Chapter II

CHAPTER II.

CYRILL OF ALEXANDRIA IN CONFLICT WITH NESTORIUS.

After the disappearance from the scene of those distinguished Fathers of the Greek Church, Athanasius, the two Gregories, Basilius the Great, Didymus and others, who in general held Origen in thankful remembrance, a reaction set in against that teacher, due especially, as is well known, to Epiphanius and Jerome, and in Alexandria to Theophilus. Through the influence of Theophilus, the monks of Origen's school were worsted by the uneducated anthropomorphite monks who had settled round Mount Nitra. And in proportion as the Origenistic element, which continued for a time to work in the Church of Alexandria, died out, in that proportion also vanished that noble spirit of inner catholicity and of magnanimous tolerance, by which Athanasius was still distinguished, and that sobriety in religion and judiciousness in theological science which had once prevailed. In their place came a harsh and passionate polemic cal spirit, an orthodoxy ambitious of power, and gloating over the condemnation of the dissentients. And so, at the end of the fourth, and during the course of the fifth century, Alexandria presented a very different appearance from that which it bore during the fourth century.

It would be a false pragmatism, however, to trace the differences which now broke out between the school of Antioch and that of Alexandria solely to the intolerant spirit to which reference has just been made. To it was .due only the manner in which the struggle was conducted between Epiphanius and Theophilus on the one side, and Chrysostom (who refused his consent to the condemnation of Origen on the other), Cyrill of Alexandria, and Nestorius. The differences themselves, with which alone we are for the present concerned, had deeper roots.

Widely extended, and for a time almost irresistible, as was the influence of the school of Antioch in Asia and Constantinople, especially after the elevation of Chrysostom, the Roman Church, and Africa in particular, did not at all sympathize with it. One part of Africa, it is true, decided by Augustine, took very little part in the conflict against the school of Antioch; but nevertheless both parties in the West—that, namely of Pelagius, and that of Augustine—were distinctly conscious of their affinity with the respective Christological views which stood in antagonism to each other in the East. On the one hand, Augustine joined issue with the monk Leporius, whose doctrine had a Nestorian cast; and on the other hand, the mission of the Pelagian Cassian to Theodore of Mopsuestia shows that the two schools expected to make common cause with each other. The relationship between the Pelagian and the Antiocheian type of doctrine was by no means a recommendation of either of them, in that part of the West which was under the influence of Augustine. The eastern part of Northern Africa, on the contrary, manifested a strong inclination to mysticism, which came to a focus in the monachism of Egypt. Two opposed tendencies may be distinguished in this monachism,—the one to speculation and free thought; the other, which lacked culture, to a stormy emotionalism: both, however, were opposed to the Antiocheian spirit, by their bias to either speculative or practical mysticism;—especially the latter, which grew ever stronger, and was on terms of friendship with that old mystic tendency which we found existing in Syria alongside of the school of Antioch (p. 25 ff.). Decided additional evidence of the lively intercourse carried on between the Mystics of Syria and those of Egypt, has recently been furnished by Cureton's discoveries regarding the Epistles of Ignatius. To the influence of the Syrian monks, among other causes, may be attributed the circumstance, that the Nitraean monks—as, indeed, generally those of the Scetic desert—gradually fell more and more into a churchly mysticism. At first, under Theophilus and.Cyrill, they were Anthropomorphites (Audius the Syrian was their precursor in this path), and were assailed by the bishops; soon, however, they gained great influence, and whilst supporting, to a certain extent also controlled, the Episcopacy.

This state of matters throws light on the Nestorian controversies. Subsequently to the period treated of in Section V., the Church of Alexandria was mainly under the influence of a mysticism which was antagonistic alike to Origen and the school of Antioch, and which had adherents and defenders in Syria. Although intercourse was kept up with Athanasius in Alexandria, and a partial opposition was raised to the Anthropomorphites, and the connection with the synodal tradition from the year 325 to 381 was maintained with special zeal, these Councils being described as inspired by the Holy Ghost, yet the supposition that Apollinarism, though condemned by the Church, underwent a partial revival in Alexandria, was one that might be deemed not merely convenient, but also probable, by the adherents of the school of Antioch in general, and Theodoret in particular. That mystical spirit with which the school of Antioch had carried on in Syria a long and severe struggle, manifested itself afresh in Egypt; and, as we learn especially from the example of Theodoret, the hatred cherished towards its native opponents was very soon transferred to the Alexandrians, who were held to be advocates and agents of Apollinarism.

Nestorius, who in point of doctrine was a disciple of Theodore, having been raised to the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 428, endeavoured to make dominant in the Church the tendency represented by the school of Antioch, especially the Antiocheian Christology, which, with perfect good faith, he might have regarded as the view sanctioned by the Church when it rejected the doctrine of Apollinaris. That such was his aim must be acknowledged, whatever else that is estimable may be said respecting him. By way of accomplishing his -purpose, he sought to set aside the name of "Mother of God" given to Mary, which had already become naturalized, and found a support in the monkish worship of the Virgin then in vogue. This, however, brought him into a fatal conflict, which soon enough, alas! became the conflict of the Patriarchates. His doctrine, so far as it can be gathered from the Transactions of the Councils (Mansi. T. iv. 1198 ff., v. 753 ff. 762), and from his own discourses preserved in Marius Mercator, differs from the Christology of Theodore, only in its containing fewer speculative elements, and in its evincing less anxiety (perhaps on polemical grounds) to preserve the unity of the Person of Christ, than was displayed by his teacher. The point on which he concentrated all his efforts, was to guard completely against the heathenish elements, which, in his view, were endeavouring to force their way into the doctrine of the Person of Christ. In the first instance, therefore, he gave in his adhesion to all those propositions laid down by Theodore, which were- held to distinguish between the Godhead of the Logos and humanity, His garment or instrument. Hence his opposition to the term fleoTotfO?. To say that God had been born, would lead back, he thought, to the mythologies of heathenism, and would constitute Mary a goddess, and a mother of gods. The utmost that can be said is, that Christ having been peculiarly allied to the Logos from the very beginning, was, therefore, even as a man termed Geo?,—namely, in the wider sense of Iaorifila, a^io-. Only in this sense can Mary be designated deoroKas; but never in the sense of her having given birth to the Deity, to the very Divine essence (deorrjra). It is impossible for a creature to bear the uncreated, for the later to bear the elder. Inasmuch now, as one party styles her merely the mother of a man, and the other the mother of God, the best expression —that which would reconcile both extremes—is ^ptarOToiio?. But the same¹ grounds which forbid us ascribing birth to the Logos, forbid us also, he urges, to say of Him that He suffered, died, and was buried; seeing that to predicate these things of Christ would be to give again to heathenish elements a home in the midst of the Church (Mar. Merc. Serm. I. II.). His humanity was the deoBaxps fiop<f>rj, with which the Logos was inseparably, though invisibly united. Both, therefore, are to be regarded with the Same reverence (urorifila): 1-771/ <f>opovfievrjv Tw <f>opovvri irumb

"natures" had acquired the meaning of two separate monads, foci or centres; whereas he was unable to see his way clear to conceding the existence of more than one such focus in Christ.¹

Severus' conception of the incarnation was, therefore, the following,—that all the human qualities remained unchanged in their nature or essence, but were so amalgamated with the totality of the hypostasis, that they had no longer any kind of centre or focus of their own, no longer constituted a separate monas. The foci, on the contrary, had become one; the monads were conjoined, the substrata, in which the qualities of both natures inhered, no longer had an independent subsistence (fu>vd8e<; IBioav<Traroi), but formed a synthesis,² and all the idiomata or attributes subsisted in this composite hypostasis or nature. We must therefore follow the example of Dionysius Areopagita, the Wise, and make use of the expression,—through the humanification* of God (avBpaydevros Qeov), there arose a divinehuman, a theandric (deavBpiKrf), that is, a composite nature and hypostasis; and this composite hypostasis has put forth a new divine-human, that is, a composite activity {deavBpua) ivipyeia).

A favourite argument adduced by Severus for his view, was the walking of Christ on the sea. This cannot be termed a simply and strictly human act; and yet, on the other hand, it is quite as incongruous to attribute walking to the divine nature in itself. The act was, therefore, divine-human.³ How, then, can we still say, with Leo, that "the Logos worked what pertained to the Logos, and the body what pertained to the body,—that the former shone in the miracles, and the latter submitted to suffering?" In that case, there would only have been a relative community of natures, a unity of relation (ayeriKrj Koiixovla Top fiopifjwv Kou inrb 'yvojfiiKijs Sia#t^!aei(o?), such as was advocated by Nestorius. To say that the Logos raised the human nature to His own glory and power, may be true; but it is irreconcilable with Leo's assertion, that "each nature retained its peculiar characteristics unaltered." So far from that, the Logos did not permit the human nature, in some cases, to act according to its own laws; for example, when Christ walked on the sea, and when He rose from the dead. Both acts transcended the laws of human nature, which, therefore, were so far partially abolished. For death befell the body by a physical law (this against the Julianists; see A. Mai, vii. 287), and the lance inflicted a physical wound on Christ, because such was the free determination of the Logos ;—even so did the resurrection transcend the law to which the dead body was naturally subject. The teachers of the Church tried to escape from the perplexity by discriminating between what is opposed to, and what is above, nature; between the contranatural and the supra-natural. Such a communication of power on the part of the Logos may indeed transcend human nature; but it is simply an exaltation of its essence, and neither a spoliation nor an annihilation. We have already remarked, however, that such a communication is incompatible with the doctrine of the essential difference of the two natures, elsewhere taught. For, if we conceive this communication of power to have been without measure, then did human nature possess as its own, and as constituting its true, nay more, its truer essence, the very divine qualities which constitute the divine essence. One would almost have expected, that in his controversy with the Julianists, Severus would be forced, after all, to substitute for the divine-human activities which he upheld, a distinction between the divine and the human activities. But it was in his power to reply,—Although the qualities of the divine and the human natures remain unaltered in Christ, still both are qualities of the one composite nature or Person of the Logos. The Logos appropriated these qualities and sufferings of human nature, and, according as His work required it, left the body over to its physical laws and assumed human sufferings, or displayed His divine energy and allowed His body to participate therein. From Julian, therefore, he discriminated himself, by representing the laws of the human body as suspended merely for the moment, and as potentially continuing to exist: Julian, on the contrary, regarded even a momentary areprjaK of the human aspect, as a proof against the unaltered continuance of the human qualities, and held it, consequently, to be more consistent, instead of contending for the unchangeableness of each, to maintain that the flesh of Christ was converted into the divine immortality through and after the Unio.

¹ The above explanation is supported by the fragment, ibid. 736: atxitfiXri^omes zoiiivv roif iixtpovmeis to» itx Xtivror fitrx ziiii 'ivatrm r>i ivxii rut tpioiaii, ov oV astro' To Mytm Qvests V liivmrxc jj ittpytixs Cvxtxffefixricfitric Tosto Qx/tet, «kJii aix To Mynt Si/o. These Monophysites said, Txs dpit/tis tlioavmxrUi i sari lzi*arix6s. A. Mai vii. 64* and 278'. From the work against the Grammarian, the following: Hoi, To' fitv liio o-xoorei», Tji tpatrxtrlx Tow tov fci»ov tfitrui iixxptrotros ryr iixQopxt rrjt us it vmirrnrt $vaixr,. Ibid. 279: vas ov xXrxyi'Kxorot Kxi To Kiynv ovo iQtvrr.rXs jj Siio fttpytixs; toXXoi yap fan xxi oi 5i/o p.iiioa ixxtrrms Qvotus.

*• Galland. xii. 735. Ep. ad Solonem.

* Generally, I have rendered the German word "Menschwerdung" by "incarnation," though it is not an exact equivalent. In this connection, however, I have coined a word for the sake of expressing more precisely both the German and the Greek idea. "Humanization" (not so legitimate a form) has another meaning, or I might have adopted it. —Te.

• A. Mai, pp. 285, 286.

Following the general example of the Monophysites hitherto mentioned, Severus neglected to submit the human soul of Christ to a closer examination. The passage, "Not as I will, but as Thou wilt," he remarks, does not prove the existence of a will distinct from the divine; nor do the words imply either that the will of Christ grew faint, or that a struggle took place in Him: the passage is simply a word of instruction (fur us). The Logos could neither have feared death, nor have made the human unwillingness to die, His own; but freely permitted the flesh to undergo the sufferings to which it was physically susceptible (1. c. 288): so that here also, no act can be said to be either solely human or solely divine, but all are alike divine and human.

The adherents of Severus then endeavoured to demonstrate the Tightness of this view. No one objects to call man fiia <f>vai<;, although he consists of soul and body, which are two different substances: just so must it be possible to designate Christ fita (pvaK, although divine and human elements are united in Him without alteration. If we teach that there are two natures in a state of union, we ought also to teach that there is one, and that a composite nature (A. Mai, vii. 62 ff.). But if we object to that, we must necessarily further posit two substrata, viro<rrdaei';,—nay more, two irpoawira. For, even when we discriminate natures or substances merely in thought, we at once posit, also in thought, two persons (irpoaama): no sooner is the distinction established, than each assumes to itself a separate and independent form. On the other hand, the duality of hypostases and persons posited in thought and phantasy, disappears the moment we conceive the natures which constitute the one hypostasis and nature of the incarnate Logos as subsisting in synthesis; the supposed dyad converges into a unity (eis ev ri), that is, into the one hypostasis which consists of two, and which is then consistently termed, the Person (A. Mai, 279").

Although the Monophysites in general, admitted that Christ had a human soul, still the first class, whose doctrine was of a more physical cast, and which culminated in the Aphthartodocetists (a.<f>dapro<;, incorruptible; BoKeiv, to seem) and Actistetes (a/rrtoTo? = uncreate), spoke almost exclusively of the body of Christ, and of its glorification by the indwelling Logos. Severus, as we have seen, taught, in reference to the will of Christ, that the divine and human wills were one, not merely in virtue of the identity of their aim, but also in virtue of the identity of the volitional principle; and, however earnestly he tried to discriminate himself from Eutyches, Dioscurus, and Timotheus, by supposing that the difference between the divine and human aspects was somehow preserved in, and along with, the unity of the nature or Person of Christ,—relatively to the soul, he was unwilling to admit the existence of a difference between the human and the divine, in the matter either of volition or knowledge. But when he placed the imperfection of the body, its mortality and so forth, to the account of the general laws of human nature, which could only be momentarily suspended, consistency would have seemed to demand a similar admission with respect to the soul of Christ—the admission, namely, that though, through the action of the Logos, the spiritual energy of the human soul of Christ might, for the time, or at all events in part, lose its limitation, the said limitation, however, continued to exist potentially. Accordingly, we find, that after the death of Severus, the Deacon Themistius, in Alexandria, came forward as an advocate of the doctrine, that the human soul of Christ was like ours in everything, even in ignorance—a doctrine which had been repudiated by the other followers of Severus (in Egypt, designated Theodosians).¹ Even in the Gospels Jesus says, that "no one, not even the Son, knoweth the hour, but the Father only;" and He asked also, "Where have ye laid Lazarus?"—a question involving ignorance.

¹ Galland. xii.; Leont. Byz. 2, de sectis, Actio x. cap. iii. p. 654, Actio v. cap. vi. p. 641. Compare Photius, Cod. 230.

By their opponents among the Monophysites they were termed Agnoetes (a-yvoew), and were assailed especially by the Sevcrian Bishop of Alexandria, Theodosius, the successor of Timotheus. He, however, was soon ejected by the populace, to make way for Gajanus, a Julianist; then he was restored by Justinian, and finally was banished to Byzantium. Like Coluthus,¹ Themistius aimed to represent both the will and activity of Christ as one, and His knowledge as one; for, he urges, the knower was as truly one as the willer and actor. Whether ho supposed the Logos to have emptied Himself in regard to knowledge also, or that, for the sake of preserving the unity of His person, He appropriated also the human predicate of ignorance (words to which it is scarcely possible to attach a distinct thought), cannot be clearly ascertained owing to the lack of sources of information. This question had, however, as yet, by no means been decided by the Church.

It might have been expected, that as the doctrine of two natures had received the sanction of the Church, the doctrine of the Agnoetes, who constituted simply a small branch of the great party of Severus, would meet with a large measure of approval amongst the teachers of the Church. And some, in fact, were favourable to it. Amongst these, at a later period (about 610), may be specially mentioned, Leontius of Byzantium, who, from the fact that ignorance is attributable to us, and that Christ was of the like nature with us; further, from the circumstance that in Luke ii. He is said to have grown in wisdom; and finally, "on the basis of the testimony of many, nay, almost all the Fathers," concludes that a certain kind of ignorance must be ascribed to Christ. But although it was an universal doctrine that Christ grew on earth in respect to His humanity, it was considered better—for example, by Jerome (ed. Vallars. T. vii. 34, on Ps. 15)—to refer the passages which imply ignorance, rather to the Church, than to its Head. Similarly also, Ambrose (on Luc. ii. 52) was of opinion, that "nostra ignoratione nescit, non quia aliquid ipse nesciret;" and that, to assume the duality of the principles of intelligence, or a twofold knowledge, would be to run the risk of dividing Christ Himself. Fulgentius characterizes it as an error, to suppose that the soul of Christ had not the full knowledge of ¹ A. Mai, l. c 72°; Cotel. Monum. l. c. 399, 406 ff.

CHURCH DOCTRINE OF CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE. 143

the Godhead, in common with which it had one personality. Beda (on Luc. ii.) says, that " growth is the sign of a human sod ;" but, at the same time, also remarks, that " from the hour of His conception, Christ was full of wisdom; for this man was at no moment anything other than God." Similarly Alcuin observes (ad Carolum, l. ii. 11), " The soul of Christ may not be held to have lacked any part of the Divine knowledge, inasmuch as it formed in the Trinity one person with the Word, that is Christ." And this doctrine attained to ever greater predominance, its advocates not failing to resort to the most violent expedients. The most common of these was to say, that Christ did not wish, on oeconomical grounds, that is, for men's sake, to appear to know: He merely meant that, for His disciples, He did not know that which they could not bear, and concerning which they inquired of Him. Nor was His asking a question a sign of ignorance, but merely an incitement to discourse, an introduction of conversation.¹ In this matter, therefore, the roles were completely exchanged: Monophysites became Agnoetes; and the adherents of the Council of Chalcedon, who took their stand on the duality of the natures, approved of that which we should have expected to find defended by the Monophysites: so that, even internally, there was no distinct line of demarcation between the two parties, whose respective outward boundaries, in consequence of the Henoticon, had for some time ceased to be recognisable (Note 31).

From the time of Justinian, who first treated the Monophysites with mildness, and then persecuted them hotly, the hitherto so lively intercourse between that party and the Church was broken ever more completely off.² Eobbed of their patriarchs and directors, they were now held together principally by James Baradai, who travelled through the districts inhabited by Monophysites under the disguise of a beggar, ordained bishops, and

¹ Compare Beda Venerab. ed. Colon. 1688, Tom. iii. 245-247. In reference to the passage, "Neither also does the Son know the day of judgment," Gregory of Tours remarks, "The Son who here speaks is the adopted son, that is, humanity: hence also the angels are mentioned before him."

² The only effect of which was to prepare the way for the adoption, by Monotheletism within the Church itself, of a Monophysitic view of the Person of Christ.

established a church union, especially in Syria. But the flourishing period of Monophysitism, in a scientific point of view, had now passed. Amongst its adherents who had received a philosophical culture, doubts arose whether the middle position taken up in reference to Christology, by Severus and the followers of Baradai, by Damianus the Monophysite, Patriarch of Alexandria, and Peter the Younger of Kalliniko, was a tenable one. Stephen, an Alexandrian Sophist, with the surname of Niobes,¹ taught, that the distinction in the natural essence of the things, out of which Christ was constituted, cannot be held to have continued (as the party of Severus asserted) after the Unio; and thus made himself the representative of the stricter Monophysite doctrine which now began to show itself. When opposed by Damian, he assigned as the ground for his view, that if there remain a distinction in the things out of which Christ is constituted, it is impossible to avoid separating and numbering the natures in accordance with the constant assertion of the teachers of the Church. Damian condemned his teachings. About this time, two learned and eloquent Monophysites, Probus and the Archimandrite John Barbut, came to Alexandria with Peter, the Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch. Probus decided on refuting Stephen in a writing: but, whatever the reason may have been (the Patriarch Peter is said, at an early period, to have remarked an inclination on the part of Probus and John to the view of Stephen), after the work had been composed, Probus, without informing John, openly adopted Stephen's view of the untenableness of the middle position between the doctrine of the Council of Chalcedon and Monophysitism, taken up by Severus and his party. By means of letters and discourses they diffused their views in Alexandria, until they were driven out by Damian. Probus, further, having been deposed and excommunicated, they betook themselves to the East, where they laboured with such great success amongst the monks, that, at their pressing invitation, the Patriarch Peter was induced to convene a Synod in Guba, at a later period the seat of the Jacobite patriarchs. At this Synod, John endeavoured to show that Probus had been unjustly deposed. But both of them, and all their adherents, were excommunicated. In the name of the

¹ Assem. Bibl. Orient, ii. 72-77. From the Church History of the Monophysite Patriarch Dionysius; compare Photius, Cod. xxiv.

Synod, Peter wrote a work laying down the doctrinal system of Severus as the orthodox one: he especially maintained the orthodoxy of the opinion, that the natures out of which Christ was constituted, continued to be distinct even after the Unio, thoDgh without being separated or numerically dual. John and Probus now changed over to the Confession adopted by the Council of Chalcedon. In part, without doubt, this resulted from fickleness; at all events, before his death, Probus, who afterwards became Bishop of Chalcedon, is said to have returned to Monophysitism. Still, one can well conceive that men who had received a dialectical culture found it impossible to remain in suspense, as did the adherents of Severus; that they then attempted to follow out the Monophysitic idea to its logical results, and to justify their continuance as a separate ecclesiastical party; and that subsequently, not merely failing therein, but seeing Docetism to be the necessary result of the abolition of all and every distinction, they felt the Chalcedonian doctrine to be really more self-consistent, although not calculated to be permanently satisfactory. At all events, after the death of Peter in 591, they laboured with great zeal in and around Antioch, advocating the cause of the Council of Chalcedon, both in writings and in disputations with monks out of all the Monophysite monasteries, and endeavouring to show the inconsistency of accepting a difference, and yet rejecting the duality, of natures. They even succeeded in bringing over many, particularly entire towns in the neighbourhood of Antioch, to the Chalcedonian doctrine. The result of the Niobite Controversy, as respects the remaining Monophysites, was to bind them more firmly to their traditional views, especially as the sanction of an Oriental Synod might now be pleaded on behalf of the doctrine of Severus.

In the history of the Monophysitic Party, we find displayed a fruitfulness and acuteness of mind, and a vigour in attack, which could not be overlooked or lightly valued by the orthodox teachers of the great body of the Church. Let us now glance at the principal arguments employed by the defenders of the Council of Chalcedon, in opposition to the Monophysites, and especially to the Severians (Note 32). If the two natures are entirely one, then are they one nature. But now the Severians themselves say, that that which is not in reality completely one, constitutes one nature in Christ; consequently, their one nature P. 2.—VOL. I. K

is, after all, not one nature.—If the two aspects form one nature, then are they of the same essence, of the same substance; and the deity of Christ has, therefore, the same essence as His humanity. But this the Monophysites themselves deny; and, consequently, they hold not one nature, but diverse natures.—They grant that Christ was constituted out of deity and humanity, and that, after the Unio, He consisted of deity and humanity. But, as certainly as the former denotes two different natures, so certainly must a duality of natures be conceded in the latter case, especially as they disapprove of a Unio by mixture, and only believe in a conjunction of two natures.—When they allow that Christ was constituted out of two natures, and yet deny that there are two natures in Him, we are compelled to ask, whether that of which a being is and consists, is not in it. In what being then is it, if it is at all? They protest, however, specially against the duality, saying that "what we count, we divide," as if one could not count what is united, and unite what is counted. Number, in itself, denotes neither separation nor union; it only expresses the quantum, not the essential nature of a thing. They, therefore, lay too great stress on the matter of number.— If the Logos and the flesh are in no sense two, they are in every sense one. But then the Word itself is flesh, and the flesh is the Word, not less eternal, and not less consubstantial with the Father, than the Word. For, if the Word and the flesh are one nature, and if the nature of the Word and the nature of the Father is one and the same, then is the nature of the flesh and of the Father the same; and, inasmuch as the case is the same with the Holy Spirit, we should have to conclude not only the Word, but even the Trinity, to be man.—The Severians say that even the one nature is composite. Now, as the nature of the Logos is simple, it is for them to show how the simple nature of the Word is discriminated from the composite nature of Christ. Its discriminating characteristic is plainly the humanity which is added to the deity. If, then, that which is composite is not simple, the nature of Christ must be dual; and the doctrine of two natures ought to be taught.—If Christ never had a twofold nature, it is, of course, absurd to speak about a Unio: but if He ever had a double nature, when did the double nature become one? and what is this one to be supposed to be? Is it the nature of the appropriator, or that of the appropriated? We must then ask, what has become of the other? If both continue to subsist, how are they one? Or, is Christ's nature a new, third something, compounded of both? In that case, however, Christ would be of a different substance from the Father, seeing that the substance of the latter is not compounded.—The union between the Logos and the Father cannot possibly be less close than the union between the Logos and the flesh, and yet the Father and the Word are two: why, then, cannot the Word and the flesh be in any sense two? (This argument was directed specially against the Tritheites among the Monophysites.)— The Monophysites said: The nature is never less than the person, and, in the case of rational beings, involves personality; so that whosoever assumes the existence of two natures, must posit also two personalities. Plurality separates; whereas the monas is without quantity, and is, therefore, in itself Ibiktj. The orthodox replied,—The IBiKbv is denoted by the hypostasis; the nature, on the contrary, is the expression for the Koivov (the general). If the two natures are not one as to their hypostasis, still they are one as to their nature. But if deity and humanity are one nature, this one nature is the generic term under which are comprehended deity and humanity, both of which must somehow be held to continue to exist in the composite nature of Christ. Now, if deity and humanity are two species or individuals of the same genus, then the deity and humanity in Christ stand in the relation to each other of two individuals: at this point, therefore, Monophysitism passes into Nestorianism.¹ The simplicity of the nature of Christ cannot, therefore, be any longer maintained. Such simplicity is predicable, indeed, of the Trinity, when it denotes that general divine substance in which the particular foci of characteristic peculiarities inhere, so that, along with unity of nature, there is difference of hypostases. But in Christology the situation of things is just the reverse. There, nnless the doctrine of Nestorius be followed, we must posit unity of hypostasis along with difference of natures. In both dogmas, however, substance or nature designates that which is general or common to several (the divine nature of Christ is the nature both of the Father and the Spirit,— the human nature is the nature of all other men): person, on the other ¹ Galknd. loc. cit. 714'.

hand, denotes the individual, the lBiKov, that which discriminates the Son from the Father and Spirit, and the God-man from other men. Person is distinguished from nature, as the accident, the superadded, from the substance. In God, of course, this accident, which is at the same time hypostasis, is inseparably connected with His essence; nay more, not in relation to His substance is it to be called an accident, but merely in relation to the other persons. The Monophysites, on the contrary, use the word "nature," as we use the word "essence," to denote not merely the general, but also the special or individual. According to them, everything actu existent, must also exist as a particular individual: we must not suppose that the general exists merely also in the individual,—it exists merely as that which particularizes or individualizes itself.¹ Hence the Tritheism of John Akusnages and John Philoponus amongst the Monophysites (Note 33).

Where the controversy was conducted scientifically, the question as to the relation between nature and person was constantly brought under discussion. The Nestorians and the Monophysites expressed themselves in the same way regarding it, and raised the same objections to the definitions and ontological propositions laid down by the teachers of the Church, maintaining that the nature cannot be impersonal, and that where there is a <pvais, there must also be an inro(rrflat?. From this it followed, according to the Nestorians, that because there are two natures in Christ, there must also be two independent hypostases; although somehow united to form the one Christ. As the Monophysites, however, absolutely repudiated the duality of persons, they repudiated also the duality of natures, which seemed to them to involve the duality of persons. That every nature is also an hypostasis, they endeavoured to prove as follows:—The essence or nature is that which is common to all the individuals of a genus (the Koivov); this, however, never exists by itself alone, but solely in an individual. Consequently, the essence can be conceived as independent, solely in thought; actually, it never exists by itself, independently. Whether it is a reality in itself, or is merely a nominalistic notion, remained herewith quite undetermined. It did, however, follow from this position, that a ¹ See Note E. App. ii.

real humanity can only subsist as Ibikrj; as is the case also with deity. But everything IBiKbv they term viroaraais: in their view, r6inaai<; is the essence or nature itself, in the form of a particular individual; ovala or $v<«? is, therefore, essentially an individual. Every definite Ibikov, or the wroOtcutk, is an accident in relation to the universal, to the essence (or genus)—it is that which is superadded to the essence: at the same time, an Ibikov must be superadded, in order that the essence may really exist. The Ibikov is further discriminated from whatever else is of the same substance with it, by marks which are peculiar to it amongst all others. From this the Monophysitic Christology drew the conclusion, that the natures of Christ cannot be conceived as real, unless they are also conceived as hypostatic or as Ibikov. The problem, then, would be to effect the union of the divine Ibikov of the Son and the human iZtKov of the individual man Jesus (the essence of each involving the Isikov of each). Now, as it would be impossible to constitute one hypostasis out of two hypostases, of the same <f>vais or genus, the question must of necessity be one of the union of two different natures. This cannot, of course, be effected by uniting the twofold Ibikov of both, whilst the essence of each remains separate; for then the essences would be able to subsist alone, separated from the united Iblkou: they cannot, however, subsist alone, but solely in individuals. The unity thus effected would be one merely of the accidental, the Ibikov; in the principal matter, namely the $ti<7t?, no result would have been arrived at. If the <f>vaeL<; continue in their duality, they must necessarily, in order to exist at all, tend towards a twofold IciKbv, each in its own kind. It would, therefore, be well to begin from the opposite direction, and first to endeavour to effect the union of the ipvads'. Should this attempt succeed, and should the two <f>vaei<; be constituted to one new and unique ^wt ? (the X/jwjtott;?, the theandric or divine-human nature), then, relatively to this ovaia or <f>vais also, it must be maintained that it can only exist as IBtKtj, or in an individual. The danger that this nature would necessitate the assumption of two hypostases in Christ is thus obviated. Christ is accordingly an individual person of divine-human essence.¹

¹ The Monophymtes regarded Christ as a thoroughly distinct, living, indissoluble synthesis—a synthesis which had become an irriKix,tix; and

Over against this deduction, the teachers of the Church were not in all cases and at once able to take up a safe and intelligible position. They at once, it is true, manifested suspicion of the union in the sphere of the natures, and their fear that an irreverent doctrine of conversion or mixture would be the result. But they did not at first know whether they ought to allow or not, that no <f>vaK really exists, except as an Ibikov. Not a few supposed, at the outset, that they ought to deny the existence of an individual humanity in Christ, because, from the existence of an individual humanity, the Monophysites immediately concluded the existence also of a human hypostasis in Christ. They also thought that they ought to maintain that the general substance of true humanity, considered not as an idea, but as a congeries of real powers, was assumed by the Son of God. With this there then readily connected itself that form of the mystical Christology which taught that humanity, in its totality, was included in Christ, as in the second Adam (Note 34).

The Monophysites, however, replied that that would lead to a species of Nihilianism; for, if Christ assumed humanity in its entirety, but without appropriating anything definitely human, He did not in reality become anything; and if He is not anything, He is nothing. ' Further, Christ would then be the universal generic human being; but, as it is essential to the generic substance to pertain to all the individuals of the same genus, all men must consequently be Christ. The teachers of the Church then withdrew from the position which they had assumed, and conceded the existence of an individual human essence in Christ (Note 35). Until far into the Middle Ages, very different views were, of course, taken of the " Principium Individuations:" sometimes it was conceived quantitatively, either as a negation (oriprjaK) or limitation of the collective contents of the genus, or as an enrichment of the universal generic idea; whether as effected from without by the material element (aapg), or as a qualitative inner principle.

A special epoch in the relation of the Church to these

maintained, that to analyze Him into His constituent elements, was not to comprehend Him. Through the analysis, that which was characteristic of Christ, that which discriminated Him both from the simply divine and the simply human, to wit, the Xpi<rrirns or the Christhood, would be done away with.

questions, was constituted by the work of Boethius against iNestorius and Eutyches,¹ with its definitions of the terms, natura, substantia, persona, which he declares to be equivalents for the Greek words, <f>vat<; or ovala, viroara<ris, and •irpoaanrov? He admitted that every essence or every nature exists as an individual; but questioned the validity of the Monophysitic conclusion, that, therefore, he who teaches the existence of two natures in Christ, teaches also, in effect, that there are two individuals or persons in Christ. Not two persons; for there may exist a nature which has not an hypostasis or person, as the entire irrational creation proves: the Monophysitic conception of person is therefore too physical, and makes it equivalent to physical individuality. Spiritual natures alone can be also endowed with personality. It is true, then, that, as an actual man, Christ must have been, in the physical aspect of His being, a human individual; but this does not necessarily imply that there were two persons in the one Christ. Nor did it even imply, as later writers added by way of making the statement complete, that there were two individuals. Two individuals of the same substance (Paul, Peter) cannot, indeed, become one; but here we have to do with individuals of a different substance. Besides this, it must be remembered that the divine nature of the Son is not an individual or part, and that God is not a genus,—which would lead to Tritheism. That undoubtedly signifies,—towards the Son of God, who is not a part of God, but the whole God, the human individuality

¹ Boethii opp. ed. Basil. 1546, "De duabus naturia et una persona Christi adv. Eutychen et Nestorium," pp. 948-957.

* P. 951: "Natura est cujuslibet substantise specificata proprietas; persona vero rationabilis naturae individua subsistentia. 960: Hujus (Eutychetis) error ex eodem quo Nestorii fonte prolabitur, nam sicut Nestorius arbitratus non posse esse naturam duplicem quin persona fieret duplex, atque ita cum in Christo naturam duplicem confiteretur, duplicem credidit esse personam, ita quoque Eutyches non putavit naturam duplicem esse sine duplicatione persona;." He then puts the question, and with special interest,—How can two natures be constituted one? It is only possible on the condition, either that one of them cease to exist by being converted into the other,—as, for example, when a drop of wine is poured into the ocean; or, that the two things commingle, and modify each other, so as to produce a new third thing which is neither the one nor the other, in that each is determined by the other, agendo et patiendo,—as, for example, honey and water are combined to form a new third thing, which we term mead.

cannot stand in so independent and exclusive a relation as towards another human individuality. They then proceed to say:¹ Of course, no spiritual nature, consequently not even that of Christ, can be destitute of personality; but we are not therefore necessarily compelled to say that it must be personal in itself, in order to have an actual existence. The spiritual human nature may have been incorporated with the Person of the Son; and thus it would not be without personality. By the assumptive act of this divine person, an individual human nature, both as to body and soul, was formed, which, although a mere individual part of humanity as actually existent, was nevertheless so constituted as to contain in full perfection and purity all that is required by the general conception of human nature. The Monophysitic doctrine, on the contrary, by' assuming the existence of a new <f>vai<; in Christ, and by representing it as 18ik>i, leads to the conclusion, that, as in all other cases, so here, the <fwat<; of the XpurroTrjs may undergo a manifold individualization; and thus involves the destruction of the distinctive and unique character of Christ.

This polemic against Monophysitism shows clearly enough that the teachers of the Church must not only have distinguished between nature and person, but must also have held that human nature might exist in a sense by itself, without a personality of its own :² it shows further, that when their aim was to effect the union of the two natures, they were only able to accomplish their object by declining, after the example of Apollinarism, to assert the completeness of the human nature of Christ, and by assuming a mixture, or transubstantiatio, in the sphere of the persona, similar to that which Monophysites assumed in the sphere of the natura. Only its human individuality did they preserve to the human nature of Christ.³ For the rest, notwithstanding

¹ Compare, for example, Leontius' "de Sectia," Act. vii., in A. Mai l. c. T. vii. p. 52 ff., pp. 13 f., 19, 20.

² The teachers of the Church were, in like manner, moved to distinguish more definitely between the Cmaraei; and the Qvoi; or oiialx, even in the deity of Christ, by the objection with which they were met, that if the nature of the Son, which is also the nature of the Father and the Spirit, became man, the Father and the Spirit must also have become man, as to their nature.

³ Though, if the Logos be the persona in Christ, and if Boethius' definition of persona given above were adopted, even this would not be quite certain.

the zeal with which they asserted the existence of a human nature permanently discriminated from the Son of God, they left it no real independence: it subsisted solely in the Logos. The Logos was the substantial: human nature was merely the selfless accidental; and the individual human element in Christ was not conceived to be related to the human genus, as the manifestation of its true and genuine nature, but as the manifestation of the accidental. There is no mistaking, however, that the teachers of the Church did not continue to attach quite the same meaning to the terms "natura" and "persona." On the one hand, they said, "persona non subsistit prseter naturam;" that "natura" is that in which "persona" inheres; that the "persona" subsists in the "natura," which, so far therefore, is rather " substantia" than "accidens;" and that, in relation to the "natura," the "persona" is the accidental (avfifiefirjKos). Such are the terms they employ, when the human is the subject of consideration. But when the endeavour was made to apply these distinctions to the deity, the reply was made,—In God nothing can be said to be " accidens :" the Person of the Father, for example, does not inhere in something else as an "accidens," but subsists in itself; and this is the true definition of substance. Further, the Divine Person or hypostasis in Christ, was the substance in which the human nature inhered, or had its subsistence.¹ But, whatever may be said regarding the relation of ovaia or <f>v<ns to inroaraxns in general, or in connection with one of the natures, such a representation reduces humanity to the position of an "accidens" of the deity in which it inheres, as in its substance.

The Monophysites were willing, indeed, to allow that a union had been effected in the sphere of the "natura:" they did not, however, consider human nature to be a determination of the divine essence (as Apollinaris did), and thus ensure it an eternal existence. Whatever persistency might be displayed in holding that the divine nature, subsequently to the Unio, belonged quite as truly to the human as the human to the divine, they still treated the human as a mere selfless "accidens" of the divine nature.¹ We thus see clearly that the two parties were not in reality so far removed from each other as they themselves supposed. The Monophysites, on the one hand, represent the Nisus to attain a more intimate union of the natures than was attained by the Chalcedonians; but did no more than the latter to exhibit the inner connection between the divine and human. The Chalcedonians, on the other hand, represent the Nisus to preserve to the human element a relative independence without mixture or conversion; but they did not, in reality and logically, get beyond the Monophysite notion of the iusubstantiation of the humanity in the deity, although they confessed it not to themselves. Nor is any essential change made in the relation of the deity to the humanity, by designating the substance in which the humanity has an impersonal subsistence, hvpostasis. This was the chief reason why Monophysitic elements constantly made their appearance afresh within the Church itself. And accordingly, despite the long and fruitless struggle carried on by the victors at Chalcedon with those who, though vanquished, refused to surrender, about the middle of the sixth century the stream of Monophysitism within the Church itself became again so powerful, that the Three Chapter Controversy may be taken as a proof of the withdrawal of the favour which had been predominantly bestowed on the school of Antioch at the Council of Chalcedon. Indeed, at the Synod held in the year 553, Justinian succeeded in carrying through the formula which forms the complementary counterpart to the deoroKos—namely, that one of the Holy Trinity was crucified for us. With this revival of Monophysitism was connected the Monotheletic movement in the following century. At the same time, the feeling that Monophysitism must lead to the annulment of the reality of the incarnation, retained its life, and gave rise to a reaction against Monophysitic elements on the part of the adherents of the Council of Chalcedon, which daily gained new force. Against the full victory of such elements they were

¹ Leontins in A. Mai 1. c. p. 52 (and similarly Gelasius): the imriarant—the human oiitlx—is that which i» i-ipu lx" ^ro «!»«(, ««i oix ir luvrSf dfttfiirat; the inrsereui;, on the contrary, xxl ri» Tos xcc? aino thcci >.o'-/o» r.a.rixu. 'A»t/5r«rr«rcf, indeed, the (human} Qvais cannot be termed; but it does not therefore follow that it is an ivoara.ais, for it may have its subsistence in another—even in the divine hypostasis.

¹ The Monophysites affirmed also, that, according to the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon, the unity of the person was not a substantial reality, but merely an accident, an attribute. Compare the interesting discussion of Barhebrseus (sec. 13), Assem. l. c. ii. 288 ff., and of Elias, sec. 8, Ass.ii. 96. protected, by the existence of a Monophysite counter-Church, so long as the Greek Church continued to be the main arena of dogmatical controversies.

Following in the footsteps of the Nestorians, the Monophysites sought refuge, after they began to be persecuted by the Emperors, outside of the boundaries of the Greek Empire. Powerful in Syria, Armenia, and Egypt, they kept up a lively connection amongst themselves, especially through the medium of the monks; until the danger arising from Mohammedan incursions, and the weakening of the Empire by the schism of the Monophysite party, induced the Emperor to try new conciliatory measures (Note 36). At this point, however, our attention is called to the Monothelete Controversy.

fia>pev <$>vaW—two natures, but one honour. As to nature, we acknowledge two Christs; as to worship, we have but one (that is, the Christian consciousness subjectively recognises but one Christ). But the objective basis of this oneness of reverence is taken away, as soon as we deny that Christ was really and truly one person. Now, as Nestorius made no distinction be-\ tween natures and person, he ought, in strict consequence, to I have concluded from the existence of two natures, the existence of two persons. Subsequent witnesses, however, inform us I that he, or at all events his school, sought to escape from the difficulty by means similar to those adopted by the later Monotheletes,—namely, by representing the two natures as converge ] ing in a unity of will. But neither he nor hfs school expressed" themselves very distinctly on the matter. He remained satisfied with Theodore's evBoKta: he never arrived at an incarnation of God, but only at a relationship (<ry.eat?) between two natures which continue separate,—a relationship which he termed a mysterious conjunction (avvdfaia).

That the Patriarch Cyrill of Alexandria was not primarily moved by envy or ambition of power to oppose the school of Antioch, is clear from the general character of his fundamental views, which are marked by unity and consequence; and quite as decidedly necessitated making God the starting-point in an inquiry, as the views of the school of Antioch necessitated beginning with man. It is clear also, from the circumstance, that Cyrill composed his treatise on the Incarnation of the Onlybegotten One as an appendix to his work on the Trinity (Dialog. 8) under Atticus,—that is, net only before the struggle with Nestorius commenced, but even before Nestorius was elevated to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. We are warranted in assigning the treatise to this date, not only by Cyrill's own testimony,¹ but by its entire tone, which may be very advantageously compared with his later polemical writings (such, for example, as that most passionate Dialog. 9, "Quod unus sit Christus"). Nestorius's attack on the expression, "Mother of God," was but the external occasion of the outbreak of an antagonism both older and deeper.

To designate this antagonism in as general terms as possible, so far as it affects Christology, we may say that, whereas the ¹ Epist. ad Nestor. 2 Opp. Cyr. Al. T. v. 2, p. 21. Ed. Aubert, 1638.

school of Antioch, by way of preventing an Apollinarian identification of the divine and the human in the vow of Christ, distinguished between the two aspects as two natures, the school of Alexandria started with laying emphasis on the unity (evoxri? <pvaiKij), and then proceeded to consider what could be said concerning the duality. Both held that the divine nature, the Logos, had a substantial existence, an hypostasis; but whilst the Alexandrians attached the humanity of Christ, including the soul and its powers, to the divine hypostasis as little more than a receptive passive material, the Antiocheians, for the reasons previously mentioned, strove to prove that the human factor also had a relative independence, but showed themselves not infrequently inclined to the use of expressions which attributed to the human aspect an independent hypostasis or personality. Cyrill did not by any means return to that old indefinite mode of speech, in the employment of which the faith of the Church had been guided by an instinctive perception of the unity of the Person of Christ in its totality. Nor will the effort to bring him into complete accordance with later standards of orthodoxy succeed, unless, like the Council of Chalcedon, we determine what his doctrine was, from fragments of his works, in which he expresses himself cautiously or hesitatingly, or seeks to bring about a compromise. The strong terms in which he speaks of the one nature of Christ, and insists on the unity of His <f>vai<;, might indeed be ascribed to a difficulty experienced in finding terms accurately expressive of the distinction between the ideas or words, "Person" and "Nature," and which occasioned his speaking of the one <f>vai>; of the Incarnate, when he meant to speak of the one person. But this explanation is by no means sufficient. In his use of the word viroaraaK he inclines, it is true, at one time to the meaning, "substance" or <pvaK, and at another time to that of Person—irpoaumov: this, however, was not accidental, but in the interest of his fundamental views. Where it was his interest to do so, he drew a very sharp and decided distinction between person (nrpoaamov) and covert?; and he never took the human <pvaK in the sense of irpoaa>irov and inroaraats, as he did the divine <pvai<;. He proved himself competent enough to show how, if the two natures are separated from each other, as two persons, no such thing as an incarnation has taken place. But he sought to convict Nestorianism of holding a duality of persons, because it distinguished two natures even after the incarnation; and of not being able to reduce this duality to a unity deserving of the name.¹ When endeavouring to express himself accurately, he designates the unity which resulted from the union of the two natures, not so willingly by the term which at a subsequent period became dominant, "one person"—ev irpoaamov, but rather by the term "one essence," "one indissoluble substance or existence" (/iia <pvai<i). Not as though he confounded <\>v<tk and irpoa<cnrov, or treated them as synonymous terms, but because it is characteristic of him to treats the unity of natures in Christ as a substantial physical unity; J and further, especially because, instead of conceding to the human aspect of the Person of Christ an existence of its own, he regarded it as a mere congeries of real attributes appropriated by the Logos to Himself, and thus incorporated with His substance or tpvaK. Christ is simply God, that is, God with us (Immanuel), God physically united with a part of the world; and, so far as it is included in the one Person of Christ, humanity is a mere attribute or predicate of God.

Considering the matter, however, in connection with the development of the Church and its dogma, much may be said in favour of Cyrill; and we find that his fault was principally that of too tenaciously clinging to the vagueness of expression and thought which prevailed at an earlier period, without its defectiveness being felt,—treating it as though it were perfect and satisfactory, and setting himself in opposition to those who demanded that the unity should be more accurately defined, and the rationale thereof be more distinctly exhibited. The consequence thereof to himself was, that that earlier indefiniteness, which rather called for, than excluded, greater clearness, settled down into an obstinate and decided partiality, and that his opposition to Nestorianism, however justifiable in one respect, fell far short of effecting the recognition of the element of truth which it certainly asserted.

¹ Ep. ad Acao. p. 116: Prior to the incarnation there were two $wm(, one K/koukoii, not two. Ep. 4, Cyrilli ad Nestor, p. 23 f.: In the incarnation there was not an (iiuais rav -z-poau'xav, but an ivaais xxlf ivoarxcm. The result, according to Ep. ad Monachos Aeg. p. 9, is, i»6ms <Pvoixii; according to Ep. ad Acac. p. 115, y.ix tpveif.

Let us first direct our attention to Cyrill's polemic against the Christology of Nestorius, and then to the view entertained by himself. He was above all opposed to the Nestorian "conjunction" (avva<peia). He considered that it left the Son of God, and man, separate from, and outside of, each other, only combining them mechanically, so that erepos was iv erepa>.¹ In the system of Nestorius, says he, there is no trace whatever of such an union as is required: he resolves the saying, "The Logos became flesh," into a mere juxtaposition of two beings, God and man. He represents the human aspect as in possession of such a degree of independence, and the two natures as continuing so foreign to each other, that we ought logically to assume the existence of two IBiKai xriro<rraaeis or irp6aanra (p. 725 1. c.); that the Son of God must be regarded as little more than a mere guest of this man's (irpo^evos, irapaKOfiunrjs); and that there only remained certain relations and connections between the two (ayerucq avvdfeia, p. 730). If the Son of God did not make humanity really His own, he argues, then His relations thereto cannot have been other than merely external; and Christ the man was a Son merely by participation and adjudication (fiedeKriKws xal elaKeKpifievaxi). A thing, however, which is merely bestowed as a gift, or awarded, and does not naturally flow from the very inward nature of the being, may be afterwards lost: that which is conferred from without (to dvpadev iropurdlv) may be again taken away. The Nestorians affirm, indeed, that "they do not teach the existence of two Sons;" but the reason thereof is, that they term the Logos alone, a "Son by nature:" they also deny teaching that there are "two Christs;" but the explanation of this is, that they only designate the man, "Christ (anointed) by nature." They retain, notwithstanding, two centres. When they term Christ "Son," it is not <pvaei, but only diaei (yibs derbs): that is, He is nothing more than an adopted Son, who is held to partake of the Divine dignity and the Divine powers. But what sort of a son would he be? To worship a man, who stands in mere auvd<f>eia with God, is manifest idolatry: it would be equivalent to setting up a new God, ejecting the Logos from His position of supremacy, and compelling Him to give way to the man Christ, that eVepo?, were we to allow the adoptive son actually to share in the ¹ "De Incarn. Unig." 705.

worship due to the only-begotten Son. There would then be no real difference between Christ's nature and the sonship which becomes ours. The Nestorians try, it is true, to avoid the difficulty, by resorting to the use of the figure of dvacpopa. They say, namely, that even as a man Christ may be worshipped, if the worship be referred in thought to God, or to the Logos united with Christ. But this would be no worship of Christ. Nor can the mere avvdcpeia ever justify the worshipping of humanity. Even marriage is more than avvi'upeia; for Paul says, " He that is wedded to the Lord is one Spirit" (1 Cor. vi. 17). And yet believers are not worshipped. The Nestorians wish to do away with the old recognised term evioais, although it by no means implies a confusion, but only a avvBpofirj of the divine and human. For we do not employ the term "unity" to designate merely that which is simple, or fiovoeiBes; but also that which is compounded of two, or even three elements. But the terms <ruvd<f>eLa and avvBeafibs, which the Nestorians retain, do not involve any closer relationship than that between master and pupil or assistant. J Cyrill then proceeds to adduce arguments drawn from the work of Christ. The Nestorians, he urges, cannot fairly speak of a humiliation: according to their teachings, the Logos continued as, and what, He was; to the man, on the contrary, ever more and more was given. The Son, therefore, instead of being a deliverer, was Himself ever more fully delivered from imperfection (p. 745). Save us He could not, merely as a man united with God, nor as a man like God (elBoiroirjdeh 0eo?, p. 730): He could only save us as God, becoming like us who are surrounded by danger (p. 744), and thus enabled to reach us (p. 753). A God somewhat resembling God, would be ©eo? Tfrev8d>wfio<;, vlbs ei<nrolrjTOs, v6do<; inrofio\ifialos. Inasmuch as, according to Nestorius, the Logos received nothing, and did not even undergo humiliation, the sufferings of Christ were merely those of a man, and therefore did not possess infinite value (p. 760 ff.). Further, how could Christ be called our Head on the ground of His being God-man, and communicate to us the divine life, if the Logos did not really become man? In short, the entire system of Nestorius was the fruit of mental incapacity to fathom and grasp the depth of the Divine mystery (p. 744). Cyrill used most bitterness, however, when referring to the nullification of the fundamental idea of the incarnation, to which he supposed the teachings of his opponent to lead. He asks (p. 750), "How do those men account for the circumstance of the Word of God being called man?" They answer, For the same reason that Jesus was called a Nazarene, because He dwelt in Nazareth. They regard Christ, therefore, as an avdpwiroiro\fri)<;, as belonging to a man (avdpa>iraio<;), but not as a man in Himself. But Christ could not be styled man merely because He inhabited a man, any more than He could have been called Nazareth because He dwelt in that city. The Father and the Son dwell also in other men, but are not, on that ground, termed man. And when Nestorius teaches that Christ differed from believers and prophets in that He was full of the Holy Spirit from His very birth, He posits merely a quantitative, not a qualitative distinction. Only when the Logos became really man, did the principle of universality, the central divine principle, become actually a part of the world (p. 700).¹

From the character of his controversy with Nestorius, we see at once the point in which Cyrill was especially interested. He maintains that in Christ God is present with men, and has actually become part of the world; and that, as He allows human nature to share in all that is His, so He participates in all that is ours. A favourite expression of his is, "Christ is Immanuel, God with us." He was led to take this course mainly by a warm interest in religion: he was anxious that the marvellous love of God, manifested in the incarnation, should not suffer the least diminution of its glory, but that it should be comprehended in its entire depth. Undeniable is it that he had a far clearer perception of the greatness and importance of the problem in its religious aspect, than the Antiocheians, nay, even than Apollinaris himself. He regarded Christ, above all, as a gift of God to humanity, not merely as the example or type of a man who is like God: in his view, Christ was not merely endowed with the power of communicating an immortal life in the future, by way of reward for His virtue, but was by nature filled with Divine powers of salvation. His ability to save did not arise from the Logos as such, but from that real participation in

¹ Other passages touching on this mystical aspect are, "de Inc. Unig." 690, 692, 693, 698, 700, 704; Dial. ix. 723, 744, 761, 764; "Ep. ad. Mon. Aeg." p. 18.

the Divine power of the Logos, to which humanity attained through Him. The main object was not simply to make the invisible Logos visible, and to exhibit Him to man. That would have been mere teaching, and the mere semblance of an incarnation (de Incarn. Unig. 690 ff., 702, 705-707). Eather was the Logos under the necessity of becoming actually man—of entering into complete and vital fellowship with human nature, inasmuch as His mission was, to bestow both immortality on the body, and righteousness on the soul. He effected both by becoming our brother according to the flesh, and by communicating to our nature, primarily in His own Person, quickening and sanctifying powers: thus also did He secure in His humanity, an organ through which He was able to act upon the whole of mankind, as upon that which was essentially like Himself. In order, however, to his being able to bestow on His own humanity, and through His own humanity on ours, a share in His divine nature, it was before all things necessary that He should participate in our nature—not in a glorified and perfected humanity, but in humanity as it is, with the exception of sin. Nor was it possible for Him to appropriate humanity to Himself, without in turn communicating Himself to humanity: one is the condition of the other. Only when both are realized together, do we gain a real view of that loving will of the Logos which is mighty to save, and which enters into true and complete fellowship with us, in order to lead us to fellowship with God. Cyrill regarded | the incarnation as the interpenetration, the mutual permeation of / the two things above referred to—of the appropriation of our nature (oiwohto, lBunroirjai<;, l. c. 704, 707, 712, T. v. 2), and the communication of His (Koivoiroielv, p. 711). In the one Person of Christ, both things were effected: the Son of God appropriated the human to Himself, and communicated Himself to man. That which is written concerning Christ in the New Testament does not apply to the one nature or to the other, by itself; but to His entire Person in its unity. For when the one Son of God became incarnate, He desired to call everything His—both human and divine—weariness, hunger, learning, praying (l. c. 758). All that is said concerning Christ's human nature,—as, for example, that He was born, suffered, rose from the dead, was exalted,—must be referred to His divine nature; and that especially, because the Son of God alone was the

subject in which the attributes of the Person of Christ inhered. What we ought to say, therefore, is this: He who, in the first instance, was born of God, was, in the second instance, born of the seed of David (p. 696); and of one and the same being! we predicate alike eternal existence and death (p. 727 conf.l 726), yea, even the anointing with the Holy Ghost. Could the Son of God not be said to have been born, had Mary not given birth to Him, the Incarnate One, but only to a man, there would have been in fact no real incarnation. But if we are forbidden to deny that the Son of God was born, we are equally forbidden to deny that He suffered, or to represent His Godhead as a stranger to suffering (p. 775 ff.).¹

On the other hand, however, the Logos constituted His humanity a partaker of Divine glory: divinity became the actual possession of human nature (Dial. 8, l. c. 706, 707; Dial. 9, p. 749). Miracles, for example, were worked not by the Father, or by the Logos, alone, but by the incarnate Son of God. He animated the humanity which He had appropriated and made one aspect of Himself, with Divine, vitalizing power. His humanity is now the organ through which He communicates His Spirit: He is our Life, not merely as God, or by means of the Holy Spirit, but by giving us for food His own exalted humanity (iBearrjv irapajidrjai Ttjv avaj<f>deiaav <f>vaiv, p. 707).

What we have just advanced brings to view mainly the religious roots of his Christology: it exhibits to us, also, as the general image resulting from his Christological inquiries, the actual living manifestation in Jesus of the loving will of the Logos, who seeks by participation and communication to establish the closest and most complete interchange between Himself and the human race. In this participation and communication, the Logos is conceived by him as from the commencement the only active agent. In Cyrill's system, no significance at

¹ Only with regard to the words, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" was he willing to allow that they did not directly refer to the incarnate Son of God (p. 755). Nor were even the Nestorians disposed to attribute them to despondency, or the alienation of God; the words were therefore held to have a deep mystical significance. Christ cried out thus in our stead, as the second Adam. As one of ourselves, He uttered the words for the whole of human nature.

taches to the man Jesus as such, either as an end in Himself, or as a mundane good, as was the case in that of Theodore of Mopsuestia: but the human nature is simply the instrument employed by the Logos for the manifestation of His love; and it became capable of discharging this function, in consequence of His appropriation of its weaknesses, and of His communication of His Divine powers.

But, however right it may be to consider the incarnation as the unity of Divine participation and communication, it is not enough merely to postulate the combination and mutual interpenetration of these two activities;—we must show how the two constitute a real Christology, especially as it is by no means self-evident that they can be thus conjoined. For if the deity of the Logos communicates its own attributes, nay more, its very self, to the human nature of Christ, Christ's humanity would seem to be thus raised above all imperfection and every possibility of suffering; consequently, it is mere pretence to represent the Son as appropriating these characteristics of humanity. On the other hand, if the Logos did really assume these -irddT), So that the finite imperfections, which form part of human nature as it actually is, became really His attributes, how was it possible that He, being thus emptied of His Divine power, should communicate it to humanity? That personal relation of love, into which the Logos seeks to enter with us, demands, it is true, both participation and communication, yet the one seems to be incompatible with the other; and that both should be effected in conjunction, seems a sheer impossibility.

Now, how far did Cyrill aid in the solution of this antinomy? He felt deeply the difficulty of the problem; but, rather than follow the example of Nestorius, and do away with it, he preferred falling back on the assertion that it is an absolute mystery and miracle.¹ Such is his procedure in innumerable passages. This was not, however, all that he did; for he put forth honest and diligent efforts to arrive at a solution.

In endeavouring to show clearly and intelligibly how it was possible for the Son of God to appropriate to Himself human passibility and finiteness, the thought would readily suggest itself, that the Logos emptied Himself of His glory; and, having thus resigned the divinity, whose possession was incoin¹ Homil. xvii., p. 227.

patible with human finiteness, was able to appear in the form of a servant. We have already repeatedly met with this idea; and Cyrill gave it his careful attention, but it failed to gain his approval.¹ He discusses two forms of the thought:—I. According to some, the Son left all His divine attributes (or His divine natnre) behind Him in heaven, and did not bring them to the earth; His divine Personality, on the contrary, was on earth \ as Immanuel, and not in heaven. On this view, the only bond between the Logos and humanity would be the hypostasis of the former without the divine nature: His personality alone, and not His divine essence, would be united with man.² Cyrill was unable to adopt this theory, because he attached quite as great importance to the communication of the divine nature, as to its participation in humanity. He raised also the objection, that hypostasis and nature cannot thus be separated from each other,—that the divine nature of the Son could not be so limited as to be unable to be on earth at the same time that it was in heaven. He disapproved, also, of representing the Logos as mutable, in so far as He could pass hypostatically out of the sphere of the divine, into that of the mundane, without at the same time continuing in the former. II. The other form of the doctrine of the self-abasement of the Logos, represented not only His hypostasis or person, but also His divine essence, as passing out of the divine world of infinitude, which was unfitted for the accomplishment of an incarnation, into the world of finitude, and the Kevwais as extending both to person and nature: the divine nature was thus circumscribed, and made appropriable (olarrj) by human nature.³ Cyrill, reasoning that if the Deity of the Son were curtailed, as it was represented to be, at all events, for a time, He was reduced to the .position of a subordinate cosmical being, characterized the conception as heathenish, and as akin to Arianism, which also spoke of a divine element existing apart from God.

¹ Adv. Anthropomorphitas, L. i. c. 18.

* L. c. c. 19.

Since, then, Cyrill refused to base the possibility of the appropriation of human nature by the Son of God on the conversion or transformation of the Son Himself into a finite nature; since, further, it is quite as impossible to show that Cyrill, like Apollinaris, supposed humanity or finiteness to be an eternal attribute or determination of the Logos Himself; how could he maintain that the Logos had constituted humanity a determination of His own being?

Special difficulties arose in CyrilPs way from the prevailing conception of God, to the ethical element of which had not been secured due preponderance over the physical, even in the system of a man like Theodore, who attached such great importance to the ethical. In order to escape from the charge made by the school of Antioch, of representing God, after the manner of the heathen, as physical and passible,—a charge founded on his appropriation of the human to God by means of the Logos,—Cyrill declared most emphatically that he conceived the divine and human as separated from each other by an infinite gulf; and the expressions which he employs in doing so, are scarcely a whit less strong than those of the Antiocheians. He speaks of an aviaos, dvofioios, erepa <f>vai<; of God and man (T. v. 2, p. 688). Nay more, he says God is essentially immutable— incapable of change, incapable of suffering (T. v. 2, 683, 743, 744; Dialog, de Trin. T. vi. 625). It is as impossible for the divine nature to resign its stability and immutability, as it is for human nature to leap or be transformed into the divine. God, as to His essence, is uncircumscribed, without shape or form, without substance or quantity, and therefore essentially different from us. Omnipresence belongs to His nature; and God can no more be circumscribed by humanity, than humanity can possess omnipresence. The two natures being thus defined, man and God would seem to be necessarily exclusive of each other; and a real appropriation of humanity by the Son, or real participation of humanity in the Deity, would seem to be an impossibility. If God is by nature, and essentially, incapable of suffering, how can He take upon Himself human sufferings? If He is unchangeable, how can He become flesh? If God is essentially unlimited, how can He so subject Himself to the limitations of the humanity of Christ, as in Him to be really with us t In fine, if He be in essence altogether different from

P. 2.—VOL. I. E

man, how is an appropriation of the human possible to Him, or a participation in the divine possible to us 1 Or is Nestorius right when he writes to Cyrill—" Cyrill deserves praise for distinguishing the two natures, and confessing that the Godhead cannot undergo suffering. He thus follows in the steps of the Council of Nicsea, which acknowledged an incarnation, but did not allow that God suffered, or that the Son of God was born of Mary. At the same time, however, all else that he says is inconsistent therewith, unless his words have some hidden wise meaning; and whether that be the case or no, must be left to him to declare. At one time, he says that God cannot suffer or be born; afterwards he declares that He did suffer and was born, as though every attribute essentially belonging to the Son of God were suddenly destroyed by His assumption of flesh. Cyrill therefore is an innovator, and carries the idea of appropriation too far."

But Cyrill did not at all allow himself to be thus imposed upon. He answered,—As far as our power of comprehension is concerned, the divine and human natures cannot be made to constitute a physical or natural unity (aavfifiara ei? evwaiv tpvauoqv). Notwithstanding, both were united, and that most intimately (atppaaros av/iir\oKrj, avvoBos, avvBpofif), fj avmrdra > hnoais). (Note 12.) The result was not, it is true, that the natures became one and the same: the natures, in point of number, were not one, but two; and yet they were so united, that though we distinguish between the two, they are no longer specifically different (IBiKrjv ereponp-a). We can no longer say that each stands by itself separate, but the thought of the one necessarily gives rise to the thought of the other (T. v. 2, p. 731 ff.). To attempt now to conceive of the one apart from the other, would be as perverse as for any one to represent the human body as a man in and by itself, or to say that a mother had brought forth a body, instead of, that she had brought forth a man. The one Son, who was <f>vaei God, should also be conceived as a man (Ep. ad Monach. p. 15). It is not, indeed, proper to designate Christ, a man who became God, but only, a God who has become man (T. v. 2, Homil. xvii. p. 231 f.). -When John says, "The Word became flesh," he refers, as indeed is the case with all that takes place in God, not to His essence and an alteration in it, but to His action, to His operations (Thesaur. Assert, xii.). The Logos underwent neither augmentation nor diminution through the incarnation: He remained impassive even in the midst of the sufferings to which through the flesh He was susceptible; He remained omniscient, despite the ignorance to which His humanity was subject; He remained also omnipresent apart from the flesh of Christ, and yet as to His entirety had become man.

From this it would seem as though Cyrill considered the inmost nature of the Logos to have remained entirely unaffected by the incarnation; humanity to have been a mere external "ascititium" of the Logos; and the union, after all, to have been no deeper than the superficial and inefficient one referred to when we say, that in Christ there was the divine nature, impassive, omniscient, and so forth, and alongside of it a human nature, subject to suffering, limited, and so forth. But Nestorius also granted that there was no ground for assuming the divine personality and nature to have been united with the human personality and nature. In order to understand him aright, however, we must remember that he supposes the Logos to have been the real subject in the Person of Christ: He who from eternity was an • hypostasis or person, and whose nature remained unchanged, assumed humanity in such a way that all attributes, the human as well as the divine, could be predicated of Him, and Him alone. For this reason, these attributes must not be ascribed to the human nature in Christ as to something specifically different from and external to the Logos; but the Logos made them His own, in addition to those which originally belonged to Him. But when a specific human nature was spoken of as the vehicle and bearer of these human attributes subsequently to the incarnation, Cyrill considered the miracle of the incarnation to be either depreciated or altogether denied. He eschewed the notion of the human nature having any personal centre of its own: to him, it was merely the periphery of the divine centre, which was its sole real point of unity. It had, therefore, no independent substance: the divine substance had taken the place of the human; and the human nature continued to subsist merely in the form of a congeries of accidents, held together solely by the Logos as their centre. The human nature of Christ never had an independent centre of unity; and, therefore, there was no need for its being absorbed: from the very commencement the human nature was brought into existence and constituted by the Logos alone. Strictly speaking, therefore, Cyrill's system taught no such thing as a transformation or transubstantiation of the human into the divine substance: it might, however, allow of an /^substantiation as well as an ffit-hypostatization of human nature in the Logos. The incarnation having taken place, flesh became a determination or attribute of the Logos Himself as the sole personal subject; it became one of His qualities, apart from which no conception may be formed of Him—it is now physically, naturally His (Dial. 9, p. 770). The Logos and humanity constitute, accordingly, one nature (fiia <f>vai<;): an evcoai<; <f>vaiKrj is thus established; and without the loss of His original and peculiar attributes, He has appropriated also human attributes, which, inasmuch as He is their personal subject or centre, cannot but be regarded by Him as His own.

Now, although what has been advanced shows very clearly that Cyrill discriminated himself cardinally from the school of Antioch, by laying stress on the unity of the person, and even of the nature, of Christ, and by his assertion of the oi/te>Wt? of human attributes by the Logos, nothing was done in the way of answer to the question, "How was it possible for the Logos to appropriate to Himself human attributes in addition to His own infinite divine attributes?" And having failed to show how these opposite attributes could be united in one and the same person, the apparently inevitable dissolution of the unity of the person could not be prevented, by conjoining them in paradoxical propositions.

Cyrill did try to render some service ih this direction; but, as we have said, without making himself master of the ethical conception of God.

In the judgment of Cyrill, the will of the Logos was the ultimate ground of His ability to assume human nature, its capacity of suffering, and so forth. Now, although tlns will is considered by him rather from the point of view of mere power than from that of almighty love, still the notion of an ability of the Logos to determine His own nature is involved therein. By the action of this will, the divine nature was made endurable by the human (otVn;, Homil. p. 230,l. c. 736, 737) (a). The (a) See Note B, Appendix II.

position thus taken implies that the Logos, at all events in His actuality, subjected Himself to limitations, in order that He might be able to assume human nature as human nature in the true sense, and as exposed to suffering. He did not, however, advance far enough to see that the unchangeableness and the inmost essence of the Logos are love, which remains unaltered, even though it express itself in acts of self-abasement. On the contrary, he dissociates the participation in finitude and the communication of the Godhead, each of which is incompatible with the other so soon as both are represented as being fully realized at one and the same time; supposes that at the beginning the divine participated in the human, but that the human ( did not at the same time participate completely in the divine; and in this way leaves room for a human development. ThiV leads us to the second moment of Cyrill's view of the incarnation; namely, the communication of the Deity to the humanity of Christ. Cyrill will not, indeed, have us say that the humanity of Christ grew and increased (Hom. xvii. 230). That would be ascribing to it too great independence. And yet he does not by any means wish to detract from its reality and truth by the communication of the Divine attributes.¹ The Logos, he conceives, appropriated human nature in the form which it naturally takes at the various stages, and in the various circumstances, of its life. Cyrill repeatedly denies that the Son of God effected any transmutation of the human into the divine, or any identification of the two. The human nature, although nothing in comparison with the divine, was not dissipated by the latter; but the divine made the human nature immediately its own (a/ieaa}s IBla, Dial. 9, p. 776), as that human nature existed in, and was given by, the Virgin; the Logos appropriated it to Himself, with its measures, laws, and relations (Hom. xvii. p. 227). To this connection belongs the expression quoted above, "The divine nature made itself endurable by human nature" (l. c. 736, v. Hom. xvii. 230); which does not signify that human nature was endowed or anointed with the power to receive the divine, but refers to that act of the Logos by which He, as it were, extinguished or dimmed His rays, and did not allow His Divine essence to have free course. Although

¹ The human nature ov iaveenArui, imxXiirrcTai by the divine: l. c. 736, 737.

the Logos participated in human weakness in order to raise it to His own strength, yet He communicated Himself to human nature only within the limits which must have been recognised by Him as binding when He resolved on an incarnation. This he expresses as follows:—When the Logos assumed human nature, He allowed the laws thereof to exercise a certain power over Himself.¹ From this point he ought to have been led logically to the doctrine of a gradually fuller informing of the divine nature in the human—to the recognition of the dependence of the communication of the Divine attributes on the laws of a true human (moral) development, as well as of the dependence of the entire divine nature in its actuality, on the ethical will of the Logos. In that case, the incarnation could not have been considered to have been at once completely realized by a mere act of will on the part of the Logos, but must have been represented as dependent on the continuous volition of the Son of God. Here again, however, Cyrill was unable to escape from the circle of physical ideas within which he moved. He does, indeed, represent the union of the Logos with the congeries of human attributes as originating in His evBoKia, in His love; but he also represents the volitional process as being brought at once to a termination in a naturation (Naturirung), in a physical result,— that is, in the ewoat? ^>vaiKrj, which, in his view, was by no means merely an evcoais T&v <f}vaea>v, but a union which had become actually, veritably, the nature or essence. In this way alone did he consider the indissolubleness of the unio to be made certain.²

Had Cyrill regarded the incarnation under the aspect of an actual and continuous process, it would have been possible for him to concede not only the initiatory imperfection of the human, and of its appropriation by the Logos, but also that the divine was communicated to, and united itself with humanity, in ever increasing measure. Plainly, however, the humanity of Christ could not then have been conceived as

¹ 'H$iti roi; fiirpoi; rij{ xvipuiroTriTO; «$' ixvry ri xpxnh. Dial. 9, p. 760.

² L. c. p. 738:—Whatever is not based on physical laws (qvmkou ipiptairxi n6fioi{), leaves room for fear that it may again be lost. P. 705: —The Logos was not put into man as from without; He was not hipo; in Mpif, l^uiai iyxiKpiftino;, but 0ivt i irptoun (Dial. 9, pp. 745, 770).

impersonal or selfless, as a mere attribute of the incarnate Logos without immanent laws of development of its own, and without freedom. For the realization of the object towards which his efforts were directed, Cyrill needed exactly that element of truth which was maintained by Nestorius, but overlooked by himself. He fancied that the incarnation was the more worthily estimated the more exclusively it was regarded as the sole act of God; forgetting that the Logos would have served no end by His act of incarnation if He had not posited an actual man, the true man, who, whilst man, is at the same time God, and not a mere opyavov of God, whatever ingenuity and similarity to man might characterize its system of powers or susceptibilities.¹ Cyrill's experience thus teaches us very forcibly, that, whatever may be its fervour and depth, the religious view of the Person of Christ must fail to arrive at definite results, as long as it undervalues the ethical, the volitional, aspect, in comparison with the <f>vai<;. To this lack may be traced Cyrill's continued vacillation, and the antagonistic opinions expressed by him,— antagonisms which he hoped, but in vain, to bridge over by means of analogies drawn from the natural world. For example, he says, in reference to the formula (which, be it observed, is not to be understood docetically) airaJ9S><; eiradevj "As fire may be incorporated with a substance—for example,' with iron—and yet, when the iron is struck, the fire does not suffer, so also the Godhead did not suffer."² If this comparison proved anything, it proved that the divine and human might interpenetrate each other without having everything in common. It is, therefore, quite as much a Nestorian comparison as anything else; for, as to the main point,—that is, the attribution of suffering also to the Son of God, to a common centre of consciousness, and without detriment to the Divine dignity and unchangeableness of the Logos,—it is decidedly defective. Such an attribution is only possible when the ethical—that is, love—is conceived to constitute the essence and the glory of

¹ He avails himself most readily of words of the neuter gender for the designation of the natures, specially of the human nature; for example, -rfiyuarx. Compare Ep. ad Monach. p. 9; De incarn. Unig. 700, 708, 713.

2 L. c. 776.

the Logos, which remains unalterably the same, not only notwithstanding, but even through, His participation in human nature. The same remark may be made respecting his attempt to reconcile the abiding omnipresence of the Logos with His extraordinary and exceptional presence in Christ. He makes use of the comparison of light, which, on the one hand, is accumulated in the luminous body of the sun, and yet, on the other hand, diffuses its rays throughout infinitude.¹ But, however striking may be the conception of Christ, as the central organ of the light and the life of the world, subsequently advanced, he fails to show how it rhymes with what he elsewhere teaches regarding the essential and necessary omnipresence of the divine nature. In order to show that God might be present in Christ in an exceptional manner, notwithstanding His omnipresence, he ought to have advanced beyond that physical omnipresence which is a natural necessity, to the ethical aspect of God's essence, which cannot be subject to the natural necessity of being everywhere present alike, but which has power over the natural aspect of the Divine Being. To his mind, the Antiocheian formula, "It was God's good pleasure that the fulness of the Deity should dwell in Christ bodily," did not exclude the possibility of a severation of the Logos from humanity, and represented the whole too exclusively as resting on a mere act of will, and not as firmly rooted and grounded in the very being (Sein): the course was therefore open to him to treat the ethical in the light of a substance, as constituting the true and innermost nature of God. Had he taken this course, he might have assumed, after the manner of Apollinaris, the existence in the very nature of God of an eternal tendency to incarnation. But nothing whatever justified him in his simple exclusion of the type of doctrine adopted by the school of Antioch; and he himself experienced the evil results of his conduct in this respect.

Cyrill justly rejects an unio which aims merely at a kind of interpenetrative consociation of two natures which are inwardly external, the one to the other (mechanical unio); or which merely comprehends the two under one name and title; or which consists in the mere relatedness of two natures which continue separate and distinct (a^iaK, &&>at? a^eruc^). He ¹ Adv. Anthropomorph. L. I. c. 18.

nevertheless does manifold injustice to Nestorius, not only by undervaluing the ethical element, but also by attributing to him views which he had no intention of holding; as, for example, Arianism, the theory of two Sons, and a denial of the incarnation. If an unsatisfactory solution be the denial of a problem, Cyrill was in the same position as Nestorius, although in an opposite direction. Not an ethical, but primarily a physical, Christology, was the result of his inquiries; for, according to his representations, the incarnation was, strictly speaking, accomplished as soon as the Logos had appropriated the human, and made it an actual modification of Himself, so soon as the human became physically insubstantiated with the divine. From that time onwards, the human aspect pursued no longer even a relatively independent course, although the Logos during His mundane existence was mindful of, and regulated His selfrepresentation according to, human laws. On his view, therefore, Christ was simply God with the appearance of a man, but not a real man: and, consequently, He did not arrive at a real incarnation of God. Several of the images employed by him (for example, those of fire and iron, wine and water), show undoubtedly that he aspired beyond the mechanical, to the dynamical, view of the union of the divine and human in Christ. But his images still bear a chemical character: he was still far from the moral dynamical, and took a view of the process of redemption which savoured not a little of the physical. In this respect, the school of Antioch represented an element of truth which Cyrill lacked. Its representation was unquestionably an imperfect one, for it had no clear knowledge of the metaphysical, ontological character of the ethical, of love; and therefore the Antiocheian Christology seemed to Cyrill to be built in the air, to be destitute of the "physical (<pvai<;) basis."

Scientifically regarded, therefore, both tendencies are substantially the same. Both were an advance on Docetism and the older doctrine of the Logos, inasmuch as they treated the appearance of Christ not merely as a means of teaching and revealing truths, but as a new reality. More closely considered, Cyrill's strength lay in the religious view he took of Christology, as the redemptive act of God, which brought not merely a system of doctrines, but an actual reality. His view of this reality, however, lacked the necessary ethical character. God incarnate was held to have overcome the foes of man by His might; a representation which leads further to an unethical conception of sin. Evil is set forth more in the light of a curse, or of a foreign deadly power which holds sway over man, than as personal guilt. On this subjective moral aspect, the school of Antioch laid stress: it rightly perceived that in ethical matters nothing can be decided by mere power. Hence also did it disapprove of any theory of deliverance which savoured of the magical; holding that man himself must personally co-operate in his redemption. Apart from the future, it was especially as an example, as a moral prototype, that the school of Antioch considered Christ to be its Redeemer. Starting with this distinction, we may say that Cyrill was content rather with the view of the gift of God in its entirety, with the unity of the Person of Christ; whereas the school of Antioch fixed the unity whilst it was in progress towards completion, stamped with permanence the very process by which the unity was effected.

Taking a survey of this state of matters, it is impossible not to confess that these antagonisms were destined to be mutually complementary, that neither of them without the other could realize the object at which it aimed. The one found in Christ, it is true, a marvellous work of God, but failed to discern that ethical character from which it derived its true value; the other found, it is true, an ethical reality, but under such a form that religious- contemplation was unable to dwell upon it as upon a veritable act of God, and a true unity. It is greatly to be regretted, therefore, that foreign and alien influences should have introduced perturbations into the course of the Church's development, and hindered the interpenetration and union of elements which belonged to and complemented each other; above all, that impatience should have driven Synods on to precipitate conclusions—Synods which were swayed more by subjective and political considerations than by the true spirit of the Church, and which resulted rather in hollow treaties and concessions, than in mutual understanding.¹

¹ As the following narrative of the history of the dogma is composed nnder the conviction that the Council of Chalcedon had neither an internal nor an external vocation to form a positive decision, which was in reality premature and unsatisfactory, this will be the proper place for justifying

In the first instance, Cyrill, leagued with Coelestine of Rome, retained the upper hand of the Patriarch of Constantinople, at the Council of Ephesus, in the year 431. The chief reason thereof, apart from the intrigues of Cyrill, the weakness of the Emperor, and other considerations well known in ecclesiastical history, was, that Cyrill's view undoubtedly more carefully preserved the marvellous act of God, and the mystery of the incarnation, and that it was more fitted to enkindle a warm interest in the mass of the people and the monks, who attached no importance to clear conceptions, than the representation of Nestorius, which, whilst more modest, was also less capable of affecting the religious feelings. But, notwithstanding the great power and authority exerted by Cyrill, the Council of Ephesus consented neither to draw up a confession of faith of its own, nor to endorse Cyrill's anathemas. Even after Cyrill's victory over the person of Nestorius, the Eastern Church was so far from coinciding in his doctrine of one nature after the incarnation, that he found himself compelled, either for the sake of keeping peace with the Emperor, or because, for the time, nothing more could be attained, to subscribe the so-called Oriental Confession of Faith, which John of Antioch, in the name of the Eastern Church, presented to the Emperor at Ephesus. This confession contained the milder form of doctrine which, whether for the sake of peace, or from want of dogmatical acuteness, had been accepted by the mass of Oriental bishops (Note 13).

In the course of these later negotiations between Antioch and Alexandria, the terminology—" two natures, but one person" (v7ro<7ra<u?)—was already being adopted. This expression, however, was adequate only to the position assumed by the later and more moderate adherents of the school of Antioch. Cyrill, on the contrary, as is clear from the Epistle to Acacius, employed these terms in an unusual sense. He took them, namely, to imply, that even subsequent to the incarnation, one may speak in abstracto (emvoLa) of two natures, and may employ double (pwvas, although in reality there was only fiia <pvav;, to wit, that of the incarnate Son. The formula of concord, therefore, instead of removing, merely concealed, the antago

that conviction by details of the manner in which the decrees of Chalcedon were arrived at.

nism, which was destined soon enough to break out again. Each party regarded itself as the victor: Cyrill, because Nestorius had been condemned, and because he himself had not accepted the Oriental Confession without persisting, for his own part, in his anathemas: the Orientals, because Cyrill appeared to have conceded the two natures, and the application to them of the declarations of the New Testament; that is, he appeared to have granted that the two natures still existed after the incarnation. But Cyrill was as far from conceding the latter as the Orientals were from conceding the fila <f>vais, when they joined Cyrill in condemning Nestorius. The term deoroKos they allowed to pass; not, however, as signifying that the Person of the Logos had been born of Mary, but merely, that on account of the connection or relation into which the Logos entered with humanity, that which, strictly speaking, concerned the latter alone, because predicable also of the former, so far as He constituted the personal element in Christ. The moderate Antiocheians, of whom Theodoret was the type, were undoubtedly distinguished from the older followers of that school, in that they more decidedly ceased to count the personality as belonging to the natures as such; and by not only objecting to a double personality, but even inclining to regard the personality of the Logos predominantly as the personal centre of Christ. How they could, notwithstanding, so persistently keep aloof from Cyrill, and assume a double series of spiritual actions, both subsequently to the incarnation, and without a human subject, is another question, which will again come under consideration at a later opportunity.

The Nestorians, repelled and persecuted by the Council of Ephesus and the party of Cyrill, formed at the eastern confines of the Empire, in Edessa, Nisibis, and Seleucia, a kind of missionary Church for the interior of Asia, extending their labours especially from Chaldaea and Assyria towards Persia. At their head were teachers of note, such as Ibas, Maris, and Barsumas, who were the means of propagating a zealous study of the Scripture. Under Persian protection, they obtained an ecclesiastical organization of their own, and continued divided from the great body of the Church, under a patriarch (Catholicos), as a special schismatical Church party. This was the first party which the Church showed itself incapable of overcoming—an incapability arising from its neglecting either to appropriate, or to evolve from itself the element of truth of which the party was the representative. For the same reason, at a later period, fresh attempts were repeatedly made, in the very bosom of the Church, to bring about a recognition of the fundamental thought of Nestorianism, which was, that Christ possessed a true human nature with a true personal self (Note 14).

In the West, the Gallic monk Leporius gave in his adherence to Nestorius, but was persuaded by Augustine to retract. He then accepted merely an incarnation of the person, but not of the nature, of the Logos: of the latter he conceived the Logos emptied Himself in order to become man. Neither Augustine nor Ambrose (de Incarn.) developed any productiveness worthy of mention in connection with the present dogma. The former effected the introduction of the formula, "Two natures in one person," into the West before the time of Leo (Note 15). Augustine was less successful than with Leporius in his contest with Julian of Erlanum, who also directed his attention to Christology. The discussion started with anthropology, and revolved around the question, How are we to conceive of the impeccability of Christ? Augustine maintained that there could have been no concupiscentia in Christ, for that were sin. It was not enough that Christ fulfilled the command, ¹¹ Walk not after the lusts of thine own heart;" He also fulfilled that other, " Thou shalt not lust." From these evil lusts He was freed by being born of a virgin. Julian objected, that this was confounding the ethical with the physical. If it was not actually possible for Christ to lust, He owed His virtue to a natural inability to feel as we feel. In this case the power, nay more, even the reality of His example, would have disappeared; for they are grounded on the fact, that although born of the Virgin and united with the Son of God, He was exposed to temptations as we are, yet without sin, that is, without consenting to the temptations. Augustine says, urged Julian, that if lusts ever arose in Him, He was ipso facto a sinner, even though He might not suffer them to pass into action: but herein he does but confound the ethical with the physical. For, to assert that Christ could have been a sinner without consenting to evil, would be to assume the existence of an evil substance or nature, and to regard moral worth as independent of the free will. We are bound, therefore, to say, that the rising of lust within us is not itself sin, but merely the possibility of sin. But Augustine (so proceeds Julian), after the manner of Apollinaris, denies the existence of a free will in Christ, without which virtue is inconceivable, and furbishes Apollinarism, which the Church has rejected, with the Manichsean principle that there exists not only a moral but also a natural evil, and that, out of regard to His impeccability, we must assume the presence of a natural good in Christ. To say this, however, would be equivalent to saying that Christ did not take our nature (Note 16).

At first (de Nupt.) Augustine's views on the subject of concupiscentia were not quite fixed. His uncertainty was greatly due to the opinion, already prevailing, that chastity was a virtue of a higher order. The fact of Jerome's going almost as far, in his contest with Jovinian, as to throw the blame of sin on generation as such, because it is connected with lust, contributed also thereto. When considering the matter more closely, however, he distinguishes (Op. imp. L. v.) between the "motus" of the "natura sana," and those of the "natura vitiata." From the latter alone does he affirm that Christ is free; but, be it remarked, by nature free. When Julian urges, that in such a case Christ could neither be said to have virtue nor to be our example, he forgets that even God is an example to men. Christ bore a perfect resemblance to our nature, but not to its faults; otherwise He could not have healed them. Some, indeed, suppose that that is no virtue which does not stand where there is a possibility of sin; but this is equivalent to saying, that the more virtue one desires to exhibit the more libido must one feel (c. Jul. v. 15; Op. imp. iv. § 49). It is therefore false in Julian to impute to him (Augustine), in any sense, a denial of the true humanity of Christ: he only denies to Christ the deformities of human nature. Physically, it was possible for Christ to experience every kind of lust, as far as His humanity was concerned; but not necessary. He was also, it is true, Son of God. The righteousness of Christ, like ours, depended on the active assistance of God; and when Julian maintains that Christ's righteousness flowed from no difference between His nature and ours, but from the free act of His will, he proceeds as though he meant to deny the incarnation; for he seems to maintain that the righteousness of Christ owed nothing at all to the circumstance that the assumption of human nature by the Logos had constituted God and man one person (Note 17).

The question was thus brought to a point beyond which it could not advance in the then position of anthropology. The course taken by Augustine necessarily led to the denial of the freedom of Christ's will; and this denial alone enabled him to retain his hold on the incarnation, though it involved the sacrifice of the truth and reality of the human development of Christ. Julian, on the other hand, was anxious to assert for Christ freedom of will, and the possibility of temptation and sin; but failed to do it in such a way as enabled him to show that Christ could be more than a mere virtuous man, even the Godman. The overthrow of Pelagianism soon hid from view, even in the West, the defect of the Christology of Augustine just described, and strengthened the presumption (undoubtedly, for the most part, tacitly held), that the will of Christ was not free; or, where freedom was conceded in name, the possibility of actual temptation was denied.¹