LIII. The sequel of which conjunction of natures in the person of Christ is no abolishment of natural properties appertaining to either substance, no transition or transmigration thereof out of one substance into another, finally no such mutual infusion as really causeth the same natural operations or properties to be made common unto both substances; but whatsoever is natural to Deity the same remaineth in Christ uncommunicated unto his manhood, and whatsoever natural to manhood his Deity thereof is uncapable. The true properties and operations of his Deity are to know that which is not possible for created natures to comprehend; to be simply the highest cause of all things, the wellspring of immortality and life; to have neither end nor beginning of days; to be every where present, and enclosed no where; to be subject to no alteration nor passion; to produce of itself those effects which cannot proceed but from infinite majesty and power. The true properties and operations of his manhood are such as Irenæus reckoneth up1: “If Christ,” saith he, “had not taken flesh from the very earth, he would not have coveted those earthly nourishments, wherewith bodies which be taken from thence are fed. This was the nature which felt hunger after long fasting, was desirous of rest after travail, testified compassion and love by tears, groaned in heaviness, and with extremity of grief even melted away itself into bloody sweats.” To Christ we ascribe both working of wonders and suffering of pains, we use concerning him speeches as well of humility as of divine glory, but the one we apply unto that nature which he took of the Virgin Mary, the other to that which was in the beginning.
We may not therefore imagine that the properties of the weaker nature have vanished with the presence of the more glorious, and have been therein swallowed up as in a gulf. We dare not in this point give ear to them who over boldly affirm2 that “the nature which Christ took weak and feeble from us by being mingled with Deity became the same which Deity is, that the assumption of our substance unto his was like the blending of a drop of vinegar with the huge ocean, wherein although it continue still, yet not with those properties which severed it hath, because sithence the instant of their conjunction, all distinction and difference of the one from the other is extinct, and whatsoever we can now conceive of the Son of God, is nothing else but mere Deity,” which words are so plain and direct for Eutyches, that I stand in doubt they are not his whose name they carry. Sure I am they are far from truth, and must of necessity give place to the better-advised sentences of other men. “3He which in himself was appointed,” saith Hilary, “a Mediator to save his Church, and for performance of that mystery of mediation between God and man, is become God and man, doth now being but one consist of both those natures united, neither hath he through the union of both incurred the damage or loss of either, lest by being born a man we should think he hath given over to be God, or that because he continueth God, therefore he cannot be man also, whereas the true belief which maketh a man happy proclaimeth jointly God and man, confesseth the Word and flesh together.” Cyril more plainly4; “His two natures have knit themselves the one to the other, and are in that nearness as uncapable of confusion as of distraction. Their coherence hath not taken away the difference between them. Flesh is not become God, but doth still continue flesh, although it be now the flesh of God.” Yea, “of each substance,” saith Leo5, “the properties are all preserved and kept safe.”
These two natures are as causes and original grounds of all things which Christ hath done. Wherefore some things he doth as God, because his Deity alone is the wellspring from which they flow; some things as man, because they issue from his mere human nature; some things jointly as both God and man, because both natures concur as principles thereunto. For albeit the properties of each nature do cleave only to that nature whereof they are properties, and therefore Christ cannot naturally be as God the same which he naturally is as man; yet both natures may very well concur unto one effect, and Christ in that respect be truly said to work both as God and as man one and the selfsame thing. Let us therefore set it down for a rule or principle so necessary as nothing more to the plain deciding of all doubts and questions about the union of natures in Christ, that of both natures there is a co-operation often, an association always, but never any mutual participation, whereby the properties of the one are infused into the other.
Which rule must serve for the better understanding of that which Damascene6 hath touching cross and circulatory speeches, wherein there are attributed to God such things as belong to manhood, and to man such as properly concern the Deity of Christ Jesus, the cause whereof is the association of natures in one subject. A kind of mutual commutation there is whereby those concrete names, God and Man, when we speak of Christ, do take interchangeably one another’s room, so that for truth of speech it skilleth not whether we say that the Son of God hath created the world, and the Son of Man by his death hath saved it, or else that the Son of Man did create, and the Son of God die to save the world. Howbeit, as oft as we attribute to God what the manhood of Christ claimeth, or to man what his Deity hath right unto, we understand by the name of God and the name of Man neither the one nor the other nature, but the whole person of Christ, in whom both natures are. When the Apostle saith of the Jews that they crucified the Lord of Glory, and when the Son of Man being on earth affirmeth that the Son of Man was in heaven at the same instant, there is in these two speeches that mutual circulation before-mentioned7. In the one, there is attributed to God or the 8Lord of Glory death, whereof divine nature is not capable; in the other ubiquity unto 9man, which human nature admitteth not. Therefore by the Lord of Glory we must needs understand the whole person of Christ, who being Lord of Glory, was indeed crucified, but not in that nature for which he is termed the Lord of Glory. In like manner by the Son of Man the whole person of Christ must necessarily be meant, who being man upon earth, filled heaven with his glorious presence, but not according to that nature for which the title of Man is given him.
Without this caution the Fathers whose belief was sincere and their meaning most sound, shall seem in their writings one to deny what another constantly doth affirm. Theodoret disputeth with great earnestness that God cannot be said to suffer10. But he thereby meaneth Christ’s divine nature against11 Apollinarius, which held even Deity itself passible, Cyril on the other side against Nestorius as much contendeth, that whosoever will deny very God to have suffered death12, doth forsake the faith. Which notwithstanding to hold were heresy, if the name of God in this assertion did not import as it doth the person of Christ, who being verily God suffered death, but in the flesh, and not in that substance for which the name of God is given him.
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Footnotes
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[Εἰ μηδὲν εἰλήϕει παρὰ τη̑ς Μαρίας, οὐκ αὐτὰς ἀπὸ γη̑ς εἰλημμένας προσίετο τροϕὰς, δι’ ὠ̑ν τὸ ἀπὸ γη̑ς ληϕθὲν τρέϕεται σω̑μα· οὐδ’ ἂν εἰς τεσσαράκοντα ἡμέρας, ὁμοίως ὡς Μωϋση̑ς καὶ Ἠλίας, νηστεύσας ἐπείνησε, του̑ σώματος έπιζητου̑ντος τὴν ἰδίαν τροϕήν· οὐδ’ ἂν Ἰωάννης ὁ μαθητὴς αὐτου̑ περὶ αὐτου̑ γράϕων εἰρήκει· Ὁ δὲ Ἰησου̑ς κεκοπιακὼς ἐκ τη̑ς ὁδοιπορίας, ἐκαθέζετο· … οὐδ’ ἂν ἐδάκρυσεν ἐπὶ του̑ Λαζάρου, οὐδ’ ἂν ἵδρωσε θρόμβους αἵματος· οὐδ’ ἂν εἰρήκει, ὅτι περίλυπός ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή μου· οὐδ’ ἂν νυγείσης αὐτου̑ τη̑ς πλευρα̑ς, ἐξη̑λθεν αἷμα καὶ ὕδωρ.] Ταυ̑τα [γὰρ] πάντα σύμβολα σαρκὸς τη̑ς ἀπὸ γη̑ς εἰλημμένης. Iren. lib. iii. advers. Hæres. [c. 32.] Christ did all these ἀνθρωπίνου σώματος νόμῳ. Theod. Dial. Ἀσύγχυτος. [iv. 1. 148. from Greg. Naz. Orat. xxxviii. t. i. 621. D. Ἀπεστάλη μὲν, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἄνθρωπος· διπλου̑ς γὰρ ἠ̑ν· ἐπεὶ καὶ ἐκοπίασε, καὶ ἐπείνησε, καὶ ἐδίψησε, καὶ ἠγωνίασε, καὶ ἐδάκρυσε νόμῳ σώματος.]Τοὺς μὲν ταπεινοὺς λόγους τῳ̑ ἐκ Μαρίας ἀνθρώπῳ, τοὺς δὲ ἀνηγμένους καὶ θεοπρεπει̑ς τῳ̑ ἐν ἀρχῃ̑ ὄντι Λόγῳ. Greg. Naz. Orat. II. de Filio. [§ 36. t. i. 577.] ↩
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Greg. Nyss. Epist. ad Theophil. Alexandr. [contr. Apollin. t. ii. 697. Paris. 1615. πα̑ν ὄσον ἀσθενὲς τη̑ς ϕυσέως ἡμω̑ν καὶ ἐπίκηρον, ἀνακραθὲν τῃ̑ Θεότητι, ἐκει̑νο ἐγένετο, ὅπερ ἡ Θεότης ἐστί … ἡ δὲ προσληϕθει̑σα τη̑ς ἀνθρωπίνης ϕύσεως ἀπαρχὴ ὑπὸ τη̑ς παντοδυνάμου Θεότητος, ὡς ἂν εἴποι τις εἰκόνι χρώμενος, οἷόν τις σταγὼν ὄξους ἀπείρῳ πελάγει κατακραθει̑σα, ἔστι μὲν ἐν Θεότητι, οὐ μὴν ἐν τοι̑ς ἰδίοις αὐτη̑ς ἰδιώμασιν· … ἐν οὐδενὶ καταλαμβάνεται ἡ διαϕορά· ὅπερ γὰρ ἄν τις ἴδοι του̑ υἱου̑, Θεότης ἐστὶ …] ↩
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Hilar. de Trin. lib. ix. [§ 3. p. 148. ed. Paris. 1605. “Mediator ipse in se ad salutem Ecclesiæ constitutus, et illo ipso inter Deum et hominem mediatoris sacramento utrumque unus existens, dum ipse ex unitis in idipsum naturis, naturæ utriusque res eadem est, ita tamen ut neutro careret in utroque, ne forte Deus esse homo nascendo desineret, et homo rursum Deus manendo non esset. Hæc itaque humanæ beatitudinis fides vera est, Deum et hominem prædicare, Verbum et carnem confiteri.”] ↩
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Cyr. Epist. ad Nest. [ad Succensum. Epist. p. 137. D. t. v. pars ii. ed. 1638. Ὁρω̑μεν ὅτι δύο ϕύσεις συνη̑λθον ἀλλήλαις καθ’ ἕνωσιν ἀδιάσπαστον ἀσυγχύτως, καὶ ἀτρέπτως· ἡ γὰρ σὰρξ σάρξ ἐστι, καὶ οὐ θεότης, εἰ καὶ γέγονε Θεου̑ σάρξ.] ↩
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“Salva proprietate utriusque naturæ suscepta est a majestate humilitas, a virtute infirmitas, ab æternitate mortalitas.” Leo Ep. ad Flav. [c. 3.] ↩
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Οὑ̑τός ἐστιν ὁ τρόπος τη̑ς ἀντιδόσεως, ἑκατέρας ϕύσεως ἀντιδιδούσης τῃ̑ ἑτέρᾳ τὰ ἴδια, διὰ τὴν τη̑ς ὑποστάσεως ταυτότητα, καὶ τὴν εἰς ἄλληλα αὐτω̑ν περιχώρησιν. Damasc. de Orthod. Fid. lib. iii. c. 4. Verum est duarum in Christo naturarum alteram suas alteri proprietates impertire, enunciando videlicet, idque non in abstracto sed in concreto solum, divinas homini non humanitati, humanas non deitati sed Deo tribui. Cujus hæc est ratio, quia cum suppositum prædicationis sit ejusmodi ut utramque naturam in se contineat, sive ab una sive ab altera denominetur nihil refert. ↩
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[S. Aug. Ep. 187. 9. t. ii. 680. F, G.] ↩
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1 Cor. ii. 8. ↩
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John iii. 13. ↩
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[Reprehens. Capitum Cyrilli, N°. xii. t. v. pars i. p. 65, ed. Schulze. Τὰ πάθη, του̑ παθητου̑, ἴδια. ὁ γὰρ ἀπαθὴς, παθω̑ν ἐστὶν ὑψηλότερος. and N°. x. p. 52. Τίς τοίνυν ὁ πόνοις ἀρετη̑ς τελειωθεὶς, καὶ μὴ ϕύσει τέλειος ὑπάρχων; τίς ὁ πείρᾳ μαθὼν τὴν ὑπακοὴν, καὶ ταύτην ἀγνοω̑ν πρὸ τη̑ς πείρας; τίς ὁ εὐλαβείᾳ συμβίωσας, καὶ μετὰ κραυγη̑ς ἰσχυρα̑ς καὶ δακρύων τὰς ἱκετείας προσενεγκὼν, καὶ σώζειν ἑαυτὸν οὐ δυνάμενος, ἀλλὰ τὸν δυνάμενον σώζειν προκαλω̑ν, καὶ του̑ θανάτου τὴν ἀπαλλαγὴν αἰτω̑ν; οὐχ ὁ Θεὸς Λόγος, ὁ ἀπαθὴς, ὁ ἀθάνατος, ὁ ἀσώματος, κ.τ.λ.] ↩
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Θνητὴν του̑ Υἱου̑ κατασκευάζουσι τὴν Θεότητα. Greg. Nyss. de Sectator. Apollinar. [Opp. t. iii. 262. A. Paris. 1638; et Leo.] Ep. ad Flavian. [c. 3.] ↩
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[Ap. Theod. ibid. p. 64. (Cyril’s 12th Anathema, exhibited at the council of Ephesus.) Εἴ τις οὐχ ὁμολογει̑, τὸν του̑ Θεου̑ λόγον παθόντα σαρκὶ, καὶ ἐσταυρωμένον σαρκὶ, καὶ θανάτου γευσάμενον σαρκὶ, γεγονότα τε πρωτότοκον ἐκ νεκρω̑ν, καθὸ ζωή ἐστι, καὶ ζωοποιὸς, ὡς Θεὸς, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω. And p. 67. οὐκου̑ν λεγέσθω πάντα αὐτου̑, καὶ ὁμολογείσθω σωτὴρ ὁ του̑ Θεου̑ λόγος, μεμενηκὼς μὲν ἀπαθὴς τῃ̑ τη̑ς Θεότητος ϕύσει, σαρκὶ δὲ παθὼν, ὡς εἰ̑πεν ὁ Πέτρος. αὐτου̑ γὰρ ἠ̑ν ἴδιον καθ’ ἕνωσιν ἀληθη̑ τὸ του̑ θανάτου γευσάμενον σω̑μα· ἐπεὶ… εἰς τὸν τίνος θάνατον βεβαπτίσμεθα; … . ᾐ̑ρ’ οὐ̑ν εἰς θάνατον ἀνθρώπου κοινου̑ βεβαπτίσμεθα, καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν πιστεύοντες δικαιούμεθα; ἢ, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἀληθὲς, ἐνανθρωπήσαντος ΘΕΟΥ, καὶ ΠΑΘΟΝΤΟΣ ὑπὲρ ἡμω̑ν σαρκὶ, τὸν ΘΑΝΑΤΟΝ καταγγέλλομεν; Melito of Sardis, about ad 150, wrote, ὁ Θεὸς πέπονθεν ὑπὸ δεξια̑ς Ἰσραηλίτιδος. Routh, Reliquiæ Sacræ, i. 116.] ↩