From Philosophy to Pastoral: A Theological Review and the Pastoral Explications of the Doctrine of...
Transcript of From Philosophy to Pastoral: A Theological Review and the Pastoral Explications of the Doctrine of...
From Philosophy to Pastoral: A Theological Review and the Pastoral Explications of the Doctrine of the Two Natures in Christ -‐Chalcedon and Luther
Craig Nehring
Institute of Lutheran Theology
EPR 503
December 19, 2013
1
“Christ, by highest heav’n adored, Christ the everlasting Lord, Late in time
behold Him come, Offspring of a virgin’s womb. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail
the incarnate Deity! Please as Man with man to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel.” So goes
the second verse of the of Charles Wesley’s Christmas hymn, “Hark! The Herald Angels
Sing.” Hidden is this classic song that is sung, one would imagine in abundance on
Christmas Eve in our congregations, is the explication of the heart of our confession in
who was this man Jesus Christ we believe to be the salvation of mankind.
Thus, as we sing this hymn, we are actually making a deep theological assertion
to the world. For these lines contain is nothing less than the doctrine and theology of the
two natures in our Lord Jesus Christ. In it we are making a declaration of the heart of
what we believe who it is that we worship and what we are confessing to what took place
in the giving of Christ in His birth, death and resurrection. That in the midst of our
worship of God, the lines of this hymn, and of so many others, we are fundamentally
singing of the very nature of our Christian faith.
It is within this mindset that the genesis of this paper came to be. The doctrine of
the two natures in Christ has been one of the most debated, thought about and fought over
in the history of the Christian Church. Starting with the earliest believers in Christ, the
question of just whom He is has been one that has been asked and forced an answer. Saint
Peter, when asked by Jesus Himself, who he believed He was, confessed, “You are the
Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16)1 Since then, what Peter said has been
declared to be a central doctrine of the Christian faith and so has needed to be discussed
and defined to what it means that this Jesus, who the Gospels say was born in Bethlehem
1 Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, the English Standard Version (ESV). (2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)
2
to a specific set of parents (see primarily Matthew 1:18-2:23, Luke 2:1-40) was yet the
very Son of the Living God.
How this was thought about and doctrinalized has a unique and rich history that
started from that first moment Jesus arrived on the scene all the way to this present day.
Church councils have been called and dismissed and untold amount of ink has been used
in trying to place down on paper just what it means that Jesus is true God and true Man.
Through the ages, peoples and ideas have been debated, approved and rejected until we
have come to the point where, generally, by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, a
doctrine was set down that the Church catholic agreed was the true understanding of
Christ.
Of course, that has not kept people since then to continue to think about and even
wrongly believe about Christ. With every generation there has been people and ideas that
have tried to place further words and explanations of what was decreed at Chalcedon and
how it plays into the life of the Church. Some of these have been helpful and others have
fallen flat. However, even the most contemporary idea has been affirmed wrong are
understood to be little more than old heresies that were dismissed in those first
ecumenical councils.
And this was true during the time of Martin Luther. In his battles with the Roman
Catholic Church, the Anabaptists and those whom he declared to be the sacramentarians,
Luther found himself against those old heresies dressed up in new packages. However,
how he took these people on represented a change in what had been typically done up to
that time. Scholarly debate, theological tomes and systematic dissertations were what
3
were used when speaking to these theological questions. And no doubt, Luther could and
did use such means to refute those who strayed outside of the catholic faith.
Yet Luther also fought against wrong ideas in a different matter that is generally
found with his ancestors, contemporaries and future theologians. Because Luther was a
pastor at heart and spent much of his career in preaching and teaching the faith to the
common person in the classroom and pew, he developed a way of teaching the ratified
faith in terms that everyone could comprehend. He sought to make the difficult accessible
to all Christians because, and even if he didn’t realize it, he understood that right
theology is needful and wholesome for all the faithful.
This will, then, be the theme and purpose of this paper. We will be looking at the
doctrine of the two natures in Christ, how it developed to what Chalcedon produced in
451 and then how Luther used Chalcedon to talk about the two natures in his own
writings. It is not my intention to re-write a history of Chalcedon and the events leading
up to it, nor will I be trying to gain a complete and dogmatic understanding of Luther’s
thought. But what I will seek to do is to talk about what led up to Chalcedon, what
Chalcedon developed and how Luther then used Chalcedon’s theology to debate those
whom he saw as falling out of line with the doctrine of Christ’s two natures confessed at
Chalcedon.
To do this, the paper will be divided into three sections. First, we will discuss
those that led up to the need for the council of Chalcedon to be convened-some of the key
people and ideas involved. Second, I will discuss the final outcome of Chalcedon,
focusing in particular on the Tome of Leo and The Definition of Faith. Finally, I will look
at some works by Luther in which he spoke to and about the two natures in Christ,
4
primarily his 1540 Disputation on the Divinity and Humanity of Christ, as well as his
writings on the doctrine of the real presence in the Lord’s Supper. It is the goal of the
paper to not simply obtain a greater cognition of this doctrine, but also to see just how
one can emulate Luther and make difficult and philosophical statements comprehensible
to the average Christians sitting in the classroom or pew of our own congregations and
schools.
Part One: To Chalcedon
The events and people that led to the definitive council at Chalcedon to decide
upon just what the Church believed in regards to the two natures in Christ is interesting in
its own right. Perhaps what catches the eye first of all is that the various ideas and
thoughts that developed came not from those who were considered immediately to be
outside of the Church and her theology, but from the heart within. That the sides that
became entrenched and the peoples that rose to importance or infamy were from those
who did not wish to challenge the current thought, but simply to further define what was
meant when the Church confessed that when one confessed they believed in Jesus Christ,
they were confessing the belief that He was both God and Man.
The two main “players” in the arena of ideas were the theological distinctions
coming from two of the East’s theological centers: Antioch and Alexandria. Alister
McGrath gives a nice summary which gives the most basic of the differences experienced
in each “school:”
“The Alexandrian writers were motivated primarily by soteriological considerations. Concerned that deficient understandings of the person of Christ were linked with inadequate conceptions of salvation, they used ideas derived from secular Greek philosophy to ensure a picture of Christ which was consistent with the full redemption of humanity. The idea of the Logos was of particular importance, especially when linked with the notion of the incarnation…The Antiochene writers differed here. Their concerns were moral, rather than purely soteriological, and they drew much less significantly on the ideas of Greek philosophy. The basic trajectory of much Antiochene thinking on the
5
identity of Christ can be traced along the following lines…This leads to the coming of the redeemer as one who united humanity and divinity, and thus to the reestablishment of an obedient people of God.” 2
It’s not that one school stressed the two natures in Christ more than the other; but
what separated them was the emphasis each placed upon the natures. They both
confessed that in Christ was both the divine and human natures. But Alexandria sought to
“protect” the confession of the divine nature so not to become lost in the midst of the
humanity of Christ, whereas Antioch sought to “protect” Christ’s human nature from
being overwhelmed by the confession of His divinity. In many ways, each was fighting
from the extremes of the other. Alexandria saw the danger of one of the first
Christological heresies of Ebionism where Christ ends up being a man “equipped by God
with special gifts.”3 Antioch saw the danger of the other early heresy of Docetism where
Christ simply appeared to be a man, in whom the divine “united himself for a limited
time, namely, to the day of the crucifixion, with the man Jesus but left him before his
death.”4
Perhaps the key figure leading up to Chalcedon for the Alexandrian view was
Cyril of Alexandria. In his battles with Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople (whom we
will discuss shortly), Cyril explicated the essence of the what the Alexandrian school was
seeking to protect. It was Cyril who emphasized the idea of the “hypostatic” and
“natural” union of the divine to the human natures in Christ. That in Christ, one finds the
two distinct natures, divinity and humanity, hypostatically united; that is, they are
2 Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, Third Edition. (Malden: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 2001), 362. 3 Bernhard Lohse, A Short History of Christian Doctrine: From the First Century to the Present. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 74. 4 Ibid, 74.
6
personally united so that now it can be said that the Person of Jesus Christ was both and
truly God and Man.5 What Cyril is stressing here is that in the incarnation, there is no
limited or diminishing of the divine nature, but that in the Man Jesus Christ, the very Son
of God was united absolutely and completely.
So Cyril seeks to find a philosophical explanation of the principle of the two
natures. In Christ, there are the two properties of the each person-divine and human. They
each retain and own within themselves the complete qualities of their nature. In the
incarnation,
“the Invisible though compounded with a visible body, remains uncompounded (ασυνετος) because it is not contained within the limits of a body, and the body remains in its own measure as it accepts union with God; as iron, when blended with fire, though it may appear as fire, does not change its nature (φυσις), so the union of God with the body does not change the body; and just as, in respect of man, the body animated by the soul remains in its nature, so, in respect of Christ, the ‘commingling (συγκρασσις) does not so change that body that it is not a body.’” 6
Each essence of the two natures retain their wholeness, both before and after the
hypostasis, and even though the human and divine, in their properties hold a great gulf
between them, as they are joined, there is no separation nor confusion taking place in
Christ.7
5 R.V. Sellers, The Council of Chalcedon: A Historical and Doctrinal Survey. (London: S. P. C. K., 1953), 140-141. Sellers writes, “Cyril’s own contribution, it seems, lay in his definition of the union of the Logos with flesh as a ‘hypostatic” and ‘natural’ union; and it is abundantly clear that he introduced it to enforce the truth, already insisted on by the Laodicene (Apollinarius), that Jesus Christ in one Person, the Logos in his incarnate state, and that any ‘dividing’ of this one Person is altogether impossible.” 6 Sellers, 146. Sellers quotes Cyril’s work from the original source. 7 Sellers, 154. “Similarly Cyril returns to the cardinal trust of the unity of Christ’s Person in what follows the quotations already adduced from his letter to Acacius of Melitene. For after he has said: ‘As we accept in thought those things out of which is the one and sole Son and Lord Jesus Christ we say that two natures have been united;’ he goes on: ‘But after the union, the cleavage into two having disappeared, we believe that the nature of the Son is one-one [Person] that is, but [the one Person] made man and incarnate;’ and after the statement: ‘When the manner of the Incarnation is investigated, the human intelligence must see that two things have been brought together in union, ineffably and without confusion;’ this follows: ‘Yet what has been united one in no wise divided but believes, and accepts as fixed that there is One out of both-God and Son and Christ and Lord.’”
7
This is where the idea of the communicatio idiomatum comes to a helpful use in
Cyril’s Christology. While there is absolutely no confusion or mixture between the two
natures, yet each are so inseparably united that a sharing takes place between the two.
Metaphysically, it is not that the God is born or that man is divine, but now in Christ, in
the incarnation, there is no longer any way in which to separate the two natures or to
speak of one without speaking of the other. So, contra to what we will see in Nestorius
later in this paper, Mary can be called the Theotokos because in the incarnation, the two
natures have been completely joined together and the child Mary gave birth to was, in
fact, the very Son of God, wholly and completely. The same can then be extended to
Christ’s death. Cyril says,
“And although according to his own nature he was not subject to suffering, yet he suffered for us in the flesh according to the Scriptures, and although impassible, yet in his Crucified Body he made own the suffering of his own flesh; and by the grace of God he tasted death for all…For ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God,’ and he is the Maker of the ages, coeternal with the Father, the Creator of all; but, as we have already said, since he united himself hypostatically human nature from her womb, also he subjected himself to birth as man.” 8
Cyril didn’t take this position by chance, but it really grew out of a situation with
a fellow Alexandrian theologian named Apollinarius of Laodicea. Apollinarius, whose
ideas were rejected at the Council of Constantinople in 381, in seeking to honor the
divinity of Christ, sought to ensure the primacy of the divine nature. He, in the words of
J.N.D. Kelly, “put forward an extreme version of the Word-flesh Christology. He
delighted to speak of Christ as ‘God-incarnate’ (θεος ενσαρκος), ‘flesh-bearing God’
8 William C. Placher, Readings in the History of Christian Theology, Volume One: From Its Beginning to the Eve of the Reformation. (Philadelphia: the Westminster Press, 1988), 72.
8
(θεος σαρκοφορος), or ‘God born of a woman.’”9 Where Apollinarius took this
language was to speak of the overwhelming of the human nature with the divine in the
incarnation, to the extent that now only one nature remained in Christ. That in this “God-
man, the divine energy fulfills the role of the animating spirit (ψυχης) and of the human
mind (νοος).”10
This makes Apollinarius to take the philosophical stance of the nature of
humanity, the union of a body and soul, and “make room,” so to speak, for the divine
nature of Christ to be united in Him. So, as Christ took on the body from the nature of the
Virgin Mary, so in the incarnation the usual place of the human soul was replaced with
his divine nature. He makes this leap because he is trying to keep both natures intact and
yet find a philosophical way for them to be united. Thus Apollinarius says in his work On
the Union in Christ of the Body with the Godhead,
“If the same one is a complete human being and God as well, and the pious spirit does not worship a human being but worships God, it will be found both worshiping and not worshiping the same person-which is impossible. Moreover, humanity itself does not judge itself to be an objet of worship…but God knows himself to be an object of worship. Yet it is inconceivable that the same person should both know himself to be an object of worship and not know it. Therefore, it is inconceivable that the same person should be both God and an entire man. Rather, he exists in the singleness of an incarnate divine nature which is commingled [with flesh], with the result that worshipers bend their attention to God inseparable from his flesh and not to one who is worshiped and one who is not…O new creation and divine mixture! God and flesh completed one and the same nature!”11
Now, to an Alexandrian such as Cyril, while Apollinarius views are seen to be defective
and need to be rejected because of falling into a monophysitism, Cyril could at least
9 J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines. (Peabody: Prince Press, 2003), 291. 10 Kelly, 292. 11 Richard A. Norris, trans & ed. The Christological Controversy. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 107-108.
9
understand and agree with what Apollinarius was seeking to do, to protect the divine
nature from being lost in the very humanness of Jesus that the events of His life-His birth,
temptations, beatings, death and burial-which could lead to that old Ebionite position.
However, there was a completely another school of thought that saw the Alexandrian
position, extreme or not, as a danger to falling off the cliff on the other side. This is
where those in Antioch offered another side of the debate that sought to regain, they
thought, the balance needed between the two natures.
As previously mentioned, the emphasis that Antioch wanted to preserve was that
of morality. They start from the problem of mankind was that it had fallen into a bondage
to sin, something definitely attested to in Scripture. Because of man’s sin, they had fallen
under the wrath of God and so became ensnared to death and damnation. Thus they were
concerned with the need for the salvation of man and that is the reason why Jesus Christ
had been given to the world. That since “man, being what he is, is unable to free himself
from the chains of disobedience, God himself must intervene, and, through creating, and
uniting himself, the new Man, bring into being the ‘Man-God,’ that man may be re-
established in obedience to God’s will, and heaven and earth re-united in perfect
harmony.”12
One begins to see the need to protect the human nature of Christ, since it is in His
sinless capacity and life that mankind is restored to a right relationship to God. Christ’s
union to mankind in His human nature is the key to redeeming all of human nature, and
this must be done through a specific human being. This differed from the Alexandrian
12 Sellers, 166-167.
10
understanding on the “importance” of the divine nature13 in the fact that for Alexandria,
because Christ’s incarnation was on behalf of all humankind, the specific human nature
was not stressed as deeply as Antioch did.14
This is to say that Antioch sought to understand the two natures in Christ within a
“Word-man” framework, rather than the “Word-flesh” of Alexandria. One of largest
theologians on the Antiochene side was Theodore of Antioch, bishop of Mopsuestia. His
contributions were to make sure that when one spoke of Jesus Christ, one did not lose His
very human nature in the process of confessing Him as God. Christ indeed was divine,
the very Son of God, and in the incarnation, the human nature He took from Mary “had
union with the Logos straightway from the beginning when he was formed in his
mother’s womb.”15 Theodore used the word “indwelling” to state his case as carefully
and fully as he could. Through the work of his critics, one sees how he attempted to
explain this concept. Theodore believed that the Logos could not have “pervaded the
humanity either substantially (κατ ουσιαν) or by direct activity (κατ ενεργειαν)” since
God is, by nature, omnipresent at all times. Thus, it was necessary for the Word to make
Himself “homo assumptus;” placing Himself very spatially and precisely locationally.16
So, Theodore stressed that within Jesus Christ, one found two complete natures
within the one person. He made sure that each of the ousiai was preserved within the
13 I am in no way saying the Antioch did not emphasize nor place great importance on the divine nature of Christ. They completely affirmed and necessitated the need for Christ to be fully divine in His work of salvation. However, to make the distinction clearer between the two schools of thought, to say that Alexandria emphasized the divine and Antioch the human nature in Christ helps us in this endeavor. 14 McGrath. 363. McGrath makes a helpful chart in this by stating, “The answer could be summarized as follows: Alexandria: Logos assumes a general human nature.
Antioch: Logos assumes a specific human being.” 15 Norris, 117. 16 Kelly, 305.
11
incarnation; stating that each of their prosopon retained its full individuality and
attributions. Care must be taken not to confuse the two natures, for to do so would be to
rob each of the nature of their full and complete personhood.17
It was another Antiochene that would pick this idea of Theodore and carry it
forward to Chalcedon. Theodoret of Cyrus, bishop of Cyrus from 423- c. 457, would take
Theodore’s understanding of the two natures into the one Person of Jesus Christ and
make it the theological underpinnings of the Antiochene position. What Theodoret does
was to take seriously the idea that God, in His creation, did created human nature. That
the human physis is real and true and substantial. It must be preserved at all cost because
it is the actual creation of God and thus His intention for His creation. This nature
includes all that is understood to be a human being.
Thus when it came to the incarnation, one has to hold onto the meaning of the
terms, in their totality. That when Paul speaks in Philippians 2:6-7, “Who, though he was
in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made
himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men,” the term
“’form of God’ refers to what the Word is in himself, to his ousia and physis. He is that;
he is the divine ousia. He does not become in time a form or image of the glory of the
Father.”18 Christ, in His incarnation, held both, complete physis or natures within
Himself; not, however, creating a new kind of “third” being, but one that is was fully God
and fully human at the same.19
17 Sellers, 179. 18 Paul B. Clayton Jr. The Christology of Theodoret of Cyrus: Antiochene Christology from the Council of Ephesus to the Council of Chalcedon. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 114. Italics are the authors. 19 Ibid. 115.
12
However, the difference was that Christ’s two natures received differently
according to what they were, which gives us a hint at the major problem the Alexandrians
recognized with Antioch. Taking this from Theodore,20 Theodoret stressed that each of
the natures acted on and was acted upon the things according to their nature. Holding that
it is the human nature that is subject to sin, temptation, hunger, death, etc., then when
Scripture speaks of such things taking place and upon Christ, it was not His divine physis
that suffered these, but His human. In accordance, in those things that only a divine
physis could do, then it was the Logos who took part in them. This distinction was needed
by Theodoret both to protect each of the natures from being confused with the other and
so to protect from creating a third type of being that is mixture of both the divine and
human.
However, if it could be said that the divine nature in Christ died upon the cross,
then one would be saying that the divine nature was finite-something that a divine nature,
by its definition, cannot have attributed to it. Thus, taking from Theodore, it is the
“indwelling” of the Logos into the human nature of Mary that this can be understood. So
Theodoret says,
“This ‘the Word became flesh’ indicates no alteration of deity, but the assumption of human nature. The evangelist proclaims the ineffable love of God for humanity as he teaches how he was in the beginning, who was God, and who was with God, who never was not, who created all things, who brought into being the things which were not, who was life, the true light, assumed the perishable physis and made the passions of human beings his own, so working out the salvation of humankind. And desiring to show more widely the greatness of his benevolence, he makes no mention of the immortal psyche, but speaks of only passible sarx…By the part he points to the whole.” 21
20 See Kelly, 306-307. 21 Clayton, 124.
13
Paul Clayton comments on this, “The assumption of sarx most emphatically does
not mean the change of the Word into created ousia-which by necessity is involved in the
Word replaces the human nous (or intellect, mind, reason) in Christ in a composite mia
physis of Word and human sarx (defined as soma alone).22 One can see the Antiochene
desire to protect each nature from each other. By keeping them united yet separate,
Theodoret was seeking to honor what it meant both to be divine and human and to ensure
that in the person of Christ, one did not fall to either an Ebionite or Doectist heresy.
Just like with Apollinarius and the Alexandria position, so too within the
Antiochene school arose a view that found footing within the theological world because
of its wrongful idea. This happened with the arrival of Nestorius on the scene, which
became the patriarch of Constantinople in 428 AD. The famous situation of his refusing
to call the Virgin Mary the Theotokos, the God bearing, is recounted in many histories of
the time and need not to be recited here. Instead we will be interested in gaining a bit of
an insight of what exactly Nestorius was seeking to do and why it lead, ultimately, to his
rejection at Chalcedon.
Nestorius was a true Antiochene, following the thought of Theodore and
Theodoret in seeking to not only attest to the two distinct natures in Christ, but to also
preserve their complete qualities within themselves. JND Kelly says that “I hold the
natures apart (χωριξω τας φυσεις), but united the worship, was his watchword; and he
envisaged the Godhead as existing in ‘the man’ and ‘the man’ in the Godhead without
mixture or confusion.”23 He could not abide by the idea of a hypostatic union between the
22 Ibid, 124. Explanation of nous is mine. 23 Kelly, 312.
14
two natures because that would lead to the aspects of each nature to share in the other,
which would have been a philosophical impossibility. Here is where Nestorius used
Theodoret’s work, showing, in the words of Clayton, an “Antiochene metaphysic of the
absolute unchangeableness of the divine ousia-physis.24 No wonder he could not accept
the philosophical idea of a Theotokos because, to use his own words,
“Does God have a mother? A Greek without reproach introducing mothers for the gods! Is Paul then a liar when he says of the deity of Christ, ‘without father, without mother, without genealogy’ [Heb. 7:3]? Mary, my friend, did not give birth to the Godhead (for what is born of the flesh is flesh” [John 3:6]). A creature did not produce him who is uncreateable…A creature did not produce the Creator, rather she gave birth to the human being, the instrument of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit did not create God the Logos (for ‘what is born of her is of the Holy Spirit’ [Matt. 1:20]). Rather, he formed out of the Virgin a temple for God the Logos, a temple in which he dwelt.” 25
Part Two: Chalcedon
The events that led to the Council of Chalcedon are probably more interesting
than the Council itself. In this time, several councils were held to debate various
Christological thoughts. The first at Ephesus in 431 officially condemned Nestorius. This,
however really settled nothing, as Theodoret and the Antiochene’s felt their position had
not been fully understood. In November 448, at a “home synod” in Constantinople, the
teachings of a monk named Eutyches, was debated and condemned.26 His position that
sought to further define the Alexandrian position, called that “while the Savior was of
one substance with the Father, he was not of one substance with us.”27 Thus, while before
24 Clayton, 142. 25 Placher, Readings in the History of Christian Theology, Volume One, 69. 26 Richard Price and Michael Gaddis, trans. The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon: Volume One. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005), 25-30. 27 Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: Complete in One Volume. The Early Church to the Present Day. (Peabody: Prince Press, 2001), 255.
15
the incarnation, it could be said that there were two natures, with a notion of being a
human nature; in the incarnation were only one nature remaining, the divine of the Logos.
This, of course, was denounced and denied by all people. It is noteworthy to say
that at this point, the Western Church began to have a word in the deliberations of these
Councils. Due to the fact that a strong pope was sitting on the papal chair, Leo, the
western church, which had not had the same problems with understanding the two natures
doctrine as had the east (due in part to their holding to Tertullian’s definition of persona
to speak of both the Persons of the Trinity and then of the two natures in Christ, along
with the influence of Augustine), found itself desiring to speak a word in the midst of this
current situation. This is not to say that the West had been excluded, but with the election
of Leo in 440, they had a figure “large” enough to throw some theological weight to
match that of the East.
At this time, another council that was called to meet in Ephesus in 449, created a
problem when supporters of the Alexandrian school convened before representatives of
Antioch could arrive. This was done so to ensure that Alexandria’s position would be set
down as orthodox, over against that of Antioch.28 This led to the council being labeled a
“robbers council,” with Leo in the West upset at the preceding’s. After all the parties
simmered down, a new council was called to meet at Chalcedon in order, hopefully, settle
this debate.
The events around the calling of Chalcedon developed out of the fact that a new
Eastern emperor after the death of Theodosius II on July 26, 450. His sister Pulcheria
assumed power, married a general named Marcian and began discussions with Pope Leo
28 Ibid, 255.
16
about seeking to solve the situation that had evolved from the recent history, especially
with that second council in Ephesus. It was this connection with seeking to work with the
Western pope that one can say was instrumental in what developed out of Chalcedon,
since the Definition of the Faith which was agreed upon can thus be seen as a truly
ecumenical statement, as it involved both parts of the Church and empire.
Theologically, what Chalcedon sought to do and did accomplish was to find that
middle ground between the two extremes that we have already discussed-that between the
one nature theology of Eutyches and the two completely separate natures of Nestorius,
even though both theologies had already been condemned as heretical. So Chalcedon can
be seen as more of a theological-setting council, rather than just one meeting to address
and condemn a particular question. This is not to say that the Church was settled after
Chalcedon, as factions did arise according to their own particular desires they held even
before the council.29 One thing could be said that what Chalcedon did was to “boost” the
power and prestige of the Roman pope and the Western Church in general. As we will
see, it was Leo’s Tome, first presented but unread at Ephesus in 449,30 that set the
theological agreement and which defined what the Church catholic believes and
confesses concerning the two natures in Christ.
The Tome of Leo was the document that essentially laid the groundwork for what
later developed out of the council as The Definition of the Faith. Represented at
Chalcedon by delegates, the Tome was re-introduced and became the heart of what
Chalcedon declared to be doctrine and the faith. In essence, Leo is simply addressing the
29 Price & Gaddis, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon: Volume One, 51-53. 30 Ibid, 29-30.
17
heresy of Eutyches and so refers to him throughout the work. However, what makes this
such a monumental and important piece is that in the midst of writing against one man,
Leo finally spoke of just what it is that one must think “concerning the Incarnation of the
divine Logos, and ‘by these three sentences the machinations of almost all heretics are
destroyed.’”31 The full text of Leo’s Tome and The Definition is located in Appendix One
and Two at the end of the paper. I will use italics when quoting the texts of the two
documents themselves.
As we begin to look at the divine nature, we find Leo holding firm on the
complete nature holding intact in the man Jesus. Taking his words from Scripture, there is
nothing lost was the Word put on flesh.32 That the divine Person of the Son is the same as
it was before the man Jesus Christ was born; the only difference now is that the Son now
has the same human flesh and nature as that of every other person.33 It must then be fully
confessed, “He whom Herod impiously designs to slay is like humanity in its beginnings;
but he whom the Magi rejoice to adore on their knees is Lord of all.” As R.V. Sellers
states, “This birth in time in no way detracted from, in no way added to, that divine and
eternal birth.”34 In Jesus’ baptism by John, the voice of the Father that fell over those
gathered affirms the fact that what one finds in Christ is the complete Second Person of
the Triune God, “Now when he came to the baptism of John his forerunner, lest the fact
that the Godhead was covered with a veil of flesh should be concealed, the voice of the
31 Sellers, 228. 32 Tome, “Accordingly, the same who, remaining in the form of God, made man, was made man in the form of a servant. For each of the natures retains its proper character without defect; and as the form of God does not take away the form of a servant, so the form of a servant does not impair the form of God.” 33 Tome, “For…’God’ is not changed by the compassion [exhibited],” and He is the “same, truly Son of God, and truly Son of Man. God, inasmuch as ‘in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’” 34 Sellers, 229.
18
Father spake in thunder from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased.”
At the same time, Leo is just as emphatic about holding to the real, true and
complete human nature of Christ. Scripture and doctrine speaks of the realness of Jesus’
humanity, even as it speaks of His divine Sonship. So, Eutyches erred when he could not
see that “It was the Holy Ghost who gave fecundity to the Virgin, but it was from a body
that a real body was derived; and “when Wisdom was building herself a house,” the
“Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” that is, in that flesh which he assumed
from a human being, and which he animated with the spirit of rational life.” That it must
be believed that when Christ hungered or thirst and was weary, as Scripture attests to,
these were real and substantial things and the same which all mankind shares in.
Thus, “He assumed “the form of a servant” without the defilement of sin,
enriching what was human, not impairing what was divine: because that “emptying of
himself,” whereby the Invisible made himself visible, and the Creator and Lord of all
things willed to be one among mortals, was a stooping down in compassion, not a failure
of power.” His was a real human nature and was fully born, lived and died as any other
person does.35
In the same importance then, the Tome further attests to just what this union
means. Remember, Eutyches had confessed that in the union, there was only one nature
remaining and Nestorius said the two natures were there but completely separate. Leo,
however, sought to affirm both natures in a complete unified manner.36 This highlights
35 Tome, “The infancy of the Babe is exhibited by the humiliation of swaddling clothes. 36 Tome, “Accordingly while the distinctness of both natures and substances was preserved, and both met in one Person, lowliness was assumed by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity; and, in order
19
Leo’s attempts to find common ground between Alexandria and Antioch. Neither natures
are diminished nor ignored; both are sought to be retained in their fullness.
“Accordingly, on account of this unity of Person which is to be understood as existing in both the natures, we read, on the one hand, that “the Son of Man came down from heaven,” inasmuch as the Son of God took flesh from that Virgin of whom he was born; and on the other hand, the Son of God is said to have been crucified and buried, inasmuch as he underwent this, not in his actual Godhead; wherein the Only-begotten is coeternal and consubstantial with the Father, but in the weakness of human nature.”
So Leo uses soteriology to speak of just how these two natures are conjoined.
Many have tried to pit the two Eastern schools against each other on this account.
However, this is erroneous in the fact that they each were speaking of the same thing, just
coming to it from a different angle. Alexandria emphasizes the divine work in the
salvation of mankind and so used the idea of the communicatio idiomatum to speak how
the divine attributed and participated in the death and resurrection that brought
redemption. Antioch emphasized the very same thing, just making sure to speak of the
necessity of the human nature of Christ actually suffering the work of salvation. Leo,
therefore, takes both schools and unites them in a way that affirmed their respective
emphases and yet help clear up the problems that developed from them.
The two natures, then, were united in perfect harmony and unity.37 The Logos
descended from heaven to take upon the very nature, which had fallen into bondage and
corruption, and this was needed because it was only God who could overcome the very
problem of humanity. 38 In Christ, one finds a “new order,” not some kind of “third way”
to pay the debt of our condition, the inviolable nature was united to the passible, so that as the appropriate remedy for our ills, one and the same “Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus,” might from one element be capable of dying and also from the other be incapable.” 37 Tome, “Each of the natures retains its proper character without defect; and as the form of God does not take away the form of a servant, so the form of a servant does not impair the form of God.” 38 Tome, “For we could not have overcome the author of sin and of death, unless he who could neither be contaminated by sin, nor detained by death, had taken upon himself our nature, and made it his own.”
20
but an order in which “he who in his own sphere is invisible, became visible in ours; He
who could not be enclosed in space, willed to be enclosed; continuing to be before times,
he began to exist in time.” Note here: Leo keeps each nature within its own “sphere,” yet
refuses to place them apart or differentiate them. It is not that human nature has become
the divine nature or that the divine nature becomes human nature; but in Christ, one finds
the divine taking upon flesh so in order to redeem human nature back to the divine. So
yes, the Son of God was born; yet it is not that the divine can be said to be born. The
same is for the human nature: in death, it is not the divine that now dies, but human
nature does. Leo explains it thusly:
For although in the Lord Jesus Christ there is one Person of God and man, yet that whereby contumely attaches to both is one thing, and that whereby glory attaches to both is another; for from what belongs to us he has that manhood which is inferior to the Father; while from the Father he has equal Godhead with the Father. Accordingly, on account of this unity of Person which is to be understood as existing in both the natures, we read, on the one hand, that “the Son of Man came down from heaven,” inasmuch as the Son of God took flesh from that Virgin of whom he was born; and on the other hand, the Son of God is said to have been crucified and buried, inasmuch as he underwent this, not in his actual Godhead; wherein the Only-begotten is coeternal and consubstantial with the Father, but in the weakness of human nature. Wherefore we all, in the very Creed, confess that “the only-begotten Son of God was crucified and buried,” according to that saying of the Apostle, “for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Majesty.”
So, the very heart of the Tome is what it means for Jesus to be fully divine and fully
human.39
One sees Leo’s theological exercises in the official statement of Chalcedon, The
Definition of the Faith. It begins with stating that the council’s primary confession is that
39 Tome, “For when God is believed to be both “Almighty” and “Father,” it is proved that the Son is everlasting together with himself, differing in nothing from the Father, because he was born as “God from God,” Almighty from Almighty, Coeternal from Eternal; not later in time, not inferior in power, not unlike him in glory, not divided from him in essence, but the same Only-begotten and Everlasting Son of an Everlasting Parent was “born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.” This birth in time in no way detracted from, in no way added to, that divine and everlasting birth; but expended itself wholly in the work of restoring man, who had been deceived; so that it might both overcome death, and by its power “destroy the devil who had the power of death.”
21
of the Creed of Nicaea-Constantinople. Doing this, they were saying the same as Leo in
attesting that what the Creed states: that Christ is of the same nature and substance of the
Father, co-equal in all majesty, power and supremacy and that He was born of the Holy
Spirit from the Virgin Mary. Here we see their holding to the distinct natures one does
find in Jesus Christ, “This wise and salutary formula of divine grace sufficed for the
perfect knowledge and confirmation of religion; for it teaches the perfect [doctrine]
concerning Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and sets forth the Incarnation of the Lord to
them that faithfully receive it.40
A term used here is important to understand this. That they affirm the use of
homoousios unites them with the previous work of theologians, especially with that of the
West. So Christ is, “perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man,
of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as
touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all
things like unto us, sin only excepted.” Note how they speak of Christ-consubstantial
with both the Father according to His divinity and to mankind according to His humanity.
This seems to affirm both the Alexandrian and Antiochene work to stress Christ’s two
complete natures.41
40 Definition, “Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before the worlds according to his Godhead; but in these last days for us men and for our salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to his manhood.” 41 Sellers, 212-213. “As we have seen, at the very heart of the doctrine of Apollinarius and Cyril is the conception that he who existed ‘without flesh’ exists ‘in flesh’ in Jesus Christ; in fact, Cyril uses the same expressions which appear in the Chalcedonian confession, speaking of Jesus Christ as, ‘the Same, at once both God and man’ (ο αυτος Θεος τε οµος και ανθρωπος), as ‘perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood,’ and as homoousios with us, while remaining homoousios with the Father. The Antiochene, even
22
Key here is the “famous” four adverbs of Chalcedon.42 “This one and the same
Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures,
unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the
distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but rather the peculiar property of
each nature being preserved and being united in one Person and subsistence, not
separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten, God
the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ.” When we look at this, we see that desire to hold both
the unity and separation in a healthy tension. There is one Jesus Christ, begotten of the
Father who is united within this One born of the Virgin. He hold each nature fully in His
own Person and being. The four adverbs stress this beyond measure.
So the Jesus Christ is true God and true Man, being unconfused in that neither
nature loses its qualities and essence in the incarnation, contra to Apollinarius and
Eutyches. Each nature is immutable, unable to change from what the natures are. This
Jesus is indivisible in His two natures, highlighting, against Nestorius and Theodoret, that
one cannot ascribe something happening to Christ as happening to either His divine or
human nature. And we find Christ to be inseparably united, affirming the communicatio
idiomatum that what happens to the one nature happens to the other.
Thus we find Chalcedon seeking to reject both the extremes we have already
mentioned. There are both natures in the Man Jesus Christ-His divinity does not consume
the humanity He received from Mary, nor is His humanity and divinity two separate
natures within the Person so that one can attribute each according to the work. Instead, in
if their teaching is not so clear-cut as that of the Alexandrians, uphold the same doctrine; and of course this part of the Chalcedonian statement is based on an Antiochene document.” 42 For a brief article on the four adverbs of Chalcedon, see Martin H. Scharlemann, “The Case for Four Adverbs: Reflections on Chalcedon,” Concordia Theological Monthly, Vol. 28, No. 12 (December 1957).
23
Christ we are able to see both natures in the work He does. Christ dies according to His
human nature, even as the divine nature, taking on the attributes of the human, dies and
Christ rises over the grave as His human nature is worked upon by the divine to defeat
death. It is as Sellers says, “Chalcedon allow the enquirer into the Person of the Logos
made flesh to see his Godhead and his manhood as ‘two’, each in it ‘ownness.’”43
Part Three: Luther
“For from the beginning of Christ’s conception, on account of the union of the two natures, it has been correct to say, ‘This God is the Son of David, and this Man is the Son of God.’ The first is correct because His Godhead was emptied and hidden in the flesh. The second is correct because His humanity has been completed and translated to divine being. But even though it is true that He was not made the Son of God, but only the Son of Man, nevertheless, one and the same Person has always been the Son and is the Son of God even then.”44
So summarizes just where Luther stands in the context of the doctrine of Christology and
the two natures in Christ. “Christ is the subject of theology,” was something he said and
so we find Christ and just who He is and what He did at the center of so much of what he
had to say to the Church.45
Of course, since Christ was the center of Luther’s theological talk, it is near
impossible to gain a systematic compilation of his thoughts. So much of his writings,
hymns, letters and sermons are filled with “Christ-talk” and he flows in and out of
speaking about Christ in a way that can make it a bit difficult to gain a hold of all of what
he says about Him. This is exacerbated since Luther was first and foremost a professor of
43 Sellers, 219. 44 Martin Luther, American Edition of Luther's Works. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann. 55 vols. (Philadelphia and St. Louis: Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing House, 1957-1986.), Vol. 25:147. Hereafter, LW. 45 Franz Posset. Luther’s Catholic Christology: According to His Johannine Lectures of 1527. (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1988), 20. This quote comes from WA TR 2:242, 4.
24
the Old Testament at the Wittenberg University, so he was immersed in the Bible and
found Christ anywhere and everywhere.46
Since Luther believed and confessed Jesus Christ so completely, the best way to
gain an understanding of Luther’s thought is to view just in what way he did teach his
belief. This is best done by taking Luther for who he was: a pastor and theologian, and
not a systematician. That his theology is going to come across in a different manner
because his first concern and primary vocation was that to teach and preach the faith to
those in the classroom of the university and sitting in the pews of the congregations.
The first thing to consider to gain an appreciation for Luther’s thoughts on Christ
is to understand that when speaking of Christology, he would rarely do it in an abstract
manner, but tied the person of Christ to His work. For him, Christology is wrapped up in
soteriology because Christ was given for no other reason than to save a world in bondage
to sin, death and the power of the devil. We see this in Luther’s love for the phrase, “for
you” in making people understand just what Christ was given for. One is drawn to his use
of that in the Lord’s Supper section in the Small Catechism. So Marc Leinhard asserts,
“Christology and soteriology are inseparable one from the other.”47
And what soteriology shows us is how Luther considered just how the Person
Jesus Christ was. Here Luther was in agreement with the early church and Chalcedon.
The incarnation is the entrance of the eternal Son of God into the world. It is a
46 Ibid, 146. “In a table talk of 1531 Luther suberbly characterized John and Paul in regard to Christology: ‘John the evangelist describes Christ as God a priori. Paul, however, a posteriori and from the effect.” This bit shows just how much Luther saw Christ being spoke of in the pages of the Holy Scriptures. 47 Marc Lienhard, Luther: Witness to Jesus Christ, Stages and Themes of the Reformer’s Christology. Translated by Edwin H. Robertson. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1982), 177.
25
“manifestation of the deity of God, free, holy and jealous.”48 He takes the words of St.
Paul from Philippians 2 seriously, seeing here the humiliation of the Son into the human
person of Jesus Christ.49 Christ “put on” humanity so to draw close to humanity in order
that they made be saved in His death and resurrection.
Thus the incarnation is finally for the faith of those whom Christ came to redeem.
As one believes that Christ died and rose for them, they receive the benefits of the work
of God becoming man.50 This is why philosophy cannot justify the incarnation, because
as philosophy says the finite cannot contain the infinite, faith lives upon something
different than pure thought, but upon the words of Scriptures and the preaching of the
church.51
This is an important point-Luther can speak of it using philosophical terms. The
incarnation is not “located at the level of accidentia [but] in the unity with humanity in
Jesus Christ, the divinity is like the substantia.”52 Here is where we find him using the
language of Cyril and speak of a hypostatic union between the two natures. It is a
“personal union” between the two; the two distinct essences of the natures are not
collapsed into each other, but a genuine union took place were there is just the one Person
in two natures.53 Luther especially liked to use an illustration from the church fathers to
48 Ibid, 157. 49 Ibid, 52. Leinhard makes the important distinction that for Luther, the idea of kenosis doesn’t mean that Christ completely divested Himself of His divine nature. Francis Pieper makes it clear that this theory must be carefully thought about and spoken of because one could fall into the error of Christ losing some of the divine attributes in the incarnation. This would be an interesting study within itself. (Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics: Volume Two. [Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1951], 105-107, 206.) 50 Posset, 206. “The incarnation of Christ, soterologically understood, is the reason why the believer’s spiritual birth is possible.” 51 Leinhard, 326-327. 52 Ibid, 328. 53 Ibid, 219.
26
speak of the union. He uses the term enhypostasis to emphasize just what the incarnation
resulted in. That in Christ, “a humanity [is] united indissolubly to the divine
hypostasis.”54 There can be seen no separation between the two natures now, nor can you
speak of them in different terms and workings in the life of Christ.
At the same time, however, Luther was very adamant that philosophy must be
tempered and in fact, must at times give way to theology. This is where we find Luther
becoming that Biblical scholar and pastor to the students he taught and people he
preached to on a regular basis. A couple of examples of this are found in two different
disputations that Luther produced. The first is from January 11, 1539, The Disputation
Concerning the Passage: “The Word was Made Flesh (John 1:14), which is found in
volume 38 of the American Edition of Luther’s Works and the second is the Disputation
on the Divinity and Humanity of Christ, which was offered in February 27, 1540. This
work, translated into English by Christopher B. Brown, can be accessed at on the internet.
It is included in Appendix three.
In the Disputation Concerning the Passage: “The Word was Made Flesh, we get
an understanding of how Luther considered the use of philosophy in the midst of
theology with the very second thesis presented, “In theology it is true that the Word was
made flesh; in philosophy the statement is simply impossible and absurd.”55 Luther here
is making a careful distinction between theology and philosophy-that there are at times
54 Ibid, 230-235. 55 LW 38:239.
27
when they are incapable of being complimentary. This is so because as he says,
“Philosophy deals with visible matters, but theology deals with invisible ones.”56
It’s not that theology and philosophy necessarily don’t talk about the same
things.57 But the difference lies in that theology’s entire emphasis is about God and man’s
relation to Him. In dealing with the idea that the Word became flesh, the difference then
lies in the fact that with philosophy this is impossible because philosophy’s attributes of
God cannot be held within humanity. Only God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent,
etc., and to be man means, by nature and definition, not to be or hold those qualities.
However, the theology behind John 1:14 says just that-in this man Jesus Christ, is found
the God who is God with all divine attributes.
Thus, Luther notes that a difference lies with the use of grammar-that while
theology and philosophy can and do speak the same words; they are using those words,
often, in completely different ways. This is where the communicatio idiomatum comes
into play for Luther. He explicates this in Argument 4: Every man is a creature. Christ is
a man. Therefore, Christ is a creature. First, Luther points out two things are going on
here, a major and minor premise. Since philosophy declares that to be a man means that
one is not God, and since a man is a creature and by nature God is not, then when one
speaks of the Word becoming flesh, then you must be saying that, in His nature, Christ is
nothing more than a creature and not God. And the confusion that this brings about,
Luther says is found in the use of the word “man:” philosophy uses it one-way and
56 LW 38:249. 57 LW 38:248. “We say that theology does not contradict philosophy because the latter speaks only about matrimony, obedience, chastity, liberality, and other virtues.”
28
theology another. Therefore, one must learn to “use” grammar differently when you deal
with theology:
“And I simply say: If a distinction is made, the meaning of the word is not the same. We ought to rely upon the word alone. Oecolampadius says beautifully that ‘man’ has another meaning here than in the [genealogical] tree of Porphyry. He should rather have said that it is a commination of properties. The philosopher does not say that God is man or that man is God and the son of God. But we say that man in God, and we witness to this by the word of God without a syllogism, apart from philosophy; philosophy has noting to do with our grammar. You should note this because ‘man’ is and should mean something beyond what it means in the [genealogical] tree of Porphyry, even if it is truly said that God was made man, as they and I say. For here it means something greater and more comprehensive.” 58
We continue to see this line of thinking in the Disputation on the Divinity and
Humanity of Christ from 1540. (Again, I will quote the text in italics since it is located in
the appendix). In the very first argument, “A human person is one thing, a divine person
another. But in Christ there are both divinity and humanity. Therefore there are two
persons in Christ.” Luther responds, “There is a fallacy of composition and division. In
the major premise you divide the human nature and the divine; in the minor premise you
join them. This is a philosophical solution; but we are speaking theologically. I deny the
consequence, for this reason, that in Christ the humanity and the divinity constitute one
person. But these two natures are distinct in theology, with respect, that is, to the natures,
but not with respect to [secundum] the person.”
What we see here is that Luther refuses to allow the use of words in philosophy
define what is being said theologically. Luther binds himself to the work of Chalcedon
and the faith of the Church and insists that at times, what is said in the Church must be
thought of and used different than in the academy. So, because theology says there are
not two persons in the one nature of Jesus, but that there are two natures in the one
58 LW 38:246-247.
29
person, when one speaks of Christ’s two natures, one must speak of them as united, yet
separate-and all at the same time.59
Another example of this is found in Argument 4: A word is not a person, Christ is
the Word. Therefore Christ is not a person. “I prove the major premise, that a word and
a person are different, Luther responds, “This is a new expression, which was formerly
unheard of in the world. Christ is not a mathematical or physical word, but a divine and
uncreated word, which signifies a substance and a person, because the divine Word is the
divinity. Christ is the divine Word. Therefore he is the divinity, that is, a substantial
person [ipsa substantia et persona]. Philosophically, “word” means a sound or an
utterance, but speaking theologically, “Word” signifies the Son of God. This, Aristotle
would not admit, that “Word” signifies true God [plenum Deum}.
Again, we find here that important need to distinguish how one is “speaking,”
either theologically or philosophically. Luther says it in Argument 7, When we must
speak carefully, there is most need of grammar. In theology, we must speak carefully,
Therefore the Holy Spirit has his own grammar. Luther here is not saying that philosophy
doesn’t have its place; just that it must stay in its place for it is be any benefit to theology.
Theology is a completely different and new way of speaking in the world and this is true
59 Disputation on the Divinity and Humanity of Christ. In Argument two, Luther states, From eternity he was not man; but now being conceived by the Holy Ghost, that is, born of the Virgin, God and man are made one person, and the same things are truly said of God and man [sunt eadem praedicata Dei et hominis]. Here the personal union is accomplished. Here the humanity and divinity are joined [Da gehet’s ineinander humanitas et divinitas]. The union holds everything together [Die unitas, die helt’s]. I confess that there are two natures, but they cannot be separated.
30
because theology is speaking about something, God, that is, in His own nature and
substance, beyond the created means of this world.60
One sees this in the way Luther speaks of the incarnation. Historically speaking,
Luther takes an Alexandrian position when speaking of Christ’s human nature. And so he
makes a distinction in what exactly was the human nature Christ made His own. He does
this by speaking to the need to understand the term homo not as philosophy does, in the
manner of it meaning a person who exists within themselves, but theologically, which see
the term more in the understanding of the entirety of humanity. So, Luther says, “The
man Christ is a divine person who assumed human nature.”61 If one sought to hold to a
philosophical view, then the human nature Christ assumed would make of Him two
persons-one divine and one human.
But Luther was right at home with what was agreed upon at Chalcedon in his
doctrine of the two natures. However, where Luther takes it was out of the abstract and
into the concrete to make it understandable. For him, the two natures in Christ are not
important according to the terminology or comprehension, but in the work it achieves for
the salvation of mankind. In Christ, one finds the Godhead at work to redeem man from
sin and death. His divinity, in assuming our flesh, locates Himself within our sphere and
so was placed in the same condemnation and death. However, unable to retain Him
because of His divinity, as Christ rose triumphant on Easter, so now humanity can share
in life of God. The God-Man Jesus Christ is necessary, not for God, but for humanity
60 Ibid. So Luther says in Theses 23, Thus it must be that the words man, humanity, suffered, etc., and everything that is said of Christ, are new words. 61 Leinhard, 330.
31
because He is the only place where the world can find, experience and comprehend the
eternal Godhead.62
Key to Luther here is a brief discussion on his belief and use of the communicatio
idiomatum. Theodore Tappert offers what is a nicely systematized outline of Luther’s
understanding of this concept:
1. The properties of one nature are ascribed to the whole person of the
Godhead.
2. The person of Christ acts through both natures, each contributing what
is particular to itself.
3. The properties of the divine nature are communicated to the human.63
Franz Posset speaks of this concept of being the central aspect to all understanding of
Luther’s Christology,64 and K.O Nilsson speak of it being the heart of all Luther’s
theology and a “matter of utmost importance.”65
It is the communicatio idiomatum that Luther saw was the primary work of
protecting and defining that Chalcedon did for the Church. He saw that as the council
dealt with the heresies of Euytches and Nestorius, they were finally calling to the
62 Ibid, 229. Here we will find the idea of the ubiquity of Christ important later on, as we discuss the two natures in Luther’s sacramental theology. 63 Paul C. Empie and James I McCord, ed. Marburg Revisited: A Reexamination of Lutheran and Reformed Traditions. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1966), 57. 64 Posset, 249. 65 K.O. Nilsson. Simul: Das Miteinander von Göttlichlem und Menschlichem in Luthers Theologie. (Forschungen zur Kirchen und Dogmengeschichte 17. Göttingen, 1996), as noted in Leinhard, 355. Nilsson says, “It is the communicatio idiomatum by which Luther’s whole system of theological thought stands or falls. The communicatio must not be understood as an accessory, more or less important, to the main theological structure. This is a matter of the utmost importance in understanding Luther. The communicatio is not a doctrine in itself which one might derive by careful and diligent study from the thought of Luther about the unity of Christ’s person and work. The doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum is not merely a consequence of the unity in Christ, but an expression of this unity itself and the whole basis on which, according to Luther, life and happiness rests.”
32
forefront that their ideas were definicient on the basis of their refusal to hold to the reality
and concretness of both natures in Christ.66 That what Chalcedon did was to assert
totality of both natures at work in and through Christ and to give the Church language to
speak of this through this concept of the work of the attributes thorugh the other.
What the communicatio meant for Luther was to wholly take the confession that
Jesus is God and Man in its logical and linguistic plain sense readings. If you cannot
speak of Christ being totally and at all times both God and man in His ownself, then you
really are confessing two natures and two persons of Christ. Again, this shows Luther’s
use of the concrete and not abstract thinking. In this way, he is confessing the “four
adverbs” of Chalcedon that we spoke of before. If those are to be true, then one has to be
ready to speak of them in their totality when speaking of Christ.
Of course, this has led to some accusing Luther of holding toward a Monophysite,
Apollinarianism or even Docetic theology.67 Some have seen Luther’s ability to speak of
God suckling at Mary’s breast or that on the cross, God died, as failing to distinguish
between the two natures. However, to accuse Luther of such failings is to miss just what
he was trying to express when he spoke like this. In fact, he was trying to protect Christ
from being separated again into the ancient heresies because of the temptation to
philosophize by some or to diminish the plain sense of Scripture by others. Instead, one
must realize that in Luther, he is at home holding to the tension what such a confession of
66 LW 41:108-109. “I shall give you my ideas; if I hit the mark, good-if not, the Christian faith will not fall herewith. Eutyches’ opinion is also (like that of Nestorius) in error concerning the idiomata, but in a different way. Nestorius does not want to give the idiomata of humanity to the divinity in Christ, even though he maintains that Christ is God and man. Eutyches, on the other hand, does not want to give the idiomata of divinity to the humanity, though he also maintains that Christ is true God and true man. 67 See Siggins, 215-216; Leinhard, 230, 344; Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), 315-317.
33
the two natures in Christ brings and is willing to live within the complexity and mystery
of just how this union of the divine and human took place and was held in the Person of
Jesus Christ.68
So for Luther, what the communicatio idiomatum does is to allow one to speak of
Christ; creating a phrase that reflects his work, “philosophically theological.” As Martin
Chemnitz, whose work The Two Natures in Christ became an important work in
systematizing Lutheran theology during the next generation of Lutheran theologians after
Luther, quotes Luther substantially in describing what the communicatio idiomatum is:
“We must be careful that we do not divide this one person into two and on the other that we do not fuse into one the two distinct natures in the one person. For we must retain the difference of the two natures in the wonderful unity of the person, for just as the two natures have been joined together or united in the one person of the Son of God, so also in our common manner of speaking in the church we apply the terms (or as we popularly call them predications [statements]) which are attributed to the natures also to the complete person. We commonly refer to this practice as the communication of attributes, that is, we apply what is proper to one nature by itself in the abstract to the whole person in the concrete, as when we make the correct and true statement that the manhood in born of the Virgin Mary and crucified by the Jews. These predications are correctly attributed to the Son of God, and thus it is correct to say that the Son of God is born of the Virgin and crucified by the Jews, because God and man are one person, the one Christ, the Son of God and the Son of the Virgin…We say that God was crucified and put to death for us, that He has redeemed us by His blood, for there is one person consisting of God and man, a divine and a human nature joined together to form one person, for Christ in reality is both God and man. Therefore, what He did, suffered, or spoke as a man He also truly did, suffered, and spoke as the eternal God. And again, what He did and spoke as God He also did and spoke as man. For He is the same Son of both the eternal God and the human Virgin, one undivided person, but with a distinction of natures.” 69
To summarize his theology is to say that Luther did not stray from what was
decided at in the councils of the Church and, for our question, at Chalcedon. His theology
was that of what was offered up by Leo and in The Definition of the Faith and he doesn’t
68 Leinhard, 378-379. 69 Martin Chemnitz, The Two Natures in Christ.” Translated by J.A.O. Preus. (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007), 190-191.
34
go any further than it.70 So we find him rejecting all the heresies that gave rise to the
calling of the ancient councils. Against Arius, he held to the homoousios that made the
union of Christ to the Father as inseparable and unchanging as did the hypostatic union of
the divine and human in Himself. Mary was fully the Theotokos, as Nestorius refused to
do, for in the incarnation God Himself was born and each properties of the natures
participates with the other. And for him, Jesus Christ held two whole and distinct but
united natures within Himself, contra to what Apollinarius and Eutyches sought to teach.
As we have already said and shown, Luther never would simply leave philosophy
or theology in its abstract means. That if the heart of Lutheran theology, to quote Gerhard
Forde, is that “theology is for proclamation,” then to see just why Luther did what he did,
one can look at a portion of his work and find the means in which Luther sought to use
what he believed in a way that served the Church and those he taught or preached. And
one of the best places to see this is to look at Luther’s writings concerning the Lord’s
Supper. We will do this by looking a four different works, That These Word of Christ,
“This is My Body,” etc., Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, Confession Concerning
Christ’s Supper, The Marburg Colloquy & Marburg Articles and Brief Confession
Concerning the Holy Sacrament. We will look at them in the chronological order in
which they were written.
This is a good place to view Luther’s work because it is in the Sacrament that the
doctrine of the two natures in Christ becomes a very concrete means where philosophy
and theology meets in the life of the Church. One of Luther’s most formable opponents
he battled with during his life was that of those he labeled as the “Sacramentarians,”
70 Leinhard, 23. “We have seen so far the extent to which the Christology of the ancient church can be considered as a source of the thought of Martin Luther.”
35
those, following primarily upon the work of Ulrich Zwingli, who believed that in the
Lord’s Supper, the bread and wine merely “represented” or “symbolized” the Body and
Blood of Christ, whereas Luther held, following the general thought (although there was
a great difference) of the Roman Church, as well as with, as Luther contended, the entire
Church catholic. For Zwingli, the benefit one received came through a spiritual sense,
where one is able to share in the forgiveness that Christ bestows through His divine
Sonship.
In 1527, Luther responding publically that which had been taking place since
1524, where more than two dozens of writings had been published attacking Luther’s
doctrine on the Supper.71 What Luther does in to defend the doctrine of the Real Presence
in the Supper is to take one right back to what was declared to be the orthodox faith at
Chalcedon. What took place in the incarnation, Luther asked? Since what he was being
challenged upon was the philosophical inability for Christ’s true and substantial Body
and Blood to be physically located in the bread and wine of the Supper, what Luther says
is that to disbelieve that is to finally to disbelief the reality of the incarnation. That the
real battle, Luther showed, was really the battle of the two natures in Christ.
So, in this work he showed that the Church does truly believe in the reality of the
two natures in the incarnation. He asks, mockingly, “When the Virgin Mary was bodily
pregnant with the Son of God and carried Jesus Christ our Lord nine months in her
womb, and then as a mother brought him bodily into the world, as our Creed and Gospels
say, did she also carry and bear Christ’s flesh bodily in and through her flesh?”72 He hits
71 LW 37:5. Pages 8-11 of this volume lists the writings that Luther was indirectly responding in his piece. 72 LW 37:82
36
here the heart of the two natures doctrine-that the man Jesus Christ is also the Son of
God. That, he is making the point, that when one speaks of Christ, one must believe that
you are speaking of the very real man He was; that one cannot separate the divine and
human in Christ unless you want to join in with all the heretics who either denied one
nature or the other or sought to keep them separate.
One of the interesting methods Luther takes to speak of this connection between
the two natures in Christ and the Lord’s Suppers is to use the objections of the
Sacramentarians against them. They said they could not believe in the real presence of
Christ in the Supper because Christ Himself had said “It is the Spirit who gives life; the
flesh is no help at all” (John 6:63). Luther turns this around and asks that if Christ meant
“flesh” in its complete and forever sense, then “Christ’s flesh, bodily conceived, borne
and handled, is of no avail….For if his flesh is not present in the sacrament for the reason
that flesh is of no avail, neither is it in his mother’s womb, precisely for the same reason
that it is of no avail. The reasoning is the same in both instances.”73
Thus, Luther is saying, if the flesh of Christ was real within His very own self,
then the meaning of the words He spoke in John cannot mean what they mean
philosophically, but must be taken in a different manner when it came to the confession
that Christ real Body and Blood was present in the Sacrament. That if the flesh is no help
at all, then Christ’s sacrificing Himself upon the cross is no help at all for mankind. His
opponents cannot have it both ways-Christ’s flesh cannot be true in Himself and not the
Sacrament since on the one hand, in the incarnation, one cannot separate Christ’s divine
73 LW 37:82
37
and human natures and, if that is true, then one cannot thus separate Him even after His
resurrection and ascension.
Therefore, as Luther continued in his 1528 work, Confession Concerning Christ’s
Supper, when one desires to speak theologically, then they must remember to read the
words theologically he says. That in the Supper, to read the words, “This is My body,”
must be read according to what they are saying and what they are meaning according to
ones theological confession. The Sacramentarians erred when they said they believe
Christ when He says in John 6:63 that the flesh is no help at all, but then refused to
believe Jesus’ further words during the Last Supper. That words cannot be believed to be
“true” in one point and than simply “metaphorically” in another unless you want to open
yourself up to the charge, for example, that the person who was born in Luke 1, John the
Baptist, must be understood to have a different body than the person who was born in
Luke 2.
Here Luther attacks the idea of an alloeosis being used by Zwingli. An alloeosis
is the idea that when something is said about the deity of Christ, which after all belongs
to the humanity, doesn’t really mean it applies to the deity but only to the humanity (the
same goes in the reverse). It is the use of a trope, a matter of simply speaking, where one
nature is in fact referring only to the other. So, Luther said, if in the Supper the “body”
Jesus was speaking of is only His divine nature which now resides at the right hand of the
Father, then what one has is a Christ whose human nature can be questioned as being
only a type or shadow of what is real. One ends up, as with Nestorius, with a separated
38
Christ who must either be God or man but cannot be both since to say so would to make
each nature hold in its substance what it is not.74
So, Luther insists, “Thus we have two unions, the one natural and the other
personal, which teach us that identical predication is not contrary to Scripture, nor is it
contrary for two distinct beings to be called one being…Therefore it is entirely correct to
say, if one points to the bread, ‘This is Christ’s body,’ and whoever sees the bread sees
Christ’s body, as John says that he saw the Holy Spirit when he saw the dove.”75 Christ
must be fully God and fully man, at all times and in all places now, after His incarnation
because to say otherwise, the incarnation is not truly what it says it is and you end up
with a Christ who is either fully God or fully man, but not both.76
Luther, in his own words at the Marburg Colloquy, would “know of no God
except him who became man.”77 We see here Luther’s insistence of holding reason and
philosophy separate from theology, especially when you are seeking to speak about
matters of faith. He would not abide by Zwingli and his ilk, to divide Christ in any way,
before or after His incarnation or ascension.78 Instead Luther would abide only with a
74 LW 37:209-214 75 LW 37:298-300 76 LW 37:223. “You must place this existence of Christ, which constitutes him one person with God, far, far beyond things created, as far as God transcends them; and on the other hand, place it as deep in and as near to all created things as God is in them. For he is one indivisible person with God, and wherever God is, he must be also, otherwise our faith is false.” 77 LW 38:82 78 LW 38:29. So it was reported that Oecolampadius said, “In all things Christ has been made like us; as he is of one substance with the Father in his divinity, so he is of one substance with us in his humanity. In this there is agreement, that Christ is present; and as he is in heaven [according to his divinity and humanity], so he is in the Supper [according to his divinity].”
39
theology that held the two natures in the unity and completeness, which had been taught
through the ages.79
Therefore, we find in Luther using the theology of the Lord’s Supper to speak
concerning the events of the Church in the past and what the councils had decided. He
would frequently connect ancient heresies and heretics to contemporaries of his, showing
the people that one must always be on the guard against false teachings, even when it
might not be directly connected with the ancient discussions. The old Nestorian heresy
Luther saw as the basis of Zwingli’s refusal to confess the bodily presence of Christ in
the Sacrament and he would accuse Casper Schwenckfeld of falling prey to that of what
Eutyches taught.
So, Luther pointed out that like Nestorius, when Zwingli taught that Christ could
not be bodily in the Sacrament because His human nature resided in heaven and that
which is human cannot be affected upon by the divine, he was in error because of the
failure to hold to the communicatio idiomatum because in the incarnation, Christ’s two
natures are so united, that one cannot separate them in any matter-and that continues now
into the Sacrament.80 Thus through the power of the divine power of Christ’s Godhead,
He is also bodily present as well.81
79 LW 38:292. “For this is how it was taught under the papacy, how we still accept and teach it, and how it was accepted in the true ancient Christian church of fifteen hundred years ago (for the pope did not institute or invent the sacrament, as the fanatics themselves also must admit, although they want to make it papistical): When you receive the bread from the altar, you are not tearing an arm from the body of the Lord or biting off his nose or a finger; rather, you are receiving the entire body of the Lord; the person who comes after you also receives the same entire body, as does the third and the thousandth after the thousandth one forever and ever. In the same way when you drink the wine from the chalice, you are not drinking his entire blood; so, too, does the done who follows you even the thousand times thousandth one, as the words of Christ clearly says: “Take, eat; this is my body” [Matt. 26:26].” 80 LW 41:100-106. “I too have been confronted by Nestorius who fought me very stubbornly, saying that the divinity of Christ could not suffer. For example Zwingli too wrote against me concerning the saying,
40
With Schwenkfeld, Luther pointed that he taught like that of Eutyches, that in the
incarnation even Christ’s human nature was no longer a created substance, but everything
was glorified through the union with the divine. So even the divine nature died in the
crucifixion, instead of what was confessed that just the human nature truly died since
only human nature is finite.82
What we find, therefore, is Luther, in addressing the ideas and theologies which
were part of the conversation in his day, found a voice in which to criticize and show
them for this failures in the language the church had been using since this problems were
address in the past. That Luther saw it best to refute ideas which fell for the same ancient
errors, by addressing them according to how it affected the church at the local and
personal level.
Conclusion
As we have worked our way through the basics of the theological discussions that
took place, primarily, around the production of The Definition of the Faith at the Council
of Chalcedon, we have found that the doctrine of the two natures in Jesus Christ to be an
important and crucial theological declaration to be made, and to be made rightly. That the
history of the Christian Church is that because it has deemed this understanding to be
central to the confession it has made concerning Christ because, it gets the heart of just
who this man was that we confess to be Savior and God and how it was that in His birth,
‘The Word became flesh.’ He would simply not have it that ‘became’ should apply to ‘Word.’ He wanted it to read, ‘The flesh was made word,’ because God could not become anything.” 81 LW 38: 301. “The holy Christian church and we with them…that Christ’s body is not present locally [localiter] (like straw in a sack) in the sacrament, but definitively [definitive]. That is, he is certainly there, not like straw in a sack, but yet bodily and truly there.” 82 Chemnitz, 274, 396, 403. In fact, this has given rise to some, primarily following the Finnish school of Luther studies, to declare that man is deified through their participation with Christ in justification. However, it seems as though this thought would have more in line with Schwenckfeld than Luther.
41
death and resurrection, mankind finds it to be redeemed and saved from the
condemnation of our sin.
And we have found in this history is that the Church’s theological assertions
developed by addressing particular problems it found with what some were teaching as
they were trying to comprehend it. Not that those who were later proven to be heretics
were seeking to destroy the Church and her faith; in fact, they were seeking to bring
understanding to that which was being discussed and needed to be decided. They were
not horrible people; just people who developed wrongful ideas and thoughts and were
disposed by the greater insight and reflecting of the larger Church.
Martin Luther shared in this work as he sought to discuss and proclaim the clear
Gospel and Biblical faith in his time. His was a theology that was right at home with the
entire Church and he sought in his pastoral and academic work to continue to proclaim
the saving message of Christ and Him crucified and raised for the salvation of all the
world.
We find Luther, though, attempting to take what was decided at councils and
often taught within the classroom and make it available to the people who simply were
seeking to find hope in the midst of the struggles of their life. This is where Luther
shines-his education and knowledge of the Bible and theology was second to none. But
his gift was also that of a pastor and so he sought to address that which was confronting
the Church in his day with showing just what it is the Church believes and why certain
ideas and peoples were needed to be rejected.
And one can even understand why Luther was at times rather caustic in his
language and polemics. For one can excuse, to a point, someone like Apollinarius,
42
Nestorius or Eutyches which we covered in this paper-they at least were addressing
something that hadn’t completely debated and were attempting to give a definition to
what the Church believes. But, as Luther found, people like Zwingli or Schwenckfeld had
the benefit of the past and should have, at least, known better and confessed the orthodox
faith. And this is why Luther was so adamant at times-he knew the danger of heretical
ideas weren’t simply fodder for the classroom, but was at the heart of what the person
sitting in the pew needed to know, and if they were taught wrong, they were in danger of
believing wrongly.
It is for this why it is necessary to study these issues still in our day and why
taking Luther’s example is helpful for the work of the academy and Church. For as the
heart of the faith is that Jesus Christ is none other Immanuel, God with us, and that as He
took upon our flesh, He did so in order to submit Himself to the power of sin, death and
the devil on our behalf, in order to save and redeem us in His death and to give us the
hope and promise for forgiveness, life and salvation in His resurrection. As one ponders
these things, to know speak that in the Man who laid down His life is finally the very
God of all things, one begins to comprehend the depth of the grace, love and mercy this
God has for His creation and to grasp that He has gathered us through the power of the
Holy Spirit into the Church for no other reason than that we might so believe in such a
thing for our everlasting salvation.
43
Appendix One
The Tome of St. Leo. (Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. IV., col. 343; also Migne, Pat. Lat., Tom. LIV.
[Leo. M. Opera, Tom. I.] col. 756.)
Leo [the bishop] to his [most] dear brother Flavian.
Having read your Affection’s letter, the late arrival of which is matter of surprise to us, and having gone through the record of the proceedings of the bishops, we have now, at last, gained a clear view of the scandal which has risen up among you, against the integrity of the faith; and what at first seemed obscure has now been elucidated and explained. By this means Eutyches, who seemed to be deserving of honour under the title of Presbyter, is now shown to be exceedingly thoughtless and sadly inexperienced, so that to him also we may apply the prophet’s words, “He refused to understand in order to act well: he meditated unrighteousness on his bed.” What, indeed, is more unrighteous than to entertain ungodly thoughts, and not to yield to persons wiser and more learned? But into this folly do they fall who, when hindered by some obscurity from apprehending the truth, have recourse, not to the words of the Prophets, not to the letters of the Apostles, nor to the authority of the Gospels, but to themselves; and become teachers of error, just because they have not been disciples of the truth. For what learning has he received from the sacred pages of the New and the Old Testament, who does not so much as understand the very beginning of the Creed? And that which, all the world over, is uttered by the voices of all applicants for regeneration, is still not grasped by the mind of this aged man. If, then, he knew not what he ought to think about the Incarnation of the Word of God, and was not willing, for the sake of obtaining the light of intelligence, to make laborious search through the whole extent of the Holy Scriptures, he should at least have received with heedful attention that general Confession common to all, whereby the whole body of the faithful profess that they “believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.” By which three clauses the engines of almost all heretics are shattered. For when God is believed to be both “Almighty” and “Father,” it is proved that the Son is everlasting together with himself, differing in nothing from the Father, because he was born as “God from God,” Almighty from Almighty, Coeternal from Eternal; not later in time, not inferior in power, not unlike him in glory, not divided from him in essence, but the same Only-‐begotten and Everlasting Son of an Everlasting Parent was “born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.” This birth in time in no way detracted from, in no way added to, that divine and everlasting birth; but expended itself wholly in the work of restoring man, who had been deceived; so that it might both overcome death, and by its power “destroy the devil who had the power of death.” For we could not have overcome the author of sin and of death, unless he who could neither be contaminated by sin, nor detained by death, had taken upon himself our nature, and made it his own. For, in fact, he was “conceived of the Holy Ghost” within the womb of a Virgin Mother, who bore him as she had conceived him, without loss of virginity. But if he (Eutyches) was not able to obtain a true conception from this pure fountain of Christian faith because by his own blindness he had darkened for himself the brightness of a truth so clear, he should have submitted himself to the Evangelist’s teaching; and after reading what Matthew says, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham,” he should also have sought instruction from the Apostle’s preaching; and after reading in the Epistle to the Romans, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an Apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised before by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was made unto him of the seed of David according to the flesh,” he should have bestowed some devout study on the pages of the Prophets; and finding that God’s promise said to Abraham, “in thy seed shall all nations be blessed,” in order to avoid all doubt as to the proper meaning of this “seed,” he should have attended to the Apostle’s words, “To Abraham and to his seed were the promises made. He saith not, ‘and to seeds,’ as in the case of many, but as in the case of one, ‘and to thy seed,’ which is Christ.” He should also have apprehended with his inward ear the declaration of Isaiah, “Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall call his
44
name Emmanuel, which is, being interpreted, God with us;” and should have read with faith the words of the same prophet, “Unto us a Child has been born, unto us a Son has been given, whose power is on his shoulder; and they shall call his name Angel of great counsel, Wonderful, Counsellor, Strong God, Prince of Peace, Father of the age to come.” Now when he came to the baptism of John his forerunner, lest the fact that the Godhead was covered with a veil of flesh should be concealed, the voice of the Father spake in thunder from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Possibly his reason for thinking that our Lord Jesus Christ was not of our nature was this—that the Angel who was sent to the blessed and ever Virgin Mary said, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, and therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God;” as if, because the Virgin’s conception was caused by a divine act, therefore the flesh of him whom she conceived was not of the nature of her who conceived him. But we are not to understand that “generation,” peerlessly wonderful, and wonderfully peerless, in such a sense as that the newness of the mode of production did away with the proper character of the kind. For it was the Holy Ghost who gave fecundity to the Virgin, but it was from a body that a real body was derived; and “when Wisdom was building herself a house,” the “Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” that is, in that flesh which he assumed from a human being, and which he animated with the spirit of rational life.
Accordingly while the distinctness of both natures and substances was preserved, and both met in one Person, lowliness was assumed by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity; and, in order to pay the debt of our condition, the inviolable nature was united to the passible, so that as the appropriate remedy for our ills, one and the same “Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus,” might from one element be capable of dying and also from the other be incapable. Therefore in the entire and perfect nature of very man was born very God, whole in what was his, whole in what was ours. By “ours” we mean what the Creator formed in us at the beginning and what he assumed in order to restore; for of that which the deceiver brought in, and man, thus deceived, admitted, there was not a trace in the Saviour; and the fact that he took on himself a share in our infirmities did not make him a partaker in our transgressions. He assumed “the form of a servant” without the defilement of sin, enriching what was human, not impairing what was divine: because that “emptying of himself,” whereby the Invisible made himself visible, and the Creator and Lord of all things willed to be one among mortals, was a stooping down in compassion, not a failure of power. Accordingly, the same who, remaining in the form of God, made man, was made man in the form of a servant. For each of the natures retains its proper character without defect; and as the form of God does not take away the form of a servant, so the form of a servant does not impair the form of God. For since the devil was glorying in the fact that man, deceived by his craft, was bereft of divine gifts and, being stripped of his endowment of immortality, had come under the grievous sentence of death, and that he himself, amid his miseries, had found a sort of consolation in having a transgressor as his companion, and that God, according to the requirements of the principle of justice, had changed his own resolution in regard to man, whom he had created in so high a position of honour; there was need of a dispensation of secret counsel, in order that the unchangeable God, whose will could not be deprived of its own benignity, should fulfil by a more secret mystery his original plan of loving kindness toward us, and that man, who had been led into fault by the wicked subtlety of the devil, should not perish contrary to God’s purpose. Accordingly, the Son of God, descending from his seat in heaven, and not departing from the glory of the Father, enters this lower world, born after a new order, by a new mode of birth. After a new order; because he who in his own sphere is invisible, became visible in ours; He who could not be enclosed in space, willed to be enclosed; continuing to be before times, he began to exist in time; the Lord of the universe allowed his infinite majesty to be overshadowed, and took upon him the form of a servant; the impassible God did not disdain to be passible Man and the immortal One to be subjected to the laws of death. And born by a new mode of birth; because inviolate virginity, while ignorant of concupiscence, supplied the matter of his flesh. What was assumed from the Lord’s mother was nature, not fault; nor does the wondrousness of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, as born of a Virgin’s womb, imply that his nature is unlike ours. For the selfsame who is very God, is also very man; and there is no illusion in this union, while the lowliness of man and the loftiness of Godhead meet together. For as “God” is not changed by the compassion [exhibited], so “Man” is not consumed by the dignity [bestowed]. For
45
each “form” does the acts which belong to it, in communion with the other; the Word, that is, performing what belongs to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what belongs to the flesh; the one of these shines out in miracles, the other succumbs to injuries. And as the Word does not withdraw from equality with the Father in glory, so the flesh does not abandon the nature of our kind. For, as we must often be saying, he is one and the same, truly Son of God, and truly Son of Man. God, inasmuch as “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Man, inasmuch as “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” God, inasmuch as “all things were made by him, and without him nothing was made.” Man, inasmuch as he was “made of a woman, made under the law.” The nativity of the flesh is a manifestation of human nature; the Virgin’s child-‐bearing is an indication of Divine power. The infancy of the Babe is exhibited by the humiliation of swaddling clothes: the greatness of the Highest is declared by the voices of angels. He whom Herod impiously designs to slay is like humanity in its beginnings; but he whom the Magi rejoice to adore on their knees is Lord of all. Now when he came to the baptism of John his forerunner, lest the fact that the Godhead was covered with a veil of flesh should be concealed, the voice of the Father spake in thunder from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Accordingly, he who, as man, is tempted by the devil’s subtlety, is the same to whom, as God, angels pay duteous service. To hunger, to thirst, to be weary, and to sleep, is evidently human. But to satisfy five thousand men with five loaves, and give to the Samaritan woman that living water, to draw which can secure him that drinks of it from ever thirsting again; to walk on the surface of the sea with feet that sink not, and by rebuking the storm to bring down the “uplifted waves,” is unquestionably Divine. As then—to pass by many points —it does not belong to the same nature to weep with feelings of pity over a dead friend and, after the mass of stone had been removed from the grave where he had lain four days, by a voice of command to raise him up to life again; or to hang on the wood, and to make all the elements tremble after daylight had been turned into night; or to be transfixed with nails, and to open the gates of paradise to the faith of the robber; so it does not belong to the same nature to say, “I and the Father are one,” and to say, “the Father is greater than I.” For although in the Lord Jesus Christ there is one Person of God and man, yet that whereby contumely attaches to both is one thing, and that whereby glory attaches to both is another; for from what belongs to us he has that manhood which is inferior to the Father; while from the Father he has equal Godhead with the Father. Accordingly, on account of this unity of Person which is to be understood as existing in both the natures, we read, on the one hand, that “the Son of Man came down from heaven,” inasmuch as the Son of God took flesh from that Virgin of whom he was born; and on the other hand, the Son of God is said to have been crucified and buried, inasmuch as he underwent this, not in his actual Godhead; wherein the Only-‐begotten is coeternal and consubstantial with the Father, but in the weakness of human nature. Wherefore we all, in the very Creed, confess that “the only-‐begotten Son of God was crucified and buried,” according to that saying of the Apostle, “for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Majesty.”
But when our Lord and Saviour himself was by his questions instructing the faith of the disciples, he said, “Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?” And when they had mentioned various opinions held by others, he said, “But whom say ye that I am?” that is, “I who am Son of Man, and whom you see in the form of a servant, and in reality of flesh, whom say ye that I am?” Whereupon the blessed Peter, as inspired by God, and about to benefit all nations by his confession, said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Not undeservedly, therefore, was he pronounced blessed by the Lord, and derived from the original Rock that solidity which belonged both to his virtue and to his name, who through revelation from the Father confessed the selfsame to be both the Son of God and the Christ; because one of these truths, accepted without the other, would not profit unto salvation, and it was equally dangerous to believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be merely God and not man, or merely man and not God. But after the resurrection of the Lord—which was in truth the resurrection of a real body, for no other person was raised again than he who had been crucified and had died—what else was accomplished during that interval of forty days than to make our faith entire and clear of all darkness? For while he conversed with his disciples, and dwelt with them, and ate with them, and allowed himself to be handled with careful and inquisitive touch by those who were under the influence of doubt, for this end he came in to the disciples when the doors were shut, and by his breath gave them the Holy Ghost, and opened the secrets of Holy Scripture after bestowing on them
46
the light of intelligence, and again in his selfsame person showed to them the wound in the side, the prints of the nails, and all the flesh tokens of the Passion, saying, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have:” that the properties of the Divine and the human nature might be acknowledged to remain in him without causing a division, and that we might in such sort know that the Word is not what the flesh is, as to confess that the one Son of God is both Word and flesh. On which mystery of the faith this Eutyches must be regarded as unhappily having no hold, who does not recognise our nature to exist in the Only-‐begotten Son of God, either by way of the lowliness of mortality, or of the glory of resurrection. Nor has he been overawed by the declaration of the blessed Apostle and Evangelist John, saying, “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit which dissolveth Jesus is not of God, and this is Antichrist.” Now what is to dissolve Jesus, but to separate the human nature from him, and to make void by shameless inventions that mystery by which alone we have been saved? Moreover, being in the dark as to the nature of Christ’s body, he must needs be involved in the like senseless blindness with regard to his Passion also. For if he does not think the Lord’s crucifixion to be unreal, and does not doubt that he really accepted suffering, even unto death, for the sake of the world’s salvation; as he believes in his death, let him acknowledge his flesh also, and not doubt that he whom he recognises as having been capable of suffering is also Man with a body like ours; since to deny his true flesh is also to deny his bodily sufferings. If then he accepts the Christian faith, and does not turn away his ear from the preaching of the Gospel, let him see what nature it was that was transfixed with nails and hung on the wood of the cross; and let him understand whence it was that, after the side of the Crucified had been pierced by the soldier’s spear, blood and water flowed out, that the Church of God might be refreshed both with a Laver and with a Cup. Let him listen also to the blessed Apostle Peter when he declares, that “sanctification by the Spirit” takes place through the “sprinkling of the blood of Christ,” and let him not give a mere cursory reading to the words of the same Apostle, “Knowing that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain way of life received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot.” Let him also not resist the testimony of Blessed John the Apostle, “And the blood of Jesus the Son of God cleanseth us from all sin.” And again, “This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith;” and, “who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not in water only, but in water and blood; and it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness—the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and the three are one.” That is, the Spirit of sanctification, and the blood of redemption, and the water of baptism; which three things are one, and remain undivided, and not one of them is disjoined from connection with the others; because the Catholic Church lives and advances by this faith, that Christ Jesus we should believe neither manhood to exist without true Godhead, nor Godhead without true manhood. But when Eutyches, on being questioned in your examination of him, answered, “I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union, but after the union I confess one nature;” I am astonished that so absurd and perverse a profession as this of his was not rebuked by a censure on the part of any of his judges, and that an utterance extremely foolish and extremely blasphemous was passed over, just as if nothing had been heard which could give offence: seeing that it is as impious to say that the Only-‐begotten Son of God was of two natures before the Incarnation as it is shocking to affirm that, since the Word became flesh, there has been in him one nature only. But lest Eutyches should think that what he said was correct, or was tolerable, because it was not confuted by any assertion of yours, we exhort your earnest solicitude, dearly beloved brother, to see that, if by God’s merciful inspiration the case is brought to a satisfactory issue, the inconsiderate and inexperienced man be cleansed also from this pestilent notion of his; seeing that, as the record of the proceedings has clearly shown, he had fairly begun to abandon his own opinion when on being driven into a corner by authoritative words of yours, he professed himself ready to say what he had not said before, and to give his adhesion to that faith from which he had previously stood aloof. But when he would not consent to anathematize the impious dogma you understood, brother, that he continued in his own misbelief, and deserved to receive sentence of condemnation. For which if he grieves sincerely and to good purpose, and understands, even though too late, how properly the Episcopal authority has been put in motion, or if, in order to make full satisfaction, he shall condemn viva voce, and under his own
47
hand, all that he has held amiss, no compassion, to whatever extent, which can be shown him when he has been set right, will be worthy of blame, for our Lord, the true and good Shepherd, who laid down his life for his sheep, and who came to save men’s souls and not to destroy them, wills us to imitate his own loving kindness; so that justice should indeed constrain those who sin, but mercy should not reject those who are converted. For then indeed is the true faith defended with the best results, when a false opinion is condemned even by those who have followed it. But in order that the whole matter may be piously and faithfully carried out, we have appointed our brethren, Julius, Bishop, and Reatus, Presbyter (of the title of St. Clement) and also my son Hilarus, Deacon, to represent us; and with them we have associated Dulcitius, our Notary, of whose fidelity we have had good proof: trusting that the Divine assistance will be with you, so that he who has gone astray may be saved by condemning his own unsound opinion. May God keep you in good health, dearly beloved brother. Given on the Ides of June, in the Consulate of the illustrious men, Asterius and Protogenes.
Linked from: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xi.vii.html
48
Appendix Two
The Definition of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon. (Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. IV., col. 562.)
The holy, great, and ecumenical synod, assembled by the grace of God and the command of our most religious and Christian Emperors, Marcian and Valentinian, Augusti, at Chalcedon, the metropolis of the Bithynian Province, in the martyry of the holy and victorious martyr Euphemia, has decreed as follows:
Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, when strengthening the knowledge of the Faith in his disciples, to the end that no one might disagree with his neighbour concerning the doctrines of religion, and that the proclamation of the truth might be set forth equally to all men, said, “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” But, since the evil one does not desist from sowing tares among the seeds of godliness, but ever invents some new device against the truth; therefore the Lord, providing, as he ever does, for the human race, has raised up this pious, faithful, and zealous Sovereign, and has called together unto him from all parts the chief rulers of the priesthood; so that, the grace of Christ our common Lord inspiring us, we may cast off every plague of falsehood from the sheep of Christ, and feed them with the tender leaves of truth. And this have we done with one unanimous consent, driving away erroneous doctrines and renewing the unerring faith of the Fathers, publishing to all men the Creed of the Three Hundred and Eighteen, and to their number adding, as their peers, the Fathers who have received the same summary of religion. Such are the One Hundred and Fifty holy Fathers who afterwards assembled in the great Constantinople and ratified the same faith. Moreover, observing the order and every form relating to the faith, which was observed by the holy synod formerly held in Ephesus, of which Celestine of Rome and Cyril of Alexandria, of holy memory, were the leaders, we do declare that the exposition of the right and blameless faith made by the Three Hundred and Eighteen holy and blessed Fathers, assembled at Nice in the reign of Constantine of pious memory, shall be pre-‐eminent: and that those things shall be of force also, which were decreed by the One Hundred and Fifty holy Fathers at Constantinople, for the uprooting of the heresies which had then sprung up, and for the confirmation of the same Catholic and Apostolic Faith of ours.
The Creed of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers at Nice.
We believe in one God, etc.
Item, the Creed of the one hundred and fifty holy Fathers who were assembled at Constantinople.
We believe in one God, etc.
This wise and salutary formula of divine grace sufficed for the perfect knowledge and confirmation of religion; for it teaches the perfect [doctrine] concerning Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and sets forth the Incarnation of the Lord to them that faithfully receive it. But, forasmuch as persons undertaking to make void the preaching of the truth have through their individual heresies given rise to empty babblings; some of them daring to corrupt the mystery of the Lord’s incarnation for us and refusing [to use] the name Mother of God (Θεοτόκος) in reference to the Virgin, while others, bringing in a confusion and mixture, and idly conceiving that the nature of the flesh and of the Godhead is all one, maintaining that the divine Nature of the Only Begotten is, by mixture, capable of suffering; therefore this present holy, great, and ecumenical synod, desiring to exclude every device against the Truth, and teaching that which is unchanged from the beginning, has at the very outset decreed that the faith of the Three Hundred and Eighteen Fathers shall be preserved inviolate. And on account of them that contend against the Holy Ghost, it confirms the doctrine afterwards delivered concerning the substance of the Spirit by the One Hundred and Fifty holy Fathers who assembled in the imperial City; which doctrine they declared unto all men, not as though they were introducing anything that
49
had been lacking in their predecessors, but in order to explain through written documents their faith concerning the Holy Ghost against those who were seeking to destroy his sovereignty. And, on account of those who have taken in hand to corrupt the mystery of the dispensation [i.e. the Incarnation] and who shamelessly pretend that he who was born of the holy Virgin Mary was a mere man, it receives the synodical letters of the Blessed Cyril, Pastor of the Church of Alexandria, addressed to Nestorius and the Easterns, judging them suitable, for the refutation of the frenzied folly of Nestorius, and for the instruction of those who long with holy ardour for a knowledge of the saving symbol. And, for the confirmation of the orthodox doctrines, it has rightly added to these the letter of the President of the great and old Rome, the most blessed and holy Archbishop Leo, which was addressed to Archbishop Flavian of blessed memory, for the removal of the false doctrines of Eutyches, judging them to be agreeable to the confession of the great Peter, and as it were a common pillar against misbelievers. For it opposes those who would rend the mystery of the dispensation into a Duad of Sons; it repels from the sacred assembly those who dare to say that the Godhead of the Only Begotten is capable of suffering; it resists those who imagine a mixtureSo or confusion of the two natures of Christ; it drives away those who fancy his form of a servant is of an heavenly or some substance other than that which was taken of us, and it anathematizes those who foolishly talk of two natures of our Lord before the union, conceiving that after the union there was only one.
Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before the worlds according to his Godhead; but in these last days for us men and for our salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to his manhood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-‐begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and being united in one Person and subsistence, not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-‐begotten, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old time have spoken concerning him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath delivered to us.
These things, therefore, having been expressed by us with the greatest accuracy and attention, the holy Ecumenical Synod defines that no one shall be suffered to bring forward a different faith (ἑτέραν πίστιν), nor to write, nor to put together, nor to excogitate, nor to teach it to others. But such as dare either to put together another faith, or to bring forward or to teach or to deliver a different Creed (ἕτερον σύμβολον) to as wish to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles, or Jews or any heresy whatever, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, and the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laics: let them be anathematized.
After the reading of the definition, all the most religious Bishops cried out: This is the faith of the fathers: let the metropolitans forthwith subscribe it: let them forthwith, in the presence of the judges, subscribe it: let that which has been well defined have no delay: this is the faith of the Apostles: by this we all stand: thus we all believe.
Linked from: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xi.xiii.html
50
Appendix Three
Disputation On the Divinity and Humanity of Christ, February 27, 1540 conducted by Dr. Martin Luther, 1483-‐1546. Translated from the Latin text WA 39/2,.92-‐121v by Christopher B. Brown The Theses Theological Disputation 1. This is the catholic faith, that we confess one Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man. 2. From this truth of the double substance and the unity of the person follows the communication of attributes [communicatio idiomatum], as it is called. 3. So that those things which pertain to man are rightly said of God, and, on the other hand, those things which pertain to God are said of man. 4. It is true to say: This man created the world, and this God suffered, died, was buried, etc. 5. But these are not correct in the abstract (as it is said) of human nature [in abstractis humanae naturae]. 6. For it cannot be said, Christ is thirsty, a servant, dead; therefore he is thirst, servitude, death. 7. Wherefore this [statement] too is condemned: Christ is humanity, even though it is said: Christ is divinity. 8. Even though man and humanity are otherwise synonyms, as are God and divinity. 9. In the divine predicates or attributes there is not a difference of this kind between the concrete and the abstract. 10. Even though both the scriptures and many fathers do not distinguish between the concrete and the abstract in many predicates of human nature. 11. The Symbol [the _Te Deum_ ] proclaims, "When thou tookest man upon thee to deliver him" [Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem], and Augustine often does the same. 12. Although the normal way of speaking (as it seems) would be: "When thou tookest humanity, or human nature upon thee to deliver it." 13. Thus some are not afraid to say: Christ is a creature, since a errantly it is said that Christ was created. 14. And John 1 says: "The Word was made flesh," when in our judgment it would have been better said, "The Word was incarnate," or "made fleshly." 15. It is rightly taught, that in this matter the manner of speaking preserved in the scriptures and in the orthodox fathers should prevail. 16. Or rather, many things are allowed even to the fathers who are agreed to be orthodox, which we should not imitate. 17. Wherefore in this matter we should beware of etymology, analogy, [logical] consequence, and examples. 18. Just as in grammar certain heteroclite nouns and irregular verbs are not subject to etymology, analogy, or example. 19. And generally, in every sort of subject and art, practice often dictates against the rule. 20. Nonetheless it is certain that with regard to Christ [in Christo] all words receive a new signification, though the thing signified is the same [in eadem re significata]. 21. For "creature" in the old usage of language [veteris linguae usu] and in other subjects signifies a thing separated from divinity by infinite degrees [infinitis modis]. 22. In the new use of language it signifies a thing inseparably joined with divinity in the same person in an ineffable way [ineffabilibus modis]. 23. Thus it must be that the words man, humanity, suffered, etc., and everything that is said of Christ, are new words. 24. Not that it signifies a new or different thing, but that it signifies in a new and different way [nove et aliter], unless you want to call this too a new thing. 25. Schwenkfeld and his frog-‐and-‐mouse warriors [batarchomyomachis] foolishly scoff [when we say] that Christ according to his humanity is called a creature. 26. A man without learning [or] training, and moreover without common sense, does not know how to distinguish between words with more than one meaning [vocabula aequivoca]. 27. For those who say that Christ is a creature according to the old use of language, that is, by himself [separatam], were never Christians.
51
28. But rather everyone vehemently denies that Christ is a creature in this way, which the Arians taught. 29. It is clear, therefore, that Schwenkfeld is barking into an empty darkness [in vacuum chaos] against his own dreams of the creature in Christ. 30. And forgetting himself, the man concedes that God was made flesh, though he has not yet dared to deny that flesh is a creature. 31. But Eutyches dwells hidden in such heretics, ready someday to deny that the Word was made flesh. 32. They make a show of conceding that the Word was made flesh, ready someday to deny it, when the theater is darkened, after it is denied that there is a creature in Christ. 33. In these ineffable matters, therefore, this [rule] must be kept, that we interpret the teachings of the fathers (as is necessary) in a suitable way [commode]. 34. It is wicked, when you know that the sense of someone's teaching is Christian [pium] and sound, to make up an error out of words ineptly spoken. 35. For there were never any fathers or doctors who never spoke in an improper way, if you want to scoff at their teachings. 36. [Coelius] Sedulius, the very Christian poet, writes: "The blessed author of the world / Put on a lowly servant's form" [Beatus auctor seculi servile corpus induit], and so through the entire church. 37. Although nothing more heretical could be said than that human nature is the clothing of divinity. 38. For clothing and a body do not constitute one person, as God and man constitute one person. 39. And yet Sedulius' thought was very Christian [piissime], as his other hymns abundantly prove. 40. For the same reason that common saying would be heretical: The whole Trinity worked the incarnation of the Son, as two girls dress a third, while she at the same time dresses herself. 41. Thus certain scholastics, who think that the union [habitudinem] of divinity and humanity is like the union [unioni] of form with matter, could not be defended. 42. Others on the other hand [who think that] the union [habitudinem] is similar to [the union of] matter to form, speak much more ineptly, if they are strictly judged. 43. Nor could that [image] be maintained, in which the divinity is compared to fire and the humanity to iron, even though it is a very beautiful image. 44. Nor could that [image] be tolerated which Athanasius puts forward: "As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ." 45. For all deny that Christ is "composed" [of two natures] though they affirm that he is "constituted." 46. But none have spoken more awkwardly [insulsius] than the Nominalists [Moderni], as they are called, who of all men wish to seem to speak most subtly and properly. 47. These say that the human nature was sustained or "supposited" by the divine nature, or by a divine supposite. 48. This is said monstrously and nearly forces God as it were to carry or bear the humanity. 49. But all of them think [sapiunt] in a correct and catholic way, so that they are to be pardoned their inept way of speaking. 50. For they wished to utter something ineffable, and then every image limps and never (as they say) runs on all four feet. 51. If [anyone] is not pleased by this or does not understand it, that Christ according as he is a man is a creature [Christus secundum quod homo est creatura], the grammarian consoles him. 52. Let him who has learned to discuss the same matter in various ways be commanded to speak as simply as possible. 53. As the Ethiopian is white according to [secundum] his teeth, the grammarian could speak otherwise thus: The Ethiopian is white with respect to his teeth [albus dentibus], or "white of tooth" [alborum dentium]. 54. But if this is unpleasing, let him say: The Ethiopian has white teeth, or the teeth in the Ethiopian are white, or, most simply, the Ethiopian's teeth are white. 55. Since in all these forms of speech the author wishes to signify the same thing, it is useless to seek an argument over words. 56. Thus since these forms of speech-‐-‐Christ according as he is a man [secundum quod homo], or according to his humanity [secundum humanitatem], or with respect to his humanity [humanitate], or by his humanity [per humanitatem], or in his humanity [in humanitate]-‐-‐mean nothing else than that he has a creature or has assumed a human creature, or,
52
what is simplest, the humanity of Christ is a creature, the false logicians [pravilogicales] are to be condemned, who give different meanings to different grammatical forms of expression of the same matter. 57. Therefore heresy lies in meaning [sensu], and not in words, as St. Jerome rightly said when he was provoked by his calumniators. 58. Otherwise Moses would be the greatest of heretics, for he recounts the Decalogue itself in different forms in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. 59. On the other hand, anyone with a wicked meaning, even if he shall speak aptly and brandish the Scripture itself, is not to be tolerated. 60. For Christ did not permit the demons to speak when they testified that he was the Son of God, as if they were transfiguring themselves into angels of light. 61. Such is the simplicity and the goodness of the Holy Spirit, that his agents [homines sui], when they speak falsely according to grammar, speak the truth according to the sense. 62. Such is the craftiness and the wickedness of Satan, that his agents [homines sui], while they speak truly according to grammar, that is, as to the words, speak lies according to theology, that is, according to the sense. 63. Here it may be said: If you are lying, even in what you say truly, you lie; on the other hand, if you are speaking the truth, even in what you say falsely, you speak the truth. 64. This is what it means to be a heretic: one who understands the Scriptures otherwise than the Holy Spirit demands.
The Disputation of the Reverend Father Herr Doctor Martin Luther concerning the divinity and humanity of Christ. In the year 1540, the 28th day of February. Preface The reason for this disputation is this, that I desired you should be supplied and fortified against the future snares of the devil, for a certain man has put forth a mockery against the Church. I am not so much troubled that an unlearned, unskilled, and altogether ignorant man seeks praise and a name for himself, as that the men of Lower Germany are troubled by his inept, foolish, ignorant, unlearned, and ridiculous mocking. May you preserve this article in its simplicity, that in Christ there is a divine and a human nature, and these two natures in one person, so that they are joined together like no other thing, and yet so that the humanity is not divinity, nor the divinity humanity, because that distinction in no way hinders but rather confirms the union! That article of faith shall remain, that Christ is true God and true man, and thus you shall be safe from all heretics, and even from Schwenkfeld, who says that Christ is [not] a creature, and that others teach falsely, though he does not name those who teach wrongly. This is the malice of the devil: he implicates us as well as the papists, but he names no one. If he were to say such things to me, I would answer: You are lying, [when you imply that] we say that Christ is not the Lord God. For our writings cry out in answer [to your charge]. That wicked man perceives that he cannot survive if he comes into the light, therefore he works secretly among women under secret names [tectis nominibus]. But I am not troubled that he thus seeks to make a name for himself and works secretly, but more by the fact that better theologians are not moved by these frivolous calumnies to say to him: "You, wicked man, are a liar! We do not say that Christ is merely a creature, but that he is God and man in one person. The natures are joined personally in the unity of the person. There are not two sons, not two judges, not two persons, not two Jesuses, but because of the undivided union [unitam coniunctionem] and the unity of the two natures there is a communication of attributes, so that, what is attributed to one nature is attributed to the other as well, because they are one person." If these [articles] are held fast, Arius falls along with all heretics, but Schwenkfeld works secretly like the tooth of the serpent, who bites secretly so that he cannot be accused. Therefore we are now holding this disputation so that you may learn the substance and manner of speaking [res et phrases] of Scripture and the Fathers. It is an incomprehensible thing, such as not even the angels can grasp and comprehend, that two natures should be united in one person. Therefore, so that we may grasp this in some small measure, God has given us patterns of speech [formulas loquendi]: that Christ is God and man in one person, and there are not two persons, but two natures are united in one person, so that what is done by the human nature is said also to be done by the divine nature, and vice versa. Thus the Son of God died and was buried in the dust like everyone else, and the son of Mary ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father, etc. We are content with these models [formulis]. Finally, we must observe
53
the manner of speaking [phrases] of the holy Fathers. But if they have sometimes spoken ineptly [incommode], it is to be rightly interpreted, not abused, as the papists do, who, having twisted the words of the Fathers, abuse and allege them in defense of their idolatries, purgatory, and good works, whereas [the Fathers] thought correctly concerning these things, as many of their sayings testify with clearer and more apt expression. St. Augustine indeed teaches much concerning good works in many places and praises both good works and those who perform them. But in his Commentary on the Psalms, he says, "Have mercy on me; that is, 'I shall be troubled, but not troubled greatly, for I have trusted in the Lord.'" Here he pleads none of those good works before God. And again in another place he says, "Woe to man, however praiseworthy he may be, etc." Such is the sinful and sacrilegious man who twists the correct sayings of the Fathers. But we learn to agree with the sayings of the Fathers; or if we cannot agree with them, we forgive them, for no man can be so wise that he does not sometimes stumble and fall, especially in speaking, where it is easy to slip. Schwenkfeld does not see this, and so when he hears the Fathers say that Christ according to his humanity is a creature, at once he seizes on the saying and twists it and abuses it for his own purposes. Even if the Fathers say that Christ according to his humanity is a creature, this could in any event be tolerated; but Schwenkfeld wickedly twists it: "Therefore Christ is simply a creature." Why, wicked man, do you not add that Christ according to his divinity is the Creator? Therefore he was created! But he does not add this, because he says, "I can let my conscience be deluded in this way. Therefore I have omitted it"-‐-‐that is, I have done wickedly! He employs a fallacy of composition and division. This is the hidden tooth of the serpent and the true sacrifice of the devil among the papists as well. For they too work secretly, twist the words of the Fathers, and omit those things which seem to weaken their own cause, as Schwenkfeld also does. Before the learned he deals deceitfully and seeks glory, but among his own he says: "Oh, what wickedness of the papists, what blasphemies of the Lutherans! They say that Christ is a creature, even though he was not created." This is [sheer] wickedness rather than force or power [of argument]. He should have added, that we say that Christ is a creature according to his humanity, and the creator according to his divinity. Schwenkfeld is to be refuted thus: Humanity is a creature. Therefore Christ is a man and a creature. And then he says that the redeemer of the human race cannot be a creature, sit at the right hand of the Father, etc., be the seed of Abraham; but the consequence is to be denied. Disputation of Dr. Martin Luther against Schwenkfeld I. Argument: A human person is one thing, a divine person another. But in Christ there are both divinity and humanity. Therefore there are two persons in Christ. Response: This is the fallacy of composition and division. In the major premise you divide the human nature and the divine; in the minor premise you join them. This is a philosophical solution; but we are speaking theologically. I deny the consequence, for this reason, that in Christ the humanity and the divinity constitute one person. But these two natures are distinct in theology, with respect, that is, to the natures, but not with respect to [secundum] the person. For then they are undivided [indistinctae], but two distinct natures, yet belonging to an undivided person [indistinctae personae]. There are not two distinct persons, but what is distinct is undivided [sed sunt distinctae indistinctae], that is, there are distinct natures, but an undivided person. II. Argument: Christ was not a man before the creation of the world. Therefore it is not rightly said that the man Christ created the world. Or thus: When the world was created, Christ did not create it as a man [tamquam homo]. Therefore it is not rightly said that a man created the world. Response: There is the communication of attributes; and moreover [this is] a philosophical argument. This stands: The natures are distinct, but after that communication, there is a union, that is, there is one person, not two persons. But that person is God and man, one and the same person, who was before the creation of the world; even though he was not man born of the Virgin Mary before the world, nonetheless he was the Son of God, who is now man. Thus, for example, when I see a king in purple and crowned on his throne, I say, "This king was born of a woman, naked and without a crown." How can this be, and yet he sits on a great throne crowned and clothed in purple? But these things he put on after he was made king, and yet nonetheless he is one and the same person; and so too here in Christ God and man are joined in one person and must not be distinguished. But it is true that Christ created the world before he was made man, and yet such a strict unity exists that it is impossible to
54
say different things [of the divinity and the humanity]. Therefore whatever I say of Christ as man, I also say rightly of God, that he suffered, was crucified. Objection: But God cannot be crucified or suffer. Response: This is true, when he was not yet man. From eternity he has not suffered; but when he was made man, he was passible. From eternity he was not man; but now being conceived by the Holy Ghost, that is, born of the Virgin, God and man are made one person, and the same things are truly said of God and man [sunt eadem praedicata Dei et hominis]. Here the personal union is accomplished. Here the humanity and divinity are joined [Da gehet's ineinander humanitas et divinitas]. The union holds everything together [Die unitas, die helt's]. I confess that there are two natures, but they cannot be separated. This is accomplished by the union [unitas], which is a greater and stronger union [coniunctio] than that of soul and body, because soul and body are separated, but never the immortal and divine nature and the mortal human nature [in Christ], but they are united in one person. That is to say, Christ, the impassible Son of God, God and man, was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Objection: Again, what is immortal cannot become mortal. God is immortal. Therefore he cannot become mortal. Response: In philosophy, this is true. III. Argument: God knows all things. Christ does not know all things. Therefore Christ is not God. I prove the minor premise from Mark, where Christ says that he does not know the last day. Response: The solution is that Christ there speaks after a human manner, as he also says: "All things have been given to me by the Father." Often he speaks of himself as if simply of God, sometimes simply as of man. The Father does not will that the human nature should have to bear divine epithets [ut humana natura debeat gerere dicta divina], despite the union, and yet sometimes [Christ] speaks of himself as of God, when he says, "The Son of Man will be crucified." To be crucified is a property of the human nature, but because there are two natures united in one person, it is attributed to both natures. Again, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." There he speaks of the divine nature. Or again, "They crucified the Lord of glory," where he speaks of the property of the humanity. IV. Argument: A word is not a person. Christ is the Word. Therefore Christ is not a person. I prove the major premise, that a word and a person are different. Response: This is a new expression, which was formerly unheard of in the world. Christ is not a mathematical or physical word, but a divine and uncreated word, which signifies a substance and a person, because the divine Word is the divinity. Christ is the divine Word. Therefore he is the divinity, that is, a substantial person [ipsa substantia et persona]. Philosophically, "word" means a sound or an utterance, but speaking theologically, "Word" signifies the Son of God. This, Aristotle would not admit, that "Word" signifies true God [plenum Deum]. V. Argument: Christ beseeches the Father to hear him. Therefore he is not God. I prove the consequence, for he who seeks to be heard, seeks the honor of one who is superior. Response: This is done because of the property of the human nature. Question: It is asked, whether this proposition is true: The Son of God, the creator of heaven and earth, the eternal Word, cries out from the Cross and is a man? Response: This is true, because what the man cries, God also cries out, and to crucify the Lord of glory is impossible according to the divinity, but it is possible according to the humanity; but because of the unity of the person, this being crucified is attributed to the divinity as well. V [b]. Argument: If Christ were true God, of the same essence with the Father, the Scripture would not teach that he received all things from the Father. But Scripture so says. Therefore he is not true God. I respond to the minor premise: This [pertains to] his ministry and humanity. For in divinity he is equal in power with the Father. VI. Argument: Everything that is born begins to be, or, everything that is born has a beginning. Christ was born. Therefore he began to be. He is a creature, and is not from eternity. Response: I concede this, with a distinction. In philosophy this is true, but not in theology. The Son is born eternal from eternity; this is something incomprehensible. [But] this belongs to theology. For the Holy Spirit has prescribed models for us; let us walk in that cloud. VII. Argument: When we must speak carefully, there is most need of grammar. In theology, we must speak carefully. Therefore the Holy Spirit has his own grammar. Response: The Holy Spirit has his own grammar. Grammar is useful everywhere, but when the subject is greater than can be comprehended by the rules of grammar and philosophy, it must be left behind. In grammar, analogy works very well: Christ is created. Therefore Christ is a creature. But in theology, nothing is more useless. Wherefore our eloquence must be restrained, and we must remain content with the patterns prescribed by the Holy Spirit. We do not depart [from grammar] without necessity, for the subject is
55
ineffable and incomprehensible. A creature, in the old use of language, is that which the creator has created and distinguished from himself, but this meaning has no place in Christ the creature. There the creator and the creature are one and the same. Because there is an ambiguity in the term and men hearing it immediately think of a creature separate from the creator, they therefore fear to use it, but it may be sparingly used as a new term, as once Augustine spoke, moved by the greatest joy: "Is this not a marvelous mystery? He who is the Creator, wished to be a creature." This is to be forgiven the holy Father, who was moved by surpassing joy to speak thus. He speaks, however, of the unity, not of a separation, as the grammar implies, and yet, as I have said, this kind of speech is to be used sparingly, and our joy must be restrained, lest it give birth to errors. And the Fathers are to be forgiven, because they spoke thus because of surpassing joy, wondering that the Creator was a creature. It is not permissible to use such words among the weak, because they are easily offended, but among the learned and those firmly rooted in this article, it does not matter how you speak, and I am not harmed if you say: Christ is thirst, humanity, captivity, creature. VIII. Argument: Your fourteenth and eighteenth propositions are contradictory. Therefore they are not to be approved. Response: Such contradictions do not take place between equivocal terms, but between terms of the same meaning. But "creature" has a double signification. IX. Argument: No creature ought to be worshipped [adoranda]. Christ ought to be worshipped. Therefore Christ is not a creature. Response: Thus Schwenkfeld argues. This is indeed one of his absurdities, and he errs with respect to the communication of attributes. The humanity joined with the divinity is worshipped; the humanity of Christ is worshipped, and not falsely, for it is inseparable from the divinity and the addition of this posessive, "of Christ," answers the objection. Thus Christ speaks in John 14. Philip asks Christ to show him the Father, because with the eyes of the flesh he sees nothing but flesh, and Christ then responds: "Have I been with you so long, etc.? He who sees me, sees the Father." Christ says that [Philip] sees the Father, when he sees [Christ], because he sees the humanity and the divinity united in one person. Therefore he says, "Do you not know, that the Father is in me and I in the Father?" Therefore it is said that he who touches the Son of God, touches the divine nature itself. The old theologians went to astounding lengths [mirabiliter se cruciarunt] in answering this question of whether the humanity is to be worshipped, and they established three ways [species] in which the humanity may be adored: Dulia, when Peter and Paul and all the other saints are adored; hyperdulia, when the Virgin Mary is adored, and here they included the humanity of Christ, and called [this worship] hyperdulia as well; and latria, when Christ is worshipped with regard to his divinity [cum relatione et divinitate]. Christ clearly dissolves [the distinction, for] whoever worships the humanity of Christ here no longer adores a creature (for this is what is meant by the union of natures), but the Creator himself, for the unity is what is fundamental [quia fundamentum est in unitate]. X. Argument: Every man is corrupted by original sin and has concupiscence. Christ had neither concupiscence nor original sin. Therefore he is not a man. Response: I make a distinction with regard to the major premise. Every man is corrupted by original sin, with the exception of Christ. Every man who is not a divine Person [personaliter Deus], as is Christ, has concupiscence, but the man Christ has none, because he is a divine Person, and in conception the flesh and blood of Mary were entirely purged, so that nothing of sin remained. Therefore Isaiah says rightly, "There was no guile found in his mouth"; otherwise, every seed except for Mary's was corrupted. XI. Argument: If Christ is a creature only according to his humanity, and is not called a creature _simpliciter_, then it follows that something remains which is not united in Christ by nature [manere quod non uniatur in Christo natura], and that there is in Christ something which is not divine. Response: There is an equivocation in the term "_simpliciter_." It is impossible that Christ is merely a creature according to his humanity, for this destroys the divinity. This is Schwenkfeld's objection. Christ is not a creature _simpliciter_. Christians indeed say that Christ according to his humanity is a creature, but they immediately add that Christ according to his divinity is the Creator, etc. Therefore the human nature is not to be spoken of apart from the divinity. The humanity is not a person, but a nature. XI [a]. Argument: No one can dispute that flesh is a creature. Christ was made flesh. Therefore he is a creature. Response: With respect to his humanity [ad humanitatem] Christ was made flesh. XI [b]. Argument: Whatever is subject to death, is not God. Christ was subjected to death. Therefore he is not God. Response: Because of the communication of attributes, this thing which is proper to the human nature is shared [commune] with the divine. XII. Argument: "Man"
56
and "humanity" have the same meaning. Therefore it is rightly said that Christ is humanity. Response: This is not conceded, but rather that Christ is man, because this is a concrete term with personal signification, whereas an abstract signifies the mode of nature, or naturally, so that therefore it is false that Christ is human nature, that is, humanity, or that Christ is humanity. Aristotle says that abstract terms refer to nature, and concrete terms to a person. XII [a]. Argument: Whatever belongs [inest] to something, can be predicated of it. Humanity belongs to Christ. Therefore Christ is humanity. Response: To "belong" is to inhere to a subject. Whiteness inheres to John. Therefore John is whiteness. But this does not follow in the abstract. But I concede it in the concrete: Whiteness inheres to John, therefore he is white. Humanity belongs to Christ, therefore he is a man. XIII. Argument: Paul says: Christ was made a curse. Therefore by the same principle it could be said: Christ was made humanity. Response: Rather than analogy, we must follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and as he himself prescribes, so we must speak. That Christ was made a curse for us, there signifies something truly concrete, that is, Christ was made a sacrifice, a victim for us. XIV. Argument: The manner of speaking [idioma] used by Holy Scripture must be used by us rather than any other. Scripture never says: This man created the world; God suffered. Therefore we ought not to speak thus. Response: The question is whether certain forms of speech [formae] of the Fathers are to be retained apart from Scripture. I answer, that it is permissible to use them, when they do not disagree with Holy Scripture in meaning. For error lies not in the will, but in the meaning. When there are words which produce error, they must be avoided; but if they give no occasion for error, it does not matter if you say "a man created the world," if only the meaning is sound. XV. Argument: Moses says, "The Lord your God is one God." Therefore Christ cannot be true God. Response: What Moses says, that God is one, in no way contradicts us. For we too say that there is one God, and not many, but that unity of substance and essence has three distinct persons, as the nature[s] of Christ are united in one person. When therefore it is said that "the divinity died," then it is implied that the Father too and the Holy Spirit have died. But this is not true, for only one person of the divinity, the Son, is born, dies, and suffers, etc. Therefore the divine nature, when it is take for a person, was born, suffered, died, etc., and this is true. We must therefore make a distinction. If you understand by "divine nature" the whole divinity or the unity, then the assertion is false, because Christ alone is not the whole Trinity, but only one person of the Trinity. Therefore there is only one God. Here we preach, insofar as it is possible, that these three persons are one God and one essence. But we believe that these things are incomprehensible; if they could be comprehended, there would be no need to believe them. XVI. Argument: Whatever consists of soul and flesh is a creature. Christ consists of a soul and flesh. Therefore he is a creature. I prove the major premise from the Athanasian Creed. Response: Christ does not consist of a soul and flesh, but of humanity and divinity. He assumed human nature, which consists of soul and flesh, and in the Creed, man must be construed with rational soul. XVII. Argument: There is nothing accidental in God. To assume humanity is an accident. Therefore Christ is not God. Response: In philosophy this is true; but in theology we have our own rules. When we portray the union so that the divinity in Christ is as it were a substance, but his humanity as it were an accidental quality, like whiteness or blackness, this is not said properly or aptly, but we speak thus so that it can be understood in some way. But that unity of the two natures in one person is the greatest possible, so that they are equally predicated, and communicate their properties to the person, as if he were solely God or solely man. XVIII. Argument: Only God is good. Christ does not wish to be called good. Therefore Christ is not God. I prove the minor premise from Matthew 19: "Why do you call me good? No one is good, but. . .," etc. Response: Christ speaks there according to the capacity of the man asking the question: "You say that I am good, and yet you do not believe that I am God. Therefore you do not rightly call me good." Or thus: Christ wished to speak according to his humanity. XIX. Argument: Propositions 15 and 16 are contradictory. Therefore they cannot be true. Response: The Fathers sometimes erred [labantur] in judgment, and sometimes speak correctly. Therefore we must not change them everywhere. Thus Bernard sometimes spoke very ineptly and improperly, as if he were a heretic. But when a serious matter was at stake, and he was speaking with God, then [as if] he were Peter or Paul himself. Therefore the Fathers are to be imitated where they have spoken
57
and thought rightly, but where they have spoken or even thought improperly, they are to be tolerated and properly interpreted, as the papists do who force even [the Fathers] to come to their opinion. XX. Argument: The same thing cannot be predicated of God and man. Therefore, etc. Response: This is a philosophical argument. There is no relation between the creature and the Creator, between the finite and the infinite. But we not only establish a relation, but a union of the finite and the infinite. Aristotle, if he had heard or read this, would never have been made a Christian, for he would not have conceded this proposition, that the same relation belongs to the finite and the infinite. XXI. Argument: If it is rightly said that Christ is thirsty and dead, it is also rightly said that he is thirst and death, for it is said in the Psalm itself: "I am a worm, and scorn, and despite," and not "I am scorned." Therefore by the same principle, it seems that it should be said that Christ is death and thirst. Response: Analogy or etymology does not hold here. And as I have said, we must retain the patterns prescribed by the Holy Spirit, especially among the weak; among strong Christians, it does not matter how you speak, as before me, since I am not still being taught such things, being already acquainted with them. [But] among those who are to be taught, we must refrain. As long as the heart does not err, the tongue will not err; our stammering has been a roved by the Holy Spirit. But among those who are to be taught, we must speak modestly, properly, and aptly. XXII. Argument: If that which is worse is said of Christ, so too must that which is better be said. Death is better than sin. Therefore if Christ is called sin, he is even better called death. Response: The analogy does not hold. Those who teach are given the task of teaching aptly, properly, and clearly, so that they may capture their hearers, who are otherwise offended. He who knew no sin was made sin, that is, captivity, damnation. XXIII. Argument: The Nicene Creed is undoubtedly [maxime] catholic. The opinion of Schwenkfeld agrees with the Nicene Creed. Therefore it is true. I prove the minor premise, because it is said [in the Creed] that Christ is begotten, not made. But every creature is made. Therefore Christ is not a creature. Response: "Begotten" refers to the divinity, but Schwenkfeld confounds the two natures. XXIV. Argument: Paul says that Christ was found in condition [habitu] as a man. Therefore the humanity in Christ is an accident; that is, Christ is man accidentally, and not by virtue of substance. Response: The Greek term is _schema_, that is, figure, form, or bearing, that is, "condition" signifies that he walked and lay down like any other man. Paul wishes to demonstrate that he was a true man, who suffered and spoke as a man. Propositions concerning the accidents of man and God in Christ are immodest [non sunt castae], therefore they are to be spoken of sparingly, and we must take our stand on the unity. This is so closely joined that in the whole nature of things no similar example can be given. The closest similarity is the nature of man. For as this consists of two distinct parts, that is, soul and flesh, thus the person of Christ consists of two natures united, although the soul is at last separated from the flesh when man dies. XXV. Argument: (M. Vitus Amerbach) I ask the reason why Christ is man and not humanity. Response: Because "man" includes the person, and "humanity" does not. I now argue the point thus: Man is humanity; either they are synonyms or they are not. If they are synonyms, the seventh proposition is false, whence the proposition that Christ is humanity is condemned, even though it is said that Christ is divinity. [Again:] If it is not false, then the eighth proposition is invalid: "Though otherwise man and humanity are synonyms, like God and divinity." Response: Synonyms are predicated interchangeably of the same substance, for such is the nature of synonyms. If they are synonyms, they must be predicated of the same subject. They are called synonyms because they signify the same thing _simpliciter_ in all respects. Thus man and humanity are synonyms _simpliciter_ in philosophy, but in theology they are not. Against the solution: Synonyms are of the same nature and signification. Man and humanity are not of the same nature. Therefore they are not synonyms. You [vos] have said that humanity signifies only a form in matter, not joined with a subject. But man is a subject. Therefore they are different. Response: In philosophy they are synonyms _simpliciter_, having the same signification, but not in theology, for here is one man to whom no one is similar. Here man in the concrete signifies human nature, because he is a person, but humanity does not signify a person. Therefore [these terms] differ in theology and philosophy. If it were said that the divine person assumed a man, that is, a human person, it would follow that there were two persons, but this is intolerable. Therefore it is rightly said that the Word assumed human nature. [Again:] "Thou tookest man upon thee to deliver him." Response: Man is taken in an
58
abstract sense. "Man," when it is said of Christ, is a personal name, now that the person has assumed the person. XXVI. Argument: I ask whether a holy thing and holiness, or a good thing and goodness, are the same? Response: There is a great difference between concrete terms and abstract ones, as between a white thing and whiteness, between substance and accident. These are not synonyms, for a accident can either be present or absent. On the contrary: Both a good thing and goodness are accidents, as are a man and humanity. Response: As far as accidents are concerned, they are not synonymous. XXVII. Against [propositions] 11 and 12. "Thou tookest man upon thee to deliver him." But strictly speaking [proprie], God either assumed human nature or humanity or man. But strictly speaking he did not assume humanity or human nature. Therefore he assumed a man, because humanity is an abstract and signifies only a form, but human nature signifies matter, that is, flesh and soul. But God strictly speaking did not assume flesh and a soul, nor flesh alone or a soul alone, but a man, which is the general and most appropriate term in this matter. Therefore I say that he assumed a whole man [integrum hominem], not simply humanity or a part thereof. Response: When humanity is used, as above, as a philosophical term, it is the same as man, but in theology it does not signify a person, as "man" signifies a person, that is, a particular person, [if we were to say] that the Son of God assumed a man. If it were said that the divine person assumed a human nature, that is, a person, then there would be two persons, which we do not concede. For there are not two substances, etc. "Thou tookest man upon thee to deliver him." Here everyone answers that man is here taken abstractly, that is, as "humanity," which is not subsistent, but assumed. "Man," however, does not signify something assumed, but an existing person. Therefore "man" has a different signification with regard to Christ. Christ is a man, that is, the divine person which assumed human nature, for the person did not assume a person. In philosophy there is no difference between man and the union of a soul and flesh, but in theology there is a great difference. For in Christ, humanity signifies the assumed, not subsistent, human nature. But "man" signifies a subsistent person. XXVIII. Argument: Just as it is rightly said that Christ is created, so too it is rightly said that Christ is a creature. "Creature" [creatura] does not signify an action, but a thing produced by a creator, but it is nevertheless an abstract term. Response: We concede to the Fathers, after their fashion, that Christ is called a creature; but because among the untrained "creature" always signifies something separated from the Creator, this is not well done. But when we call Christ a creature, we understand the divine person which assumed human nature. Nor is the creature in Christ the subject [suppositum], not even according to philosophy, but something assumed. Christ, being created, is not separated from God. Therefore he is not a creature in the old sense of the word. XXIX. Argument: Two contraries cannot exist in the same subject [duo disparata non possunt esse in eodem]. God and man are contraries. Therefore they cannot exist in the same subject. Response: Christ was corruptible and mortal, because he died, but not according to his birth [secundum generationem]. Aristotle did not understand the corruption of human nature, wherefore he attributed our corruption to the elements, as in other created things. But the fall of Adam is the cause of death. For Adam was composed of the elements, [and yet] intended [conditus] for eternal life. If he had not fallen, there would have been a perpetual harmony of the elements and no corruption. XXX. Argument: Athanasius says: Such as is the Father, such is the Son. Therefore Christ is not created. Response: He speaks of the divinity of Christ, [but] the Word, which is God, became incarnate. XXX [a]. Again: Contraries must be eliminated [contraria sunt e medio tollenda]. Your third and sixth propositions are clearly contrary. The third states that those things which pertain to man are rightly said of God, and those things which pertain to God, of man. The sixth, that it is not permissible to say that since Christ is thirsty, a slave, dead, therefore he is thirst, slavery, death. Therefore these propositions must be eliminated. Response: In the third proposition we are speaking in the concrete, but in the sixth in the abstract. Again: This is the catholic faith, that we confess one Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man. Therefore, neither God the Father nor the Holy Spirit, since "one" excludes both God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Response: One God, and threefold [trinum] in Trinity, nor do we deny the Trinity. For there is one God, but three persons, nor yet are they separated from each other. Again: The Word was made flesh. But flesh is a creature. Therefore the Word, that is, God, was made a creature. Response: John says concerning Christ that he was made flesh, that is, that he assumed human nature, while otherwise he remained God. Again:
59
They think rightly who say that Christ is [not] a creature according to his humanity, as Schwenkfeld. Response: They are all wrong who call Christ a creature _simpliciter_. XXXI. Argument: God is a spirit. Christ is not a spirit. Therefore, etc. Response: In Christ there are two natures: the divine, which is spirit, and the human, which has flesh and bones. Christ according to his humanity is a creature, and Christ according to his divinity is God, so closely joined together [coniunctissime etiam] that the two natures are one person. XXXII. Argument: He who makes something cannot be the same as the thing which he makes. Christ is the Creator. Therefore he cannot be a creature. Response: We join the Creator and the creature in the unity of the person. The worthless Schwenkfeld [reproaches] us for teaching that Christ is only a creature. He wants to be holy when he stirs up that sect and says that Christ in glory is not a man. Therefore neither will he be God or worthy of worship. He means a pure creature apart from the divinity. He reproaches good men without naming them. None say, as you claim, that Christ is purely a creature, but a serpent is easily hidden. XXXIII. Argument: The divinity in Christ felt no pain. God is divinity. Therefore he did not feel pain on the Cross, and consequently he did not suffer. Response: [Because of] the communication of attributes, those things which Christ suffered are attributed also to God, because they are one. Our adversaries want to divide the unity of the person, but we will [not] concede. We join or unite the distinct natures in one person. XXXIII [a]. Argument: Whatever is subject to death, is not God. Christ was subjected to death. Therefore Christ is not God. Response: [First,] there is the communication of attributes, and the argument is a philosophical one. [Again:] Scripture does not say: "This man created the world; God suffered." Therefore these expressions are not to be used. Response: Error resides not in words, but in the sense; although Scripture does not put forward these words, it nevertheless has the same sense. XXXIII [b]. Argument: No creature creates. Christ is a creature. Response: [This is true] understanding creature in a philosophical way. But creature is said of Christ theologically. Christ is the Creator. Again: Paul [writes] to the Galatians: God sent his Son, born of a woman. Therefore God is a creature. Response: The argument is true according to the humanity. End [of the Disputation on the Divinity and Humanity of Christ] Linked from: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/luther-‐divinity.txt
60
Bibliography Bayer, Oswald. Martin Luther’s Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation. Translated by Thomas H. Trapp. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008. Brown, Harold O.J. Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003. Chemnitz, Martin. The Two Natures in Christ. Translated by J.A.O. Preus. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. “The Definition of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon.” From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 14. Philip Schaff, editor. Accessed November 19, 2013. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xi.xiii.html Christian Classics Ethereal Library. “The Tome of St. Leo” From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 14. Philip Schaff, editor. Accessed November 19, 2013. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xi.vii.html Clayton, Paul B, Jr. The Christology of Theodoret of Cyrus: Antiochene Christology from the Council of Ephesus to the Council of Chalcedon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Empie, Paul C., and James I. McCord, ed. Marburg Revisited: A Reexamination of Lutheran and Reformed Traditions. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1966. English Standard Version (ESV) of the Holy Bible. Wheaton: Good News Publishers, 2001. Gonzalez, Justo, L. The Story of Christianity: Complete in One Volume. The Early Church to the Present Day. Peabody: Prince Press, 2001. Hall, Christopher A. Learning Theology with the Church Fathers. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002. Hardy, Edward R, ed. Christology of the Later Fathers. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines. Peabody: Prince Press, 2003. Lienhard, Marc. Luther: Witness to Jesus Christ, Stages and Themes of the Reformer’s Christology. Translated by Edwin H. Robertson. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1982. Lohse, Bernhard. A Short History of Christian Doctrine: From the First Century to the Present. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985.
61
-------- Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development. Translated and Edited by Roy A. Harrisville. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999. Luther, Martin. American Edition of Luther's Works. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann. 55 vols. Philadelphia and St. Louis: Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing House, 1957-1986.
------- “Disputation On the Divinity and Humanity of Christ, February 27, 1540.” Translated by Christopher B. Brown. Accessed October 30, 2013. http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/luther-divinity.txt McGrath, Alister E. Christian Theology: An Introduction, Third Edition. Malden: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 2001. Norris, Richard A., trans & ed. The Christological Controversy. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980. Pieper, Francis. Christian Dogmatics: Volume Two. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1951. Placher, William C. A History of Christian Theology: An Introduction. Philadelphia: the Westminster Press, 1983. Placher, William C. Readings in the History of Christian Theology, Volume One: From Its Beginning to the Eve of the Reformation. Philadelphia: the Westminster Press, 1988. Posset, Franz. Luther’s Catholic Christology: According to His Johannine Lectures of 1527. Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1988. Price, Richard and Michael Gaddis, trans. The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon: Volume One & Three. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005. Sasse, Hermann. This is My Body: Luther’s Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar. Revised edition. Adelaide: Openbook Publishers, 1977. Scharlemann, Martin H. “The Case for Four Adverbs: Reflections on Chalcedon,” Concordia Theological Monthly, Vol. 28, No. 12 (December 1957). 881-892. Schneider, Carolyn, “The Connection Between Christ and Christians in Athanasius and Luther” (PhD diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1999). Sellers, R.V. The Council of Chalcedon: A Historical and Doctrinal Survey. London: S. P. C. K., 1953. Siggins Ian D. Kingston. Martin Luther’s Doctrine of Christ. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970.