his rash expression, was regarded as the champion of orthodoxy; but the doctrine of one nature in Christ was distinctly taught by Eutyches, an archimandrite, or chief of a monastery, in Constantinople. He maintained that after the birth of Christ there was only one nature, that of the incarnate God; and this dogma was actually ratified by a general Council held at Ephesus in 449, which, owing to its heretical decision, has been stigmatized as the 'robber synod.' The fourth oecumenical Council met at Chalcedon in 451. The definition of faith which was there agreed upon condemns those who introduce confusion and mixture, and invent the foolish doctrine that there is one nature of the flesh and of the Deity, and monstrously teach that by the confusion (of the two natures) the Divine nature of the Onlybegotten is capable of suffering. It then goes on to say that Jesus Christ was perfect in Deity and perfect in humanity, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably, the difference of the natures being nowhere abolished on account of the unification, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and running together into one person and one subsistence, not partitioned or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten, God Logos, the Lord Jesus Christ.'1 The statement that the two natures were not confused is directed against Eutyches; that they were inseparable, against Nestorius. We must very carefully observe the distinction that, while it was a damnable error to say that the two natures were poured together into one nature, it was orthodox to say that they ran together into one person. But even an infallible Council of excited controversialists

cannot anticipate all the wiles of error. If Christ was only one person, then surely he had only one will and one energy;2

1 Εἰς ἓν πρόσωπον καὶ μίαν ὑπόστασιν συντρεχούσης, οὐκ εἰς δύο πρόσωπα μεριζόμενον κ.τ.λ.

2Ἓν θέλημα καὶ μία ἐνέργεια.

S

but, on the other hand, if he was two perfect natures, he must have had two wills. Hence, in the seventh century, the flames of strife were once more kindled. It was thought indeed that Monothelitism, the doctrine of a single will, would serve to conciliate the Monophysites. Not only the Bishops of Constantinople, of Antioch, and of Alexandria pronounced in favour of this error, but Pope Honorius I committed himself to the doctrine of one will. It is contended by Newman that there is no evidence that he intended to speak ex cathedra, and therefore his heresy does not invalidate the dogma of Papal infallibility.1 It has also been suggested that the Pope did not understand the question, and that the unity which he asserted was not an identity, but a harmony';2 but, be this as it may, he was condemned as a heretic by the sixth œcumenical Council, held at Constantinople in the year 680. This Council added to the dogma of Christ's person the decision that there were in him. two natural wills and two natural energies, indivisibly, unchangeably, indissolubly, unconfusedly; and that the two natural wills were not opposed, but that the human will followed and was subject to the Divine.3

John of Damascus, in the eighth century, represented the Logos as the basis of the single personality of Christ, and added to the accepted dogma the doctrine of the communication of properties,' which is defined as meaning that, on account of the identity of the subsistence,5 each nature communicated its own properties to the other, and they interpenetrated one another. In this way it was possible

1 A Letter addressed to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk on the occasion of Mr. Gladstone's recent Expostulation, 1875, pp. 107 sqq.

2 Milman, Latin Christianity, II, p. 69.

3 The decision may be seen quoted at length in Michalcescu, Die Bekenntnisse und die wichtigsten Glaubenszeugnisse der griechisch-orientalischen Kirche, 1904, PP. 7 sqq.

4 Ο τρόπος τῆς ἀντιδόσεως, communicatio idiomatum.

5 Τῆς ὑποστάσεως.

* Τὴν εἰς ἄλληλα αὐτῶν περιχώρησιν.

to affirm of Christ, 'Our God was seen upon the earth, and had intercourse with men ; and, this man is uncreated and passionless and uncircumscribed.'1

The rejection of one other error should be referred to. Towards the close of the eighth century some Spanish bishops maintained that the Son of God begotten before all time was such by nature, and not by grace; but that he who was made from woman, made under the law, was the Son of God, not by kind, but by adoption, not by nature, but by grace. This view, which was practically a reassertion of Nestorianism, and was known as 'adoptianism,' was condemned by several synods.

We have only to add that the union of the two natures in one person is technically called the hypostatic union, and the process by which the Divine nature united itself with the human is known as the incarnation. The incarnation, according to the received dogma, was effected by the operation of the Holy Spirit, whereby the second person of the Trinity assumed human nature, and the God-Man was born from a virgin. In strictness, however, it is said that 'all the persons of the divine Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, were the authors of this mystery; since this rule of the Christian faith is to be maintained, that all things which God does external to himself among created things are common to the three persons, nor does one act more than another, or one without another.'2

It seems clear that a dogma which required more than

1 Quoted by Hagenbach, II, p. 268. This is clearly implied in the decisions of the Second Council of Constantinople, A.D. 553, which insists on the unity and sameness of the personality, so that the Logos endured sufferings by the flesh, and the Lord Jesus Christ is one of the holy Trinity (ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς, εἰς τῆς ἁγίας τριάδος), thus identifying the his toric man with the eternal God. Labbe, Concilia, Tom. vi. p. 207, y' and d'.

2 Cat. Rom., Pars I, De art. III, Cap. IV, § iv. This is asserted in the proceedings of the Fourth Lateran Council, A.D. 1215, 'Dei Filius Jesus Christus a tota Trinitate communiter incarnatus.' Labbe, Concilia, Tom. xiii. p. 929.

six hundred years to elaborate, and which was carried, point after point, by the voice of majorities amid the conflicts of contending bishops, and in some of its stages was forced upon the Church by imperial persecution, cannot be exempt from criticism, and accepted at once as the original and settled faith of Christendom. Nor can it claim exemption from the critic's tests on the plea that the truth which it states is a mystery with which human reason is not competent to deal; for the whole dogma is an attempt of reason to drag the secrets of God out of the region of mystery, and to define the nature of the union between God and Christ, which is acknowledged by the universal Christian consciousness, in statements as hard and precise as the propositions of Euclid. A deeper and more tender reverence than animated the general Councils may shrink from discussing or even speaking of some of the questions which the coarser grain of Greek theologians endeavoured to make plain to the understanding. It is from no love of dissecting Divine mysteries that I am driven into criticizing the current view; and in stating explicitly and firmly the reasons which make it impossible for me to accept that view, I wish to do so with all deference towards the multitudes of good and wise men who have held it.

Throughout the discussion we must bear in mind that the dogma in question makes Christianity entirely exceptional in the history of the world, and indeed of the universe. The hypostatic union at once lifts it into a region completely apart, with which other religions cannot have even the remotest affinity. The incarnation is regarded as a solitary event of cosmic significance, a miracle so stupendous that it can be accounted for only by the need of rescuing some portion of our race from the universal ruin and damnation. which had fallen on mankind.1 That this doctrine, if sin

1 I think anyone who reads carefully the dogmatic decisions of the Councils must admit that this is not an overstatement. To my great surprise Dr. Sanday, in a friendly notice of my Essex Hall Lecture (in the

cerely believed, would have a powerful, almost an overwhelming effect upon the heart and life is readily conceivable, and no doubt it has sometimes fed the purest fires of devotion; but when we see the apparent deadness and apathy of the great mass of Christians, we can only conclude that these tremendous facts have for them no reality, and they are only supposed to believe because they have not faith enough to deny.

The doctrine of the Deity of Christ is so closely implicated with the doctrine of the Trinity that the former, in its orthodox form, cannot be maintained without the latter; and accordingly the criticism passed on that doctrine is largely applicable to the present question. Nevertheless,

Hibbert Journal, I, p. 146), objects to my speaking of the 'distinction generally made, which represents Jesus as the Son of God in a totally different sense from that in which the term is applied to other men.' This distinction used to be insisted on as against the Unitarians; and the Unitarian heresy consisted in maintaining that the sonship of Jesus was unique, not in kind, but in degree. To hold the latter view was, according to Athanasius, Tavovрyía and other unpleasant things; and he insists to satiety on the absolute distinction between him who was Son φύσει and ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ θεοῦ and those who, being κτίσμα, were sons only θέσει and κατὰ Xápiv (see, for instance, Epist. de Decretis Nic. Syn., 19 sq.; Orat. II, contra Arianos, 59). If this absolute distinction is discarded, and Jesus is thought of as the Son of God through a Divine indwelling which may be ascribed, in however inferior a degree, to other men, the difference between our views disappears. But such a view still seems to me entirely subversive, not only of the later definitions, but of the Nicene theology. Dr. Sanday further objects to my speaking of a pre-existent being, who, prior to the incarnation, was perfectly distinct from Jesus,' and says that ' no orthodox theologian would write in these terms.' But surely no orthodox theologian would say that the second person of the Trinity was Jesus of Nazareth at the time of the creation. The constant statement that he became man' implies that he was not man prior to the incarnation; and, on the other hand, it is only on account of the union of the two natures in one person through the incarnation, and the consequent communicatio idiomatum, that it is possible to speak of the pre-existence of Jesus. I suppose there are many modern refinements and modifications of the ancient doctrine; but I am concerned with the authoritative dogmatic statements.