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His garments; and took a towel, and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded b.' If St. John or the Creed had proceeded to introduce a new subject to whom the circumstances of Christ's earthly Life properly belonged, and who only maintained a mysterious, even although it were an indissoluble connexion with the Eternal Word in heaven, then the charge of making Christ a 'double Being' would be warrantable. Nestorius was fairly liable to that charge. He practically denied that the Man Christ Jesus was One Person with the Eternal Word. In order to heighten the ethical import of the Human Life of Christ, Nestorianism represents our Lord as an individual Man, Who, although He is the temple and organ of the Deity to which He is united, yet has a separate basis of personality in His Human Nature. The individuality of the Son of Mary is thus treated as a distinct thing from that of the Eternal Word; and the Christ of Nestorianism is really a 'double Being,' or rather he is two distinct persons, mysteriously joined in one c. But the Church has formally condemned this error, and in so doing she was merely throwing into the form of a doctrinal proposition the plain import of the narrative of St. John's Gospel d.

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St. John xiii. 4, 5.

Ap. Marium Merc. p. 54: ‘Non Maria peperit Deum. Non peperit creatura increabilem, sed peperit hominem Deitatis instrumentum. Divido naturas, sed conjungo reverentiam. Cf. Nestorii Ep. iii. ad Caelestin. (Mansi, tom. iv. 1197): τὸ προελθεῖν τὸν Θεὸν Λόγον ἐκ τῆς χριστοτόκου παρθένου παρὰ τῆς θείας ἐδιδάχθην γραφῆς· τὸ δὲ γεννηθῆναι Θεὸν ἐξ αὐτῆς, οὐδαμοῦ ἐδιδάχθην. And his famous saying, I will never own a child of two months old to be God.' (Labbe, iii. 506.)

d St. Leo in Epist. ad Leonem Aug. ed. Ballerino, 165 : ‘Anathematizetur ergo Nestorius, qui beatam Virginem non Dei, sed hominis tantummodo credidit genitricem, ut aliam personam carnis faceret, aliam Deitatis; nec unum Christum in Verbo Dei et carne sentiret, sed separatum atque sejunctum alterum Filium Dei, alterum hominis prædicaret.' See Confession of the Easterns, accepted by St. Cyril, Labbe, iii. 1107: Ὁμολογοῦμεν τὸν Κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν, τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ, Θεὸν τέλειον καὶ ἄνθρωπον τέλειον ἐκ ψυχῆς λογικῆς καὶ σώματος, πρὸ αἰώνων μὲν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα κατὰ τὴν Θεότητα, ἐπ' ἐσχάτων δὲ τῶν ἡμερῶν τὸν αὐτὸν ἐκ Μαρίας κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρω πότητα, ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρὶ κατὰ τὴν Θεότητα, ὁμοούσιον ἡμῖν κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρω πότητα δύο γὰρ φύσεων ἕνωσις γέγονε. Κατὰ ταύτην τὴν τῆς ἀσυγχύτου ἑνώσεως ἔννοιαν ὁμολογοῦμεν τὴν ἁγίαν Παρθένον Θεοτόκον, διὰ τὸ τὸν Θεὸν Λόγον σαρκωθῆναι καὶ ἐνανθρωπῆσαι, καὶ ἐξ αὐτῆς τῆς συλλήψεως ἑνῶσαι ἑαυτῷ τὸν ἐξ αὐτῆς ληφθέντα ναόν. Τὰς δὲ εὐαγγελικὰς περὶ τοῦ Κυρίου φωνὰς ἴσμεν τοὺς θεολόγους ἄνδρας τὰς μὲν κοινοποιοῦντας ὡς ἐφ ̓ ἑνὸς προσώπου, τὰς δὲ διαιροῦντας ὡς ἐπὶ δύο φύσεων, καὶ τὰς μὲν θεοπρεπεῖς κατὰ τὴν Θεότητα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, τὰς δὲ ταπεινὰς κατὰ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα αὐτοῦ παραδιδόντας. The

Undoubtedly, you reply, the Church has not allowed her doctrine to be stated in terms which would dissolve the Redeemer into two distinct agents, and would so altogether forfeit the reality of redemption. But the question is whether the orthodox statement be really successful in avoiding the error which it deprecates. Certainly the Church does say that definition of Chalcedon is equally emphatic on the subject of the Hypostatic Union. Routh, Scr. Op. ii. 78; Bright, Hist. Ch. p. 409. The title Theotokos, assigned to the Blessed Virgin by eminent Fathers before the Nestorian controversy (see Bright, ib. p. 302), and by the whole Church ever since the Council of Ephesus, is essentially a tribute to Christ's personal glory. It is in exact accordance with that well-known Scriptural usus loquendi, whereby GOD is said to have 'purchased the Church with His own Blood' (Acts xx. 28, see Lect. VI.; and compare I Cor. ii. 8), as conversely, 'the Son of Man,' while yet on earth, is said to have been 'in heaven' (St. John iii. 13). This 'communicatio idiomatum,' Kolomoinois or ȧvridoris (St. John Dam. Orth. Fid. iii. 4), as it is technically termed, is only intelligible on the principle that whatever belongs to our Lord in either of His two spheres of Existence belongs to Him as the One Christ, Who is, and is to be spoken of as, both GOD and Man. In other words, the properties of both His Natures are the properties of His Person. (Hooker, E. P. v. 53; St. Thom. Summ. iii. 16, 4.) In the same sense then as that in which St. Paul could attribute 'crucifixion,' and 'shedding His Blood,' to 'GOD,' that is to say, to our Divine Saviour in His Manhood, the Church could attribute to Him Birth of a human Mother. The phrase Ocотóкos is implicitly sanctioned by the phrase aîua coû. It presupposes the belief that Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, is our Lord and GOD; that 'the Son which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, very and eternal GOD, took Man's Nature upon Him in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, of her substance;' art. 2. In sub-apostolic language, ὁ γὰρ Θεὸς ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστὸς ἐκυοφορήθη ἀπὸ Mapías. Ign. ad Eph. 18. Cf. Bright's observations, Lat. Tr. S. Ath. p. 150 sqq.

Jackson on the Creed, Works, vol. vii. p. 294: "That proper blood wherewith God is said to have purchased the church, was the blood of the Son of God, the second Person in Trinity, after a more peculiar manner than it was the blood either of God the Father or of God the Holy Ghost. It was the blood of God the Father or of God the Holy Ghost, as all other creatures are, by common right of creation and preservation. It was the blood of God the Son alone by personal union. If this Son of God, and High Priest of our souls, had offered any other sacrifice for us than Himself, or the Manhood thus personally united unto Him, His offering could not have been satisfactory, because in all other things created, the Father and the Holy Ghost had the same right or interest which the Son had, He could not have offered anything to Them which were not as truly Theirs as His. Only the Seed of Abraham, or Fruit of the Virgin's womb Which He assumed into the Godhead, was by the assumption made so His own, as it was not Theirs, His own by incommunicable property of personal union. By reason of this incommunicable property in the woman's seed, the Son of God might truly have said unto His Father, 'Lord, Thou hast purchased the church, yet with My blood:' but so could not the Man Christ Jesus say unto the Son of God, 'Lord, Thou hast paid the ransom for the sins of the world, yet with My blood, not with Thine own.'

6

' although Christ be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.' But is this possible? How can Godhead and Manhood thus coalesce without forfeiture of that unity which is a condition of personality?

The answer to this question lies in the fact, upon which St. John insists with such prominence, that our Lord's Godhead is the seat of His Personality. The Son of Mary is not a distinct human person mysteriously linked with the Divine Nature of the Eternal Word f. The Person of the Son of Mary is divine and eternal; It is none other than the Person of the Word. When He took upon Him to deliver man, the Eternal Word did not abhor the Virgin's womb. He clothed Himself with man's bodily and man's immaterial nature; He united it to His Own Divinity. He took man's Nature upon Him in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, of her substance, so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in One Person, never to be divided, whereof is One Christ g.' Thus to speak of Christ as a Man, at least without explanation, may lead to a serious misconception; He is the Man, or rather He is Man. Christ's Manhood is not of Itself an individual being; It is not a seat and centre of personality; It has no conceivable existence apart from the act whereby the Eternal Word in becoming Incarnate called It into being and made It His Own h. It is a vesture which He has folded around His Person; It is an instrument through which He places Himself in contact with men, and whereby He acts upon humanity i.

St. Ful. de Fide ad Petr. c. 17: 'Deus Verbum non accepit personam hominis, sed naturam; et in æternam personam divinitatis accepit temporalem substantiam carnis.' St. Joh. Damasc. de Fid. Orthod. iii. II: Θεὸς Λόγος σαρκωθεὶς οὐ τὴν ἐν τῷ εἴδει θεωρουμένην, οὐ γὰρ πάσας τὰς ὑποστάσεις ἀνέλαβεν· ἀλλὰ τὴν ἐν ἀτόμῳ, ἀπαρχὴν τοῦ ἡμετέρου φυράματος, οὐ κάθ ̓ ἑαυ τὴν ὑποστᾶσαν καὶ ἄτομον χρηματίσασαν πρότερον, καὶ οὕτως ὑπ ̓ αὐτοῦ προσε ληφθεῖσαν, ἀλλ' ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ ὑποστάσει ὑπάρξασαν, αὕτη γὰρ ἡ ὑπόστασις τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου ἐγένετο τῇ σαρκὶ ὑπόστασις. He states this in other terms (c. 9) by saying that our Lord's Humanity had no subsistence of itself. It was not ἰδιοσύστατος, nor was it strictly ἀνυπόστατος, but ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου ὑποστάσει ὑποστᾶσα, ἐνυπόστατος. He speaks too of Christ's ὑπόστασις σύνBETOS. Hooker, E. P. v. 52. 3.

Art. ii.

h St. Aug. c. Serm. Arian. c. 6: 'Nec sic assumptus est [homo] ut priùs crearetur, post assumeretur, sed ut in ipsâ assumptione crearetur.' St. Leo, Ep. 25. 3: Natura nostra non sic assumpta est ut prius creata, post assumeretur; sed ut ipsâ assumptione crearetur.' Newman's Par. Sermons,

ii. 32, vi. 59.

Jackson on the Creed, Works, vol. vii. p. 289: 'The Christ is such an instrument of the Divine Nature in His hand of man is to the person or party whose hand it is.

Humanity of Person, as the And it is well

He wears It in heaven, and thus robed in It He represents, He impersonates, He pleads for the race of beings to which It belongs. In saying that Christ 'took our nature upon Him,' we imply that His Person existed before, and that the Manhood which He assumed was Itself impersonal. Therefore He did not make Himself a 'double Being' by becoming incarnate. His Manhood no more impaired the unity of His Person than each human body, with its various organs and capacities, impairs the unity of that personal principle which is the centre and pivot of each separate human existence, and which has its seat within the soul of each one of us.

'As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.' As the personality of man resides in the soul, after death has severed soul and body, so the Person of Christ had Its eternal seat in His Godhead before His Incarnation. Intimately as the 'I,' or personal principle within each of us, is associated with every movement of the body, the 'I' itself resides in the soul. The soul is that which is conscious, which remembers, which wills, and which thus realizes personality. Certainly it is true that in our present state of existence we have never as yet realized what personal existence is, apart from the body. But the youngest of us will do this, ere many years have passed. Meanwhile we know that, when divorced from the personal principle which rules and inspires it, the body is but a lump of lifeless clay. The body then does not superadd

observed, whether by Aquinas himself or no I remember not, but by Viguerius, an accurate summist of Aquinas' sums, that albeit the intellectual part of man be a spiritual substance, and separated from the matter or bodily part, yet is the union betwixt the hand and intellectual part of man no less firm, no less proper, than the union between the feet or other organical parts of sensitive creatures, and their sensitive souls or mere physical forms. For the intellectual part of man, whether it be the form of man truly, though not merely physical, or rather his essence, not his form at all, doth use his own hand not as the carpenter doth use his axe, that is, not as an external or separated, but as his proper united instrument: nor is the union between the hand as the instrument and intellective part as the artificer or commander of it an union of matter and form, but an union personal, or at the least such an union as resembles the hypostatical union between the Divine and Human Nature of Christ much better than any material union wherein philosophers or school-divines can make instance.' Cf. Viguerius, Institutiones, c. 20. introd. p. 259, commenting on St. Thom. 3a. q. 2. a. I.

j Yet when we contrast man's person (ego) and his nature, we understand by nature, not merely the body, but also soul and spirit, inasmuch as man's ego is conceived of as distinct from the latter not less than from the former. Delitzsch, Bibl. Psych. iv. § 2.

a second personality to that which is in the soul. It supplies the personal soul with an instrument; it introduces it to a sphere of action; it is the obedient slave, the plastic ductile form of the personal soul which tenants it. The hand is raised, the voice is heard; but these are acts of the selfsame personality as that which, in the invisible voiceless recesses of its immaterial self, goes through intellectual acts of inference, or moral acts of aversion or of love. In short, man is at once animal and spirit, but his personal unity is not thereby impaired: and Jesus Christ is not other than a Single Person, although He has united the Perfect Nature of Man to His Divine and Eternal Being. Therefore, although He says 'I and the Father are One,' He never says 'I and the Son' or 'I and the Word are One.' For He is the Word; He is the Son. And His Human Life is not a distinct self, but a living robe which, as it was created, was forthwith wrapped around His Eternal Personality k.

But if the illustration of the Creed is thus suggestive of the unity of Christ's Person, is it, you may fairly ask, altogether in harmony with the Scriptural and Catholic doctrine of His Perfect Manhood? If Christ's Humanity stands to His Godhead in the relation of the body of a man to his soul, does not this imply that Christ has no human Soul1, or at any rate no distinct human Will? You remind me that 'the truth of our Lord's Human Will is essential to the integrity of His Manhood, to the reality of His Incarnation, to the completeness of His redemptive work. It is plainly asserted by Scripture; and the error which denies It has been condemned by the Church. If Nestorius errs on one side, Apollinaris, Eutyches, and finally the Monothelites, warn us how easily we may err on the other. Christ has a Human Will as being Perfect Man, no less than He has a Divine Will as being Perfect God. But this is not suggested by the analogy of the union of body and soul in man. And if there are two Wills in Christ, must there not also be two

On the objection that the illustration in the Athanasian Creed favours Nestorianism, cf. St. Tho. 3. 2. 5. It was accepted by St. Cyril himself, but not as complete, Scholia. 8, 28, quo. by Bright, Lat. Tr. of S. Ath. p. 161, notek.

1 This preliminary form of the objection is thus noticed by the Master of the Sentences, Petr. Lomb. 1. iii. d. 5 (858): 'Non accepit Verbum Dei personam hominis, sed naturam. E: A quibusdam opponitur, quod persona assumit personam. Persona enim est substantia rationalis individuæ naturæ, hoc autem est anima. Ergo si animam assumsit, et personam. Quod ideo non sequitur, quia anima non est persona, quando alii rei unita est personaliter, sed quando per se est. Illa autem anima (our Lord's) nunquam fuit, quia esset alii rei conjuncta.'

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