Christology

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Christology is that part of theology which deals with Our Lord Jesus Christ. In its full extent it comprises the doctrines concerning both the person of Christ and His works; but in the present article we shall limit ourselves to a consideration of the person of Christ. Here again we shall not infringe on the domain of the historian and Old-Testament theologian, who present their respective contributions under the headings JESUS CHRIST, and MESSIAS; hence the theology of the Person of Jesus Christ, considered in the light of the New Testament or from the Christian point of view, is the proper subject of the present article.

The person of Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Son or the Word of the Father, Who "was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man." These mysteries, though foretold in the Old Testament, were fully revealed in the New, and clearly developed in Christian Tradition and theology. Hence we shall have to study our subject under the triple aspect of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Christian Tradition.
Old Testament

From what has been said we understand that the Old Testament is not considered here from the viewpoint of the Jewish scribe, but of the Christian theologian. Jesus Christ Himself was the first to use it in this way by His repeated appeal to the Messianic passages of the prophetic writings. The Apostles saw in these prophecies many arguments in favour of the claims and the teachings of Jesus Christ; the Evangelists, too, are familiar with them, though they appeal less frequently to them than the patristic writers do. Even the Fathers either state the prophetic argument only in general terms or they quote single prophecies; but they thus prepare the way for the deeper insight into the historical perspective of the Messianic predictions which began to prevail in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Leaving the statement of the historical development of the Messianic prophecies to the writer of the article MESSIAS, we shall briefly call attention to the prophetic predictions of the genealogy of Christ, of His birth, His infancy, His names, His offices, His public life, His sufferings, and His glory.

(1) References to the human genealogy of the Messias are quite numerous in the Old Testament: He is represented as the seed of the woman, the son of Sem, the son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the son of David, the prince of pastors, the offspring of the marrow of the high cedar (Genesis 3:1-19; 9:18-27; 12:1-9; 17:1-9; 18:17-19; 22:16-18; 26:1-5; 27:1-15; Numbers 24:15-19; 2 Samuel 7:1-16; 1 Chronicles 17:1-17; Jeremiah 23:1-8; 33:14-26; Ezekiel 17). The Royal Psalmist extols the Divine genealogy of the future Messias in the words: "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee" (Ps. ii, 7).

(2) The Prophets frequently speak of the birth of the expected Christ. They locate its place in Bethlehem of Juda (Micah 5:2-14), they determine its time by the passing of the sceptre from Juda (Genesis 49:8-12), by the seventy weeks of Daniel (ix, 22-27), and by the "little while" mentioned in the Book of Aggeus (ii, 1-10). The Old-Testament seers know also that the Messias will be born of a Virgin Mother (Isaiah 7:1-17), and that His appearance, at least His public appearance, will be preceded by a precursor (Isaiah 40:1-11; Malachi 4:5-6).

(3) Certain events connected with the infancy of the Messias have been deemed important enough to be the subject of prophetic prediction. Among these are the adoration of the Magi (Ps. lxxxi, 1-17), the slaughter of the innocents (Jeremiah 31:15-26), and the flight into Egypt (Hosea 11:1-7). It is true that in the case of these prophecies, as it happens in the case of many others, their fulfilment is their clearest commentary; but this does not undo the fact that the events were really predicted.

(4) Perhaps there is less need of insisting on the predictions of the better known Messianic names and titles, seeing that they involve less obscurity. Thus in the prophecies of Zacharias the Messias is called the Orient, or, according to the Hebrew text, the "bud" (iii; vi, 9-15), in the Book of Daniel He is the Son of Man (vii), in the Prophecy of Malachias He is the Angel of the Testament (ii, 17; iii, 6), in the writings of Isaias He is the Saviour (51:1, 52:12 and 62), the Servant of the Lord (49:1), the Emmanuel (8:1-10), the Prince of peace (9:1-7).

(5) The Messianic offices are considered in a general way in the latter part of Isaias (61); in particular, the Messias is considered as prophet in the Book of Deuteronomy (xviii, 9-22); as king in the Canticle of Anna (1 Samuel 2:1-10) and in the royal song of the Psalmist (xliv); as priest in the sacerdotal type Melchisedech (Genesis 14:14-20) and in the Psalmist's words "a priest forever" (cix); as Goel, or Avenger, in the second part of Isaias (63:1-6); as mediator of the New Testament, under the form of a covenant of the people (Isaiah 42:1; 43:13), and of the light of the Gentiles (Isaiah 49).

(6) As to the public life of the Messias, Isaias gives us a general idea of the fulness of the Spirit investing the Anointed (11:1-16), and of the Messianic work (55). The Psalmist presents a picture of the Good Shepherd (22); Isaias summarizes the Messianic miracles (35); Zacharias exclaims, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion", thus predicting Christ's solemn entrance into Jerusalem; the Psalmist refers to this same event when he mentions the praise out of the mouth of infants (8). To return once more to the Book of Isaias, the prophet foretells the rejection of the Messias through a league with death (27); the Psalmist alludes to the same mystery where he speaks of the stone which the builders rejected (117).

(7) Need we say that the sufferings of the Messias were fully predicted by the prophets of the Old Testament? The general idea of the Messianic victim is presented in the context of the words "sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not" (Ps. xxxix); in the passage beginning with the resolve "Let us put wood on his bread" (Jeremiah 11), and in the sacrifice described by the prophet Malachias (i). Besides, the series of the particular events which constitute the history of Christ's Passion has been described by the prophets with a remarkable minuteness: the Psalmist refers to His betrayal in the words "the man of my peace . . . supplanted me" (xl), and Zacharias knows of the "thirty pieces of silver" (xi); the Psalmist praying in the anguish of his soul, is a type of Christ in His agony (Ps. liv); His capture is foretold in the words "pursue and take him" and "they will hunt after the soul of the just" (Ps. lxx; xciii); His trial with its false witnesses may be found represented in the words "unjust witnesses have risen up against me, and iniquity hath lied to itself" (Ps. xxvi); His flagellation is portrayed in the description of the man of sorrows (Isaiah 52:13; 53:12) and the words "scourges were gathered together upon me" (Ps. xxxiv); the betrayer's evil lot is pictured in the imprecations of Psalm 108; the crucifixion is referred to in the passages "What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands?" (Zechariah 13), "Let us condemn him to a most shameful death" (Wisdom 2), and "They have dug my hands and my feet" (Ps. xxi); the miraculous darkness occurs in Amos 8; the gall and vinegar are spoken of in Psalm 68; the pierced heart of Christ is foreshadowed in Zechariah 12. The sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 21:1-14), the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:1-28), the ashes of purification (Numbers 19:1-10), and the brazen serpent (Numbers 21:4-9) hold a prominent place among the types prefiguring the suffering Messias. The third chapter of Lamentations is justly considered as the dirge of our buried Redeemer.

(8) Finally, the glory of the Messias has been foretold by the Prophets of the Old Testament. The context of such phrases as "I have risen because the Lord hath protected me" (Psalm 3), "My flesh shall rest in hope (Psalm 15), "On the third day he will raise us up" (Hosea 5:15, 6:3), "O death, I will be thy death" (Hosea 13:6-15a), and "I know that my Redeemer liveth" (Job 19:23-27) referred the devout Jewish worshipper to something more than a merely earthly restoration, the fulfilment of which began to be realized in the Resurrection of Christ. This mystery is also implied, at least typically, in the first fruits of the harvest (Leviticus 23:9-14) and the delivery of Jonas from the belly of the fish (Jonah 2). Nor is the Resurrection of the Messias the only element of Christ's glory predicted by the Prophets. Psalm 67 refers to the Ascension; Joel, ii, 28-32, to the coming of the Paraclete; Isaiah 9, to the call of the Gentiles; Mich., iv, 1-7, to the conversion of the Synagogue; Daniel 2:27-47, to the kingdom of the Messias as compared with the kingdom of the world. Other characteristics of the Messianic kingdom are typified by the tabernacle (Exodus 25:8-9; 29:43; 40:33-36; Numbers 9:15-23), the mercy-seat (Exodus 25:17-22; Psalm 79:1), Aaron the high priest (Exodus 28:1; 30:1; 10; Numbers 16:39-40), the manna (Exodus 16:1-15; Psalm 77:24-25), and the rock of Horeb (Exodus 17:5-7; Numbers 20:10-11; Psalm 104:41). A Canticle of thanksgiving for the Messianic benefits is found in Isaiah 12.

The Books of the Old Testament are not the only source from which the Christian theologian may learn the Messianic ideas of pre-Christian Jewry. The Sibylline oracles, the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Psalms of Solomon, the Ascensio Moysis, the Revelation of Baruch, the Fourth Book of Esdras, and several Talmudic and Rabbinic writings are rich depositories of pre-Christian views concerning the expected Messias. Not that all of these works were written before the coming of Christ; but, though partially post-Christian in their authorship, they preserve a picture of the Jewish world of thought, dating back, at least in its outline, centuries before the coming of Christ.
New Testament

Some modern writers tell us that there are two Christs, as it were, the Messias of faith and the Jesus of history. They regard the Lord and Christ, Whom God exalted by raising Him from the dead, as the subject of Christian faith; and Jesus of Nazareth, the preacher and worker of miracles, as the theme of the historian. They assure us that it is quite impossible to persuade even the least experienced critic that Jesus taught, in formal terms and at one and the same time, the Christology of Paul, that of John, and the doctrines of Nicæa, of Ephesus, and of Chalcedon. Otherwise the history of the first Christian centuries appears to these writers to be quite inconceivable. The Fourth Gospel is said to lack the data which underlie the definitions of the first ecumenical councils and to supply testimony that is not a supplement, but a corrective, of the portrait of Jesus drawn by the Synoptics. These two accounts of the Christ are represented as mutually exclusive: if Jesus spoke and acted as He speaks and acts in the Synoptic Gospels, then He cannot have spoken and acted as He is reported by St. John. We shall here briefly review the Christology of St. Paul, of the Catholic Epistles, of the Fourth Gospel, and the Synoptics. Thus we shall give the reader a complete Christology of the New Testament and at the same time the data necessary to control the contentions of the Modernists. The Christology will not, however, be complete in the sense that it extends to all the details concerning Jesus Christ taught in the New Testament, but in the sense that it gives His essential characteristics taught in the whole of the New Testament.
Pauline Christology

St. Paul insists on the truth of Christ's real humanity and Divinity, in spite of the fact that at first sight the reader is confronted with three objects in the Apostle's writings: God, the human world, and the Mediator. But then the latter is both Divine and human, both God and man.

(a) Christ's Humanity in the Pauline Epistles

The expressions "form of a servant", "in habit found as a man", "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Philippians 2:7; Romans 8:3) may seem to impair the real humanity of Christ in the Pauline teaching. But in reality they only describe a mode of being or hint at the presence of a higher nature in Christ not seen by the senses, or they contrast Christ's human nature with the nature of that sinful race to which it belongs. On the other hand the Apostle plainly speaks of Our Lord manifested in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16), as possessing a body of flesh (Colossians 1:22), as being "made of a woman" (Galatians 4:4), as being born of the seed of David according to the flesh (Romans 1:3), as belonging according to the flesh to the race of Israel (Romans 9:5). As a Jew, Jesus Christ was born under the Law (Galatians 4:4). The Apostle dwells with emphasis on Our Lord's real share in our physical human weakness (2 Corinthians 13:4), on His life of suffering (Hebrews 5:8) reaching its climax in the Passion (ibid., 1:5; Philippians 3:10; Colossians 1:24). Only in two respects did Our Lord's humanity differ from the rest of men: first in its entire sinlessness (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 2:17; Romans 7:3); secondly, in the fact that Our Lord was the second Adam, representing the whole human race (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49).
Christ's divinity in the Pauline epistles

According to St. Paul, the superiority of the Christian revelation over all other Divine manifestations, and the perfection of the New Covenant with its sacrifice and priesthood, are derived from the fact that Christ is the Son of God (Hebrews 1:1 sq.; 5:5 sq.; 2:5 sq.; Romans 1:3; Galatians 4:4; Ephesians 4:13; Colossians 1:12 sq.; 2:9 sq.; etc.). The Apostle understands by the expression "Son of God" not a merely moral dignity, or a merely external relation to God which began in time, but an eternal and immanent relation of Christ to the Father. He contrasts Christ with, and finds Him superior to, Aaron and his successors, Moses and the Prophets (Hebrews 5:4; 10:11; 7:1-22; 3:1-6; 1:1). He raises Christ above the choirs of angels, and makes Him their Lord and Master (Hebrews 1:3; 14; 2:2-3), and seats Him as heir of all things at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 1:2-3; Galatians 4:14; Ephesians 1:20-21). If St. Paul is obliged to use the terms "form of God", "image of God", when he speaks of Christ's Divinity, in order to show the personal distinction between the Eternal Father and the Divine Son (Philippians 2:6; Colossians 1:15), Christ is not merely the image and glory of God (1 Corinthians 11:7), but also the first-born before any created beings (Colossians 1:15), in Whom, and by Whom, and for Whom all things were made (Colossians 1:16), in Whom the fulness of the Godhead resides with that actual reality which we attach to the presence of the material bodies perceptible and measurable through the organs of our senses (Colossians 2:9), in a word, "who is over all things, God blessed for ever" (Romans 9:5).
Christology of the Catholic epistles

The Epistles of St. John will be considered together with the other writings of the same Apostle in the next paragraph. Under the present heading we shall briefly indicate the views concerning Christ held by the Apostles St. James, St. Peter, and St. Jude.

(a) The Epistle of St. James

The mainly practical scope of the Epistle of St. James does not lead us to expect that Our Lord's Divinity would be formally expressed in it as a doctrine of faith. This doctrine is, however, implied in the language of the inspired writer. He professes to stand in the same relation to Jesus Christ as to God, being the servant of both (i, 1): he applies the same term to the God of the Old Testament as to Jesus Christ (passim). Jesus Christ is both the sovereign judge and independent lawgiver, who can save and can destroy (iv, 12); the faith in Jesus Christ is faith in the lord of Glory (ii, 1). The language of St. James would be exaggerated and overstrained on any other supposition than the writer's firm belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

(b) Belief of St. Peter

St. Peter presents himself as the servant and the apostle of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:1; 2 Peter 1:1), who was predicted by the Prophets of the Old Testament in such a way that the Prophets themselves were Christ's own servants, heralds, and organs (1 Peter 1:10-11). It is the pre-existent Christ who moulds the utterances of Israel's Prophets to proclaim their anticipations of His advent. St. Peter had witnessed the glory of Jesus in the Transfiguration (2 Peter 1:16); he appears to take pleasure in multiplying His titles: Jesus Our Lord (2 Peter 1:2), our Lord Jesus Christ (ibid., i, 14, 16), the Lord and Saviour (ibid., iii, 2), our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (ibid., i, 1), Whose power is Divine (ibid., i, 3), through whose promises Christians are made partakers of the nature of God (ibid., i, 4). Throughout his Epistle, therefore, St. Peter feels, as it were, and implies the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

(c) Epistle of St. Jude

St. Jude, too, introduces himself as the servant of Jesus Christ, through union with whom Christians are kept in a life of faith and holiness (1); Christ is our only Lord and Saviour (4), Who punished Israel in the wilderness and the rebel angels (5), Who will come to judgment surrounded by myriads of saints (14), and to Whom Christians look for the mercy which He will show them at His coming (21), the issue of which will be life everlasting. Can a merely human Christ be the subject of this language?
Johannean Christology

If there were nothing else in the New Testament to prove the Divinity of Christ, the first fourteen verses in the Fourth Gospel would suffice to convince a believer in the Bible of that dogma. Now the doctrine of this prologue is the fundamental idea of the whole Johannean theology. The Word made flesh is the same with the Word Who was in the beginning, on the one hand, and with the man Jesus Christ, the subject of the Fourth Gospel on the other. The whole Gospel is a history of the Eternal Word dwelling in human nature among men.

The teaching of the Fourth Gospel is also found in the Johannean Epistles. In his very opening words the writer tells his readers that the Word of life has become manifest and that the Apostles had seen and heard and handled the Word incarnate. The denial of the Son implies the loss of the Father (1 John 2:23), and "whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him and he in God" (ibid., iv, 15). Towards the end of the Epistle the writer is still more emphatic: "And we know that the Son of God is come: and he hath given us understanding that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son. This is the true God and life eternal" (ibid., v, 20).

According to the Apocalypse, Christ is the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, the eternal and the almighty (i, 8; xxi, 6; xxii, 13). He is the king of kings and lord of lords (xix, 16), the lord of the unseen world (xii, 10; xiii, 8), the centre of the court of heaven (v, 6); He receives the adoration of the highest angels (v, 8), and as the object of that uninterrupted worship (v, 12), He is associated with the Father (v, 13; xvii, 14).
Christology of the synoptists

There is a real difference between the first three Evangelists and St. John in their respective representations of our Lord. The truth presented by these writers may be the same, but they view it from different standpoints. The three Synoptists set forth the humanity of Christ in its obedience to the law, in its power over nature, and in its tenderness for the weak and afflicted; the fourth Gospel sets forth the life of Christ not in any of the aspects which belong to it as human, but as being the adequate expression of the glory of the Divine Person, manifested to men under a visible form. But in spite of this difference, the Synoptists by their suggestive implication practically anticipate the teaching of the Fourth Gospel. This suggestion is implied, first, in the Synoptic use of the title Son of God as applied to Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son of God, not merely in an ethical or theocratic sense, not merely as one among many sons, but He is the only, the well-beloved Son of the Father, so that His son-ship is unshared by any other, and is absolutely unique (Matthew 3:17, 17:5; 22:41; cf. 4:3, 6; Luke 4:3, 9); it is derived from the fact that the Holy Ghost was to come upon Mary, and the power of the Most High was to overshadow her (Luke 1:35). Again, the Synoptists imply Christ's Divinity in their history of His nativity and its accompanying circumstances; He is conceived of the Holy Ghost (Luke, 1, 35), and His mother knows that all generations shall call her blessed, because the mighty one had done great things unto her (Luke 1:48). Elisabeth calls Mary blessed among women, blesses the fruit of her womb, and marvels that she herself should be visited by the mother of her Lord (Luke 1:42-43). Gabriel greets Our Lady as full of grace, and blessed among women; her Son will be great, He will be called the Son of the Most High, and of His kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:28, 32). As new-born infant, Christ is adored by the shepherds and the Magi, representatives of the Jewish and the Gentile world. Simeon sees in the child his Lord's salvation, the light of the Gentiles, and the pride and glory of his people Israel (Luke 2:30-32). These accounts hardly fit in with the limits of a merely human child, but they become intelligible in the light of the Fourth Gospel.

The Synoptists agree with the teaching of the Fourth Gospel concerning the person of Jesus Christ not merely in their use of the term Son of God and in their accounts of Christ's birth with its surrounding details, but also in their narratives of Our Lord's doctrine, life, and work. The very term Son of Man, which they often apply to Christ, is used in such a way that it shows in Jesus Christ a self-consciousness for which the human element is not something primary, but something secondary and superinduced. Often Christ is simply called Son (Matthew 11:27; 28:20), and correspondingly He never calls the Father "our" Father, but "my" Father (Matthew 18:10, 19, 35; 20:23; 26:53). At His baptism and transfiguration He receives witness from heaven to His Divine Son-ship; the Prophets of the Old Testament are not rivals, but servants in comparison with Him (Matthew 21:34); hence the title Son of Man implies a nature to which Christ's humanity was an accessory. Again, Christ claims the power to forgive sins and supports His claim by miracles (Matthew 9:2-6; Luke 5:20, 24); He insists on faith in Himself (Matthew 16:16, 17), He inserts His name in the baptismal formula between that of the Father and the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19), He alone knows the Father and is known by the Father alone (Matthew 11:27), He institutes the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19), He suffers and dies only to rise again the third day (Matthew 20:19; Mark 10:34; Luke 18:33) He ascends into Heaven, but declares that He will be among us till the end of the world (Matthew 28:20).

Need we add that Christ's claims to the most exalted dignity of His person are unmistakably clear in the eschatological discourses of the Synoptists? He is the Lord of the material and moral universe; as supreme lawgiver He revises all other legislation; as final judge He determines the fate of all. Blot the Fourth Gospel out of the Canon of the New Testament, and you still have in the Synoptic Gospels the identical doctrine concerning the person of Jesus Christ which we now draw out of the Four Gospels; some points of the doctrine might be less clearly stated than they are now, but they would remain substantially the same.
Christian tradition

Biblical Christology shows that one and the same Jesus Christ is both God and man. While Christian tradition has always maintained this triple thesis that Jesus Christ is truly man, that He is truly God, and that the Godman, Jesus Christ, is one and the same person the heretical or erroneous tenets of various religious leaders have forced the Church to insist more expressly now on the one, now on another element of her Christology. A classified list of the principal errors and of the subsequent ecclesiastical utterances will show the historical development of the Church's doctrine with sufficient clearness. The reader will find a more lengthy account of the principal heresies and councils under their respective headings.
Humanity of Christ

The true humanity of Jesus Christ was denied even in the earliest ages of the Church. The Docetist Marcion and the Priscillianists grant to Jesus only an apparent body; the Valentinians, a body brought down from Heaven. The followers of Apollinaris deny either that Jesus had any human soul at all, or that He possessed the higher part of the human soul, they maintain that the Word supplies either the whole soul in Christ, or at least its higher faculties. In more recent times it is not so much Christ's true humanity as His real manhood that is denied. According to Kant the Christian creed deals with the ideal, not with the historical Jesus; according to Jacobi, it worships Jesus not as an historical person, but as a religious ideal; according to Fichte there exists an absolute unity between God and man, and Jesus was the first to see and teach it; according to Schelling, the incarnation is an eternal fact, which happened to reach in Jesus its highest point, according to Hegel, Christ is not the actual incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth but the symbol of God's incarnation in humanity at large. Finally, certain recent Catholic writers distinguish between the Christ of history and the Christ of faith, thus destroying in the Christ of faith His historical reality. The New Syllabus (Proposit, 29 sq.) and the Encyclical "Pascendi dominici gregis" may be consulted on these errors.
Divinity of Christ

Even in Apostolic times the Church regarded a denial of Christ's Divinity as eminently anti-Christian (1 John 2:22-23; 4:3; 2 John 7). The early martyrs, the most ancient Fathers, and the first ecclesiastical liturgies agree in their profession of Christ's Divinity. Still, the Ebionites, the Theodotians, the Artemonites, and the Photinians looked upon Christ either as a mere man, though singularly enlightened by Divine wisdom, or as the appearance of an æon emanating from the Divine Being according to the Gnostic theory; or again as a manifestation of the Divine Being such as the Theistic and Pantheistic Sabellians and Patripassians admitted; or, finally, as the incarnate Word indeed, but the Word conceived after the Arian manner as a creature mediating between God and the world, at least not essentially identical with the Father and the Holy Ghost. Though the definitions of Nice and of the subsequent councils, especially of the Fourth Lateran, deal directly with the doctrine concerning the Most Holy Trinity, still they also teach that the Word is consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and thus establish the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate. In more recent times, our earliest Rationalists endeavoured to avoid the problem of Jesus Christ; they had little to say of him, while they made St. Paul the founder of the Church. But the historical Christ was too impressive a figure to be long neglected. It is all the more to be regretted that in recent times a practical denial of Christ's Divinity is not confined to the Socinians and such writers as Ewald and Schleiermacher. Others who profess to be believing Christians see in Christ the perfect revelation of God, the true head and lord of the human race, but, after all, they end with Pilate's words, "Behold, the man".
Hypostatic Union

His human nature and His Divine nature are in Jesus Christ united hypostatically, i.e. united in the hypostasis or the person of the Word. This dogma too has found bitter opponents from the earliest times of the Church. Nestorius and his followers admitted in Christ one moral person, as a human society forms one moral person; but this moral person results from the union of two physical persons, just as there are two natures in Christ. These two persons are united, not physically, but morally, by means of grace. The heresy of Nestorius was condemned by Celestine I in the Roman Synod of A.D. 430 and by the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, the Catholic doctrine was again insisted on in the Council of Chalcedon and the second Council of Constantinople. It follows that the Divine and the human nature are physically united in Christ. The Monophysites, therefore, believed that in this physical union either the human nature was absorbed by the Divine, according to the views of Eutyches; or that the Divine nature was absorbed by the human; or, again, that out of the physical union of the two resulted a third nature by a kind of physical mixture, as it were, or at least by means of their physical composition. The true Catholic doctrine was upheld by Pope Leo the Great, the Council of Chalcedon, and the Fifth Ecumenical Council, A.D. 553. The twelfth canon of the last-named council excludes also the view that Christ's moral life developed gradually, attaining its completion only after the Resurrection. The Adoptionists renewed Nestorianism in part because they considered the Word as the natural Son of God, and the man Christ as a servant or an adopted son of God, thus granting its own personality to Christ's human nature. This opinion was rejected by Pope Adrian I, the Synod of Ratisbon, A.D. 782, the Council of Frankfort (794), and by Leo III in the Roman Synod (799). There is no need to point out that the human nature of Christ is not united with the Word, according to the Socinian and rationalistic views. Dorner shows how widespread among Protestants these views are, since there is hardly a Protestant theologian of note who refuses its own personality to the human nature of Christ. Among Catholics, Berruyer and Günther reintroduced a modified Nestorianism; but they were censured by the Congregation of the Index (17 April, 1755) and by Pope Pius IX (15 Jan., 1857). The Monophysite heresy was renewed by the Monothelites, admitting only one will in Christ and thus contradicting the teaching of Popes Martin I and Agatho and of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Both the schismatic Greeks and the Reformers of the sixteenth century wished to retain the traditional doctrine concerning the Word Incarnate; but even the earliest followers of the Reformers fell into errors involving both the Nestorian and the Monophysite heresies. The Ubiquitarians, for example, find the essence of the Incarnation not in the assumption of human nature by the Word, but in the divinization of human nature by sharing the properties of the Divine nature. The subsequent Protestant theologians drifted away farther still from the views of Christian tradition; Christ for them was the sage of Nazareth, perhaps even the greatest of the Prophets, whose Biblical record, half myth and half history, is nothing but the expression of a popular idea of human perfection. The Catholic writers whose views were derogatory either to the historical character of the Biblical account of the life of Christ or to his prerogatives as the God-man have been censured in the new Syllabus and the Encyclical "Pascendi dorninici gregis".
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Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

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Doctrinal explanations

Devotion to the Sacred Heart is but a special form of devotion to Jesus. We shall know just what it is and what distinguishes it when we ascertain its object, its foundations, and its proper act.
Special object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart

The nature of this question is complex and frequently becomes more complicated because of the difficulties arising from terminology. Omitting terms that are over-technical, we shall study the ideas in themselves, and, that we may the sooner find our bearings, it will be well to remember the meaning and use of the word heart in current language.

(a) The word heart awakens, first of all, the idea of a material heart, of the vital organ that throbs within our bosom, and which we vaguely realize as intimately connected not only with our own physical, but with our emotional and moral life. Now this heart of flesh is currently accepted as the emblem of the emotion and moral life with which we associate it, and hence the place assigned to the word heart in symbolic language, as also the use of the same word to designate those things symbolized by the heart. Note, for instance, the expressions "to open one's heart", "to give one's heart", etc. It may happen that the symbol becomes divested of its material meaning that the sign is overlooked in beholding only the thing signified. Thus, in current language, the word soul no longer suggests the thought of breath, and the word heart brings to mind only the idea of courage and love. But this is perhaps a figure of speech or a metaphor, rather than a symbol. A symbol is a real sign, whereas a metaphor is only a verbal sign; a symbol is a thing that signifies another thing, but a metaphor is a word used to indicate something different from its proper meaning. Finally, in current language, we are constantly passing from the part to the whole, and, by a perfectly natural figure of speech, we use the word heart to designate a person. These ideas will aid us in determining the object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart.

(b) The question lies between the material, the metaphorical, and the symbolic sense of the word heart; whether the object of the devotion is the Heart of flesh, as such, or the love of Jesus Christ metaphorically signified by the word heart; or the Heart of flesh, but as symbol of the emotional and moral life of Jesus, and especially His love for us. We reply that worship is rightly paid to the Heart of flesh, inasmuch as the latter symbolizes and recalls the love of Jesus, and His emotional and moral life. Thus, although directed to the material Heart, it does not stop there: it also includes love, that love which is its principal object, but which it reaches only in and through the Heart of flesh, the sign and symbol of this love. Devotion to the Heart of Jesus alone, as to a noble part of His Divine Body, would not be devotion to the Sacred Heart as understood and approved by the Church, and the same must also be said of devotion to the love of Jesus as detached from His Heart of flesh, or else connected therewith by no other tie than that of a word taken in the metaphorical sense. Hence, in the devotion, there are two elements: a sensible element, the Heart of flesh, and a spiritual element, that which this Heart of flesh recalls spiritual element, that which this Heart of flesh recalls and represents. But these two elements do not form two distinct objects, merely co-ordinated they constitute but one, just as do the body and soul, and the sign and the thing signified. Hence it is also understood that these two elements are as essential to the devotion as body and soul are essential to man. Of the two elements constituting the whole, the principal one is love, which is as much the cause of the devotion and its reason for existence as the soul is the principal element in man. Consequently, devotion to the Sacred Heart may be defined as devotion to the adorable Heart of Jesus Christ in so far as this Heart represents and recalls His love; or, what amounts to the same thing, devotion to the love of Jesus Christ in so far as this love is recalled and symbolically represented to us by His Heart of flesh.

(c) Hence the devotion is based entirely upon the symbolism of the heart. It is this symbolism that imparts to its meaning and its unity, and this symbolism is admirably completed by the representation of the Heart as wounded. Since the Heart of Jesus appears to us as the sensible sign of His love, the visible wound in the Heart will naturally recall the invisible wound of this love. This symbolism also explains that the devotion, although giving the Heart an essential place, is but little concerned with the anatomy of the heart or with physiology. Since, in images of the Sacred Heart, the symbolic expression must dominate all else, anatomical accuracy is not looked for; it would injure the devotion by rendering the symbolism less evident. It is eminently proper that the heart as an emblem be distinguished from the anatomical heart: the suitableness of the image is favourable to the expression of the idea. A visible heart is necessary for an image of the Sacred Heart, but this visible heart must be a symbolic heart. Similar observations are in order for physiology, in which the devotion cannot be totally disinterested, because the Heart of Flesh toward which the worship is directed in order to read therein the love of Jesus, is the Heart of Jesus, the real, living Heart that, in all truth, may be said to have loved and suffered; the Heart that, as we feel ourselves, had such a share in His emotional and moral life; the Heart that, as we know from a knowledge, however rudimentary, of the operations of our human life, had such a part in the operations of the Master's life. But the relation of the Heart to the love of Christ is not that of a purely conventional sign, as in the relation of the word to the thing, or of the flag to the idea of one's country; this Heart has been and is still inseparably connected with that life of benefactions and love. However, it is sufficient for our devotion that we know and feel this intimate connection. We have nothing to do with the physiology of the Sacred Heart nor with determining the exact functions of the heart in daily life. We know that the symbolism of the heart is a symbolism founded upon reality and that it constitutes the special object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, which devotion is in no danger of falling into error.

(d) The heart is, above all, the emblem of love, and by this characteristic, the devotion to the Sacred Heart is naturally defined. However, being directed to the loving Heart of Jesus, it naturally encounters whatever in Jesus is connected with this love. Now, was not this love the motive of all that Christ did and suffered? Was not all His inner, even more than His outward, life dominated by this love? On the other hand, the devotion to the Sacred Heart, being directed to the living Heart of Jesus, thus becomes familiar with the whole inner life of the Master, with all His virtues and sentiments, finally, with Jesus infinitely loving and lovable. Hence, a first extension of the devotion is from the loving Heart to the intimate knowledge of Jesus, to His sentiments and virtues, to His whole emotional and moral life; from the loving Heart to all the manifestations of Its love. There is still another extension which, although having the same meaning, is made in another way, that is by passing from the Heart to the Person, a transition which, as we have seen, is very naturally made. When speaking of a large heart our allusion is to the person, just as when we mention the Sacred Heart we mean Jesus. This is not, however, because the two are synonymous but when the word heart is used to designate the person, it is because such a person is considered in whatsoever related to his emotional and moral life. Thus, when we designate Jesus as the Sacred Heart, we mean Jesus manifesting His Heart, we mean Jesus manifesting His Heart, Jesus all loving and amiable. Jesus entire is thus recapitulated in the Sacred Heart as all is recapitulated in Jesus.

(e) In thus devoting oneself to Jesus all loving and lovable, one cannot fail to observe that His love is rejected. God is constantly lamenting that in Holy Writ, and the saints have always heard within their hearts the plaint of unrequited love. Indeed one of the essential phases of the devotion is that it considers the love of Jesus for us as a despised, ignored love. He Himself revealed this when He complained so bitterly to St. Margaret Mary.

(f) This love is everywhere manifest in Jesus and in His life, and it alone can explain Him together with His words and His acts. Nevertheless, it shines forth more resplendently in certain mysteries from which great good accrues to us, and in which Jesus is more lavish of His loving benefactions and more complete in His gift of self, namely, in the Incarnation, in the Passion, and in the Eucharist. Moreover, these mysteries have a place apart in the devotion which, everywhere seeking Jesus and the signs of His love and favours, finds them here to an even greater extent than in particular acts.

(g) We have already seen that devotion to the Sacred Heart, being directed to the Heart of Jesus as the emblem of love, has mainly in view His love for men. This is obviously not that it excludes His love for God, for this included in His love for men, but it is above all the devotion to "the Heart that has so loved men", according to the words quoted by St. Margaret Mary.

(h) Finally, the question arises as to whether the love which we honour in this devotion is that with which Jesus loves us as Man or that with which He loves us as God; whether it is created or uncreated, His human or His Divine Love. Undoubtedly it is the love of God made Man, the love of the Incarnate Word. However, it does not seem that devout persons think of separating these two loves any more than they separate the two natures in Jesus. Besides, even though we might wish to settle this part of the question at any cost, we would find that the opinions of authors are at variance. Some, considering that the Heart of Flesh is connected with human love only, conclude that it does not symbolize Divine love which, moreover, is not proper to the Person of Jesus, and that, therefore, Divine love is not the direct object of the devotion. Others, while admitting that Divine love apart from the Incarnate Word is not the object of the devotion, believe it to be such when considered as the love of the Incarnate Word, and they do not see why this love also could not be symbolized by the Heart of flesh nor why, in this event, the devotion should be limited to created love only.
Foundations of the devotion

The question may be considered under three aspects: the historical, the theological, and the scientific.

(a) Historical foundations

In approving the devotion to the Sacred Heart, the Church did not trust to the visions of St. Margaret Mary; she made abstraction of these and examined the worship in itself. Margaret Mary's visions could be false, but the devotion would not, on that account, be any less worthy or solid. However, the fact is that the devotion was propagated chiefly under the influence of the movement started at Paray-le-Monial; and prior to her beatification, Margaret Mary's visions were most critically examined by the Church, whose judgment in such cases does not involve her infallibility but implies only a human certainty sufficient to warrant consequent speech and action.

(b) Theological foundations

The Heart of Jesus, like all else that belongs to His Person, is worthy of adoration, but this would not be so if It were considered as isolated from this Person and as having no connection with It. But it not thus that the Heart is considered, and, in his Bull "Auctorem fidei", 1794, Pius VI authoritatively vindicated the devotion in this respect against the calumnies of the Jansenists. The worship, although paid to the Heart of Jesus, extends further than the Heart of flesh, being directed to the love of which this Heart is the living and expressive symbol. On this point the devotion requires no justification, as it is to the Person of Jesus that it is directed; but to the Person as inseparable from His Divinity. Jesus, the living apparition of the goodness of God and of His paternal love, Jesus infinitely loving and amiable, studied in the principal manifestations of His love, is the object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as indeed He is the object of the Christian religion. The difficulty lies in the union of the heart and love, in the relation which the devotion supposes between the one and the other. Is not this an error long since discarded? If so, it remains to examine whether the devotion, considered in this respect, is well founded.

(c) Philosophical and scientific foundations

In this respect there has been some uncertainty amongst theologians, not as regards the basis of things, but in the matter of explanations. Sometimes they have spoken as if the heart were the organ of love, but this point has no bearing on the devotion, for which it suffices that the heart be the symbol of love, and that, for the basis of the symbolism, a real connection exist between the heart and the emotions. Now, the symbolism of the heart is a fact and every one feels that in the heart there is a sort of an echo of our sentiments. The physiological study of this resonance may be very interesting, but it is in no wise necessary to the devotion, as its foundation is a fact attested by daily experience, a fact which physiological study confirms and of which it determines the conditions, but which neither supposes this study nor any special acquaintance with its subject.
The proper act of the devotion

This act is required by the very object of the devotion, since devotion to the love of Jesus for us should be pre-eminently a devotion of love for Jesus. It is characterized by a reciprocation of love; its aim is to love Jesus who has so loved us, to return love for love. Since, moreover, the love of Jesus manifests itself to the devout soul as a love despised and outraged, especially in the Eucharist, the love expressed in the devotion naturally assumes a character of reparation, and hence the importance of acts of atonement, the Communion of reparation, and compassion for Jesus suffering. But no special act, no practice whatever, can exhaust the riches of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. The love which is its soul embraces all and, the better one understands it, the more firmly is he convinced that nothing can vie with it for making Jesus live in us and for bringing him who lives by it to love God, in union with Jesus, with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength.
Historical ideas on the development of the devotion

(1) From the time of St. John and St. Paul there has always been in the Church something like devotion to the love of God, Who so loved the world as to give it His only-begotten Son, and to the love of Jesus, Who has so loved us as to deliver Himself up for us. But, accurately speaking, this is not the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as it pays no homage to the Heart of Jesus as the symbol of His love for us. From the earliest centuries, in accordance with the example of the Evangelist, Christ's open side and the mystery of blood and water were meditated upon, and the Church was beheld issuing from the side of Jesus, as Eve came forth from the side of Adam. But there is nothing to indicate that, during the first ten centuries, any worship was rendered the wounded Heart.

(2) It is in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that we find the first unmistakable indications of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Through the wound in the side of the wound Heart was gradually reached, and the wound in the Heart symbolized the wound of love. It was in the fervent atmosphere of the Benedictine or Cistercian monasteries, in the world of Anselmian or Bernardine thought, that the devotion arose, although it is impossible to say positively what were its first texts or were its first votaries. To St. Gertrude, St. Mechtilde, and the author of the "Vitis mystica" it was already well known. We cannot state with certainty to whom we are indebted for the "Vitis mystica". Until recent times its authorship had generally been ascribed to St. Bernard and yet, by the late publishers of the beautiful and scholarly Quaracchi edition, it has been attributed, and not without plausible reasons, to St. Bonaventure ("S. Bonaventura opera omnia", 1898, VIII, LIII sq.). But, be this as it may, it contains one of the most beautiful passages that ever inspired the devotion to the Sacred Heart, one appropriated by the Church for the lessons of the second nocturn of the feast. To St. Mechtilde (d. 1298) and St. Gertrude (d. 1302) it was a familiar devotion which was translated into many beautiful prayers and exercises. What deserves special mention is the vision of St. Gertrude on the feast of St. John the Evangelist, as it forms an epoch in the history of the devotion. Allowed to rest her head near the wound in the Saviour's she heard the beating of the Divine Heart and asked John if, on the night of the Last Supper, he too had felt these delightful pulsations, why he had never spoken of the fact. John replied that this revelation had been reserved for subsequent ages when the world, having grown cold, would have need of it to rekindle its love ("Legatus divinae pietatis", IV, 305; "Revelationes Gertrudianae", ed. Poitiers and Paris, 1877).

(3) From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, the devotion was propagated but it did not seem to have developed in itself. It was everywhere practised by privileged souls, and the lives of the saints and annals of different religious congregations, of the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carthusians, etc., furnish many examples of it. It was nevertheless a private, individual devotion of the mystical order. Nothing of a general movement had been inaugurated, unless one would so regard the propagation of the devotion to the Five Wounds, in which the Wound in the Heart figured most prominently, and for the furtherance of which the Franciscans seem to have laboured.

(4) It appears that in the sixteenth century, the devotion took an onward step and passed from the domain of mysticism into that of Christian asceticism. It was constituted an objective devotion with prayers already formulated and special exercises of which the value was extolled and the practice commended. This we learn from the writings of those two masters of the spiritual life, the pious Lanspergius (d. 1539) of the Carthusians of Cologne, and the devout Louis of Blois (Blosius; 1566), a Benedictine and Abbot of Liessies in Hainaut. To these may be added Blessed John of Avila (d. 1569) and St. Francis de Sales, the latter belonging to the seventeenth century.

(5) From that time everything betokened an early bringing to light of the devotion. Ascetic writers spoke of it, especially those of the Society of Jesus, Alvarez de Paz, Luis de la Puente, Saint-Jure, and Nouet, and there still exist special treatises upon it such as Father Druzbicki's (d. 1662) small work, "Meta Cordium, Cor Jesu". Amongst the mystics and pious souls who practised the devotion were St. Francis Borgia, Blessed Peter Canisius, St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, of the Society of Jesus; also Venerable Marina de Escobar (d. 1633), in Spain; the Venerable Madeleine St. Joseph and the Venerable Marguerite of the Blessed Sacrament, Carmelites, in France; Jeanne de S. Mathieu Deleloe (d. 1660), a Benedictine, in Belgium; the worthy Armelle of Vannes (d. 1671); and even in Jansenistic or worldly centres, Marie de Valernod (d. 1654) and Angélique Arnauld; M. Boudon, the great archdeacon of Evreux, Father Huby, the apostle of retreats in Brittany, and, above all, the Venerable Marie de l'Incarnation, who died at Quebec in 1672. The Visitation seemed to be awaiting St. Margaret Mary; its spirituality, certain intuitions of St. Francis de Sales, the meditations of Mère l'Huillier (d. 1655), the visions of Mother Anne-Marguerite Clément (d. 1661), and of Sister Jeanne-Bénigne Gojos (d. 1692), all paved the way. The image of the Heart of Jesus was everywhere in evidence, which fact was largely due to the Franciscan devotion to the Five Wounds and to the habit formed by the Jesuits of placing the image on their title-page of their books and the walls of their churches.

(6) Nevertheless, the devotion remained an individual or at least a private devotion. It was reserved to Blessed Jean Eudes (1602-1680) to make it public, to honour it with an Office, and to establish a feast for it. Père Eudes was above all the apostle of the Heart of Mary; but in his devotion to the Immaculate Heart there was a share for the Heart of Jesus. Little by little the devotion to the Sacred Heart became a separate one, and on 31 August, 1670, the first feast of the Sacred Heart was celebrated with great solemnity in the Grand Seminary of Rennes. Coutances followed suit on 20 October, a day with which the Eudist feast was thenceforth to be connected. The feast soon spread to other dioceses, and the devotion was likewise adopted in various religious communities. Here and there it came into contact with the devotion begun at Paray, and a fusion of the two naturally resulted.

(7) It was to Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), a humble Visitandine of the monastery at Paray-le-Monial, that Christ chose to reveal the desires of His Heart and to confide the task of imparting new life to the devotion. There is nothing to indicated that this pious religious had known the devotion prior to the revelations, or at least that she had paid any attention to it. These revelations were numerous, and the following apparitions are especially remarkable: that which occurred on the feast of St. John, when Jesus permitted Margaret Mary, as He had formerly allowed St. Gertrude, to rest her head upon His Heart, and then disclosed to her the wonders of His love, telling her that He desired to make them known to all mankind and to diffuse the treasures of His goodness, and that He had chosen her for this work (27 Dec., probably 1673); that, probably distinct from the preceding, in which He requested to be honoured under the figure of His Heart of flesh; that, when He appeared radiant with love and asked for a devotion of expiatory love -- frequent Communion, Communion on the First Friday of the month, and the observance of the Holy Hour (probably June or July, 1674); that known as the "great apparition" which took place during the octave of Corpus Christi, 1675, probably on 16 June, when He said, "Behold the Heart that has so loved men . . . instead of gratitude I receive from the greater part (of mankind) only ingratitude . . .", and asked her for a feast of reparation of the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi, bidding her consult Father de la Colombière, then superior of the small Jesuit house at Paray; and finally, those in which solemn homage was asked on the part of the king, and the mission of propagating the new devotion was especially confided to the religious of the Visitation and the priests of the Society of Jesus. A few days after the "great apparition", of June, 1675, Margaret Mary made all known to Father de la Colombière, and the latter, recognizing the action of the spirit of God, consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart, directed the holy Visitandine to write an account of the apparition, and made use of every available opportunity discreetly to circulate this account through France and England. At his death, 15 February 1682, there was found in his journal of spiritual retreats a copy in his own handwriting of the account that he had requested of Margaret Mary, together with a few reflections on the usefulness of the devotion. This journal, including the account and a beautiful "offering" to the Sacred Heart, in which the devotion was well explained, was published at Lyons in 1684. The little book was widely read, even at Paray, although not without being the cause of "dreadful confusion" to Margaret Mary, who, nevertheless, resolved to make the best of it and profited by the book for the spreading of her cherished devotion. Moulins, with Mother de Soudeilles, Dijon, with Mother de Saumaise and Sister Joly, Semur, with Mother Greyfié, and even Paray, which had at first resisted, joined the movement. Outside of the Visitandines, priests, religious, and laymen espoused the cause, particularly a Capuchin, Margaret Mary's two brothers, and some Jesuits, among the latter being Fathers Croiset and Gallifet, who were destined to do so much for the devotion.

(8) The death of Margaret Mary, 17 October 1690, did not dampen the ardour of those interested; on the contrary, a short account of her life published by Father Croiset in 1691, as an appendix to his book "De la Dévotion au Sacré Cœur", served only to increase it. In spite of all sorts of obstacles, and of the slowness of the Holy See, which in 1693 imparted indulgences to the Confraternities of the Sacred Heart and, in 1697, granted the feast to the Visitandines with the Mass of the Five Wounds, but refused a feast common to all, with special Mass and Office, the devotion spread, particularly in religious communities. The Marseilles plague, 1720, furnished perhaps the first occasion for a solemn consecration and public worship outside of religious communities. Other cities of the South followed the example of Marseilles, and thus the devotion became a popular one. In 1726 it was deemed advisable once more to importune Rome for a feast with a Mass and Office of its own, but, in 1729, Rome again refused. However, in 1765, it finally yielded and that same year, at the request of the queen, the feast was received quasi officially by the episcopate of France. On all sides it was asked for and obtained, and finally, in 1856, at the urgent entreaties of the French bishops, Pope Pius IX extended the feast to the universal Church under the rite of double major. In 1889 it was raised by the Church to the double rite of first class. The acts of consecration and of reparation were everywhere introduced together with the devotion. Oftentimes, especially since about 1850, groups, congregations, and States have consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart, and, in 1875, this consecration was made throughout the Catholic world. Still the pope did not wish to take the initiative or to intervene. Finally, on 11 June, 1899, by order of Leo XIII, and with the formula prescribed by him, all mankind was solemnly consecrated to the Sacred Heart. The idea of this act, which Leo XIII called "the great act" of his pontificate, had been proposed to him by a religious of the Good Shepherd from Oporto (Portugal) who said that she had received it from Christ Himself. She was a member of the Drost-zu-Vischering family, and known in religion as Sister Mary of the Divine Heart. She died on the feast of the Sacred Heart, two days before the consecration, which had been deferred to the following Sunday. Whilst alluding to these great public manifestations we must not omit referring to the intimate life of the devotion in souls, to the practices connected with it, and to the works and associations of which it was the very life. Moreover, we must not overlook the social character which it has assumed particularly of late years. The Catholics of France, especially, cling firmly to it as one of their strongest hopes of ennoblement and salvation.
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Resurrection of Jesus Christ

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Resurrection is the rising again from the dead, the resumption of life. In this article, we shall treat only of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. (The General Resurrection of the Body will be covered in another article.) The fact of Christ's Resurrection, the theories opposed to this fact, its characteristics, and the reasons for its importance must be considered in distinct paragraphs.
The fact of Christ's resurrection

The main sources which directly attest the fact of Christ's Resurrection are the Four Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul. Easter morning is so rich in incident, and so crowded with interested persons, that its complete history presents a rather complicated tableau. It is not surprising, therefore, that the partial accounts contained in each of the Four Gospels appear at first sight hard to harmonize. But whatever exegetic view as to the visit to the sepulchre by the pious women and the appearance of the angels we may defend, we cannot deny the Evangelists' agreement as to the fact that the risen Christ appeared to one or more persons. According to St. Matthew, He appeared to the holy women, and again on a mountain in Galilee; according to St. Mark, He was seen by Mary Magdalen, by the two disciples at Emmaus, and the Eleven before his Ascension into heaven; according to St. Luke, He walked with the disciples to Emmaus, appeared to Peter and to the assembled disciples in Jerusalem; according to St. John, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalen, to the ten Apostles on Easter Sunday, to the Eleven a week later, and to the seven disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. St. Paul (1 Corinthians 15:3-8) enumerates another series of apparitions of Jesus after His Resurrection; he was seen by Cephas, by the Eleven, by more than 500 brethren, many of whom were still alive at the time of the Apostle's writing, by James, by all the Apostles, and lastly by Paul himself.

Here is an outline of a possible harmony of the Evangelists' account concerning the principal events of Easter Sunday:
The holy women carrying the spices previously prepared start out for the sepulchre before dawn, and reach it after sunrise; they are anxious about the heavy stone, but know nothing of the official guard of the sepulchre (Matthew 28:1-3; Mark 16:1-3; Luke 24:1; John 20:1).
The angel frightened the guards by his brightness, put them to flight, rolled away the stone, and seated himself not upon (ep autou), but above (epano autou) the stone (Matthew 28:2-4).
Mary Magdalen, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome approach the sepulchre, and see the stone rolled back, whereupon Mary Magdalen immediately returns to inform the Apostles (Mark 16:4; Luke 24:2; John 20:1-2).
The other two holy women enter the sepulchre, find an angel seated in the vestibule, who shows them the empty sepulchre, announces the Resurrection, and commissions them to tell the disciples and Peter that they shall see Jesus in Galilee (Matthew 28:5-7; Mark 16:5-7).
A second group of holy women, consisting of Joanna and her companions, arrive at the sepulchre, where they have probably agreed to meet the first group, enter the empty interior, and are admonished by two angels that Jesus has risen according to His prediction (Luke 24:10).
Not long after, Peter and John, who were notified by Mary Magdalen, arrive at the sepulchre and find the linen cloth in such a position as to exclude the supposition that the body was stolen; for they lay simply flat on the ground, showing that the sacred body had vanished out of them without touching them. When John notices this he believes (John 20:3-10).
Mary Magdalen returns to the sepulchre, sees first two angels within, and then Jesus Himself (John 20:11-16; Mark 16:9).
The two groups of pious women, who probably met on their return to the city, are favored with the sight of Christ arisen, who commissions them to tell His brethren that they will see him in Galilee (Matthew 28:8-10; Mark 16:8).
The holy women relate their experiences to the Apostles, but find no belief (Mark 16:10-11; Luke 24:9-11).
Jesus appears to the disciples, at Emmaus, and they return to Jerusalem; the Apostles appear to waver between doubt and belief (Mark 16:12-13; Luke 24:13-35).
Christ appears to Peter, and therefore Peter and John firmly believe in the Resurrection (Luke 24:34; John 20:8).
After the return of the disciples from Emmaus, Jesus appears to all the Apostles excepting Thomas (Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-25).
The harmony of the other apparitions of Christ after His Resurrection presents no special difficulties.

Briefly, therefore, the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by more than 500 eyewitnesses, whose experience, simplicity, and uprightness of life rendered them incapable of inventing such a fable, who lived at a time when any attempt to deceive could have been easily discovered, who had nothing in this life to gain, but everything to lose by their testimony, whose moral courage exhibited in their apostolic life can be explained only by their intimate conviction of the objective truth of their message. Again the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by the eloquent silence of the Synagogue which had done everything to prevent deception, which could have easily discovered deception, if there had been any, which opposed only sleeping witnesses to the testimony of the Apostles, which did not punish the alleged carelessness of the official guard, and which could not answer the testimony of the Apostles except by threatening them "that they speak no more in this name to any man" (Acts 4:17). Finally the thousands and millions, both Jews and Gentiles, who believed the testimony of the Apostles in spite of all the disadvantages following from such a belief, in short the origin of the Church, requires for its explanation the reality of Christ's Resurrection, for the rise of the Church without the Resurrection would have been a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself.
Opposing theories

By what means can the evidence for Christ's Resurrection by overthrown? Three theories of explanation have been advanced, though the first two have hardly any adherents in our day.
The Swoon theory

There is the theory of those who assert that Christ did not really die upon the cross, that His supposed death was only a temporary swoon, and that His Resurrection was simply a return to consciousness. This was advocated by Paulus ("Exegetisches Handbuch", 1842, II, p. 929) and in a modified form by Hase ("Gesch. Jesu", n. 112), but it does not agree with the data furnished by the Gospels. The scourging and the crown of thorns, the carrying of the cross and the crucifixion, the three hours on the cross and the piercing of the Sufferer's side cannot have brought on a mere swoon. His real death is attested by the centurion and the soldiers, by the friends of Jesus and by his most bitter enemies. His stay in a sealed sepulchre for thirty-six hours, in an atmosphere poisoned by the exhalations of a hundred pounds of spices, which would have of itself sufficed to cause death. Moreover, if Jesus had merely returned from a swoon, the feelings of Easter morning would have been those of sympathy rather than those of joy and triumph, the Apostles would have been roused to the duties of a sick chamber rather than to apostolic work, the life of the powerful wonderworker would have ended in ignoble solitude and inglorious obscurity, and His vaunted sinlessness would have changed into His silent approval of a lie as the foundation stone of His Church. No wonder that later critics of the Resurrection, like Strauss, have heaped contempt on the old theory of a swoon.
The Imposition theory

The disciples, it is said, stole the body of Jesus from the grave, and then proclaimed to men that their Lord had risen. This theory was anticipated by the Jews who "gave a great sum of money to the soldiers, saying: Say you, His disciples came by night, and stole him away when we were asleep" (Matthew 28:12 sq.). The same was urged by Celsus (Origen, Against Celsus II.56) with some difference of detail. But to assume that the Apostles with a burden of this kind upon their consciences could have preached a kingdom of truth and righteousness as the one great effort of their lives, and that for the sake of that kingdom they could have suffered even unto death, is to assume one of those moral impossibilities which may pass for a moment in the heat of controversy, but must be dismissed without delay in the hour of good reflection.
The Vision theory

This theory as generally understood by its advocates does not allow visions caused by a Divine intervention, but only such as are the product of human agencies. For if a Divine intervention be admitted, we may as well believe, as far as principles are concerned, that God raised Jesus from the dead. But where in the present instance are the human agencies which might cause these visions? The idea of a resurrection from the grave was familiar to the disciples from their Jewish faith; they had also vague intimations in the prophecies of the Old Testament; finally, Jesus Himself had always associated His Resurrection with the predictions of his death. On the other hand, the disciples' state of mind was one of great excitement; they treasured the memory of Christ with a fondness which made it almost impossible for them to believe that He was gone. In short, their whole mental condition was such as needed only the application of a spark to kindle the flame. The spark was applied by Mary Magdalen, and the flame at once spread with the rapidity and force of a conflagration. What she believed that she had seen, others immediately believed that they must see. Their expectations were fulfilled, and the conviction seized the members of the early Church that the Lord had really risen from the dead.

Such is the vision theory commonly defended by recent critics of the Resurrection. But however ingeniously it may be devised, it is quite impossible from an historical point of view.
It is incompatible with the state of mind of the Apostles; the theory presupposes faith and expectancy on the part of the Apostles, while in point of fact the disciples' faith and expectancy followed their vision of the risen Christ.
It is inconsistent with the nature of Christ's manifestations; they ought to have been connected with heavenly glory, or they should have continued the former intimate relations of Jesus with His disciples, while actually and consistently they presented quite a new phase that could not have been expected.
It does not agree with the conditions of the early Christian community; after the first excitement of Easter Sunday, the disciples as a body are noted for their cool deliberation rather than the exalted enthusiasm of a community of visionaries.
It is incompatible with the length of time during which the apparitions lasted; visions such as the critics suppose have never been known to last long, while some of Christ's manifestations lasted a considerable period.
It is not consistent with the fact that the manifestations were made to numbers at the same instant.
It does not agree with the place where most of the manifestations were made: visionary appearances would have been expected in Galilee, while most apparitions of Jesus occurred in Judea.
It is inconsistent with the fact that the visions came to a sudden end on the day of Ascension.

Keim admits that enthusiasm, nervousness, and mental excitement on the part of the disciples do not supply a rational explanation of the facts as related in the Gospels. According to him, the visions were directly granted by God and the glorified Christ; they may even include a "corporeal appearance" for those who fear that without this they would lose all. But Keim's theory satisfies neither the Church, since it abandons all the proofs of a bodily Resurrection of Jesus, nor the enemies of the Church, since it admits many of the Church's dogmas; nor again is it consistent with itself, since it grants God's special intervention in proof of the Church's faith, though it starts with the denial of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, which is one of the principal objects of that faith.
Modernist view

The Holy Office describes and condemns in the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh propositions of the Decree "Lamentabili", the views advocated by a fourth class of opponents of the Resurrection. The former of these propositions reads: "The Resurrection of our Saviour is not properly a fact of the historical order, but a fact of the purely supernatural order neither proved nor provable, which Christian consciousness has little by little inferred from other facts." This statement agrees with, and is further explained by the words of Loisy ("Autour d'un petit livre", p. viii, 120-121, 169; "L'Evangile et l'Eglise", pp. 74-78; 120-121; 171). According to Loisy, firstly, the entrance into life immortal of one risen from the dead is not subject to observation; it is a supernatural, hyper-historical fact, not capable of historical proof. The proofs alleged for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are inadequate; the empty sepulchre is only an indirect argument, while the apparitions of the risen Christ are open to suspicion on a priori grounds, being sensible impressions of a supernatural reality; and they are doubtful evidence from a critical point of view, on account of the discrepancies in the various Scriptural narratives and the mixed character of the detail connected with the apparitions. Secondly, if one prescinds from the faith of the Apostles, the testimony of the New Testament does not furnish a certain argument for the fact of the Resurrection. This faith of the Apostles is concerned not so much with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as with His immortal life; being based on the apparitions, which are unsatisfactory evidence from an historical point of view, its force is appreciated only by faith itself; being a development of the idea of an immortal Messias, it is an evolution of Christian consciousness, though it is at the same time a corrective of the scandal of the Cross. The Holy Office rejects this view of the Resurrection when it condemns the thirty-seventh proposition in the Decree "Lamentabili": "The faith in the Resurrection of Christ pointed at the beginning no so much to the fact of the Resurrection, as to the immortal life of Christ with God."

Besides the authoritative rejection of the foregoing view, we may submit the following three considerations which render it untenable:

First, the contention that the Resurrection of Christ cannot be proved historically is not in accord with science. Science does not know enough about the limitations and the properties of a body raised from the dead to immortal life to warrant the assertion that such a body cannot be perceived by the senses; again in the case of Christ, the empty sepulchre with all its concrete circumstances cannot be explained except by a miraculous Divine intervention as supernatural in its character as the Resurrection of Jesus.

Secondly, history does not allow us to regard the belief in the Resurrection as the result of a gradual evolution in Christian consciousness. The apparitions were not a mere projection of the disciples' Messianic hope and expectation; their Messianic hope and expectations had to be revived by the apparitions. Again, the Apostles did not begin with preaching the immortal life of Christ with God, but they preached Christ's Resurrection from the very beginning, they insisted on it as a fundamental fact and they described even some of the details connected with this fact: Acts 2:24-31, 3:15-26, 4:10, 5:30, 10:39-40, 13:30-37, 17:31-32; Romans 1:4, 4:25, 6:4-9, 8:11-34, 10:7, 14:9; 1 Corinthians 15:4, 13 sqq.; etc.

Thirdly, the denial of the historical certainty of Christ's Resurrection involves several historical blunders: it questions the objective reality of the apparitions without any historical grounds for such a doubt; it denies the fact of the empty sepulchre in spite of solid historical evidence to the contrary; it questions even the fact of Christ's burial in Joseph's sepulchre, though this fact is based on the clear and simply unimpeachable testimony of history.
Character of Christ's resurrection

The Resurrection of Christ has much in common with the general resurrection; even the transformation of His body and of His bodily life is of the same kind as that which awaits the blessed in their resurrection. But the following peculiarities must be noted:
Christ's Resurrection is necessarily a glorious one; it implies not merely the reunion of body and soul, but also the glorification of the body.
Christ's body was to know no corruption, but rose again soon after death, when sufficient time had elapsed to leave no doubt as to the reality of His death.
Christ was the first to rise unto life immortal; those raised before Him died again (Colossians 1:18; 1 Corinthians 15:20).
As the Divine power which raised Christ from the grave was His own power, He rose from the dead by His own power (John 2:19; 10:17-18).
Since the Resurrection had been promised as the main proof of Christ's Divine mission, it has a greater dogmatic importance than any other fact. "If Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain" (1 Corinthians 15:14).
Importance of the resurrection

Besides being the fundamental argument for our Christian belief, the Resurrection is important for the following reasons:
It shows the justice of God who exalted Christ to a life of glory, as Christ had humbled Himself unto death (Philippians 2:8-9).
The Resurrection completed the mystery of our salvation and redemption; by His death Christ freed us from sin, and by His Resurrection He restored to us the most important privileges lost by sin (Romans 4:25).
By His Resurrection we acknowledge Christ as the immortal God, the efficient and exemplary cause of our own resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:21; Philippians 3:20-21), and as the model and the support of our new life of grace (Romans 6:4-6 and 9-11).

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The Incarnation

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The Incarnation is the mystery and the dogma of the Word made Flesh. ln this technical sense the word incarnation was adopted, during the twelfth century, from the Norman-French, which in turn had taken the word over from the Latin incarnatio. The Latin Fathers, from the fourth century, make common use of the word; so Saints Jerome, Ambrose, Hilary, etc. The Latin incarnatio (in: caro, flesh) corresponds to the Greek sarkosis, or ensarkosis, which words depend on John (1:14) kai ho Logos sarx egeneto, "And the Word was made flesh". These two terms were in use by the Greek Fathers from the time of St. Irenæus--i.e. according to Harnack, A.D. 181-189 (cf. Irenaeus, "Adv. Haer." III, 19, n. i.; Migne, VII, 939). The verb sarkousthai, to be made flesh, occurs in the creed of the Council of Nicaea (cf. Denzinger, "Enchiridion", n. 86). In the language of Holy Writ, flesh means, by synecdoche, human nature or man (cf. Luke 3:6; Romans 3:20). Francisco Suárez deems the choice of the word incarnation to have been very apt. Man is called flesh to emphasize the weaker part of his nature. When the Word is said to have been incarnate, to have been made Flesh, the Divine goodness is better expressed whereby God "emptied Himself . . . and was found in outward bearing (schemati) like a man" (Philippians 2:7); He took upon Himself not only the nature of man, a nature capable of suffering and sickness and death, He became like a man in all save only sin (cf. Francisco Suárez, "De Incarnatione", Praef. n. 5). The Fathers now and then use the word henanthropesis, the act of becoming man, to which correspond the terms inhumanatio, used by some Latin Fathers, and "Menschwerdung", current in German. The mystery of the Incarnation is expressed in Scripture by other terms: epilepsis, the act of taking on a nature (Hebrews 2:16): epiphaneia, appearance (2 Timothy 1:10); phanerosis hen sarki, manifestation in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16); somatos katartismos, the fitting of a body, what some Latin Fathers call incorporatio (Hebrews 10:5); kenosis, the act of emptying one's self (Philippians 2:7). In this article, we shall treat of the fact, nature and effects of the Incarnation.
The fact of the incarnation

The Incarnation implies three facts: (1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ; (2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ; (3) The Hypostatic Union of the Human with the Divine Nature in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ.
The divine person of Jesus Christ

We presuppose the historicity, of Jesus Christ -- i.e. that He was a real person of history (cf. JESUS CHRIST); the Messiahship of Jesus; the historical worth and authenticity of the Gospels and Acts; the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus Christ established thereby; the establishment of an infallible and never failing teaching body to have and to keep the deposit of revealed truth entrusted to it by the Divine ambassador, Jesus Christ; the handing down of all this deposit by tradition and of part thereof by Holy Writ; the canon and inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures--all these questions will be found treated in their proper places. Moreover, we assume that the Divine nature and Divine personality are one and inseparable (see TRINITY). The aim of this article is to prove that the historical person, Jesus Christ, is really and truly God, --i.e. has the nature of God, and is a Divine person. The Divinity of Jesus Christ is established by the Old Testament, by the New Testament and by tradition.
Old Testament proofs

The Old Testament proofs of the Divinity of Jesus presuppose its testimony to Him as the Christ, the Messias (see MESSIAS). Assuming then, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messias promised in the Old Testament, from the terms of the promise it is certain that the One promised is God, is a Divine Person in the strictest sense of the word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of the Father, One in nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Our argument is cumulative. The texts from the Old Testament have weight by themselves; taken together with their fulfilment in the New Testament, and with the testimony of Jesus and His apostles and His Church, they make up a cumulative argument in favour of the Divinity of Jesus Christ that is overwhelming in its force. The Old Testament proofs we draw from the Psalms, the Sapiential Books and the Prophets.

(a) TESTIMONY OF THE PSALMS

Psalm 2:7. "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee." Here Jahweh, i.e., God of Israel, speaks to the promised Messias. So St. Paul interprets the text (Hebrews 1:5) while proving the Divinity of Jesus from the Psalms. The objection is raised that St. Paul is here not interpreting but only accommodating Scripture. He applies the very same words of Psalm 2:7 to the priesthood (Hebrews 5:5) and to the resurrection (Acts 13:33) of Jesus; but only in a figurative sense did the Father beget the Messias in the priesthood and resurrection of Jesus; hence only in a figurative sense did He beget Jesus as His Son. We answer that St. Paul speaks figuratively and accommodates Scripture in the matter of the priesthood and resurrection but not in the matter of the eternal generation of Jesus. The entire context of this chapter shows there is a question of real sonship and real Divinity of Jesus. In the same verse, St. Paul applies to Christ the words of Jahweh to David, the type of Christ: "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son". (2 Samuel 7:14) In the following verse, Christ is spoken of as the first-born of the Father, and as the object of the adoration of the angels; but only God is adored: "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. . . Thy God, O God, hath anointed thee" (Psalm 44:7-8). St. Paul refers these words to Christ as to the Son of God (Hebrews 1:9). We follow the Massoretic reading, "Thy God, O God". The Septuagint and New Testament reading, ho theos, ho theos sou, "O God, Thy God", is capable of the same interpretation. Hence, the Christ is here called God twice; and his throne, or reign, is said to have been from eternity. Psalm 99:1: "The Lord said to my Lord (Heb., Jahweh said to my Adonai): Sit thou at my right hand". Christ cites this text to prove that He is Adonai (a Hebrew term used only for Deity), seated at the right hand of Jahweh, who is invariably the great God of Israel (Matthew 22:44). In the same psalm, Jahweh says to Christ: "Before the day-star, I begat thee". Hence Christ is the begotten of God; was begotten before the world was, and sits at the right hand of the heavenly Father. Other Messianic psalms might be cited to show the clear testimony of these inspired poems to the Divinity of the promised Messias.

(b) TESTIMONY OF THE SAPIENTIAL BOOKS

So clearly do these Sapiential Books describe uncreated Wisdom as a Divine Person distinct from the First Person, that rationalists have resort to a subterfuge and claim that the doctrine of uncreated Wisdom was taken over by the authors of these books from the Neo-Platonic philosophy of the Alexandrian school. It is to be noted that in the pre-sapiential books of the Old Testament, the uncreated Logos, or hrema, is the active and creative principle of Jahweh (see Psalm 32:4; 32:6; 118:89; 102:20; Isaiah 40:8; 55:11). Later the logos became sophia, the uncreated Word became uncreated Wisdom. To Wisdom were attributed all the works of creation and Divine Providence (see Job 28:12: Proverbs 8 and 9; Sirach 1:1; 24:5-12; Wisdom 6:21; 9:9). In Wis., ix, 1, 2, we have a remarkable instance of the attribution of God's activity to both the Logos and Wisdom. This identification of the pre-Mosaic Logos with the Sapiential Wisdom and the Johannine Logos (see LOGOS) is proof that the rationalistic subterfuge is not effective. The Sapiential Wisdom and the Johannine Logos are not an Alexandrian development of the Platonic idea, but are a Hebraistic development of the pre-Mosaic uncreated and creating Logos or Word.

Now for the Sapiential proofs: In Sirach 24:7, Wisdom is described as uncreated, the "first born of the Most High before all creatures", "from the beginning and before the World was I made" (Sirach 24:14). So universal was the identification of Wisdom with the Christ, that even the Arians concurred with the Fathers therein; and strove to prove by the word ektise, made or created, of verse 14, that incarnate Wisdom was created. The Fathers did not make answer that the word Wisdom was not to be understood of the Christ, but explained that the word ektise had here to be interpreted in keeping with other passages of Holy Writ and not according to its usual meaning,--that of the Septuagint version of Genesis 1:1. We do not know the original Hebrew or Aramaic word; it may have been the same word that occurs in Prov. viii, 22: "The Lord possessed me (Hebrew gat me by generation; see Genesis 4:1) in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning, I was set up from eternity." Wisdom speaking of itself in the Book of Ecclesiasticus cannot contradict what Wisdom says of itself in Proverbs and elsewhere. Hence the Fathers were quite right in explaining ektise not to mean made or created in any strict sense of the terms (see St. Athanasius, "Sermo ii contra Arianos", n. 44; Migne, P.G., XXVI, 239). The Book of Wisdom, also, speaks clearly of Wisdom as "the worker of all things . . . a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God . . . the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness." (Wisdom 7:21-26) St. Paul paraphrases this beautiful passage and refers it to Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:3). It is clear, then, from the text-study of the books themselves, from the interpretation of these books by St. Paul, and especially, from the admitted interpretation of the Fathers and the liturgical uses of the Church, that the personified wisdom of the Sapiential Books is the uncreated Wisdom, the incarnate Logos of St. John, the Word hypostatically united with human nature, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father. The Sapiential Books prove that Jesus was really and truly God.

(c) TESTIMONY OF THE PROPHETIC BOOKS

The prophets clearly state that the Messias is God. Isaias says: "God Himself will come and will save you" (35:4); "Make ready the way of Jahweh" (40:3); "Lo Adonai Jahweh will come with strength" (40:10). That Jahweh here is Jesus Christ is clear from the use of the passage by St. Mark (1:3). The great prophet of Israel gives the Christ a special and a new Divine name "His name will be called Emmanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). This new Divine name St. Matthew refers to as fulfilled in Jesus, and interprets to mean the Divinity of Jesus. "They shall call his name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us." (Matthew 1:23) Also in 9:6, Isaias calls the Messias God: "A child is born to us . . . his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Strong One, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace." Catholics explain that the very same child is called God the Strong One (9:6) and Emmanuel (7:14); the conception of the child is prophesied in the latter verse, the birth of the very same child is prophesied in the former verse. The name Emmanuel (God with us) explains the name that we translate "God the Strong One." It is uncritical and prejudiced on the part of the rationalists to go outside of Isaias and to seek in Ezekiel 32:21 the meaning "mightiest among heroes" for a word that everywhere else in Isaias is the name of "God the Strong One" (see Isaiah 10:21). Theodotion translates literally theos ischyros; the Septuagint has "messenger". Our interpretation is that commonly received by Catholics and by Protestants of the stamp of Delitzsch ("Messianic Prophecies", p. 145). Isaias also calls the Messias the "sprout of Jahweh" (4:2), i.e. that which has sprung from Jahweh as the same in nature with Him. The Messias is "God our King" (Isaiah 52:7), "the Saviour sent by our God" (Isaiah 52:10, where the word for Saviour is the abstract form of the word for Jesus); "Jahweh the God of Israel" (Isaiah 52:12): "He that hath made thee, Jahweh of the hosts His name" (Isaiah 54:5)".

The other prophets are as clear as Isaias, though not so detailed, in their foretelling of the Godship of the Messias. To Jeremias, He is "Jahweh our Just One" (23:6 and 33:16). Micheas speaks of the twofold coming of the Child, His birth in time at Bethlehem and His procession in eternity from the Father (5:2). The Messianic value of this text is proved by its interpretation in Matthew (2:6). Zacharias makes Jahweh to speak of the Messias as "my Companion"; but a companion is on an equal footing with Jahweh (13:7). Malachias says: "Behold I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face, and presently the Lord, whom you seek, and the angel of the testament, whom you desire, shall come to his temple" (3:1). The messenger spoken of here is certainly St. John the Baptist. The words of Malachias are interpreted of the Precursor by Our Lord Himself (Matthew 11:10). But the Baptist prepared the way before the face of Jesus Christ. Hence the Christ was the spokesman of the words of Malachias. But the words of Malachias are uttered by Jahweh the great God of Israel. Hence the Christ or Messias and Jahweh are one and the same Divine Person. The argument is rendered even more forcible by the fact that not only is the speaker, Jahweh the God of hosts, here one and the same with the Messias before Whose face the Baptist went: but the prophecy of the Lord's coming to the Temple applies to the Messias a name that is ever reserved for Jahweh alone. That name occurs seven times (Exodus 23:17; 34:23; Isaiah 1:24; 3:1; 10:16 and 33; 19:4) outside of Malachias, and is clear in its reference to the God of Israel. The last of the prophets of Israel gives clear testimony that the Messias is the very God of Israel Himself. This argument from the prophets in favour of the Divinity of the Messias is most convincing if received in the light of Christian revelation, in which light we present it. The cumulative force of the argument is well worked out in "Christ in Type and Prophecy", by Maas.
New Testament proofs

We shall give the witness of the Four Evangelists and of St. Paul. The argument from the New Testament has a cumulative weight that is overwhelming in its effectiveness, once the inspiration of the New Testament and the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus are proved (see INSPIRATION; CHRISTIANITY). The process of the Catholic apologetic and dogmatic upbuilding is logical and never-failing. The Catholic theologian first establishes the teaching body to which Christ gave His deposit of revealed truth, to have and to keep and to hand down that deposit without error or failure. This teaching body gives us the Bible; and gives us the dogma of the Divinity of Christ in the unwritten and the written Word of God, i.e. in tradition and Scripture. When contrasted with the Protestant position upon "the Bible, the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible"--no, not even anything to tell us what is the Bible and what is not the Bible--the Catholic position upon the Christ-established, never-failing, never-erring teaching body is impregnable. The weakness of the Protestant position is evidenced in the matter of this very question of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Bible is the one and only rule of faith of Unitarians, who deny the Divinity of Jesus; of Modernistic Protestants, who make out His Divinity to be an evolution of His inner consciousness; of all other Protestants, be their thoughts of Christ whatsoever they may. The strength of the Catholic position will be clear to any one who has followed the trend of Modernism outside the Church and the suppression thereof within the pale.

WITNESS OF THE EVANGELISTS

We here assume the Gospels to be authentic, historical documents given to us by the Church as the inspired Word of God. We waive the question of the dependence of Matthew upon the Logia, the origin of Mark from "Q", the literary or other dependence of Luke upon Mark; all these questions are treated in their proper places and do not belong here in the process of Catholic apologetic and dogmatic theology. We here argue from the Four Gospels as from the inspired Word of God. The witness of the Gospels to the Divinity of Christ is varied in kind.

Jesus is the Divine Messias

The Evangelists, as we have seen, refer to the prophecies of the Divinity of the Messias as fulfilled in Jesus (see Matthew 1:23; 2:6; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27).

Jesus is the Son of God

According to the testimony of the Evangelists, Jesus Himself bore witness to His Divine Sonship. As Divine Ambassador He can not have borne false witness. Firstly, He asked the disciples, at Caesarea Philippi, "Whom do men say that the Son of man is?" (Matthew 16:13). This name Son of man was commonly used by the Saviour in regard to Himself; it bore testimony to His human nature and oneness with us. The disciples made answer that others said He was one of the prophets. Christ pressed them. "But whom do you say that I am? "(ibid., 15). Peter, as spokesman, replied: "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God" (ibid., 16). Jesus was satisfied with this answer; it set Him above all the prophets who were the adopted sons of God; it made Him the natural Son of God. The adopted Divine sonship of all the prophets Peter had no need of special revelation to know. This natural Divine Sonship was made known to the leader of the Apostles only by a special revelation. "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven" (ibid., 17). Jesus clearly assumes this important title in the specially revealed and altogether new sense. He admits that He is the Son of God in the real sense of the word.

Secondly, we find that He allowed others to give Him this title and to show by the act of real adoration that they meant real Sonship. The possessed fell down and adored Him, and the unclean spirits cried out: "Thou art the Son of God" (Mark 3:12). After the stilling of the storm at sea, His disciples adored Him and said: "Indeed thou art the Son of God "(Matthew 14:33). Nor did He suggest that they erred in that they gave Him the homage due to God alone. The centurion on Calvary (Matthew 27:54; Mark 15:39), the Evangelist St. Mark (i, 1), the hypothetical testimony of Satan (Matthew 4:3) and of the enemies of Christ (Matthew 27:40) all go to show that Jesus was called and esteemed the Son of God. Jesus Himself clearly assumed the title. He constantly spoke of God as "My Father" (Matthew 7:21; 10:32; 11:27; 15:13; 16:17, etc.).

Thirdly, the witness of Jesus to His Divine Sonship is clear enough in the Synoptics, as we see from the foregoing argument and shall see by the exegesis of other texts; but is perhaps even more evident in John. Jesus indirectly but clearly assumes the title when He says: "Do you say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? . . . the Father is in me and I in the Father." (John 10:36, 38) An even clearer witness is given in the narrative of the cure of the blind man in Jerusalem. Jesus said: "Dost thou believe in the Son of God?" He answered, and said: "Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him: Thou hast both seen him; and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said: I believe, Lord. And falling down, he adored him." (John 9:35-38) Here as elsewhere, the act of adoration is allowed, and the implicit assent is in this wise given to the assertion of the Divine Sonship of Jesus.

Fourthly, likewise to His enemies, Jesus made undoubted profession of His Divine Sonship in the real and not the figurative sense of the word; and the Jews understood Him to say that He was really God. His way of speaking had been somewhat esoteric. He spoke often in parables. He willed then, as He wills now, that faith be "the evidence of things that appear not" (Hebrews 11:1). The Jews tried to catch Him, to make Him speak openly. They met Him in the portico of Solomon and said: "How long dost thou hold our souls in suspense? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly" (John 10:24). The answer of Jesus is typical. He puts them off for a while; and in the end tells them the tremendous truth: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). They take up stones to kill Him. He asks why. He makes them admit that they have understood Him aright. They answer: "For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man makest thyself God" (ibid., 33). These same enemies had clear statement of the claim of Jesus on the last night that He spent on earth. Twice He appeared before the Sanhedrim, the highest authority of the enslaved Jewish nation. The first times the high priest, Caiphas, stood up and demanded: "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God" (Matthew 26:63). Jesus had before held His peace. Now His mission calls for a reply. "Thou hast said it" (ibid., 64). The answer was likely--in Semitic fashion--a repetition of the question with a tone of affirmation rather than of interrogation. St. Matthew reports that answer in a way that might leave some doubt in our minds, had we not St. Mark's report of the very same answer. According to St. Mark, Jesus replies simply and clearly: "I am" (Mark 14:62). The context of St. Matthew clears up the difficulty as to the meaning of the reply of Jesus. The Jews understood Him to make Himself the equal of God. They probably laughed and jeered at His claim. He went on: 'Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven" (Matthew 26:64). Caiphas rent his garments and accused Jesus of blasphemy. All joined in condemning Him to death for the blasphemy whereof they accused Him. They clearly understood Him to make claim to be the real Son of God; and He allowed them so to understand Him, and to put Him to death for this understanding and rejection of His claim. It were to blind one's self to evident truth to deny the force of this testimony in favour of the thesis that Jesus made claim to be the real Son of God. The second appearance of Jesus before the Sanhedrim was like to the first; a second time He was asked to say clearly: "Art thou then the Son of God?" He made reply: "You say that I am." They understood Him to lay claim to Divinity. "What need we any further testimony? for we ourselves have heard it from his own mouth" (Luke 22:70, 71). This twofold witness is especially important, in that it is made before the great Sanhedrim, and in that it is the cause of the sentence of death. Before Pilate, the Jews put forward a mere pretext at first. "We have found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, and saying that he is Christ the king" (Luke 23:2). What was the result? Pilate found no cause of death in Him! The Jews seek another pretext. "He stirreth up the people . . . from Galilee to this place" (ibid., 5). This pretext fails. Pilate refers the case of sedition to Herod. Herod finds the charge of sedition not worth his serious consideration. Over and again the Jews come to the front with a new subterfuge. Over and again Pilate finds no cause in Him. At last the Jews give their real cause against Jesus. In that they said He made Himself a king and stirred up sedition and refused tribute to Caesar, they strove to make it out that he violated Roman law. Their real cause of complaint was not that Jesus violated Roman law; but that they branded Him as a violator of the Jewish law. How? "We have a law; and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God (John 19:7). The charge was most serious; it caused even the Roman governor "to fear the more." What law is here referred to? There can be no doubt. It is the dread law of Leviticus: "He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, dying let him die: all the multitude shall stone him, whether he be a native or a stranger. He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord dying let him die" (Leviticus 24:17). By virtue of this law, the Jews were often on the very point of stoning Jesus; by virtue of this law, they often took Him to task for blasphemy whensoever He made Himself the Son of God; by virtue of this same law, they now call for His death. It is simply out of the question that these Jews had any intention of accusing Jesus of the assumption of that adopted sonship of God which every Jew had by blood and every prophet had had by special free gift of God's grace.

Fifthly, we may only give a summary of the other uses of thee title Son of God in regard to Jesus. The angel Gabriel proclaims to Mary that her son will "be called the Son of the most High" (Luke 1:32); "the Son of God" (Luke 1:35); St. John speaks of Him as "the only begotten of the Father" (John 1:14); at the Baptism of Jesus and at His Transfiguration, a voice from heaven cries: "This is my beloved son" (Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22; Matthew 17:3); St. John gives it as his very set purpose, in his Gospel, "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (John 20:31).

Sixthly, in the testimony of John, Jesus identifies Himself absolutely with the Divine Father. According to John, Jesus says: "he that seeth me seeth the Father" (ibid., xiv, 9). St. Athanasius links this clear testimony to the other witness of John "I and the Father are one" (ibid., x, 30); and thereby establishes the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. St. John Chrysostom interprets the text in the same sense. A last proof from John is in the words that bring his first Epistle to a close: "We know that the Son of God is come: and He hath given us understanding that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son. This is the true God and life eternal" (1 John 5:20). No one denies that "the Son of God" who is come is Jesus Christ. This Son of God is the "true Son" of "the true God"; in fact, this true son of the True God, i.e. Jesus, is the true God and is life eternal. Such is the exegesis of this text given by all the Fathers that have interpreted it (see Corluy, "Spicilegium Dogmatico-Biblicum", ed. Gandavi, 1884, II, 48). All the Fathers that have either interpreted or cited this text, refer outos to Jesus, and interpret "Jesus is the true God and life eternal." The objection is raised that the phrase "true God" (ho alethisnos theos) always refers, in John, to the Father. Yes, the phrase is consecrated to the Father, and is here used precisely on that account, to show that the Father who is, in this very verse, first called "the true God", is one with the Son Who is second called "the true God" in the very same verse. This interpretation is carried out by the grammatical analysis of the phrase; the pronoun this (outos) refers of necessity to the noun near by, i.e. His true Son Jesus Christ. Moreover, the Father is never called "life eternal" by John; whereas the term is often given by him to the Son (John 11:25; 14:6: 1 John 1:2; 5:11-12). These citations prove beyond a doubt that the Evangelists bear witness to the real and natural Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ.

Outside the Catholic Church, it is today the mode to try to explain away all these uses of the phrase Son of God, as if, forsooth, they meant not the Divine Sonship of Jesus, but presumably His sonship by adoption--a sonship due either to His belonging to the Jewish race or derived from His Messiahship. Against both explanations stand our arguments; against the latter explanation stands the fact that nowhere in the Old Testament is the term Son of God given as a name peculiar to the Messias. The advanced Protestants of this twentieth century are not satisfied with this latter and wornout attempt to explain away the assumed title Son of God. To them it means only that Jesus was a Jew (a fact that is now denied by Paul Haupt). We now have to face the strange anomaly of ministers of Christianity who deny that Jesus was Christ. Formerly it was considered bold in the Unitarian to call himself a Christian and to deny the Divinity of Jesus; now "ministers of the Gospel" are found to deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Messias (see articles in the Hibbert Journal for 1909, by Reverend Mr. Roberts, also the articles collected under the title "Jesus or Christ?" Boston, 19m). Within the pale of the Church, too, there were not wanting some who followed the trend of Modernism to such an extent as to admit that in certain passages, the term "Son of God" in its application to Jesus, presumably meant only adopted sonship of God. Against these writers was issued the condemnation of the proposition: "In all the texts of the Gospels, the name Son of God is merely the equivalent of the name Messias, and does not in any wise mean that Christ is the true and natural Son of God" (see decree "Lamentabili", S. Off., 3-4 July, 1907, proposition xxxii). This decree does not affirm even implicitly that every use of the name "Son of God" in the Gospels means true and natural Sonship of God. Catholic theologians generally defend the proposition whenever, in the Gospels, the name "Son of God" is used in the singular number, absolutely and without any additional explanation, as a proper name of Jesus, it invariably means true and natural Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ (see Billot, "De Verbo Incarnato," 1904, p. 529). Corluy, a very careful student of the original texts and of the versions of the Bible, declared that, whenever the title Son of God is given to Jesus in the New Testament, this title has the inspired meaning of natural Divine Sonship; Jesus is by this title said to have the same nature and substance as the Heavenly Father (see "Spicilegium", II, p. 42).

Jesus is God

St. John affirms in plain words that Jesus is God. The set purpose of the aged disciple was to teach the Divinity of Jesus in the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse that he has left us; he was aroused to action against the first heretics that bruised the Church. "They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us" (1 John 2:19). They did not confess Jesus Christ with that confession which they had obligation to make (1 John 4:3). John's Gospel gives us the clearest confession of the Divinity of Jesus. We may translate from the original text: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in relation to God and the Word was God" (John 1:1). The words ho theos (with the article) mean, in Johannine Greek, the Father. The expression pros ton theon reminds one forcibly of Aristotle's to pros ti einai. This Aristotelian way of expressing relation found its like in the Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and Alexandrian philosophy; and it was the influence of this Alexandrian philosophy in Ephesus and elsewhere that John set himself to combat. It was, then, quite natural that John adopted some of the phraseology of his enemies, and by the expression ho logos en pros ton theon gave forth the mystery of the relation of Father with Son: "the Word stood in relation to the Father", i.e., even in the beginning. At any rate the clause theos en ho logos means "the Word was God". This meaning is driven home, in the irresistible logic of St. John, by the following verse: "All things were made by him." The Word, then, is the Creator of all things and is true God. Who is the Word! It was made flesh and dwelt with us in the flesh (verse 14); and of this Word John the Baptist bore witness (verse 15). But certainly it was Jesus, according to John the Evangelist, Who dwelt with us in the flesh and to Whom the Baptist bore witness. Of Jesus the Baptist says: "This is he, of whom I said: After me there cometh a man, who is preferred before me: because he was before me" (verse 30). This testimony and other passages of St. John's Gospel are so clear that the modern rationalist takes refuge from their forcefulness in the assertion that the entire Gospel is a mystic contemplation and no fact-narrative at all (see GOSPEL OF SAINT JOHN). Catholics may not hold this opinion denying the historicity of John. The Holy Office, in the Decree "Lamentabili", condemned the following proposition: "The narrations of John are not properly speaking history but a mystic contemplation of the Gospel: the discourses contained in his Gospel are theological meditations on the mystery of salvation and are destitute of historical truth." (See prop. xvi.)

(b) WITNESS OF ST. PAUL

It is not the set purpose of St. Paul, outside of the Epistle to the Hebrews, to prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The great Apostle takes this fundamental principle of Christianity for granted. Yet so clear is the witness of Paul to this fact of Christ's Divinity, that the Rationalists and rationalistic Lutherans of Germany have strived to get away from the forcefulness of the witness of the Apostle by rejecting his form of Christianity as not conformable to the Christianity of Jesus. Hence they cry: "Los von Paulus, zurück zu Christus"; that is, "Away from Paul, back to Christ" (see Jülicher, Paulus und Christus", ed. Mohr, 1909). We assume the historicity of the Epistles of Paul; to a Catholic, the Christianity of St. Paul is one and the same with the Christianity of Christ. (See SAINT PAUL). To the Romans, Paul writes: "God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin" (viii, 3). His Own Son (ton heautou) the Father sends, not a Son by adoption. The angels are by adoption the children of God; they participate in the Father's nature by the free gifts He has bestowed upon them. Not so the Own Son of the Father. As we have seen, He is more the offspring of the Father than are the angels. How more? In this that He is adored as the Father is adored; the angels are not adored. Such is Paul's argument in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Therefore, in St. Paul's theology, the Father's Own Son, Whom the angels adore, Who was begotten in the today of eternity, Who was sent by the Father, clearly existed before His appearance in the Flesh, and is, in point of fact, the great "I am who am",--the Jahweh Who spoke to Moses on Horeb. This identification of the Christ with Jahweh would seem to be indicated, when St. Paul speaks of Christ as ho on epi panton theos, "who is over all things, God blessed for ever" (Romans 9:5). This interpretation and punctuation are sanctioned by all the Fathers that have used the text; all refer to Christ the words "He who is God over all". Petavius (De Trin., 11, 9, n. 2) cites fifteen, among whom are Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, and Hilary. The Peshitta has the same translation as we have given. Alford, Trench, Westcott and Hort, and most Protestants are at one with us in this interpretation.

This identification of the Christ with Jahweh is clearer in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Christ is said to have been Jahweh of the Exodus. "And all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ)" (x, 4). It was Christ Whom some of the Israelites "tempted, and (they) perished by the serpents" (x, 10); it was Christ against Whom "some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer" (x, 11). St. Paul takes over the Septuagint translation of Jahweh ho kyrios, and makes this title distinctive of Jesus. The Colossians are threatened with the deception of philosophy (ii, 8). St. Paul reminds them that they should think according to Christ; "for in him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead (pleroma tes theotetos) corporeally" (ii, 9); nor should they go so low as give to angels, that they see not, the adoration that is due only to Christ (ii, 18, 19). "For in Him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him" (eis auton). He is the cause and the end of all things, even of the angels whom the Colossians are so misguided as to prefer to Him (i, 16). The cultured Macedonians of Philippi are taught that in "the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father" (ii, 10, 11). This is the very same genuflexion and confession that the Romans are bidden to make to the Lord and the Jews to Jahweh (see Romans 14:6; Isaiah 14:24). The testimony of St. Paul could be given at much greater length. These texts are only the chief among many others that bear Paul's witness to the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
Witness of Tradition

The two main sources wherefrom we draw our information as to tradition, or the unwritten Word of God, are the Fathers of the Church and the general councils.

(a) THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

The Fathers are practically unanimous in explicitly teaching the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The testimony of many has been given in our exegesis of the dogmatic texts that prove the Christ to be God. It would take over-much space to cite the Fathers adequately. We shall confine ourselves to those of the Apostolic and apologetic ages. By joining these testimonies to those of the Evangelists and St. Paul, we can see clearly that the Holy Office was right in condemning these propositions of Modernism: "The Divinity of Christ is not proven by the Gospels but is a dogma that the Christian conscience has evolved from the notion of a Messiah. It may be taken for granted that the Christ Whom history shows us is much inferior to the Christ Who is the object of Faith" (see prop. xxvii and xxix of Decree "Lamentabili").

The Fathers Themselves

St. Clement of Rome (A.D. 93-95, according to Harnack), in his first epistle to the Corinthians, xvi, 2, speaks of "The Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of the Might of God" (Funk, "Patres Apostolici", Tübingen ed., 1901, p. 118), and describes, by quoting Isaiah 3:1-12, the humiliation that was foretold and came to pass in the self-immolation of Jesus. As the writings of the Apostolic Fathers are very scant, and not at all apologetic but rather devotional and exhortive, we should not look in them for that clear and plain defence of the Divinity of Christ which is evidenced in the writings of the apologists and later Fathers.

The witness of St. Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 110-117, according to Harnack) is almost that of the apologetic age, in whose spirit he seems to have written to the Ephesians. It may well be that at Ephesus the very same heresies were now doing havoc which about ten years before or, according to Harnack's chronology, at the very same time, St. John had written his Gospel to undo. If this be so, we understand the bold confession of the Divinity of Jesus Christ which this grand confessor of the Faith brings into his greetings, at the beginning of his letter to the Ephesians. "Ignatius . . . . to the Church . . . which is at Ephesus . . . . in the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ Our God (tou theou hemon)." He says: "The Physician in One, of the Flesh and of the Spirit, begotten and not begotten, who was God in Flesh (en sarki genomenos theos) . . . Jesus Christ Our Lord" (c. vii; Funk, I, 218). "For Our God Jesus Christ was borne in the womb by Mary" (c. xviii, 2; Funk, I, 226). To the Romans he writes: "For Our God Jesus Christ, abiding in the Father, is manifest even the more" (c. iii, 3; Funk, 1, 256).

The witness of the Letter of Barnabas: "Lo, again, Jesus is not the Son of man but the Son of God, made manifest in form in the Flesh. And since men were going to say that the Christ was the Son of David, David himself, fearing and understanding the malice of the wicked, made prophecy: The Lord said to my Lord . . . . . Lo, how David calls Him the Lord and not son" (c. xiii; Funk, I, 77).

In the apologetic age, Saint Justin Martyr (Harnack. A.D. 150) wrote: "Since the Word is the first-born of God, He is also God" (Apol. I, n. 63; P.G., VI, 423). It is evident from the context that Justin means Jesus Christ by the Word; he had just said that Jesus was the Word before He became Man, and used to appear in the form of fire or of some other incorporeal image. St. Irenæus proves that Jesus Christ is rightly called the one and only God and Lord, in that all things are said to have been made by Him (see "Adv. Haer.", III, viii, n. 3; P.G., VII, 868; bk. IV, 10, 14, 36). Deutero-Clement (Harnack, A.D. 166; Sanday, A.D. 150) insists: "Brethren, we should think of Jesus Christ as of God Himself, as of the Judge of the living and the dead" (see Funk, I, 184). St. Clement of Alexandria (Sanday, A.D. 190) speaks of Christ as "true God without any controversy, the equal of the Lord of the whole universe, since He is the Son and the Word is in God" (Cohortatio ad Gentes, c. x; P.G., VIII, 227).

Pagan Writers

To the witness of these Fathers of the Apostolic and apologetic age, we add a few witnesses from the contemporary pagan writers. Pliny (A.D. 107) wrote to Trajan that the Christians were wont before the light of day to meet and to sing praises "to Christ as to God" (Epist., x, 97). The Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117) wrote to Servianus that many Egyptians had become Christians, and that converts to Christianity were "forced to adore Christ", since He was their God (see Saturninus, c. vii). Lucian scoffs at the Christians because they had been persuaded by Christ "to throw over the gods of the Greeks and to adore Him fastened to a cross" (De Morte Peregrini, 13). Here also may be mentioned the well-known graffito that caricatures the worship of the Crucified as God. This important contribution to archaeology was found, in 1857, on a wall of the Paedagogium, an inner part of the Domus Gelotiana of the Palatine, and is now in the Kircher Museum, Rome. After the murder of Caligula (A.D. 41) this inner part of the Domus Gelotiana became a training-school for court pages, called the Paedagogium (see Lanciani, "Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome", ed. Boston, 1897, p. 186). This fact and the language of the graffito lead one to surmise that the page who mocked at the religion of one of his fellows has so become an important witness to the Christian adoration of Jesus as God in the first or, at the very latest, the second century. The graffito represents the Christ on a cross and mockingly gives Him an ass's head; a page is rudely scratched kneeling and with hands outstretched in the attitude of prayer; the inscription is "Alexamenos worships his God" (Alexamenos sebetai ton theon). In the second century, too, Celsus arraigns the Christians precisely on this account that they think God was made man (see Origen, Against Celsus IV.14). Aristides wrote to the Emperor Antonius Pius (A.D. 138-161) what seems to have been an apology for the Faith of Christ: "He Himself is called the Son of God; and they teach of Him that He as God came down from heaven and took and put on Flesh of a Hebrew virgin" (see "Theol. Quartalschrift", Tübingen, 1892, p. 535).

(b) WITNESS OF THE COUNCILS

The first general council of the Church was called to define the Divinity of Jesus Christ and to condemn Arius and his error (see ARIUS). Previous to this time, heretics had denied this great and fundamental dogma of the Faith; but the Fathers had been equal to the task of refuting the error and of stemming the tide of heresy. Now the tide of heresy was so strong as to have need of the authority of the universal Church to withstand it. In his "Thalia", Arius taught that the Word was not eternal (en pote ote ouk en) nor generated of the Father, but made out of nothing (ex ouk onton hehonen ho logos); and though it was before the world was, yet it was a thing made, a created thing (poiema or ktisis). Against this bold heresy, the Council of Nicaea (325) defined the dogma of the Divinity: of Christ in the clearest terms: "We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, generated of the Father (hennethenta ek tou patros monogene), that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, True God of True God, begotten not made, the same in nature with the Father (homoousion to patri) by Whom all things were made" (see Denzinger, 54).
The human nature of Jesus Christ

The Gnostics taught that matter was of its very nature evil, somewhat as the present-day Christian Scientists teach that it is an "error of mortal mind"; hence Christ as God could not have had a material body, and His body was only apparent. These heretics, called doketae included Basilides, Marcion, the Manichæans, and others. Valentinus and others admitted that Jesus had a body, but a something heavenly and ethereal; hence Jesus was not born of Mary, but His airy body passed through her virgin body. The Apollinarists admitted that Jesus had an ordinary body, but denied Him a human soul; the Divine nature took the place of the rational mind. Against all these various forms of the heresy that denies Christ is true Man stand countless and clearest testimonies of the written and unwritten Word of God. The title that is characteristic of Jesus in the New Testament is Son of Man; it occurs some eighty times in the Gospels; it was His Own accustomed title for Himself. The phrase is Aramaic, and would seem to be an idiomatic way of saying "man". The life and death and resurrection of Christ would all be a lie were He not a man, and our Faith would be vain. (1 Corinthians 15:14). "For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). Why, Christ even enumerates the parts of His Body. "See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have" (Luke 24:39). St. Augustine says, in this matter: "If the Body of Christ was a fancy, then Christ erred; and if Christ erred, then He is not the Truth. But Christ is the Truth; hence His Body was not a fancy' (QQ. lxxxiii, q. 14; P.L., XL, 14). In regard to the human soul of Christ, the Scripture is equally clear. Only a human soul could have been sad and troubled. Christ says: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matthew 26:38). "Now is my soul troubled" (John 12:27). His obedience to the heavenly Father and to Mary and Joseph supposes a human soul (John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38; Luke 22:42). Finally Jesus was really born of Mary (Matthew 1:16), made of a woman (Galatians 4:4), after the angel had promised that He should be conceived of Mary (Luke 1:31); this woman is called the mother of Jesus (Matthew 1:18; 2:11; Luke 1:43; John 2:3); Christ is said to be really the seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:16), the son of David (Matthew 1:1), made of the seed of David according to the flesh (Romans 1:3), and the fruit of the loins of David (Acts 2:30). So clear is the testimony of Scripture to the perfect human nature of Jesus Christ, that the Fathers held it as a general principle that whatsoever the Word had not assumed was not healed, i.e., did not receive the effects of the Incarnation.
The hypostatic union of the divine nature and the human nature of Jesus in the divine person of Jesus Christ

Here we consider this union as a fact; the nature of the union will be later taken up. Now it is our purpose to prove that the Divine nature was really and truly united with the human nature of Jesus, i.e., that one and the same Person, Jesus Christ, was God and man. We speak here of no moral union, no union in a figurative sense of the word; but a union that is physical, a union of two substances or natures so as to make One Person, a union which means that God is Man and Man is God in the Person of Jesus Christ.
The Witness of Holy Writ

St. John says: "The Word was made flesh" (i, 14), that is, He Who was God in the Beginning (i, 2), and by Whom all things were created (i. 3), became Man. According to the testimony of St. Paul, the very same Person, Jesus Christ, "being in the form of God [en morphe Theou hyparxon] . . . emptied himself, taking the form of a servant [morphen doulou labon]" (Philippians 2:6-7). It is always one and the same Person, Jesus Christ, Who is said to be God and Man, or is given predicates that denote Divine and human nature. The author of life (God) is said to have been killed by the Jews (Acts 3:15); but He could not have been killed were He not Man.
Witness of Tradition

The early forms of the creed all make profession of faith, not in one Jesus Who is the Son of God and in another Jesus Who is Man and was crucified, but "in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, Who became Man for us and was crucified". The forms vary, but the substance of each creed invariably attributes to one and the same Jesus Christ the predicates of the Godhead and of man (see Denzinger, "Enchiridion"). Franzelin (thesis xvii) calls special attention to the fact that, long before the heresy of Nestorius, according to Epiphanius (Ancorat., II, 123, in P.G., XLII, 234), it was the custom of the Oriental Church to propose to catechumens a creed that was very much more detailed than that proposed to the faithful; and in this creed the catechumens said: "We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of God the Father . . . that is, of the substance of the Father . . . in Him Who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made Flesh, that is, was perfectly begotten of Mary ever Virgin by the Holy Spirit; Who became Man, that is, took perfect human nature, soul and body and mind and all whatsoever is human save only sin, without the seed of man; not in another man, but unto himself did He form Flesh into one holy unity [eis mian hagian henoteta]; not as He breathed and spoke and wrought in the prophets, but He became Man perfectly; for the Word was made Flesh, not in that It underwent a change nor in that It exchanged Its Divinity for humanity, but in that It united Its Flesh unto Its one holy totality and Divinity [eis mian . . . heautou hagian teleioteta te kai theoteta].' "The one holy totality", Franzelin considers, means personality, a person being an individual and complete subject of rational acts. This creed of the catechumens gives even the Divinity of the totality, i.e. the fact that the individual Person of Jesus is a Divine and not a human Person. Of this intricate question we shall speak later on.

The witness of tradition to the fact of the union of the two natures in the one Person of Jesus is clear not only from the symbols or creeds in use before the condemnation of Nestorius, but also from the words of the ante-Nicaean Fathers. We have already given the classic quotations from St. Ignatius the Martyr, St. Clement of Rome, St. Justin the Martyr, in all of which are attributed to the one Person, Jesus Christ, the actions or attributes of God and of Man. Melito, Bishop of Sardis (about 176), says: "Since the same (Christ) was at the same time God and perfect Man, He made His two natures evident to us; His Divine nature by the miracles which He wrought during the three years after His baptism; His human nature by those thirty years that He first lived, during which the lowliness of the Flesh covered over and hid away all signs of the Divinity, though He was at one and the same time true and everlasting God" (Frag. vii in P.G., V, 1221). St. Irenæus, toward the close of the second century, argues: "If one person suffered and another Person remained incapable of suffering; if one person was born and another Person came down upon him that was born and thereafter left him, not one person but two are proven . . . whereas the Apostle knew one only Who was born and Who suffered" ("Adv. Haer.", III, xvi, n, 9, in P.G., VII, 928). Tertullian bears firm witness: "Was not God really crucified? Did He not really die as He really was crucified?" ("De Carne Christi", c. v, in P.L., II, 760).
The nature of the incarnation

We have treated the fact of the Incarnation, that is, the fact of the Divine nature of Jesus, the fact of the human nature of Jesus, the fact of the union of these two natures in Jesus. We now take up the crucial question of the nature of this fact, the manner of this tremendous miracle, the way of uniting the Divine with the human nature in one and the same Person. Arius had denied the fact of this union. No other heresy rent and tore the body of the Church to any very great extent in the matter of this fact after the condemnation of Arius in the Council of Nicaea (325). Soon a new heresy arose in the explanation of the fact of the union of the two natures in Christ. Nicaea had, indeed, defined the fact of the union; it had not explicitly defined the nature of that fact; it had not said whether that union was moral or physical. The council had implicitly defined the union of the two natures in one hypostasis, a union called physical in opposition to the mere juxtaposition or joining of the two natures called a moral union. Nicaea had professed a belief in "One Lord Jesus Christ . . . true God of true God . . . Who took Flesh, became Man and suffered". This belief was in one Person Who was at the same time God and Man, that is, had at the same time Divine and human nature. Such teaching was an implicit definition of all that was later on denied by Nestorius. We shall find the great Athanasius, for fifty years the determined foe of the heresiarch, interpreting Nicaea's decree in just this sense; and Athanasius must have known the sense meant by Nicaea, in which he was the antagonist of the heretic Arius.
Nestorianism

In spite of the efforts of Athanasius, Nestorius, who had been elected Patriarch of Constantinople (428), found a loophole to avoid the definition of Nicaea. Nestorius called the union of the two natures a mysterious and an inseparable joining (symapheian), but would admit no unity (enosin) in the strict sense of the word to be the result of this joining (see "Serm.", ii, n. 4; xii, n. 2, in P.L., XLVIII). The union of the two natures is not physical (physike) but moral, a mere juxtaposition in state of being (schetike); the Word indwells in Jesus like as God indwells in the just (loc. cit.); the indwelling of the Word in Jesus is, however, more excellent than the indwelling of God in the just man by grace, for that the indwelling of the Word purposes the Redemption of all mankind and the most perfect manifestation of the Divine activity (Serm. vii, n. 24); as a consequence, Mary is the Mother of Christ (Christotokos), not the Mother of God (Theotokos). As is usual in these Oriental heresies, the metaphysical refinement of Nestorius was faulty, and led him into a practical denial of the mystery that he had set himself to explain. During the discussion that Nestorius aroused, he strove to explain that his indwelling (enoikesis) theory was quite enough to keep him within the demands of Nicaea; he insisted that "the Man Jesus should be co-adored with the Divine union and almighty God [ton te theia symapheia to pantokratori theo symproskynoumenon anthropon] "(Serm., vii, n. 35); he forcibly denied that Christ was two persons, but proclaimed Him as one person (prosopon) made up of two substances. The oneness of the Person was however only moral, and not at all physical. Despite whatsoever Nestorius said as a pretext to save himself from the brand of heresy, he continually and explicitly denied the hypostatic union (enosin kath hypostasin, kata physin, kat ousian), that union of physical entities and of substances which the Church defends in Jesus; he affirmed a juxtaposition in authority, dignity, energy, relation, and state of being (synapheia kat authentian, axian, energeian, anaphoran, schesin); and he maintained that the Fathers of Nicaea had nowhere said that God was born of the Virgin Mary (Sermo, v, nn. 5 and 6).

Nestorius in this distortion of the sense of Nicaea clearly went against the tradition of the Church. Before he had denied the hypostatic union of the two natures in Jesus, that union had been taught by the greatest Fathers of their time. St. Hippolytus (about 230) taught: "the Flesh [sarx] apart from the Logos had no hypostasis [oude . . . hypostanai edynato, was unable to act as principle of rational activity], for that its hypostasis was in the Word" ("Contra Noet.", n. 15, in P.G., X, 823). St. Epiphanius (about 365): "The Logos united body, mind, and soul into one totality and spiritual hypostasis" ("Haer.", xx, n. 4, in P.G., XLI, 277). "The Logos made the Flesh to subsist in the hypostasis of the Logos [eis heauton hypostesanta ten sarka]" ("Haer.", cxxvii, n. 29, in P.G., XLII, 684). St. Athanasius (about 350): "They err who say that it is one person who is the Son that suffered, and another person who did not suffer ...; the Flesh became God's own by nature [kata physin], not that it became consubstantial with the Divinity of the Logos as if coeternal therewith, but that it became God's own Flesh by its very nature [kata physin]." In this entire discourse ("Contra Apollinarium", I, 12, in P.G., XXVI, 1113), St. Athanasius directly attacks the specious pretexts of the Arians and the arguments that Nestorius later took up, and defends the union of two physical natures in Christ [kata physin], as opposed to the mere juxtaposition or joining of the same natures [kata physin]. St. Cyril of Alexandria (about 415) makes use of this formula oftener even than the other Fathers; he calls Christ "the Word of the Father united in nature with the Flesh [ton ek theou Patros Logon kata physin henothenta sarki] ("De Recta Fide", n. 8, in P.G., LXXVI, 1210). For other and very numerous citations, see Petavius (111, 4). The Fathers always explain that this physical union of the two natures does not mean the intermingling of the natures, nor any such union as would imply a change in God, but only such union as was necessary to explain the fact that one Divine Person had human nature as His own true nature together with His Divine nature.

The Council of Ephesus (431) condemned the heresy of Nestorius, and defined that Mary was mother in the flesh of God's Word made Flesh (can. i). It anathematized all who deny that the Word of God the Father was united with the Flesh in one hypostasis (kath hypostasin); all who deny that there is only one Christ with Flesh that is His own; all who deny that the same Christ is God at the same time and man (can. ii). In the remaining ten canons drawn up by St. Cyril of Alexandria, the anathema is aimed directly at Nestorius. "If in the one Christ anyone divides the substances, after they have been once united, and joins them together merely by a juxtaposition [mone symapton autas synapheia] of honour or of authority or of power and not rather by a union into a physical unity [synode te kath henosin physiken], let him be accursed" (can. iii). These twelve canons condemn piecemeal the various subterfuges of Nestorius. St. Cyril saw heresy lurking in phrases that seemed innocent enough to the unsuspecting. Even the co-adoration theory is condemned as an attempt to separate the Divine from the human nature in Jesus by giving to each a separate hypostasis (see Denzinger, "Enchiridion", ed. 1908, nn. 113-26).
Monophysitism

The condemnation of the heresy of Nestorius saved for the Church the dogma of the Incarnation, "the great mystery of godliness" (1 Timothy 3:16), but lost to her a portion of her children, who, though dwindled down to insignificant numbers, still remain apart from her care. The union of the two natures in one Person was saved. The battle for the dogma was not yet won. Nestorius had postulated two persons in Jesus Christ. A new heresy soon began. It postulated only one Person in Jesus, and that the Divine Person. It went farther. It went too far. The new heresy defended only one nature, as well as one Person in Jesus. The leader of this heresy was Eutyches. His followers were called Monophysites. They varied in their ways of explanation. Some thought the two natures were intermingled into one. Others are said to have worked out some sort of a conversion of the human into the Divine. All were condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451). This Fourth General Council of the Church defined that Jesus Christ remained, after the Incarnation, "perfect in Divinity and perfect in humanity . . . consubstantial with the Father according to His Divinity, consubstantial with us according to His humanity . . . one and the same Christ, the Son, the Lord, the Only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures not intermingled, not changed, not divisible, not separable" (see Denzinger, n. 148). By this condemnation of error and definition of truth, the dogma of the Incarnation was once again saved to the Church. Once again a large portion of the faithful of the Oriental Church were lost to their mother. Monophysitism resulted in the national Churches of Syria, Egypt, and Armenia. These national Churches are still heretic, although there have in later times been formed Catholic rites called the Catholic Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian rites. The Catholic rites, as the Catholic Chaldaic rite, are less numerous than the heretic rites.
Monothelitism

One would suppose that there was no more room for heresy in the explanation of the mystery of the nature of the Incarnation. There is always room for heresy in the matter of explanation of a mystery, if one does not hear the infallible teaching body to whom and to whom alone Christ entrusted His mysteries to have and to keep and to teach them till the end of time. Three patriarchs of the Oriental Church gave rise, so far as we know, to the new heresy. These three heresiarchs were Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Cyrus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, and Athanasius, the Patriarch of Antioch. St. Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, remained true and delated his fellow patriarchs to Pope Honorius. His successor in the see of Peter, St. Martin, bravely condemned the error of the three Oriental patriarchs, who admitted the decrees of Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon; defended the union of two natures in one Divine Person; but denied that this Divine Person had two wills. Their principle was expressed by the words, en thelema kai mia energeia, by which they would seem to have meant one will and one activity, i.e. only one principle of action and of suffering in Jesus Christ and that one principle Divine. These heretics were called Monothelites. Their error was condemned by the Sixth General Council (the Third Council of Constantinople, 680). It defined that in Christ there were two natural wills and two natural activities, the Divine and the human, and that the human will was not at all contrary to the Divine, but rather perfectly subject thereto (Denzinger, n. 291). The Emperor Constans sent St. Martin into exile in Chersonesus. We have trace of only one body of Monothelites. The Maronites, about the monastery of John Maron, were converted from Monothelism in the time of the Crusades and have been true to the faith ever since. The other Monothelites seem to have been absorbed in Monophysitism, or in the schism of the Byzantine Church later one

The error of Monothelism is clear from the Scripture as well as from tradition. Christ did acts of adoration (John 4:22), humility (Matthew 11:29), reverence (Hebrews 5:7). These acts are those of a human will. The Monothelites denied that there was a human will in Christ. Jesus prayed: "Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done," (Luke 22:42). Here there is question of two wills, the Father's and Christ's. The will of Christ was subject to the will of the Father. "As the Father hath given me commandment, so do I" (John 14:31). He became obedient even unto death (Philippians 2:8). The Divine will in Jesus could not have been subject to the will of the Father, with which will it was really identified.
The Catholic faith

Thus far we have that which is of Faith in this matter of the nature of the Incarnation. The human and Divine natures are united in one Divine Person so as to remain that exactly which they are, namely, Divine and human natures with distinct and perfect activities of their own. Theologians go farther in their attempts to give some account of the mystery of the Incarnation, so as, at least, to show that there is therein no contradiction, nothing that right reason may not safely adhere to. This union of the two natures in one Person has been for centuries called a hypostatic union, that is, a union in the Divine Hypostasis. What is an hypostasis? The definition of Boethius is classic: rationalis naturae individua substantia (P.L., LXIV, 1343), a complete whole whose nature is rational. This book is a complete whole; its nature is not rational; it is not an hypostasis. An hypostasis is a complete rational individual. St. Thomas defines hypostasis as substantia cum ultimo complemento (III:2:3, ad 2um), a substance in its entirety. Hypostasis superadds to the notion of rational substance this idea of entirety; nor does the idea of rational nature include this notion of entirety. Human nature is the principle of human activities; but only an hypostasis, a person, can exercise these activities. The Schoolmen discuss the question whether the hypostasis has anything more of reality than human nature. To understand the discussion, one must needs be versed in scholastic Philosophy. Be the case as it may in the matter of human nature that is not united with the Divine, the human nature that is hypostatically united with the Divine, that is, the human nature that the Divine Hypostasis or Person assumes to Itself, has certainly more of reality united to it than the human nature of Christ would have were it not hypostatically united in the Word. The Divine Logos identified with Divine nature (Hypostatic Union) means then that the Divine Hypostasis (or Person, or Word, or Logos) appropriates to Itself human nature, and takes in every respect the place of the human person. In this way, the human nature of Christ, though not a human person, loses nothing of the perfection of the perfect man; for the Divine Person supplies the place of the human.

It is to be remembered that, when the Word took Flesh, there was no change in the Word; all the change was in the Flesh. At the moment of conception, in the womb of the Blessed Mother, through the forcefulness of God's activity, not only was the human soul of Christ created but the Word assumed the man that was conceived. When God created the world, the world was changed, that is. it passed from the state of nonentity to the state of existence; and there was no change in the Logos or Creative Word of God the Father. Nor was there change in that Logos when it began to terminate the human nature. A new relation ensued, to be sure; but this new relation implied in the Logos no new reality, no real change; all new reality, all real change, was in the human nature. Anyone who wishes to go into this very intricate question of the manner of the Hypostatic Union of the two natures in the one Divine Personality, may with great profit read St. Thomas (III:4:2); Scotus (in III, Dist. i); (De Incarnatione, Disp. II, sec. 3); Gregory, of Valentia (in III, D. i, q. 4). Any modern text book on theology will give various opinions in regard to the way of the union of the Person assuming with the nature assumed
Effects of the incarnation
On Christ Himself
On the body of Christ

Did union with the Divine nature do away, with all bodily imperfections? The Monophysites were split up into two parties by this question. Catholics hold that, before the Resurrection, the Body of Christ was subject to all the bodily weaknesses to which human nature unassumed is universally subject; such are hunger, thirst, pain, death. Christ hungered (Matthew 4:2), thirsted (John 19:28), was fatigued (John 4:6), suffered pain and death. "We have not a high priest, who cannot have compassion on our infirmities: but one tempted in all things like as we are, without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). "For in that, wherein he himself hath suffered and been tempted, he is able to succour them also that are tempted" (Hebrews 2:18). All these bodily weaknesses were not miraculously brought about by Jesus; they were the natural results of the human nature He assumed. To be sure, they might have been impeded and were freely willed by Christ. They were part of the free oblation that began with the moment of the Incarnation. "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith: Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not; but a body thou hast fitted to me" (Hebrews 10:5). The Fathers deny that Christ assumed sickness. There is no mention in Scripture of any sickness of Jesus. Sickness is not a weakness that is a necessary belonging of human nature. It is true that pretty much all mankind suffers sickness. It is not true that any specific sickness is suffered by all mankind. Not all men must needs have measles. No one definite sickness universally belongs to human nature; hence no one definite sickness was assumed by Christ. St. Athanasius gives the reason that it were unbecoming that He should heal others who was Himself not healed (P.G., XX, 133). Weaknesses due to old age are common to mankind. Had Christ lived to an old age, He would have suffered such weaknesses just as He suffered the weaknesses that are common to infancy. Death from old age would have come to Jesus, had He not been violently put to death (see St. Augustine, "De Peccat.", II, 29; P.L., XLIV, 180). The reasonableness of these bodily imperfections in Christ is clear from the fact that He assumed human nature so as to satisfy for that nature's sin. Now, to satisfy forthe sin of another is to accept the penalty of that sin. Hence it was fitting that Christ should take upon himself all those penalties of the sin of Adam that are common to man and becoming. or at least not unbecoming to the Hypostatic Union. (See Summa Theologica III:14 for other reasons.) As Christ did not take sickness upon Himself, so other imperfections, such as deformities, which are not common to mankind, were not His. St. Clement of Alexandria (The Pedagogue III.1), Tertullian (De Carne Christi, c. ix), and a few others taught that Christ was deformed. They misinterpreted the words of Isaias: "There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness; and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness" etc. (53:2). The words refer only to the suffering Christ. Theologians now are unanimous in the view that Christ was noble in bearing and beautiful in form, such as a perfect man should be; for Christ was, by virtue of His incarnation, a perfect man (see Stentrup, "Christologia", theses lx, lxi).
On the human soul of Christ

(a) IN THE WILL

Sinlessness

The effect of the Incarnation on the human will of Christ was to leave it free in all things save only sin. It was absolutely impossible that any stain of sin should soil the soul of Christ. Neither sinful act of the will nor sinful habit of the soul were in keeping with the Hypostatic Union. The fact that Christ never sinned is an article of faith (see Council, Ephes., can. x, in Denzinger, 122, wherein the sinlessness of Christ is implicit in the definition that he did not offer Himself for Himself, but for us). This fact of Christ's sinlessness is evident from the Scripture. "There is no sin in Him" (1 John 3:5). Him, who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us" i.e. a victim for sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). The impossibility of a sinful act by Christ is taught by all theologians, but variously explained. Günther defended an impossibility consequent solely upon the Divine provision that He would not sin (Vorschule, II, 441). This is no impossibility at all. Christ is God. It is absolutely impossible, antecedent to the Divine prevision, that God should allow His flesh to sin. If God allowed His flesh to sin, He might sin, that is, He might turn away from Himself; and it is absolutely impossible that God should turn from Himself, be untrue to His Divine attributes. The Scotists teach that this impossibility to sin, antecedent to God's revision, is not due to the Hypostatic Union, but is like to the impossibility of the beatified to sin, and is due to a special Divine Providence (see Scotus, in III, d. xiii, Q. i). St. Thomas (III:15:1) and all Thomists, Francisco Suárez (d. xxxiii, 2), Vasquez (d. xi, c. iii), de Lugo (d. xxvi, 1, n. 4), and all theologians of the Society of Jesus teach the now almost universally admitted explanation that the absolute impossibility of a sinful act on the part of Christ was due to the hypostatic union of His human nature with the Divine.

Liberty

The will of Christ remained free after the Incarnation. This is an article of faith. The Scripture is most clear on this point. "When he had tasted, he would not drink" (Matthew 27:34). "I will; be thou made clean" (Matthew 8:3). The liberty of Christ was such that He merited. "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him" (Philippians 2:8). "Who having joy set before him, endured the cross" (Hebrews 12:2). That Christ was free in the matter of death, is the teaching of all Catholics; else He did not merit nor satisfy for us by His death. Just how to reconcile this liberty of Christ with the impossibility of His committing sin has ever been a crux for theologians. Some seventeen explanations are given (see Summa Theologica III:47:3, ad 3; Molina, "Concordia", d. liii, membr. 4).

(b) IN THE INTELLECT

The effects of the Hypostatic Union upon the knowledge of Christ will be treated in a SPECIAL ARTICLE.

(c) SANCTITY OF CHRIST

The Humanity of Christ was holy by a twofold sanctity: the grace of union and sanctifying grace. The grace of union, i.e. the Substantial and Hypostatic Union of the two natures in the Divine Word, is called the substantial sanctity of Christ. St. Augustine says: "Tunc ergo sanctificavit se in se, hoc est hominem se in Verbo se, quia unus est Christus, Verbum et homo, sanctificans hominem in Verbo" (When the Word was made Flesh then, indeed, He sanctified Himself in Himself, that is, Himself as Man in Himself as Word; for that Christ is One Person, both Word and Man, and renders His human nature holy in the holiness of the Divine nature) (In Johan. tract. 108, n. 5, in P.L., XXXV, 1916). Besides this substantial sanctity of the grace of Hypostatic Union, there was in the soul of Christ, the accidental sanctity called sanctifying grace. This is the teaching of St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and of the Fathers generally. The Word was "full of grace" (John 1:14), and "of his fullness we all have received, and grace for grace" (John 1:16). The Word were not full of grace, if any grace were wanting in Him which would be a perfection fitting to His human nature. All theologians teach that sanctifying grace is a perfection fitting the humanity of Christ. The mystical body of Christ is the Church, whereof Christ is the Head (Romans 12:4; 1 Corinthians 12:11; Ephesians 1:20; 4:4; Colossians 1:18, 2:10). It is especially in this sense that we say the grace of the Head flows through the channels of the sacraments of the Church--through the veins of the body of Christ. Theologians commonly teach that from the very beginning of His existence, He received the fullness of sanctifying grace and other supernatural gifts (except faith, hope, and the moral virtue of penance); nor did He ever increase in these gifts or this sanctifying grace. For so to increase would be to become more pleasing to the Divine Majesty; and this were impossible in Christ. Hence St. Luke meant (ii, 52) that Christ showed more and more day after day the effects of grace in His outward bearing.

(d) LIKES AND DISLIKES

The Hypostatic Union did not deprive the Human Soul of Christ of its human likes and dislikes. The affections of a man, the emotions of a man were His in so far as they were becoming to the grace of union, in so far as they were not out of order. St. Augustine well argues: "Human affections were not out of place in Him in Whom there was really and truly a human body and a human soul" (City of God XIV.9). We find that he was subject to anger against the blindness of heart of sinners (Mark 3:5); to fear (Mark 14:33); to sadness (Matthew 26:37): to the sensible affections of hope, of desire, and of joy. These likes and dislikes were under the complete will-control of Christ. The fomes peccati, the kindling-wood of sin--that is, those likes and dislikes that are not under full and absolute control of right reason and strong will-power--could not, as a matter of course, have been in Christ. He could not have been tempted by such likes and dislikes to sin. To have taken upon Himself this penalty of sin would not have been in keeping with the absolute and substantial holiness which is implied by the grace of union in the Logos.
On the God-Man (Deus-Homo, theanthropos

One of the most important effects of the union of the Divine nature and human nature in One Person is a mutual interchange of attributes, Divine and human, between God and man, the Communicatio Idiomatum. The God-Man is one Person, and to Him in the concrete may be applied the predicates that refer to the Divinity as well as those that refer to the Humanity of Christ. We may say God is man, was born, died, was buried. These predicates refer to the Person Whose nature is human, as well as Divine; to the Person Who is man, as well as God. We do not mean to say that God, as God, was born; but God, Who is man, was born. We may not predicate the abstract Divinity of the abstract humanity, nor the abstract Divinity of the concrete man, nor vice versa; nor the concrete God of the abstract humanity, nor vice versa. We predicate the concrete of the concrete: Jesus is God; Jesus is man; the God-Man was sad; the Man-God was killed. Some ways of speaking should not be used, not that they may not be rightly explained, but that they may easily be misunderstood in an heretical sense.
The adoration of the humanity of Christ

The human nature of Christ, united hypostatically with the Divine nature, is adored with the same worship as the Divine nature (see ADORATION). We adore the Word when we adore Christ the Man; but the Word is God. The human nature of Christ is not at all the reason of our adoration of Him; that reason is only the Divine nature. The entire term of our adoration is the Incarnate Word; the motive of the adoration is the Divinity of the Incarnate Word. The partial term of our adoration may be the human nature of Christ: the motive of the adoration is the same as the motive of the adoration that reaches the entire term. Hence, the act of adoration of the Word Incarnate is the same absolute act of adoration that reaches the human nature. The Person of Christ is adored with the cult called latria. But the cult that is due to a person is due in like manner to the whole nature of that Person and to all its parts. Hence, since the human nature is the real and true nature of Christ, that human nature and all its parts are the object of the cult called latria, i.e., adoration. We shall not here enter into the question of the adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. (For the Adoration of the Cross, THE CROSS AND CRUCIFIX, subtitle II.)
Other effects of the Incarnation

The effects of the incarnation on the Blessed Mother and us, will be found treated under the respective special subjects. (See GRACE; JUSTIFICATION; IMMACULATE CONCEPTION; THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.)

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