The Incarnation
1. Fitness of the Incarnation
1. It is most suitable that the invisible things of God should be manifested by visible things. Creatures, as St. Paul says (Rom. 1:20), prove the existence, and show the attributes of God. But the Incarnation, the coming of God himself as man, most magnificently shows forth the divine perfections. For God to become man is a work of wondrous goodness, wisdom, justice, and power; these "invisible things of God" could not be more nobly manifested than they are in the Incarnation. Now, since goodness communicates itself and spreads itself abroad, it is fitting that Infinite Goodness should communicate itself in the most perfect manner, and it does so in the Incarnation. Therefore, it is supremely fitting that God should become man.
2. The Incarnation was necessary for man's salvation. It was not absolutely necessary, for God is almighty, and he could have restored fallen man in other ways. But it was relatively necessary, that is, necessary in relation to the need of bringing redemption to man in the most noble, effective, and admirable way. Consider the surpassing excellence of the Incarnation: (a) It advances man in virtue; it enlivens his faith; it strengthens his hope; it enkindles his charity; it shows man the perfect example for good works; it gives a human being an awareness of participating in the divine nature, for, as St. Augustine says (xiii de Temp.): "God was made man that man might be made God." (b) The Incarnation keeps man from evil; shows him his human nobility that makes him despise the devil; makes him aware of his dignity; makes him understand the degrading effect of sin; teaches him to look humbly to Christ and not to be presumptuous; instructs him in the heartening truth that the satisfaction made by God Incarnate releases him from slavery to sin. (c) No mere man could have made satisfaction for the whole race. Yet man owed the debt that had to be paid. Only God could pay the debt, and God did not owe it. Hence it was magnificently right that the payer of the debt, the Redeemer, should be both God and man.
3. Some have taught that God, in his boundless love for us, would have become man even if there had been no human sin and the consequent need of redemption. But this seems unlikely. All our knowledge on this point is from Holy Scripture, and scripture everywhere assigns man's sin as the reason for the Incarnation.
4. Christ who is God-made-Man, that is, God Incarnate, came to take away the evil effect of original sin, and to make it possible for man to get to heaven and so attain his true end. Christ came to give us all the means of getting rid of original sin, of obtaining pardon for actual sins, of gaining grace and staying free from actual sins. And therefore in scripture (John 1:29) Christ is called "the Lamb of God . . . who taketh away the sins of the world."
5. The time of the Incarnation was most suitable. Had God become man to redeem us immediately after the first sin was committed, human pride would not have been humbled in consequence of that sin; man would not have realized, through an impressive stretch of time, the greatness of the treasure he had lost. And it was good for man to prepare, by prayerful longing, for the redemption; thus he would gain a keen awareness of the value of redemption, and of his need for it, so that, when it came, he could ardently take advantage of it. On the other hand, it would not do to have the Incarnation too long delayed, lest human longing turn to hopelessness and despairing disappointment. Therefore, at exactly the right time, in the "fulness of time," as St. Paul says (Gal. 4:4), God became man.
6. The perfection of glory to which human nature will finally be raised by the Word Incarnate will appear when souls and bodies are united again at the end of the world in the time of the general judgment. Yet it could not be fitting to have the Incarnation deferred to that moment. For man needed remedy for sin, knowledge of God, reverence, good morals. And the Incarnation gave man these needed things: first, by hope and anticipation in those who lovingly awaited it, and then, by faith and devotion in those who actually experienced it in fact and in its fruits. None of these needed things would have come to man had the Incarnation been delayed to the end of the world. Hope and longing would have disappeared; the hearts of men would have grown cold.
2. The Union of the Word and the Flesh
1. The nature of a thing is its essence considered as the source of operations. And the essence of a thing is the basic make-up of the thing; its fundamental constitution in being and kind; it is what makes the thing what it is; it is what we express by a true and exact definition of the thing. And, as we have noted, the nature of a thing is this same essence regarded from the standpoint of what it does, or what it is for. Thus we say that man's essence, physically considered, is body and soul; man's nature is the human essence as capable of living, walking, talking, thinking, willing. Now, God's nature and essence are in all respects one and the same reality; this is because of God's perfect simplicity. And human nature (that is, the human essence with its faculties for operation, and notably its intellect and will) is a complete nature in its kind. God could not have become man by any fusion or mixing of the human nature and the divine nature; the nature of God is changeless and cannot be fused or mingled with another nature. Yet these two natures, the divine and the human, were not merely to be held side by side in an accidental union. There had to be a substantial union of God and man if God were to be incarnate. Since, as we see, the point or focus of this substantial union cannot be the natures themselves, we must seek that focus (that, precisely, in which the union took place) in the divine Person of the Son of God.
2. A person is an individual substance of rational nature, that is, equipped for understanding and willing. Whatever is to be attributed to such a being, is attributed to it in person. It is to the person of John Doe that we attribute his mind, his will, his hasty temper, his pleasant smile, his broken arm. Now, if human nature is not united to God in the Person of the divine Son, it is not united to the divine Son at all. Hence, we must conclude that the union of the two natures, divine and human, which we call the Incarnation, takes place in the Person of the Word of God, that is, of God the Son, the Second Person of the Eternal Trinity.
3. An individual substance with its own way of operating and acting is called a supposit or a hypostasis. Thus, a tree, or an animal, or a man, is a hypostasis. But the part of a substance (say, a man's arm), is indeed a substance, but it has not its own way of acting; the arm's acting is the acting of the man; if the arm be severed from the man, it does not continue (on its own, so to speak) to act as an arm. Hence, a hypostasis is a complete individual substance with its own way of acting. Now, when a hypostasis is equipped to act with understanding and free will, it is called a person. Therefore we say, "Person adds to hypostasis a determinate nature, namely the rational nature." It is manifest, then, that every person is a hypostasis, but not the other way round. Hence, a union in person must be a union in the hypostasis; else it could be a union only in point of some dignity, that is, an accidental and not a substantial union. But God actually became man. God therefore united human nature to the divine Nature in the Person or hypostasis of the Son. For this reason we call the union which made the Incarnation a fact by the name of "the hypostatic union."
4. St. John Damascene (De Fid. Orthodox, iii 3-5) says that in Christ we acknowledge two natures, but one hypostasis composed from both. This does not mean that there is any real composition or compounding in the simple divine Essence and Nature of the Son of God. It means that the Second Divine Person is now a Person in whom two natures subsist.
5. Since Christ is true man as well as true God, his human soul and human body are united substantially as these elements are united in any other man. But in Christ the substantial union of human body and human soul does not constitute a new hypostasis or person, but is substantially effected in the already existing Person of the Son of God.
6. The hypostatic union is a substantial union, not an accidental one; it is a union of two natures in one Person. If the union were only accidental, there would be two persons in Christ, whereas, in truth, there is only one Person, and that is the Person of the Eternal Word or Son. And if the union were such that the human nature would be absorbed completely into the divine Nature (were that possible), then Christ would not be true man; but he is true man as well as true God. Christ who is God Incarnate is one divine Person, subsisting with two substantially united but really distinct and unconfused natures, the nature of God and the nature of man.
7. Since God became man "in the fullness of time," the hypostatic union does not exist from eternity; it is the work or creation of God, and took place in time.
8. The Son of God assumed human nature in the Incarnation. This assumption of human nature is the divine action by which the hypostatic union of the two natures (that of God and that of man) was effected. Speaking precisely, then, the assumption is not the same as the union. For we can say, speaking of the union, either, "The divine Nature is united with the human nature," or "The human nature is united with the divine Nature." But, in speaking of the assumption, we refer that term to the divine Nature exclusively, and say that God assumed human nature; we cannot say that man assumed the divine Nature.
9. Because the hypostatic union is effected in the divine Person of the Son of God, it is the most excellent of unions.
10. It is correct to say that the hypostatic union took place by grace if we understand grace to mean the will of God doing what is well-pleasing to him, without any merit or deserving on the part of those for whose benefit it is done.
11. For the human race did not merit the redemption, nor the Incarnation which made the redemption possible. Says St. Paul (Titus 3:5): "Not by the works of justice which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us." It may be said that the holy men of old who longed prayerfully for the Redeemer, established, by their fidelity and devotion, a claim on God's mercy and love, and thus merited the Incarnation congruously. But no one, or all, of the human race could merit the Incarnation condignly under the title of justice, as something earned, and therefore owed to man.
12. Grace was natural to the human nature of Christ in the sense that it was in him from the beginning, from the very moment of the effecting of the hypostatic union. And by reason of this union there is in the human nature of Christ a perfect and untouchable sinlessness.
3. The Person Assuming Human Nature
1. It is fitting for a divine Person to assume human nature. In this there is no addition to the infinite God. The assumed human nature is perfected, not God who is infinitely and eternally all-perfect. Hence, in assuming human nature, a divine Person exercises a loving and merciful act, and is in no wise debased or dishonored. Hence, it is fitting for a divine Person to assume human nature.
2. Nor is there anything derogatory or unfitting to the divine Nature in the fact that a divine Person assumes human nature. For what is becoming to a divine Person is necessarily becoming to the undivided nature of God in that Person.
3. Even if we mentally focus on the divine Nature, leaving the Persons out of account, we can say that the divine Nature can fittingly assume another nature. There is no conflict or contradiction in the thought of such an assuming, and God is almighty in his divine Nature.
4. Since all the works of God's power are from the Trinity itself, the act of assuming human nature is common to the Three Persons. But the union resulting from this act is in only one divine Person, that is, the Person of the Divine Son.
5. Had it been the will of God (the undivided will of God in Trinity), the Father or the Holy Ghost might have become incarnate.
6. Indeed, the three Persons of the Trinity, who subsist in one divine Nature, could also subsist with one human nature, so that then the human nature would be assumed by the Three Divine Persons.
7. And there is no conflict or contradiction in the thought that one Person should assume a human nature distinct from the human nature assumed by the Son. Nor, indeed, is there contradiction in the thought that the Son should assume another human nature distinct from the one he did assume.
8. It is most fitting, however, that the Divine Son became man to redeem us, rather than the Father or the Holy Ghost. For the Son is the Word in whom is the exemplar of every creature. Now, as a craftsman restores his broken handiwork according to the original model or exemplar, so it is suitable that the restoration of God's broken human handiwork should be accomplished through and by the Son. Again, to make men the adoptive sons of God, it was suitable that God should "send his Son into the world." And, finally, since it was man's inordinate desire for knowledge that brought ruin on himself, it is fitting that the Word of True Knowledge should come to redeem him.
4. The Nature Assumed
1. It is most fitting that human nature was assumed by God. For human nature has the dignity of being rational; it was made to know and love God; it stood in need of redemption and therefore of the Incarnation. No other nature has these points of fitness for being assumed. Irrational natures lack dignity; the rational nature of the good angels is without the need for atonement, since they have not sinned; the rational nature of fallen angels is confirmed in unrepented sin, which makes atonement and redemption impossible. Of all created natures, only human nature presents the characteristics, qualities, and conditions that make the Incarnation perfectly suitable.
2. The Son of God assumed the nature of man, but not the person of a man. In Christ the human nature is hypostatically united to the divine Nature in the one Person of God the Son. Therefore, Christ is (by the human nature assumed), truly human, but he is not a human person. He is a divine Person. And that Person is the Second Person of the Trinity.
3. Christ is not a man assumed by God. He is not a man divinized by God's boundless power. He is God himself who has assumed, not a man, but the complete nature of man.
4. It has been foolishly asserted that the Son of God ought to have assumed human nature as such, in an abstract way, so that Christ would not have an individual human nature, and would be man, but not this man. Now, human nature is the nature of a bodily creature; such a creature cannot really exist except in an individual way, as this bodily thing. Hence, the Son of God took an individual human nature, and was born as a human individual of his Virgin Mother. St. John Damascene (De Fid. Orthodox, iii 11) says: "God the Word did not assume a nature that exists in thought alone . . . this would have been a false and fictitious Incarnation." Therefore, God the Son did not assume human nature as it is mentally conceived in the universal idea of man, that is, as separated from individuals. God became man, and God-made-Man is Christ, and Christ is this one man, and no other. And this one man is a divine Person, not a human person.
5. Certainly, it was not suitable that the Son of God should become incarnate in all human individuals. This would make the whole human race one divine Person. And this would be derogatory to the divine dignity. Besides, it would make the redemptive work of Christ both needless and impossible.
6. St. Augustine (De Trin. xiii 18) says that God could have assumed human nature otherwise than from Adam's race; yet he chose to assume it from that race, so that he might vanquish the enemy in the nature which the enemy had vanquished. The power of God is gloriously manifested in assuming a nature that was weakened and corrupted; to stand, in that nature, perfect in purity, power, and glory.
5. Elements of the Nature Assumed
1. The human body of Christ is a true human body, not merely an apparent body. The Son of God assumed true human nature, and to this nature a real body belongs. If the body of Christ were merely an apparent body, there would have been something fictitious in the work of redemption. For if Christ had not a real body, he could not really have died.
2. Christ's body, like every true human body, was composed of real flesh, bones, tissue, etc. It was not made of some incorruptible matter different from the structure of other human bodies.
3. And the Son of God becoming incarnate also assumed a true human soul. Without such a soul there is no human nature, and God assumed human nature,
4. To assume a human soul is to assume the faculties or powers of that soul. Hence, God in becoming man assumed a human intellect and a human will.
6. Order of the Elements Assumed
1. With the assuming of the human soul, complete human nature was assumed. For it is the soul which is the substantial form (or essential substantial constituent and determinant) of a living bodily man. What the soul determines and substantially constitutes is the flesh-and-blood man. Hence, we say that God the Son assumed human flesh through the medium of the human soul.
2. The human soul has a capacity for God inasmuch as it can know him, and then love him. Now, the faculty of knowing God (the fundamental act which aligns the soul with its true end or goal), is the mind or intellect. The intellect is the highest, noblest, purest faculty of the soul. Hence, through the medium of intellect, God assumed the soul; and through the medium of the soul, he assumed the flesh.
3. The human soul of Christ was not assumed separately before the flesh. For human nature demands body-and-soul, and it is human nature that was assumed.
4. Nor did the Son of God first assume the flesh, and afterwards the soul. St. John Damascene (De Fid. Orthodox, iii 2) says: "At one and the same time, the Word of God was made flesh, and the flesh was united to a rational and intelligent soul."
5. The Son of God assumed human nature entire, and therefore assumed its parts. He did not assume part after part until the whole was made up; he did not assume human nature through the medium of parts, but he assumed the parts through the medium of the whole.
6. If we understand the word grace to mean God's free giving of Christ to redeem mankind, then grace is the effective cause of the assuming of human nature by God the Son. But even in this meaning of grace, we cannot say that grace is a means for effecting the union of the human nature and the divine Nature. More precisely, grace means either: (a) the grace of union, which is the very Person given freely to subsist in human nature; or (b) habitual or sanctifying grace which constitutes the human nature in holiness. Now, the grace of union cannot be the means for assuming human nature; this grace is Christ, the term or outcome of the assuming. Nor can habitual grace be the means of assuming the human nature; this grace presupposes the human nature already assumed. Therefore, we say: the human nature of Christ was not assumed by means of grace.
7. The Grace of Christ as a Man
1. That the human soul of Christ had sanctifying grace, is certain. For: (a) this soul was in union with the Word of God; (b) this soul was dignified above all human souls, and was to know and love God more perfectly than any other; for such operations sanctifying or habitual grace is necessary; (c) the grace of this soul was to overflow upon others, according to scripture (John 1:10): "Of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace."
2. Grace touches the essence of the soul; virtue belongs to the powers of the soul. As powers flow from essence, so virtues flow from grace. From the most perfect grace of Christ's human soul the virtues flowed most perfectly. Thus, Christ had all the virtues in his human soul.
3. Christ as man, from the first moment of his conception, beheld fully the very essence of God. There was, therefore, neither need nor possibility of faith in our Lord. For faith is of divine things unseen, and Christ saw all divine things perfectly.
4. From the beginning of Christ's human existence, he was in full possession and enjoyment of God, and this is the object of hope. Hence, there was neither need nor possibility of the theological virtue of hope in Christ as man. Of course, our Lord could look forward humanly to the future events of his human life: his Resurrection, for instance, and his Ascension.
5. The gifts of the Holy Ghost are perfections of the soul's powers, which make these powers respond readily and consistently to the inspirations of God. All the gifts were most excellently present in the human soul of Christ.
6. Even the gift of fear was there, but it was neither the fear of God's punishments for sin, nor the fear of offending God by sinning. It was the deep reverence for God in the perfect human soul of Christ.
7. The gratuitous graces (such as miracles, prophecy, tongues) which are given to a man for the conversion and sanctification of others, rather than for his own sanctification, were all in Christ in the most perfect degree. Christ came to redeem us, but also to teach us essential divine truth; gratuitous graces are such a teacher's credentials, and they confirm his teaching. All the gratuitous graces exist most perfectly in the most perfect teacher of divine truth.
8. A prophecy is the certain proclaiming of a future or distant event; the prophet who proclaims the event must be one of the race to whom he speaks. Now, Christ is true man, and what he knows as man the comprehensor (that is, as one who beholds the beatific vision) he proclaims as man the wayfarer (that is, as one yet living in this world). Hence, in Christ is the gift of prophecy.
9. In Christ as man there is the fullness of grace in intensity because of his substantial union with the source of all grace. In Christ as man there is also the fullness of grace in power, for from him grace flows out to all others who receive it, and extends in them to its proper effects, such as virtues and gifts.
10. Among rational creatures, Christ alone (as man) has the perfect fullness of grace, in the sense that he possesses grace in its greatest excellence, its complete extent, and all the excellences of its effects. The Blessed Mother is called "full of grace" (Luke 1:28), and St. Stephen, the first martyr, had fullness of grace (Acts 6:8). Now, the fullness of grace in all rational creatures except Christ is fullness according to capacity to receive and possess; it is fullness in receivers; the first and greatest of receivers, in the capacity for grace and the full dower of grace, is the Mother of God. But in Christ the fullness of grace is on the part of grace itself. Others with fullness of grace have all the grace they can receive; Christ has all the grace that can be received.
11. The grace of God in a human soul is a creature of God, and therefore is not infinite. Even the grace in Christ's human soul is not infinite, for that human soul is a creature, and grace itself is a creature. Of course, the grace of union is infinite, but this grace is the divine Person subsisting with two natures. We are speaking here of the humanity of Christ, and of his human soul with its grace; we are not speaking of the grace of union.
12. Since the fullness of grace itself is in the human soul of Christ, this grace cannot be increased. The end of grace is the uniting of a rational creature with God; Christ as man is a rational creature always perfectly united with God; he, therefore, can have no accession of grace to give him what he already possesses.
13. The habitual or sanctifying grace in the human soul of Christ follows the union effected by God's assuming of human nature. This is our way of understanding the matter: first, the union; then, grace in Christ's human soul. But this is no case of before and after, in the sense of time. The sanctifying grace of Christ's human soul follows the union as light follows the sun; there is no interval of time between the appearance of the sun and the luminosity of the sun.
8. The Grace of Christ as Head of the Church
1. In the human body, the head holds the first place of dignity, perfection, and control. So, in the body of the Church, Christ as man, by reason of the union with God, holds the highest place, and is rightly called "The Head of the Church."
2. The whole humanity of Christ, body and soul, influences other human beings in body and soul. Therefore, Christ is the Head of men, not merely the Head of souls.
3. Christ is the Head of all mankind. St. Paul says (I Tim. 4:10) that Christ "is the Savior of all men." And we read (I John 2:2) that Christ is "the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." Christ is the Head of all men, and principally of all who are united to him by grace or glory.
4. Christ as man is Head of the angels. Men and angels are made for the one purpose: the glory of God, and the enjoyment of heaven. Hence, figuratively speaking, men and angels form one body; for the mystical body which is the Church consists not only of men but of angels. And of this body Christ is the Head.
5. The grace of Christ as Head of the Church, called capital grace, is in reality the same sanctifying or habitual grace which is in him as a human individual (that is, personal grace), and which constitutes that fullness of grace of which "we have all received."
6. Christ alone is the Head of the Church. On earth, the pope is his vicar, and the bishops as heads of their respective dioceses are, as St. Paul says (II Cor. 5:20), "ambassadors for Christ."
7. As prince or prelate is head of the group that constitutes his realm or charge, so the devil is the head of all the wicked. In Job (41:25) we read that the devil "is king over all the children of pride."
8. Antichrist too is the head of the wicked, but not in the same way as the devil is their head. The devil precedes Antichrist in time, and also exceeds him in the power of influencing men to evil. Antichrist is head of the wicked in the sense that he is the worst of all who are influenced by the devil.
9. Knowledge in Christ
1. As God, Christ has all knowledge. As man, he has all the human perfections, including a human mind with its human or created knowledge.
2. Christ as man has the knowledge that the blessed souls enjoy in heaven, that is, the knowledge of God directly seen in beatific vision.
3. The beatific knowledge of Christ as beheld in the vision is joined in Christ as man with all possible creatural knowledge. For the human nature of Christ, because it is joined hypostatically with the divine Nature, has to be perfect in all respects. Therefore, as Scripture testifies (Col. 2:3), in Christ are "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."
4. In Christ as man there is beatific knowledge, and the fullness of infused knowledge. There is also acquired knowledge in Christ as man, for he is perfect in his human nature, and the human faculties of that nature functioned in him perfectly. Hence, even though he has perfect knowledge to begin with, he also, during his earthly fife, learned things in a human way.
10. The Beatific Knowledge in Christ
1. The human soul of Christ is as perfect as a human soul can be, but it is always a finite soul. Hence this soul, enjoying the beatific vision, does not comprehend the divine Essence in the full and accurate meaning of the word comprehend. For to say that the human soul of Christ comprehends the divine Essence would be to say that a finite soul perfectly compasses the infinite; and this is quite impossible.
2. Christ as man knows all things in the divine Word, for Christ is the divine Word as well as true and creatural man. The human mind of Christ does not itself know all things possible; here again we should have a case of finite encompassing infinite. But the human mind of Christ does know, in the Word, all that is actually said or thought or done by anyone at any time, past, present, or to come.
3. The human soul of Christ knows its own power, and all that this power can accomplish. And therefore Christ knows that his power can go on cleansing souls from sin and doing good to man, without limit; it can be said, in this sense, that Christ as man "knows infinite things."
4. The human soul of Christ is united to the Word in Person; therefore it is more fully enlightened by the Word than any other creature. Therefore, the human soul of Christ beholds the divine Essence in vision more perfectly than any other creature in heaven.
11. Christ's Infused Knowledge
1. Christ's human intellect is enriched with the fullness of infused knowledge. For, by reason of the hypostatic union, the human faculties of our Lord are as perfect as such faculties can possibly be; and to have infused knowledge is a perfection of the human mind. By divinely infused knowledge, Christ as man knows all that any or all human minds can learn by the rational power (for instance, Christ perfectly knows all human sciences); he also knows all revealed truths, and all truths made known to the mind by the gifts of the Holy Ghost and the gratuitous graces. But Christ as man knows the divine Essence, not by infused knowledge, but by the direct and intuitive knowledge of the beatific vision.
2. Since our Lord as man had the beatific vision from the beginning, He could understand in its light, without turning (as men on earth must do) to the sense-images called phantasms.
3. Our Lord did not need, here on earth, to think discursively, that is, to reason things out. But he could and did use the reasoning method in expressing his knowledge for the benefit of others, thus to make clear to them the logical nature of his teachings.
4. The infused knowledge possessed by Christ as man is more excellent than the knowledge possessed by the angels, and this, both in extent, and in the perfection of pure certitude. For the spiritual enlightenment of Christ's human soul is more excellent, by reason of the hypostatic union, than that which is shed upon any other creature, human or angelic.
5. The knowledge infused into the human mind of Christ is habitual knowledge, a stable possession, to be used when he pleased.
6. Since Christ's soul is a human soul with human modes of understanding, his infused knowledge is classified as constituting distinct sciences; that is, his knowledge is an orderly knowledge of things and classes of things knowable.
12. Christ's Acquired Knowledge
1. There is in Christ's human soul every perfection connatural to the soul, including an active intellect which renders things understandable, and an intellect properly so called which grasps these under-standables and holds them as knowledge. Hence there is acquired knowledge in Christ as man. It is perfect knowledge in its kind; that is, Christ knows by his acquired knowledge whatever can be humanly known through the service of the intellect.
2. Now, the human intellect does not grasp all things intelligible in a single instant, but goes on and on, by the process called abstraction, forming idea after idea. Thus human acquired knowledge increases. And so of Christ it is said in scripture (Luke 2:52), that he "advanced in wisdom . . ."
3. Yet Christ was not a pupil; he was not really taught by any human being. He says (John 18:37): "For this was I born, and for this came I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth." It was not suitable to the dignity of him who came to teach truth, that he should himself be taught by those he came to instruct.
4. Thus Christ as man was not taught by men. Neither was he taught by angels. For his acquired knowledge, the angelic ministry is not required. For his infused knowledge, the hypostatic union fills his human soul with knowledge without the mediation of angels or any creatures. Christ's human acquired knowledge is acquired and possessed as a perfection of his perfect human nature, not as a necessity for his information.
13. The Power of Christ's Human Soul1. Christ as God is almighty. Our point of inquiry here has to do with Christ as man. We ask about the power of Christ's soul, which is a creature, and not almighty in itself.
2. The soul of Christ has not of itself the power to change a creature of one kind into something of another essential kind. Of course, the soul of Christ as instrument of the Godhead can perform all miracles.
3. Christ's human soul had not an almighty power over his own body. For such things as the health and growth of the body are not managed by a man's own reason and will; neither were these things subject to Christ's human reason and will.
4. Yet in the carrying out of his will, the soul of Christ had a real almightiness. For he had such wisdom that he would not will to do what was not subject to his human power as such, and he had such perfection that he actually willed all that God's power was to effect in him, for instance, his Resurrection. Thus the human soul of Christ had omnipotence in the execution of his human will, in the sense that what his will actually decreed could not but come to pass.
14. Deficiencies in the Body of Christ
1. Christ assumed a true human body with the normal requirements of that body, and with the limitations and the deficiencies connatural to such a body, excluding those that could detract from the dignity of perfect human nature. Thus Christ could suffer in his body such things as hunger, thirst, pain, death. These hardships or defects are in themselves punishments for the sin which Christ had not. But it is suitable that he who came as man to atone for human sin should take on the nonstaining punishments consequent in man upon the original sin. By assuming human nature with these bodily deficiencies, our Lord both proved his true humanity, and gave to all men a most noble example of humble and patient endurance.
2. It is by natural necessity that a child of Adam has such deficiencies as the enduring of hunger, thirst, pain, death. And God chose to become man as a true child of Adam. It was by divine Will in the effecting of the incarnation that the flesh was thus allowed to do and to endure what belonged to it to do and suffer.
3. Human beings are said to contract the defects of human nature inasmuch as these are due to sin and are inherited by the sin-infected offspring of a sinful first parent. It is not so with the human nature of Christ. Our Lord did not inherit sin; he did not contract or inherit the consequences of sin in his body. He assumed sinless human nature. He might have assumed human nature without any bodily deficiencies at all. Those defects which he took, he took by his own will to let natural necessity have its way in all that is not degrading- not setting this necessity aside by exercise of his divine power.
4. Christ as man did not have defects that conflict with his perfect knowledge, grace, and dignity. He was not, for instance, subject to sickness, or disease, or disfigurement, or suppurating sores, or broken bones.
15. Limitations or Deficiencies in Christ's Human Soul
1. In the human soul of Christ there can be no sin, original or actual. And, indeed, on this point our Lord challenged mankind: "Which of you," he cried, "can convict me of sin?" (John 8:46.) Sin in Christ would be sin in God, and the very mention of such a thing is an absurd self-contradiction.
2. In ordinary fallen human natures there is a readiness to sin called the fomes of sin. The Latin word fomes means touchwood or tinder or any such substance as takes fire from a mere spark. The fomes of sin was in no manner present in the human soul of Christ.
3. Nor was there ignorance in Christ. In him, as we have already seen, was the fullness of true knowledge. St. John (1:14) says he was "full of grace and truth."
4. Our Lord could suffer and he had the passions of the soul, but not in the way in which we have them. For: (a) in us, the passions tend sometimes to what is evil; this could not be in Christ; (b) in us, the passions tend to obscure the judgment of reason; this was not the case in our Lord; (c) in us, the passions sometimes tend to deflect us or hinder us in doing what is right; this was not so in Christ.
5. Christ endured real pain. Isaias said of him in prophecy (Isa. 53:4): "Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows."
6. And our Lord suffered sorrow of soul as well as pain of body. For he himself said (Matt. 26:38): "My soul is sorrowful even unto death."
7. The human soul of our Lord endured fear as a natural shrinking from pain. But in Christ there was no fear in the sense of uncertainty about future calamity; this sort of fear implies imperfect knowledge of things to come, and our Lord's knowledge was perfect.
8. There was wonder also in our Lord's acquired knowledge, in the sense of marvelling at what was new or extraordinary in his human experience; not, indeed, that he was surprised or astonished as at something unknown or unforeseen.
9. And there was anger in Christ; not the inordinate urge that we experience as anger, for such imperfection cannot be in the perfect Christ. His anger was zeal for the triumphing and prevailing of justice.
10. Our Lord was, at one and the same time, a wayfarer (that is, a human being making his way through life) and a comprehensor (that is, a man enjoying the eternal beatific vision). His soul possessed the beatific vision; his body was still to suffer before it was glorified and ready to ascend into heaven.
16. Consequences of the Hypostatic Union
1. By the Incarnation God himself became man. The nature of man is assumed to the nature of God and is joined with it in the hypostatic union. Hence, the proposition God is man is literally true.
2. By reason of the hypostatic union, the proposition Man is God is also literally true. That is, of course, it is true when the word man is taken to mean this man Christ; the proposition is not true when the word man means any man at all or all men.
3. It is not accurate nor right to speak of Christ as a lordly man. Christ is not merely lordly; he is the Lord himself.
4. Following the hypostatic union in which God has assumed human nature in the unity of the divine Person of the Son, that which can be predicated of human nature can now be predicated of God. Yet we must carefully notice whether the predication refers to this one Person in his human nature, or to this one Person in his divine Nature. And thus when we predicate immortality of Christ as God, and mortality of Christ as man, we are not contradicting ourselves. We say truly that Christ is God, and that Christ died on the cross. But we cannot and do not say that God died on the cross. What we say is this: Christ who is God-made-Man died on the cross as man, or, Christ died in his human nature, but not in his divine Nature.
5. Therefore, what is proper to human nature can be predicated of God in so far as God has assumed human nature, but what is thus predicable of human nature cannot be predicated of God as God apart from human nature.
6. To say God was made man is strictly true. But this does not mean that God was created, or made simply. It means that human nature, which is a creature, was assumed to the eternal God. To say that God was made man is not to suggest that the changeless God was changed, but that human nature was changed inasmuch as it now subsists in a divine Person without constituting a human personality.
7. It is not, however, accurate to say Man was made God, as though human nature were deified. The phrase would suggest that an existing human nature (and hence a human person, since human nature cannot exist except in a person, human or divine) was made into God. Now, the human nature of Christ was not in existence before it existed in Christ; the human nature of Christ, from the beginning of its existence, subsists by reason of the divine Personality of the Son.
8. We cannot say Christ is a creature unless we add in his human nature; for Christ is God, and when we speak of Christ simply, we think at once of God-made-man. But there is nothing misleading in saying that Christ was born, Christ suffered, Christ died and was buried; for it is manifest that we are speaking thus of Christ as man. When there is any possibility of doubt about the meaning of our words in reference to Christ, we should always add an explanatory phrase. Thus, when we say that Christ is one with the Father and the Holy Ghost, we know, without need of more words, that we are speaking of the divine Nature, and mean Christ as God. But if we say that Christ is inferior to the Father, some people may think that we are denying the Godhead of Christ; hence, we should say, rather, that Christ as man, or Christ in his human nature, is inferior to the Father.
9. To say, "This man (Christ) began to exist," is, for reasons just given, to make a misleading statement. For the term this man is easily interpreted as this person. Now, the Person of Christ is divine and eternal, and did not begin to exist. Says St. Paul (Heb. 13:8): "Jesus Christ, yesterday, today, and the same forever."
10. Therefore while it is correct to say that Christ as man is a creature, it is not right to say Christ as this man is a creature, for the phrase Christ as this man is usually understood to mean Christ as this Person, and the Person that is Christ is God the Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
11. Nor is it correct to say Christ as man is God, for this would be to identify the human and the divine Nature in Christ; that is, it would make the two distinct natures in Christ into one nature, and this is heretical doctrine. Yet we can say Christ as this man is God, for, in this expression, the term this man means this Person.
12. It is not true to say that Christ as man is a hypostasis or person, for this would be to make two persons, one human and one divine, out of the one divine Person of the Son of God which subsists with two natures.
17. The Oneness of the Being of Christ
1. The dual number is used in speaking of the two natures in Christ, the divine and the human. If both natures were predicated in the abstract of Christ, he would be two beings and not one. The two natures are, therefore, predicated of Christ, not abstractly, but concretely, as they are concreted in one Person. And thus Christ is one.
2. Since oneness and being are really the same, the being of Christ is one. Human nature is not merely adjoined to the divine Nature of the Son of God, but is united to it hypostatically. Nothing new comes to the divine Person by this union, no newness or otherness of being; what occurs is a relation according to which the eternal Person of the Son now subsists in two natures. And thus the being of Christ is one being.
18. The Unity of Will in Christ
1. Since nature is "essence equipped to operate," human nature is the human essence with its faculties (that is, powers for operating), and especially its noblest faculties which are the intellect and the will. Christ had a perfect human nature, and hence he had a human will. Therefore, there are two wills in Christ, the human will and the divine will. Our Lord himself contrasts these two wills when he prays (Luke 22:42): "Father, if thou wilt, remove this chalice from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." Now, as God, Christ has the divine will undividedly with the Father and the Holy Ghost. Hence, in the prayer quoted, he speaks of "my will" as his human will.
2. Human nature is not purely spiritual; it is animal too. The appetites of the flesh belong to human nature. These appetites are meant to be under the complete control of reason which experiences their urging, and thus, while they belong to the sensitive order, they are called "rational by participation." Since reason includes will, these appetites also belong to the will by participating its act, and they are called the sensitive will. Such a will was in Christ, because he had perfect human nature.
3. The rational human will of Christ is not itself a double, but a single faculty.
4. Christ's human will had the full perfection of such a will. Therefore it had the perfection called freedom of choice.
5. The human will has a twofold act. It tends to what is agreeable to human nature, and under the aspect of this tendency it is called "the will as nature." By this will a man wills health, and anything else that is in itself beneficial to a human natural being. The will has another act, in exercising which it is called "the will as reason"; by this will a man chooses what he understands as a means to his desired end or goal, even if the thing chosen is not, in itself, desirable; such, for instance, as difficult fasting as a means to achieve grace, or bitter medicine or painful surgery as a means to health. In addition to these two acts of the rational will (that is, the will as nature, and the will as reason), there is the sensitive will or sensual will, which is the pull on the rational will exercised by the fleshly appetites. Now, our Lord by his human will as reason, always willed what God willed. By the rational will as nature, and by the sensitive will, he could tend away from things that God willed, such as his Passion and Death. And so, subduing the sensitive will to the rational will as reason, he said, "Not my will, but thine be done."
6. There is no contrariety or contradiction in Christ, and hence there is no conflict in him between the human will and the divine will. The tendency of sensitive will, or of the rational will as nature, never prevails in Christ, or constitutes a block to the sure and absolute rule of his will as reason; by this will as reason his whole voluntary life is in complete conformity with the divine will.
19. The Unity of Operation in Christ
1. In Christ, the human nature acts by its own power, and so does the divine Nature. But the divine Nature makes use of the human operations as instruments to its own operation.
2. In man, we discern three types of vital operation: the vegetal, the sensitive or animal, and the distinctively human or rational. Now, in Christ, the perfect man, the distinctively human operations prevailed, so that no sensitive movement took place without his will; even natural bodily (vegetal) operations belonged in some sense to his will, for, as St. John Damascene says (De Fid. Orthodox iii), it was Christ's will that his flesh should do and suffer what belonged to it. Hence, there was perfect unity in the operations of Christ.
3. To merit is to earn, that is, to establish title to what is not yet possessed. Now, our Lord, as man, could merit or deserve of God what he did not yet possess. Before his Passion, our Lord did not yet possess the glory of body which came with the Resurrection, or the splendor of the Ascension, or the loving veneration of the faithful of his Church. As man, Christ already possessed the beatific vision, and all the excellences conferred on him by reason of the hypostatic union. Therefore, Christ as man could merit from God the excellent things not yet possessed, but he could not merit or earn what he already had. It is fitting that Christ could merit some things, for he is the model as well as the source of merit for his rational creatures.
4. Christ could merit for others. He is the Head of the Church; the meriting activity of this Head reaches all the members. St. Paul speaks of our Lord's meriting for others when he says (Rom. 5:18): "As by the offence of one, to all men unto condemnation, so also by the justice of one [that is, Christ] unto all men to justification of life."
20. The Subjection of Christ to God the Father
1. Christ is God the Son, equal with the Father and one with him in essence and nature. But Christ is also man, and as man is subject to the Father. He says (John 14:31): "As the Father hath given me commandment, so do I." And we also read (Phil. 2:8), that Christ humbled himself in obedience to the Father, "becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross."
2. Christ in his human nature is subject to himself in his divine Nature.
21. The Prayer of Christ
1. A prayer, as petition, is asking God to fulfill one's wish or will. Now, the human will of Christ is finite, and hence not capable, without divine power, of carrying out or achieving all that it wishes. Therefore, it is fitting that Christ as man should pray.
2. The sentient appetites (which we sometimes call the affections or desires of the heart) are not in themselves capable of making a prayer. For, in themselves, the sentient appetites are of the order of sense, and prayer is of the order of reason, that is, of the order of will enlightened by intellect. The will makes a prayer that the affections and desires of the heart be fulfilled, and such was Christ's prayer: "Let this chalice pass." The sensitive will made this prayer; then the will as reason made a better prayer, "Not my will, but thine be done," and so subjected all to God.
3. Christ prayed for himself: for example, when he prayed for the Resurrection (John 17:1): "Father, glorify thy Son"; and also when he prayed to be spared the suffering of the Passion. It is becoming that Christ should pray thus, for so he acknowledges the truth that God is the author of his human nature. Besides, he gives us a valuable example of making petition to God in all our needs.
4. The perfect will of Christ as man (that is, the will as reason in Christ) never willed anything other than what he knew, in the fullness of his knowledge, to be the will of God. Therefore every absolute will-act of Christ as man was fulfilled; every prayer of Christ was answered.
22. The Priesthood of Christ
1. It is fitting that Christ be a priest. The office of a priest is to bestow sacred things on the people; to offer the prayers of the people to God; to make, in some manner, satisfaction for the people's sins. Our Lord exercised this priestly office; hence, he was and is a priest. And fittingly so; the priestly ministry belongs essentially to what Christ came to do. In St. Paul (Heb. 4:14) we read: "Having therefore a great high priest . . . Jesus, the Son of God."
2. Christ was not only a priest in offering sacrifice; he was the victim offered in the sacrifice. He offered himself by freely accepting suffering and death to gain us remission of sins, preservation in grace, and union with God. Says St. Paul (Eph. 5:2): "Christ hath loved us, and hath delivered himself for us, an oblation and sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness."
3. The priesthood of Christ has power to expiate our sins. St. Paul says (Heb. 9:14): "The blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered himself unspotted unto God, shall cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God." The priesthood of Christ produces the two effects needed to expiate sins: (a) it gives the sinner grace to turn to God; (b) it pays the debt of punishment due to sin.
4. The expiatory sacrifice of Christ the Priest is for others and not for himself, for he who has no sin needs no expiation. Hence, our Lord himself does not experience the effect of his priesthood.
5. The end of our Lord's priestly sacrifice is the everlasting good of those for whom the sacrifice is offered. It is the eternal bliss of the beatific vision gained for rational creatures. And thus the sacrifice is eternal, and the priesthood of Christ is eternal. Psalm 109:4 says: "Thou are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedech."
6. Christ's priesthood is described as "according to the order of Melchisedech." Melchisedech lived, and offered his sacrifice of bread and wine, before the Old Law was established. The priesthood of the Old Law was a figure of the priesthood of Christ, but it could not take away sins, nor was it eternal. The priesthood of Melchisedech suggests the preeminence of the priesthood of Christ over the priesthood of the Old Law.
23. The Adoption of Sons
1. Inasmuch as God, in his infinite goodness, permits men to inherit heaven, he is said to adopt them as children or sons.
2. It is the whole Trinity, not the Father alone, that adopts us as children. We often use the term Father in an essential and not a personal sense when we apply it to God; that is, we use the term Father for the "Tri-une" God, not for the First Person of the Trinity. We do this, for example, when we say the Our Father, in which we address God in unity, and not the Father as distinct from the Son and the Holy Ghost. The Triune God is the Father of us all, and adopts us as brethren of Christ for the inheritance of heaven.
3. Only rational creatures (that is, men and angels) can be adopted as children of God.
4. Our Lord himself is not an adopted child or son of God; he is the true Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, eternally begotten of the Father.
24. The Predestination of Christ
1. What is predestinated is something set from eternity to be done in time. Now, that God should become man was divinely ordained from eternity to take place in time. Hence, we say that Christ was predestined or predestinated.
2. And therefore our human nature was predestinated to be joined hypostatically to the divine Nature.
3. The predestinated sonship of Christ as man is the exemplar of our predestinated sonship by adoption.
4. And, indeed, the predestinated sonship of Christ as man is the cause of our predestinated sonship by adoption. For scripture says (Eph. 1:5) that God "hath predestinated us into the adoption of children through Jesus Christ."
25. The Adoration of Christ
1. We adore Christ, God and man, with the same adoration. For what we adore is the Person called Christ. Even though this Person has two natures, the human and the divine, he is one Person, and that Person is God. Even the humanity of Christ is adored as the humanity of a Person who is God.
2. St. John Damascene (De Fid. Orthodox, iv 3) says that we adore the flesh of Christ, not for its own sake, but because the Word of God is united with it. And, since we give divine worship (called latria) to God, we give the same sort of worship to the humanity of Christ united hypostatically with divinity. Only when we consider the humanity of Christ apart from the hypostatic union do we pay it the honor of reverence (called dulia) instead of the adoration of latria.
3. When we honor an image of Christ, we honor Christ. We do not give any honor at all to the image as a piece of painted canvas or as a carved bit of wood or marble or metal. The image is meaningful only in what it represents. And what it represents is Christ whom we worship with the adoration of latria.
4. The same thing is true of the honor and reverence we give to the cross on which our Lord died. What we see in the cross is not the wood of which it is made, but the whole meaning of the Crucifixion. And we adore the Word Incarnate, with the worship of latria, whose death for us the cross calls to our remembrance and appreciation.
5. The Blessed Mother is not venerated by latria, for this is divine worship and is owed to God alone. She has the reverence paid to holy creatures, saints and angels, and this is called dulia. Indeed, since she is the Mother of God and the queen of all angels and saints, we pay to the Blessed Virgin a special and higher type of dulia which belongs to her alone and is called hyperdulia.
6. We honor the relics of the saints (their bodies, bones, or things they used or had about them during life) with a true veneration that is directed to the saints themselves. And in honoring the saints we honor Christ whose members the saints are.
26. Christ as Mediator
1. Scripture says (I Tim. 2:5): "There is . . . one mediator of God and man, the man Christ Jesus." Christ is our mediator because by his death he reconciled the human race to God. Christ is the One Perfect Mediator. But others may participate in the mediatorship of Christ by cooperating with him in disposing men to turn to God, and in ministering to men the divinely established sacraments which unite men to God by grace.
2. Christ is the mediator of God and man; not, says St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, ix 15), because he is the divine Word; he is mediator as man. For in his divinity Christ is God, not a mediator between God and man. As man, Christ stands between God and sinful human beings. He unites men to God by graces and gifts. He offers to God prayers and satisfaction for mankind. Hence, it is as man that Christ is mediator: "The man Christ Jesus."