a human soul in Christ, but without being able to carry out the distinction of his nature.* It was different with TERTULLIAN; with great distinctness he vindicated the purely Human in Christ against Marcion. He reproached him with making Christ half a lie by his Docetism. Thou art disgusted, he says, if the child is loved and cherished in its dirty swaddling clothes, and how wast thou born thyself? Christ at least loved man in this state. For his sake he came down and humbled himself even to death; he certainly loved him whom he purchased so dearly. He loved therefore his nativity with man, and his body.† Tertullian was one of those who thought Christ had an ill-favoured body. Because the Jews wondered that he wrought such miracles he inferred, that he must have been destitute of an imposing figure. He objected to Marcion's notion of the suddenness of Christ's appearance. All things were hidden according to him, but not so with God who prepared everything beforehand.‡ In order to exclude Docetism he carefully distinguished the Divine and the purely Human in Christ's nature. We must not imagine, he says, any transmutation of the Divine and Human. Had a mixture taken place Christ would have been neither divine nor human, but some third being. He was rather two-fold in one person. Tertullian is the first writer Hippolytus speaks in his ɛyxos of the likeness of the human nature of Christ to our own, but yet only under an ethical point of view. He represents it as consisting in the body; Tourov (scil. Tòv Λόγον) ἔγνωμεν ἐκ παρθένου σῶμα ανει ληφότα καὶ τον παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον διὰ καινῆς πλάσεως πεφορηκότα, ἐν βίῳ διὰ πάσης ἡλικίας ἐληλυθότα, ἵνα πάσῃ ἡλικίᾳ αὐτὸς νόμος γενηθῇ, καὶ σκόπον τὸν ἴδιον ἄνθρωπον πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ἐπιδείξῃ παρὼν, καὶ δι' αὐτοῦ ἐλέγξῃ, ὅτι μηδὴν ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς πονηρὸν. According to the fragment from the tract against Noëtus, c. 17, if the passage is trustworthy, he would also have admitted a rational soul in Christ.-[JACOBI.] De Carni Christi. 4. C. Marcion. iii. 2.-Subito filius et subito missus et subito Christus? Atqui nihil putem a Deo subitum quia nihil a Deo non dispositum. Adv. Prax. 27.-Videmus duplicem statum, non confusum sed conjunctum in una persona, Deum et hominem Jesum. De Christo autem dissero. Et adeo salva est utriusque proprietas substantiæ, ut et spiritus res suas egerit in illo, id est virtutes et opera et signa, et caro passiones suas functa sit, esuriens sub diabolo, sitiens sub Samaritide, flens Lazarum, anxia usque ad mortem, denique et mortua est. Quodsi tertium quid esset, ex utroque confusum, ut electrum, non tam distincta documenta parerent utriusque substantiæ. by whom a perfect human nature consisting of body and soul is distinctly asserted. Christ's words on the cross expressive of his anguish he explains* as the voice of the body and soul of his human nature. As Tertullian did not admit a Trichotomy of human nature, but only one anima in it, furnished† with higher and lower powers, he could only understand by the one soul in Christ the same as it was in all men. Controversy led him to express this view still more distinctly. Valentine anticipating in some degree later scientific knowledge, maintained that Christ must have in his person something analogous to all those things to which his redemption would be applicable, therefore he must have a vεμa and a ʊx; he was only destitute altogether of the Hylic nature. But he added the assumption, that this x had become visible, like a bodily appearance. Against this Tertullian contended, and urged that such a soul would not be identical with the human soul: but unless it were he could not redeem men: the properties of body and soul were to be distinguished in him the soul was properly the man. THE TEACHERS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. : JUSTIN MARTYR in his second Apology has a remarkable passage in reference to this doctrine. After speaking of the σπέρμα τοῦ λόγου among the Heathen, he contrasts with it the absolute unmixed truth in Christianity. The distinction is grounded on this, that in Christ the whole Logos and not merely a part, appeared. In the phrase λογικὸν τὸ ὅλον, Aoyinòv may be taken for the masculine, and then the sense would be, rational in reference to the whole, but according to the contrast and the whole connexion Xoyxov is neuter, and the words will mean, the whole, absolute Logos. What he then adds, "Body and Logos and Soul" may appear remarkable on account of its awkward position at the end of the sentence. The position of the Logos between body and soul is also odd, * Adv. Prax. c. 30.-Sed hæc vox carnis et animæ, id est hominis, non sermonis nec spiritus, id est non Dei. † Cf. De Carne Christi, 12; De Anima, 12.-Nos autem animum ita dicimus animæ concretum, non ut substantia aliam, sed ut substantiæ officium. # § 10.Μεγαλειότερα μὲν οὖν πάσης ἀνθρωπείου διδασκαλίας φαίνεται τὰ ἡμέτερα διὰ τὸ λογικὸν τὸ ὅλον τὸν φανέντα δι' ἡμᾶς Χριστὸν γεγονέναι, καὶ σῶμα καὶ λόγον καὶ ψυχήν. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 201 since the soul is subordinate to the Logos, and superior to the body. On this account it has been suspected that a later hand made a correction or at least added the Jux, in order to complete Justin's deficient orthodoxy. But as Justin wrote very loosely, that is not a sufficient reason; he might mention the soul last, because it was of less importance to his argument. If the reading be correct it contains the following view; he admits three parts in the person of Christ he considers the ψυχὴ as equivalent to the ψυχὴ ἄλογος, i.e. the principle of animal life as opposed to the ψυχή λογική, i.e. the νοῦς or TVEά; the Logos in Christ occupies the place of this higher rational power as it exists in other human beings. Justin therefore appears to have held already the trichotomical theory of the person of Christ which Apollinaris carried out in the fourth century. CLEMENT of Alexandria argues against Docetism, that the Son assumed real humanity in order to show to man the possibility of obedience to the divine commands, easily fulfilling* them himself, because he was the power of the Father. But as Clement regarded the sensuous affections, the feelings of pleasure and disgust, pain and sickness, &c., as consequences of the fall and of the dominion of matter over man, he is led to a view bordering on Docetism. He maintains† that Christ assumed human nature without these defects; that he was not subject to hunger and thirst; pleasure and disgust; that he was altogether raised above sensuousness. Notwithstanding this, he held the sensuous affections in Christ not to be merely apparent; he admitted that Christ eat and drank, but without being compelled by the cravings of nature; that he submitted to them with freedom and with a special reference to men: he was not subject to plogά; his body was supported by a holy power. Christ therefore felt and acted as man, but not that he shared the wants or desires of human nature, a view similar to that of Valentine that Christ performed what was sensuous in a * Strom. vii. p. 704. + Ibid. vi. p. 649.—ἀλλ' ἐπὶ μὲν τοῦ Σωτῆρος τὸ σῶμα ἀπαιτεῖν ὡς σῶμα τὰς ἀναγκαίας υπηρεσίας εἰς διαμονὴν, γέλως ἂν εἴη· ἔφαγεν γὰρ οὐ διὰ τὸ σῶμα, δυνάμει συνεχόμενον ἁγίᾳ, ἀλλ' ὡς μὴ τοὺς συνόντας ἄλλως περὶ αὐτοῦ φρονεῖν ὑπεισέλθοι· ὥσπερ ἀμέλει ὕστερον δοκήσει τινὲς αὐτὸν πεφανερῶσθαι ὑπέλαβον· αὐτὸς δὲ ἁπαξαπλῶς ἀπαθὴς ἦν, εἰς ὃν οὐδὲν παρεισδύεται κίνημα παθητικὸν, οὔτε ἡδονὴ οὔτε λύπη. Cf. Laemmer, Clementis de Xoyy Doctrina. different way from men in general. Clement fell into this error through the strong influence of Neo-Platonism and its doctrine of the ὕλη. Christ must be an example of ἀπάθεια ; and connecting the dogmatic and the ethical, Clement says the yvworinós must imitate Christ, so that what in Christ was natural άáðɛ, he must acquire and accomplish by moral exercise. With this representation of the less sensuous appearance of Christ, the notion that he was ill-favoured might seem to be at variance, yet Clement adopted this view, and managed to connect it with another, since it appeared to him to convey the adinonition to attach no importance to the outward form and to rise from it to the divine. Christ, he says,* was in the flesh without form and comeliness, that we might be led to fix our regards on the supersensual of the divine causes. TATIAN as a Gnostic had written a treatise on perfection after the example of Christ (περὶ τοῦ εἰς τὸν σωτῆρα καταρτισμού) in which he laid down the doctrine of åτábɛia, and reckoned celibacy to belong to that perfection in which Christ is to be imitated. To this Clement objects that what constituted Christ's specific pre-eminence excluded marriage, and that in this point he could not be an example for all. The Church is his bride, and it did not belong to the Son of God to beget children according to the flesh.+ Clement regarded Christ's whole life as something parabolical as far as he represented the super-terrestrial in a terrestrial form. To those who were not able to understand him on account of the weakness of the sensuous flesh, he could not appear as he really was. It was not that he presented himself differently according to different standpoints, but generally by means of an accommodation of the Divine to the sensuous standpoint.‡ ORIGEN has gained great reputation by his development of this doctrine. The apologetic interest induced him to defend the doctrine of the God-Man against heathens and heretics.. His philosophic spirit which led him to distinguish the different functions of human nature, also occasioned his thinking of methods by which opposing difficulties and objections might be settled. He combats the views of the heathen philosophers, +Ibid. iii. p. 446. Strom. iii. p 470. † Tbid. vii. p. 704.—οὐ γὰρ ὃ ἦν τοῦτο ὤφθη τοῖς χωρῆσαι μὴ δυναμένοις διὰ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῆς σαρκός. § C. Cels. iv. 5 15. Εἰ δὲ καὶ σῶμα θνητὸν καὶ ψυχὴν ἀνθρωπίνην that Christians worshipped a God in a mortal body and thought that he was subject to the sufferings and changes of human nature. Origen distinguishes the more sharply the qualities of the divine and human natures in Christ. The divine Logos was in no wise subject to alteration, but at the Incarnation remained unchangeable in his essence. In another passage he adds, We Christians do not hold the mortal body of Jesus nor the soul of which it is said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death," to be God, but as God employed the souls and bodies of the prophets as his organs so the Logos revealed himself in the person of Jesus. The analogy is therefore employed of the connexion of the divine Logos with souls which he uses as his special organs. He was induced by his Neo-Platonic ideas to develope the doctrine still further. Ammonius Saccas is said so to have explained the connexion of the soul with the body, that it lay in the nature of spiritual beings to connect themselves with other beings, and yet to remain undisturbed in their own. As he has written nothing it may be doubted whether this assertion ever proceeded from him. Yet Nemesius who reports it, might have received the tradition through a trustworthy channel, and what he communicates agrees with the character of the Neo-Platonic school. Porphyry, in his miscellaneous writings, also says, that it is very possible for a being to unite himself with one of a different kind and yet the superior being to remain unaltered. According to these fundamental ideas Origen regards the soul as the natural organ of the Logos; to receive into itself and to represent his operations, is its highest destiny. What in other persons only happens in single moments, becomes habitual in those highest human souls which the Logos takes possession of. As it was important to Origen, to suppose pre-existent spirits to be originally all equal and that all differences among them, all moral pre-eminence and divine communications are founded on free will, so he also maintained of the soul of Christ, that it attained to this close connexion with the Logos not according to an arbitrary divine determination nor by any pre-eminence of Nature, but owed it to its love to him and the constant tendency of its free will towards God. He applied ἀναλαβὼν ὁ ἀθάνατος Θεὸς λόγος δοκεῖ τῷ Κέλσῳ ἀλλάττεσθαι καὶ μεταπλάττεσθαι, μανθανέτω, ὅτι ὁ λόγος τῷ οὐσίᾳ μένων λόγος, οὐδὲν μὲν πάσχει ὧν πάσχει τὸ σῶμα ἢ ἡ ψυχή. |