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| On the Incarnation of Christ.
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Chapter
VI.—On the Incarnation of Christ.
1. It is now time, after this cursory notice
of these points, to resume our investigation of the incarnation of our
Lord and Saviour, viz., how or why He became man. Having
therefore, to the best of our feeble ability, considered His divine
nature from the contemplation of His own works rather than from our own
feelings, and having nevertheless beheld (with the eye) His visible
creation while the invisible creation is seen by faith, because human
frailty can neither see all things with the bodily eye nor comprehend
them by reason, seeing we men are weaker and frailer than any other
rational beings (for those which are in heaven, or are supposed to
exist above the heaven, are superior), it remains that we seek a being
intermediate between all created things and God, i.e., a Mediator, whom
the Apostle Paul styles the “first-born of every
creature.”2141
Seeing,
moreover, those declarations regarding His majesty which are contained
in holy Scripture, that He is called the “image of the invisible
God, and the first-born of every creature,” and that “in
Him were all things created, visible and invisible, whether they be
thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were
created by Him, and in Him: and He is before all things, and by
Him all things consist,”2142
who is the head of
all things, alone having as head God the Father; for it is written,
“The head of Christ is God;”2143
seeing clearly also that it is written, “No one knoweth the
Father, save the Son, nor doth any one know the Son, save the
Father”2144
(for who can know
what wisdom is, save He who called it into being? or, who can
understand clearly what truth is, save the Father of truth? who can
investigate with certainty the universal nature of His Word, and of God
Himself, which nature proceeds from God, except God alone, with whom
the Word was), we ought to regard it as certain that this Word, or
Reason (if it is to be so termed), this Wisdom, this Truth, is known to
no other than the Father only; and of Him it is written, that “I
do not think that the world itself could contain the books which might
be written,”2145
regarding, viz.,
the glory and majesty of the Son of God. For it is impossible to
commit to writing (all) those particulars which belong to the glory of
the Saviour. After the consideration of questions of such
importance concerning the being of the Son of God, we are lost in the
deepest amazement that such a nature, pre-eminent above all others,
should have divested itself of its condition of majesty and become man,
and tabernacled amongst men, as the grace that was poured upon His lips
testifies, and as His heavenly Father bore Him witness, and as is
confessed by the various signs and wonders and miracles2146
| 2146 Virtutibus, probably
for δυνάμεσιν. | that were performed by Him; who also, before
that appearance of His which He manifested in the body, sent the
prophets as His forerunners, and the messengers of His advent; and
after His ascension into heaven, made His holy apostles, men ignorant
and unlearned, taken from the ranks of tax-gatherers or fishermen, but
who were filled with the power of His divinity, to itinerate throughout
the world, that they might gather together out of every race and every
nation a multitude of devout believers in Himself.
2. But of all the marvellous and mighty acts
related of Him, this altogether surpasses human admiration, and is
beyond the power of mortal frailness to understand or feel, how that
mighty power of divine majesty, that very Word of the Father, and that
very wisdom of God, in which were created all things, visible and
invisible, can be believed to
have existed within the limits of that man who appeared in Judea; nay,
that the Wisdom of God can have entered the womb of a woman, and have
been born an infant, and have uttered wailings like the cries of little
children! And that afterwards it should be related that He was
greatly troubled in death, saying, as He Himself declared, “My
soul is sorrowful even unto death;”2147
and that at the last He was brought to that death which is accounted
the most shameful among men, although He rose again on the third
day. Since, then, we see in Him some things so human that they
appear to differ in no respect from the common frailty of mortals, and
some things so divine that they can appropriately belong to nothing
else than to the primal and ineffable nature of Deity, the narrowness
of human understanding can find no outlet; but, overcome with the
amazement of a mighty admiration, knows not whither to withdraw, or
what to take hold of, or whither to turn. If it think of a God,
it sees a mortal; if it think of a man, it beholds Him returning from
the grave, after overthrowing the empire of death, laden with its
spoils. And therefore the spectacle is to be contemplated with
all fear and reverence, that the truth of both natures may be clearly
shown to exist in one and the same Being; so that nothing unworthy or
unbecoming may be perceived in that divine and ineffable substance, nor
yet those things which were done be supposed to be the illusions of
imaginary appearances. To utter these things in human ears, and
to explain them in words, far surpasses the powers either of our rank,
or of our intellect and language. I think that it surpasses the
power even of the holy apostles; nay, the explanation of that mystery
may perhaps be beyond the grasp of the entire creation of celestial
powers. Regarding Him, then, we shall state, in the fewest
possible words, the contents of our creed rather than the assertions
which human reason is wont to advance; and this from no spirit of
rashness, but as called for by the nature of our arrangement, laying
before you rather (what may be termed) our suspicions than any clear
affirmations.
3. The Only-begotten of God, therefore, through
whom, as the previous course of the discussion has shown, all things
were made, visible and invisible, according to the view of Scripture,
both made all things, and loves what He made. For since He is
Himself the invisible image of the invisible God, He conveyed invisibly
a share in Himself to all His rational creatures, so that each one
obtained a part of Him exactly proportioned to the amount of affection
with which he regarded Him. But since, agreeably to the faculty
of free-will, variety and diversity characterized the individual souls,
so that one was attached with a warmer love to the Author of its being,
and another with a feebler and weaker regard, that soul (anima)
regarding which Jesus said, “No one shall take my life
(animam) from me,”2148
| 2148 John x. 18. “No other soul which
descended into a human body has stamped on itself a pure and unstained
resemblance of its former stamp, save that one of which the Savior
says, ‘No one will take my soul from me, but I lay it down of
myself.’”—Jerome, Epistle to Avitus, p.
763. |
inhering, from the beginning of the creation, and afterwards,
inseparably and indissolubly in Him, as being the Wisdom and Word of
God, and the Truth and the true Light, and receiving Him wholly, and
passing into His light and splendour, was made with Him in a
pre-eminent degree2149
one spirit,
according to the promise of the apostle to those who ought to imitate
it, that “he who is joined in the Lord is one
spirit.”2150
This
substance of a soul, then, being intermediate between God and the
flesh—it being impossible for the nature of God to intermingle
with a body without an intermediate instrument—the God-man is
born, as we have said, that substance being the intermediary to whose
nature it was not contrary to assume a body. But neither, on the
other hand, was it opposed to the nature of that soul, as a rational
existence, to receive God, into whom, as stated above, as into the
Word, and the Wisdom, and the Truth, it had already wholly
entered. And therefore deservedly is it also called, along with
the flesh which it had assumed, the Son of God, and the Power of God,
the Christ, and the Wisdom of God, either because it was wholly in the
Son of God, or because it received the Son of God wholly into
itself. And again, the Son of God, through whom all things were
created, is named Jesus Christ and the Son of man. For the Son of
God also is said to have died—in reference, viz., to that nature
which could admit of death; and He is called the Son of man, who is
announced as about to come in the glory of God the Father, with the
holy angels. And for this reason, throughout the whole of
Scripture, not only is the divine nature spoken of in human words, but
the human nature is adorned by appellations of divine dignity.
More truly indeed of this than of any other can the statement be
affirmed, “They shall both be in one flesh, and are no longer
two, but one flesh.”2151
For the Word
of God is to be considered as being more in one flesh with the soul
than a man with his wife. But to whom is it more becoming to be
also one spirit with God, than to this soul which has so joined itself
to God by love as that it may justly be said to be one spirit with
Him?
4. That
the perfection of his love and the sincerity of his deserved
affection2152
formed for it this
inseparable union with God, so that the assumption of that soul was not
accidental, or the result of a personal preference, but was conferred
as the reward of its virtues, listen to the prophet addressing it
thus: “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated
wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the
oil of gladness above thy fellows.”2153
As a reward for its love, then, it is
anointed with the oil of gladness; i.e., the soul of Christ along with
the Word of God is made Christ. Because to be anointed with the
oil of gladness means nothing else than to be filled with the Holy
Spirit. And when it is said “above thy fellows,” it
is meant that the grace of the Spirit was not given to it as to the
prophets, but that the essential fulness of the Word of God Himself was
in it, according to the saying of the apostle, “In whom dwelt all
the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”2154
Finally, on this account he has not
only said, “Thou hast loved righteousness;” but he adds,
“and Thou hast hated wickedness.” For to have hated
wickedness is what the Scripture says of Him, that “He did no
sin, neither was any guile found in His mouth,”2155
and that “He was tempted in all things
like as we are, without sin.”2156
Nay, the
Lord Himself also said, “Which of you will convince Me of
sin?”2157
And again He
says with reference to Himself, “Behold, the prince of this world
cometh, and findeth nothing in Me.”2158
All which (passages) show that in Him
there was no sense of sin; and that the prophet might show more clearly
that no sense of sin had ever entered into Him, he says, “Before
the boy could have knowledge to call upon father or mother, He turned
away from wickedness.”2159
5. Now, if our having shown above that Christ
possessed a rational soul should cause a difficulty to any one, seeing
we have frequently proved throughout all our discussions that the
nature of souls is capable both of good and evil, the difficulty will
be explained in the following way. That the nature, indeed, of
His soul was the same as that of all others cannot be doubted,
otherwise it could not be called a soul were it not truly one.
But since the power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of
all, this soul which belonged to Christ elected to love righteousness,
so that in proportion to the immensity of its love it clung to it
unchangeably and inseparably, so that firmness of purpose, and
immensity of affection, and an inextinguishable warmth of love,
destroyed all susceptibility (sensum) for alteration and change;
and that which formerly depended upon the will was changed by the power
of long custom into nature; and so we must believe that there existed
in Christ a human and rational soul, without supposing that it had any
feeling or possibility of sin.
6. To explain the matter more fully, it will
not appear absurd to make use of an illustration, although on a subject
of so much difficulty it is not easy to obtain suitable
illustrations. However, if we may speak without offence, the
metal iron is capable of cold and heat. If, then, a mass of iron
be kept constantly in the fire, receiving the heat through all its
pores and veins, and the fire being continuous and the iron never
removed from it, it become wholly converted into the latter; could we
at all say of this, which is by nature a mass of iron, that when placed
in the fire, and incessantly burning, it was at any time capable of
admitting cold? On the contrary, because it is more consistent
with truth, do we not rather say, what we often see happening in
furnaces, that it has become wholly fire, seeing nothing but fire is
visible in it? And if any one were to attempt to touch or handle
it, he would experience the action not of iron, but of fire. In
this way, then, that soul which, like an iron in the fire, has been
perpetually placed in the Word, and perpetually in the Wisdom, and
perpetually in God,2160
| 2160 Semper in verbo,
semper in sapientia, semper in Deo. | is God in all that
it does, feels, and understands, and therefore can be called neither
convertible nor mutable, inasmuch as, being incessantly heated, it
possessed immutability from its union with the Word of God. To
all the saints, finally, some warmth from the Word of God must be
supposed to have passed; and in this soul the divine fire itself must
be believed to have rested, from which some warmth may have passed to
others. Lastly, the expression, “God, thy God, anointed
thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows,”2161
shows that that soul is anointed in one way
with the oil of gladness, i.e., with the word of God and wisdom; and
his fellows, i.e., the holy prophets and apostles, in another.
For they are said to have “run in the odour of his
ointments;”2162
| 2162 Illi enim in odore
unguentorum ejus circumire dicuntur; perhaps an allusion to
Song of Sol. 1.3; Psa. 45.8" id="vi.v.iii.vi-p29.1" parsed="|Song|1|3|0|0;|Ps|45|8|0|0" osisRef="Bible:Song.1.3 Bible:Ps.45.8">Song of Sol. i. 3 or to Ps. xlv. 8. | and that soul was
the vessel which contained that very ointment of whose fragrance all
the worthy prophets and apostles were made partakers. As, then,
the substance of an ointment is one thing and its odour another, so
also Christ is one thing and His fellows another. And as the
vessel itself, which contains the substance of the ointment, can by no means admit any foul smell;
whereas it is possible that those who enjoy its odour may, if they
remove a little way from its fragrance, receive any foul odour which
comes upon them: so, in the same way, was it impossible that
Christ, being as it were the vessel itself, in which was the substance
of the ointment, should receive an odour of an opposite kind, while
they who are His “fellows” will be partakers and receivers
of His odour, in proportion to their nearness to the vessel.
7. I think, indeed, that Jeremiah the
prophet, also, understanding what was the nature of the wisdom of God
in him, which was the same also which he had assumed for the salvation
of the world, said, “The breath of our countenance is Christ the
Lord, to whom we said, that under His shadow we shall live among the
nations.”2163
And inasmuch
as the shadow of our body is inseparable from the body, and unavoidably
performs and repeats its movements and gestures, I think that he,
wishing to point out the work of Christ’s soul, and the movements
inseparably belonging to it, and which accomplished everything
according to His movements and will, called this the shadow of Christ
the Lord, under which shadow we were to live among the nations.
For in the mystery of this assumption the nations live, who, imitating
it through faith, come to salvation. David also, when saying,
“Be mindful of my reproach, O Lord, with which they reproached me
in exchange for Thy Christ,”2164
seems to me to
indicate the same. And what else does Paul mean when he says,
“Your life is hid with Christ in God;”2165
and again in another passage, “Do you
seek a proof of Christ, who speaketh in me?”2166
And now he says that Christ was hid in
God. The meaning of which expression, unless it be shown to be
something such as we have pointed out above as intended by the prophet
in the words “shadow of Christ,” exceeds, perhaps, the
apprehension of the human mind. But we see also very many other
statements in holy Scripture respecting the meaning of the word
“shadow,” as that well-known one in the Gospel according to
Luke, where Gabriel says to Mary, “The Spirit of the Lord shall
come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow
thee.”2167
And the
apostle says with reference to the law, that they who have circumcision
in the flesh, “serve for the similitude and shadow of heavenly
things.”2168
And
elsewhere, “Is not our life upon the earth a
shadow?”2169
If, then, not
only the law which is upon the earth is a shadow, but also all our life
which is upon the earth is the same, and we live among the nations
under the shadow of Christ, we must see whether the truth of all these
shadows may not come to be known in that revelation, when no longer
through a glass, and darkly, but face to face, all the saints shall
deserve to behold the glory of God, and the causes and truth of
things. And the pledge of this truth being already received
through the Holy Spirit, the apostle said, “Yea, though we have
known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no
more.”2170
The above, meanwhile, are the thoughts which have
occurred to us, when treating of subjects of such difficulty as the
incarnation and deity of Christ. If there be any one, indeed, who
can discover something better, and who can establish his assertions by
clearer proofs from holy Scriptures, let his opinion be received in
preference to mine. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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