"Plainly, too, the death of Christ was in perfection what all previous sacrifices had been in their measure and sphere. By removing that which had shut man out from God's presence, viz. a deathlike condition, it rendered his entrance into heaven possible, exactly as the old Mosaic sacrifice removed unfitness for entering into the tabernacle Presence. 66 But, on the other hand, it is plain that Christ did not so take our place by suffering and dying, that we should not in our own persons undergo each one the exact penalty originally attached to sin, namely, dissolution.1 Man was to be delivered from this, not by being allowed to evade it, any more than Israel was to escape the Red Sea, or Jonah the ocean; but, like them, by going down into it, and coming up out of it in a new condition purchased for him by the death of Christ, and applied to him by a real communion with that death, and with the ensuing resurrection. "Thus man, both the race and the individual, bears after all, all that by his nature and position he is capable of bearing, and all that was at the first denounced as his punishment. The original doom-the universal, the inevitable, the involuntary, the penal death-the death of the wrongdoer and of the condemned, as such, falls still on every man. But the death which alone could hinder that death from being eternal-the special, the inimitable, the self-chosen, the curative death, the death of the blameless and the self-devoted— is freely borne by Christ, that man might not perish everlastingly. In this sense and to this extent, by the grace of God He tasted death for every man.' “And it is especially to be observed in contravention of modern and really shallow conceptions, however profound an aspect they may wear, that it was in the strictest sense by the death of Christ, not by His life, that the redemption of logical knowledge extends or can extend. On what that stratum itself rests we are profoundly ignorant. 1 Aug. de Peccato, ii. 30-34. mankind was effected. Directly, strictly, and properly, it was not the holiness of that life, however holy, nor the divinity of that life, however divine, not this, but the fact of that Death —that Death as an instrument, as being the Death of a Man perfectly pure and sinless-this it was that by satisfying the conditions of a pre-existent law,1 brought man back from everlasting destruction."-Freeman's Principles of Divine Service. CHAPTER IV. ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. THE recent conference at Bonn, in which the long-standing doctrinal difference between the Eastern and Western branches of the Church was exhaustively discussed, has drawn the attention of students to the writings of the last of the Greek Fathers, JOHANNES DAMASCENUS, a monk who flourished in the middle of the eighth century, chiefly known in his own day for his strenuous resistance to the Emperor Leo's crusade against the use of images in churches, but valued highly by later ages because of his singular clearness and accuracy as a dogmatic theologian, as the notes to Bishop Pearson's Exposition of the Creed abundantly testify. In his dogmatic statements of the doctrine of the Procession, the representatives of the Greek Church at Bonn, and Dr. Döllinger on behalf of the Western Church, seemed to find common ground of agreement on which a doctrinal reunion of the two Churches might be based. 1 St. Athan. de Incarn., p. 63. "By the sacrifice of His own body He put an end to the law which was against us." It may be interesting, therefore, to give here some extracts from the writings of this Father in illustration of this difficult doctrine, although his date is so much later than that of the other Fathers to whom the English Church usually refers her students as authoritative in matters of doctrine. His works were published by Michaelis Le Quien, at Venice, in 1712; but the text is not so carefully printed as might be wished. His most famous work is De Fide Orthodoxâ. From the first Book of that treatise the following extracts are taken : The Divine Logos must have a Spirit; for the human logos (the rational soul of man) is not without participation in the Spirit ; only in our case the Spirit is of a substance distinct from ours (whereas the Divine Logos and Spirit are consubstantial). By the Spirit we do not mean an impersonal breath, but a substantial power, considered in His own proper individual personality, proceeding from the Father, and resting in the Logos, and being an exponent of the Logos, incapable of separation from God in whom He is, and from the Logos whom He ever accompanieth. For never did the Logos fail the Father, nor the Spirit the Logos. Similarly, we believe also in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and Lifegiver; proceeding from the Father, and resting in the Son . . . named τον, ὡς τὰς τῶν ὅλων παρακλήσεις Paraclete or Advocate, as being δεχόμενον· κατὰ πάντα ὅμοιον τῷ invoked by all; being in all Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱῷ· ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκ- respects similar to the Father πορευόμενον, καὶ δὶ Υἱοῦ μεταδιδό- and to the Son ; proceeding from μενον, καὶ μεταλαμβανόμενον ὑπὸ the Father, and through the Son πάσης κτίσεως, καὶ δὶ ἑαυτοῦ κτί- imparted and partaken of by all ζον, καὶ οὐσιοῦν τὰ σύμπαντα καὶ creatures; Himself creating and ἁγιάζον καὶ συνέχον. ἐνυπόστατον, giving substance to all things, ἤτοι ἐν ἰδίᾳ ὑποστάσει ὑπάρχον, sanctifying and controlling. Perἀχώριστον, καὶ ἀνεκφοίτητον Πα- sonal, that is existing in His own τρὸς καὶ Υἱοῦ. καὶ πάντα ἔχον proper subsistency; inseparable ὅσα ἔχει ὁ Πατὴρ καὶ ὁ Υἱός, and never absent from the Father πλὴν τῆς ἀγεννησίας καὶ τῆς γεν- and the Son. Having all that νήσεως. the Father hath and the Son, except their respective properties of being unbegotten and of being begotten. Ἐπὶ τῆς τριάδος μία οὐσία, μία ἀγαθότης, μία δύναμις, μία θέλησις, μία ἐνέργεια, μία ἐξουσία, μία καὶ ἡ αὐτὴ, οὐ τρεῖς ὅμοιαι ἀλλήλαις ὅτι κατὰ πάντα ἓν εἰσιν ὁ Πατὴρ καὶ ὁ Υἱὸς καὶ τὸ ̔́Αγιον Πνεῦμα, πλὴν τῆς ἀγεννησίας καὶ τῆς γεννήσεως, καὶ τῆς ἐκπορεύσεως. Χρὴ δὲ γινώσκειν ὅτι τὸν Πα τέρα οὐ λέγομεν ἔκ τινος, λέγομεν δὲ αὐτὸν τοῦ Υἱοῦ Πατέρα· τὸν Υἱὸν οὐ λέγομεν αἴτιον οὐδὲ πατέρα· λέγομεν δὲ αὐτὸν καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς, καὶ Υἱὸν τοῦ Πατρός· τὸ δὲ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς λέγομεν, καὶ Πνεῦμα Πατρὸς ὀνομάζομεν. ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ δὲ τὸ Πνεῦμα οὐ λέγομεν Πνεῦμα δὲ Υἱοῦ ὀνομάζομεν· εἴ τις γὰρ τὸ Πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ οὐκ ἔχει, φησὶν In the case of the Trinity there is one substance, one goodness, one power, one will, one energy, one authority, one and the same, not three like one to the other. . . For in all respects the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are One, except in their respective properties of being unbegotten, begotten, and proceeding. It is to be observed that we do not speak of the Father as originated of any, but we speak of Him as Father of the Son. We do not speak of the Son as being Cause or Father of any; but we speak of Him as originated of the Father, and being Son of the Father; the Holy Spirit we speak of as originated of the Father, and we name Him Spirit of the Father. But we do not speak of the Spirit as ὁ θεῖος ἀπόστολος, οὗτος οὐκ ἐστὶν αὐτοῦ· καὶ δι ̓ Υἱοῦ πεφανερῶσθαι, καὶ μεταδίδοσθαι ἡμῖν ὁμολογοῦμεν ἐνεφύσησε γὰρ, φησὶ, καὶ εἶπε τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ, λάβετε Πνεῦμα ἅγιον. Ὥσπερ ἐκ τοῦ ἡλίου μὲν ἥ τε ἀκτὶς καὶ ἡ ἔλλαμψις· αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐστὶν ἡ πηγὴ τῆς ἀκτῖνος καὶ τῆς ἐλλάμψεως· διά τε τῆς ἀκτῖνος ή ἔλλαμψις ἡμῖν μεταδίδοται, καὶ αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ φωτίζουσα ἡμᾶς, καὶ μετεχομένη ὑφ ̓ ἡμῶν. Τὸν δὲ Υἱὸν, οὔτε τοῦ Πνεύματος λέγομεν, οὔτε μὴν ἐκ τοῦ Πνεύματος. originated of the Son;1 but we name Him Spirit of the Son ; for “if any have not the Spirit of Christ,” saith the holy Apostle, "he is none of His." And that He is manifested and imparted to us through the Son, we confess; for “He breathed on them,” we read, “ and said to His disciples, Receive the Holy Ghost.” Even as of the sun are originated both the sunbeam and its illumination ; for the sun is the fountain of both; and it is through the sunbeam that the illumination is imparted to us, and this it is which enlightens us and is partaken of by us. But we neither speak of the Son as Son of the Spirit, nor yet as originated of the Spirit. In the xiith chapter (de divinis nominibus), the authenticity of which has been questioned by some, John of Damascus makes these further statements : Ο Πατὴρ Λόγου γεννήτωρ, καὶ διὰ Λόγου προβολεὺς ἐκφαντορικοῦ Πνεύματος. Τὸ δὲ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐκφαντορικὴ τοῦ κρυφίου τῆς Θεότητος δύναμις τοῦ Πατρός· ἐκ Πατρὸς μὲν δι Υἱοῦ ἐκπορευομένη, οὐ γεννητῶς. The Father is the begetter of the Logos, and through the Logos the projector of the revealing Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Father's Power revealing the secrets of the Godhead; proceeding from the Father through the Son, but not by way of generation. 1 Thomas Aquinas, commenting on this passage of Damascene, charges him with the error of the Nestorians, condemned by the Council of Ephesus. But unjustly, for the Nestorians denied that the Spirit proceeded from the Father through the Son, which John of Damascus distinctly affirms. |