinking Christians. But the gen eral effect of trinitarian doctrine has been to fortify monotheism, and to give it a moral value and self- propagating power which no form of unitarian theism has been able to display. In our own age it is proving to be a solvent of the difficulties which are thought to invahdate the conception of divine personahty;1 and is fortifying thoughtful minds against pantheistic tendencies, tendencies against which unitarianism is making no effectual resistance. But behef in the Godhead of Jesus Christ is also effective in protecting the idea of God against the opposite error of deism, without in the slightest degree imperiUng the truth of divine transcendence. Such a God as is revealed in Christ is one who cannot be isolated from His universe. He both can enter and has entered into human history, and in His only begotten Son, the eternal Word who became Man, aU things consist.2 The immanent God in Jesus Christ is also trans cendent, infinitely exalted in His eternal nature above humanity. But the very fact that He who has taken our nature upon Himself is very God, displays the value and dignity of the nature thus assumed. An affinity between the divine and human is made apparent, which the unalterable difference 1 The Trinity, ch. ix. § 6 (cf. chh. vi. n and vii. 2); W. J. S. Simpson, Christ. Doctr. of God, Lee. iv. 2 Col. i. 17. On the relation of Christ's Godhead to deism and pantheism, see H. P. Liddon, op. cit., pp. 452-459. 120 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST between the infinite and the finite, between the Creator and the creature, does not destroy. God head and manhood can be made to have one centre and self, without alteration of the laws which deter mine the respective operations of the one and of the other, and without any mutual infringement. A nature which can thus become the property of very God ennobles all who share in it, and the honour to which it is raised in Jesus Christ vindicates the inspiring doctrine that man is made for God — for divine communion and feUowship.1 § 10. Upon the truth that Jesus Christ was, and never ceased to be, full God depends the reahty and value of His mediation between God and man. Only one who shares equally in the nature of both can "lay His hands on both," and truly represent each to the other. A God-man alone can be the daysman for whose sympathetic intervention Job prayed.2 Even on the human side, if Christ had been no more than a man, however unique in His sinless perfection, He would have been simply one among many individuals, and His very uniqueness would have tended to isolate Him from His race. The fact, that while sharing to the full in our nature and its conditions, sin excepted, and while experi encing our natural hmitations, His Person or Self, being divine, transcended the hmitations of human selfhood, this fact it is that imparts to what He experienced and did as man the fullest representa- 1 H. P. Liddon, op. cit., pp. 459-461. 2 Job ix. 33. IMPLICATES AND VALUES 121 five value for mankind. Just because His Manhood is the Manhood of a divine Person, the barriers Of human individuality do not isolate it, and it can be imparted to us so as to become the means by which we can make our own all that He has done and suffered for us.1 The mediatorial functions of Christ are those of prophet, priest and king; and His being divine is an essential and significant factor in each of these offices. The teaching of a purely human prophet is hmited in authoritative range and finality by the purpose and degree of the inspiration which he enjoys, because his mind is not only human itself, but is the mind of a person who enjoys no other security of judgment than his human mind and necessarily hmited inspiration afford to him. Our Lord had a reaUy human mind, one that was sub ject, to human hmitations, but (it's ; being not less reaUy the mind of very God must have had this effect, that it never could have been permitted through its Umitations to become the cause of erro neous teaching on His part. We do not have to determine and define the manner in which divine infalUbiUty protected Christ in His prophetic office to be assured that the divine Revealer could not become a teacher of error under any mental condi tions to which His loving purpose moved Him to submit. A human mind, when left to its own re sources is hable to err, and is not wholly exempted 1 H. P. Liddon, op. cit., pp. 480-487. 122 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST from this habihty by extrinsic inspiration. But the human mind of Christ was not left to itseU, and its inspiration was from within His Person. It was God who was thinking humanly in Christ, and this fact makes the formal expressions of His thinking, i. e. His teaching, the immediate and direct teaching of God — the infalhbihty and finality of which no behever in the Godhead of Jesus Christ can consistently doubt. From the known teaching of a divine Christ there can be no appeal, whereas aU other teaching, however highly inspired, must be tested by its harmony with His words. The functions of a priest are twofold: viz. to offer sacrifice to God in men's behaU and to bestow gifts of grace from God upon men. Both of these functions require a divine priest to make them reaUy effectual. Human priesthoods are either sym bolical only or, if effective, are derivative. That is, they presuppose that a divine priest has enabled human agents to participate ministeriaUy in an office to which He alone can give vahdity in the divine sphere. And this is true independently of the fact of sin and of the need of redemption. In no case can a mere creature fulfil the functions of mediator between God and man. Priesthood and mediation go together, and mediation between God and man requires fuU participation by the Mediator in the nature of both. His being full God is as essential as His being really human. It is especially obvious when we reckon with IMPLICATES AND VALUES 123 human sin and with its consequences, that priest hood must include, and be consecrated by, redemp tive death and victory over death. Even if a sinless man could have been found to die for others, his death could not have had adequate value for the redemption of the race, nor could such a redeemer have vanquished death and have become the source of immortality to the redeemed. It is vital to this argument that Christ should have been full God whUe redeeming the world, that is, in His humil iation.1 FinaUy, it is the Godhead of Christ which enables Him to be the messianic King to whom Old Testa ment prophecy pointed. The Kingdom of GodL necessarily has God for its Sovereign; and not even in a derivative sense can a mere creature be given, and appropriate to himself, the status and functions which pertain to the mediatorial reign and judicial authority which the Father has committed to Jesus Christ. To be given "ah authority in heaven and earth" 2 can never be the privUege of one who is not properly entitled to occupy the very throne of God. The Christian dispensation exalts human nature in the Person of Christ to that throne; but only because He wears it, and has won the highest place for it by carrying it through obedient suffering, 1 St. Thomas, Summa Theol., DX xlvi. 12; A. P. Forbes, Nicene Creed, pp. 213-214; Archd. WUberforce, Incarnation, pp. 156-166; W. Bright, Sermons of St. Leo, nn. 6, 30. 2 St. Matt, xxviii. 18. 124 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST death and resurrection from the dead. By virtue of the Incarnation Christ has gained a human Name at which every knee should bend; x but the honour which it receives would be idolatrous, if the Person whom it signifies were other than very God. § n. The ethical value which the Godhead of Jesus Christ imparts to His Incarnation, to His human victory over temptation, to His humiliation at large and to His meritorious death is great beyond computing. This is not always realized, and many moderns have thought to enhance the ethical power of our Lord's example by driving the thought of His Godhead into the background. Some have meant to serve ethical interests by denying that the tempted Saviour had higher than human resources within His Person for the struggle. Such a line of thought is fatal to the very interests which it is supposed to serve. All experience shows that human beings are incapable, even with the advantages of the Christian dispensation, of living a sinless Ufe from childhood up. With the single exception of Jesus Christ, human sinlessness has invariably been the goal of long practice in the use of divine grace; and if we are to beheve that He possessed in Himself no higher resources than we receive by grace from without, we must find it well nigh impossible to beUeve that He never sinned. The sinlessness of one who depends upon extraneous supphes of grace for power to resist temptation must afford a doubt- 1 PhU. u. 9-10. IMPLICATES AND VALUES 125 suggesting puzzle rather than a convincing drama of divinely afforded example. Moreover the assumption that Christ must have been on equal terms with us in His moral struggle requires us to ascribe to Him the disadvantage to which men in general are subject, of having to con tend with sinful passions within. Our progress is invariably from a sinful starting point, and in order to place Christ on equal terms with ourselves we must suppose that the eternal Son became sinful man. In other words, whatever He subsequently became, He was not, in the inception of His moral struggle, the pattern ChUd that Christians believe Him to have been. It seems needless to emphasize the ethical preciousness of the conviction that, for each stage of human growth from babyhood to mature age, Jesus Christ affords an example of flawless human character and conduct appropriate to that stage. But the notion that our Lord's possession of divine impeccabiUty reduces the ethical value of His example is based upon an erroneous conception of the place and meaning of that example. Christ did not come in order to exemphfy what His disciples can achieve in this world. If this was His purpose it was not fulfiUed, for no Christian disciple has been able to repeat the sinless perfection of His life. The necessity of repentance which attends our struggle upwards clearly differentiates what was possible for Him from what is possible for us. The pattern 126 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST " which He exhibited is that of the heavenly man into which we are required to grow. He reveals the goal rather than the process by which sinful men are enabled to reach that goal. If we are to find ex amples of the moral and spiritual progress which is ours to pursue we must look not to Christ but to His saints — to men who, hke ourselves, began as sinners, and advanced to sainthood and union with God along the purgative way of repentance and peni tential self-disciphne. The example of Christ was given in terms of human resistance to temptation, but unless it was God Himself who came within the range of human temp tation, thus reveahng how such an one as He bears Himself under human conditions, a needed ethical bond between God and ourselves is wanting. We are made for communion and feUowship with God, and the only possible basis of common pleasure in such fellowship is mutual congeniahty of character , — ethical affinity. The ultimate example for men is God, because there is no other road to the joy in God with which we are intended to be blessed except that of growth in divine perfection — that is, the copy thereof which can be exhibited in human nature. Christ came to display such a copy by reveahng His divine righteousness in the terms of successful battle with human temptations. If it was not the all-righteous God who won that battle, God did not really make the ethical manifestation of HimseU which we need for our ultimate guidance. IMPLICATES AND VALUES 127 The weU-worn objection that if Christ was impec cable He was not really tempted, will be more fully reckoned with in a later chapter.1 Only a brief statement can be given at this point. The objection rests upon confusion of thought. Temptation is moral testing, and affords to natural and blameless human impulses occasions for gratification of which it is not lawful under the given circumstances to take advantage. Whether the person tempted will yield or not depends upon deeper factors than the tempta tion, and U among these factors is a divine and there fore impeccable SeU, the reahty of the temptation or testing is not destroyed. Where human nature is concerned, as it was in Christ, we know that temptations offer inducements which cannot be resisted without effort. We also know that the moral effort in Christ's case was the greatest ever made by our nature. It cost Him the extremest agony of which our nature is capable. But the ques tion at issue is, Could very God, wearing our nature, have faUed to make the effort and to bear the agony involved in resisting the temptations that assailed His Manhood? To say that He could not does not reduce the mightiness of the struggle which His moral inflexibihty brought on Him, nor does it nuUify the reahty of the moral test to which He became subject. 1 See ch. ix. §§ 6V-8. The whole chapter bears on this section, and further references are there given. Cf. also The Kenotic Theory, chh. v-vi. 128 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST The drama of the Incarnation owes its value to the fact that it exhibits God submitting to the laws and conditions which He imposes upon us, and reveal ing Himself ethically in the manner of His submitting to them. Every consideration that reduces the truth that God continued to be unalterably righteous in thus condescending reduces the ethical significance of the drama. He willed to be touched with the feel ing of our infirmities, and this has given us a sympa thetic Intercessor and Judge.1 But if He had wiUed to be reduced to moral infirmity, He would have behed His claim to manifest the Eternal. It is His being God that gives infinite meritorious value to His obedience; and it is this self -same mystery which makes His example effective. A unique saint, if he were really human in his sanctity, might be won dered at, but his uniqueness would punctuate our natural weakness rather than enable us to grow hke him. Being very God, and carrying our nature victoriously through all its perils, including death itself, our Lord has constituted His Manhood to be the source of power whereby we can grow after His hkeness. In short, the power whereby He was impeccable ab initio has been placed within our reach, so that, when we have learned by self-disciphne to use it, we can ultimately attain to the impecca bility of established righteousness. § 12. It is the Godhead of Jesus Christ which gives to the Christian dispensation and to its sacramental 1 Heb. iv. 15. Cf. St. Matt. viii. 17. IMPLICATES AND VALUES 129 institutions the divine value and ever-prevailing power which they have historicaUy displayed. Unless the great Head of the Church were God as well as Man, to call it the Body of Christ would be to use a purely figurative phrase and to transfer its allegiance from God to a creature. But just because He is divine, He is able by His Holy Spirit to bring men into organic relations with His Manhood in glory, whereby they become His mystical Body. By baptismal entrance into this Body, the Church of Christ, they become participators in His resurrection hfe and sharers in aU the graces which flow forth from His Body. The sacraments of the Church are charged with the grace which they signify because they renew, in a manner suited to our composite nature and earthly conditions, the flow of grace into humanity which was initiated when God took our nature upon Himself.1 This can be illustrated most effectively by the Holy Eucharist. In this sacrament we feed in a spiritual mystery on the flesh and blood of Christ; and because Christ is God we feed on the bread of God, which by virtue of its being this is the food of immortality.2 In the same sacrament we approach the heavenly throne through the veil of Christ's flesh and by the pleading power of His blood;3 and since Christ is God, in approaching through this veU we truly gain access to God. Moreover, the 1 H. P. Liddon, op. cit., pp. 487-493. 2 St. John vi. 32-58. 3 Heb. x. 19-20. 130 THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST divided symbols of bread and wine which we offer, and whereby we proclaim the Lord's death tiU He come,1 are made by His Spirit to be more than symbols. They become means of an effective parti cipation in offering the prevailing sacrifice of Christ's Body and Blood which He made on the Cross and evermore exhibits above. The effectiveness of the mystery, and it is the primary function of our re hgion, hinges on the truth that the power of Jesus Christ which is postulated and taken advantage of therein is the power of God.2 1 i Cor. xi. 26. 2 The eucharistic mystery will be considered in Vol. VHI. CHAPTER V THE MANHOOD OP CHRIST I. Catholic Doctrine § i. That the Christ of apostoUc experience was reaUy human is not in our age seriously disputed.1 Nor is there any likelihood of this truth suffering obscuration in the near future. It is more and more realized that if Christ had revealed Himself in other than human terms, He would not have been an inteUigible Christ. The medium of Christ's self- manifestation was a Ufe, a conversation, and a series of deeds and sufferings, which are proper to the sons of men. Moreover, neither the Gospel narratives nor any apparent possibilities justify beUef that our Lord's subjection to human conditions was at any moment interrupted and displaced by methods of functioning proper to the Godhead. Whatever may be said as to His possession whUe on earth of the ful ness of divine attributes and functions, these attri butes and functions neither did nor could come within 1 On our Lord's Manhood, see Archd. WUberforce, Incarnation, chh. i-iv,xv; D. Stone, Outlines, etc., pp. 67-73, 292-293; St. Thomas, Summa Theol., III. iv-v; H. R. Mackintosh, Doctr. of the Person of Jesus Christ, Bk. ni. ch. vi; C. F. NoUoth, Person of our Lord, ch. xiii. 132 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST human observation and obtrude themselves in manners inconsistent with a genuinely human life.1 Our knowledge of His divine properties is based upon inferences from his human conversation and life, as interpreted by the spiritually guided understand ings of His chosen disciples and witnesses. Even His miracles were humanly wrought, not less so because the circumstances and the unique manner of their performance constrain us to regard them as confirmations of His claims, and as evidences that His personal resources were greater than could be openly exhibited to human observation. In other ages tendencies have appeared within the Church to neglect the human side of Christ, and these tendencies have reached the chmax of denial that Christ was really and fully human. Before the $/ close of the first century docetism denied the reahty of His flesh and of His physical sufferings, and in the fourth century Apollinaris denied His possession of a rational human soul.2 In later ages a widespread tendency appeared to evade the evidences contained in the Gospel narratives that, as St. CyrU of Alex andria declared, the eternal Son suffered "the mea sures of our manhood to prevail in His own case." That is, that He really submitted as touching the Manhood to the limitations of human nature, conde scending in that nature to increase both in wisdom and stature, and to share in human ignorance. Even 1 Cf. chh. vi. 2-3, 6, 10-12; vii. 5; vni. 1-3. 2 See ch. ii. § 6, above. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE 133 now, theologians can be found who fail to do justice to the self-abandon with which the Son of God accepted the natural consequences of taking the form of a servant and being made in the likeness of men.1 But these tendencies and errors, so far from having ecumenical sanction, are hopelessly inconsistent with any fuU, intelUgent and sincere acceptance of cath olic dogma. When the ancient Church declared in creedal terms that the Son of God "was incarnate .... and was made man," she used language to which fuU justice cannot be done by those who cherish either of the errors described above. The decree of faith of Chalcedon 2 places the same empha sis upon our Lord's being human as upon His being divine, declaring Him to be "perfect in Manhood, very God and very Man, the same consisting of a reasonable soul and a body .... of one substance with us as touching the Manhood, like us in all things, except sin .... the distinction of natures being in no wise done away because of the union, but rather the characteristic property of each nature being preserved, and concurring into one Person," etc. Obviously "the characteristic property" of our nature could not have been "preserved" in Him, if His human mind escaped the necessary hmitations of human experience and knowledge. It is to be maintained, therefore, that the tendency to disregard 1 Ch. ii. § 9, above. 2 Ch. ii: § 8, above. I 134 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST and to deny our Lord's human hmitations, in the interests of His divine Person and Godhead, obtains no support from the terms of Chalcedonian dogma. § 2. In two significant respects, however, our Lord's Manhood, according to cathohc doctrine, is .unique. It never had a personal ego other than that of the eternal Son of God, and it was sinless. With reference to the first of these pecularities it is often said, and with misleading effect, that the human nature of Christ was impersonal. Such a description, taken without the explanations which cathohc theology adds, is equivalent to a denial of its reahty. Rational functioning, such as charac terizes human nature, is personal functioning, but unless -it can be ascribed to a person, it is neither rational nor human. That this is so is too obvious to require argument. Human functioning is also moral or responsible functioning, and this plainly imphes that it must pertain to a responsible — that is, a personal — ego. If, therefore, our Lord assumed a real Manhood, one which was capable of normal human functioning, that Manhood must have been personal. Its functions must have been those of a real self, the self of Christ's human nature, action and experience.1 The impersonality, dj^uiroarao'Ca, ascribed to the Manhood of Christ by catholic writers had reference 1 On the distinct reahty of self, see ch. iv. § 2, above. Essential as self is to the existence of a personal nature, it is not a part of the nature which thus depends upon it. Cf . ch. ii. § 8 fin. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE 135 to that Manhood considered apart from the divine Person who assumed it, and gave it being by assuming it. It is truly personal, but its personality is that of the Eternal Word — not a separate ego, other than His. Its personahty — and, as has been acknowledged, its existence depends upon its being personal — is explained by its relation to Him who created it, and made it His own in creating it. The Manhood of Christ never had any other personal subject or self than God the Son; 1 and this interior relation of the Manhood to the second Person of the Godhead is caUed iwiroo'Tao-ia. The two terms awnoaTaxrla and iwTroaraaia require to be taken together, if we would avoid misunderstanding their apphcation. Three reasons require us to maintain the mystery which these terms signify. If there had been a human self in Christ, other than His eternal and divine seU, it would be impossible rightly to ascribe the human hfe and death of Jesus Christ to the eternal Son. AU His human actions, teachings and sufferings would have been those of a mere man — exclusively so, — and aU the hopes which are based upon the conviction that God Himself has submitted to our conditions, has felt our temptations and has borne our sorrows would be invalid. 1 As quoted by C. J. Hefele, St. Cyril, Alex., says, Letter to Acacius, " The one and unique principle or subject or ego in the God-man is the Logos. He js also the bearer of the human in Christ." 136 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST In the second place, the representative value of , the Manhood of Christ, whether as Example or as Mediator, depends upon its transcending the hmi tations of human individuahty, which it apparently could not have done if the self by which it was con trolled had been human. It is unnecessary in this connection to discuss the profound question of the interpenetrabihty of human persons. It is enough to say, what all experience confirms, that no human individual is capable, even if sinless, of attaining, or of being given, the status of catholic example and redemptive sufferer in behalf of mankind. The representative powers of human individuals are too limited in relation to the race as a whole, and their capacities of spiritual endowment are too hmited in relation to God, to make it possible for a human per son to be acknowledged as divine vicegerent in redeeming mankind. The third reason which requires us to derive the personality of Christ's Manhood from that of the \l eternal Son is that the personal unity of Christ cannot successfully be maintained if it be granted that He possessed more than one self or ego. It is clear that if He had assumed a human ego, there would have resulted a duality of selves in Him, and there would have been no proper union of Godhead and Manhood, but only an external association, crwacteia, such as Nestorianism was condemned for maintaining. God would at most have dwelt in a man.1 1 Cf. ch. ii. § 7, above. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE 137 That God assumed our nature so as to make it properly speaking His own could not be maintained. The doctrine of the Incarnation would be nullified.1 § 3. Various reasons compel us to maintain that the Manhood of Christ was entirely free from sin, both actual and original.2 It is of course impossible , to demonstrate in a direct way the universal negative that Christ never sinned, but we do not need such demonstration. That He exhibited a positive per fection of moral and spiritual character which is absolutely unique cannot be gainsaid by those who read the Gospels without prejudice. Such an one as Jesus Christ could not have faUed to detect sin in Himself, U it had existed, and His sincere truth fulness is beyond question. It is convincingly significant, therefore, that He claimed to be sinless,3 and that this claim did not introduce a disturbing element into His spiritual self-manifestation. The character which makes such a claim seem natural rather than culpably presumptuous on His 1 On the impersonality, sic, of our Lord's Manhood, see J. F. Bethune-Baker, p. 294; W. Bright, Sermons of St. Leo, n. 26; R. L. Ottley, Incarnation, Vol. II. pp. 123-125, 139, 269; St. Thomas, op. cit., III. ii. 1; iv. 2-6. Patristic: St. Leo, Ep. xxv. 3; Leon- tius, adv. Nest, el Eutych., hb. I (Migne, P. G., 1277 ff.); St. John Damasc, Orth. Fid., iii. 3. 2 On our Lord's sinlessness, see St. Thomas, op. cit., III. xxxi. 7; xxxiv. 1; H. R. Mackintosh, op. cit., pp. 400-404; A. P. Forbes, Nicene Creed, pp. 190-191; and Thirty-Nine Arts., pp. 216-223; Jas. Stalker, in Hastings, Die. of Christ, s. v. "Sinlessness''; H. P. Liddon, op. cit., pp. 165-168. 3 St. John viu. 46. 138 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST part transcends apostolic invention. It is undeniably real, and not less undeniably superhuman; and Christ's own claim to be superhuman — to be one with God — must be accepted in order to justify our belief in His righteousness. As has elsewhere been shown, He was God or He was not good.1 His being God not only explains the sinlessness of His Manhood and human hfe, but requires it. God cannot sin, and this means that He cannot incur real liability to sin. Peccability and Godhead, from the nature of things, , cannot be truly ascribed to one and the same person. This does not mean that the power and freedom of God are externally Umited, but that both are perfect in Him, and that spiritual perfection is impregnable to every assault of evil. This impeccability of Christ is entirely consistent with His being truly human. Sinfulness is not of the essence of human nature, but is an imperfection which He came to remedy. Even the capacity to sin — peccability — pertains to men only as a condi tion of growth, as something ultimately to be out grown. The perfect man that each of us is intended to become wiU not be hable to sin — not because he has ceased to be human, nor because his freedom is curtahed, but because the growth of real freedom is itseU the growth of a perfection of spiritual character which cannot be either deceived or overcome by any form of evil. Christ came to exhibit in each stage 1 In ch. n. 3. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE 139 of our earthly experience the perfection which by His grace we can hereafter attain. He could not do this and at the same time be subject to the pecca- biUty of our undeveloped manhood. He had to assume a perfect manhood — a manhood filled with grace from Himself, and thus enabled successfully to bear the fearful strain and suffering which His resistance to human temptation was to bring upon it. The relation of our Lord's impeccabihty to the reahty of His temptation, and of His truly human victory over it, can best be considered at a later stage,1 and we content ourselves at this point with the remark that the personal impossibihty that Christ / should yield to temptation does not forbid the behef that His success had to be won by efforts and suf ferings which put His Manhood to the very fullest proof. He was not less truly touched with the feehng of our infirmities because sinful indulgence of them was foreign to His perfection. There was in deed a sense in which He was made perfect by suffer ing, but this perfection was an actualization in terms of human conflict with evil of a perfection which was not only potential but indefectible from its most incipient stage of development. The necessity that Christ should be morally im pregnable ought to be apparent to those who seriously consider His Person and mission. To beheve that very God could sin under any conceivable condi tions to which He willed to submit we have seen to 1 See ch. viu. §§ 5-6, where refs. are given. 140 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST be abhorrent to Christian instinct. Furthermore, Christ came to set a perfect example, to overthrow the powers of evil, and to offer Himself a spotless sacrifice in behalf of mankind. The notion that such a mission, undertaken by such a Person, could have been to any degree hable to failure through the Saviour's own transgression cannot be seriously entertained. § 4. The purpose of the Incarnation is a permanent one, and the truth that our Lord neither has aban doned nor ever will abandon the nature which He assumed in the womb of the Virgin is a vital article of the Christian faith. The Manhood of Christ, not less truly than His Godhead, is essential to His equipment as Mediator between God and man, and the need of mediation does not expire with the achievement of redemption. We shaU always need a great High Priest in the heavenly Holy Place who can "be touched with the feehng of our infirmities," and who can "save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." * Endless contin uance is a vital mark of Christ's heavenly priesthood as described in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and our everlasting life has been made to depend for its con tinuance, as well as for its acquisition, upon abiding relations to the Manhood of Christ and to His flesh and blood. Sin reveals itself in us in the form of insubordina- 1 Heb. iv. 15; vii. 25. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE 141 tion of the flesh to the spirit, and the universal preva lence of this discord explains the inveterate tendency — a tendency found in much theological literature — to assume that in final analysis flesh is essentially anti-spiritual, a burden imposed for temporary and probationary reasons, but suitable neither for the self-expression of spirit nor for its permanent abode. It is this assumption which chiefly explains certain very troublesome vagaries: — for example, (a) the influence of Manichaeism in ancient and mediaeval times; (b) the continued vigour of protestant repudi ation of sacramental doctrine and of many externals of the cathohc system; and (c) modern recoils from the ancient doctrine concerning the resurrection of the flesh, of Christ's flesh on "the third day," and of our own bodies when He shaU come again. The doctrine that our Lord rose again from the grave on the third day has been, indeed, too plainly the main spring of Christian behef and hope to be repudiated definitely by those who profess to accept historical Christianity. But inabihty to perceive how matter can be useful in the spirit-world has caused certain modern theologians to interpret our Lord's resurrec tion in a manner which reduces it to an exhibition of appearances, misunderstood by those who saw them, but reaUy intended to prove to the disciples that their Master hved on in the spirit-world.1 In brief, we are asked to surrender the notion that Christ now 1 Keim's "telegram from heaven" theory, which appears to be reasserted by H. B. Streeter, in Foundations, pp. 127 et seq. 142 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST possesses the body which He took of the Blessed Virgin and in which He suffered for us, a notion which is declared to be hopelessly unspiritual. A proper discussion of the nature and evidence of the resurrection belongs to our next volume. We are now concerned with the broad proposition that the material part of the nature which the Son of God assumed in the Incarnation was no temporary equipment for temptation, suffering and death, but was to become a permanent vehicle of quickening and saving grace. Christ made it to be this by subjecting it in temptation to His spirit, by carrying it successfully through death, by mysterious changes in the resurrection, whereby it was emancipated from certain earthly limitations, by enthroning it at the centre of things in the heavens, and by mystically extending it, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, so that it might become the quicken ing bond of union between Himself and His redeemed.1 No creature of God can be essentially anti- spiritual; and if our bodies seem to be so, this is partly because they have not reached their fuU development as instruments of our spirits, and partly because our spirits themselves are not fullgrown. Being enmeshed in sin, they misuse the flesh. The flesh is the sphere within which the human spirit manifests itself. Such is human nature. Accord- 1 Cf. ch. ix. § 8, below; W. Milligan, Ascension, Lee. iv; Archd. WUberforce, Incarnation, pp. 63-65. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE 143 ingly if the flesh appears sinful, its sinfulness is a true manifestation of our spirit. Matter was made for spirit, and has no meaning except as spirit employs it.1 And it is a suitable instrument of spirit. Through its manipulation God makes Himself known to us, and we have no other means whereby to manifest ourselves, or even to develop ourselves, apart from the use of matter. The capacities of matter are greater than we can verify, for our spirits have not yet attained to their destined mastery, and our bodies have not been glorified. But the recent breakdown of accepted ideas as to the intractable sohdity of matter should suggest caution in negative dogmatizing as to what a glorified spirit can do with it. The sum of our argument is that a Uving man is constituted by the union of matter and spirit, so that their disunion constitutes his death. The only mode of human self-development and seU-manifestation which man has ever experienced is conditioned by this union, and by the use of the body. There is no particle of evidence that human nature either will or can enter into the fulness of its development except as thus constituted and conditioned. Jesus Christ to-day shares in human nature — the nature which we possess, — and for this reason exhibits the goal of our development, being the Head of the Church, which is His mystical Body. We sacramentaUy feed on His flesh and blood, His 1 Cf. J. R. Blingworth, Divine Immanence, ch. i. 144 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST flesh being at once the food of immortahty and the veU through which we enter the Holy Place, and His blood being an ever-flowing stream of cleansing, as well as a perpetual witness above of His meritori ous death for us.1 II. Its Properties § 5. It has been seen that the human nature which our Lord assumed was in all generic respects Uke ours, but that it was the Manhood of a divine Person, having no other ego than His, and that it was free from sin. In brief it was at once reaUy human, and absolutely unique in perfection and grace. Being truly human, Christ possessed every part of our nature, including a real body. "The Word became flesh." 2 Moreover the flesh which He took was neither an unreal exhibition, as the ancient docetists imagined, nor exempt from the normal Umitations of our physical nature. For example, it was not incorruptible, as certain writers of the sixth century maintained,3 and the fact that it did 1 On the permanence of our Lord's Manhood, see Ch. Quarterly Review, July, 1897, pp. 353-355 (where useful patristic refs. are given); D. Stone, Outlines, pp. 84-85. Both the mediaeval and later Roman neglect of our Lord's heavenly priesthood and the Lutheran idea of the deification of our Lord's Manhood have helped to drive this truth into the background. 2 St. John i. 14. 3 Julian of Halicarnassus was their leader. They were caUed aphthartodocetae. The emperor Justinian undertook to enforce Julian's view, but bis death cut short his purpose. ITS PROPERTIES 145 not actually see corruption is to be explained by an exercise of power by Him who assumed it. If that power had not been exercised, the withdrawal of its animating spirit on the Cross would have been foUowed by the corruption to which the human frame is naturaUy Uable. That the body of Christ was protected from the attacks of disease we can readily beheve, but that it was naturaUy exempt from the influences which cause human sickness, we have neither scriptural nor other warrant for asserting. We know that it was subject to weariness, and to hunger and thirst.1 Abstractly speaking, Christ might, no doubt, have sustained His body by miraculous power. But such a course, if habituaUy pursued, would appar ently have been inconsistent with the conditions to which He wiUed to submit; and the Gospel narratives show that He did not reheve the natural distresses of His flesh except by resort to the means which are normaUy available to human beings. Speaking more comprehensively, Christ was sub ject to the physical sufferings, the pains, to which we are hable, whether such as were inflicted from without, of scourging and of crucifixion, or such as were due to reaction of mental agony on the body, as in Gethsemane. This was so not only because the body which He took was really human, but also because the purpose for which He came was to suffer and to die for mankind. 1 St. John iv. 6-7; St. Matt. iv. 2; St. John xix. 28. 146 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST The healing virtue which on certain occasions flowed forth from His body x affords no evidence of natural difference between His body and ours. The source of that virtue was Himself, His flesh being simply the medium of its operation. His body was limited in relation to space and local presence. It could not be at more than one place at the same time. Accordingly, in the nature which He assumed, our Lord was not locally present at any particular moment during His earthly life in more than one place; and He was physicaUy subject to the laws of motion from place to place, leaving one place to reach another, and passing through intermediate places. His body, as such, neither was, nor could become, omnipresent, and its special presence on many altars which has been afforded since its heavenly exaltation is not only supernatural, but is of a special kind — a mystery which leaves unaffected the limitation of its physical presence to one place in heaven.2 Our Lord's glorified body is still a true human body, and the supernatural changes which it has undergone affect its condition without subverting its kind. Our Lord's physical appearance is nowhere described in Scripture except in symbolic terms, and these terms vary in opposite directions according to 1 St. Mark v. 30; St. Luke vi. 19; viii. 46. 2 This subject belongs to our 8th volume. But cf. J. H. New man's distinction between presence in loco and substantive, in Via Media, Vol. II. p. 220. ITS PROPERTIES 147 the connections in which they are given. The sUence of the Gospels on the subject appears to indicate that there was nothing remarkable in his form and visage. The notion that He must have exhibited marvelous physical beauty has no ade quate basis. We can be sure of this only, that His body was externally suited for the purposes of His earthly hfe. A display of physical beauty would perhaps have been inconsistent with these purposes.1 § 6. The human mind of Christ 2 was obviously endowed with grace to a unique degree; but its endowments, according to the evidence of the Gospels, did not subvert and nullify the limitations which necessarily characterize human consciousness. Being by nature finite, it could not be directly privy to the activity of infinite inteUigence. Therefore it could share in our Lord's divine knowledge only in so far as such knowledge was imparted to it in its 1 On our Lord's real flesh and physical limitations, see St. Thomas, Summa Theol., III. xiv; Archd. WUberforce, Incarnation, pp. 60-65; H. V. S. Eck, Incarnation, pp. 52-53; H. R. Mackintosh, Doctr. of the Person of Jesus Christ, pp. 383-385. On the appearance of Christ, cf. Geo. Matheson, Studies in the Portrait of Christ. 2 On our Lord's human mind and knowledge, see The Kenotic Theory, pp. 199-205; D. Stone, Outlines, pp. 82-83, 295-298; Ch. Quarterly Review, Oct., 1891, art. "Our Lord's Knowledge as Man." Among those who faU to do fuU justice to our Lord's human limitations are Rich. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, V. liv. 6; Archd. WUber force, op. cit., pp. 68-74; H. P. Liddon, op. cit., pp. 461-480; and C. J. EUicott, Christus Comprobatur, 4th address. Among kenotic or quasi-kenotic treatments are Bishop Gore, Dissertations, pp. 71-225, and A. J. Mason, Conditions of our Lord's Life on Earth, Lee. iv. 148 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST own psychological terms. Omniscience does not function psychologically, or in manners open to psychological, human, scrutiny. Divine intelligence was indeed united with the human in Christ. In Him both intelligences had a common centre and agent — the Self of the Word- incarnate. And this union appears to have involved a certain and protective influence of the divine mind upon the human, an influence by which alone we are able to account for the unique perfection of His human intelligence and wisdom which He exhibited. But this influence could not, in view of the exclu sively psychological methods of human intelligence, take the form of direct emergence of divine intelli gence within His human consciousness. The data of the Gospels indicate that it should be described in terms of grace. By the grace of union, as it is technically caUed,1 His human mind was enhanced in its powers and protected from mistaken use of them; but the law held in the case of His Manhood that the effect of grace is to perfect and to assist — not to denaturalize — the human.2 Accordingly, His consciousness retained the methods of functioning, and the limitations, which characterize human intelligence. His divine omni- 1 According to St. Thomas, op. cit., III. vi. 6, the grace of union "is the being personal which is given gratis to the human nature in the Word." Out of it flows habitual grace, or the supernatural endowments of Christ's Manhood. 2 Gratia non toUit naturam, sed perficit et supplet defectum na turae. St. Thomas, II. II. clxxxvui. 8. ITS PROPERTIES 149 science neither did nor could come within His human attention so as to disturb and denaturalize His truly human experience and inteUectual growth; for with aU its unique endowments, our Lord's human mind grew like ours. It was subject to the limitations of attention which characterize our acquisition of knowledge. He had to learn by ex perience; and if He was endowed with a supernatural tact, so as to escape any errors that would have made Him a fallible Revealer of the mysteries of His Kingdom, we have no warrant for supposing Him to have been, or to have become, possessed in His human mind of universal information. The Gospels show that He was subject to surprise, and to the necessity of gaining information by enquiry. In one very important particular He confessed His ignorance.1 In view of aU these considerations, we venture to summarize what can be known of our Lord's human inteUigence in the foUowing particulars: (a) It was truly and properly human, being subject to growth and to the laws of human experience in such growth; (b) His entire freedom from sin exempted His mind from the moral prejudices and spiritual obliquity of vision that hamper us in our assimUation of truth, and lessen our attention to those particulars of 1 Of the day or hour of the judgment. St. Mark xni. 32. Cf. St. Matt. xxiv. 36; Acts i. 7. A survey of patristic and scholastic views on our Lord's ignorance is given by Forbes a Corse in Instructiones Historico-Theol., Bk. III. ch. xix-xx. 150 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST experience which ought to determine and control our thoughts and judgments; (c) We may infer both from His prophetic mission and from the mystery of the union in Him of Godhead and Man hood in one divine Self, that His mind was illumi nated and protected from error to a unique degree by divine grace. The illuminating Spirit was im parted to it without other measure than that imposed by the finite receptive capacity of human inteUigence; (d) His human self-consciousness had to grow because it was human, but it was none the less the consciousness of a divine Self; and the supposition that it could ever have led Him into erroneous judgments concerning His Person is \J incredible. In brief, our Lord submitted to the conditions of a really human experience and mental development, but His mind was possessed of unique endowments, such as were befitting to Him who came to reveal Himself as God-incarnate.1 § 7. In a previous section,2 Christ's entire freedom from sin and His moral impregnability have been set forth. The inference should not be made from His sinlessness, however, that He had no human wiU as distinguished from the divine. Apollinaris fell into this error, mistakenly assuming that a human will is by nature sinful.3 It is true that the human will is not naturally capable, without divine grace, of invariably avoiding sin; but this moral 1 On the relations between our Lord's divine and human minds, see ch. viu. § 2. 2 In § 3. 3 See ch. ii. § 6, above. ITS PROPERTIES 151 insufficiency is an element in the divine plan that man's spiritual development should at every stage be conditioned by those relations of dependence upon God and upon His grace which are guaranteed by true rehgion.1 In making man rehgious God in augurated a primitive state in which sufficient grace constituted the perfecting factor. He did not leave man to his natural insufficiency or to the necessity of sinning. It was an avoidable transgression on man's part that subverted this primitive state of grace and righteousness; and the sinfulness which Christ came to remedy was not due to an essential malignity of human nature, but to an unnecessary alienation by man of the grace whereby God had completed his equipment for righteousness.2 In Christ this adventitious entail of sinfulness was broken. He took human nature in its pristine flawlessness, and in -taking it fiUed it with grace, thus exempting it from the natural moral insuffi ciency to which mankind had fallen. This was not an alteration of the nature which He took, but was the restoration in a second Adam of the spiritual equipment which God intended human nature should enjoy when He created mankind.3 These considera tions justify the contention that in taking human 1 Cf. Creation and Man, pp. 263-264. 2 Idem, pp. 280-283. 3 "The essential feature of Christ's probation as man was, not that he should feel the force of temptation as we ourselves have to feel it now, but that He as the Second Adam should feel it as it was felt by the first Adam before he feU." Th. Wood, in The Second Adam, as quoted by the Church Times. 152 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST nature God did not need to shrink from assuming a real human will in order to avoid incurring the sinful propensities which characterize fallen man kind. They also show that the wiU which He thus assumed, although truly human, enjoyed advantages ab initio which, although designed to be imparted to us, are not fuUy utUized by us except as the result of protracted development in His grace. These advantages enabled Christ to exhibit in human terms, and at every stage of growth from childhood to manhood, the pattern according to which our own characters should be formed. And this is the secret of His example — not that He had no advantages compared with those whom He came to save, but that He exhibited the perfection toward which, by our participation in His grace, He enables us to grow.1 But the uniqueness of the advantages enjoyed by our Lord's human wiU, the fact that it was the will of very God, and His uninterrupted exercise in the Godhead of the divine wiU, did not nullify the reahty of His submission in our nature to the conditions of human vohtion. The conformity of His human will to His divine will was truly moral. It was not due to confusion of wiUs, or to a disturbing invasion of divine voUtion within our Lord's human experience. This could not occur, for it is not possible for infinite vohtion to appear within human observation. The divine will does not act psycholog- 1 The Kenotic Theory, ch. vi. Cf. chh. vii. 7 and viii. 1, below. ITS PROPERTIES 153 icaUy, nor can its action become a confusing phe nomenon within the sphere of psychological or human deliberation and choice. Possessing a truly human wiU, and one which was free from nullifying interference, Christ experienced aU that we experience in wiUing, except the handicap of proneness to sin. His human volitions were conditioned by the motives which human experience and human appetites afford; and therefore He could be, and was, tempted in the manners in which we are tempted. Inevitable though His resistance to temptation was, it was conditioned by arduous moral effort and by suffering — suffering which was as much greater than ours as His resistance was more strenuous and persevering. Accordingly He was touched with the feehng of our infirmities, the more so that He endured to the fuU the cost of not yielding to them. His victory was therefore a human victory, not less so that it was made possible and guaranteed by grace without measure.1 § 8. Our Lord did not take our nature in order to become a private in the ranks of humanity, but that He might become a new Head of our race, the Mediator between God and man, the Revealer of God and the Redeemer of mankind. Accordingly, while He condescended truly to share in our nature, to experience our experiences, to suffer and to die for us, it was not consistent with His mediatorial 1 See ch. viii. §§ 5-7, below, on the reahty of Christ's human struggle against temptation. Refs. are there given. 154 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST office and redemptive mission that He should be reduced in all respects to our level. Only by endow ing His Manhood with super-eminent gifts of spiritual knowledge, wisdom and strength could He speak as He had to speak, work as He had to work, fight the forces of evil as He had to fight them, endure the accumulated pains of humanity, and carry His Manhood safely through the way of death to Ufe and glory, so as to become in it the ever-Uving Saviour of His redeemed. Over against these contentions hes the modern argument that the value of Christ's example depends upon His having had no advantage over us in resisting temptation. This argument proves too much to be regarded as valid. It proves, among other things, that He must have shared in our universal inabihty to avoid sin. If He had done so, however, the result would have been that, so far from affording an example to foUow, He would have given one more exhibition of human weakness, and would Himself have been in need of salvation. Only on the Pelagian assumption that men are capable, without supernatural assistance, of wholly avoiding sin is it possible to explain our Lord's sinless victory, unless we acknowledge the truth that His spiritual equipment was as unique as was His consequent sinless perfection. Without special equipment He could not have transcended our weakness so as to exhibit the perfection which we are created to acquire; and just because the pecuhar ITS PROPERTIES 155 endowments of His Manhood make Him an unfaihng source of grace to His redeemed, we are assured of the possibility of ourselves ultimately reaching the moral and spiritual goal which He has exhibited and teaches us to attain. The grace with which His Manhood was endowed ^' was twofold, viz. the grace of union and the gift of the Holy Spirit. By the grace of union is meant the mysterious but inevitable effect of His Manhood being that of a divine Person, united hypostatically with the Godhead. We have seen that the functions and powers of Godhead could neither be imparted to the Manhood, nor obtrude themselves within our Lord's human consciousness. But the meeting of Godhead and Manhood in one ego could not faU to bring about some sort of communion between them, and the Manhood could not fail to be supematurally upUfted by such communion. We do not presume to describe the manner of this uplifting, but the narratives of the Gospels show that its effects were both iUuminating and sanctifying, without there being the shghtest interference with the integrity of His human experience and action. We are told that the Holy Spirit was given to Him, that is, to His Manhood, without measure.1 The meaning is that the Spirit was imparted as fuUy as finite manhood can receive Him.2 The source of this gfft was primarily the Father. But it was not exclusively He, because in the eternal 1 St. John hi. 34. 2 Cf. St. Thomas, op. cit., III. vu. n. 156 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST Trinity the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son as weU as of the Father. Accordingly it was the Son's own Spirit that was imparted to His Manhood. This is the truth which hes behind the ninth anathema of St. Cyril of Alexandria against those who say that our Lord depended upon the Spirit as upon another, that is, as upon one external to Him self. We are justified, however, after the manner of the Gospels, and in accordance with the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum, in speaking of Christ as aided by the Spirit, when we are in fact describing the assistance of His own Spirit to His Manhood.1 III. Implicates and Values § 9. The implicates and values of the doctrine that the eternal Son of God took a real human nature, and submitted to the conditions of a genu inely human experience, can be conveniently sum marized in relation severaUy to history, mediation, ethics and the dispensation of grace. The reality of our Lord's human nature and Ufe places Him, in so far as He was human, within the sphere of human history, and to that extent subjects Him to historical interpretation. His birth of a virgin, the events in His life, His conversation and teaching, His miracles, sufferings, death, resurrection from the tqmb, and ascension into the heavens, are 1 The Kenotic Theory, pp. 123-126. On the grace of Christ, see St. Thomas, op. cit., III. vii-vui; Wilhelm and ScanneU, Cath. Theol, §§ 191-192; J. B. Franzelin, de Verbo Incarnato, thes. xlii. IMPLICATES AND VALUES 157 reported to us as facts which take their place in history, and which may be treated, like other historical facts, as a proper basis of critical scrutiny and reasonable inference.1 The accuracy of the narratives in which these facts are given has, indeed, been assailed with much learning and skill; but while it has been shown that some mutual inconsistencies of detail occur in the Gospel narratives, these inconsistencies are no greater than are inevitable in the concurrent testi monies of human witnesses. That the knowledge embodied in the' Gospels is that of contemporaries, and includes reminiscences of those who themselves saw and heard what the Gospels report, is abundantly estabhshed. The more radical denials that Jesus Christ actuaUy Uved cannot be entertained for a moment; 2 and we are warranted in assuming that the Gospels have sufficient historical value to justify our general dependence upon the data which they give for the inferences which we make from them concerning the Person of Christ, and concerning the significance of His mission and achievements.3 1 On the connection of Jesus Christ with human history, see W. N. Clarke, Outline of Christ. Theol., pp. 260-261; H. R. Mackin tosh, Person of Jesus Christ, Bk. III. ch. ii; E. S. Talbot, in Lux Mundi, 4th Essay. 2 See T. J. Thorburn, Jesus the Christ; S. J. Case, The Historicity of Jesus. 3 See A. S. Peake, Christianity, Its Nature, etc., ch. ix; G. P. Fisher, Grounds of . . . Belief, ch. xu; L. Ragg, Evidences of Christianity, ch. iv. 158 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST In acknowledging that in so far as He entered into human history our Lord's life is susceptible of historical treatment, we do not admit that a historical description and explanation of Him is adequate. History itself being witness, there were events in our Lord's hfe, and elements in His character and achievements, which cannot be explained unless we assume, in accordance with the behef of His wit nesses, that His Person transcends the possibilities of direct historical manifestation and description. Yet so far from confessing that His entrance into history constitutes an unintelligible breach of the continuity which, in common with natural scientists, we believe to determine the possibility of every ^ event whatsoever, we maintain that the eternal Word's historical self-manifestation (including His miraculous birth and resurrection), reveals the point of view from which, and the determinative purpose by which, all historical continuities are to be inter preted and explained. The events of Christ's life signalize a shifting of scenery and an introduction of new factors into human history, but the whole world-drama depends for meaning and fulfilment of its purpose upon what Christ was and did.1 ^ The catholic faith depends for its vaUdity, and for its determinative contents, upon the historical manifestation of God-incarnate. This means that the Christian proceeds through fact to faith. The faith indeed transcends its historical premises; but 1 Creation and Man, ch. iii. § 3. IMPLICATES AND VALUES 159 it is revealed by historical facts, so that its determi native elements have the permanent validity and immutabiUty of such facts, and can be justified in each new generation by appeal to them.1 It is true that no human history of Christ can be an adequate description of Him; but the Christ of history is the Christ of faith, and the Christ of faith has the validity for human apprehensions of historical fact. In common with modern Ritschlians we pragmatically accept the manifestation of Christ as reveaUng one who has for us the value of God. But the historical vahdity of His manifestation — and the quahty of His Manhood compel us to pass from mere value-judgment to the existential judg ment that Jesus Christ is really and ontologicaUy very God. § 10. We have seen 2 that if our Lord was to be a true Mediator between God and man, He had to be able to "lay His hands on both," to be at once fuU God and fuU man. Only thus could He truly and fuUy represent each to the other. We also saw that if His Manhood was to escape the isolating Umitations of human individuals, it had to possess a divine Self, one which is capable of transcending these limitations. Because in Christ God wears our nature He becomes a real Head of our race, a proper representative of those whose nature He has as sumed. 1 Cf. H. R. Mackintosh, Person of Jesus Christ, pp. 308-310. 2 In ch. iv. § 10. 160 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST It is plainly presupposed in all this that the nature which Christ assumed was generically the same as ours, and subject to the conditions and hmitations which are essential to genuine manhood and human life. Moreover, if He was to save human nature He had to assume all of its parts. If His flesh was unreal, there has been no such redemption of the body as is set forth in the apostohc writings. And if He was lacking in a rational human soul, there is no real likeness between His consciousness and ours, no common experience to unite Him with us, and no basis of salvation for our spirits. It is also clear that if He was to become the kind of representative before God that we need, He had to submit to aU the conditions of human experience except the one which would have nuUified His redemption mission — except sin. It was necessary that He should bear our pains and sorrows and be touched with the feehng of our infirmities. He had to be tempted in all points like as we are, and to experience in our nature the dependence upon divine grace which attends human victory over evil. No view which either ignores or faUs to do justice to these requirements can fail to weaken, and ultimately to nullify, the reasons which justify our acknowledg ment of Jesus Christ as Saviour of Mankind. The necessity that the Mediator should be human and share in human experience is also apparent when we consider His threefold office of Prophet, Priest and King. His prophetic office was to make Himself IMPLICATES AND VALUES 161 a revelation of God to those who can apprehend noth ing except in human terms. We cannot conceive of the possibihty of such a revelation unless the divine Revealer somehow manifests Himself in the terms of human nature and experience. We acknowledge that even the Manhood of God, being human, cannot either bring the Godhead within our observation or fully manifest a divine Person. Such a revelation was both unnecessary and impossible. But the sufficient self-manifestation which we beheve the Son of God to have achieved was, so far as we can see, necessarily conditioned by His sharing in human nature and experience, so as to become subject to the observation of which men are capable, and so as to converse with men after their manner. Again, U He was to be our Priest, and if He was to offer HimseU for us as our true representative, He had to become one of us. The reahty of His being perfected for His office by suffering and of His dying for us, the vahdity of what is revealed as to His heavenly priesthood, His sympathy with us, His making His flesh and blood the veil and pro pitiatory medium of our access to God and of our ultimate enjoyment of eternal hfe, all these pre suppose and depend upon His having taken a real human nature and upon His retaining it forever. Jesus Christ is the vicegerent of the Father, a King whose kingdom has no end. As such He is the Head of the Church, which is His Body. From Him proceeds the authority which His ministers 1 62 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST exercise on earth, and we are under His sway. But unless this sovereignty is human as well as divine, it is remote from human apprehensions and condi tions. The Head of the Body, if His headship is more than a metaphor, must share in the same order of hfe with the Body, and if the Church of Christ has a vital relation and organic subordination to Him, this must be because He has taken, and ever more shares in, the nature which the members of His Body possess. § n. The ethical significance of the assumption of real Manhood by the eternal Son is that the divine Author of the law for man has for love of us submitted to become subject to it, and to incur the temptations to disobedience by which we are beset. That there could be no uncertainty as to the success with which very God would meet these temptations leaves untouched the precious truth that He condescended to win the victory at the cost of the same persevering ¦ human efforts and human sufferings which con stitute the price of moral victory on our part. In fact, because He alone fought victoriously aU along the hne, He alone made aU the human effort and endured aU the sufferings which perfect victory involves. It is this human cost of His victory, wiUingly paid, which constitutes the appeahng quahty of •His example. He was touched with aU the feehng of our infirmities and can understand by reason of personal experience the nature and cost of the battle IMPLICATES AND VALUES 163 which, in lack of His grace, we fail to win. He did truly experience the cost, for even the most abundant grace, whUe it clarifies moral judgment and fortifies the wiU, does not reduce the effort and pain of successfully resisting temptation. Accordingly, He learned by experiment that we need His advantages in order to achieve His victory; and it was His mission to equip Himself by obedient suffering and victory over death, so as to become the source to us of the grace wherewith He led the way and showed us how to vanquish the evU one.1 The ethical value of His assumption of our nature in order to submit to our conditions and win our battle does not he in any precariousness of the result of His submission to be tempted, but in the realy human cost which He incurred in winning His victory and in His enabhng us to share in His grace. To suppose that very God could under any circum stances have made His righteousness hable to overthrow — and we may not assume that the Son of Man was any other than God of God — is to treat as contingent the permanence of the ultimate basis and source of righteousness and of moral obliga tion. Because in Christ God bore the cost of human obedience, in Christ God achieved a meritorious and divinely acceptable sacrifice which is sufficient for the sins of mankind. For the same reason God in Christ has constituted Himself a Judge who has 1 Cf. Heb. v. 8-9. 1 64 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST experienced our trials to the uttermost, and who can approve His judgments to the consciences of men themselves as at once just and merciful. Further more, because the grace whereby He won the victory is the grace in which He enables us to grow, the foregone certainty of His victory does not reduce the value of His example, but demonstrates the certainty of our own victory, if and when we complete the growth in Him which He makes possible for us.1 § 12. We have seen that the vahdity and ever prevaiUng power of the Christian dispensation, and of its sacramental institutions, depends upon the fact that its Founder is truly divine. The counter truth now to be emphasized is that the form which that dispensation has taken has been determined by our Lord's assumption of our nature, and that the reahty and permanence of His Manhood affords the medium, in communion with His Godhead, through which the sacramental means of grace receive their efficacy. The Incarnation is thus seen to be the initiation of a dispensation of grace which is adapted to the necessities of our composite and finite nature. Our own nature has been perfected and consecrated in Christ that it may become the means by which we can lay hold of Him, and enter into an organic and interior union with Him in His mystical Body, the Church. This union in Him makes us sharers in His grace, the appointed sacramental manner of 1 The subject of His example is resumed in ch. viu, below. IMPLICATES AND VALUES 165 this participation being in hne with both the heavenly medium and the earthly recipients of grace.1 The essential goodness of our nature as God created it is thus vindicated in all its constituent elements; and the spiritual use for which the flesh was created is revealed. Through our union with Christ our bodies become temples of the Holy Spirit. And the process is begun of preparing them for their deh verance from the grave and for full subjection to our spirits, for their destined supernatural change into incorruptible ministrants of personal blessedness and self-expression forever. The taking of flesh by the Word is then the master- key by which we unlock the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. It is the original type by which the sub sequent pages of God's Word — the later workings of His purpose — are impressed. The Church and her sacraments constitute an extension of the Incarnation, and their conformity to the original type imparts to them a verisimilitude of truth. The spiritual evolution of man, which was inter rupted by sin, is thus renewed and carried on to its eternally ordained consummation. The Incarnation, and the development of our Lord's Manhood by obedient suffering and victory over death, have prepared a potential germ which we can assimilate. 1 A. J. Mason, Faith of the Gospel, ch. ix. 3; Morgan Dix, Sacra mental System, Lees, i-ii; Rich. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, V. lvii; St. Thomas, Summa Theol., III. Ix. 4-5; lxi; J. R. lUingworth, Divine Immanence, ch. vi. 166 THE MANHOOD OF CHRIST Its sacramental involution in us affords the needed factor for our development and for our immortal survival in God's appointed process of supernatural selection.1 1 Cf. ch. iii. § 6, above. CHAPTER VI THE UNION OF NATURES I. The Doctrine § i. We have seen that, for the protection of apostolic doctrine concerning Christ, as against subversive speculations and definitions, the ancient Church denned its leading particulars in the de cisions of the first four of her Ecumenical Councils. The first Council affirmed that Jesus Christ is truly divine, 6p,oovo~LOv t<3 irarpC, and the second affirmed that He is perfectly human, lacking no proper part of our nature. The union of Godhead and Manhood in Christ, with which we are now concerned, was defined by the third and fourth Councils. As against what is called Nestorianism, the third Council maintained that in the one Person of Christ these natures are inseparably united; and as against the Eutychian inference that this union destroys their duaUty, the fourth Council declared that they are unconfusedly united.1 The last mentioned Council recapitulated the doc trine of union in the following terms: "One only Christ . . . acknowledged to be in two natures, 1 On aU which, see ch. ii. §§ 5-8, above. 1 68 THE UNION OF NATURES iv Svo (hvaea-Lv, without confusion, acrvyxvTas, without conversion, drperrTcus, without division, dSicupereDs, without separation, d^cupicrTtus, the dif ference of natures not being in any wise annulled by reason of the union, but rather the properties of both natures being preserved and meeting, avvrpexovo-T)?, in one Person and one hypostasis," etc. The deter minative meaning of this is that the Person of the Word has become the Person also of a perfectly human nature, the two natures having one subjective centre or self, but each of them retaining without either reduction or absorption its distinct integrity and operation.1 There is no warrant for incorporat ing the very different notion, that the Person of the Incarnate is a composite totahty, resulting from the union of natures. Rather the Person is treated as the common centre, ego or self of whatever is proper to God, on the one hand, and of whatever, on the other hand, is proper to man. The Godhead and the Manhood meet in the one centre, viz. the Person of the eternal Word; but that Person in se is in divisible and incomposite spirit. And this holds good whatever He may appropriate and make His own property by taking our nature. No doubt the most orthodox writers sometimes speak of the two natures as if they combined to form the Person of Christ, but in such cases they wiU usuaUy be found, without prejudice to the meaning of dogmatic 1 On the doctrine of the hypostatic union, see ch. iv. § i, above and the refs. there given. THE DOCTRINE 169 definitions, to be speaking metaphorically, extending the stricter use of Person so as to include in its refer- ence the natural properties and functions by which it manifests itself. Moderns have mistakenly treated this metaphorical use as the technical meaning of Person in Chalcedonian Christology, and thus have been led to attribute to that Christol ogy a dualism which in fact it does not contain. If the Person of Christ is simply the totahty or circum ference of two diverse natures, their union is unreal and the oneness of Christ is merely a figure of speech.1 Acknowledging that the terms which we use in exphcating the term Person in Chalcedonian Chris tology are modern, we continue to maintain that the doctrine of hypostatic union asserted at Chalcedon makes this union to lie in the possession by the two natures of a common centre or ego, appropriately described as a self. The Chalcedonian distinction between Person and nature is not between the total makeup of an individual, psychologically considered, and divine and human elements in that makeup. Broadly speaking, it corresponds to the distinction between self, in the sense of the indivisible and invisible centre and determining agent of rational functioning, and all the properties and functions in which this self subsists and expresses itself.2 To 1 It is from such a point of view that H. R. Mackintosh, Person of Jesus Christ, pp. 294-295, describes the doctrine of two natures, in its traditional form, as importing into the life of Christ "an in credible and thoroughgoing dualism." 2 Cf. ch. ii. § 8 fin., above. 170 THE UNION OF NATURES affirm that in Christ one Person subsists in two natures is in effect to affirm that the same ego or self is the self and energizing agent of the properties and functions of God, on the one hand, and of the properties and functions of man, on the other hand. The two really meet in one self; and Jesus Christ naturaUy functions in two diverse and mutually incommensurable manners, but from one determi native centre. Such doctrine postulates the reaUty of self as distinguished from psychical functioning; and the tendency to deny its reahty has much to do with* modern faUures to do justice to traditional Christol ogy. Our reasons for affirming its reahty have been given.1 What we are now maintaining is that the reahty of the union of natures declared at Chalcedon depends upon the central self of Christ being real and determinative, and upon its being the same self in both Godhead and Manhood. An eternal Self of the Godhead has entered into history. Without ceasing to be a Self of Godhead He has also become the Self of a real Manhood. Thenceforth the eternal Logos energizes without self-disruption in two modes of being and hfe, and in the manners appropriate to each.2 1 In ch. iv. § 2. Cf. § 7, below. 2 It is the supposition of two Ufe centres, defended by Dr. Mar tensen and others, which gives a dualistic quahty to Christological doctrine, rather than the ancient doctrine of diverse and twofold functioning of one central Self of the eternal Word. THE DOCTRINE 171 § 2. These two modes of being and hfe are mutuaUy incommensurable and, if intermixture is thought of, mutually incompatible. Omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, for example, cannot invade and mix with finite power and knowledge and local presence. If they could, they would obliterate the hmitations of the finite. But they cannot do so, because the infinite and the finite are mutual incommensurables. The one cannot be described in terms of the other, and their differ ences are not those of measure or degree, but of kind and mode.1 Two imperfect mechanical illustrations will ' perhaps help to make the point clear. They have no evidential value. A circle and a square can be drawn in such wise as to have the same centre, but neither one can either be changed into the other — squaring a circle is impossible — or be described in terms of the other. Their having a common centre leaves them mutuaUy discrete to the end. Again, a sewing machine and a cutting machine may be belted or geared to one axis, and that axis may be the energizing factor of both. In this case there is a real union between the two machines, and the same axis energises in both, but there is no con fusion. The sewing machine sews and does not cut, whUe the cutting machine cuts and does not sew. Neither operation interferes with the other. The 1 A divine-human consciousness is either a mere symbol for human consciousness endowed with grace or an impossibility. 172 THE UNION OF NATURES axis indeed both sews and cuts, but it does each in a distinct machine, and in obedience to distinct laws.1 " The classic iUustration is given in the Athanasian Symbol: "As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ." The self of a man is self of both flesh and spirit. That is, two diverse and mutually incommensurable things, having different methods of functioning, meet in one personal ego. My soul possesses one group of attributes and functions and my flesh another. The two interact, but the difference between them is never broken down, although amid their mutual differences their several functions are all my own — the functions of one self. My self resides primarily in my soul, and my soul, within its limits, controls my flesh and enables it to transcend the functions of inert matter; but the difference between spirit and matter remains unaltered, and what matter is enabled to do by reason of the soul united with it, is done in uninterrupted accord with the laws and Umitations of matter. The eternal Logos is Self in Christ of Godhead and of Manhood. Each represents a distinct method of functioning, and the same Self functions in both. The Manhood, through its participation in the same Self with the Godhead, is elevated by grace; but the 1 An important truth which this iUustration does not cover is the interaction of the Godhead, in the manner of grace, on the Manhood. But grace, as we have aheady seen, does not alter the natural mode of functioning of human nature. THE DOCTRINE 173 supernatural capacities which it thus acquires do not subvert the human manner of its operation or reduce the vaUdity of the laws which otherwise describe human functioning. There is no commixture of natures in Christ.1 § 3. There is, however, a mysterious interaction. As St. Leo the Great says in his Tome, "Each form" (nature) "does what is proper to it in com- v munion with the other." 2 This intercommunion or 7re/3ix<6/077cris flows obviously from the common selfhood, not from obhteration of difference. Having one centre, the Godhead and the Manhood exist in each other, without even partiaUy becoming each other, and without being mixed so as to produce a tertium quid — a divine-human which could be neither truly divine nor genuinely human.3 The saving mystery that one Christ is God and Man rests upon the twofoldness of His properties and functions, not upon an impossible mixture of God head and Manhood. But diverse as they are, the Godhead and Manhood possess real affinities. They both represent proper 1 Before experience with error had brought out the impUcations of such terms, the ancients did use expressions that signify such commixture — e.g. n&s, Kpaois, etc., — whUe clearly maintaining a continued distinction of natures. Cf. J. F. Bethune-Baker, Early Hist, of Christ. Doctr., p. 243, n. 3; W. Bright, Sermons of St. Leo, n. n.2 In ch. iv. 3 St. John Damasc, Orth. Fid., Bk. III. ch. vii fin. Cf. R. L. Ottley, Incarnation, Vol. H. p. 271, who there erroneously defines the communicatio idiomatum, however. 174 THE UNION OF NATURES modes of personal hfe and action, and a divine Person can subsist and act in both.1 Moreover a Person who eternally subsists and operates in the Godhead, and after the divine manner, cannot, we may be certain, subsist and operate in human nature, and after the human manner, in such wise as either to destroy the moral harmony of His operations taken together or to fail in fulfiUing the divine purpose of His assumption of our nature. In such a Person the divine will necessarily be morally and spiritually determinative. In brief, the personal control of His human hfe wiU reflect, after the human manner, the moral and spiritual perfection of His divine hfe; and His Manhood will not fail in His hands to achieve what divine grace can enable it to perform in advancement of His dominant and eternal purpose. Accordingly, our Lord's Manhood was uphfted and enhanced in various ways by a grace of union,2 without being thereby either changed from being human or enabled to act otherwise than in harmony with the intrinsic hmitations of human nature. The interaction which we are considering was in a sense mutual, but with a qualification growing out of the nature of Godhead. The Godhead cannot be enhanced by union with the human, because it is already perfect, and every perfection of manhood proceeds from divine creation and assistance. It is 1 Cf. ch. in. § 4, 3d paragraph, above. 2 Cf. ch. v. § 8, above, on the grace of Christ. THE DOCTRINE 175 also by eternal nature infinite, and the finite hmita tions of manhood cannot be imparted to it. Such limitation would be equivalent to a destruction of Godhead, for finite Godhead is a contradiction of terms. Just as the action of the divine on the human in Christ had to harmonize in its effects with the human remaining f uUy human, so the action of the human on the divine had to be in harmony with the divine remaining fuUy divine.1 The Godhead and Manhood of Christ meet in His Person alone, for it was He only, the second Per son of the Godhead, who became incarnate. The Trinity did not take our nature. This means that the divine which was affected by the human in the Incarnation was a divine Person — not the Godhead in se. The Son was hmited by the Manhood which He assumed; but this was not by reduction of His Godhead, an intrinsic impossibUity, nor by His abandonment of it, which would have nullified the effectual union of Godhead and Manhood in Him. The self-limitation which He voluntarily incurred was this, that in the nature which He assumed — in that only — He willed to submit His personal Ufe and actions to the Umitations of human nature and experience. These hmitations became His own; and, as touching the Manhood, He incurred experi ences and submitted to modes of action into which 1 St. John Damasc, in the passage cited above, likens the action of our Lord's Godhead on His Manhood to the shining of the sun. The hght is not changed in nature by that on which it shines. 176 THE UNION OF NATURES Godhead and divine action could not obtrude or emerge so as to remove their hmitations and reduce their reality. § 4. The doctrine of the union of natures is com pleted by that of the communicatio idiomatum, now widely misunderstood because of the change made in it by Martin Luther. According to his form of it there is a communication of properties, idioms, from one to the other nature. This we have seen to be both impossible and fatal to any meeting in Him of true Godhead and real manhood.1 Its retention in German tradition helps also to explain the acute form which the problem of the union takes in the modern Christological speculation — ¦ the problem of explaining how the divine can be 'com municated to the human without overshadowing and obliterating the limitations of the human. The catholic doctrine raises no such difficulty. It teaches an ascription of the divine and the human properties to the Person who possesses the natures to which they pertain. There is no intercommunica tion of natural properties between the two natures, but their concurrence without confusion in one personal centre or Self. This justifies indeed the ascription of human predicates to Christ under divine titles, and of divine predicates to Him under human titles. But this is because these titles in any case denote the same central Self of both natures, as distinguished from the particular nature from 1 On Luther's doctrine, see chh. i. 6 (a); ii. 10, above. THE DOCTRINE 177 which His title happens to be taken in the given instance.1 To take an example from conciliar language, when being borne of a Virgin is ascribed to God, and this is the meaning of the Blessed Virgin being called ©eoroKos, there is no ascription of human birth to Godhead,2 but an identification of the Person born of the Virgin, as touching the Manhood, with one who, in relation to His eternal nature, is rightly caUed God. Similarly, when it is said of the divine Logos, in a context in which He is declared to be God, that He became flesh,3 the ascription of becoming flesh is made to the Person as taking our nature, and not to the divine nature from which the name employed is derived. ParaUel instances occur in the New Testament in which divine predications are ascribed to Christ under human titles. It is said that "no man hath ascended into heaven but He that descended out of heaven, even the Son of Man." 4 This does not mean that manhood had either "ascended into" or "descended out of heaven," but that the Person, there denoted by a human title, is He who, by virtue of His divine nature, fills heaven and earth. 1 On the communicatio idiomatum, see ch. ii. § 7, above; and The Kenotic Theory, pp. 40-46; W. Bright, Sermons of St. Leo, nn. 5, 63; St. Thomas, Summa Theol., HI. xvi; Rich. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, V. hi. 3; lui. 3-4; J. F. Bethune-Baker, op. cit., pp. 293-294. 5 Nor of divine motherhood to the B. V. M. 8 St. John i. 14. Cf. Acts xx. 28; 1 Cor. ii. 8; 1 St. John i. 1. * St. John iii. 13. 178 THE UNION OF NATURES The same ascription of a divine predicate to Christ under a human title appears in the saying, "The second Man is of heaven." 1 These interchanges of titles and predications result sometimes in startiing juxtapositions, especiaUy when given in the indirect form of calhng the mother of Jesus "Bearer of God," ©cotokos, and "Mother of God," mater Dei. But the truth involved is always the same, so far at least as cathohc theology is concerned, to-wit, that whatever name is given to Him, there is but one Self in the Word-incarnate; and in that Self both Godhead and Manhood, with their several properties and functions, truly meet. There is no commixture of natures, and no mutual transference of natural properties between them, but there is a true possession of both natures, and of their several properties, by one Mediator between God and man, the Lord Jesus Christ. This doctrine involves four particulars: (a) Whatever is true of Christ's human nature and experience is true of God, the Word-incarnate; (b) Whatever is true of Christ's eternal Godhead, and of the second Person of the Godhead, is true of the Man Jesus Christ; (c) We may not ascribe the distinctive properties and functions, the idioms, of the Godhead to our Lord's Manhood nor may we ascribe those of His Manhood to his Godhead; (d) Every predication which we make of the Person of 1 i Cor. xv. 47. A. V. reads, "the Lord from heaven." MODERN DIFFICULTIES 179 Christ should be made with discriminating reference to the nature to which it properly appertains. It is a forgetfulness of this last principle which is most apt to lead astray the unwary; and the most conspicuous modern instance is connected with the description of the eternal Son as self-hmited. This description is perfectly true and justifiable, if we remember that it is only as touching the Manhood * which He assumed that He is thus hmited — a limitation which cannot be reduced to unrealty by open invasions of divine functioning within our Lord's human experience, but which none the less cannot from the nature of things be ascribed to His Godhead. II. Modem Difficulties § 5. We have felt constrained to give anticipatory hints as to the historical causes and explanations of modern difficulties, and this fact wiU abbreviate our present discussion of them. But it is desirable to summarize them in this connection, even at the cost of some repetition, in order to complete our exposi tion of the doctrine of the union of Godhead and Manhood in Christ. The leading historical cause of the modern breach with Chalcedonian Christology, and of the develop ment of a theory of ken6sis, appears to be the semi- monophysite interpretation of the Incarnation by Martin Luther, as being an infusion of divine prop erties into human nature. It is true that, with the 180 THE UNION OF NATURES subsequent shifting of emphasis among the Germans to the integrity of the human, the original Lutheran "orthodoxy" received significant modifications in German thought; but the notion of some kind of fusion of natures in Christ held its own, and the obvious incompatibility of divine and human attri butes, when regarded as meeting in one nature and natural experience, inevitably gave a new and more acute form to the problem of the hypostatic union.1 This problem was evaded rather than solved by the theory of a progressive Incarnation, for the mutual incompatibility which forbids the inter mixture of divine and human attributes in one order of hfe and experience is not reduced by any gradual- ness of such intermixture. An ultimate deification of manhood in glory means its ceasing to be reaUy human; and this forbids the comforting Christian assurance that we stiU have a High Priest in the heavens who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. The continuance of effective mediation depends upon the permanence of our Lord's posses sion of our nature and of real human properties. The kenotic theory seemed to vindicate the truly human nature of our Lord's earthly life and experi ence, and the preciousness of this gain has helped to obscure its remoter and objectionable consequences. Plainly put, a depotentiated Godhead is not divine; and unless the nature which the Incarnate retained is fuU Godhead — and a partly 1 Cf. chh. i. 6 (c) and u. io-ii, above. Also ch. vii. § 3, below. MODERN DIFFICULTIES 181 inert Godhead is the climax of unreality — He was not, whUe on earth, reaUy what He claimed to be, one with God the Father and participant in all that the Father doeth and hath.1 Moreover, the mutual incompatibility which constitutes the nerve of the kenotic argument, if rightly employed in that argument, has permanent vahdity; and the present possession by Christ in glory of the fulness of divine power, knowledge and presence depends upon an end being put to the union of Godhead and real Manhood in Him. Such a conclusion is fatal to Christian hopes.2 The Unes of Christological speculation which we are criticising proceed from a mistaken point of departure, and cannot be given correct guidance until the assumption that there is a fusion between the divine and human in Christ's experience is recon sidered and eliminated. This is not less true because kenotic terminology is employed by writers who avoid the ultimate logic of kenoticism. Apparently — we speak subject to correction — they have not sufficiently considered the impUcations which others find in kenotic terminology, imphcations which help many who do not fuUy share in their conserva tive instincts to lose hold upon the truth of the Deity of Jesus Christ. In brief, their Christological thought seems to be hampered, and made less clear and satisfying, by their dependence upon terms which 1 St. John v. 19; xvi. 15. 2 The kenotic theory is discussed in the next chapter. 182 THE UNION OF NATURES connote the mistaken assumption as to the nature of the Incarnation that has led modern German Christology into a maze of unnecessary problems. § 6. Another cause of difficulty in modern Christology is the habit of treating the human lUe and consciousness of Christ as the unifying principle of doctrine concerning His Person. This appears to be due partly to a laudable but, as has been seen, onesided anxiety to do justice to the reality of Christ's Manhood and submission to our conditions, physical, mental and moral. But it seems to be forti fied by, and in many writers to be due to, a modified naturahsm, which acknowledges the superphysical nature of consciousness, but which refuses to admit the reality and credibihty of anything in the Per son of the Word-incarnate that did not emerge among the psychical phenomena of His human consciousness.1 This last influence appears in the present excessive dominance of psychological standards in describing and estimating the personal resources of Christ, and also in the momentary tendency to deny the reality of any other personal self than the phenomena of consciousness, considered as cohering in a distinct unity within each individual. We have already given reasons for regarding this denial as an aberra tion of speciahsts — often at fault in constructive 1 Forbes Robinson pleads that our Lord did not have omnis cience, because no sign of it appeared in His conversation. Self- Limitation of the Word of God, p. 81. MODERN DIFFICULTIES 183 theorizing — and as inconsistent with necessary postulates of every-day experience and moral re sponsibility.1 Its bearing on modern Christological difficulties wiU be considered in our next section. The assumption that an exhaustive analysis of the psychical and physical phenomena of our Lord's human hfe is equivalent to a survey of all the factors and resources of His individuahty which we have credible reason for acknowledging as real, embodies a specious faUacy — a faUacy resembUng that which led the materiahst of yesterday to deny the objective reahty of the human mind, as distinguished from physical functionings of brain stuff. The methods of psychology, combined with the historical method, have indeed proved helpful in analyzing what can be known by us of our Lord's consciousness — His psychical experience, His human mental life. But this analysis brings to hght a combination of unique perfections and claims which cannot be reasonably interpreted without hypothecating the truth of these claims, and acknowledging the existence within His being of a source of iUumination and grace which forever escapes psychical methods of scrutiny.2 1 In ch. iv. § 2, above. 2 When we regard the union of natures in Christ as a problem to be explained, we shaU be baffled and be tempted to surrender one side of the truth in the interest of the other. But when we regard the union as the clue to the combination of saving power and condescending identification with our sorrows which He dis played, we shall find in it a pragmatic value which confirms our faith therein. 184 THE UNION OF NATURES The knowledge of our Lord's Person which the apostles ultimately acquired was based upon an education which consisted, in its first stage, of daUy contact with Christ's human hfe and conversation; and apart from the knowledge thus obtained they could not have advanced further, nor can we. But when by experience of His resurrection, by reflection on His teaching, and by the iUuminating guidance of the Holy Spirit, they gained a more mature development in the knowledge of Christ, the per spective in which they regarded Him was changed, being determined by a fuller understanding of Him than can be deduced from their experience of His hfe of humUiation, exclusively regarded. Thence forth it was the thought of His divine and adorable Person which became the clue — the unifying prin ciple of their Christology. In making the human hfe and experience of Christ its unifying principle, modern Christology has re verted to the difficulties which made the apostles so slow in apprehending the significance of our Lord's teaching; and untU their post-resurrection stand point is acquired, untU the divine Person of Christ once more becomes the interpretative principle in considering the mysteries of Christ's human life, the important results of modern analysis of the data of the Gospels will faU to exhibit their true sigrrif- icance to the earnest and gifted scholars whose point of view we are criticizing. § 7. Unless we have radically misinterpreted MODERN DIFFICULTIES 185 Chalcedonian Christology, its credibility, and even v its intelUgibility, depend to a degree upon taking careful note of the objective existence of a self in each rational individual, and upon refusing either to confuse it with psychical phenomena or to reduce it to a mere symbol of the coherent unity of these phenomena in each individual.1 The sharp dis tinction made by the CouncU of Chalcedon between person and nature in Christ, and the inclusion of aU psychical functionings in " nature," plainly shuts these phenomena out of the reference and meaning of "person," or uirdoracris, in the Chalcedonian defini tion.2 That the Chalcedonian fathers regarded the Person of Christ as objectively real, in spite of the exclusive meaning with which they employed the term Person, or wrdoracrts, is not intelligently to be denied. But the only objective reality which they can be supposed to have retained in mind, after eliminating aU natural energies and operations, is the avros or self, which in common speech and moral judgment has always been implicitly postu lated as the determining spirit, centre and agent of every rational individual. This conclusion is not less certain because the term by which they denoted this self even then had also a more com prehensive use, one which sometimes crept into 1 The reasons for behef in a real self are given in ch. iv. § 2, above. 2 The sixth CouncU, by its assertion of two wills in Christ, accen tuated this delimitation of terms. Cf. ch. ii. § 8. 1 86 THE UNION OF NATURES orthodox Christological literature with confusing results. Our appeal is from these looser employ ments of the term to the plain imphcations of the authoritative distinction between person and nature, as determining the meaning of person or inr6oTacnod in which our Lord historicaUy manifested imself, is frankly admitted; and this mutual compatibihty between the two — that is in lation to an intercommunication of properties - combined with insistence on the genuineness of arist's human limitations, became the basis of ie theory that during His earthly life the Son 1 In ch. ii. § ii, above, where refs. are given. DEVELOPMENT OF KENOTIC THEORY 211 of God reaUy abandoned whatever in His Godhead could not be subjected to the limitations of a per fectly normal human hfe. The formal logic of such argument is flawless, if we adopt its premise — the Lutheran assumption that the Incarnation is a communication of divine properties to human nature. On this "if" the whole argument turns, logically speaking. The kenoticists did not, of course, dis regard the necessity of substantiating their theory by appeal to the New Testament, but their infer ences from bibhcal data have been either con sciously or unconsciously controlled, as we shall see, by the above defined Lutheran premise. The kenotic theory has taken several forms, ac cording to the extent of ken6sis which is main tained.1 The more radical kenoticists have declared that the Godhead of Christ was converted into a human soul. The Logos, it is said, "remains who He was, though He ceased to be what He was." The "form of God" was changed into the "form of a servant." The Son's divine activity was sus pended untU His glorification. A more prevalent view distinguishes between what are caUed the absolute and the relative attributes of God, and denies that the latter — omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence — are essential to the reahty of Godhead apart from creation. They could be, and were, abandoned by the Son, it is said, when He 1 Summarized by A. B. Bruce, Humiliation of Christ, pp. 139-164, 338-429. Cf. The Kenotic Theory, pp. 14-19. 212 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST became incarnate. This view has exercised some influence among Anglican writers. § 4. But the influence of Dr. Martensen, a Danish Lutheran theologian, has also been felt in Anglican quarters. Apparently reahzing the grave difficulties raised by supposing the Son to have ceased to exercise His cosmic functions while on earth, He hypothecated two hfe-centres in Christ. ^Acknowledging that "as the pure Logos of Deity, He works through the kingdom of nature by His all-pervading presence," 1 he urged, "We must conceive ... of the Deity as wrapped up or clothed in the humanity of Christ; of the eternal infinitude of divine attributes as converted into an inner infinitude, in order that it might find room within the hmits of human nature. In the measure in which human nature grew and developed, in that measure did the divine nature also grow in it; in the measure in which, whilst advancing in develop ment, He became conscious of His historical sig nificance, in the same measure did the recollection of His pre-existence and of His going out from the Father rise more clearly to His mind."jj To Dr. Martensen also is due the sharp separation be tween "spheres" which certain Anghcans make, and their view that our Lord abandoned certain divine attributes in the human sphere, while retain ing them in the divine sphere. The most obvious difference between this view 1 Christian Dogmatics, § 134. 2 Idem, § 136. DEVELOPMENT OF KENOTIC THEORY 213 and traditional doctrine is that whereas Dr. Mar tensen hypothecates two centres and two spheres of activity for the God-man, catholic theology, warned by Nestorian error, acknowledges but one hfe-centre in Christ — the eternal Person or Self of the Word — and distinguishes in Him two natural modes of operation, rather than two spheres, there being a mutual communion, but, owing to their mutual differences, no interference between His divine and human operations. But we ought gladly to bear witness that Dr. Martensen and the Anghcan writers who have borrowed some of their thought from him have tried, by their modifications of the kenotic theory, to do justice to the truth that Jesus Christ never ceased to be truly divine. If we are unable to accept even a modified kenoticism — a kenoticism improved at the cost of logical self-consistency, — we are not less ready thankfully to acknowledge the loyalty to our Lord as very God-incarnate which actuates the most promi nent Anglican supporters of kenotic and quasi- kenotic theories. The latest phase of Anghcan speculation, while it retains in form Dr. Martensen's idea of two life- centres, speaking of two egos in our Lord — that of the pure Logos and that of the Logos as incarnate, — rejects the idea of a real kenosis in favour of a voluntary self-limitation or self-restraint, with pointed emphasis upon its uninterrupted voluntari ness. Our Lord is represented as voluntarUy 214 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST Umiting the exercise and manifestation of His divine power and of other infinite attributes during His humiliation.1 The controlhng premise here is still the German postulate that, if the Logos had continued to exercise His divine omnipotence, omniscience, etc., this divine functioning would have emerged as a disturbing ele ment in His human consciousness and experience.2 The mutual differences in mode of functioning of the Godhead and of the Manhood, and the con sequent non-interference of one with the other, are overlooked.3 Any attempt, however orthodox in intention, to distinguish two egos in Christ, nec essarily involves a Nestorian logic. Furthermore, limitation in the exercise of divine power does not become a possible conception by calhng it volun tary. It is of the divine essence that God should be purus actus.4 From the nature of things eternal action cannot become limited, for such an event means change, and change occurs only in temporal things and events. The Son's self-limitation is to be predicated of Him as touching the Manhood, not as touching the Godhead.5 1 So Bishop F. Weston, The One Christ; and E. D. la Touche, Person of Christ, pp. 386-392. It should be noted that Anghcan kenoticists usuaUy emphasize the voluntariness of the kendsis. 2 For example, see F. Weston, op. cit., pp. 65-66; and passim. 3 Cf. ch. vi. §§ 2, io-n, above. 4 See Being and Attrib. of God, ch. xi. § 8. 6 As wiU be shown in § 6, Umitations in the effects of divine power are not limitations of power. KENOTIC ARGUMENTS 215 The Anghcan writers to whom we refer do not appear to embrace the Lutheran postulate in all its baldness — that the Incarnation signifies a com munication of divine attributes to the Manhood. But their use of the argument that our Lord's full exercise of divine power is incompatible with His submission to human hmitations is illogical unless something hke that postulate is retained. In any case the development of kenotic Christology was historically due to an effort to solve a problem the form of which was created by Martin Luther's novel doctrine of the Incarnation, and which does not emerge in that form in the cathohc doctrine. II. Kenotic Arguments § 5. If our account of the origin of kenoticism is correct, its primary basis is the a priori argu ment that the Son of God could not retain, at least could not continue to exercise and enjoy, His divine power, knowledge and omnipresence, if He -was to become really human and was truly to submit in our nature to the limitations of human experience and growth. The validity of this argument is obvious, if the retaining of these functions and attributes means either their communication to the Manhood, as Lutheran doctrine postulates, or their emergence within our Lord's human consciousness, as kenot icists take for granted. But if the postulate 216 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST referred to is contrary to sound doctrine, as it cer tainly is to cathohc dogma, and if the manner of divine functioning is not such as either interferes with the hmitations of the created natures in which God is in any case an immanent Worker, or is sus ceptible of observance by human faculties, then the argument in question is non-relevant and invalid in such a connection. It reaUy proves (a) that Godhead cannot be communicated to real Man hood; and (b) that divine functioning, even when proceeding from the same Ego to which human functioning is to be ascribed, cannot emerge as a disturbing element within the phenomena of human experience. The pertinence of this may be Ulustrated by the relations which can be thought to exist between our Lord's divine omniscience and His human con sciousness. That in Christ while on earth there was a mysterious communion between the divine and the human, so that a grace of union iUuminated His human mind to a unique degree, we have al ready maintained; x but grace does not subvert human limitations and the laws of growth in human knowledge. It assists and perfects our intelligence without altering the manner of its exercise and growth. Our main point in this connection is that there could be no other operation of divine inteUi gence within Christ's human consciousness than that of grace. The reason for such a conclusion is 1 Cf. chh. v. 8; vi. 3. KENOTIC ARGUMENTS 217 clear. Divine intelligence does not operate after the manner of human consciousness, but tran scends in mode aU temporal laws of attention and progress from point to point which control our mental processes. In brief, divine intelligence does not psychologize,1 and therefore cannot obtrude itself as a psychical experience or phenomenon within human consciousness. If, therefore, as cathohc doctrine teaches, Jesus Christ on earth was possessed of the intelligence of Godhead, this inteUigence neither did nor could come within the open experience of His human con sciousness, so as to nulhfy the reaUty of His sub mission in the Manhood to the normal conditions of growth in human knowledge. Even in the par ticular of self-consciousness, < our Lord's human mind must have been unable to act otherwise than in the finite and progressive manner of human self-consciousness. § 6. The notion that creation itself involves a kind of self-emptying on God's part 2 — advanced ^ to fortify the kenotic argument which we are con sidering — wiU not stand close scrutiny. If valid, it proves the untenable conclusion that power to ' If, contrary to our contention, it could be abandoned, its abandonment would not be a "psychological process," as P. T. Forsyth describes it, in Person and Place of Christ, p. 273. Such a description is simply meaningless. 2 Found in F. R. Tennant, Origin and Propagation of Sin, pp. 134-141 ; Forbes Robinson, Self-Limitation of the Word of God, pp. 15-17 and ch. ii; E. D. la Touche, Person of Christ, p. 388. 218 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST determine effects is self-destructive. It proves that God could not retain the fulness of His freedom and power except by not wilhng determinate effects. An act of will is indeed a self-determining act, but the limitations which it creates pertain to the effects which it produces. They do not in se reduce either the rank in being or the properties and resources of him who wills them. A being plus effectuating purpose cannot be treated as equivalent to that being minus essential power, without reducing the crowning characteristic of personal power to self- destructive impotence.1 To describe the self-determined accommodation of divine power to the production of a series of severely hmited effects as self-limitation, unless the phrase is used in a purely relative and extraneous sense as describing the effects which God wills to produce, is to describe the manifestation of divine resource fulness as its nullification. Determinateness of effects is essential to the exercise of any voluntary power, and cannot rationally be interpreted as reducing it. The comparative greatness or small- ness of effects does not in se determine the power of their worker, although it does determine the manner and extent of the manifestation of that power to us. These are truisms. It is true that a finite agent by adopting a purpose changes his wiU, and to the degree of the tenacity of his purpose relatively limits himself — that is, 1 See Ch. Qly. Review, Oct., 1891, pp. 43-44. KENOTIC ARGUMENTS 219 shortens the range of effects which he can produce while maintaining that purpose. There is a move ment in such cases from wider to narrower freedom, although not in the sense of an intrinsic reduction of power. But such a transition, with its relative shortening of previous freedom, is absent from divine vohtion. The wiU of God is not made less truly eternal, and less absolutely free from innovat ing transitions that would narrow, in this relative sense, the range of His action, because to have a beginning and to change pertains to the nature of the effects which He wiUs. The hmiting, or intro duction of limits previously non-existent, pertains to what is wiUed, not to the eternal willing of God itseU. This never changes. A confusion of thought somewhat similar to that which causes men to ascribe the hmitations of crea tion to the Creator is found in the_argument based upon the distinction between absolute and relative attributes of God —"the argumentthat because omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence are relative attributes, they can be abandoned without subversion of the Godhead.1 AU true attributes of God signify absolute properties of His essence. This is so even when the terms employed are bor rowed from relative aspects, from the relations 1 A. B. Bruce, Humil. of Christ, pp. 143-144, says, " This distinc tion between the relative and essential attributes of God is the speculative foundation of Thomasian Christology." The argument is dealt with in The Kenotic Theory, ch. vu. 220 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST between God and created things. We describe God as omnipotent, that is as sovereign over aU power displayed in the created universe, but the reahty in God to which we refer cannot rightly be regarded as an effect of creation. It is an eternal and essen tial property of God, as God — the absolute ante cedent, so to speak, of God's creative action. SimUarly, when we describe God as omniscient, the omni refers to finite things and events; but we are describing in inadequate terms a knowledge which characterizes God as God, a knowledge which reduces to absurdity the notion that any knowable thing can be unknown to Him. All the knowable things of this world are indeed products of creative will, but to suppose that their Creator can have His knowledge of them interrupted or shortened is to forget the eternal nature of divine knowledge qua divine. Omnipresence is also a relative term, but it signifies a necessary property of God which, because of its absoluteness, cannot from the nature of the case faU to actualize in every sphere of created being and place. In brief, creation being presup posed, God must be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent in relation to it.1 The conclusion to which these considerations bring us is that no argument for the possibility of our Lord's abandoning divine omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence can rightly be deduced from their 1 On these attributes and their relativity, see Being and Attrib. of God. ch. xu. §§ 1-4. KENOTIC ARGUMENTS 221 aUeged relativity. They are not less absolute in se, because our knowledge of them, and the terms by which we have to signify them, are relative; and it is as possible for a truly divine Person to cease to be holy and loving — an incredible absurdity, of course — as for Him to cease, as God, to be almighty, omniscient and omnipresent. § 7. This last remark brings us to the ethical argument. The Incarnation, it is urged, must be regarded primarily as a drama of condescending love; and metaphysical considerations may not be pressed at the expense of this supreme requirement. Love is the primary attribute of God, and the heart of the Gospel message is that God has effectively shown His love by a real identification of Himself with our hmitations and sorrows. To dwell on abstract requirements of Deity, requirements which cannot be described in terms of an incarnate hfe; is to convert this message into a metaphysical puzzle.1 That the ethical aspects of the Incarnation are absolutely vital is too generally realized to-day for us to consume space in acknowledging and maintain ing so obvious a proposition. But the assumption that these aspects can be permanently vindicated by those who disregard what are invidiously de- 1 The Ethical argument is discussed in The Kenotic Theory, ch. v. It is urged by A. J. Mason, Conditions of our Lord's Life, pp. 27-28; R. L. Ottley, Incam., Vol. H. pp. 287-288; Bp. Gore, Dissertations, pp. 218-220. 222 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST scribed as metaphysical attributes of God should be most earnestly denied. One would naturally infer from the disparaging language often used con cerning these attributes and their requirements that they are the creations of futUe speculation instead of necessities of true thinking about God.1 To say, for example, that a depotentiated Person of the Godhead cannot be truly divine may be metaphysical — which means merely that it con cerns what is fundamental to the being of God, and requires real thinking to apprehend its bearings; — but to allege that when, as against denials, we maintain this in interpreting the Incarnation, we sacrifice the ethical aspects of that mystery appears to us singularly fatuous. Only by careful mainte nance of Christ's possession of full Godhead, and therefore of aU that Godhead includes in order to be itself, can we continue to identify the display of love which He made in Jewry with an exhibition of the love of God. If the love which Christ dis played on earth was God's love, this is because Christ was God when He displayed it. To main tain His true Deity is therefore a vital condition of maintaining that His incarnate life has the 1 See some weighty words on the danger of disparaging the "metaphysical" attributes of God by the late Dr. Bright, quoted from a personal letter in The Kenotic Theory, p. 98. The antithesis made between metaphysical and ethical attributes grows whoUy out of our mode of apprehending them — not at aU out of any opposition between them or mutual independence in the Godhead KENOTIC ARGUMENTS 223 ethical value of divine love. And this cannot be done when we describe Him as deficient in what all our knowledge of God requires us to ascribe to Him — the attributes which kenoticists declare Him to have abandoned.1 A Godhead to which the minus sign is appended is essentially other than the Godhead which we have to postulate in Christ when we identify His love with the love of very God. So much by way of summary reply. But a few incidental branches of the argument may well be noticed. It is urged, for instance, that the greatness of the sacrifice which the Son made when He became incarnate is magnified, and becomes more effectual as an exhibition of pitying love, when we acknowl edge that He abandoned divine powers and preroga tives in order to identify Himself with us. Our answer is twofold. In the first place the cost of His identification with us does not depend upon such abandonment, but upon the reality of His submission in the Manhood to our .painful condi tions and limitations. The Manhood had become by His condescension as truly His as was the God head. Its conditions became His conditions, that is, very God's conditions, and the amazing con- 1 Prof. Godet, in an inadvertent moment no doubt, says, "He had been loving with aU the force of a perfect, infinite love, and this kind of love He exchanges for one which implies progress both in respect of intensity and of comprehension." New Test. Studies, as quoted by H. C. PoweU, Prin. of the Incarn., p. 3. 224 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST descension involved in this fact is not enhanced by ascribing the hmitations which He thus accepted to His Godhead. Indeed, and this is our second point, to do this is to nuUify the redeeming value of His humiliation. If it was not full God who was submitting to temptation, suffering and death in that Manhood, we cannot ascribe a full divine value to His sufferings. It is true, as kenoticists urge, that the perfect sympathy of Christ grew out of His full participa tion in our conditions, sin excepted, we add; but the supposition that such full participation required a real ken6sis of the divine in Him is an a priori assumption which has already been shown to be unwarranted.1 The bearing of true doctrine concerning Christ's Person on the value and meaning of His example is a large subject, one which will receive some atten tion in our next chapter,2 but two anticipatory remarks seem to be desirable at this stage. The onesided manner in which our Lord's moral iden tification with us is being urged in some quarters encourages a very dangerous error. If His battle was in all respects like ours, then He had to contend with sinful propensities within Himself, and the need of repentance was one of His needs. It is /obvious that His perfect example cannot be explained Vwithout acknowledging His possession of resources 1 Cf. § 5 of this chapter. 2 Cf. also ch. iv. § ii, above. KENOTIC ARGUMENTS 225 which our nature cannot supply. Our second re mark is that Christ confessedly came to reveal divine righteousness in human terms. But the righteousness of a depotentiated Person is not in se the righteousness of God, and Christ must have been all that very God is, if His righteousness is properly speaking to be attributed to very God. § 8. There remains the keenly felt difficulty that an immediate juxtaposition of divine attributes and human conditions appears to reduce the reality of the latter. How, it is asked in substance, can infinite majesty and human lowhness be imme diately combined without the lowhness being swaUowed up in the majesty? This difficulty, so far as it is distinct from the problems already discussed, seems to arise from con fusing a juxtaposition of predications in our descrip tions of Christ with an assertion that the divine attributes thus predicated of Christ are brought into open combination with the human in one con scious experience. The juxtapositions in question have no such imphcation. Their true meaning is , that, although pertaining to distinct natures, and although actualized in manners which preclude an invasion of human experience by divine operations, divine and human attributes have one centre and belong to one Self, the Word-incarnate. In brief, these predications are placed in juxtaposition simply in order to bear witness to our Lord's being both 226 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST God and Man — not less truly God than Man, and not less truly Man than God.1 There are two kinds of antitheses. In one kind the aim is to accentuate something by contrasting it with something which is either repudiated or minimized. Such antitheses have to be employed with caution, for they are very apt to express and to crystallize onesided views. They often carica ture what they emphasize and sacrifice what, if done justice to, would preclude such error. But the juxtapositions with which we are concerned belong to a different class altogether. In them the purpose is to synthesize the most opposite aspects of truth in order to avoid onesidedness.2 The only exaggeration which can be read into them is based upon the mistake above described, of interpreting a close juxtaposition of opposite predications as if it meant closeness of visible connection in the reahty thus described. The juxtapositions of cath olic Christology are designed to guard the fulness and balance of Christian doctrine, and they have proved serviceable for that purpose. They signify that the truth of Christ's Deity must not be per- 1 "It is easy to find contradictions if we drop or ignore aU the quali fications which saved them from being contradictions." W. Sanday, Christologies, p. 44. 2 It is a merit, rather than a matter for adverse criticism, that the CouncU of Chalcedon combined in one declaration the opposite aspects of the Person of Christ, thus warning beUevers against one sided positions. The CouncU was not summoned for the solution of problems, but for the definition of credenda. KENOTIC ARGUMENTS 227 mitted to obscure the truth of His Manhood, and that assertions as to the reahty of His Manhood must not be made at the cost of shortening belief in His Godhead. Kenoticists are convinced that overwhelming evidences are afforded in the Gospel narratives that our Lord reaUy submitted to human hmita tions, that the only experiences of Christ which the apostles observed were human, and that divine properties and functions never emerged in His earthly Ufe. We are as fully convinced of aU this as they are, and it is unnecessary to repeat their labour in exhibiting the evidence. They have done it thoroughly, and it needed to be done. Where we fail to be convinced is when these. patent limitations of Christ, and the absence of any obtrusion of Godhead and of divine operations within our Lord's human experience, are given kenotic interpretation. We say, on the basis of all the pertinent data avaUable, that Jesus Christ sub mitted in a real human nature to the limitations of a normal human hfe, and we mean what we say. On the other hand, on the basis of Christ's own teaching, we beheve Him to have been very God whUe on earth; and this means nothing to us unless it signifies His possession of aU that has to be meant by true "Deity." How Godhead and Manhood could thus have the same ego, we have neither the data nor the capacity to determine. But we are saved from feehng troubled by remembering what 228 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST has elsewhere been more fuUy set forth, that the difference between the functioning of Godhead and that of Manhood sufficiently accounts for the non-emergence of the former in our Lord's human hfe and experience. We do not need to minimize the divine by a kenotic theory, in order to do jus tice to the uninterrupted human quality of our Lord's earthly life. III. New Testament Teaching § 9. In considering New Testament teaching we start with the broad conclusion just set forth, that nothing emerged in our Lord's human experience and consciousness which interrupted or reduced the fulness of His submission in our nature to our limi tations — sinfulness alone being excepted, as incon sistent with His Person and with His mission. And lest we should be thought to evade any of the facts, we acknowledge and maintain that His human mind was ignorant in some respects. In particular, He did not know in human terms of the day and hour of His second coming, for this kind of knowl edge apparently could not emerge in His earthly consciousness except by revelation. In this significant sense the Gospels clearly teach that very God for our sakes effaced Himself. In this sense He became poor — by submitting in our nature to the conditions of our poverty — in order that through His becoming poor we might be made NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING 229 rich.1 He could not thus have enriched us, however, if His acceptance of our poverty-stricken manhood had involved His impoverishment in the divine riches wherewith He makes us rich — not except on the incredible supposition that His impoverish ment consisted in transferring His divine wealth from Himself to us, that is, in changing places with us. § 10. The classic description of the mystery of Christ's self-effacement is found in St. Paul's Epistle to the PhiUppians 2 — a passage which is used by kenoticists as their primary proof-text. We shall give reasons for thinking that the meaning which they find in it has been unconsciously read into it by themselves. Their exegesis is obviously and in any case dependent for justification upon a literal interpretation of the critical phrase, eavroi> €K€Vcoo'ev; and it is not whoUy free from diffi culty even on the supposition that such inter pretation is correct. The verb tcevooj does have a metaphorical, or rhetorical, as well as a Uteral use;3 1 2 Cor. vin. 9. 2 PhU. U. 5-8, the context extending from verse 3 to verse 11, inclusive. Cf. The Kenotic Theory, pp. 57-70. A survey of various interpretations is given by E. H. Gifiord, The Incarnation, Part II; also by H. C. PoweU, Prin. of the Incarn., pp. 246-255. 3 Writing from a kenotic standpoint, A. J. Mason, Conditions of our Lord's Life, p. 21, frankly says, "A ki-voXv, upon which so much has sometimes been made to turn, does not exactly mean 'to empty' but has passed through various shades of meaning, such as to ex haust (in the natural sense), until it comes to mean something like 'to reduce the force, or significance, or reputation of a thing.' " 230 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST and although it is a sound principle of exegesis always to adopt a hteral interpretation unless the evidence available forbids this, we are justified in entertaining the possibility that the context in a given case requires a non-literal interpretation. The phrase in question is imbedded in the middle of a context which is concerned, both before and after its occurrence, with one coherent practical exhortation; and unless evidence appears of a digression at this point, we ought to interpret the phrase in accordance with orderly sequence of thought in the exhortation. By taking the phrase rhetorically we are able to do this; whereas by pressing a hteral exegesis we are compelled to sup pose that St. Paul interrupted a homily on vainglory by an unrelated, condensed and difficult theological proposition — a proposition which he does not stop to clarify, and which appears to be incongruous with his teaching elsewhere. We proceed to indi cate what appears to us to be the real sequence of St. Paul's thought. He begins by urging his readers to avoid factious and vainglorious behaviour, and to act with low liness of mind, "not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others." The word also, kcu, is significant, and expressly excludes the supposition that he was urging them literally to abandon their own things. The thought is that they are not to be absorbed in them with a self-esteem that wiU prevent their careful thought NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING 231 for the things of others. To enforce this lesson he Ulustrates it by the mind and example of Christ, as exhibited in His Incarnation and death on the Cross, describing these mysteries in terms suggested by the lesson with which he is uninterruptedly con cerned, and proceeding to show, by mentioning the resulting honour which the human name of Christ acquires, that self-effacement ultimately obtains a reward which is specificaUy appropriate to itself. AU this thought hangs together if St. Paul's description of the Incarnation illustrates his ex hortation, which it does not if he is describing an abandonment by Christ of eternal properties of His Person. Translating with such freedom and parenthetic paraphrase as wiU punctuate the con nection, he says, Although He was in the form of God (that is, entitled to divine honour), He did not reckon His equahty with God to consist in grasping 1 (for human repute), but (taking the opposite course) effaced Himself (Uterally, "emp tied" Himself, but in this connection, effaced Himself, by surrendering all anxiety concerning His personal glory), that is, He took the form of a serv ant, becoming in the likeness of men (a form and a hkeness to which no honour was hkely to be paid); and being found in fashion as a man (that 1 It is coming to be realized that apirayp,6s is not to be inter preted passively, as equivalent to apvayua, but actively. Cf. John Ross, in Journal of Theol. Stud., July, 1909, pp. 573~574; and W. Warren, in same Review, Apr., 1911, pp. 461-463. 232 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST is, no superhuman appearances being observable in Him, such as would quahfy His self-effacement), He humbled HimseU, becoming obedient even unto death, yea the death of the Cross. Wherefore also (that is, what foUows being clearly in Une with His self-effacement) God highly exalted Him (in the Manhood wherein He humbled Himself), and gave unto Him (added something which He did not have before He humbled Himself by taking the form of a servant) the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus (in the very name whereby men had known Him only as a man) every knee should bow (that is, the very nature, or things of others, which He had made His own became the identifying medium of the honour among men which He had foreborne to grasp), etc. § ii. The rendering of iavrbv e/ceVcDcrev here adopted, "effaced Himself," appears to the writer to be a fairly close idiomatic Enghsh equivalent to St. Paul's rhetorical phraseology; and the continuity of St. Paul's argument seems to require some such interpretation.1 That this is so can be seen when we note the consequences of insisting upon a rigidly literal interpretation. It certainly converts the phrase into a sudden digression, a 1 This seems better than the translation adopted by the writer in The Kenotic Theory, "disparaged Himself." The idea is that He waived the honor to which He was entitled, by "taking the form of a servant," etc. The A. V., "made Himself of no reputation," is true to the idea. NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING 233 digression which is returned from too quickly to justify itself by sufficient inteUigibiUty. St. Paul has prepared his readers to see in the Incarnation a preference on Christ's part of self-effacing concern for the things of others to a vainglorious concern for His own things; but the literal interpretation of this phrase makes Him describe a very different thing — an abandonment of His own things. And since previous to the Incarnation His own things were of the eternal order, He could not have aban doned anything temporal and accidental. He had no such thing to abandon. Those who insist upon a Uteral construction have, therefore, to face the question as to what He could have abandoned. The context supphes two possible answers to this question. He abandoned either the form of God, or His being on an equality with God. The former supposition gains few supporters to-day, and is practically equivalent to the radical theory of an abandonment of his Godhead, already seen to be untenable. If we take the other alternative, usuaUy described as an abandonment of His eternal glory,1 wherein can such abandonment be found? The beloved Son in whom the Father declared Him self to be weU pleased was not less glorious in that 1 A frequent interpretation, e.g. by J. B. Lightfoot, E. H. Gifford, etc. Closely considered, this is in reahty a metaphorical construc tion. Glory is not a thing or content to which the term "emptied" could hteraUy apply. It is rather a relation or repute; and to "empty of glory" is equivalent not to a Uteral emptying, but to "making of no reputation" — in agreement with the A. V. 234 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST Father's eyes because of His submission to our conditions. And if the glory referred to was the honour which was due to His Person from men, that glory had never been given Him, but was won subsequently to the Incarnation by His humiliation and victory over death. The metaphysical notion of an abandonment of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, is not supported by the slightest hint in St. Paul. St. Paul uses the verb Kevoeo with elastic freedom elsewhere,1 and this fact confirms our argument from the context that in the text which we are con sidering he was exercising similar freedom, resort ing to an expression which only becomes difficult when we read into it an a priori view of what the Incarnation involves which is neither pertinent to the catholic doctrine of that mystery nor discov erable in the text before us. How foreign such a view is to St. Paul's thought is apparent when we consider carefully his saying that in Christ "dwelleth aU the fulness of the Godhead bodUy." 2 The 1 Cf. Rom. iv. 14; I Cor. i. 17; ix. 15; 2 Cor. ix. 3. He nowhere uses it hteraUy. Dr. Samuel Hart, N. Y. Churchman, Feb. 26, 1898, p. 308, points out also that the adjective Kkvos is used 13 times in the New Test, in the metaphorical sense of "vain,'' and only 4 times in the literal sense of empty. A. E. J. Rawlinson, in Founda tions, p. 174, n. 1, says, "It is clear from other passages in which the word is used . . . that koiovv in late Greek had come to ;bear a meaning 'to make void,' 'to nuUify,' rather than to make 'empty.' " He translates "minified Himself." Cf. S. N. Rostron, Christology of St. Paul, pp. 113-114, note. 2 Col. ii. 9. NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING 235 pertinency of this assertion is not disproved by the supposition that St. Paul is speaking of Christ in glory. The point is that he here clearly asserts the union of fuU Godhead with bodily manifesta tion in Christ's indivisible Person, and U a real Incarnation is incompatible with the retention of fuU Godhead, it is as truly incompatible now as during our Lord's earthly hfe. His body has indeed been glorified, but it has not become infinite, and finitum non est capax infiniti is as true in relation to a glorified finite as it is in relation to an earthly one. The whole difficulty of modern thought on this sub ject grows, as we have seen, out of the misleading postulate that the Incarnation is a communication of divine properties to human nature. § 12. Lest the attention devoted in this chapter to adverse criticism of the kenotic theory should obscure the positive doctrine of the humiliation of the Son of God which we have been seeking to maintain, we conclude with a brief statement of it. His humiliation consisted in His real sub mission, by making His own the form of a servant, to the hmitations of human nature and experience. We add the significant phrase, "as touching the Manhood" which He assumed. But as He made the Manhood His own personal property and the vehicle of personal experience, this phrase in no wise reduces either the reahty, or the cost of His humihation by hmitations truly felt and by pains and sorrows personaUy endured. 236 THE SELF-EFFACEMENT OF CHRIST We refuse to add, "as touching the Godhead," because such an addition imphes that the Person who endured our hmitations and was "touched with feeling of our infirmities" was not full God, and therefore not the Revealer in human hfe of what very God submitted to for love of us. Every point of view which we can reasonably assume, without stultifying New Testament teaching concerning the work of the divine Revealer and Redeemer, drives us to this conclusion. Neither a consideration of what God can be thought to be in Himself, nor a faithful maintenance of the ethical value of the Incarnation, permits us to acknowledge that the supremest manifestation of divine and almighty love which the world has experienced was in fact a shortening of what the Lord came to reveal in human terms. To use His submission to our woes as an argument for reducing our estimate of what He was — and this is the real logic of kenoticism — seems to us a very strange manner of accepting the claims by which we are made aware of the greatness of the condescension that He was exhib iting when He made them. CHAPTER VIII THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST I. His Twofold Operations § i. No aspect of the mission of Christ is more appeahng to the modern mind, and more essential to the true doctrine, than His submission to be "tempted in aU points like as we are," in order that by His human victory He might afford an example, the perfection and practical value of which is independent of diversities of race, age and cir cumstance. The jealousy, therefore, with which moderns regard any doctrine or theory which appears to reduce the reahty of our Lord's temptations, and of His moral efforts in resisting them, is not only inevitable but imperatively demands our sympathy. Two traditional doctrines are thought by many to be inconsistent with the exemplary aspect of Christ's human hfe: — viz., His coincident posses sion of two wiUs, the divine and the human, and His impeccabihty. Something has already been said as to the necessity that the divine Redeemer should not be hable to moral failure; l and more 1 Cf. chh. iv. n and v. 3 (fin.), above. 238 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST wUl be said in later sections of this chapter as to the bearing of impeccabihty on the reahty of our Lord's temptation, and on the nature and value of His example.1 We have first to consider the doctrine of two wills; which cannot be rightly understood, however, except in relation to the larger doctrine of which it is a part — that of Christ's twofold operations in general.2 This doctrine was declared by the sixth Ecumenical CouncU in the following terms: "We also declare that there are two natural wiUings, dekijo-as, or wills, dekijfiaTa, and two natural energies, in Christ, without separation, without change, without parti tion, without confusion, dSicu/oercos, aLTpeirrcos, apepurreK, ao~vyyyT(i>^, . . . And that the two natural wUls are not opposed to each other, . . . but His human will followed, and it does not resist and oppose, but rather is subject to the divine and almighty will." 3 This doctrine was deduced by the Council from the teaching of the Tome of St. Leo, that each nature of Christ, each forma, "does what is proper to itself in communion with the other."4' It presupposes that the terms "person" and "nature" are dis tinguished in such wise as to include will within the apphcation of "nature."5 By "two natural ener- 1 In § 6 and in §§ 9-12 respectively. 2 Cf. ch. vi. §§ 2-3, above. 3 Given by C. J. Hefele, Hist, of Christ. Councils, Vol . V. pp. I74-I7S- * In ch. iv. » See ch. U. § 8 (fin.), above. HIS TWOFOLD OPERATIONS 239 gies" is meant two natural modes of operation, each nature operating after its proper manner.1 The descriptive adjective "almighty" is used to char acterize Christ's divine wUl, not to imply that His human wiU was overborne and absorbed by almight- iness; and various modern writers have been too hasty in inferring that, if our Lord's human wiU was always subject to His divine wUl, its human integ rity was nullified. Such an inference involves the indefensible premise that uninterrupted subjection of our own wills to the divine will, an acknowledged mark of Christian perfection, can be achieved only at the cost of losing human freedom. It is a Chris tian truism that our wiUs are not completely free until they are thus subjected to the wUl of God. This subjection must indeed be moral, free from com pulsion; but it is essential to a right understanding of the doctrine with which we are concerned to remember that the subjection of Christ's human will to His divine wiU was a branch of His moral per fection, and not the result of constraint.2 This perfection was indeed a fruit of the grace of union; but grace enhances rather than reduces moral freedom. § 2. We shaU be helped in considering the two 1 Of course the phrase "nature operates" means the Ego operates after the manner of Godhead, on the one hand, and after that of manhood, on the other hand. 2 Cf. J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, pp. 97-98. On various theories of free wUl, see Cath. Encyc, q. v., by M. Maher; also H. Calderwood, Moral Philos., Pt. III. ch. Ui. 240 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST wiUs of Christ by first recapitulating certain points which have already been made with regard to the twofold operations of Christ in knowledge. (a) Being truly divine, Christ must have pos sessed divine knowledge, or omniscience, in His Godhead, a knowledge which is exercised in manners that altogether transcend psychical functioning.1 Being also truly human, He exercised in His Man hood the human faculties of knowledge in the psy chical manner and under the hmitations of the human mind and consciousness. In other words He possessed two knowledges, the divine and the human, and to deny either the fulness of the one or the human limitations of the other is to imperil belief in the precious doctrine that Jesus Christ is both God and Man. (b) The mutual connection between these two knowledges in Christ is not truly described as an open association in one conscious experience, which apparently would cause His divine knowledge to overshadow and break down the hmitations of His human experience. Rather it consists in their convergence in a common Ego or Self — this SeU transcending human consciousness and not coming within the compass of things open to direct con scious scrutiny.2 It is in the mysterious domain of self that the divine and human knowledges of Christ meet and interact. Therefore the manner 1 Cf. chh. v. (§ 6) and vi. (§ 2), above. 2 Cf. ch. iv. § 2. HIS TWOFOLD OPERATIONS 241 of interaction was, on the human side, unconscious, for the contents of His divine knowledge could not be openly apprehended by His human mind, so as to become overshadowing elements of His consciousness, destructive of its natural hmitations and of His subjection in our nature to the conditions of human experience. (c) No more adequate phrase is avaUable where with to describe the method and iUuminating effect of the divine mind's action on the human faculties of Christ than the phrase "grace of union." This grace would seem, normally at least, not to operate after the manner of revelation, or direct intimations, concerning things non-ascertainable by human ex perience and reflection, but rather by enhancing the spiritual security of its operations. Just as a tele scope enables human eyes to examine the heavens more perfectly and accurately, without altering the laws of optics, so the grace of union would seem to have increased the range and accuracy of our Lord's understanding of heavenly things, without altering in His case the laws of human intelhgence. (d) The imperviousness of our Lord's divine knowledge to direct scrutiny by His human intelh gence is to be inferred not only from the fact that their meeting point is one which transcends human observation, but also from the fact that divine intel hgence does not psychologize — does not operate in a manner which makes it susceptible to the kind of observation of which human minds are capable. 242 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST Timeless intuition is as adequate a description of divine knowledge as we are able to give. Being infinite and eternal, qua divine, it is not a thing of process, proceeding through phenomenal sequences such as can be apprehended by our minds; and it is not subject, as our knowledge is, to the limiting law of exclusive attention to particulars. Its oper ations and contents have no subjective forms which permit them to emerge within a human conscious ness. Accordingly, possession of divine knowledge by the eternal Son did not and could not upset the integrity and laws of human inteUigence coin- cidently exercised by that same Person.1 § 3. Before applying what has been said to an interpretation of the doctrine of two wiUs, it is desirable to clear away a certain confusion of thought. If what has been said in this volume concerning the theological meaning of " person " 2 and the reahty of self,3 as distinguished from its func tioning, is substantially vahd, we may not regard wm as identified with person in such wise as to make an assertion of two wills necessarUy equivalent to an assertion of two persons in Christ. In human persons there can be but one wiU because in such persons there is but one general mode of function ing, the human. But if in Christ there were two 1 On divine knowing, and its contrast with the human, see The Kenotic Theory, ch. xi; H. C. Powell, Prin. of the Incarn., Bk. I. ch. iv. Cf. Being and Attributes of God, ch. xu. § 3. 2 E.g. in ch. ii. § 8 fin. * In ch. iv. § 2. HIS TWOFOLD OPERATIONS 243 general modes of functioning, the divine and the human, we cannot deny that there were two wiUs in Him except on the mistaken assumption that either divine or human functioning is complete, is possible, without wiU as constituent and deter mining element. And wiU is a particular functioning of seU, not the self which functions. As a mode of functioning it is also not a substantial thing; and "two wiUs in one person" does not signify two mutuaUy external and static things possessed by the person, but two functional modes of determination in action by the person, pertaining severally to divine and human operations. These preliminaries wiU faciUtate an understanding of the particulars now to be set forth. (a) Being truly divine, and functioning after the divine manner, Christ must have exercised these functions in a self-determining manner, that is, voluntarily; and the manner of His will in these functions must have been divine, that is, eternal and transcending the psychical processes which attend and condition human willing. Being also human, and submitting to operate in His Manhood after the human manner, He must also have acted voluntarily in His human functioning; and the manner of His wUhng in this functioning must have been truly human, that is, subject to processes of deliberation and to motives derived from human experience — a manner widely different from that of divine willing. 244 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST (b) The meeting point and sphere of interaction between the divine and human wills of Christ, thus functioning in different manners, is His personal Self. The divine wiU was His will while on earth, and likewise the human will; but their interaction did not and could not emerge within human con sciousness at all, except in its indirect effects on his human will, yet to be considered.1 The divine will did not become a psychical phenomenon — it does not operate in a psychical manner, — and did not therefore become a disturbing and overbearing factor in the conscious process of His human de liberation and vohtion.2 (c) The same phrase has to be employed in describ ing the action and moral effect of His divine upon his Human wiU which was used in describing the action of His divine upon His human- intelligence — the grace of union. In so far as such grace illumined His human intelligence and protected it from spiritual deception, without disturbing the laws of its functioning, to this extent it afforded guiding factors in our Lord's human deliberations 1 P. T. Forsyth supposes that the initial act of divine wiU by which Christ accepted human conditions prevented His sinning. He does not face the question, How can a divine act of willing be initial in the sense of coming to an end? But his contention is an acknowl edgment that somehow the divine wiU acted on His human will. It is significant that he adds that, since His human mind was ignorant of the preventive power saving Him from sin, therefore His tempta tion was a felt reahty. Person and Place of Christ, pp. 341-342. 2 A. J. Mason, Conditions of our Lord's Life, p. 66, misses this. HIS TWOFOLD OPERATIONS 245 which protected His moral judgments from coming in conflict with righteousness. This grace, judging from the less abundant effects of grace within our selves, also strengthened His human will in the pursuit of righteousness, such strengthening con stituting an emancipation and perfecting of human freedom, rather than an alteration of the laws of human volition and a nullification of the human quahty of such functioning. Moreover, there is no warrant for supposing that either the human effort necessary on our Lord's part in choosing and acting righteously, or the sufferings involved in such choice and action, were reduced in degree and moral value.1 Neither our own experience with grace nor the Gospel accounts of His human experience justify such a conclusion. (d) The imperviousness to human scrutiny of the operations of Christ's divine will could not have been less absolute than that of the activity of His divine inteUigence. But His human will, qua hu man, could not be influenced except in two ways, that is, by humanly gained considerations and mo tives, and by the operations of grace above indicated. These influences could not nullify either the integrity of His human will, His being accessible to human motives and temptations, or the properly human and painful quahty of the efforts by which He won His moral victory and persevered in obedience unto death. 1 Cf. § 7, below. 246 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST The doctrine of two wills, as we have imperfectly set forth its contents and bearings, while essential to belief in our Lord's full participation in the natures of God and of man, is not open to the charge most apt at present to be made against it — that of dual ism. He who wills in Christ is one, and the dis tinction of wills is not a disruption of His Person, but a description of His functions — twofold because the self-same Christ is both God and Man.1 § 4. In exercising His human will Christ dis played a character and moral power which, along with the absence of any contrary evidence, con strains us to acknowledge the truth of His claim to be entirely free from sin.2 In being sinless He was absolutely unique among those who have been born of woman. It is true that a few human saints have attained, after much seU-discipUne, an approximate freedom from sin; and, according to practically uni versal catholic opinion, the Blessed Virgin was en abled by grace to avoid at least aU mortal sin. But her case belongs to the category of explainable ex ceptions which prove the rule, and all instances of approximate sinlessness among mere human beings, 1 On our Lord's two wiUs, see St. Thomas, Summa Theol., III. xviu; W. Bright, Sermons of St. Leo, n. 56; and Sermons on the Incarn., pp. 109-110; Rich. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, V. xlviU. 9; Cath. Encyc, s. v. "Monothelites," A; Wilhelm and ScanneU, Cath. Theol. § 174; A. P. Forbes, Nicene Creed, pp. 204-206. 2 In the rest of this chapter we shaU bring together in coherent sequence certain thoughts which have had to be separately anti cipated, in some cases more than once, in the previous chapters. HIS TWOFOLD OPERATIONS 247 including her case, are fruits of the grace of Christ.1 He alone made sinlessness attainable for others through His grace; and in Him alone it was not merely an attainment but also the proper effect and mani festation of a moral invincibility which characterized Him from the very beginning of His experience with temptation. It is true that He was made perfect by what He suffered,2 but the facts require us to interpret such a statement as meaning that it was through suffering that His initial invincibility de veloped into the actualized forms of virtue — the forms in which it had to develop in order to have exemplary value and to become the subject-matter of divine approval before man.3 The uniqueness of the phenomenon compels us to beheve that it cannot be explained except by assuming that our Lord possessed unique resources in meeting temptation. To insist that He began in every respect on our level is not only to disregard the necessities involved in His Person and redemp tive mission, but is also to leave unexplained a demonstration of moral and spiritual strength of which we know other men to be incapable. In view of requirements already sufficiently vindicated in this volume, certain Unes of explanation have 1 That what she was represents a fruit of Christ's redemption is acknowledged even in the papal BuU Ineffabilis, on the Immaculate Conception. 2 Heb. n. 10. 3 St. Matt. iii. 17; St. Mark i. 11; St. Luke Hi. 22. Cf. St. Luke ii. 52- 248 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST to be ehminated. Being truly human, and having as vital part of His mission to set a really human example, Christ cannot be thought to have over borne the spontaneous tendencies of His human will by enUsting compulsory influences from His God head. The open invasion of His divine volition within His human consciousness we have seen to be impossible in any case. It is equaUy impossible to suppose that His Manhood was rendered either non-sensitive or less sensitive to the appealing power of temptation. That he was really "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" is a vital truth. Finally, we cannot, in face of the evidence, suppose that Christ was freed from the normal dependence of human beings for moral victory upon strenuous effort and upon the endurance of great suffering. The Gospel narratives show that every fibre of His Manhood was wracked to the last degree in meeting temptation.1 No explanation is credible except the ancient one, that the resources of grace in His Manhood were unique. Our own experience teaches us that grace does not nuUify either our accessibihty to temp tation or our dependence upon human faculties and efforts in moral conflict. Its observed effect is to fortify our purpose of resisting temptations and to facihtate our success in resisting them after the human manner. If we were so highly endowed with grace as to be sure of success, the manner and 1 EspeciaUy in the Garden of Gethsemane. HIS TWOFOLD OPERATIONS 249 cost of such success would remain unchanged — perfectly human. To explain . the moral invinci bility of Christ we have to hypothecate such fulness of grace in Him. We are told that the Holy Spirit was given to His Manhood without measure,1 that is to the fuU measure of the receptive capacity of a Manhood not previously tainted by sin. This does not mean that His Manhood possessed the actuahzed virtues of sainthood ab initio, but that its successful growth in these virtues was made possible and inevitable — the cost of success being none the less aU that attends perfect moral victory in human Ufe on earth. This impeccability, as His moral invincibility is usually called, was, as we have seen, a legitimate fruit of His fulness of grace. It needs to be added that, in last analysis, the thought of very God sinning, or rendering HimseU reaUy liable to sin, is inconsistent with the most elementary conception of the Source and Standard of righteousness.2 But Christ's impeccabihty was not a mechanical necessity. Such a conception is inconsistent with its moral quahty and value. Nor is it happily described as inability to sin, for it was supreme abihty that made our Lord impeccable — the abihty which characterizes emancipation from the weakness and servile hmitations of freedom that make us 1 Cf. St. John Ui. 34. 2 That we needed a moraUy invincible Christ wUl be shown in § 8 below. 250 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST hable to sin. It was essentially the revelation, in terms of genuine human conflict and effort, of a perfection and moral freedom which Christ enables us also ultimately to acquire, when by His grace we finally outgrow forever the earthly weakness which renders us liable to sin. To this point we shaU return.1 II. His Temptation § 5. In discussing our Lord's temptation we begin by insisting upon the postulate that He was "in all points tempted like as we are." 2 This does not mean that He was as helpless as we are in meet ing temptations; but it does mean that He was accessible to temptation through all normal avenues, and that He in fact experienced temptations at every accessible point of attack. To avoid erroneous inferences from this postulate we need to consider very carefully what temptation really is and what it necessarily involves.3 Much hasty generahza- 1 In §§ 9, 12, below. On the sinlessness and moral invincibUity of Christ, see E. D. la Touche, Person of Christ, pp. 232-248; Chas. Harris, Pro Fide, pp. 388-400; E. Bougaud, Divinity of Christ, ch. iv; H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, pp. 163-198; D. Stone, Outlines, pp. 77-81; Hastings, Die of Christ, s. d. "Character of Christ"; C. H. Robinson, Studies in the Character of Christ; H. R. Mackin tosh, Person of Jesus Christ, pp. 400-404. 2 Heb. iv. 15. 3 On temptation, see Hastings, Die of Bible,*, v. "Tempt, Tempta tion"; Die of Christ; Blunt, Die. of Theol.; and Cath. Encyc, q. v.; J. B. Mayor, Ep. of St. James, i. 1-15. HIS TEMPTATION 251 tion has attended modern discussions of our Lord's temptation.1 Strictly defined, "to tempt" is to test. In ordinary application it is to test morally, or to put to moral proof by affording opportunities and induce ments to sin. This is the proper extent of necessary meaning which can be ascribed to the phrase. The word "temptation" is used to describe both the process or conditions by which we are thus put to moral proof, and the experience or trial to which such a process or condition subjects us. By a special extension of use men are sometimes said to be tempted when the real meaning is that they are inchned to yield to temptation, but neither an inclination to yield nor even a habihty to yield are either contained or necessarily involved in the strict meaning of temptation. AU that is required in order that subjection to temptation shall be real is that the person tempted shall be a moral being, and that the test shall be really appUcable, and such as wUl put his attitude towards evil to genuine proof. Provided he is put to moral proof, the genuineness of his temptation is not reduced by his being thereby shown to be moraUy invincible. 1 On Christ's temptabihty and temptation, see Hastings, Die of Christ, s. v. "Temptation (in the WUderness)"; Cath. Encyc, s. v. "Temptation of Christ"; W. H. Hutchings, Mystery of Tempta tion, pp. 116 et seq.; W. Bright, Sermons of St. Leo, n. 15; H. R. Mackintosh, op. cit., pp. 401-403; A. J. Mason, Faith of the Gospel, ch. vi. § 13; A. C. A. HaU, Christ's Temptation and Ours; W. H. MUI, Temptation of Christ, esp. Serm. u. 252 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST § 6. The example of Christ lies in the fact that His being put to proof by our temptations brought to hght in Him a moral invincibihty which He enables us also ultimately to acquire by self-disciplinary growth in His grace.1 But because in this world we have not achieved this growth and are univer sally prone to sin, we generalize from our immediate experience, and regard temptabiUty as equivalent to peccability. In doing so we confuse opportunities and felt inducements to sin with habihty to use such opportunities and to yield to such inducements. The former may be clearly perceived and keenly felt — that is, temptation may be fully experienced — by a human agent, whether such experience endangers his righteousness or not. That it does endanger our righteousness is due, not to any in trinsic necessity that temptation, as such, should have this result, but, to that imperfection in us which Christ came to remedy. Temptation proves every one of us to be weak because we are so; but if we were fullgrown, after the pattern of Christ, without ceasing to be real temptation, it would prove our invincibility — an invincibility not less absolute because moral and because acquired after much backsliding. That in us which opens the doors to temptation, if we except the consequences of previous sinfulness, as we must in Christ's case, is neither sinful itself nor due to our liabiUty to sin. It consists of natural 1 For fuller statements, see §§ 9-12, below. HIS TEMPTATION 253 appetites and impulses, which become sinful only when we faU to regulate them and to use them righteously. When they are evoked under cir cumstances which make their gratification sinful, we are tempted, and the acuteness of the temptation is seen in the painfulness of effort required in order to restrain the impulses thus evoked. It is this painfulness of effort that endangers us and makes us liable to sin. But the explanation of our danger hes in our own deficiencies, not in any necessary inconsistency between such painfulness and uncon querable readiness to endure it for righteousness sake. Impeccabihty and human nature are mutually incompatible under our existing conditions, partly because unassisted human nature is not equal to the task of achieving human destiny — it was not designed by its Creator to be so — and partly because we have not yet sufficiently grown in the perfecting grace which we were eternaUy intended to enjoy. Therefore temptation is for us an ever recurring proof of our deficiencies, calculated to admonish us of our need of grace and of self-dis cipline, or practice in the use of grace. But there were no such deficiencies in Jesus Christ, because He took a sinless Manhood and filled it with grace for the express purpose of reveahng the abiding moral perfection which it is His mission to enable us to attain. This perfection necessarily includes moral invincibihty. 254 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST § 7. We have been saying that the reality and appeaUng power of our temptations lies in the efforts and sufferings which we have to make and endure in order to resist them. And these efforts and suffer ings become necessary not because we are hable to yield, but because, and just so far as, we do battle and avoid sin. If we were impeccable this would mean that the battle would be fought by us in every case, and therefore that the strain of toil and pain necessary for successful persistence would be fully experienced. The reason is that our natural appetites and impulses are not reduced and rendered less painful to control by invincible determination to control them.1 It needs to be remembered in this connection that the straining of human powers in moral conflict, and the sufferings incurred therein, are experienced in proportion to our success in resisting temptation rather than according to our tendency to yield. The impact of a head-on collision far exceeds that of a rear-end collision. The efforts and pains referred to arise from our resistance, not from our yielding, and are intensified in proportion to the absoluteness of our refusal to gratify our natural appetites and impulses.2 1 Practice does indeed make resistance to temptation morally easier, but the suffering mvolved in non-gratification of the impulses to which temptation appeals is not reduced on this account. Cf. Malcolm MaccoU, Christianity in Relation to Science and Morals, pp. 140-149. ' 2 Cf. A. B. Bruce, Humiliation of Christ, pp. 264-268. HIS TEMPTATION 255 Now Christ was truly human, and therefore pos sessed to the full the natural appetites which render us accessible to temptation. Abnormal and in trinsically sinful appetites, being the effects of pre vious human sin rather than proper necessities of human nature, He did not experience. But to control natural appetites, and the impulses arising spontaneously from them, was as painful to Him as it is to us. The difference lay in His moral reso lution and fortitude. Just because He resisted temptation with a persistence which is unique in the moral history of mankind, the efforts which He had to make, and the agonies which He incurred in making them, exceeded anything which our easiness of virtue — our failure to meet temptation in head-on collision — permits us to experience. So far from His moral invincibility reducing the brunt of temptation for him, the precise contrary occurred. Paradoxical though the statement appears when not adequately considered, just because He was moraUy invincible He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities to a degree transcending all other human experience. He learned more of what moral victory involves in toil and pain than we have learned, because He achieved perfect victory all along the hne,1 and we recoil from the cost of it. 1 The catholicity of His experience is weU expressed by the Ch. Quarterly Review, Oct., 1897, pp. 167-168: "In one hfe He gained the possession of experiential sympathy with a multitude of other hves of varying circumstances, because the divine attributes which 256 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST It is this exhaustive experience of the cost of victory over sin that assures us of His sympathy. If He had not set His face "like a flint," x He might have sympathized after the manner of weaker men with the supine regrets of those who seek other com fort than that which comes from help in forsaking sin — the false comfort which moral shirkers so often interchange with each other; — but His sympathy with the struggles and sorrows of those who are seriously striving to become perfect would have been inadequate because of His lack of expe rience. Those who would emphasize for themselves and for others the appealing value of Christ's example have need to remember the nature of His example. Christ exhibits the pattern and the human cost of Christian perfection. Having endured this cost He understands as no other participant in our nature can understand what we are asked to endure. He knows why we so often fail, and His suffering makes Him alive to the fact that His victory was due to the fulness of grace with which He was endowed. Therefore His sympathy is patient; and He bears with our weakness whUe we grow in His grace,' a grace which He knows by convincing experience will assure us a full victory, when our growth therein were His as He passed through His earthly Ufe enabled Him to find in a single set of circumstances contact with and experience of other circumstances, of which these were but typical." 1 Isa. 1. 7. HIS TEMPTATION 257 is completed. To reduce what we are saying to brief compass, He experienced in our nature both the cost of moral victory and the invincible power of the grace wherewith He was endowed. There fore being acquainted with our trials, He sympa thizes with us; and, having verified the power of grace in resisting and enduring, He knows that we can win by the power which He possesses and imparts to us.1 § 8. In order fully to realize how necessary it was that Jesus Christ should be morally invincible — that is impeccable — we need to remember that the purpose for which He took our nature was not merely to set an example of perfect conduct and character. Had that been the limit of His achieve ment, wonderful and necessary as His success in that regard was, we should be baffled rather than helped by it, if He had not done something even more marvelous. AU men have sinned, and in order that they may even begin to turn to Christ and to grow in His grace, the existing power of sinful ten dencies in us has to be broken, and pardon has to be won, by divine redemption. Jesus Christ came to be not only our example but also our divine Re deemer. And there had to be present in Him the 1 To magnify the power which Christ had at His service in temptation is to magnify the power which, through our union with Him, we also can use when we have learned how by practice, by self-discipline. His use of it in His Manhood was its enUstment for the recovery of our manhood. 258 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST ability not only to exhibit our nature in the final and invincible perfection which it is intended by divine grace to acquire, but also to undermine the ancient power of Satan over us, to make full expiation for our sins, and to carry our nature, perfected by suf fering, through the very jaws of death into the everlasting life which He came in order to win for us. If the redemptive aspect of His mission is ade quately considered, it can be seen to require for its success a concurrence in the Redeemer's work of perfect human obedience and of the regal authority and almighty power of God. Nor is it possible to separate the two factors, so as to give each its turn to the exclusion of the other. The two aspects are both vital to every stage of a true redemption. Christ's victory over temptation is part of His redemptive work as well as exemplary — affording an effective example because truly charged with the redemptive power and value of a divine work. As representing a truly human obedience unto death, it gives His death a value which is at once human and meritorious. On the other hand, as repre senting the obedience of very God, it causes the merit of His death to transcend in value that of the death of any individual human saint, however perfect he may be. This infinite merit of Christ's death is due, it is to be observed, not merely to God's taking on Himself the death which we deserve because of our sins, but to the fact that God was agent also in THE GOAL OF CHRISTIANS 259 the human obedience and moral victory from which the meritorious quahty of that death is derived. The mistake involved in isolating our Lord's example from the wider aspects of His Person and mission is not less serious because frequently made. And its consequence is not only to sacrifice truths which are as vital to us as is the truth of His being our example, but also to impoverish the meaning and value of Christ's example itself. If His victory was simply that of a human saint, its uniqueness teaches us its futility as an example by which men in general can profit. It is in that case an excep tion of genius lying quite beyond the range of pos sible achievement by ordinary men. But because it is the victory of a God-man, who has redeemed us, and who makes us sharers in His grace, we may reasonably hope to grow in that grace until His perfection becomes our own.1 III. The Goal of Christians § 9. In discussing our Lord's temptation we have had to indicate the chief particulars involved in saying that He is our example; but our task will 1 In brief, Christ had to be impeccable (a) because very God can not sin under any conditions (cf. § 4, above); (6) as condition of divine redemption; (c) as revealing in successful exercise the power by which alone we can become perfect; (d) as revealing the goal of our development (cf. § 9, below); (e) as exhibiting a divine ex ample (cf. § n, below). We were made after the hkeness of God and must imitate God. 260 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST not be fully completed untU we have recapitulated these particulars in connected order, and with fuUer statements.1 In the first place Jesus Christ is our Example because His hfe and character exhibit in human terms the spiritual likeness after which we were made, the perfection which by His grace we are under divinely imposed obligation to acquire. In Him was openly manifested for the first time the goal of spiritual development which God had in view when He made man in His own image and after His own likeness. The fact that Christ exemplifies in terms of each stage of earthly probation what we are finally to become rather than what is possible for us now to accomplish, affords a chief reason for the absolute uniqueness of His perfection. And this reason helps us to see that the impossibUity of duphcating His sinless perfection in this hfe is not a reason for denying the practical value of His example for our selves. He reveals what He helps us to become, but this becoming is a long process. It is not within the range of immediate possibihties. 1 On our Lord's example, see The Kenotic Theory, ch. vi; Archd. WUberforce, Incarnation, chh. i-iv; Ch. Quarterly Review, July, 1883, art. Ui; W. H. Hutchings, Mystery of Temptation, pp. 116 et seq.; Hastings, Die of Christ, s. v. "Example"; C. H. Robinson, Studies in the Character of Christ, chh. iu-iv. Cf. Jerem. xxin. 6; St. Matt. xi. 29-30; St. John xiv. 6, 12; Rom. vui. 29; xv. 2, 3, 5; Ephes. v. 1-2 (with St. Matt. v. 48); PhU. n. 5-11; 1 St. Pet. U. 20-21; 1 St. John ui. 3. THE GOAL OF CHRISTIANS 261 In one sense His perfection hes beyond even future attainment by us. This is so because His example is cathohc, including the various types of perfection which are possible for individual men, but transcending every particular one because embracing the perfections of aU types. No one, however, is responsible for reaching any other per fection than that which is appropriate to himself, and Christ is a true pattern for each human person because His perfection includes the excellences of character which that person can and ought to obtain by His grace. The fact that Christ never experienced sin in Himself is a vital part of His being the kind of Example that He is. From the nature of things His hfe could not exemplify both a hfe-long freedom from sin and the advance from sinfulness to right eousness which we have to make. But the pattern of perfection which He came to offer — one which was needed and He alone could give — presupposes an entirely sinless life. Accordingly He did not set an example of repentance, although He preached it to others as the initial condition of their following His example, for until sin is" repented of, growth in the grace of Christ is beyond our power. He did more than preach repentance, He died, and His death is the ground of forgiveness for penitent sinners; and it is by His grace that His saints afford examples of repentance and of escape from the slavery of sin. 262 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST § 10. In this way the examples of penitent saints are branches of the example of Christ; because it is by the grace of Christ, and by the enlightening influence of His righteousness, that they are able to set us examples of repentance and of recovery from sin. But Jesus Christ never trod what is called the purgative way. He never experienced the sense of sin, and His marvelous humility included no peccavi. The examples of holy penitents are therefore important adjuncts to the personal life of Christ. His example, coupled with His redemption and grace, is indeed all-sufficient, but only because it makes possible and interprets other examples — examples which He had to give indirectly through the hves of His foUowers. This fUling up of His example is similar to the mystery to which St. Paul alludes when he speaks of filling up on his part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in his (St. Paul's) flesh for the sake of Christ's body, the Church.1 St. Paul does not mean that Christ's passion was insufficient, but that its beneficial effects are to some extent conditioned by the suffer ings of others; and Christian experience proves that this is so. To borrow a figure, Simon had to help Christ in His passion by carrying His Cross up the hill.2 The truth which we are enforcing is one that is very widely forgotten in our day, partly, no doubt, 1 Col. i. 24. 2 St. Matt, xxvii. 32 and paraUels. THE GOAL OF CHRISTIANS 263 through reaction from an over-exuberant hagiology and from superstitious saint-worship. But the emphasis now laid by all upon the example of Christ ought to bring with it a recovered appreciation of the part which the lives of the saints play in apply ing His example to the needs of sinners. Anglicans, in particular, lose an important adjunct of Christ's example by their frequent faUure to profit by the help which He affords through the penitential vic tories of His saints. § n. Our Lord's example is divine as weU as human, and its being divine is not only vital but even primary. We do not mean that its being truly human is less vital, but that the perfection of man hes in His success in assimilating on human hnes the moral perfection of God. Our Lord summarizes the lessons which He gives in the Sermon on the Mount by the phrase, "Be ye therefore per fect even as your Father in heaven is perfect." St. Paul exhorts his readers to be imitators of God, going on to describe Christ's example as revealing what such imitation involves.1 We are not to think that this means merely that we are to be as perfect after the human manner as God is after the divine manner. It means that there is a spiritual hkeness in God which we are to appropriate, for we have 1 St. Matt. v. 48; Ephes. v. 1-2. Cf. The Kenotic Theory, pp. 126-128; Hastings, Die of Christ, s. v. "Example," B. 1; E. H. Gifford, Incarnation, pp. 101-102; Ch. Quarterly Review, Oct., 1897, p. 168. 264 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST been made in the image of God with a view to our development after His likeness. The bibhcal name for human perfection is godliness, and the glory of a perfect man is that he is godlike. Christ affords an example of human perfection because He exhibits the character of God in human terms, and the fact that His character is the char acter of God is the determinative fact — the element in His example which makes it, as it is, the supreme objective standard of our righteousness. He trans lated divine character into human terms because His Incarnation is an entrance of very God into the conditions which made obedience to the law for man the manner of divine righteousness. The life of Christ is the life which God leads when He con descends to take our nature; and therefore it is a true laying bare of divine perfection, and of the goal of spiritual growth which our created nature and divinely appointed destiny set before us. Our appointed destiny is to become the friends of God.1 The essential condition of such friendship is mutual love; and the only basis upon which this love can acquire an abiding value is the development of complete mutual congeniality. But congeniality between personal beings requires, in fact means, their possession of common joys — an impossibihty unless there is a real community of character. Com munity of character between God and man can be 1 Cf. St. John xv. 14-15; St. James ii. 23; Isa. xh. 8; Exod. xxxiii. 11. THE GOAL OF CHRISTIANS 265 developed only by the assimilation of human char acter to the divine. That this is so needs no argu ments to prove. It is true that God loves us while we are yet sinners, but the reason lies in the potential basis of growth out of sin into righteousness which divine grace can convert into actuahty. It is because of this potential and prospective element in sinners that God was wUling to pay the price of death on the Cross in order to convert what is potential into actuality. Just as a mother loves a troublesome chUd for the man whom she sees to be incipient in him, so God loves His sinful chUdren for the fuUgrown imitators of Christ whom He is helping them to become. Unless what we have said can be shown to be false, and it cannot be refuted, the habit of insisting exclusively upon the human quality of Christ's example is based upon serious error; for unless Christ came to reveal the character of God, His example does not possess the absolute finality and determinative authority over our hves that Chris tians rightly beheve it to have. And what we are saying in this section reinforces on irrefutable grounds the contention we have been making that the moral invincibility of Christ — His impecca bility — is a necessary characteristic of the example which Christ came to afford. To suppose that divine character is not invincibly righteous is to suppose a very incredible thing indeed. § 12. The example of Christ has no value for us 266 THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST unless it can be imitated; and the fact that the imitation of Christ is possible — under the condi tions, and with the helps, which He has made available — is a vital part of the doctrine of His example. But we need to realize that our imitation of Him can never assume the form of an external duphcation of His actions and words. We err grievously, if we think that we ought to do what Jesus Christ would do under our circumstances. We are privates in the ranks, whereas He is the Lord of all and the Head of our race. Duties and responsibilities feU to Him, and determined His words and actions, which can never faU to us. It is His character that we are to assimilate, and not the accidents of His mission. An external imitation of Him, such as we are speaking of, would be presumptuous in the extreme. Furthermore, our imitation of Him cannot con sist in an immediate assimUation of His perfect character. The terrible fact of sin absolutely pre cludes a sudden achievement of this kind. Life-long self-disciphne, based for its value upon what Christ has done for us, conditioned at every stage by repentance, and made effectual by the grace of Christ, constitutes the only possible method of our imitation of Him. There is indeed such a thing as instantaneous conversion; but this consists in a contrite change of life-purpose. It does not include a full achievement of this hfe-purpose, which is accomplished only by a progress to which, in most THE GOAL OF CHRISTIANS 267 cases at least, even death does not set the term of duration. In this hfe we are enabled and required to initiate the process of growth toward Christ, but the satisfaction of awaking after His hkeness1 can be enjoyed only as a result of processes completed beyond the grave. But because the victory of Christ was not merely an unexplainable triumph of exceptional human genius for righteousness, but signalized the enlist ment of divine resources — resources which Christ was to make available to His followers — therefore we are assured that the most ordinary men of every race and condition can foUow Him, and in the end can have part in His victory and in His glory. 1 1 St. John in. 2; Rom. vi. 5. CHAPTER IX THE OFFICES OF CHRIST I. His Prophetic Office § i. The sending of the eternal Son into the world, the fact that He came rather than either the Father or the Holy Spirit, is explained partly by His eternal relation to the Godhead as Son, Image and Word, and partly by. the relation of creatures to Him as one through whom they are made and in whom they consist. These relations constitute Him the proper Mediator between God and creation at large, especially between God and man.1 In Him as Logos are the patterns of things, and He is the Image in which men were made, in order that in Him they might become chUdren of God by adoption and grace. Consequently it is due to the fundamental nature of things that the Son should declare to men the God whom no man can see,2 and that He should be the Representative both of God to men and of men to God.3 1 St. John xiv. 6; Rom. v. 1-2; Ephes. n. 13-18; 1 Tim. n. 5; Heb. U. 17; ix. 15; x. 19-20; xu. 24. Cf. Job ix. 33. 2 St. John i. 18. 3 On the mediatorial functions of Christ, see chh. iv. 10; vi. 9, above; and St. Thomas, Summa Theol., III. xxvi; H. P. Liddon, HIS PROPHETIC OFFICE 269 It can be seen that the mystery of mediation grows out of the fact of creation, and is permanent. The fact that such a creature as man exists carries with it his dependence upon God, and the relations to Him with the cultivation of which rehgion is concerned. Sin disturbs these relations and neces sitates the redemptive part of mediation, but the need of mediation of some kind would have been a permanent element in human experience, even if man had never sinned.1 This mediation has three obvious and natural branches, the prophetic, priestly and kingly. The prophetic office has to do with making known to men the nature, purpose and laws of God. The priestly office is concerned with bringing about and maintaining vital communion and acceptable rela tions between God and man, relations which are partly individual on man's side, but also social and corporate. Man is essentiaUy a social being, and His relations to God are vitally affected by this fact.2 The kingly office is that of divine vicegerent, representing God in sovereignty and judgment. The controlUng principle of human conduct is Some Elements of Religion, cheaper ed., pp. 228-231; Bp. Pearson, Creed, fol. pp. 92-104; Hastings, Die. of Bible and Die of Christ, s. v. "Mediator"; P. G. Medd, The One Mediator. 1 Heb. vu. 15-17, 24-25, viu. 1-2; xui. 8. St. Thomas, op. cit., III. xxU. 5-6; P. Freeman, Principles of Divine Service, Vol. II. pp. 142-145; P. G. Medd, op. cit., §§ 10-14, and Lee. iv; B. F. West cott, Ep. to the Heb., i. 2; vu. 16. 2 Cf. Creation and Man, ch. vu. § 7. 270 THE OFFICES OF CHRIST responsibility for obedience to the wiU of God in general, and in particular for fulfilment of the purpose and destiny with reference to which man was made.1 In human history these mediatorial offices are fulfilled in dispensational ways. There has been a series of divine dispensations or covenants,2 each embodying divinely imposed conditions and laws of mediation adapted to the existing stage of progress in the deahngs of God with men. The order and distinctive peculiarities of these dispensations are in general determined by man's need of salvation from sin, and of mental and moral preparation for its achievement in the fulness of time. The primi tive dispensation of innocence and grace being nuUified by human sin,3 it was succeeded by a series of patriarchal dispensations, introductory to a more permanent legalistic covenant, whereby a chosen race was trained by statutes and judgments to receive the Gospel of salvation and to become vessels of salvation to the rest of mankind.4 The Christian dispensation is final for this world, because in it the Mediator reveals Himself, bringing to men the fulness both of grace and truth, and enabhng them to enter effectively into the vital relations 1 Op. cit., pp. 229-230. 2 On divine covenants, see E. B. Davidson, in Hastings, Die. of Bible, s. v. "Covenants," u-v. Cf. Creation and Man, ch. vii. §3- 3 Creation and Man, ch. viu. 1 Creation and Man, ch. x. §§ 3-5. HIS PROPHETIC OFFICE 271 with God wherein the hfe of the world to come consists. In each dispensation the one true Mediator oper ates, whether by figure or precept, law or prophecy, until He finally manifests Himself in flesh, and after perfecting His flesh by suffering and victory over death, makes it the medium of His grace to us and of our access through Him to God. In external aspects, what is prefigured in older dispensations the Redeemer fulfils and the new covenant applies, the carnal signs of the old giving way to spirituaUy effective sacraments in a new dispensation of saving and sanctifying grace. § 2. The prophetic office J is to speak for God to men, and to interpret the will and purpose of God. AU that is mvolved in such function is included in prophecy, of which predicting the future is a very secondary element. And all true prophecy, even when ministered by purely human agents, is mediated from God through His eternal Logos.2 He is the true Light, "which lighteth every man coming into the world," 3 the immanent Reason of the whole creation. "In Him were aU things created, . . . through Him and unto Him." 4 Accordingly 1 On Christ's prophetic office, see H. P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, pp. 169-172; and Some Words of Christ, i; St. Thomas, Summa Theol., III. vU. 8; H. C. PoweU, Principle of the Incarnation, pp. 206-220; Hastings, Die of Christ, s. v. "Prophet." 2 Wm. Lee, Inspiration of Holy Scripture, Lee. Ui. 3 St. John i. 9. Cf. verses 4-5. « Col. i. 16. 272 THE OFFICES OF CHRIST natural revelation comes from Him, and the meaning of creation is His meaning. It constitutes the preamble of His prophecy; and when we correctly interpret nature, we think His thought after Him. So it is that "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor lan guage. Their voice cannot be heard." Yet, "their hne is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." 1 And if when "the Light shine thin the darkness, . . . the darkness apprehended it not," this is because men "hold down the truth in unrighteousness." None the less "that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of Him since the Creation of the world are clearly seen" by reason of the Logos in which we are created to have share, "being per ceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity." 2 J£