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."

(7) As to His body, was it incorruptible or corruptible? The Monophysites raised this question, and divided upon it into Severians and Julianists, the latter insisting upon the incorruptibility of the flesh of Christ as well as its life-giving property, in accordance with II Tim. 110. This, indeed, seems to be logically involved in the life-giving property taught by Cyril in his letter to Nestorius, which has semi-symbolical character, although the weight of theological opinion is against it.1

(8) There are other difficulties to the modern mind, that were not felt by the ancients. It would seem that the ancient controversies dealt too little with the ethical and too much with the physical.2

They left little room for intellectual and moral growth in the human nature of Christ, but only for physical growth. The chief difficulty with the Chalcedonian decision, one that was deeply felt in ancient times and is at present regarded as most serious, is the seeming limitation of the unity to the hypostasis, or person, of the Logos. There is certainly an am

1 V. p. 303. V. Bruce, Humiliation of Christ, p. 364. This is best explained by the theory of a gradual incarnation, advocated especially by Dorner, Glaubenslehre, II, s. 286; v. Briggs, Incarnation of the Lord, pp. 122 seq.

biguity in the use of the term person, which is disturbing; for person as used in connection with the distinctions of the Holy Trinity has a different meaning from person as used in the Chalcedonian formula as the point of unity of the human and divine natures of Christ. The latter is certainly something more than the hypostasis of the Second Person of the Trinity, which did not include individuality. Individuality can be predicated of the one God only, not of the three Trinitarian Hypostases. How much more the personality that united the natures was than the hypostasis of the Logos, has not, however, been defined by the Church. As Dorner shows, the Chalcedonian formula does not deny human personality to the Man Jesus. It simply denies that there is a human personality separate and distinct from the hypostasis of the Second Person of the Trinity, and asserts the unity as in the one person of Christ.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FINAL CHRISTOLOGICAL DEFINITIONS

THE decree of Chalcedon did not solve all of the difficulties of the two natures of Christ, and therefore did not satisfy all sections of the Christian Church. It left the union of the two natures depending on the slender thread of the one hypostasis, or person, of the Son of God. The Monophysites recognized that the Son of God was composed of two originally separate natures; but when these were united at the incarnation, their product was a divino-human nature, in which all the properties of both were combined in union but without mixture. This raised many difficulties. If the substance of the Son became one with the nature of the man, it involved a union not only with the hypostasis of the Second Person of the Trinity, but also with the substance of the Godhead. The doctrine of the unity of God as separate and apart from the creature was thus threatened. Patripassianism was revived, as in Theopaschitism, which insisted on the formula "God crucified." This, if interpreted of the person of Christ as God, is correct, but if interpreted of the divine nature of Christ, is heretical. On the other hand, the redemption of mankind seemed to depend on the union of humanity in some way with divine nature. If the union of the human with the divine

is only in the hypostasis of the Second Person of the Trinity, there seems to be nothing but an external juxtaposition and no real union of natures at all, and so the doctrine of salvation is imperilled.

The Eucharist enshrines the doctrine that the body of Christ there enjoyed is not only the human Christ but also the divine. There seemed to be a conflict between the Creed of the Church and her Liturgy, between her Faith and her Worship.

The most serious of the objections of the Monophysites were removed by the explanation of Leontius of Byzantium (485-543), who makes the important statement that the human nature of Christ was not without an hypostasis, or personality, but that it was enhypostatized in the Logos, received its hypostasis, or personality, in the Logos, by union with the Second Person of the Trinity. The human nature had no personality in itself as derived from Mary; but it received its personality when it was united to the divine nature by the hypostasis of the Second Person of the Trinity. Later this became still clearer in the doctrine of John of Damascus, that the union of natures was in a composite personality. Thus the hypostasis of the Second Person of the Trinity, which has no individuality, imparts personality to the human nature which He assumed, and so becomes a composite person, a divine hypostasis and an individual God-man.1

The difficulty involved in such an entire separation of natures as seemed to the Monophysites to be im1 V. Briggs, Incarnation, p. 201.

plied in the Chalcedonian formula, was overcome by the doctrine of exchange, or communication of properties, of the one nature to the other.

From the very nature of the case this communication is on the divine side, and not on the human. This communication of properties of the divine nature to the human nature of Christ, while it refers chiefly to His state of exaltation, and especially to the eucharistic presence, also refers in part to the state of humiliation and explains those special characteristics of the human nature of Christ upon which the Monophysites insisted, and which seem to be based on the New Testament.

Another term was also useful, especially in John of Damascus, namely, Teρixwpnois, which, as interpreted, represents that the divine nature of Christ interpenetrated and pervaded the human nature. They were not merely in external juxtaposition. On the other hand, this exchange of attributes and interpenetration of natures threaten confusion of the two natures of Christ, and tend in the direction of Monophysitism, especially if referred to the act of incarnation. This certainly was not designed by Leontius, or John of Damascus, who maintained the Chalcedonian formula, and who sufficiently guarded themselves from the peril of Monophysitism. They were explaining the Chalcedonian doctrine, and not changing or nullifying it. The Chalcedonian formula is not responsible for their doctrinal explanations, but it is not inconsistent with them; and the doctors of the Church, East and West, have regarded