tff&'WW'MM /2-ot- -3.-2. ,48-93- THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST. PRINTED BY MURRAY AND GIBB, FOR T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. LONDON, HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. DUBLIN, ROBERTSON AND CO. NEW YORK, . . . SCRIBNER, WELFORD, AND ARMSTRONG. THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST, IN ITS PHYSICAL, ETHICAL, AND OFFICIAL ASPECTS. Che &irth gerieS of the Cunningham E-ectuus. BY ALEX. B. BRUCE, D.D., PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW. EDINBURGH: & T. CLARK, GEORGE STREET. 1876. EXTRACT DECLARATION OF TRUST. March *-, 1862. I, William Binny Webster, late Surgeon in the H.E.I.C.S., presently residing in Edin burgh, — Considering that I feel deeply interested in the success of the Free Church College, Edinburgh, and am desirous of advancing the Theological Literature of Scotland, and for this end to establish a Lectureship similar to those of a like kind connected with the Church of England and the Congregational body in England, and that I have made over to the General Trustees of the Free Church of Scotland the sum of ^2000 sterling, in trust, for the purpose of founding a Lectureship in memory of the late Reverend William Cunningham, D.D., Principal of the Free Church College, Edinburgh, and Professor of Divinity and Church History therein, and under theT following conditions, namely, — First, The Lectureship shall bear the name, and be called, * The Cunningham Lecture ship.' Second, The Lecturer shall be a Minister or Professor of the Free Church of Scotland, and shall hold the appointment for not less than two years, nor more than three years, and be entitled for the period of his holding the appointment to the income of the endowment as declared by the General Trustees, it being understood that the Council after referred to may occasionally appoint a minister or professor from other denominations, provided this be approved of by not fewer than Eight Members of the Council, and it being further understood that the Council are to regulate the terms of payment of the Lecturer. Third, The Lecturer shall be at liberty to choose his own subject within the range of Apologetical, Doctrinal, Controversial, Exegetical, Pastoral, or Historical Theology, including what bears on missions, home and foreign, subject to the consent of the Council. Fourth, The Lecturer shall be bound to deliver publicly at Edinburgh a course of lectures on the subjects thus chosen at some time immediately preceding the expiry of his appointment, and during the Session of the New College, Edinburgh ; the lectures to be not fewer than six in number, and to be delivered in presence of the professors and students under such arrangements as the Council may appoint ; the Lecturer shall be bound also to print and publish, at his own risk, not fewer than 750 copies of the lectures within a year after their delivery, and to deposit three copies of the same in the Library of the New College ; the form of the publication shall be regulated by the Council. Fifth, A Council shall be constituted, consisting of (first) Two Members of their own body, to be chosen annually' in the month of March, by the Senatus of the New College, other than the Principal ; (second) Five Members to be chosen annually by the General Assembly, in addition to the Moderator of the said Free Church of Scotland ; together with (third) the Principal of the said New College for the time being, the Moderator of the said General Assembly for the time being, the procurator or law adviser of the Church, and myself the said William Binny Webster, or such person as I may nominate to be my successor : the Principal of thesaid College to be Convener of the Council, and any Five Members duly convened to be entitled to act notwithstanding the non-election of others. Sixth, The duties of the Council shall be the following : — (first), To appoint the Lecturer and determine the period of his holding the appointment, the appointment to be made before the close of the Session of College immediately preceding the termination of the previous Lecturer's engagement ; (second), To arrange details as to the delivery of the lectures, and to take charge of any additional income and expenditure of an incidental kind that may be connected therewith, it being understood that the obligation upon the Lecturer is simply to deliver the course of lectures free of expense to himself. Seventh, The Council shall be at liberty, on the expiry of five years', to make any alteration that experience may suggest as desirable in the details of this plan, provided such alterations shall be approved of by not fewer than Eight Members of the Council. PREFACE. IN issuing these Lectures, I desire to explain that I have departed from the intention announced at the time of their delivery, to add a seventh on the Chris- tological theory of Schleiermacher and others, who regard Christ simply as the Ideal Man. I have altered my purpose partly to keep the size of the book within reasonable bounds, partly owing to want of leisure in consequence of my appointment to a chair in Glasgow Free Church College ; but principally because of a growing feeling of doubt which was in my mind from the first, whether the discussion of the theory in question really fell within the scope of my subject. In place of a lecture on that theory, I have substituted a note which will be found in its place in connection with Lecture IV. To this word of explanation I add a word of apology. Some readers may not be pleased to find the pages of this book encumbered with so many footnotes containing extracts from, or comments on, works referred to in the text. It may be thought that these notes might have been omitted altogether, or that they should have been relegated to an appendix to be read by the few likely to care for them. With reference to the former of these Vlll PREFACE. alternatives, I beg to state that it seemed to me not out of keeping with the character of the work, which is to a large extent a critical history of opinion on the subjects discussed, to furnish the reader with the means of verify ing the accuracy of the statements made in the text. As to the other suggestion, I have to say, that I judged it better to set down quotations below the statements to which they refer, that they might catch the eye, and have a better chance of being read. I have therefore followed this course with all notes that could conveniently be placed below the text, reserving for an appendix only a limited number of notes too long to be dealt with in that way. I have only to add, that it would have been advan tageous could the publication of the lectures have been postponed till I had more leisure for revising proofs than was possible during the. course of my first session in the College. But though in possession of a good excuse for delay, I was anxious, as far as possible, to comply with the regulation regarding the publication of the Cunningham, Lectures. Owing to hurry, some errors of the press have escaped my notice. The table of errata, in all probability, would have been much larger, had I not enjoyed, from the Fourth Lecture onwards, the valuable assistance of Mr. Spiers, a theological student of Glasgow Free Church College, whose help in revising the sheets I have much pleasure in here acknowledging. ALEXANDER B. BRUCE. Glasgow, 19th April 1876. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. The Purpose explained, The Doctrine of the States in Dogmatic Systems, The Kenotic School, The Advantages of the Method, The Axioms difficult to fix, The Previous Question,* Phil. ii. 5-9 explained, . The Axioms thence deduced, . Christ's Humiliation in Epistle to the Hebrews, Doctrine of the Homousia there taught, The Humiliation a Glorification, Two additional Axioms, ... Plan of the Course, .... 1 3 S 7 10 13 21 28 3236 39 46 47 LECTURE II. THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY, Formula of Chalcedon, Apollinarian Theory of Christ's Person, Criticism of the Theory, Nestorian Controversy, Cyril on the Kenosis, . Theodoret on the Kenosis, Cyril on Christ's Ignorance, Eutychianism, . Leo's Letter to Flavian, The Dreary Period of Christology, John of Damascus, 5052 57 6167 697i77 81 8789 x CONTENTS. Thomas Aquinas, New Ideas in the Summa, Christ both Comprehensor and Viator, 95 96 105 LECTURE III. THE LUTHERAN AND REFORMED CHRISTOLOGIES. Origin of the Controversy, Stages of the Controversy, The Christology of John Brentz, The Christology of Martin Chemnitz, The Formula of Concord, Lutheran Christology criticised, The Reformed Christology, The Reformed Christology criticised, By the Logos through His Spirit, Double Consciousness or Double Life! Realism of Reformed Christology, •'.•'' Zanchius and Hulsius on Christ's Ignorance, The Homousia in Reformed Christology, 107 108 111124135 138 148 156161 1.6,3 167167 171 LECTURE IV. THE MODERN KENOT1C THEORIES. Relation of these Theories to the Old Christologies, Zinzendorf Father of Modern Kenosis, Four Types distinguished, The Theory of Thomasius, Theory of Gess, Theory of Ebrard, Theory of Martensen, . Criticism of these Theories, 175177 179179187197 206' 212 LECTURE V. CHRIST THE SUBJECT OF TEMPTATION AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT. Physical Infirmities a Source of Temptation, Hilary denied the Physical Infirmities, 249 251 CONTENTS. XI Cause of Hilary's Error, Adoptianist View of Christ's Humanity, Menken and Irving taught same Views, Temptation and Sinlessness, . Potuit non and nonpotuit, Christ's Moral Development, . Christ perfected, how ? . Christ's Priesthood, when begun ? Is a Sinless Development possible ? . 261264266 283 289295 297 3°4310 LECTURE VI. THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST IN ITS OFFICIAL ASPECT. Christ's Humiliation as an Apostle, . . . . .321 Socinian Theory of Salvation, ...... 327 Christ's Humiliation as a Priest, ..... 330 Sympathy a Source of Suffering, ..... 335 Sympathy Theory of Atonement, ..... 337 Christ, as Priest, a Representative, ..... 341 Christ, as Victim, a Substitute, ..... 341 Theory of Redemption by Sample, ..... 343 Mystic and Legal Aspects of Atonement compatible, . . 351 Were Christ's Sufferings penal ?..... 353 M'Leod Campbell's Theory, ...... 354 Bushnell's Latest Views, ...... 357 Manifold Wisdom of God in Redemption, .... 363 Justice and Love both satisfied, ..... 365 Ritschl and Arnold on the Leading Idea of the Bible, . . 371 Christ's Fellowship with His Father uninterrupted, . . . 374 Under Divine Wrath during whole State of Humiliation, . . 377 Did Christ suffer Eternal Death, ..... 382 Acceptilation Theory, . . . . . . .385 Elements of Value in the Atonement, . .... 385 Scripture Representations of Christ's Sufferings, . . . 389 Summary Formula, ....... 391 Philippi's Equation, ....... 393 Theories of Atonement classified, ..... 396 XU CONTENTS. APPENDIX.' PAGE Lect. I. Note A— On Phil. ii. 6-8, . . . -403 Lect. if. Note A. — Extracts from Cyril on Christ's Ignorance, . 412 Lect. III. Note A. — Connection between Lutheran Christology and the Sacramentarian Controversy, . 419 „ Note B. — Tubingen - Giessen Controversy concerning Krypsis and Kenosis, . . . 420 „ Note C. — Schneckenburger on Connection between Lutheran Christology and Modern Specu lative Christology, .... 423 „ NOTE D.— Schweitzer on Reformed Christology, . 426 „ Note E. — Reformed Views of the Impersonality, . 427 Lect. IV. Note A. — The Ideal Man Theory of Christ's Person, . 431 „ Note'B.1 — Kenotic Literature belonging to Thomasian Type, 437 „ Note C. — Kenotic Literature belonging to Gessian Type, ...... 444 ,; Note D. — Ebrard's Prefaces to his Works, . . 458 „ Note E. — Ebrard's Solutions of Speculative Christo- logical Problems, .... 459 „ Note F. — Kenotic Literature belonging to Martensen Type, 463 „ Note G. — The Christology of Zinzendorf, . . 467 „ Note H. — Cyril on Metamorphic Kenosis, . . 470 LECT. V. Note A. — On the Temperament of Christ, . ¦. 472 „ Note B. — Socinus on the Priesthood of Christ, . . 473 Lect. VI. Note A. — The title Son of Man, .... 475 „ Note B. — Rupert of Duytz on Christ as a Penitent, . 487 „ Note C. — Reformed and Lutheran Opinions on the Question, Did Christ suffer Spiritual and Eternal Death ? . . . . 488 „ Note D. — St. Bernard on the Greatness of Christ's Sufferings, and its Cause, . . . 492 ,, Note B. — Jonathan Edwards on the Sense in which Christ endured Divine Wrath, . . 493 Index, ......... 497 Errata, ........ 503 1 Referred to on p. 187 by inadvertence as C. LECTURE I. CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. I PURPOSE in the following lectures to employ the teaching of Scripture, concerning the humiliation of the Son of God, as an aid in the formation of just views on some aspects of the doctrine of Christ's person, experience, and work, and as a guide in the criticism of various Christological and Soteriological theories. The task I enter on is arduous and delicate. It is arduous, because it demands at least a tolerable acquaintance, at first hand as far as possible, with an extensive literature of ancient, modern, and recent origin, the recent alone being sufficiently ample to occupy the leisure of a pastor for years. It is delicate, because the subject, while of vital interest in a religious point of view, is also theo logically abstruse. The way of truth is narrow here, and through ignorance or inadvertence one may easily fall into error, while desiring to maintain, and even honestly believing that he is maintaining, the catholic faith. It has, indeed, sometimes been asserted, that it is impossible to avoid error on the subject of the person of Christ, all known or conceivable theories oscillating between Ebionitism and Doketism.1 This, it may be 1 I venture to print the words docetism and docetic with k instead of c (doketism, doketic), following the example of Mr. Grote, who in his His tory of Greece thus renders all Greek names in which k occurs into English, A 2 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. hoped, is the exaggeration of persons not themselves believers in the catholic doctrine of our Lord's divinity ; yet it is an exaggeration in which there is so much truth, that it is difficult to enter on a discussion of questions relating to that great theme without conscious fear and trembling. Yet, on the other hand, no one can discuss to any purpose these questions in a timid spirit. Successful treatment demands not only rever ence and caution, but audacity. Without boldness, both in faith and in thought, it is impossible to rise to the grandeur of the truth in Christ, as set forth in Scripture. Courage is required even for believing in the Incarna tion ; and still more for the scientific discussion thereof. What can one do, then, but proceed with firm step, trusting to the gracious guidance of God ; expecting, in the words of St. Hilary,1 that 'He may incite the beginnings of this trembling, undertaking, confirm them with advancing progress, and call the writer to fellow ship with the spirit of prophets and apostles, that he may understand their sayings in the sense in which they spoke them, and follow up the right use of words with the same conceptions of things ' ? The attempt I now -propose to make is beset with additional difficulty, arising out of its comparative e.g. Sokrates instead of Socrates. One obj'ection to the spelling docetism is, that to ill-informed minds it may suggest a derivation from doceo instead of from Soxsa. The terms doketism and doketic apply to that view of our Lord's# person which makes His human nature and life a mere appearance. 1 De Trin. lib. i. 38.' The style of this Father is so obscure, that ;it is scarcely warrantable to quote from him without giving the original. His words are : ' Expectamus ergo, ut trepide hujus coepti exordia incites, et profectu accrescente confirmes, et ad consortium vel prophetalis vel apos- .tolici spiritus voces ; ut dicta eorum non alio quam ipsi locuti sunt sensu apprehendamus, verborumque proprietates iisdem rerum significationibus exsequamur.' THE DOCTRINE OF THE STATES IN DOGMATIC SYSTEMS. 3 novelty. It has not been the practice of theological writers to assign to the category of the states of Christ, or of the state of humiliation in particular, the domi nant position which it is to occupy in the present course of lectures. In most dogmatic systems, doubtless, there is a chapter devoted to the locus, De Statu Christi ; but in some instances it forms a meagre appendix to the doctrines of Christ's person, or of His work, which might be dispensed with ; * in other cases it is a mere framework, within which are included in summary form the leading facts of our Lord's history as recorded in the Gospels ; 2 while in a third class of cases it serves the purpose of an apology or defence for a foregone Christological conclusion.8 Exclusive study of the older dogmatists would tend to discourage the idea of com mencing a discussion on Christology with the doctrine of Exinanition as a mere conceit ; or, to speak more' correctly, it would probably prevent such a thought from ever arising in the mind. And yet the discrimi nating study of these very authors shows that the truths relating to the humiliation of Christ have exer cised a more extensive influence on the doctrines of Christ's person and work than the bare contents of the locus De Statu Christi would lead one to suppose. This is especially manifest in the case of theologians 1 In Turretine, the chapter ' De Duplici Christi Statu ' scarcely occupies two pages. Calvin and the older Reformed dogmatists make no use of the category at all. B So in Heidegger, Corpus theologiae, locus xviii. 3 So with the Lutheran divines, concerning whom Strauss justly remarks {Glaubenslehre, vol. ii. 139), that they used the distinction of a twofold state, partly to complete, partly to cover, their dogma of the communicatio idiomatum. In Gerhard's foci, cap. x.-xiii. of locus iv. (De Persona et Officio Christi) treat of the communicatio idiomatum in general, and in its particular forms ; and cap. xiv. treats De Statu exinanitionis et exaltationis. 4 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. belonging to the Reformed confession, whose whole views of Christ's person and work have been largely formed under the influence of the important principle of the likeness of Christ's humanity in nature and experience to that of other men.1 Instances are even not wanting among the Reformed theologians of treatises on the Incarnation commencing with a careful endea vour to fix the meaning of the. locus classicus bearing on the subject of our Lord's- humiliation, that, viz., in the Epistle to the Philippians.2 Lutheran divines, on the other hand, constructed their Christology in utter defiance of the doctrine of humiliation, making the Incarnation, in its idea, consist in a deification of hu manity rather than in a descent of God into humanity, and investing the human nature of Christ with all divine attributes, even with such metaphysical ones as are commonly regarded and described as incommunicable. But even in their case our category took revenge for the neglect it experienced at their hands, by compelling them, out of regard to facts and to the end of the Incarnation, to take down again their carefully con structed Christological edifice ; the chapter on Exinani- tion being in effect an attempt to bring the fantastic humanity of Christ back to reality and nature, down from the clouds to the solid earth ; an attempt which, as we shall see, was far from being perfectly suc cessful. While the importance of keeping ever in view the doctrine of the states can only be inferred from the 1 Called in theological language the Homousia (ofioovaia). ,r 3 E.g. Zanchius, De Incarnatione filii Dei. Zanchius was a contempo rary of the authors of the Formula Concordiae, and wrote a defence of the Admonitio Christiana — the Reformed reply to that document. THE KENOTIC SCHOOL. £ internal character of the old Christologies, in spite of the subordinate place assigned thereto in the formal structure of theological systems, it is, on the other hand, a matter of distinct consciousness with more recent writers on Christological themes. In passing from the system-builders of the seventeenth century to the theologians of the nineteenth, one is emboldened to trust the instinct which tells him that the category of the states is not merely entitled to have some sort of recognition in theology out of deference to the prominence given to it in Scripture, but is a point of view from which the whole doctrine concerning Christ's person and work may be advantageously sur veyed. The method now contemplated has in effect been adopted by a whole school of modern theologians, who have made the idea of the Kenosis the basis of their Christological inquiries. The various Kenotic theories emanating from this school are, as we shall see, by no means criticism-proof; but their authors have at least done one good service to Christology, by insisting that no theory of Christ's Person can be regarded as satisfactory which is not able to assign some real meaning to their watchword, in relation to the divine side of that Person. The legitimacy and the importance of the proposed method of inquiry has also been recognised by a distinguished German theologian who was not an adherent of the Kenotic school, his sympathies being with the old Reformed Christology, and whose opinion on such a matter must command the respect of all. I allude to Schneckenburger, author of the instructive work entitled, Comparative Exhibition of the Lutheran and the Reformed Doctrinal 6 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. Systems} one of many valuable treatises on Christo logical and other topics which owed their origin to the ecclesiastical movement towards the re-union of the two branches of the German Protestant Church, long un happily separated by divergent views on the questions to whose discussion that copious literature is devoted. Besides the work just named, Schneckenburger wrote a special treatise on the two states of Christ,2 designed as a contribution to ecclesiastical Christology, in which he endeavoured to show that the doctrines of the states taught respectively by the two contrasted confessions involved a corresponding modification of view not only on Christ's person, but also on the nature of His work on earth and in heaven, on the justification of believers, and even on the whole religious and ecclesiastical life of the two communions. It is true, indeed, that the proof of this position does not settle the question which was the determining factor, the doctrine of the states, or the other doctrines to which it stands related. It does, however, serve to show this at least, that the related doctrines of the states and of the person being, in mathematical language, functions of each other, it is in our option to begin with either, and use it as a help in the determination of the other. Nor has the dis tinguished writer to whom I have alluded left us in uncertainty as to which of the two courses he deemed 1 Vergleichende Darstellung des Lutherischen und Reformirten Lehr- begriffs. This work was published after the author's death in 1855, the MSS. being prepared for publication by Giider, a pupil of Schneckenburger's, who has prefixed to the work an interesting discussion on the question as to the origin of the difference in the theological systems of the two confessions. 2 Zur Kirchlichen Christologie : Die orthodoxeLehre vom doppelten Stande Christi nach Lutherischer und Reformirter Fassung. This work was pub lished before the other, in 1848. PRACTICAL ADVANTAGE OF THE METHOD. 7 preferable. Criticizing the rectification of the Lutheran Christology proposed by Thomasius, the founder of the modern Kenotic school, he says : ' The position that the doctrine of the person should not be explained by that of the states, but inversely, because the former is the foundation of the latter, is one which I must contradict, nay, which the author himself (Thomasius) virtually contradicts, inasmuch as he seeks to shape the doctrine of the person, or to improve it, by the idea of the states, especially by the doctrine of redemption, in so far as it falls within the state of humiliation.'1 I have no doubt this view is a just one. Indeed, it appears to me that the history of Lutheran Christology affords abundant evidence of the desirableness of commencing Christological inquiries with a careful endeavour to form a correct view of the doctrine of the states, and especially of the Scripture teaching concerning our Lord's humiliation. Had the Lutheran theologians followed this course, it is probable that their peculiar Christology would never have come into existence, and would therefore have stood in no need of rectification. Theologically legitimate, the method I propose is recommended by practical considerations. Starting from the central idea, that the whole earthly history of our Saviour is the result and evolution of a sublime act of self-humiliation, the doctrine of His person becomes invested with a high ethical interest. An advantage this not to be overlooked in connection with any theological truth involving mysteries perplexing to reason. A mys terious doctrine, divested of moral interest, and allowed to assume the aspect of a mere metaphysical speculation, 1 Vom doppelten Stande Christi, p. 202. 8 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. is a doctrine destined ere long to be discarded. Such, for example, must be the inevitable fate of the doctrine of an immanent Trinity when it. becomes dissociated in men's minds from practical religious interests, and de generates into an abstract tenet. The Trinity, to be secure, must be connected in thought with the Incarna tion, even as at the first, when it obtained for itself gradually a place in the creed of the Church in connection with efforts to understand the nature and person of Christ ; x even as the Incarnation itself, in turn, is secure only when it is regarded .ethically as a revelation of divine grace. The effect of divorcing doctrinal from moral interests was fully seen in the last century, when the Trinity and kindred dogmas were quietly dropped out of the living belief of the Church, though retained in the written creed. Men then said to themselves, ' What is practical, what is of moral utility, is alone of value ; the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Deity of Christ are mere theological mysteries, therefore they may be ignored ! ' Thus, as Dorner, speaking of the period in question, remarks, ' Many a point which forms a consti tutive element of the Christian consciousness was treated as non-essential, on the ground of its being unpractical; and in particular, essential portions of Christology, and of that which is connected with it, were set aside.' 2 -The same spirit of narrow religious utilitarianism, of over weening value for the practical and the * verifiable,' is abroad at the present time, working steadily towards the restoration of the state of things which prevailed in last 1 Vid. Dorner, History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, div. ii. vol. i. p. 49 (Clark's translation). 2 Ibid. div. ii. vol. iii. p. 28 (Clark's translation). THE DOCTRINE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 9 century; and those who are concerned to counterwork the evil tendency, must apply their energies to the task of showing that discredited doctrines are not the dry, metaphysical dogmas they are taken for, but rather a refuge from dry metaphysics — truths which, however mysterious, are yet of vital ethical and religious moment ; even the doctrine of the Trinity itself being the product of an ethical view of the divine nature, the embodiment of ' the only complete ethical idea of God,' 1 not to be abandoned except at the risk of falling into either Pantheism or Atheism. In this point of view it appears advisable to give great prominence to the self-humiliation of Christ in connection with Christological inquiries. This method of procedure procures for us the advantage of starting with an idea which is dear to the Christian heart, with which faith will not willingly part, and for the sake of which it will readily accept truths surpassing human com prehension. If the great thought, under whose guidance we advance, do not conduct us to new discoveries, it will at all events redeem the subjects of our study from the blighting influence of scholasticism. In the New Testament, and more especially in the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians, and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, are to be found certain comprehensive statements concerning the meaning and purpose of our Lord's appearance on earth. These statements our 1 This view is strongly maintained by Liebner in his Christologie (p. 66), a work of a very speculative character, and Kenotic in its Christology, but full of valuable and suggestive thoughts, and abounding in interesting exposi tions and criticisms of contemporary opinions. Liebner's work is especially valuable for the vigour with which it asserts the ethical conception of God over against the Pantheistic on the one hand, and the Deistic on the other. IO CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. method requires us in the first place to consider with the view of ascertaining what they imply, that we may use the inferences they seem to warrant as axioms in all our subsequent discussions. As the truths we are in quest of are to serve the purpose of axioms, they must, of course, be of an elementary character ; but they are not on that account to be despised. The axiom, that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, is a very elementary truth ; but it is never theless one which you cannot neglect without serious consequences to your system of geometry. In theology, as in mathematics, much depends on the axioms ; not ' a few theological errors have arisen from oversight of some simple commonplace truth. Our object being merely to fix the axioms, it will not' be necessary that we should enter into any elaborate, de tailed, and exhaustive description of the doctrine of the states, or to attempt more than a general survey. And, further, as the main business of Christology is to form a true conception of the historical person Jesus Christ, we may confine our attention chiefly to the earlier of the two states which belongs to history and falls within our observation, concerning which alone we possess much information, and around which the human interest mainly revolves. Of the state of ex altation I shall speak only occasionally, when a fitting opportunity occurs. In addressing ourselves, then, to the task of dis covering Christological axioms, we are obliged to acknow ledge that the fixation of these is unhappily no easy matter. Few of the axioms- are axiomatic in the sense' of being truths universally admitted. The diversity of THE KENOSIS IN PHILIPPIANS II. 7. 1 1 opinion prevailing among interpreters in regard to the meaning of the principal passage bearing on the subject of Christ's humiliation — that, namely, in the second. chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Philippians — is enough to fill the student with despair, and to afflict him with intellectual paralysis. In regard to the kenosis spoken of there, for example, the widest divergence of view prevails. Some make the kenosis scarcely more than a skenosis, — the dainty assumption by the •• unchangeable One of a humanity which is but a doketic husk, a semi- transparent tent, wherein Deity sojourns, and through which His glory, but slightly dimmed, shines with dazzling brightness. The Son of God, remajning^ in all respects what He was before His incarnation, became what He was not, and so emptied Himself. Others ascribe to the kenosis some sense relatively to the divine nature; holding that the incarnation involved even for that nature a change to some extent ; that the Son of God did not remain in all respects as He was ; that at least He underwent an occultation of His glory. A third class of expositors make the kenosis consist not merely in a veiling of the divine glory, but in a depoten- tiation of the divine nature, so that in the incarnate Logos remained only the bare essence of Deity stripped of its metaphysical attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. According to a fourth school, the kenosis refers not to the divine nature, but to the human nature of Christ. He, being in the form of God, shown to be a divine man by His miracles and' by His moral purity, emptied Himself of the divine attributes with which He, as a man, was endowed, so far as use at least was concerned, and in this self-denial set Him- 1 2 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. self forth as a pattern to all Christians, as well as fitted Himself for being the Redeemer from sin. It is specially discouraging to the inquirer after first principles to find, as he soon does, that, as a rule, the interpretation of the passage in question depends on the interpreter's theological position. So much is this the case, that one can almost tell beforehand what views a particular expositor will take, provided his theological school be once ascertained. On the question, for example — a most important one — respecting the proper subject of the proposition beginning with the words, 'Who, being in the form of God,'1 expositors take sides according to their theological bias. The old orthodox Lutherans almost as a matter of course reply, ' The subject concerning whom the affirmation is made is the Logos incarnate {ensarkos), the man Christ Jesus ; the meaning of the apostle being, that the man Christ Jesus, being in the form of God, and possessing as man divine attributes, did nevertheless, while on earth, make little or no use of these attributes ; but in effect emptied Him self of them, and assumed servile form, and was in fashion and habit as other men.' The old Reformed theologians, on the other hand, after the example of the Church Fathers, with equal unanimity reply, ' The sub ject of whom Paul speaks is the Logos before incarnation (asarkos), the Son of God personally pre-existent before He became man ; and the sense is, that He, being in the form of God, subsisting as a divine being before the incarnation, emptied Himself, by being made in the likeness of man, and taking upon Him the form of a servant' Among modern theologians, the advocates of 1 Phil. ii. 6. THE PREVIOUS QUESTION. 1 3 the kenosis, in the sense of a metaphysical self-exinani- tion of the Logos, whether belonging to the Lutheran or to the Reformed confession, side with the Fathers and with the old Reformed dogmatists. Those, on the other hand, who reject the doctrine of an immanent Trinity, and along with it the personal pre-existence of the Logos, naturally adopt the view of the Lutheran dogmatists, and understand the passage as referring exclusively to the historical person, the man Christ Jesus. They can do nothing else so long as they claim to have Biblical support for their theological and Christological systems. They come to this text with a firm conviction that it cannot possibly contain any reference to a free, conscious act of the pre-existent Logos. In arguing with expositors of this school there is therefore a previous question to be settled : Is the Church doctrine of the Trinity scriptural, or is it not ? This is, indeed, the previous question for all Christo logical theories. Every one who "would form for him self a conception of the person of Christ must first determine his idea of God, and then bring that idea to his Christological task as one of its determining factors. Accordingly, in complete treatises on the person and work of Christ, like that of Thomasius,1 we find the Christian idea of God and the doctrine of the Trinity discussed under the head of Christological presupposi tions. In the present course of lectures, such a discus sion would of course be altogether out of place ; but I may here take occasion to express my conviction, that what I have called the previous question of Christology, 1 Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk. Darstellung der Evangelisch- Lutherischen Dogmatik vom Mittelpunkte der Christologie aus. 14 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. is destined to become the question of the day in this country, as it has been for some time past in Germany. What is God ? Is personality, involving self-conscious ness and self-determination, predicable of the Divine Being ; or is He, . or rather it, merely the unknown and unknowable substratum of all phenomena,1 the impersonal immanent spirit of nature, the unconscious moral order of the world in which the idea of the good somehow and to some extent realizes itself,2 the absolute Idea become Another in physical nature, and returning to itself and attaining to personality in man ; becoming incarnate not in an individual- man, but in the human race at large ?3 — such, according to all present indications, are the momentous questions on which the thoughts of men are about to be concentrated. And if one may venture to predict the result of the great debate, it will probably be to show that between Pantheism, under one or other of its forms, materialistic or idealistic, and the Christian doctrine of God, in which the ethical predominates, there is no tenable position ; in the words of a German theologian whom I have already had occasion to quote : ' That the whole of speculative theology stands in suspense between the pure abstract One, general Being, ev ical irav, in which God and world alike go down, and the ethical hypostatical Trinity, or between the boldest, emptiest, hardest Pantheism, and 1 Vid. Herbert Spencer, Synthetic Philosophy, First Principles, part i. • 2 Vid. Strauss, Die christliche ^Glaubenslehre, i. 392, and Mr. Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma. Arnold defines God as a Power that makes for righteousness ; the power being impersonal, and, so to speak, neuter. Arnold's Power making for righteousness is the same with F^chte's mor^prder^Qf._the'world, regarded simply as an ultimate fact, not as~T:he result of a personal Providence. f So Hegel. GOD DESCENDING INTO HUMANITY. 1 5 the completed ethical personalism of Christianity ; all pantheistic and theistic modes, from Spinoza to the most developed forms of modern Theism, being only transition and oscillation which cannot abide.' 1 The influence of theological bias on the exegesis of the locus classicus in the Epistle to the Philippians being apparent in the case of so many theologians of highest reputation, it would be intolerable conceit in any man to claim exemption therefrom. I, for. my part, have no desire to put forth such a claim. On the contrary, I avow my wish to anrive at a particular conclusion with respect to the interpretation of the passage ; one, viz., which should assign a reality to the idea of a Being in the form of God by a free act of gracious condescension becoming man. I am desirous to have ground for believing that the apostle speaks here not only of the exemplary humility of the maa lesus, but of the more wonderful, sublime self-humiliation of the pre-existent personal Son of God. For then I should have Scripture warrant for believing that moral heroism, has a place within the sphere of the divine nature, and that love is a reality for God as well as for man. I do not wish, if I can help it, to worship an unknown or unknowable God called the Absolute, concerning whom or which all Bible representations are mere make-believe, mere anthropo morphism ; statements expressive not of absolute truth, but simply of what it is well that we should think and feel concerning God. I am not disposed to subject my idea of God to the category of the Absolute, which, like Pharaoh's lean kine, devours_all other attributes, even for the sake. of the most tempting apologetic advantages 1 Liebner, Christologie, pp. 266-7. 1 6 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. which that category may seem to offer. A poor refuge truly from unbelief is the category of the Absolute ! 'We know not God in Himself,' says the Christian apologist,1 'therefore we can never know that what the Bible says of Him is false, and may rationally receive it as true.' ' We know not God,' rejoins the agnostic man of science ; 2 ' and the more logical inference is, that all affirmations concerning Him in the Bible or elsewhere are incompetent ; the Bible God is an eidolon whose worship is only excusable because it is wholesome in tendency.' ' God, strictly speaking, -has no attributes, but is mere and simplest essence, which admits of no real difference, nor any composition either of things or of modes,' declares the old orthodox dogmatist.3 ' So be it,' replies a formidable modern opponent of orthodoxy, Dr. Baur of Tubingen,4 ' I agree with you, but that pro position amounts to substantial Pantheism ; ' and the theological system of Schleiermacher shows that Baur is right. If, therefore, we wish to believe with our hearts in the Bible, we must hold fast by the ethical conception of God ; and whatever disputes arise between us and others holding in common with us the same general idea of the Divine Being, we must settle on ethical grounds, not fleeing for refuge from perplexities to an idea of God which removes the very foundations of faith, and becoming in effect Pantheists or Atheists in order that we may not be Socinians. It is vain to think of saving the catholic faith on the principles of theological nescience ; foolish to seek escape from moral difficulties 1 Vid. Mansel, Limits of Religious Thought. 2 Vid. Herbert Sjpencer, First Principles. 3 Quenstedt, quoted by Baur, Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit, vol. iii. p. 340. 4 Baur, Lehrg von der Dreieinigkeit, vol. iii. pp. 339-352. IT COSTS TOO MUCH. I 7 by means of sceptical metaphysics. As Maurice, in his reply to Mansel, well says : ' Such an apology for the faith costs too much.'1 It saves such doctrines as those of the Trinity and the Incarnation and the Atonement at the cost of all the moral interest which properly belongs to them, and converts them into mere mysteries, which must be received because we are not able to refute them ; but which, in spite of all the apologist's skill, will not be received, but will meet the fate of all mere mysteries devoid of moral interest, — that of being neglected, or even' ridiculed, as they have been lately by the author of Literature and Dogma ; ridiculed not in mere wantonness, though that is not wanting, but in the interest of a practical ethical use of the Bible as a book not intended to propound idle theological puzzles, but to lead men into the way of right conduct. Holding such views, desirous to believe in a God absolutely full of moral contents, knowable on the ethical side of His nature truly though not perfectly, like man in that which most exalts human nature, — loving with a love like that of good men, — only incomparably grander, rising in point of magnanimity high above human love, as heaven is high above the earth,2 passing knowledge in dimensions, but perfectly comprehensible in nature,3 I am predisposed to agree with those who find in the famous text from the Epistle to the Philippians a clear ^Maurice, What is Revelation ? p. 131. 2 Isa. Iv. 8, 9. 3 Eph. iii. 18, 19. There is an unknowableness of God taught here, but it is a very different one from that asserted by theiphilosophy of the Absolute. It is the unknowableness as to dimensions of a love believed to be most real, and in its nature comprehensible. It is the same kind of unknowableness which is spoken of in Job xi. 7. It is not a question whether God can be known at all, but a question of finding out the Almighty unto perfection — of taking the measure of the Divine Being. The Scripture doctrine of divine B 1 8 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. reference to an act of condescension on the part of the pre-existent Son of God, in virtue of which He became man. Schleiermacher naively objects to the idea of. humiliation as applied to the earthly state of Christ, because it implies a previous higher state from which the self-humbled One descended, — a view which he regards as at once destructive of the unity of Christ's person, and incompatible with the nature of God, the absolutely Highest and Eternal.1 What Schleiermacher objects to in the idea of humiliation, appears to me its chief recom mendation ; and I agree with Martensen in thinking it a capital defect in Schleiermacher's Christology that it excludes the idea of the pre-existence of the Son, and along with it, the idea of a condescending revelation of love on the part of the eternal Logos.2 I refuse to accept an idea of God which makes such condescension impossible or meaningless ; nor am ' I able to regard that as the absolutely Highest which cannot stoop down from its altitude. The glory of God consists not simply in being high, but in that He, the highest and greatest, can humble Himself in love to be the lowest and least. The moral, not the metaphysical, is the highest, if not the distinctive, in the Divine Being."*"" While making this frank — it may even appear osten tatious — avowal of theological bias, and confessing that the Scriptures would contain for me no revelation of God, did they not teach a doctrine of divine grace unknowableness is the very opposite extreme to that of the philosophers. ' Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, Thy truth reacheth unto the clouds : Thy righteousness is like the great mountains, Thy judgments are a great deep,' say the Scriptures. ' Mercy, truth, righteousness, judgment, are words which convey no absolutely true meaning with reference to the Divine Being ' ¦ says the philosophy of the Absolute. 1 Glaubenslehre, ii. p. 159. 2 Die Christliche Dogmatik, p. 252. ADMISSIONS OF SCHLEIERMACHER AND STRAUSS. 1 9 capable of taking practical historical shape in an Incar nation, I do not admit that it is a far-fetched or strained interpretation which brings such a doctrine out of Paul's words in his Epistle to the Philippians. That interpre tation appears to me the one which would naturally occur to the mind of any person coming to the passage, bent solely on ascertaining its meaning, without reference to his own theological opinions. It may be regarded as a presumption in favour of this view when writers like Schleiermacher and Strauss, neither of them a believer in the doctrine of a personally pre-existent Logos, never theless admit that it is at least by implication taught in the passage. The former author, indeed, seeks to deprive the statements contained therein of all theological value, by representing them as of an ' ascetic ' and ' rhetorical ' character ; the expressions not being intended to be ' didactically fixed,' *— a convenient method of getting rid of unacceptable theological dogmas, which may be applied to any extent, and which, if applied to Paul's Epistles, would render it difficult to extract any theological inferences therefrom, inasmuch as nearly all the doctrinal statements they contain arise out of a practical occasion, and are intended to serve a hortatory purpose. Strauss, on the other hand, making no pretence of adhering to Scripture in his theological views, frankly acknowledges that, according to the doctrine of Paul in this place, Christ is One who, before His incarnation, lived in a 1 Glatibenslehre,\\. p. 161. Schleiermacher's admission is not hearty; for while the manner in which he explains away the apparent meaning of the passage implies such an admission as I have ascribed to him, he remarks that the way in which Paul here sets forth Christ as an example, is quite compatible with the idea that he has in view merely the appearance of lowliness in the life as well as in the death. 20 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. divine glory, to which, after His freely assumed state of humiliation was over, He returned.1 It is now time that I should explain the sense .in which I understand the passage referred to, which I shall do very briefly, relegating critical details to another place.2 The subject spoken about is the historical per son Jesus Christ, conceived of, however, as having pre viously existed before He entered into history, and as in His pre-existent state, supplying material fitted to serve the hortatory purpose the apostle has in view. Paul desires to set before the Church in Philippi the mind of Christ in opposition to the mind of self-seekers, and he includes the pre-existence in his representation, because the mind he means to illustrate was active therein, and could not be exhibited in all its sublimity if the view were restricted to the earthly career of the Great Ex emplar of self-renunciation. It has been objected, that a reference to the pre-existence is beside the scope of the apostle, his aim being to induce proud, self-asserting Christians to imitate Christ in all respects in which it was possible for them to become like Him, while in respect of, the Incarnation He is inimitable.3 The objection is a very superficial one. It is true that the 1 Die Christliche Glaubenslehre, i. 420. 2 See Appendix, note A. 3 Gerhard's Loci Theologici, locus iv. cap. xiv. ' De Statu exinanitionis et exaltationis.' Gerhard says, ' Scopus apostoli est, quod velit Philippenses hortari ad humilitatem intuitu in Christi exemplum facto. Ergo praesentis, non futuri temppris, exemplum illis exhibet. Proponit eis imitandum Christi ' exemplum tanquam vitae regulam. Ergo considerat facta Christi quae in oculos incurrunt, in quorum numero non est mcarnatio.. In eo apostolus jubet Philippenses imitari Christum, in quo similes ipsi nondum erant, sed similes fieri poterant et debebant. At qui erant illi jam ante veri homines, sed inflati ac superbi ; Christum igitur eos imitari, et humilitati studere jubet, incarnatione vero nemo Filio Dei similis fieri potest ' (§ ccxciv.). PHILIP. II. 5-9. 2 1 act by which the Son of Gocl became man is inimitable ; but the mind which moved Him to perform that act is not inimitable ; and it is the mind or moral disposition of Christ, revealed both in imitable and in inimitable acts, which is the subject of commendation. Therefore, though the great drama of self-humiliation enacted by our Saviour on this earth be the main theme of Christian contemplation, yet is a glimpse into the mind of the pre-existent Son of God a fitting. prelude to that drama, tending to make it in its whole course more impressive, and to heighten desire in the spectators to have the same mind dwelling in themselves, leading them to perform on a humbler scale similar acts of self-denial. Another argument against the reference to a pre-existent state has been drawn from the historical name given to the subject of the proposition, fesus Christ. But this argument is sufficiently met by the remark, that the same method of naming the subject is employed by Paul in other passages where a pre-existence of some sort, real or ideal, personal or impersonal, is undeniably implied.1 Of Him whose mind is commended as worthy of imitation, the apostle predicates two acts through which that mind was revealed : First, an act of self-emptying, in virtue of which He became man ; then a continuous act or habit of self-humiliation on the part of the in carnate One, which culminated in the endurance of death on the cross. 'Eavrbv iicevaa-ev, — He emptied Himself, — that was the first great act by which the mind of the Son of God was revealed. Wherein did this /cevooais 1 1 Cor. x. 4-9; Col. i. 14, 15. The use of the historical name in reference to the pre-existent Logos in these and other passages is admitted by Beyschlag {Die Christologie des neuen Testaments, p. 240), who does not admit a personal, but only an ideal pre-existence of the Logos. 2 2 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. consist ? what did it imply ? The apostle gives a two fold answer ; one having reference to the pre-existent state, the other to the sphere of Christ's human history. With reference to trie former, the kenosis signified a firm determination not to hold fast and selfishly cling to equality of state with God. Thus I understand the words oite apirajfibv ^yqa-aro to elvai icra Qea>. The render ing in our English version (' thought it not robbery to be equal with God'), which follows patristic (Latin) exe- getical tradition, is theologically true, but unsuited to the connection of thought, and to the grammatical construc tion of the sentence. The apostle's purpose is not formally to teach that Christ was truly God, so that it was not arrogance on His part to claim equality of nature with God ; but rather to teach that He being God did not make a point of retaining the advantages connected with the divine state of being. Hence he merely mentions Christ's divinity participially by way of preface in the first clause of the sentence (o? iv fi>op in the clause to which it belongs, it being placed at the end, while ovk dpiraj/jibv ^jrja-aTo stands in the forefront to catch the reader's eye, as the principal matter, shows that it simply repeats the idea already expressed by the words eV fiopcjjfj Geov vtrdp%av. The two phrases being equivalent, it follows that no meaning can be assigned to either which would involve an inadmissible sense for the other. By this rule we are precluded from understanding by the form of God the divine essence or nature ; for such an interpretation would oblige us to find in the second clause the idea thatthe Son of God in a spirit of self-renunciation parted with His divinity. We must decline here to follow in the footsteps of the Fathers, who, with the exception of Hilary,1 invariably took form as synonymous with nahtre ; possibly misled by a too absorbing desire to find in the passage a clear undeniable assertion of our Lord's proper divinity,: — a desire which could have been gratified without having recourse to misinterpretation ; inasmuch as the implied assertion of that truth which the words of the apostle, rightly interpreted, really do contain, is even more forcible than a formal didactic statement would have been. Mopfyrj does not mean the same thing as ovo-la or #i;o-t?. Even the old Reformed theologian Zanchius, while following the patristic tradition in the interpretation of the word, acknowledges the distinguish- ableness of the terms, and quotes with approbation a 1 Hilary varied in his interpretation, sometimes identifying, sometimes distinguishing, ftoptpji and tpioi;. See Appendix, note A. PHILIP. II. 5-9. 25 passage from a contemporary, Danaeus, in which they are very clearly distinguished, ovo-la being defined as denoting the naked essence, $uo-« as the ovala clothed with its essen tial properties, and poppy as adding to the essential and natural properties of the essence other accidents which follow the true nature of a thing, and by which, as features and colours, ovo-la and cpvat,*; are shaped and depicted.1 Thus understood, fiopcprj presupposes ovala and <£uo-t9, and yet is separable from them ; it cannot exist without them, but they can exist without it. The Son of God, subsisting in the form of God, must have pos sessed divine ovo-la and divine vo-i<;, He might part with the p apud Sophoclem, est se tyrannum praestare, demonstrare. Hinc supshk dicitur inventus, compertus, certissimis argumentis est, ag ctudpanos, sicut homo scil. verus, vulgaris, ut us hie sit affirmants, seu veritatis nota, non similitudinis.' — Theor. pract. Theologia, lib. v. cap. ix. pars exeget. 1 Vid. p. 4, note 1. CHRIST S HUMILIATION IN EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 33 it should not only cease to be a stumbling-block, but even be converted into a source of strength and comfort. To this task the writer accordingly addresses himself with great boldness, skill, and eloquence. Disdaining the expedient for making the task easy of lowering the essential dignity of Christ, he commences his Epistle by setting forth that dignity in terms which, for fulness, clearness, and intensity, are not surpassed by any to be found in Scripture. Then having declared Christ to be the Son of God, the brightness of God's glory and the express image of His person, the Lord of angels, the Maker of worlds, the everlasting King, he approaches the subject of His humiliation, and sets himself to show how it can be reconciled with His inherent majesty. The proof is given in the second chapter of the Epistle from the fifth verse to the end, and presents a train of reasoning characterized by profundity of thought, and by a rhetorical skill which knows how to make every thought bear upon the practical purpose in view, — that, viz., of strengthening weak faith and comforting de sponding hearts. This argument it is not necessary for our present object to expound elaborately ; it will suffice to indicate the leading idea. The grand thought, then, in this remarkable passage is this, that Christ to be a Saviour must be a Brother, and that, as things actually stand, that means that He must be humbled, must pass through a curriculum of temptation and suffering as a man, in order that He may be in all respects like unto His brethren. This great principle of brotherhood is formally enunciated in the eleventh verse in these terms : ' Both He that sanctifieth and they who are (being) sanctified are all of one ; ' a proposition in the precise interpretation c 34 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. of which expositors are much divided, but whose general import plainly is, that the Sanctifier and those whom He is to sanctify, however different in character, stand in such a relation to one another, that the nearer they are in all other respects, the greater the power of the Sanctifier to perform His sanctifying work. Sanctifier and those to be sanctified must be all of one race, all one party, having one interest, one lot, a brotherhood to all intents and purposes ; the Holy One descending first into the state of the unholy, that He may raise them in turn to His own proper level in privilege and in character.1 Having enunciated this general principle, as one which he hopes may commend itself as self-evident to the minds of his readers, -the writer next proceeds to show that it is 1 In the interpretation of this important text I agree generally with Hofmann, whose views are to the following effect : The statement is to be understood as a general proposition, as is shown by the present tenses (&yi&£av, ayix£6ftevoi), which express not a habitual activity on the part of the Saviour, but a thing done once for all in Christ's history. Only as a general proposition could the statement serve the purpose for which it is intended. Were it merely a historical fact, it would need to be shown why the fact was so ; whereas the object is to show how the vocation of Christ as a Saviour, as a matter of course, required Him to assume a suffering nature like ours. The idea of xyix^uu involves that the Actor and those for whom He acts are all of one origin. Xlxi/rsg is not superfluous, nor is its=dfiCfi6rspoi ; but it signifies that the difference between Sanctifier and sanctified does not affect descent, in reference to which they are rather •x-a.ung e£ i»°g. What follows I give in Hofmann's own words : ' Freilich muss man nicht gleiche Herkunft aus Gott verstehen, von der es heissen miisste dass sie von ihnen nicht minder, als von ihm gelte : nicht mimj sondern U/ufporepoi miisste es heissen ; dann aber auch nicht ££ hog, da der Nachdruck darauf lage, dass der Eine Gott es ist, von dem er und von dem sie herkommen, sondern ix. rov hog ' (that is descent from God 'is not meant, otherwise it would have been said both, not all are of one, both they as well as He, and it would further have been said not of one, but of the One). ' Mit viuTtg If hog ist nicht betont, von wannen sie sind, sondern dass sich die Allgemeinheit des gleichen Herkunft iiber den Gegensatz des aytaZav und der Ayia^o/xsnot erstreckt.' (The object is not to emphasize from whom or whence the parties take their origin, but to point out that the community of origin covers the contrast between 6 xyta^au and ol a.yi«.£6f4,woi.)—Schriftbeweis, ii. 52-3. HEBREWS II. 9-18. 35 recognised, has its root, in Old Testament Scripture, and thereafter to supply some examples of its practical appli cation. With the former view he makes three quotations from the Psalms and the prophets, the first of which indicates that Messiah stands before God, not without, but within a community, and in it as a community of persons whom He regards as brethren, and to whom He has been drawn closer in fellow-feeling by suffering ; the second, that in the performance of His work, Messiah stands in the same relation to God, that of faith and de pendence, as those whose good He has at heart ; and the third, that Messiah has associated with Him in His work fellow- workers, to whom He is knit by the close bond of human kinsmanship, even as God gave to Isaiah his own children to be joint-prophets with him, ' for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts.' 1 These three quotations the writer follows up with three examples of the application of the principles which the quotations are intended to establish. The principle is applied, first, to the Incarnation ; second, to the death of Christ; and thirdly, to His whole experience of suffering and temptation between the beginning and the end of His ministry. The principle upon which the work of salvation proceeds being, that Sanctifier and sanctified are all of one, it follows first, that inasmuch as the subjects of Christ's work are .partakers of flesh and blood, He also must in like manner become partaker of the same (the likeness of the manner extending even to the being born, so that He might be one of the children) ; second, that inasmuch as the subjects of Christ's work are liable to death and to the fear of it, He also must die that 1 So substantially Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, ii. 54. 36 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. He may deliver His brethren from their bondage ; third, that inasmuch as the subjects of Christ's work are ex posed through life to manifold trials and temptations, therefore He must pass through a very complete cur riculum of temptation, that He might be perfected in sympathy, and gain the confidence of His brethren as one who could not fail to be a merciful and trustworthy High Priest in things pertaining to God. The doctrine of the homousia, taking the term as signifying likeness both in nature and in experience, thus shines forth in full lustre in this magnificent paragraph of the Epistle. It is enunciated as an axiomatic truth ; it is established by Scripture proof ; it is illustrated by out standing facts in Christ's history, His birth, His death, His experience of temptation; it is re-asserted in the strongest terms it is possible to employ : ' In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren.' Nor does this exhaust the testimony to the doctrine contained in the Epistle. Indirect allusions to, and confirmations and enlargements of, the same truth are scattered over its pages like gems ; the first hint occurring at the ninth verse of the second chapter, where the Lord of angels, and rightful object of angelic worship, is described as one made lower than the angels.1 Why ? Because He is the appointed Restorer of Paradise and of all that man pos sessed there, and, in particular, of lordship over all ; and man being now no longer lord, but rather a degraded slave, the second Adam must take His place beside him, assuming the form and position of a servant, that He may lift man out of his degradation, and restore to him his forfeited inheritance/ An eloquent reiteration of the 1 Heb. ii. 9 : To* "Uftpa-yp ti irap' oLyyihovg YihaTTUfikyou. DOCTRINE OF HOMOUSIA IN EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 37 doctrine occurs at the close of that part of the Epistle which treats of the eternal Sabbatism, another element of the paradisaical bliss lost by the fall, whereof Jesus is the appointed Restorer. In this place the great High Priest of humanity, and the Joshua of the Lord's host, Himself now entered into the heavenly rest, is represented as one who can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, seeing He was tempted in all respects as we are, was once a weary wanderer like ourselves, — the statement being made only the more emphatic by the qualifying clause ' without sin.' ' Tempted in all respects as we are/ speaking deliberately, the sole difference being that He never yielded to temptation while in the wilderness, as we too often do. The chapter following contains a touching allusion to a special point in the similitude of our Lord's experience to ours, which brings Him very close to human sympathies. It is in the placfe where Jesus is represented as offering up, in the days of His flesh, prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from .death.1 Even thus far did the likeness extend. The Sanctifier shared with His brethren the fear of death, through which they are all their lifetime subject to bondage. Once more, the comprehensive view given in this Epistle, of the work of Christ as the Author of salvation, suggests by implication an equally comprehensive view of the likeness between Him and His brethren. The writer, in describing the work of redemption, keeps constantly before his mind the history of man in Paradise. He makes salvation consist in lordship of the world that is to be, in deliverance from the fear of death, in entrance 1 Heb. v. 7. 38 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. into a rest often promised but yet remaining, an ideal unexhausted by all past partial realizations — the perfect Sabbatism of the people of God. These representations plainly point back to the dominion over the creatures conferred on man at his creation, and lost by sin ; to the death which was the wages of sin, and which Satan brought on man by successfully tempting him to dis obedience ; and to God's rest after the work of creation was finished, in which unfallen man had part, and in which man restored is destined again to share. Salva tion thus consists in the cancelling of all the effects of the fall, and in the restoration of all that man lost by his sin. But if this be the nature of salvation, what, on the prin ciple that Sanctifier and sanctified are all of one, must the likeness of the Saviour to the sinful sons of Adam amount to ? Evidently to subjection to the curse in its whole extent, as far as that is possible for one who is Him self without sin. The view thus presented of our Lord's state of humiliation is admirably fitted to serve the purpose which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews had in mind (that of fortifying his readers against temptations to apostasy, whether arising out of the internal diffi culties of the Christian faith, or out of external afflic tion suffered on account of the faith), giving as it does to our Lord's whole earthly experience a winsome aspect of sympathy with humanity in its present sorrowful condition. But we have not yet exhausted what the author of this Epistle has to say by way of reconciling the Hebrew Christians to what had hitherto been an offence unto them. He is not content with apologising for Christ's humiliation ; he boldly represents that ex- THE HUMILIATION A GLORIFICATION. . 39 perience as in another aspect a glorification of its sub ject. He speaks of Jesus as crowned with glory and honour ; not because He has tasted death for men, but in order that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for men.1 It has been customary, indeed, to regard this passage as referring to the state of exalta tion, in which Christ receives the reward of His volun tary endurance of the indignities connected with the state of humiliation ; but I agree with Hofmann2 in thinking that the reference is rather to an honour and glory which is not subsequent X.o, but contemporaneous with, the state of humiliation,— the bright side, in fact, of one and the same experience. It is the honour and glory of being appointed to the high office of Apostle and High Priest of the Christian profession, the Moses and the Aaron of the new dispensation. That office doubtless involves humiliation, inasmuch as it imposes on Him who holds it the necessity of tasting death ; but even in that respect His experience, is not exclu sively humiliating. For while it is a humiliation to die, it is glorious to taste death for others ; and by dying, to abolish death, and bring life and immortality to light. To be appointed to an office which has such a purpose in view, is ipso facto to be crowned with glory and honour, and is a mark of signal grace or favour on the part of God. And this is precisely what the writer of the Epistle would have his readers understand. He would 1 Heb. ii. 9. 2 Schriftbeweis, ii. 46 ff., Zweite Auflage. Hofmann's exposition of the whole chapter is extremely good, and seems to me to bring out the connec tion of thought better on the whole than anything I have seen. His dis cussions on the Epistle to the Hebrews, generally, are most instructive, though not free from characteristic eccentricities. 4° CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. not have them see in the earthly career of Jesus mere humiliation, — degradation difficult to reconcile with His Messianic dignity ; but rather the rough, yet not degrad ing experience, incidental to a high, honourable, holy vocation. ' We see,' he says in effect, ' two things in Him by whom the prophecy in the eighth Psalm is destined to be fulfilled in the restoration of man to lordship- in the world to come. On the one hand, we see Him made lower than angels by becoming partaker of mortal flesh and blood ; a lowering made necessary by the fact that it. was men, not angels, whose case He was under taking,-— men subject to the experience of death, whom, therefore, on account of that experience, He could help. only by assuming a humanity capable of undergoing the same experience.1 On the other hand, we see in this same Jesus, humbled by being made a mortal man, one crowned with glory and honour in being appointed to the office of Restorer of Paradise and all its privi leges, including lordship over all ; an office, indeed, whose end cannot be reached without the endurance of death, but whose end is at the same time so glorious that it confers dignity upon the means ; so that it may be said in sober truth' that the divine Father manifested signal grace towards His Son in giving Him the oppor tunity of tasting death for others ; that is to say, of abolishing death as a curse, and making it quite another thing for them, by enduring it in His own person.' 1 With Hofmann, I connect ha to vrafaftx rov 6ot.iia.Tov (ver. 9) with the foregoing clause, and understand it as referring not specially to Christ's own sufferings, but, generally, to the experience of death, to which man is subject. It points out that in man's condition, on account of which Christ had to be made lower than angels, so far as this implied becoming man. Those whose case Christ undertook were men subject to death, therefore He too must become man that it might be possible for Him to die. BY THE GRACE OF GOD. 4 1 That such is the import of this notable text I have little doubt, although I am constrained to admit that the meaning now taken out of it has comparatively little support in the history of interpretation. Most commentators explain the passage as if, with the Hebrew Christians, they thought the humiliation of Christ stood very much in need of apology. Disre garding the grammatical construction, the scope of the argument, and the hint given in the expression ' we see,' which indicates that what is spoken of is something falling within the sphere of visible reality, they almost with one consent relegate the glory and honour to the state of exaltation, as if the mention of such things in connection with the state of humiliation were out of the question, and altogether unwarranted by Scripture usage ; although the Apostle Peter speaks of Jesus as having received from God the Father ' honour and glory' when there came such a voice to Him from the Excellent Glory : ' This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ; n and although further, in this very Epistle, it is said of Jesus, as the Apostle of our profession, that He was counted worthy of more 'glory' than Moses,2 and, as the High Priest of our profession, that even as no man took upon himself the honour of the Jewish high -priesthood, ' so also Christ glorified not Himself to be made an high priest, but He that said unto Him : "Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee." '3 And as to taking the 'grace of God' spoken of in the last clause of the sentence as manifested directly, not to those for whom Jesus died, but to Jesus Himself privileged to die for them, it is an interpretation 1 2 Pet. i. 17. 2 Heb. iii. 3. s Heb. v. 4, 5. 42 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. which, though yielding a thought true in itself and rele vant to the purpose in hand, does not seem even to have occurred to the minds of most expositors. This is all the more surprising, that the pointlessness of the expression in question, as ordinarily interpreted, has not escaped notice. Ebrard, for example, feels it so strongly that he falls back on the ancient reading %mph ©eov, adopted by Origen and the Nestorians, and used by the former as an argument in favour of his theory of universal restitution,1 and by the latter as a proof text in support of their doctrine of a double personality in the one Christ. ' The reading x&pvn,' 2 Ebrard re marks, ' is certainly clear as water, extremely easy to understand, but also extremely empty of thought, and unsuitable ; ' herein echoing the tone as well as the thought of Theodore of Mopsuestia, who calls it ridi culous to substitute %dpiTb ©eov instead of xwP^ ®60v> and represents those who do so as adopting a reading which appears to them easy of comprehension, because they fail to see the sense of the true, more difficult reading; that sense being, in his view, that the man Jesus tasted death apart from God the Logos, to whom in life He had been joined, it being unseemly that the Logos should have any personal connection with death, 1 Comment, in Joann. torn i. c. 40: ' fiiyag sarin apxiipivg, oi/x irnip avOpuiruv f&oiiou, a.'h.'Ka xai navTog hoytxov t^v a-a-aS, 6vola.11 vpoaiutxauaa.il iaVTOii amvsyxuii. ~Xap\g yap ®tov VTtrip iraiiTog iyivoaro Hai/a-TOV, OTttp id Tlat xiiTXi t% irpog 'TZ/ipaiovg avTiypaipoig, x«.pm ®eov. Eire oe x"?^ ®i0" """if ir»v- to? tytvaa-TO da.ua.Tov, ov povav v-irip aaapuvnu ctiriox.iit!>, aKKa xaX imp tuu -hoivuv Koyix.av.'1 Origen includes within the scope of the ¦xa.inog all existing beings except God, viewed as tainted with man's sin. ' K«i ya.p,'1 he says, ' xtowov virep aitapomhai)' (ih alrov (paaxzw aftxpTriftaTuti ytytvo6a,i 6a.ua.T0v oi/x sri Si v-zlp uKhov rii/og vrapx to» 6%v6puirav in a-fiapT'/if&aat yiytUYifihoii' oloii unrip aarpam, ov Be tZiu oloTpuji iravTag xa6a.pau 6'vray iyimiov rov ®sov.J 2 Der Brief an Die Hebrder erkldrt, p. 90. ANCIENT READING IN HEBREWS II. 9. 43 though it was not unseemly that He should make the man Jesus, as the Captain of Salvation, perfect through suffering.1 It is not surprising that the Master of the East should have preferred a reading which seemed to favour his peculiar Christological theory ; but it does seem strange that a modern theologian, holding very different views on Christology, should feel himself forced to fall back on that reading, from sheer inability to assign a suitable and worthy sense to the reading in the received text, while such an interpretation as I have ventured to suggest was open to him. Is it, then, really an inadmissible thought, that God showed favour to Christ in appointing Him to taste death for every man ? is it out of keeping with the general strain of this Epistle ? does it not fit in naturally to what goes before and to what comes after ? Was it not worth while to point out to persons scandalized by the humiliation of Christ, that what to vulgar view might seem a mark of divine disfavour, was, in truth, a signal proof of divine grace ; that even in appointing the Son of man to go through a curriculum of suffering, God had been mind ful of Him, and had graciously visited Him, opening up to Him the high career of Captain of Salvation ? And how are we to understand the assertion following, that it became Him who is the first cause and last end of 1 Theo. Mops, in Epistolam Pauliad Hebraeos co?nmentarii Fragmenta, Migne, Patrologiae cursus, torn. Ixvi. p. 955. Theodore's words are : ' Yih.016- TttTOV o"s) ti ira-oxovoi ivTav6a, to %ap\g ®sov ivaKKa-TOVTtg xal votovuTtg xapiTt &eov, ov ¦Kpoakxomig rfi oLxo~hov6ia Trig Tpa6%g, aX)\ aico tov fiij avmiuai irri irore itpn to xaP'S ®iov dota((lipag i^a-XzityoiiTig piiv eailuo, TtQiiiTZg 3e to ookovu avroig ivxoKov tit/at irpog xxravowiii.' He goes on to say that it was not Paul's custom, xapirt ®iov Ti6iuai a.-a'hag — using the expression as a pious commonplace — aKKa ora-mug cctto Tii/og axoKov6iag "hoyov ; which is quite true of Paul and of all the New Testament writers, and favours the inter pretation given above. 44 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. all to perfect the Captain of Salvation by suffering, if not as a defence of the bold idea, contained, as it appears to me, in the preceding verse ? The import of that assertion is simply this : The means and the end of salvation are both worthy of the Supreme, by whom and for whom all events in time happen ; the end manifestly and admittedly — for who will question that it is worthy of God to lead many sons to glory ? — the means not less than the end, though at first they may appear to compromise the dignity both of the Supreme Cause and of His commissioned Agent. It was honour able for the Captain of Salvation to taste of death in the prosecution of His great work; it was an honour con ferred upon Him by God the Father to be appointed to die for such a purpose. This, then, is another truth, besides the homousia of Christ's humanity with ours, which we learn from the Epistle to the Hebrews : that Christ's humiliation is at the same time in an. important sense His glorification ; that it is not merely followed by a state of exaltation, according to the doctrine of Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians, but carries a moral compensation within itself; so that we need not hesitate to emphasize the humiliation, inasmuch as the more real and thorough it is, the greater the glory and honour accruing to the humbled One. The glory is that of one ' full of grace and 'truth,' manifested not in spite of, but through His humiliation made visible by the Incarnation and the human life of the Son of God, as the Apostle John testifies when he says in the beginning of his Gospel : ' The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.' The evangelist explains, indeed, that the glory of which he speaks is the THE HUMILIATION IN JOHN'S GOSPEL. 45 glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father ; but he does not mean by that the glory of metaphysical majesty visible through the veil of the flesh in consequence of its doketic transparency. He means the glory of divine love which the Only-begotten, who was in the bosom of the Father, came forth to reveal, and of which His state of humiliation on earth was the historical exegesis. It has, indeed, been confidently asserted by certain writers that John knows nothing of a state of humiliation, — that the Incarnation of the Word is for Him not an abase ment, but a new means of revealing His glory, the representation of Christ's death in his Gospel as an exal tation or a glorification being adduced as conclusive proof of the fact ; and Protestant scholastic theologians have been severely blamed for overlooking or ignoring the undeniable truth. It is a characteristic illustration of the haste and onesidedness of modern criticism.1 As if the two ideas of glorification and humiliation were absolutely incompatible ; as if John, the apostle of love, was not a very likely person to comprehend their compatibility ; as if the things alleged in proof of his ignorance of a state of humiliation did not rather prove his complete mastery of the truth now. insisted on, viz. that the humiliations of Christ were on the moral side glorifica tions ! The glory of which John speaks is that of divine grace revealed in word, deed, and stiffering, to the eye of faith. This glory the Only-begotten won by renouncing the comparatively barren glory of metaphysical majesty. Thus, in becoming poor, He at the same time enriched Himself. In the words of Martensen, ' Because only in the state of humiliation could He fully reveal the depths 1 Vid. Reuss, Theologie Chretienne, ii. 455. 46 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. of divine love, and because it was by this His poverty that He made all rich, it may be said that as the Son of man He first took full possession of His divine glory ; for then only is love in full possession when it can fully communicate itself, and only then does it reveal its omnipotence, when it conquers hearts, and has the strong for a prey.' 1 The foregoing discussion of the passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews, bearing on the subject of the humiliation of Christ, thus yields us the following addi tions to the list of elementary truths : — 7. The service Christ came to render, His vocation as the Captain of Salvation, or the Sanctifier, was such as to involve likeness to men in all possible respects, both in nature and in experience ; a likeness in nature as complete as if He were merely a human personality ; a likeness in experience of temptation, and, in general, of subjection to the curse resting on man on account of sin, limited only by His personal sin lessness. 8. Christ's whole state of exinanition was not only worthy to be rewarded by a subsequent state of exaltation, but was in itself invested with moral sublimity and dignity ; so that, having in view the honour of the Saviour, we have no interest in minimizing His experience of humilia tion, but, on the contrary, are concerned to vindicate for that experience the utmost possible fulness, recognising no limit to the descent except that arising out of His sinlessness. And now, having furnished ourselves with this series of axioms, our next business must be to use them as 1 Die Christliche Dogmalik, p. 246. PLAN OF THE COURSE. 47 helps in forming a critical estimate of conflicting Christo logical and Soteriological theories. But before entering on this, the main part of our undertaking, it will be expedient here to indicate the plan on which our subse quent discussions will be conducted. It will not be neces sary, for the purpose I have in view in these lectures, that I should treat with scholastic accuracy of the different stages or stations in the status exinanitionis. I do not know that for any purpose such a mode of treatment would be of much service. I question, indeed, whether exactitude in handling this theme be practicable ; at all events, it is certain that anything approaching to exacti tude is not to be found in dogmatic systems. In the works of the leading dogmaticians the stages of our Lord's humiliation are very variously enumerated, though, of course, certain features are common to all the schemes. Occasionally confusion of thought is discernible, — acts being confounded with states, and generals treated as particulars. The Incarnation, e.g., is sometimes reckoned to the state of exinanition, whereas it is in truth the efficient cause of the whole state, the original act of gracious condescension whereof the state of humiliation is the historical evolution and result. An instance of the other sort of confusion, that of turning a general into a particular, may perhaps be found in the answer given in the Shorter Catechism to the question referring to Christ's humiliation, where the ' wrath of God ' comes in, apparently as a particular experience, like 'the cursed death of the cross ' mentioned immediately after ; while the expression, though peculiarly applicable to particular experiences, really admits of being applied to the whole 48 CHRISTOLOGICAL AXIOMS. state of humiliation as a designation thereof from a certain point of view, as in fact it is applied in the Heidelberg Catechism.1 Instead, therefore, of attempting an exact enumera tion of the stations, I propose to consider the whole state of humiliation under these three leading aspects : the physical, the ethical, and the soteriological. Under the first of these aspects we shall have to consider the bearing of the category of humiliation on Christ's person. The Son of God became man, the Word was made flesh, the Eternally-begotten was born in time of the Virgin ; what is the dogmatic significance of these facts in reference to the person of the Incarnate One? Under the second aspect, the ethical, we shall have an opportunity of contemplating the incarnate Son of God as the subject of a human experience involving moral trial, and supplying a stimulus to moral develop ment. Christ was tempted in all points like as we are, and He was perfected by suffering; in what sense, and to what extent, can temptation and perfecting be pre dicated of One who was without sin ? Under the third aspect we shall have to consider Christ as a servant, under law, and having a task ap pointed Him, involving humiliating experiences various in kind and degree. To the physical aspect three lectures will be devoted ; one on the ancient Christology, the formula of Chalcedon 1 Quaestio 37. Quid credis, cum dicis, passus est? Eum toto quidem vitae suae tempore quo in terra egit, praecipue vero in ejus extremo iram Dei adversus peccatum universi generis humani, corpore et anima sustinuisse. PLAN OF COURSE. 49 being taken as the view-point for our historical survey ; a second, on the Christologies of the old Lutheran and Reformed Confessions ; a third, on the modern kenotic theories of Christ's person. The other two aspects of our Lord's humiliation will occupy each a single lecture. D LECTURE II. THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. THE Christology of the ancient Church took final shape at the Council of Chalcedon, a.d. 451, in the following formula : — ' Following the holy Fathers, we all with one consent teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Deity, and the same perfect in humanity, truly God, and the same truly man, of reasonable soul and body, of the same substance with the Father as to His divinity, of the same substance with us as to His humanity ; in all things like to us, except sin ; before the ages begotten of the Father as to His Deity, but in the latter days for us, and for our redemption, begotten (the same) of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God, as to His humanity ; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, manifested in two natures, without confusion, without conversion, indivisibly, inseparably. The distinction of natures being by no means abolished by the union, but rather the property of each preserved and combined into one person and one hypostasis ; not one severed or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten, viz. God Logos, and the Lord Jesus Christ.'1 1 "~E.ua xai tou avTOU opt.o~Koysiv vlov tou xvpiou iipau '\i\aovu XpiaTou avptpaua; anra-ung ixlib'a-oxofx.'.u, Tension, tou xvtou iu 6i0TyTi, xai Tikiiou, tou avTou iu avQpu- CHARACTER OF APOLLINARIS. 5 I This famous creed, formulated by the Fourth General Council, was the fruit of two great controversies, the Apollinarian and the Nestorian; the one having reference to the integrity of our Lord's humanity, the other to the unity of His person. In these two controversies all parties may be said to have been animated by an orthodox interest, and to have been sincerely desirous to hold fast and establish the Catholic faith. All accepted cordially the Nicaean Creed, and sought to construct a Christology on a Trinitarian foundation. These remarks apply even to ApoUinaris, who, however much he may have failed in his attempt at a construction of Christ's' person, seems to have meant that attempt to be a defence of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation against its assail ants. He was a man held in high esteem by his con temporaries for his learning, piety, and eminent services to the cause of truth, till in his old age he promulgated his. peculiar Christological theory. Epiphanius speaks of him as one who had always been beloved by himself, Athanasius, and all the orthodox ; so that when he first got tidings of the new heresy, he could hardly believe that such a doctrine could emanate from such a man.1 He had done excellent service as champion of the Nicaean symbol against the Arians, and had given a still more conclusive proof of his zeal in that cause by vorvtrr oftoovaiou tZ waTpi xaTa t'/iu 6t0Tnra, xai optoovaiou to» xvtou qftlu xxtx r/ju au6paisoTi)Ta, xxto, irauTa oftaiov vipiiu xaP^S xpcxprixg . . . ex Mxpixg rijs irap6tuov, Trig 6tOTOxov . . . tux xxi tou xvtou ~K.ptoTou, ixhvau tyvatau {al. iu Si/o 0vataiu) davyxvTag, xTptmug, xhiaiptTag xxfi>piarag yuupii^ifituow ovoapov rijj Tau (pvatau hxtyopag duYipyftiuri; b*ld tiju haatu, aa^opciuvig Be paKhou T^g ihoTVjrog ixxTtpxg (pvoeag, xxi tig tu irpoawxou xxi y.ixu i/ffooTxaiu avuTptxovavig, oi/x tig Byo orpoaairx ftepi^ofituou ij hxipoifituou, a~K7C tux xai t6u xvtou viou, xxi fiouoysui} ®tou "Koyou Kvptou 'Iuo-oSn ~K.piotov. 1 Adv. Haereses, lib. iii. torn. ii. ; Dimoeritae, c. 2, see also c. 24. 52 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. suffering exile on account of his opposition to the Arian heresy.1 The theory of Christ's person propounded by Apol- linaris was this, that the humanity of Christ did not con sist of a reasonable soul and body, as in other men, but of flesh and an animal soul without mind, the place of mind being supplied in His case by the Logos. Of the inner genesis of this theory in its author's mind we have no accounts, and we can only conjecture what were its hidden roots. Among these may probably be reckoned familiarity with, and partiality for, classic Greek literature, and more especially the works of Plato;2 antagonism on other matters to Origen, the first among the early Fathers to give prominence to the doctrine that Christ's humanity was endowed with a rational soul, predisposing to a diverse way of think ing on that particular subject likewise ; and above all, determined hostility to the opinions concerning the per son of the Saviour, characteristic of the Arian heretics. So far as one can judge from contemporary represen tations, and from the fragments of the work on the Incarnation which have been preserved, the Apollinarian theory was attractive to the mind of its inventor chiefly on these accounts : as enabling him to combat successfully the Arian doctrine of the fallibility of Christ ; as ensuring 1 Epiphan. Adv. Haer. lib. iii. torn. ii. ; Dimoeritae, c. 24. 2 An interesting evidence of this is supplied in the fact, that when the Emperor Julian interdicted the reading of the classic poets and orators in the Christian schools, in the year 362, ApoUinaris, along with his father, set himself to provide a kindred literature in the shape of versions of the Scrip tures, the father taking up the Old Testament, and turning the Pentateuch into heroic verse, in imitation of Homer, and doing other portions into comedies, tragedies, and lyrics, in imitation of Menander, Euripides, and Pindar ; while the son took up the New Testament, and turned the Gospels and Epistles into dialogues, in the style of Plato. APOLLINARIAN THEORY OF CHRISTS PERSON. 53 the unity of the person of Christ, with which the doctrine of the integrity of His humanity seemed incompatible; and as making the Incarnation a great reality for God, involving subjection of the divine nature to the experi ence of suffering. As to the first, the. Arian doctrine of the person of Christ was, that in the historical person called Christ appeared in human flesh the very exalted, in a sense divine, creature named in Scripture the Logos, — the Logos taking the place of a human soul, and being liable to human infirmity, and even to sin, inasmuch as, however exalted, He was still a creature, therefore finite, therefore fallible, TpeirTos, capable of turning, in the abuse of freedom, from good to evil. ApoUinaris accepted the Arian method of constructing the person, by the ex clusion of a rational human soul, and used it as a means of obviating the Arian conclusion, which was revolting to his religious feelings. His reply to the Arian was in effect this : ' Christ is, as you say, the Logos appearing in the flesh and performing the part of a human soul ; but the Logos is not a creature, as you maintain ; He is truly divine, eternally begotten, not made, and therefore morally infallible.' In no other way did it seem to him possible to escape the Arian mutability {rpetrTov), for he not only admitted the fallibility of all creatures, however exalted, but he believed that in human beings at least a rational soul, endowed with intelligence and freedom, not only may, but must inevitably fall into sin. Freedom, in fact, usually supposed to be a distinction of the human mind, exalting it in the scale of being above the lower animal creation, was in his view an evil to be got rid of, — and accordingly he sought to get rid of it, in the case of Christ, by denying that He had a human mind, and 54 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. ascribing to Him only an immutable divine mind which, to quote his own words, ' should not through defect of knowledge be subject to the flesh, but should without effort bring the flesh into harmony with itself J (as its passive instrument). As to the second advantage believed to be gained by the theory, that, viz., of securing the unity of Christ's person, ApoUinaris contended that, on the supposition of the two natures being perfect, the unity could not be main tained. ' If,' said he, ' to perfect man be joined perfect God, there are two, not one : one, the Son of God by nature ; another, the Son of God by adoption.' 2 On the other hand, he held that his theory gave one person, who was at once perfect man and perfect God, the two natures not .being concrete separable things, but two aspects of the same person. Christ was true God, for He was the eternal Logos manifest in the flesh. He was also true man, for human nature consists of three component elements, body, animal soul, and spirit, and all these were combined, according to the theory, in the person of Christ ; while, on the common theory, there were four things combined in Him, whereby He became not a man, but a man-God,3 a monstrum, resembling the fabulous animals of Greek 1 Gregory of Nyssa, Adv. Apollinarem, c. 40. The words of ApoUinaris are : Oi/x dpa austral to du6pomiuou ytuog h' duaKi^iosg uov, xai ohov du6pi>itov, d~Khd ha irpoa'Atiiptag- aapxog, f (pvoixou fteu to viytpt.ovtvia6ai (whose nature it is to be ruled) 'iotiro Be xTpt^CTOv j/oS, piy iwox/Woi/Tof avryi hd tTriaT^ftoavu-zig da6iunau, dXKa ovuapfio^ouTog ainrtu djitxaTug ixvTtji. All the accounts of the views of Apollinaris agree in ascribing to him the strange, almost Mani- chaean, doctrine, that freedom, the attribute of a rational soul, necessarily involved sin. Vid. Athanasius, De Incamatione Christi (near the begin ning): ottov yap Tihuog &u6paicag (complete man, metaphysically) txti x.xi a/Axpria ; also De Salutari Adventu Jesu Christi, sub init. Epiphanius, Adv. Haereses, 1. iii. t. ii. ; Dimoeritae, c. 26. 2 Greg. cc. 39, 42. 3 Greg. c. 49. CHRIST S HUMANITY ETERNAL. 5 5 mythology. True, it might be objected that the third element in the person of Christ, the nous, was not human but divine. But ApoUinaris was ready with his reply. ' The mind in Christ,' he said in effect, ' is at once divine and human ; the Logos is at once the express image of God and the prototype of humanity.' This appears to be what he meant when he asserted that the humanity of Christ was eternal,— a. part of his system which was much misunderstood by his opponents, who supposed it to have reference to the body of Christ.1 There is no reason to believe that ApoUinaris meant to teach that our Lord's flesh was eternal, and that He brought it with Him from heaven, and therefore was not really born of the Virgin Mary ; though some of his adherents may have held such opinions. His idea was, that Christ was the celestial man ; celestial, because divine; man, not merely as God incarnate, but because the Divine Spirit is at the same time essen tially human. In the combination whereby Christ's person was constituted there was thus nothing incon gruous, though there was something unique ; the divine being fitted in its own nature, and having, as it were, a yearning to become man. This was the speculative element in the Apollinarian theory misapprehended by contemporaries, better understood, and in some quarters more sympathized with, now.2 1 So Gregory Nys., Athanasius, and Epiphanius, in the works referred to in previous note. 2 See Dorner, Person of Christ, div. i. vol. ii. p. 372 (Clark's translation). Dorner's account of the Apollinarian theory is very full, able, and candid, and, so far as I can judge, satisfactory ; though, as we have only fragments to judge from, there must always be uncertainty on some points. For passages out of the work of ApoUinaris bearing on the subject of the affinity of the divine and- the human natures, see cap. 48-55 in Greg. Adv. Apoll. Baur's account (Die Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit, vol. i.) is less reliable. 56 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. The third advantage accruing from his theory, that of making ¦ God in very deed the subject of a suffering human experience, ApoUinaris reckoned of no less value than the other two. It seemed to him of fundamental importance, in a soteriological point of view, that the person of Christ should be so conceived of, that every thing belonging to His earthly history, both the miracles and the sufferings, should be predicable directly and exclusively of the divine element in Him. On this account he was equally opposed to the Photinian and to the ordinary orthodox view of Christ's person : to the former, because it made Christ merely a divine man (av6pmTro<; evOeos),1 the human, not the divine, being the personal element ; to the latter, because it virtually divided Christ into two persons, a divine and a human, referring to the divine only the miracles of power and knowledge, and ascribing to the human everything of the nature of suffering. On either theory, it appeared to him, the end of the Incarnation remained unaccom plished ; man was not redeemed, unless it could be said that God tasted death. A man liable to the common corruption cannot save the world ; neither can we be saved, even by God, unless He mix with us. He must become an impeccable man, and die, and rise again, and so destroy the empire of death over all ; He must die as ' God, for the death of a mere man does not destroy death, but only the death . of one over whom death cannot prevail.2 Such thoughts as these appeared to 1 Greg. c. 6 : To1 eLu6pw7iou iu6tov tou XpiaTou ouopta^uu, iuauri'ov una: Txlg dwoaTO'Kixxlg hoxoxa~Kiaig' aKKorpiou Be toiu ovuohuw Tixv'Kou Be' (of Samosata) xxi <&uruu6u, xai MxpxtKhou T»j? ToiaVTing haaTpotfqg xaT»p%ai (these men began this perverse way of speaking of Christ). 2 Greg. cap. 51, 52. APOLLINARIAN THEORY CRITICIZED. 57 ApoUinaris arguments in favour of his theory ; for he maintained that on the common theory the divine had really no part in Christ's sufferings ; 1 a statement not without some plausibility in reference to the orthodox Fathers, whose views regarding the impassibility of the divine nature were very rigid. To rectify this defect was a leading, we may say the leading, aim of the new Christology. Gregory of Nyssa, in his polemical treatise against ApoUinaris, states that the whole scope of the work in which the latter promulgated his opinions was to make the deity of the only-begotten Son mortal, and to show that not the human in Christ endured suffering, but the impassible and unchangeable nature in Him, converted to participation in suffering.2 It is easy to understand what a fascination a theory like the foregoing would have for a speculative mind ; nor are we surprised to learn that, on its being promul gated, it was received with enthusiasm by many. It was a theory whose appearance in the course of doctrinal development was to be looked for, and in some respects even to be desired ; and it could not have an author and advocate better qualified by his gifts and character to do it full justice, and secure for it the respectful and serious consideration of the Church, than it found in ApoUinaris. Yet the defects of this theory are very glaring. One radical error is the assumption, that to get rid of sin we must get rid of a human mind in Christ. Gregory of Nyssa, referring to the apostolic dictum, ' tempted in all points like as we are, without sin,' very pertinently remarks, parenthetically, ' but mind is not sin.' 3 If it be 1 Greg. cap. 27. z Greg. cap. 5. 3 C. xi. : a Be uovg dftxpTix ovx Ioti. 58 THE PATRISTIC. CHRISTOLOGY. sin, then, to be consistent, the theory ought to take away mind not merely from Christ, but from human nature itself. Yet ApoUinaris is so far from doing this, that he represents mind (vow) as the leading element in human nature (to jcvpimTaTov).1 It is because vow is to KvpuDTarov that its omission is necessary in order to secure the unity of Christ's person. If Christ consists of two perfect, that is, complete, unmutilated natures, then, according to ApoUinaris, He is two persons, not one. It thus appears that to the metaphysical perfection of human nature vow is indispensable, while for its moral perfection the removal of the same element is equally indispensable ; a view which on the one hand involves a Manichaean attitude towards the first creation, and on the other hand makes a theory of sanctification impossible. The old man is inevitably bad because he is free ; and the new man is to be made good, either by the mutila tion of his nature, or by a magical overbearing of his nature by divine power. Another manifest defect in the theory is, that it adopts means for excluding the possibility of sin in Christ, which defeat another of its own chief ends, that, viz., of making the Divine partaker of suffering. Place is found for the physical fact of death, but no place is found for the moral suffering connected with temptation. Christ is so carefully guarded from sin, that He is not even allowed to know what it is to be tempted to sin. The author of the theory is so frightened by that Arian scarecrow, the tpe-n-Tov, that he solves the problem of Christ's sinlessness by annihilating the conditions under 1 Greg. Nys. Adv. Apoll. c. xxiii. : Christ was oi/x Mpuitog, «7iX' iig au6pi d-aap%Yi. 3 De Incarnatione Unigeniti, torn. viii. Opera, Migne, p. 12 14. NESTORIAN CONTROVERSY. 6 1 Athanasius very pertinently, can there be imitation tending to perfection, unless there be first a perfect exemplar ? 1 The Nestorian controversy, which broke out about half a century after the death of ApoUinaris,2 may be regarded as the natural sequel of the controversy con cerning the integrity of Christ's humanity, whereof a brief account has just been given. The Church, by the voice of Councils' and of its representative men, having declared in favour of a complete unmutilated humanity, the next question calling for decision was, How do the two natures in Christ, the divine and the human, stand related to each other ? On this momentous question the Antioch school of theologians took up a position diame trically opposed to that of ApoUinaris. Whereas Apol- linaris had sacrificed the integrity of Christ's humanity for the sake of the unity of His person, the Syrian theologians, represented by Theodore of Mopsuestia, and by his pupils, Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, and Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, seemed disposed to sacri fice the unity of the person in favour of the integrity of the humanity. Their attitude was substantially this : they were determined at all hazards to hold by the reality of the two factors, and especially of the humanity, the latter 1 De Incarnaiione Christi (near the beginning) : filpmaig Be xag au ykuono irpog TthtioTYiTa, fttj irpovifapi,aa-ng t»j? xuiuhovg t&uotvito;. On the Apollinarian theory of redemption, see Dorner, who, in opposition to Baur and Mohler, denies that it was a mere doctrine of imitation. Cyril seems to have looked on it in this light, for in the Dialogue on the Incarnation he makes one of the interlocutors ask : ' What if they should say that our state needed only the sojourning of the Only-begotten among us ? but as He wished to be seen of mortals, and to have intercourse with men, and to show to us the way of evangelic life, He put on (economically) flesh like ours, as the divine in its own nature cannot be seen.' — Cy. Op., Migne, viii. p. 1212. * Between 380 and 392 a.d. ; exact date uncertain. 62 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. being the thing assailed ; and to admit only of such a union as was compatible with such reality. Christ must be a man, at all events, whatever more; a man in all respects, save sin, like other men, having a true body, a reasonable soul, and a free will, liable to tempta tion, and capable of real, not merely apparent, growth, not only in stature, but in wisdom and virtue. Such was the Christ they found in the New Testament, such the Christ who could lay hold of human sym pathies ; in such a Christ, therefore, they were deter mined to believe, both as men devoted to exegetical studies, and as men of an ethical rather than a theo logical bent of mind. With the resolute maintenance of the reality of Christ's manhood, the theologians of Antioch did not find it possible to accept of any union of the natures, except one of an ethical character. They rejected a physical union (eWo-t? icaff ovalav) because it seemed to them inevitably to involve a mixture of natures (jcpaaui), and therefore to lead either to a dissipation of the humanity, or to a degradation of the unchangeable divine element, or to both. In his animadversions on the second of Cyril's twelve anathemas against Nestorius (which condemns those who deny a union by hypostasis, hypostasis being taken in the sense of substance), Theodoret says : ' If by union (icad' vtroaraatv) he means that a mixture of flesh and Deity has taken place, we confidently contradict him, and charge him with, blas phemy. For of necessity confusion follows mixture ; and confusion ensuing, destroys the properties of either nature. For things mixed do not remain what they were before.' But if mixture took place, God did not remain God, nor THE MOTHER OF GOD. 63 could the temple (His humanity) be recognised as a temple ; but God was temple, and temple was God.' 1 From jealousy of this mixture, supposed to be taught by their opponents, the Antiochians disliked the term ©eoTOKo<; (mother of God) applied to the mother of our Lord, which was the occasion of the outbreak of the controversy, and became famous as the battle-cry of orthodoxy in the fierce war against Nestorian heretics. They did not absolutely deny the applicability of the epithet ; but they looked on it with disfavour, as extremely liable to abuse, and fitted to create the erroneous impres sion that the Word literally became flesh ; and they pre ferred to give Mary the title of Xpi,aTOTOKo<; (mother of Christ), and to Christ Himself the title ©eocp6po<; (God- bearer) ; their idea of the Incarnation being, that Mary gave birth to a human being, to whom, from the first moment of His conception, the Logos joined Himself.2 This union, formed at the earliest possible period, between the Logos and the man Jesus, those who followed the Nestorian tendency described by a variety of phrases, all proceeding on the idea of an ethical as opposed to a physical union. They called it an inhabitation;3 and the 1 Cyril. Apologeticus contra Theodoretum, pro. xii. capitibus, Anath. ii. 2 Cyril quotes Nestorius, saying : If any simple person likes to call Mary ®toToxog, I don't object ; only don't let him call the Virgin a goddess, fiouou py ¦xoiutu tw irap6tuou 6txu. — Adv. Nestorium (Cy. Op. t. ix., Migne, p. 57). Nes torius was jealous of the heathenish tendency of the name, mother of God, not without reason. Theodoret, in his animadversions on Anathema i., con demning those who deny to Mary the title ©eoTo'xo?, apologises for those who had been jealous of the word by saying, ' We, following the Gospel statement, assert that God the Word was not naturally made flesh, or changed into flesh, but He assumed flesh, and tabernacled among us, according' to the word of the evangelist, and the teaching of Paul, when he speaks of Christ taking the form of servant (poptpriu Iov~kov \xfiauy — Cyril. Apolog. contra Theodoret. Anath. i. Op. Migne, ix. p. 392. 3 tuoixtiaig. 64 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. general nature of the inhabitation, as distinct from that by which God dwells in all men, through His omnipresent essence and energy, they indicated by the phrase, ' by good pleasure ' (icaff evBoiclav) ; and this indwelling by good pleasure in Christ they further discriminated from God's indwelling in other good men, by representing it as attaining in Him the highest possible degree. This indwelling of the Logos in Christ was also said to be according to foreknowledge,1 the Logos choosing the man Jesus to be in a peculiar sense His temple, because He knew beforehand what manner of man He should be. Such was the way Theodore of Mopsuestia, in particular, viewed the union. Among other favourite phrases current in the same school were such as these : union by conjunction ; 2 union by relation,3 as in the case of husband and wife ; union in worth, honour, authority ; 4 union by consent of will ; 5 union by community of name ; ? and so forth ; for it were endless to enumerate the Nestorian tropes or modes of union. It is manifest from these and the like phrases, that the Nestorian manner of conceiving the person of Christ really involved a duality of persons. In Christ were united by physical juxtaposition and ethical affinity two persons: one, the Son of God by nature; the other, a Son of God by adoption. Yet Nestorius and his friends did not wish to teach a duality of persons or of sons, and would not allow their opponents to represent them as teaching such a doctrine. Their position as defined by themselves was : there are two hypostases, but only one 1 xaTd itpoyuoiau. 2 avuxQtia. 3 iuaaig axtTixij. * xar d%iau, x«o" oftoriftlar, xx6' avfauTixv. 6 xard TaVTofiovf^iau. 6 xad' oftauvftixu. WAS NESTORIUS A NESTORIAN ? 65 person {Trpoawirov), one Son, one Christ1 Nestorius, as quoted by his great opponent Cyril, said : ' There is no division as to conjunction, dignity, Sonship, or as to participation in the name Christ ; there is only a division of the Deity and the humanity. Christ as Christ is indi visible ; for we have not two Christs, or two Sons ; there is not with us a first and a second, nor one and another, nor one Son and another Son ; but one and the same is double, not in dignity, but in nature.' 2 Hence the ques tion, Were Nestorius and those who thought with him Nestorians in the theological sense ? may be answered both affirmatively and negatively : negatively, if you look to what they said they held and honestly wished to hold ; affirmatively, if you look to the logical consistency of their system. They made Christ as much an inde pendent, self-subsistent man as if He were altogether distinct from the Logos ; they described the union be tween Him and the Logos by phrases implying only a very close moral affinity ; so that the natural inference would seem to be, that the Logos was personally as distinct from Jesus as from any other good man, though more closely related to Him than to any other man. But they refused to draw the inference ; they declared there were not in Christ one and another (aXKos ko\ aXXos), but only one who was double. The great opponent of the Antiochian Christology, Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, held its advocates re sponsible for the logical consequences of their theory ; and the strong side of his polemic is the manner in 1 Cyril. Afiolog. contra Theodoret. Anath. iii : iu pi> Ttpoawxou xxi ha "tiou xai ~K.piaTou 6f&o~Koyuu tvatfieg' hio Be Tag ivu6tiaa; vicoarxaug, thovv (pvatlg, 7\iytiu oi/x arovou, aKhd xar aWiav dxo~Kov6ou. 2 Cyril. Contra Nestorium, lib. ii. c. v. E 66 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. which he brings great principles to bear against the doctrine of a divided personality. Specially noticeable is the use which he makes of the idea of kenosis, in argu ing against that doctrine. Again and again the thought recurs in ¦ his various controversial writings, that if the Logos did not become man, but merely assumed a man, then what took place was not a kenosis of the Divine Subject, but, on the contrary,1 an exaltation of the human subject. Thus, in one place he says : ' If, as our adver saries think, the only-begotten Word of God, taking a human being from the seed of David, procured that He should be formed in the holy Virgin, and joined Him to Himself, and caused Him to experience death, and, raising Him from the dead, conveyed Him up to heaven, and seated Him on the right hand of God, — vainly, in that case, as it appears, is He said by the holy Fathers, and by us, and by all inspired Scripture, to have become man ; for this and nothing else John means when he says, the Word became flesh (o X070S aapl; eyiveTo). For on this theory the whole mystery of the economy in the flesh is turned to the contrary, and what we see is not the Logos, being God by nature and coming from God, letting Himself down to kenosis, taking the form of a servant, and humbling Himself; but, on the contrary, a^man raised to the glory^of Deity, and to pre-eminence over all, and taking^ the form of God, and becoming exalted to be an assessor on the throne with the Father.'1 In another place we find him argu ing against the Nestorian doctrine of assumption in favour of his own doctrine of union by hypostasis, to the effect that the kenosis requires that the human attri- 1 Quodunus sit Christus, Opera, torn, viii., Migne, pp. 1279-82. CYRIL ON THE KENOSIS. 67 butes should be predicable of the Divine Subject. ' Do you think,' he asks his opponent Theodoret, ' that St. Paul meant to deceive the saints when he wrote, " that, being rich, He became poor on our account " ? But who is the rich One, and how became He poor ? If, as they make bold to think and say, a man was assumed by God, how can He who was assumed and adorned with pre ternatural honours be said to have become poor ? He only can be said to have been impoverished who is rich as God. But how ? we must consider that question. For, being confessedly unchangeable in nature, He was not converted into the nature of flesh, laying aside His own proper nature ; but He remained what He was, that is, God. Where, then, shall we see the humility of im poverishment ? Think you in this, that He took one like ourselves, as the creatures of Nestorius dare to say ? And what sort of poverty and exinanition would that be which consisted in His wishing to honour some man like us ? For God is not injured in any way by doing good. How, then, became He poor ? Thus, that being God by nature, and Son of God the Father, He became man, and was born of the seed of David accord ing to the flesh, and subjected Himself to the servile, that is, to the human measure ; 1 and having become man, He was not ashamed of the measure of humanity. For, not having refused to become like us, how should He refuse those things by which it would appear that He had really for our sakes been made like us ? If, therefore, we separate Him from the humanities, whether things or words, we differ in no respect from those who all but rob Him of flesh, and wholly overturn the mystery 1 "oovhoTrpfittg vn'tht fterpov, tovtioti to du6puiriuou. 68 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. of the Incarnation.'1 Supposing some one to object, that it was altogether unworthy of God to weep, to fear death, to refuse the cup, he goes on to say : ' When the exinani- tion appears mean to thee, admire the more the charity of the Son. What you call little, He did voluntarily for thee. He wept humanly, that He might dry thy tears ; He feared economically, permitting the flesh to suffer the things proper to it, that He might make us bold ; He refused the cup, that the cross might convict the Jews of impiety ; He is said to have been weak as to His humanity, that He might remove thy weakness; He offered prayers, that He might render the ears of the Father accessible to thee ; He slept, that thou mightst learn not to sleep in temptation, but be watchful unto prayers.' 2 I have made these quotations at some length,. because, while fully illustrating the style of Cyril's argumentation from the kenosis against the Nestorian theory, they at the same time set forth clearly his con ception of the kenosis as resulting from a hypostatical union, in virtue of which all the humanities in Christ's earthly history were predicable of the Logos as the personal subject. Looking now at these passages and Others of similar import from a controversial point of view, there can be no doubt that they have great argumentative force against the Nestorian view of Christ's person as conceived by Cyril. Yet the advo cates of the controverted theory did not feel themselves mortally wounded by such arguments. On the con trary, they in turn argued from the kenosis against their 1 Apolog. contra Theodoret. pro XII. capitibus, Anath. x. torn. ix. p. 440. 2 Apolog. contra Theodoret. Anath. x. torn. ix. p. 441. THEODORET ON THE KENOSIS. 69 antagonist In his animadversions on Cyril's third anathema, which asserts a physical as opposed to a merely moral union of the natures, Theodoret objects that such a union makes the kenosis a matter of physical necessity, instead of a voluntary a*ct of con descension. ' Nature,' he says, ' is a thing of a com pulsory character and without will. For example, we hunger physically, not suffering this willingly, but by necessity ; for certainly those living in poverty would cease begging if they had it in .their power not to hunger. In like manner we thirst, sleep, breathe by nature ; for these are all without will ; and he who does not experience these things, of necessity dies. If, there fore, the union of the form of Son to the form of a servant was physical, then God the Logos was joined to the form of a servant as compelled by a certain necessity, not in the exercise of philanthropy, and the universal Lawgiver shall be found complying with com pulsory laws, contrary to the teaching of Paul, who says : " He humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant." The words eavTov i/cevmae point to a voluntary act' 1 To the same effect John of Antioch, criticizing the same anathema, speaking in the name of the whole Syrian church, asks : 'If the union is physical, where is the grace, where the divine mystery ? For natures once formed by God are subject to the reign of necessity.'2 Now Cyril certainly did recognise a reign of physical law, both in the constitution of Christ's person and in 1 Cyril. Ap. c. Theod. Anath. iii. Anath. iii. runs : Ei" tis e>< toS hog XpiaTOV hatpti Tag viroaTxattg fitTX ttju 'iuuaiu, pt*6uyi avuxmau xiirdg avuaCptia rr, xaTx tyiu d%!xu ijyovu av6tUTiav ij ivuaartiau, xai ovx't h/j pidXhau aiuoiou tsji/ xa6y tuaaiu Qvoixqu. 2 Cyril, Apolog. pro XII. capitibus contra Orientates, Anath. iii. 70 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. the course of His incarnate history. He held that the person was not secure against dissolution unless it were based on physical laws, rather than on a gracious relation of the Logos to the man Jesus, such as the Nestorian party advocated.1 And he considered that the Logos in becoming man by a voluntary act, gave to physical laws a certain dominion over Himself: took humanity, on the understanding that its laws, conditions, or measures, were to be respected. In this very act of voluntary self-subjection to the laws of humanity did the kenosis consist. By this principle Cyril ex plained the facts of birth, growth in stature, and ex perience of sinless infirmities, such as hunger, thirst, sleep, weariness, etc., in the earthly history of the Saviour. ' It was not impossible,' he says in one place, 'for the omnipotent Logos, having resolved for our sakes to become man, to have formed a body for Him self by His own power, refusing birth from a woman, even as Adam was formed ; but because that might give occasion to unbelievers to calumniate the Incarna tion, saying it was not real, therefore it was necessary that He should go through the ordinary laws of human nature.' 2 With reference to physical growth, he says in another place : ' It was not impossible that God, the Word begotten of the Father, should lift the body united to Him out of its very swaddling-clothes and raise it up to the measure of mature manhood. But this would have been a thaumaturgical proceeding, and incongru ous to the laws of the economy ; for the mystery was 1 Quod unus sit Ch ristus, t. viii. p. 1296: ov yap diivirowTou tig diroj3o'K^u, 6 pt,ri (pvatxolg ipviptioTai vif&oig. 2 Adv. Nestor, lib. i. cap. i. t. ix. p. 22 ; xtxapnxtu duayxaiag W tuu du6pa- ariurig (piiatag uopt.au. REIGN OF LAW IN CHRIST S HUMANITY. 1 1 accomplished noiselessly. Therefore, in accordance with the economy, He. permitted the measures of humanity to prevail over Himself.' x In a third passage he applies the same principle of compliance with the laws of humanity to explain a group of infirmities, including the appearance of ignorance (a point of which I shall speak more particularly forthwith). ' With humanity, the only - begotten Word bore all that pertains to humanity, save sin. But ignorance of the future agrees to the measures of humanity ; therefore, while as God knowing all, as man He does not shake Himself clear of the appearance of ignorance as suitable to humanity. For as He, being the life of all, received bodily food, not despising the measure of the kenosis (He is also described as sleeping and being weary) ; so likewise, knowing all, He yet was not ashamed to ascribe to Himself the ignorance which is congruous to humanity. For all that is human became His, sin alone excepted.' 2 In advocating this reign of physical law, Cyril pro claimed an important truth, and committed no offence against the freedom of the Logos. His fault rather lay in restricting the reign of law to the material sphere, excluding it from the intellectual or moral. This in point of fact he did. He recognised no real growth in wisdom or in character in Christ. He felt, indeed, that the claims of the kenosis extended to the mind as well as to the body, and he made every possible effort to satisfy those claims ; but he did not see his way to letting the intellectual and moral growth of Christ be 1 Quod unus Christus, t. viii. p. 1332 : '~E.Tih.tiTa yap d-$/oiTog piirpoig i

Tm<;, aTpeirTws, 1 Sicut enim Deus non mutatur miseratione : ita homo non consumitur dignitate. — Epist. c. 4. 2 Propter hanc unitatem personae in utraque natura intelligendam, et Filius hominis legitur descendisse de coelo, et rursus Filius Dei crucifixus dicitur ac sepultus. — Epist. c. 5. IMPORT OF THE CHALCEDON FORMULA. 83 aSiaipirm, d^mplaToy;1 of the formula do but condense into four words the various phrases scattered up and down the letter, in which the writer sets forth the distinctness and integrity of the two natures on the one hand, and their intimate, inseparable union in one person on the other. If, now, we inquire how far the letter and the formula together were fitted to put an end to contro versy, it must be admitted that they did at least indicate the cardinal points of a true Christology, in which all controversialists should agree. They laid down these two fundamental propositions : Christ must be regarded as one person, the common subject of all predicates, human and divine ; and in Christ must be recognised two dis tinct natures, the divine and the human — the divine not converted into the human, the human not absorbed into the divine ; the latter side of the second proposition, the integrity and reality of the humanity, viz., being chiefly emphasized, as the state of the controversy required. But they did little more than this. Leo and the Council told men what they should believe, but they gave little aid to faith by showing how the unity of the person and the distinctness of the natures were compatible with each other ; aid which, if it could be had, was urgently needed, for the whole controversy may be said to have arisen from a felt inability to combine the unity and the duality, — those who emphasized the unity failing to do justice to the duality, and those who felt compelled to insist strongly on the integrity of Christ's humanity not know ing well how to reconcile therewith the unity of His person. Aid of this kind was not to be looked for, indeed, in the decree of a Council, but it might perhaps 1 Without confusion, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably. 84 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. have been . reasonably expected from an epistle which almost assumed the dimensions of a theological treatise. Leo, however, makes no attempt at a solution of the problem, but contents himself with stating its conditions. Certain points of critical importance he passes over in silence. For example, he says nothing on the question of Christ's knowledge, with which Cyril grappled so earnestly, though unsuccessfully. He does not say whether ignorance and growth in wisdom are or are not included under the phrase totus in nostris; and the omission is all the more noticeable that he does enter into some detail on the properties of Christ's humanity, reckoning among them birth, infancy, temptation, hunger, thirst, weariness, and sleep. It would have been in structive to know how the Roman bishop applied the formula lotus in suis, totus in nostris to the category of knowledge ; and in case he reckoned omniscience among the sua, and ignorance among the nostra, to know how ¦ he combined these two opposites in one person, and how in this case each nature performed that which was com mon to it in communion with the other. From the style in which Leo expresses himself concerning the divine in Christ, one rather fears that he had no light to give on that subject. His doctrine of divine immutability is very rigid. The Son of God in becoming man did not recede from the equality of paternal glory,1 — a statement not in harmony either with the word or with the spirit of Scripture in speaking on the humiliation of Christ, and, indeed, as Dorner has observed,2 not in keeping 1 Sicut verbum ab aequalitate Paternae Gloriae non recessit ita, etc. — Epist. c. 4. 2 Doctrine of the Person of Christ, div. ii. vol. i. p. 88. DEFECTS OF LEO's LETTER. 85 with a thought of Leo's own, occurring in an earlier part of his epistle, viz., that the Incarnation does not violate divine immutability, inasmuch as it is the deed of a will which loved man at his creation, and which does not allow itself to be deprived of its benign disposition to wards man, either through his sin or through the devil's wiles. If God's unchangeableness be secured by the immutability of His loving will, why guard His majesty in away that tends to make His love a hollow unreality? why not let love have free course, and be glorified, even though its glorification should involve a temporary for feiture of glory of another kind ? From our Christological point of view, that of the exinanition, this is a part of Leo's letter with which we cannot sympathize. The doc trine of exinanition demands the unity of the person and the distinctness of the natures, especially the reality and integrity of the human nature ; but it does not require us to guard the Divine Majesty as the disciples guarded their Master from the intrusion of the mothers with their children. With reference to such zeal, the Son of God says : 'Suffer me to humble myself.' Even Cyril under stood this better than Leo, for he spoke of the Son of God as somehow made less than Himself in becoming man.1 On another subject Leo is silent — the question of the personality of the human nature. He teaches the unity of the person, but he does not say to which of the natures the personality is to be appropriated, or whether it belongs to both, or is distinct from both. Whether the humanity of Christ was personal or impersonal, 1 "T-xtpixoura pt,iu rZu rqg xriatag pttrpau ag 0eoV iavrav Be waj ptououovxi xai foTupttuou xa66 xiqmutu du6pa%og. — Ad reginas de verd fide, oratio altera xvi. The manner in which Cyril here expresses himself is curiously guarded and embarrassed, %ug pcououovxi, somehow almost ! 86 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. whether Christ was not merely man but a man, whether personality is to be reckoned among the nostra ascribed to Christ in their totality, — these are questions which either did not occur to his mind, or on which he did not feel able to throw light. The former supposition is probably the correct one ; for the writers of the patristic period did not conceive a person as we do, as a self- conscious Ego, but simply as a centre of unity for the characteristics which distinguish one individual from another.1 According to this view, Christ would be ' the result of the conjunction of natures, the sum total of both, the collective centre of vital unity which is at once God and man.' 2 The Council of Chalcedon proved utterly impotent to stay the progress of controversy ; its only immediate effect being to produce a schism in. the Church, whereby the Monophysite party became constituted into a sect. The great debate went on as if no ecclesiastical deci sion had been come to, prolonging its existence for upwards of three hundred years, and passing succes sively through three different stages, distinguished respectively as the Monophysite, the Monothelite, and the Adoptian controversies. The Chalcedonian formula left a sufficient number of unsettled questions to supply ample materials for further discussions. Are unity of the person and a duality of natures mutually compa tible ? what belongs to the category of the natures and what to the category of the person, and, in particular, to which of the two categories is the will to be reckoned ? is personality essential to the completeness 1 Dorner, Person of Christ, div. i. vol. ii. p. 320. 2 Ibid. div. ii. vol. i. p. 87. THE DREARY PERIOD OF CHRISTOLOGY. 87 of each nature, in particular to the completeness of the human nature ? These questions in turn became the successive subjects of dispute in the long Christological warfare which ensued ; the first being the radical point at issue in the Monophysite phase, the second in the Monothelite, the third in the Adoptian ; the great controversy thus returning in its final stage, at the close of the eighth century, pretty nearly to the point from which it started at the beginning of the fourth, Adop- tianism being, if not, as some think, with some difference of form, virtually Nestorianism redivivus, at least the assertion of a double aspect in Christ's personality. Of the many contests which raged around these questions in the course of the next three centuries, I will not here attempt to give even the most cursory account. The subject is indeed by no means inviting. From the Council of Chalcedon to the Council of Frankfort may be called the dreary period of Christology, the sources of information being comparatively scanty, the points at issue minute or obscure, and even when both clear and important, as in the Monothelite controversy, in volving subtle scholastic discussions distasteful to the religious spirit, and presenting to view an anatomical figure in place of the Christ of the Gospel history. The doctrine, I suppose, had to pass through all the phases referred to, — probably not one of the battles, great or small, could have been avoided ; still one is thankful his lot is cast in better times than those in which they were fought out. Who would care to spend his life discussing such questions as those which occupied the minds of men in the sixth century, and in reference to which Monophysite was at war with Monophysite, as 88 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. well as with his orthodox opponents ? Was Christ's body corruptible or incorruptible — naturally liable to death, suffering, need, and weakness, or liable only because and when the Logos willed ? was it created or uncreated ? nay, could it be said after the union with the Logos to exist at all ? Such were the questions on which men felt keenly in that unhappy age, and in connection with which they bestowed on each other nicknames offensive in meaning, unmusical in sound ; the deniers of the corruptibility calling their antagonists Phthartolatrae, worshippers ' of the corruptible ; the asserters of corruptibility retorting on their opponents with the countercharge of Aphthartodoketism ; x the parties in the question whether the body of Christ after union with the Logos was to be regarded as created or as uncreated, calling each other in kindred spirit Aktistetes and Ktistolators ; while those who com pleted the reductio ad absurdum of Monophysitism, by denying all distinctive reality to the humanity of Christ after the union, went by the name of Niobites, taken from the surname of the founder, Stephen, an Alexandrian Sophist. Two other disputes embraced within the Monophysitic controversy were of a more dignified character; those, viz., relating to the participation of the Logos in Christ's sufferings, and to the knowledge possessed by Christ's human soul. But it is a curious indication of the confused nature of the strife going on in those years, to find parties in the latter of these two disputes changing sides, — the Monophysites main taining the position which one would have expected the defenders of the Chalcedonian formula to take up. 1 See for further particulars in reference to this controversy, Lect. v. JOHN OF DAMASCUS. 89 The Agnoetes, that is to say, those who asserted that the human soul of Christ was like ours, even in respect of ignorance, were a section of the Monophysite party ; and their opponents embraced not merely the straiter sect of the Monophysites, but the Orthodox, who, as represented, e.g., by Bede, taught that Christ from His conception was full of wisdom, and therefore did not really grow in knowledge as in stature. Amid the smoke of battle men had got bewildered, and, fighting at random, fired upon their own side.1 Passing, then, without any great effort of self-denial, from these obscure wranglings, and leaping over, also without much regret, the Monothelite controversies which followed in what may be called the era of anatomical Christology, I shall close this lecture with brief notices of two representative men with whom we shall hereafter find it convenient to have some acquaint ance : one of them showing the state of Christology after the close of the controversy concerning the two wills, and before the rise of the Adoptian controversy ; the other exhibiting the prevailing Christology of the mediaeval period, when the process of reaction which set in after the Council of Frankfort, in the direction of a one sided assertion of Christ's divinity, had attained its com plete development. I refer to John of Damascus, who flourished about the middle of the eighth century, and Thomas Aquinas, one of the great lights of the thirteenth. John of Damascus carried the distinctness fli the natures to its utmost limit, short of the recognition of 1 See on this curious phenomenon, Dorner, Person of Christ, div. ii. vol. i. p. 142; and Baur, die Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit, vol. ii. pp. 87-92. Dorner and Baur agree in their view of the Agnostic controversy, and give the same representation as that in the text. 90 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. two hypostases in the one Christ. He advocated the doctrine of two wills, on the ground that the faculty of willing is an essential attribute of rational natures.1 The controversy concerning the two wills had arisen within the Church, and between the adherents to the Chalcedonian formula, because it was not self-evident to which of the two categories, the natures or the person, the will should be referred. Doubt on this point was very excusable, inasmuch as a good deal could be said on both sides. John recognises the legitimacy of such perplexity by virtually treating the will as a matter pertaining both to the natures and to the person. ' To will,' he says, ' in the abstract — the will faculty is physical, but to will-thus and thus is personal. '2 There are two will faculties but only one wilier, the one Christ who wills according to both natures using the will faculty of each.3 On the principle of conceding to each nature all its natural properties, John ascribes to the human will the faculty of self-determination (to avTe%ovo-bov) ; but this is very much a matter of form, for he represents the human soul of Christ as willing freely the things which the divine will wished it to will.4 His doctrine, therefore, while dyothelitic in one respect, is monothelitic in another ; the human will being in effect reduced to the position of a natural impulse of desire 1 De Duabus Voluntatibus, c. 22. 2 De Duabus Voluntatibus, c. 24 : ®ih.y\Tixiu %Zou 6 du6paxog- to Be 6tb.rrrou oil (fivaixou piouou, dXKx xxi yuupuxou, xai VToaraTixou. 'Axx' oil vag dutipairos aaavrug 6tKtt, ouBe to «vto'- aort to Ttag 6i~Ktiu xa~\Zg jj xaxZg, jj to ri 6i~htiu, to Be, 4) ixtluo, oil (pvaixou, dXKa yvaptixou, xai VTroararixou. 3 De Fide Orthodoxd, lib. iii. cap. xiv. : eVe/Bij toi'uovu tig pciu 6 Xpiorog, xai fila ainov h vwoaraaig, tig xai 6 ai/rog tanu 6 6tXau 6ttixZg n xai du6pwn:iuag. * De Fide Orthodoxd, lib. iii. c. xviii. : ^iKt pt,iu ai/rsWavaiag xwovpihii i rod Kvpiov ipvx^, dM? ixtiua aiirt^ovaiag ^6iKt x i) 6tia ai/rov 6i~Kwig WiKt 6'ihttu ai/T^u. JOHN OF DAMASCUS. 9 1 to do this, to shun that, to partake of food, to sleep, etc., and entering only as a momentum into the one determin ing will of the one Christ1 Recognising in the above fashion two wills, the Damascene, carrying out the theory embodied in the phrase ' of two and in two distinct natures,' asserts a duality in respect to everything pertaining to the nature of God and of man in common. Christ has all the things which the Father hath, except the property of being unbegotten ; He has all the things which the first Adam had, except sin alone. Therefore He has two physical wills, two physical energies, two physical faculties of self-determination (avTegovaia) , two wisdoms and knowledges.2 John even goes the length of con ceding to Christ's humanity personality, but not separate independent personality : It was without hypostasis in itself, never having had an independent subsistence ; but it became enhypostatized through union with the Logos. No nature, he admits, can -be without hypostases, nature apart from individuality being a mere abstraction ; but then he holds that the two natures united in Christ do not necessarily possess separate hypostases ; they may meet in one hypostasis, so that they shall neither be without hypostasis nor possess each a peculiar hypostasis, but have both one and the same.3 In this way Christ becomes a human individual, and the person of Christ is to be regarded as composite.4 Still, in spite of his efforts to make it formally com plete, the humanity of Christ in the system of the 1 So Dorner, div. ii. vol. i. p. 210. 2 De Fide Orthodoxd, lib. iii. cap. xiii. 3 De Fide Orthodoxd, lib. iii. c. ix. * De Fide Orthodoxd, lib. iii. c. iii. : tig y-ixu vxcaraatu ovu6trou. 92 THE PATRISTIC CHRISTOLOGY. Damascene remained a lifeless thing. The anatomical process to which the human nature was subjected left it an inanimate cdrcase with the form and features of a man, but without the inspiring soul. Already what Dorner happily calls the transubstantiating process had begun, which was to evacuate Christ's humanity of all its contents, and leave only trie outward shell with a God within. In several most important respects, Christ, as exhibited in John's system, — the last important utterance of the Greek Church on the subject of Christology, — is not our brother, like us in all points save sin. At the very first stage of His incarnate history there is an ominous difference between Him and us. His body was not formed in the womb of the Virgin by gradual minute additions, but was perfected at once.1 Then the soul of the holy child knew no growth in wisdom. Jesus is said to have increased in wisdom and stature ; because He did indeed grow in stature, and because He made the mani festation of the indwelling wisdom keep pace with that growth : 2 just the old doctrine of Cyril, who at this dis tance appears a saint, and is quoted without hesitation as an orthodox Father. ' Doubtless the flesh of our Lord -was per se ignorant ; but then, in virtue of the identity of the hypostasis and the' indissoluble union, His soul was enriched with the knowledge of future things ; 3 and to assert that it really grew in wisdom and grace, as receiv ing increment of these, is to deny that the union was 1 De Fide Orthodoxd, lib. iii. c. ii. : ov ralg xxrd pttxpou irpoa6iixaig dirap- rt^opciuov tow axrtpt'XTog' d~\iK v(p iu TtKtia6iuTog. 2 De Fide Orthodoxd, lib. iii. c. xxii.: tj; pth .iihixix. av\au, hd li Trt,g ttii<~qotug rijf rihixiag rqu iuvxxp%ovaxu xiircj aa