the Presence of God) has occasion to state very carefully the Catholic doctrine concerning the Divinity and Humanity of Christ. The occasion was this: his friend Dardanus had asked him to explain our Lord's words to the thief—" This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Augustine replies by premising the Church's doctrine of the Incarnation. Christ's humanity was perfect, consisting of body and soul: and by the human soul of Christ we mean, not merely a physical or animal soul (as the Apollinarians taught), but a reasonable or rational soul also, meaning what we call the mind. Augustine then points out that after death Christ's human body went to the grave, and His soul descended into Hades. And if we suppose that, in His words to the thief, Christ was speaking of His human nature, we must understand "Paradise" to be included in "Hades." But he goes on to say that it is much simpler to suppose Christ to mean that in His Divine nature, as God, He would be with the thief in Paradise.

Est autem sensus multo expeditior, et ab his omnibus ambiguitatibus liber, si non secundum id quod homo erat, sed secundum id quod Deus erat, Christus dixisse accipiatur, Hodie mecum eris in Paradiso. Homo quippe Christus illo die secundum carnem in sepulcro, secundum animam in inferno futurus erat. Deus vero idem ipse Christus ubique semper est. *** Ubicunque ergo sit Paradisus, quisquis beatorum ibi est, cum Illo ibi est, qui ubique est (cap. iii.)

It is a far simpler interpretation, and one free from all these ambiguities, to understand that Christ was speaking of Himself, not in His Human, but in His Divine nature, when He said, "To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." For the Man Christ was that day passing as to His flesh into the sepulchre, as to His Soul into Hades. But He, the same Christ, as God is present everywhere at all times. Wherever therefore Paradise may be, and whatever saints be therein, there with Him must they be Who is everywhere.

*

St. Augustine then proceeds to explain the doctrine which

afterwards came to be called the "communication of properties" (communicatio idiomatum, τepixwpnσis VTOOTÁσEWV).

Without such a doctrine it would be impossible to understand how God the Son (who as God is impassible) could be said to suffer and die. The doctrine of the communication (or interchange) of properties explains it; for as the properties of the human nature may be attributed to the eternal Son of God, so those actions or passions which proceeded from those properties may be also attributed to the eternal Son of God. Wherefore as God the Son is truly man, and as man truly passible and mortal, so God the Son did truly suffer and did truly die. We must keep the questions distinct and separate, Who suffered and How, or in what did He suffer? We may answer, God the Son truly suffered, but He suffered in His human nature only, not in His divine.” St. Augustine continues :

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Christ being God and Man;— as God, able to say, "I and my Father are one;" as Man, able to say, "My Father is greater than I;"-and being equally the Son of God only-begotten of the Father, and the Son of man of the seed of David according to the flesh: both points in Him demand attention, when He speaks or when Scripture speaks of Him; and we have to consider what is said of Him, and to which nature it is to be referred. For as reasonable soul and flesh make up one man, so Word and Man is one Christ. In His character as the Word, Christ is Creator; for "all things were made by Him" we But in His character as Christ is created, for we

Cum enim sit Christus Deus et homo; Deus utique unde dicit, Ego et Pater unum sumus; homo autem unde dicit, Pater major me est; idemque Filius Dei unigenitus a Patre, et filius hominis ex semine David secundum carnem : utrumque in illo observandum est cum loquitur, vel cum de illo Scriptura loquitur, et quid secundum quid dicatur intuendum. Nam sicut unus homo est anima rationalis et caro, sic et unus Christus est Verbum et homo. Proinde quod ad Verbum attinet, creator est Christus; Omnia enim per ipsum facta sunt: quod vero ad hominem, creatus est Christus; factus est enim ex semine David secundum carnem, et in similitu- read. dinem hominum factus. Item Man,

illo die futurus esset; juxta divi- sion affected his flesh alone; so nam vero immutabilitatem nun- it might also be truly said, “Toquam de Paradiso, quia ubique day shalt thou be with Me in est semper, recessisset. Paradise;" for although in respect of His humiliation as man He was passing in His flesh into the sepulchre, and in His soul into Hades; yet in respect of His indefeasible Divinity, He had never been absent from Paradise, being always everywhere.

Then St. Augustine cautions his friend against conceiving that Christ in His human nature can be diffused everywhere. "Cavendum est enim ne ita divinitatem astruamus hominis, ut veritatem corporis auferamus." We must beware of so merging the humanity in the divinity as to compromise the verity of His Body. In His divine nature He is always present with us; in His human nature He is absent from us, and will be absent until He come again in like manner as He went.

CHAPTER III.

IT may assist the student, if we endeavour, in this Appendix, to sum up the teaching of divines on the subject of the efficacy of Christ's death (Soteriology, as it has been called) broadly and generally under three heads-the Patristic view, the Scholastic view, the Calvinistic view. All sweeping generalisations involve error; and this generalisation must not be rigorously pressed; but the following may perhaps be taken as an approximately correct description of the three doctrines :

1. The Fathers of the Church, Greek and Latin, taking St. Athanasius and St. Augustine as their best exponents, view the redeeming work of Christ in close connexion with the doctrine of His Person, as a regeneration of our fallen

nature, by virtue of our mystical union with Him. For in Him our sinful nature died and rose again. We will call this the "Athanasian" or 66 Patristic" view.

2. The Schoolmen, of whom St. Anselm may serve as exponent for though some prefer to call him the last of the Fathers, yet his organ of thought was so distinctly Aristotelian, that he is better characterised as the first of the Schoolmen-regard our Lord's death as a satisfaction of divine justice by payment of a debt. We will call this the "Anselmic" or "Scholastic" view.

3. The Reformers, of whom we may take Calvin as exponent-for his clear and incisive intellect gave a definition to all that passed through his mind, which made his writings fascinatingly convenient in controversy-see in Christ's sufferings and death a pæna vicaria appeasing the Father's wrath Christ, according to this view, was punished in our stead. We shall call it, for shortness' sake, the "Calvinistic” or "modern" view.

Thus it will be seen that the Patristic view looks mainly to the effect of Christ's death on us, whereas the Anselmic and Calvinistic views lay their chief stress on its effect on God.

For three centuries the third view has been the popu lar view in England, though not without protest. Grotius' early work against Socinus (de Satisfactione Christi) helped to fix it in our theology, even Hammond, Outram, and Bishop Pearson embracing it; and so largely has it been adopted, that it has come to be viewed as the orthodox view of the English Church, although it has no place in our Prayer-book, and although even those who adopt it (as Dr. Shedd in his History of Doctrine) are fain to acknowledge that it has never received the stamp of Catholic truth, and although it must be manifest to the unbiassed student of Scripture that the Patristic view is far more in harmony with the teaching of Revelation.