Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (880 page)

The baptismal formula (Matt. xxviii. 19), by its allocation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, presented a sort of framework in which to arrange the materials of the new faith. On this basis was constructed in the first centuries what was called the rule of faith,
regula fidei,
which in divers forms, some more concise, others more diffuse, some more popular, others more subtle, is found in the different fathers.
^*
The more popular form at length settled into what is called the creed of the apostles. This symbol, in that edition of it which is received in the evangelical church, has in its second and most elaborate article on the Son, the following points of belief:
et (credo) in Jesum Christum, filium ejus (Dei patris) unicum, Dominum nostrum; qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria virgine; passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus et sepultus, descendit ad inferna; tertia die resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit ad cælos, sedet ad dextram Dei patris omnipotentis; inde venturus est, judicare vivos et mortuos.

* Iren. adv. hær. 1. 10. Tertull. de præscr. hær. xiii. adv. Prax. ii. de veland. virg. i. Orig. de principp. prooem. ivTogether with this popular form of the confession of faith in relation to Christ, there was also framed a more rigorous and minute theological digest, occasioned by the differences and controversies which early arose on certain points. The fundamental thesis of the Christian faith, that
the Word was made flesh,
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was endangered on all sides, one questioning the Godhead, another the manhood, and a third the veritable union of the two natures.

It is true that those who, like the Ebionites, denied the Godhead, or like that sect of the Gnostics called Docetæ, the manhood of Christ, separated themselves too decidedly from the Christian community, which on her part maintained that
it was necessary that the mediator of God and man should unite both in friendship and harmony by means of a proper relationship to each, and that while he represented man to God, he should reveal God to man
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^*
But when it was merely the plenitude of the one nature or the other, which was contested, — as when Arius maintained that the being who became man in Christ was indeed divine, but created, and subordinate to the supreme God; when, while ascribing to Christ a human body, he held that the place of the soul was occupied by that superior being; when Apollinaris maintained that not only the body of Jesus was truly human, but his soul also, and that the divine being only served in the stead of the third principle in man, the
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(understanding)
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^†
and she condemned the idea of Arius and Apollinaris, that the human nature of Christ had not the human
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(soul),
or the human
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for this reason chiefly, that only by the union of the divine, with an entire human nature, could the human race be redeemed.
^‡

Not only might the one or the other aspect of the nature of Christ be defaced or put out of sight, but in relation also to the union of the two, there might be error, and again in two opposite directions. The devout enthusiasm of many led them to believe, that they could not draw too closely the newly-entwined bond between heaven and earth; hence they no longer wished to distinguish between the Godhead and manhood in Christ, and since he had appeared in one person, they acknowledged in him only one nature, that of the Son of God made flesh. Others, more scrupulous, could not reconcile themselves to such a confusion of the divine and the

* Iren. adv. hær. iii. xviii.
7.

† Athanas. contra Arianos, orat. 2, 33.

‡ Gregor.
Naz. Or. 51, p.
740, B.
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human : it seemed to them blasphemous to say that a human mother had given birth to God: hence they maintained that she had only borne the man whom the Son of God selected as his temple; and that in Christ there were two natures, united indeed so far as the adoration of his followers was concerned, but distinct as regarded their essence. To the Church, both these views appeared to encroach on the mystery of the incarnation: if the two natures were held to be permanently distinct, then was the union of the divine and human, the vital point of Christianity, destroyed; if a mixture of the two were admitted, then neither nature in its individual quality was capable of a union with the other, and thus again no true unity would be attained. Hence both these opinions were condemned, the latter in the person of Eutyches, the former, not with equal justice, in that of Nestorius; and as the Nicene creed established the true Godhead of Christ, so that of Chalcedon established his true and perfect manhood, and the union of the two natures in one undivided person. When subsequently there arose a controversy concerning the will of Christ, analogous to that concerning his nature, the Church, in accordance with its previous decisions, pronounced that in Christ, as the God-man, there were two wills, distinct but not discordant,, the human will being subordinate to the divine.

In comparison with the controversies on the being and essence of Christ, the other branch of the faith, the doctrine of his work, was developed in tranquillity. The most comprehensive view of it was this: the Son of God, by assuming the human nature, gave it a holy and divine character
^{* —}
above all he endowed it with immortality ;
^†
while in a moral view, the mission of the Son of God into the world being the highest proof of the love of God, was the most efficacious means of awakening a return of love in the human breast.
^‡

* Athanas. de incarn. 54. For other expressions of the kind, see Münscher, Dogmnengesch., herausg. von Cölln, 1, § 97
,
Anm. 10.

† Münscher, § 96, Anm. 5,
s. 423 f.

‡ Augustin, de Catechiz. rudib. 7.To this one great effect of the appearance of Christ, were annexed collateral benefits: his salutary teaching, his sublime example, were held up to view,
^*
but especial importance was attached to the violent death which he suffered. The idea of substitution, already given in the New Testament, was more fully developed: the death of Jesus was regarded, now as a ransom paid by him to the devil for the liberation of mankind, who had fallen into the power of the evil one through sin; now as a means devised by God for removing guilt, and enabling him to remit the punishment threatened to the sins of man, without detriment to his truthfulness, Christ having, taken that punishment on himself.
^†
The latter idea was worked up Anselm, in his book entitled
Cur Deus homo,
into the well known theory of satisfaction, by which the doctrine of Christ’s work of redemption is placed in the closest connexion with that of his person. Man owes to God perfect obedience; but the sinner — and such are all men — withholds from God the service and honour which are His due. Now God, by reason of his justice, Cannot suffer an offence against his honour: therefore, either man must voluntarily restore to God that which is God’s, nay, must, for complete satisfaction, render to him more than he has hitherto withheld; or, God must as a punishment take from man that which is man’s, namely, the happiness for which he was originally created. Man is not able to do the former; for as he owes to God all the duties that he can perform, in order not to fall into sin, he can have no overplus of merit, wherewith to cover past sins. On the other hand, that God should obtain satisfaction by the infliction of eternal punishment, is opposed to his unchangeable goodness, which moves him actually to lead man to that bliss for which he was originally destined. This, however, cannot happen consistently with divine justice, unless satisfaction be made for man, and according to the measure of that which has been taken from God, something be rendered to him, greater than all else except God. But this can be none other than God himself; and as, on the other hand, man alone can satisfy for man: it must therefore be a God-man who gives satisfaction. Moreover this cannot consist in active obedience, in a sinless life, because every reasonable being owes this to God on his own behalf; but to suffer death, the wages of sin, a sinless being is not bound, and thus the satisfaction for the sins of man consists in the death of the God-man, whose reward, since he himself, as one with God, cannot be rewarded, is put to the account of man.

This doctrinal system of the ancient church concerning the person and work of Christ, passed also into the confessions of the Lutheran churches, and was still more elaborately developed by their theologians.
^‡
With regard to the person of Christ, they adhered

* Vid. Miinscher, § 96.

† ibid. § 97.

‡ Comp. Form. Concord., Epit. und Sol. dccl. VIII. p. 605 ff. and 761ff. ed Hase. Chemniz, de duabus naturis in Christo libellus, and loci theol., loc. 2, de filio ; Gerhard. 11. th. i, p. 640 ff.
(ed. 1615); Quenstedt, theol. didact. polem. P. 3, c. 3. Comp. De Wette, bibl. Dogm. § 64 ff.to the union of the divine and human natures in one person: according to them, in the act of this union,
unitio personalis,
which was simultaneous with the conception, it was the divine nature of the Son of God which adopted the human into the unity of its personality; the state of union, the
unio personalis,
was neither essential, nor yet merely accidental, neither mystical nor moral, still less merely verbal, but a real and supernatural union, and eternal in its duration. From this union with the divine nature, there result to the human nature in Christ certain preeminent advantages: namely, what at first appears a deficiency, that of being in itself impersonal, and of having personality only by its union with the divine nature; further, impeccability, and the possibility of not dying. Besides these special advantages, the human nature of Christ obtains others also from its union with the divine. The relation of the two natures is not a dead, external one, but a reciprocal penetration, a
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an union not like that of two boards glued together, but like that of fire and metal in glowing iron, or of the body and soul in man. This communion of natures,
communio naturarum,
is manifested by a communication of properties,
communicatio idiomatum,
in virtue of which the human nature participates in the advantages of the divine, and the divine in the redeeming work of the human. This relation is expressed in the propositions concerning the person,
propositionibus personalibus,
and those concerning the properties,
idiomaticis;
the former are propositions in which the concrete of the one nature, i.e. the one nature as conceived in the person of Christ, is predicated of the other, as in i Cor. xv. 47:
the second man is the Lord from heaven,-
the latter are propositions in which determinations of one or the other nature, are referred to the entire person
(genus idiomaticum),
or in which acts of the entire person are referred to one or the other nature
(genus apotelesmaticum),
or lastly, in which attributes of the one nature are transferred to the other, which however is only possible from the divine to the human, not from the human to the divine
(genus auchematicum).