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 INCARNATION

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INCARNATION

certain passages, the term "Son of God" in its appli- cation to Jesus, presumalily meant only adopted son- ship of God. Against these writers was issued the condemnation of the proposition: "In all the texts of the Gospels, the name Son of God is merely the equiv- alent of the name Messias, and does not in any wise mean that Christ is the true and natural Son of God" (see decree " Lamentabili", S. Off., 3-4 July, 1907, proposition xxxii). This decree does not affirm even implicitly that every use of the name "Son of God" in the Gospels means true and natural Sonship of ( iod. Catholic theologians generally defend the proposition whenever, in the Gospels, the name "Son of God" is used in the singular number, absolutely and without any additional explanation, as a proper name of Jesus, it mvariably means true and natural Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ (see Billot, "De Verbo Incarnato," 1904, p. 529). Corluy, a very careful student of the original texts and of the versions of the Bible, de- clared that, whenever the title Son of God is given to Jesus in the New Testament, this title has the inspired meaning of natural Divine Sonship; Jesus is by this title said to have the same nature and sul)stance as the Heavenly Father (see "Spicilegium", II, p. 42). (7) Jesus is God. — St. John affirms in plain words that Jesus is God. The set purpose of the aged dis- ciple was to teach the Divinity of Jesus in the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalyp.se that he has left us; he was aroused to action against the first heretics that bruised the Church. "They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us" (I John, ii, 19). They did not confess Jesus Christ with that confession which they had obligation to make (I John, iv, 3). John's Gospel gives us the clearest confession of the Divinity of Jesus. We may translate from the original text; " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in relation to Gotl and the Word was God" (John i, 1). The words Beds (with the article) mean, in Johannine Greek, the Father. The expression wpb! Tbi> Bihv reminds one forcibly of Aristotle's t6 tt^As tl clrai. This Aristotelian way of expressing relation found its like in the Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and Alexandrian philosophy; and it was the influence of this Alexandrian philosophy in Ephesus and else- where that John set himself to combat. It was, then, quite natural that John adopted some of the phraseol- ogy of his enemies, and by the expression 6 XA70S Jiv 7rp6s rbv 8e6v gave forth the mystery of the relation of Father with Son: "the Word .stood in relation to the Father", i. e., even in the beginning. At any rate the clause ^fAs ?'' X670S means "the Word was God". This meaning is driven home, in the irresistible logic of St. John, by the following verse: "All things were made by him. The Word, then, is the Creator of all things and is true God. Who is the Word? It was made flesh and dwelt with us in the flesh (verse 14); and of this Word John the Baptist bore witness (verse 15). But certainly it was Jesus, according to John the Evangelist, Who dwelt with us in the flesh and to Whom the Baptist bore witness. Of Jesus the Bap- ti.stsays; "This is he, of whom I said: After mo there Cometh a man, who is preferred before me: because he was before me" (verse 30). This testimony and other passages of St. John's Gospel are so clear that the modern rationalist takes refuge from their force- fulness in the assertion that the entire Gospel is a mystic contemplation and no faet-narrative at all (see John, Gospel of Saint). Catholics may not holil this opinion denying the historicity of John. The Holy Office, in the Decree " Lamentabili", condemneil the following proposition: "The narrations of John are not properly speaking history but a mystic con- templation of the (iospel; the discourses contained in his tiospel are theological meditations on the mys- tery of salvation and are destitute of historical truth." (See prop, xvi.)

(b) Witness of St. Paul. — It is not the set purpose of St. Paul, outside of the Epistle to the Hebrews, to prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The great Apostle takes this fundamental principle of Christianity for granted. Yet .so clear is the witness of Paul to this fact of Christ's Divinity, that the Rationalists and rationalistic Lutherans of Germany to-day strive to get away from the forcefulness of the witness of the Apostle by rejecting his form of Christianity as not conformable to the Christianity of Jesus. Hence they cry: "Los von Paulus, zuriick zu Christus"; that is, "Away from Paul, back to Christ" (see Jiilicher, "Paulus und Christus", ed. Mohr, 1909). We as.sume the historicity of the Epistles of Paul; to a Catholic, the Christianity of St. Paul is one and the same with the Christianity of Christ. (See P.\UL, S.\ixt). To the Romans, Paul writes: "God .sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin" (viii, 3). His Own Son (riv iavroS vldf) the Father sends, not a Son by adoption. The angels are by adoption the children of God; they participate in the Father's nature by the free gifts He has bestowed ujion them. Not so the Own Son of the Father. As we have seen. He is more the offspring of the Father than are the angels. How more? In this that He is adored as the Father is adored; the angels are not adored. Such is Paul's argument in the first chaiJter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Therefore, in St. Paul's theology, the Father's Own Son, Whom the angels adore. Who was begotten in the to-day of eternity, Who was sent by the Father, clearly existed before His appearance in the Flesh, and is, in point of fact, the great "I am who am", — the Jahwch Who spoke to Mo,ses on lloreb. This identification of the Christ with Jahwch would seem to lie indicated, when St. Paul speaks of Christ as i oil' iwl TrivTuiv 8e6t, "who is over all things, God ble.'.v all the Fathers that have used the text; all refer to Christ the words " He who is t!od over all". Petavius (De Trin., II, 9, n. 2) cites fifteen, among whom are Iren;rus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, tiregory of Nyssa, .\nibrose, Augustine, and Hilary. The Peshitta has the same translation as we have given. Alford, Trench, West- cott and Hort, and most Protestants are at one with us in this interpretation.

This identification of the Christ with Jahweh is clearer in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Christ is .said to have been Jahweh of the Exixhis. " And all drank the same spiritual drink; (ind they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ)" (x, 4). It was Christ Whom some of the Israelites "tempted, and (they) perished by the ser- pents" (x, 10); it was Christ against Whom "some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer" (x, 11). St. Paul takes over the Seiituagint trans- lation of Jahweh 6 Kvpio^, and makes this title distinc- tive of Jesus. The Colossians are threatened with the deeeptioti of philoso]ihy (ii, S). St. Paul reminds them that they should tliink according to Chri.st; "for in him dwelleth the fulness of the (iodliead (nXripaiia Trjt BeSrriTos) corporeally' (ii, 9); nor should they go so low as give to angels, that they see not, the adoVation that is due only to Christ (ii, IS, 19). "For in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him" (ei's ai'T6>'). He is the cau.se aiid the end of all thinjis, even of the angels whom the Colossi.ans are so misguided as to [irefer to Him (i, 10). The cultured Macedonians of Philii)pi are taught that in " the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on ea'rth. and \mder the earth; and that every tongue .-ihould confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is" in the glory of God the Father" (ii, 10, 11). This is the very same genuflexion and confession that the Romans are bidden to make to the Lord and