1. Its Leading Ideas: These may be stated as follows: (1) A true incarnation of the Logos, i.e., the second person in the Godhead (Gk. (
enanthropesis theou, ensarkosis tou logou, Lat.
incarnatio verbi). This is an actual assumption of the whole human nature --body, soul, and spirit--into an abiding union with the divine personality of the eternal Logos, so that they constitute, from the moment of the supernatural conception, one undivided life. The incarnation is neither a conversion or transmutation of the divine nature into the human nature, nor a conversion of man into God, and consequent absorption of the one, nor a confusion (Gk.
krasis, synchysis) of the two. On the other hand, it is not a mere indwelling (Gk.
enoikesia, Lat
inhabitatio) of the one in the other, nor an outward, transitory connection (Gk
synapheia, Lat.
conjunctio) of the two factors. (2) The distinction between nature and person. Nature or substance (essence, Gk.
ousia) denotes the totality of powers and qualities which constitute a being; while person (Gk.
hypostasis, prosopon) is the ego, the self-conscious, self-asserting, and acting subject. The Logos assumed, not a human person (else we should have two persons--a divine and a human), but human nature, which is common to us all. (3) The God-man (Gk.
theanthropos) as the result of the incarnation. Christ is not a (Nestorian) double being, with two persons, nor a compound (Apollinarian or Monophysite) middle being, a
tertium quid, partly divine and partly human; but he is one person, at once wholly divine and wholly human. (4) The duality of the natures. The orthodox doctrine maintains, against Eutychianism, the distinction of natures, even after the act of incarnation, without confusion or conversion (Gk.
asynchytos and
atreptos, Lat.
inconfuse and
immutabiliter), yet, on the other hand, without division or separation (Gk.
adiairetos and
achoristos, Lat.
indivise and
inseparabiliter); so that the divine will ever remain divine, and the human ever human; and yet the two have continually one common life, and interpenetrate each other; like the persons of the Trinity (Gk.
perichoresis). According to a familiar figure, the divine nature pervades the human as the fire pervades the iron. Christ has all the properties which the Father has, except the property of being unbegotten; and he has all the properties which the first Adam had before the fall; he has, therefore (according to John of Damascus), two consciousnesses and two physical wills, or faculties of self-determination (Gk.
autexousia). This is the extreme border to which the doctrine of two natures can be carried, without an assertion of two full personalities; and it is almost impossible to draw the line. (5) The unity of the person (Gk.
henosis kath hypostatisn, henosis hypostatike, Lat.
unio hypoatatica or
unio personalis). The union of the divine and human nature in Christ is a permanent state, resulting from the incarnation, and is a real, supernatural, personal, and inseparable union, in distinction from an essential absorption or confusion, or from a mere moral union, or from a mystical union, such as holds between the believer and Christ. The two natures constitute but one personal life, and yet remain distinct. "The same who is true God," says Pope Leo I. in his famous Epistle, which anticipated the decision of Chalcedon, " is also true man; and in this unity there is no deceit, for in it the lowliness of man and the majesty of God perfectly pervade one another . . . . Because the two natures make only one person, we read, on the one hand, ‘The Son of man came down from heaven' (
John iii. 13), while yet the Son of God took flesh from the Virgin; and, on the other hand, `The Son of God was crucified and buried,' while yet he suffered, not in his Godhead, as coeternal and consubstantial with the Father,
but in the weakness of human nature." (6) The whole work of Christ is to be attributed to his person, and not to the one or the other nature exclusively. The person is the acting subject; the nature, the organ or medium. It is the one divine-human person of Christ that wrought miracles by virtue of his divine nature, and that suffered through the sensorium of his human nature. The superhuman effect and infinite merit of the Redeemer's work must be ascribed to his person, because of his divinity; while it is his humanity alone that made him capable of, and liable to, temptation, suffering, and death, and renders him an example for our imitation. (7) The
Anhypostasia, or, more accurately, the
Enhypostasia (Impersonality), of the human nature of Christ. The meaning is that Christ's human nature had no independent personality of its own, and that the divine nature is the root and basis of his personality. His humanity was enhypostatized through union with the Logos, or incorporated into his personality. The Synod of Chalcedon says nothing of this feature; it was an afterthought developed by John of Damascus. It seems inconsistent with the dyotheletic theory; for a being with consciousness and will has the two essential elements of personality, while an impersonal will seems to be a mere animal instinct. Ritschl (
Justification and Reconciliation , New York, 1900, p. 437) says: "That the divine revealing Word constitutes the form, and the human individual the substance, of the person of Christ . . . is what in the end the doctrine of the Greek Church comes to. For the theory of the anhypostasis of the human nature in Christ . . . is intelligible only if the Divine Logos is the form in which this human individual exists, outside of which he has no real existence at all. For the form is the basis of reality."
