Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/635

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God and Saviour Jesus Christ " (Tit., ii, 13) ; He is the " God over all things" (Rom., ix, 5), effacing by His in- finite transcendency the sura and substance of created things.

(2) Jesus Christ as Man. — The other aspect of the figure of Christ is drawn with no less firm a hand. Jesus Christ is the second Adam (Rom., v, 14; I Cor., XV, 45-49); "the mediator of God and men" (I Tim., ii, 5), and as such He must necessarily be man {SifBpuwo! XpiffTJs 'lT}(roOs). So He is the descendant of the Patri- archs (Rom., ix, 5; Gal., iii, 16), He is "of the seed of David, according to the flesh" (Rom., i, 3), "born of a woman" (Gal., iv, 4), like all men; finally. He is known as a man by His appearance, which is exactly similar to that of men (Phil., ii, 7), save for sin, which He did not and could not know (II Cor., v, 21). When St. Paul says that "God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom., viii, 3), he does not mean to deny the reality of Christ's flesh, but excludes only sinful flesh.

Nowhere does the Apostle explain how the union of the Divine and the human natures is accomplished in Christ, being content to affirm that He who was "in the form of God " took "the form of a servant " (Phil., ii, 6-7), or he states the Incarnation in this laconic formula: "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporeally" (Col., ii, 9). What we see clearly is that there is in Christ a single Person to whom are attributed, often in the same sentence, qual- ities proper to the Divine and the human nature, to the pre-existence, the historical existence, and the glorified life (Col., i, 15-19; Phil., ii, 5-11; etc.). The theological explanation of the mystery has given rise to numerous errors. Denial was made of one of the natures, either the human (Docetism), or the Divine (Arianism), or the two natures were considered to be united in a purely accidental manner so as to produce two persons (Nestorianism), or the two natures were merged into one (Monophysitism), or on pretext of uniting them in one person the heretics mutilated either the human nature (Apollinarianism), or the Divine, according to the strange modern heresy known as Kenosis.

The last-mentioned requires a brief treatment, as it is based on a saying of St. Paul " Being in the form of God . . . emptied himself {iKivaatv iavrbv, hence K{vw(7ks) taking the form of a servant" (Phil., ii, 6-7). Contrary to the common opinion, Luther applied these words not to the Word, but to Christ, the Incarnate Word. Moreover he understood the communicalio ididniiiliitn as a real (lo.ssession by each of the two na- turrs (if I he alt iilmti's of the other. According to this the Imiiiaii iialurc of Christ would possess the Divine attributes of uljiquity, omniscience, and omnipotence. There are two systems among Lutheran theologians, one asserting that the human nature of Christ was vol- unatrily stripped of thcise attriliutes (K^fiairts), the other that they were hidden during His mortal exist- ence (KpwpLs). In modern times the doctrine of Ke- nosis. while still n'stricted to Luthern theology, has comjjlctily changi'd its opinions. Starting with the philo.s])hi(al idea that "personality" is idcn tilled with "consciousness", it is maintained that where there is only one person there can be only one consciousness; but since the consciousness, of Christ was a truly hu- man consciousness, the Divine consciousness must of necessity have ceased to exist or act in Him. Accord- ing to Thomasius, the theorist of the system, the Son of God was stripjK-d, not after the Incarnation, as Luther asserted, but by the very fact of the Incarna- tion, and what rendered possible the union of the Logos with the humanity was the faculty possessed by the Divinity to limit itself both as to being and activ- ity. The other partisans of the system express them- selves in a similar manner. Gess, for instance, says that in Jesus Christ the Divine ego is changed into the human ego. When it is objected that God is im-

mutable, that He can neither cease to be, nor limit Himself, nor transform Himself, they reply that this reasoning is on metaphysical hypotheses and concepts without reality. (For the various forms of Kenosis see Bruce, "The Humiliation of Christ", p. 136.)

All these systems are merely variations of Mono- physitism. Unconsciously they assume that there is in Christ but a single nature as there is but a single per- son. According to the Catholic doctrine, on the con- trary, the union of the two natures in a single person involves no change in the Divine nature and need in- volve no physical change of the human nature of Christ. Without doubt Christ is the Son and is mor- ally entitled even as man to the goods of His Father, viz. the immediate vision of God, eternal beatitude, the state of glory. He is temporarily deprived of a portion of these goods in order that he may fulfil His mission as Redeemer. This is the abasement, the an- nihilation, of which St. Paul speaks, but it is a totally different thing from the Kenosis as described above.

E. The Objective Redemption as the Work of Christ. — We have seen that fallen man being unable to arise again unaided, God in His mercy sent His Son to save him. It is an elementary and often repeated doctrine of St. Paul that Jesus Christ saves us through the Cross, that we are "justified by his blood", that "we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son " (Rom., V, 9-10). What endowed the blood of Christ, His death, Hi3 Cross, with this redeeming virtue? Paul never answers this question directly, but he shows us the drama of Calvary under three aspects, which there is danger in separating and which are better understood when compared : (a) at one time the death of Christ is a sacrifice intended, like the sacrifice of the Old Law, to expiate sin and propitiate God. Cf. Sanday and Headlam, "Romans", 91-94, "Thedeath of Christ considered as a sacrifice". "It is impossible from this passage (Rom., iii, 25) to get rid of the double idea: (1) of a sacrifice; (2) of a sacrifice which is propitiatory . . . Quite apart from this passage it is not difficult to prove that these two ideas of sacrifice and propitiation lie at the root of the teaching not only of St. Paul but of the New Testament gen- erally." The double danger of this idea is, first, to wish to apply to the sacrifice of Christ all the mode of action, real or supposed, of the imperfect sacrifices of the Old Law; and, second, to believe that God is appeased by a sort of magical effect, in virtue of this sacrifice, whereas on the contrary it was He Who took the initiative of mercy, instituted the sacrifice of Calvary, and endowed it with its ex- piatory value, (b) At another time the death of Christ is represented as a redemption, the payment of a ransom, as the result of which man was deliv- ered from all his past servitude (I Cor., vi, 20; vii, 23 [ri/i^s fiyopiadriTe]; Gal., iii, 13; iv, 5 (fra roils ivi vbpov il,ayop6.(TTa]\ Rom., iii, 24; I Cor., i, 30; Eph., i,7, 14; Col.,i, 14 [airoXiTpuiais]; ITim.,ii,6 [avTiXxiTpov]; etc.) This idea, correct as it is, may have incon- veniences if isolated or exaggerated. By carrying it beyond what was written, some of the Fathers put forth the strange suggestion of a ransom paid by Christ to the demon who held us in l>ondage, An- other mistake is to regard the licath of Christ as hav- ing a value in itself,indi'])cndcnt of Christ Who offered it and God Who accepted it for the remission of our sins.

(c) Often, too, Christ seems to substitute Himself for us in order to undergo in our stead the chastise- ment for sin. He suffers physical death to save us from the moral death of sin anil preserve us from eternal death. This idea of substitution appealed so strongly to Lutheran theologians that they ad- mitted quantitative equality between the sufferings really endured by Christ and the penalties deserved by our sins. They even maintained that Jesus under- went the penalty of loss (of the vision of God) and the