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 INCARNATION

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INCARNATION

be to me a son". (II Kings, vii, 14.) In the follow- ing verse, Christ is spoken of as the first-born of the Father, and as the object of the adoration of the angels; but only God is adored: "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. . . . Thy God, O God, hath anointed thee" (Ps. xliv, 7, S). St. Paul refers these words to Christ as to the Son of God (Heb., i, 9). We follow the Massoretic reading, "Thy God, O God". The Septuagint and New Testament reading, 6 ffeSs^ & $ibi (Toi;, " O God, Thy God", is capable of the same interpretation. Hence, the Christ is hero called Ciod twice; and his throne, or reign, is said to have been from eternity. Ps. cix, 1: "The Lord said to my Lord (Heb., Jahweh said to my Adonai): Sit thou at my right hand". Christ cites this text to prove that He is Adonai (a Hebrew term used only for Deity), seated at the right hand of Jahweh, who is invariably the great God of Israel (Matt., x.xii, -14). In the same psalm, Jahweh says to Christ: "Before the day-star, I begat thee". Hence Christ is the begotten of God; was begotten before the world was, and sits at the right hand of the heavenly Father. Other Messianic psalms might be cited to show the clear testimony of these inspired poems to the Divinity of the promised Messias.

(b) Testimony of the Sapiential Books. — So clearly do these Sapiential Books describe uncreated Wisdom as a Divine Person distinct from the First Person, that rationalists have resort to a subterfuge and claim that the doctrine of uncreated Wisdom was taken over by the authors of these books from the Neo-Platonic philosophy of the Alexandrian school. It is to be noted that in the pre-sapiential books of the Old Testament, the uncreated Logos, or p^o, is the active and creative principle of Jahweh (see Ps. xxxii, 4; xxxii, 6; cxviii, 89; cii, 20; Is., xl, 8; Iv, 11). Later the X670S became aoipla, the uncreated Word liecame imcreated Wisdom. To Wisdom were attributed all the works of creation and Divine Provi- dence (see Job, xxviii, 12: Prov., viii and ix; Ecchis., i, 1; xxiv, .5 to 12; Wis., vi, 21; ix, 9). In Wis., ix, 1, 2, we have a remarkable instance of the attri- bution of God's activity to both the Logos and Wis- dom. This identification of the pre-Mosaic Logos with the Sapiential Wisdom and the Johannine Logos (see Logos) is proof that the rationalistic subterfuge is not effective. The Sapiential Wisdom and the Johannine Logos are not an Alexandrian development of the Platonic idea, but are a Hebraistic development of the pre-Mosaic uncreated and creating Logos or Word (-131).

Now for the Sapiential proofs: In Ecclus., xxiv, 7, Wisdom is described as uncreated, the "first born of the Most High before all creatures", "from the be- ginning and before the World was I made" (ibid., 14). So universal was the identification of Wisdom with the Christ, that even the Ariuns concurred with the Fathers therein; and strove to prove l)y the word (KTure, made or created, of verse 14, that incarnate Wistlom was created. The Fathers did not make answer that the word Wisdom was not to be imder- stood of the Christ, but explained that the word fxrio-e had here to be interpreted in keeping with other passages of Holy Writ and not according to its usual meaning, — that of the Septuagint version of Gen., i, 1. We do not know the original Hebrew or Aramaic word; it may have been 'Jjp. This word occurs in Prov. viii, 22-. "The Lord possessed me (Heb., gat me by generation; see Gen., iv, 1) in the beginning of His_ ways, before He made anything from the beginning, I was set up from eternity." Wisdom speaking of itself in the Book of Ecclesiasticus cannot contradict what Wisdom says of itself in Proverbs and elsewhere. Hence the Fathers were quite right in explaining eKTiae not to mean made or created in any strict sense of the terms (see St. Athana- sius, "Sermo ii contra Arianos", n. 44; Migne, P.

G., XXVI, 239). The Book of Wisdom, also, speaks clearly of Wisdom as " the worker of all things . . . a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God . . . the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of tiod's majesty, and the image of his goodness." (Wis., vii, 21-26.) St. Paul para- phrases this beautiful passage and refers it to Jesus Christ (Heb., i, 3). It is clear, then, from the text- study of the books themselves, from the interpreta- tion of these books by St. Paul, and especially, from the admitted interpretation of the Fathers and the liturgical uses of the Church, that the personified wisdom of the Sapiential Books is the uncreated Wis- dom, the incarnate Logos of St. John, the Word hy- postatically united with human nature, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father. The Sapiential Books prove that Jesus was really and truly God.

(c) Testimony of the Prophetic Books. — The prophets clearly state that the Messias is God. Isaias says: "God Himself will come and will save you" (xxxv, 4); "Make ready the way of Jahweh" (xl, 3); "Lo Adonai Jahweh will come with strength" (xl, 10). That Jahweh here is Jesus Christ is clear from the use of the passage by St. Mark (i, 3). The great prophet of Israel gives the Christ a special and a new Divine name "His name will be called Emmanuel" (Is., vii, 14). This new Divine name St. Matthew refers to as fulfilled in Jesus, and inter- prets to mean the Divinity of Jesus. "They shall call his name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us." (Matt., i, 23.) Also in ix, b, Isaias calls the Messias God: " A child is born to us . . . his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Strong One, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace." Catholics explain -\\2i ?X with PXIJDJ?; the very same child is called God the Strong One (ix, 6) and Emmanuel (vii, 14); the conception of the child is prophesied in the latter verse, the birth of the very same child is prophesied in the former verse. The name Emmanuel (God with us) explains the name that we translate "God the Strong One." It is uncritical and prejuiliced on the part of the rationalists to go outside of Isaias and to seek in Ezechiel (xxxii, 21) the meaning "mightiest among heroes" for a word that everysvhere else m Isaias is the name of "Ciod the Strong One" (see Is., x, 21). Theo- dotion translates literally ffe&s Icrx^pis; the Septuagint has "messenger". Our interpretation is that com- monly received by C^atholics and Ijy Protestants of the stamp of Dehtzsch ("Messianic Prophecies", p. 145). Isaias also calls the Messias the "sprout of Jahweh" (iv, 2), i. e. that which has sprung from Jah- weh as the same in nature with Him. The Messias is "God our King" (Is., Hi, 7), "the Saviour sent by our God" (Is., lii, 10, where the word for Saviour is the abstract form of the word for Jesus); "Jahweh the God of Israel" (Is., lii, 12): "He that hath made thee, Jahweh of the hosts Ilis name " (Is., liv, 5)".

The other prophets are as clear as Isaias, though not so detailed, in their foretelling of the Godship of the Messias. To Jeremias, He is "Jahweh our Just One" (xxiii, 6; also xxxiii, 16). Micheas speaks of the twofold coming of the Child, His birth in time at Bethlehem and His procession in eternity from the Father (v, 2). The Messianic value of this text is proved by its interpretation in Matthew (ii, 6). Za- charias makes Jahweh to speak of the Messias as "my Companion"; but a companion is on an equal footing with Jahweh (xiii, 7). Malachias says: "Behold I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way be- fore my face, and presently the Lord, whom you seek, and the angel of the testament, whom you desire, shall come to his temple" (iii, 1). The messenger spoken of here is certainly St. John the Baptist. The words of Malachias are interpreted of the Precursor by Our Lord Himself (Matt., xi, 10). But the Baptist pre- pared the way before the face of Jesus Christ. Hence