Outline of Topics:
I. The Fact of the Incarnation
(1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ
A. Old Testament Proofs
B. New Testament Proofs
C. Witness of Tradition
(2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ
(3) The Hypostatic Union
A. The Witness of the Scriptures
B. Witness of Tradition
II. The Nature of the Incarnation
(1) Nestorianism
(2) Monophysitism
(3) Monothelitism
(4) Catholicism
III. Effects of the Incarnation
(1) On Christ Himself
A. On the Body of Christ
B. On the Human Soul of Christ
C. On the God-Man
(2) The Adoration of the Humanity of Christ
(3) Other Effects of the Incarnation
The Incarnation is the mystery and the dogma of the Word made Flesh. ln this
technical sense the word incarnation was adopted, during the twelfth century,
from the Norman-French, which in turn had taken the word over from the Latin
incarnatio. The Latin Fathers, from the fourth century, make common use of the
word; so Saints Jerome, Ambrose, Hilary, etc. The Latin incarnatio (in: caro,
flesh) corresponds to the Greek sarkosis, or ensarkosis, which words depend on
John (i, 14) kai ho Logos sarx egeneto, "And the Word was made flesh". These
two terms were in use by the Greek Fathers from the time of St. Irenaeus--i. e.
according to Harnack, A. D. 181-189 (cf. lren., "Adv. Haer." III, l9, n. i.; Migne,
VII, 939). The verb sarkousthai, to be made flesh, occurs in the creed of the
Council of Nicaea (cf. Denzinger, "Enchiridion", n. 86). In the language of Holy
Writ, flesh means, by synecdoche, human nature or man (cf. Luke, iii, 6; Rom.,
iii, 20). Suarez deems the choice of the word incarnation to have been very apt.
Man is called flesh to emphasize the weaker part of his nature. When the Word
is said to have been incarnate, to have been made Flesh, the Divine goodness is
better expressed whereby God "emptied Himself . . . and was found in outward
bearing (schemati) like a man" (Phil. ii, 7); He took upon Himself not only the
nature of man, a nature capable of suffering and sickness and death, He became
like a man in all save only sin (cf. Suarez, "De Incarnatione", Praef. n. 5). The
Fathers now and then use the word henanthropesis, the act of becoming man, to
which correspond the terms inhumanatio, used by some Latin Fathers, and
"Menschwerdung", current in German. The mystery of the Incarnation is
expressed in Scripture by other terms: epilepsis, the act of taking on a nature
(Heb., ii. 16): epiphaneia, appearance (II Tim., i, 10); phanerosis hen sarki,
manifestation in the flesh (I Tim., iii, 16); somatos katartismos, the fitting of a
body, what some Latin Fathers call incorporatio (Heb., x. 5); kenosis, the act of
emptying one's self (Phil., ii, 7). In this article, we shall treat of the fact, nature
and effects of the Incarnation.
I. THE FACT OF THE INCARNATION
The Incarnation implies three facts: (1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ; (2) The
Human Nature of Jesus Christ; (3) The Hypostatic Union of the Human with the
Divine Nature in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ.
(1) THE DIVINE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST
We presuppose the historicity, of Jesus Christ,--i. e. that He was a real person of
history (cf. JESUS CHRIST); the Messiahship of Jesus; the historical worth and
authenticity of the Gospels and Acts; the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus Christ
established thereby; the establishment of an infallible and never failing teaching
body to have and to keep the deposit of revealed truth entrusted to it by the
Divine ambassador, Jesus Christ; the handing down of all this deposit by tradition
and of part thereof by Holy Writ; the canon and inspiration of the Sacred
Scriptures--all these questions will be found treated in their proper places.
Moreover, we assume that the Divine nature and Divine personality are one and
inseparable (see TRINITY). The aim of this article is to prove that the historical
person, Jesus Christ, is really and truly God, --i. e. has the nature of God, and is
a Divine person. The Divinity of Jesus Christ is established by the Old
Testament, by the New Testament and by tradition.
A. Old Testament Proofs
The Old Testament proofs of the Divinity of Jesus presuppose its testimony to
Him as the Christ, the Messias (see MESSIAS). Assuming then, that Jesus is
the Christ, the Messias promised in the Old Testament, from the terms of the
promise it is certain that the One promised is God, is a Divine Person in the
strictest sense of the word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of the
Father, One in nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Our argument is
cumulative. The texts from the Old Testament have weight by themselves; taken
together with their fulfilment in the New Testament, and with the testimony of
Jesus and His apostles and His Church, they make up a cumulative argument in
favour of the Divinity of Jesus Christ that is overwhelming in its force. The Old
Testament proofs we draw from the Psalms, the Sapiential Books and the
Prophets.
(a) TESTIMONY OF THE PSALMS
Psalm 2:7. "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten
thee." Here Jahweh, i. e., God of Israel, speaks to the promised Messias. So St.
Paul interprets the text (Heb., i, 5) while proving the Divinity of Jesus from the
Psalms. The objection is raised that St. Paul is here not interpreting but only
accommodating Scripture. He applies the very same words of Ps. ii, 7 to the
priesthood (Heb., v, 5) and to the resurrection (Acts, xiii, 33) of Jesus; but only in
a figurative sense did the Father beget the Messias in the priesthood and
resurrection of Jesus; hence only in a figurative sense did He beget Jesus as His
Son. We answer that St. Paul speaks figuratively and accommodates Scripture
in the matter of the priesthood and resurrection but not in the matter of the
eternal generation of Jesus. The entire context of this chapter shows there is a
question of real sonship and real Divinity of Jesus. In the same verse, St. Paul
applies to Christ the words of Jahweh to David, the type of Christ: "I will be to him
a father, and he shall be to me a son". (II Kings, vii, 14.) In the following verse,
Christ is spoken of as the first-born of the Father, and as the object of the
adoration of the angels; but only God is adored: "Thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever. . . Thy God, O God, hath anointed thee " (Ps. xliv, 7, 8). St. Paul refers
these words to Christ as to the Son of God (Heb., i, 9). We follow the Massoretic
reading, "Thy God, O God". The Septuagint and New Testament reading, ho
theos, ho theos sou, "O God, Thy God", is capable of the same interpretation.
Hence, the Christ is here called God twice; and his throne, or reign, is said to
have been from eternity. Ps. cix, 1: "The Lord said to my Lord (Heb., Jahweh
said to my Adonai): Sit thou at my right hand". Christ cites this text to prove that
He is Adonai (a Hebrew term used only for Deity), seated at the right hand of
Jahweh, who is invariably the great God of Israel (Matt., xxii, 44). In the same
psalm, Jahweh says to Christ: "Before the day-star, I begat thee". Hence Christ
is the begotten of God; was begotten before the world was, and sits at the right
hand of the heavenly Father. Other Messianic psalms might be cited to show the
clear testimony of these inspired poems to the Divinity of the promised Messias.
(b) TESTIMONY OF THE SAPIENTIAL BOOKS
So clearly do these Sapiential Books describe uncreated Wisdom as a Divine
Person distinct from the First Person, that rationalists have resort to a subterfuge
and claim that the doctrine of uncreated Wisdom was taken over by the authors
of these books from the Neo-Platonic philosophy of the Alexandrian school. It is
to be noted that in the pre-sapiential books of the Old Testament, the uncreated
Logos, or hrema, is the active and creative principle of Jahweh (see Ps. xxxii, 4;
xxxii, 6; cxviii, 89; cii, 20; Is., xl, 8; lv, 11). Later the logos became sophia, the
uncreated Word became uncreated Wisdom. To Wisdom were attributed all the
works of creation and Divine Providence (see Job, xxviii, 12: Prov., viii and ix;
Ecclus., i,1; xxiv, 5 to 12; Wis., vi, 21; ix, 9). In Wis., ix, 1, 2, we have a
remarkable instance of the attribution of God's activity to both the Logos and
Wisdom. This identification of the pre-Mosaic Logos with the Sapiential Wisdom
and the Johannine Logos (see LOGOS) is proof that the rationalistic subterfuge
is not effective. The Sapiential Wisdom and the Johannine Logos are not an
Alexandrian development of the PIatonic idea, but are a Hebraistic development
of the pre-Mosaic uncreated and creating Logos or Word.
Now for the Sapiential proofs: In Ecclus., xxiv, 7, Wisdom is described as
uncreated, the "first born of the Most High before all creatures", "from the
beginning and before the World was I made" (ibid., 14). So universal was the
identification of Wisdom with the Christ, that even the Arians concurred with the
Fathers therein; and strove to prove by the word ektise, made or created, of verse
14, that incarnate Wisdom was created. The Fathers did not make answer that
the word Wisdom was not to be understood of the Christ, but explained that the
word ektise had here to be interpreted in keeping with other passages of Holy
Writ and not according to its usual meaning,--that of the Septuagint version of
Gen., i, 1. We do not know the original Hebrew or Aramaic word; it may have
been the same word that occurs in Prov. viii, 22: "The Lord possessed me (Heb.,
gat me by generation; see Gen., iv, 1) in the beginning of His ways, before He
made anything from the beginning, I was set up from eternity." Wisdom speaking
of itself in the Book of Ecclesiasticus cannot contradict what Wisdom says of
itself in Proverbs and elsewhere. Hence the Fathers were quite right in explaining
ektise not to mean made or created in any strict sense of the terms (see St.
Athanasius, "Sermo ii contra Arianos", n. 44; Migne, P. G., XXVI, 239). The Book
of Wisdom, also, speaks clearly of Wisdom as "the worker of all things . . . a
certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God . . . the brightness of
eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his
goodness." (Wis., vii, 21-26.) St. Paul paraphrases this beautiful passage and
refers it to Jesus Christ (Heb., i, 3). It is clear, then, from the text-study of the
books themselves, from the interpretation of these books by St. Paul, and
especially, from the admitted interpretation of the Fathers and the liturgical uses
of the Church, that the personified wisdom of the Sapiential Books is the
uncreated Wisdom, the incarnate Logos of St. John, the Word hypostatically
united with human nature, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father. The
Sapiential Books prove that Jesus was really and truly God.
(c) TESTIMONY OF THE PROPHETIC BOOKS
The prophets clearly state that the Messias is God. Isaias says: "God Himself
will come and will save you" (xxxv, 4); "Make ready the way of Jahweh" (xl, 3);
"Lo Adonai Jahweh will come with strength" (xl, 10). That Jahweh here is Jesus
Christ is clear from the use of the passage by St. Mark (i 3). The great prophet of
Israel gives the Christ a special and a new Divine name "His name will be called
Emmanuel" (Is., vii, 14). This new Divine name St. Matthew refers to as fulfilled in
Jesus, and interprets to mean the Divinity of Jesus. "They shall call his name
Emmanuel, @hich, being interpreted, is God with us." (Matt., i, 23.) Also in ix, 6,
Isaias calls the Messias God: "A child is born to us . . . his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Strong One, the Father of the world to come, the
Prince of Peace." Catholics explain that the very same child is called God the
Strong One (ix, 6) and Emmanuel (vii, 14); the conception of the child is
prophesied in the latter verse, the birth of the very same child is prophesied in the
former verse. The name Emmanuel (God with us) explains the name that we
translate "God the Strong One." It is uncritical and prejudiced on the part of the
rationalists to go outside of lsaias and to seek in Ezechiel (xxxii, 21) the
meaning "mightiest among heroes" for a word that everywhere else in Isaias is
the name of "God the Strong One" (see Is., x, 21). Theodotion translates literally
theos ischyros; the Septuagint has "messenger". Our interpretation is that
commonly received by Catholics and by Protestants of the stamp of Delitzsch
("Messianic Prophecies", p. 145). Isaias also calls the Messias the "sprout of
Jahweh" (iv, 2), i. e. that which has sprung from Jahweh as the same in nature
with Him. The Messias is "God our King" (Is., 1ii, 7), "the Saviour sent by our
God" (Is., 1ii, 10, where the word for Saviour is the abstract form of the word for
Jesus); "Jahweh the God of Israel" (Is., lii, 12): "He that hath made thee, Jahweh
of the hosts His name" (Is., liv, 5)".
The other prophets are as clear as Isaias, though not so detailed, in their
foretelling of the Godship of the Messias. To Jeremias, He is "Jahweh our Just
One" (xxiii, 6; also xxxiii, 16). Micheas speaks of the twofold coming of the
Child, His birth in time at Bethlehem and His procession in eternity from the
Father (v, 2). The Messianic value of this text is proved by its interpretation in
Matthew (ii, 6). Zacharias makes Jahweh to speak of the Messias as "my
Companion"; but a companion is on an equal footing with Jahweh (xiii, 7).
Malachias says: "Behold I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before
my face, and presently the Lord, whom you seek, and the angel of the
testament, whom you desire, shall come to his temple" (iii, 1). The messenger
spoken of here is certainly St. John the Baptist. The words of Malachias are
interpreted of the Precursor by Our Lord Himself (Matt., xi, 10). But the Baptist
prepared the way before the face of Jesus Christ. Hence the Christ was the
spokesman of the words of Malachias. But the words of Malachias are uttered by
Jahweh the great God of Israel. Hence the Christ or Messias and Jahweh are one
and the same Divine Person. The argument is rendered even more forcible by the
fact that not only is the speaker, Jahweh the God of hosts, here one and the
same with the Messias before Whose face the Baptist went: but the prophecy of
the Lord's coming to the Temple applies to the Messias a name that is ever
reserved for Jahweh alone. That name occurs seven times (Ex., xxiii, 17; xxxiv,
23; Is., i, 24; iii, 1; x, 16 and 33; xix, 4) outside of Malachias, and is clear in its
reference to the God of Israel. The last of the prophets of Israel gives clear
testimony that the Messias is the very God of Israel Himself. This argument from
the prophets in favour of the Divinity of the Messias is most convincing if received
in the light of Christian revelation, in which light we present it. The cumulative
force of the argument is well worked out in "Christ in Type and Prophecy", by
Maas.
B. New Testament Proofs
We shall give the witness of the Four Evangelists and of St. Paul. The argument
from the New Testament has a cumulative weight that is overwhelming in its
effectiveness, once the inspiration of the New Testament and the Divine
ambassadorship of Jesus are proved (see INSPIRATION; CHRISTIANITY). The
process of the Catholic apologetic and dogmatic upbuilding is logical and
never-failing. The Catholic theologian first establishes the teaching body to which
Christ gave His deposit of revealed truth, to have and to keep and to hand down
that deposit without error or failure. This teaching body gives us the Bible; and
gives us the dogma of the Divinity of Christ in the unwritten and the written Word
of God, i. e. in tradition and Scripture. When contrasted with the Protestant
position upon "the Bible, the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible"--no, not even
anything to tell us what is the Bible and what is not the Bible--the Catholic
position upon the Christ-established, never-failing, never-erring teaching body is
impregnable. The weakness of the Protestant position is evidenced in the matter
of this very question of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Bible is the one and only
rule of faith of Unitarians, who deny the Divinity of Jesus; of Modernistic
Protestants, who make out His Divinity to be an evolution of His inner
consciousness; of all other Protestants, be their thoughts of Christ whatsoever
they may. The strength of the Catholic position will be clear to any one who has
followed the trend of Modernism outside the Church and the suppression thereof
within the pale.
WITNESS OF THE EVANGELISTS
We here assume the Gospels to be authentic, historical documents given to us
by the Church as the inspired Word of God. We waive the question of the
dependence of Matthew upon the Logia, the origin of Mark from "Q", the literary
or other dependence of Luke upon Mark; all these questions are treated in their
proper places and do not belong here in the process of Catholic apologetic and
dogmatic theology. We here argue from the Four Gospels as from the inspired
Word of God. The witness of the Gospels to the Divinity of Christ is varied in
kind.
Jesus is the Divine Messias
The Evangelists, as we have seen, refer to the prophecies of the Divinity of the
Messias as fulfilled in Jesus (see Matt., i, 23; ii, 6: Mark, i, 2: Luke, vii, 27).
Jesus is the Son of God
According to the testimony of the Evangelists, Jesus Himself bore witness to His
Divine Sonship. As Divine Ambassador He can not have borne false witness.
Firstly, He asked the disciples, at Caesarea Philippi, "Whom do men say that
the Son of man is?" (Matt., xvi, 13). This name Son of man was commonly used
by the Saviour in regard to Himself; it bore testimony to His human nature and
oneness with us. The disciples made answer that others said He was one of the
prophets. Christ pressed them. "But whom do you say that I am? "(ibid., 15).
Peter, as spokesman, replied: "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God" (ibid.,
16). Jesus was satisfied with this answer; it set Him above all the prophets who
were the adopted sons of God; it made Him the natural Son of God. The adopted
Divine sonship of all the prophets Peter had no need of special revelation to
know. This natural Divine Sonship was made known to the leader of the Apostles
only by a special revelation. "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my
Father who is in heaven" (ibid., 17). Jesus clearly assumes this important title in
the specially revealed and altogether new sense. He admits that He is the Son of
God in the real sense of the word.
Secondly, we find that He allowed others to give Him this title and to show by the
act of real adoration that they meant real Sonship. The possessed fell down and
adored Him, and the unclean spirits cried out: "Thou art the Son of God" (Mark,
iii, 12). After the stilling of the storm at sea, His disciples adored Him and said:
"Indeed thou art the Son of God "(Matt., xiv, 33). Nor did He suggest that they
erred in that they gave Him the homage due to God alone. The centurion on
Calvary (Matt., xxvii, 54; Mark, xv, 39), the Evangelist St. Mark (i, 1), the
hypothetical testimony of Satan (Matt., iv, 3) and of the enemies of Christ (Matt.,
xxvii, 40) all go to show that Jesus was called and esteemed the Son of God.
Jesus Himself clearly assumed the title. He constantly spoke of God as "My
Father" (Matt., vii, 21; x, 32; xi, 27; xv, 13; xvi, 17, etc.).
Thirdly, the witness of Jesus to His Divine Sonship is clear enough in the
Synoptics, as we see from the foregoing argument and shall see by the exegesis
of other texts; but is perhaps even more evident in John. Jesus indirectly but
clearly assumes the title when He says: "Do you say of him whom the Father
hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am
the Son of God? . . . the Father is in me and I in the Father." (John, x, 36, 38.)
An even clearer witness is given in the narrative of the cure of the blind man in
Jerusalem. Jesus said: "Dost thou believe in the Son of God?" He answered, and
said: "Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him: Thou
hast both seen him; and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said: I believe,
Lord. And falling down, he adored him." (John, ix, 35-38.) Here as elsewhere, the
act of adoration is allowed, and the implicit assent is in this wise given to the
assertion of the Divine Sonship of Jesus.
Fourthly, likewise to His enemies, Jesus made undoubted profession of His
Divine Sonship in the real and not the figurative sense of the word; and the Jews
understood Him to say that He was really God. His way of speaking had been
somewhat esoteric. He spoke often in parables. He willed then, as He wills now,
that faith be "the evidence of things that appear not" (Heb., xi, 1). The Jews tried
to catch Him, to make Him speak openly. They met Him in the portico of
Solomon and said: "How long dost thou hold our souls in suspense? If thou be
the Christ, tell us plainly" (John, x, 24). The answer of Jesus is typical. He puts
them off for a while; and in the end tells them the tremendous truth: "I and the
Father are one" (John, x, 30). They take up stones to kill Him. He asks why. He
makes them admit that they have understood Him aright. They answer: "For a
good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a
man makest thyself God" (ibid., 33). These same enemies had clear statement
of the claim of Jesus on the last night that He spent on earth. Twice He appeared
before the Sanhedrim, the highest authority of the enslaved Jewish nation. The
first times the high priest, Caiphas, stood up and demanded: "I adjure thee by
the living God, that thou tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God " (Matt., xxvi,
63). Jesus had before held His peace. Now His mission calls for a reply. "Thou
hast said it" (ibid., 64). The answer was likely--in Semitic fashion--a repetition of
the question with a tone of affirmation rather than of interrogation. St. Matthew
reports that answer in a way that might leave some doubt in our minds, had we
not St. Mark's report of the very same answer. According to St. Mark, Jesus
replies simply and clearly: "I am" (Mark, xiv, 62). The context of St. Matthew
clears up the difficulty as to the meaning of the reply of Jesus. The Jews
understood Him to make Himself the equal of God. They probably laughed and
jeered at His claim. He went on: 'Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall
see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in
the clouds of heaven" (Matt., xxvi, 64). Caiphas rent his garments and accused
Jesus of blasphemy. All joined in condemning Him to death for the blasphemy
whereof they accused Him. They clearly understood Him to make claim to be the
real Son of God; and He allowed them so to understand Him, and to put Him to
death for this understanding and rejection of His claim. It were to blind one's self
to evident truth to deny the force of this testimony in favour of the thesis that
Jesus made claim to be the real Son of God. The second appearance of Jesus
before the Sanhedrim was like to the first; a second time He was asked to say
clearly: " Art thou then the Son of God? " He made reply: "You say that I am."
They understood Him to lay claim to Divinity. " What need we any further
testimony? for we ourselves have heard it from his own mouth" (Luke, xxii, 70,
71). This twofold witness is especially important, in that it is made before the
great Sanhedrim, and in that it is the cause of the sentence of death. Before
Pilate, the Jews put forward a mere pretext at first. "We have found this man
perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cwsar, and saying that he
is Christ the king" (Luke, xxiii, 2). What was the result? Pilate found no cause of
death in Him! The Jews seek another pretext. "He stirreth up the people . . . from
Galilee to this place" (ibid., 5). This pretext fails. Pilate refers the case of sedition
to Herod. Herod finds the charge of sedition not worth his serious consideration.
Over and again the Jews come to the front with a new subterfuge. Over and again
Pilate finds no cause in Him. At last the Jews give their real cause against
Jesus. In that they said He made Himself a king and stirred up sedition and
refused tribute to Caesar, they strove to make it out that he violated Roman law.
Their real cause of complaint was not that Jesus violated Roman law; but that
they branded Him as a violator of the Jewish law. How? "We have a law; and
according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God
(John, xix, 7). The charge was most serious; it caused even the Roman governor
"to fear the more." What law is here referred to? There can be no doubt. It is the
dread law of Leviticus: "He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, dying let him
die: all the multitude shall stone him, whether he be a native or a stranger. He
that blasphemeth the name of the Lord dying let him die " (Lev., xxiv, 17). By
virtue of this law, the Jews were often on the very point of stoning Jesus; by virtue
of this law, they often took Him to task for blasphemy whensoever He made
Himself the Son of God; by virtue of this same law, they now call for His death. It
is simply out of the question that these Jews had any intention of accusing
Jesus of the assumption of that adopted sonship of God which every Jew had by
blood and every prophet had had by special free gift of God's grace.
Fifthly, we may only give a summary of the other uses of thee title Son of God in
regard to Jesus. The angel Gabriel proclaims to Mary that her son will "be called
the Son of the most High" (Luke, i, 32); "the Son of God" (Luke, i, 35); St. John
speaks of Him as "the only begotten of the Father" (John, i, 14); at the Baptism
of Jesus and at His Transfiguration, a voice from heaven cries: "This is my
beloved son" (Matt., iii, 17; Mark, i, 11; Luke, iii, 22; Matt., xvii., 3); St. John
gives it as his very set purpose, in his Gospel, "that you may believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God" (John, xx, 31).
Sixthly, in the testimony of John, Jesus identifies Himself absolutely with the
Divine Father. According to John, Jesus says: "he that seeth me seeth the
Father" (ibid., xiv, 9). St. Athanasius links this clear testimony to the other
witness of John "I and the Father are one" (ibid., x, 30); and thereby establishes
the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. St. John Chrysostom interprets
the text in the same sense. A last proof from John is in the words that bring his
first Epistle to a close: "We know that the Son of God is come: and He hath
given us understanding that we may know the true God, and may be in his true
Son. This is the true God and life eternal" (I John, v, 20). No one denies that "the
Son of God" who is come is Jesus Christ. This Son of God is the "true Son" of
"the true God"; in fact, this true son of the True God, i. e. Jesus, is the true God
and is life eternal. Such is the exegesis of this text given by all the Fathers that
have interpreted it (see Corluy, "Spicilegium Dogmatico-Biblicum", ed. Gandavi,
1884, II, 48). All the Fathers that have either interpreted or cited this text, refer
outos to Jesus, and interpret "Jesus is the true God and life eternal." The
objection is raised that the phrase "true God" (ho alethisnos theos) always
refers, in John, to the Father. Yes, the phrase is consecrated to the Father, and
is here used precisely on that account, to show that the Father who is, in this
very verse, first called "the true God", is one with the Son Who is second called
"the true God" in the very same verse. This interpretation is carried out by the
grammatical analysis of the phrase; the pronoun this (outos) refers of necessity
to the noun near by, i. e. His true Son Jesus Christ. Moreover, the Father is
never called "life eternal" by John; whereas the term is often given by him to the
Son (John, xi, 25; xiv, 6: I John, i, 2; v, 11-12). These citations prove beyond a
doubt that the Evangelists bear witness to the real and natural Divine Sonship of
Jesus Christ.
Outside the Catholic Church, it is today the mode to try to explain away all these
uses of the phrase Son of God, as if, forsooth, they meant not the Divine Sonship
of Jesus, but presumably His sonship by adoption--a sonship due either to His
belonging to the Jewish race or derived from His Messiahship. Against both
explanations stand our arguments; against the latter explanation stands the fact
that nowhere in the Old Testament is the term Son of God given as a name
peculiar to the Messias. The advanced Protestants of this twentieth century are
not satisfied with this latter and wornout attempt to explain away the assumed
title Son of God. To them it means only that Jesus was a Jew (a fact that is now
denied by Paul Haupt). We now have to face the strange anomaly of ministers of
Christianity who deny that Jesus was Christ. Formerly it was considered bold in
the Unitarian to call himself a Christian and to deny the Divinity of Jesus; now
"ministers of the Gospel" are found to deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Messias
(see articles in the Hibbert Journal for 1909, by Reverend Mr. Roberts, also the
articles collected under the title " Jesus or Christ? "Boston, 19m). Within the
pale of the Church, too, there were not wanting some who followed the trend of
Modernism to such an extent as to admit that in certain passages, the term
"Son of God" in its application to Jesus, presumably meant only adopted sonship
of God. Against these writers was issued the condemnation of the proposition:
"In all the texts of the Gospels, the name Son of God is merely the equivalent of
the name Messias, and does not in any wise mean that Christ is the true and
natural Son of God" (see decree "Lamentabili", S. Off., 3-4 July, 1907,
proposition xxxii). This decree does not affirm even implicitly that every use of the
name "Son of God" in the Gospels means true and natural Sonship of God.
Catholic theologians generally defend the proposition whenever, in the Gospels,
the name "Son of God" is used in the singular number, absolutely and without
any additional explanation, as a proper name of Jesus, it invariably means true
and natural Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ (see Billot, "De Verbo Incarnato,"
1904, p. 529). Corluy, a very careful student of the original texts and of the
versions of the Bible, declared that, whenever the title Son of God is given to
Jesus in the New Testament, this title has the inspired meaning of natural Divine
Sonship; Jesus is by this title said to have the same nature and substance as
the Heavenly Father (see "Spicilegium", II, p. 42).
Jesus is God
St. John affirms in plain words that Jesus is God. The set purpose of the aged
disciple was to teach the Divinity of Jesus in the Gospel, Epistles, and
Apocalypse that he has left us; he was aroused to action against the first
heretics that bruised the Church. "They went out from us, but they were not of
us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us" (I
John, ii, 19). They did not confess Jesus Christ with that confession which they
had obligation to make (I John, iv, 3). John's Gospel gives us the clearest
confession of the Divinity of Jesus. We may translate from the original text: "In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was in relation to God and the Word
was God" (John i, 1). The words ho theos (with the article) mean, in Johannine
Greek, the Father. The expression pros ton theon reminds one forcibly of
Aristotle's to pros ti einai. This Aristotelian way of expressing relation found its
like in the Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and Alexandrian philosophy; and it was the
influence of this Alexandrian philosophy in Ephesus and elsewhere that John set
himself to combat. It was, then, quite natural that John adopted some of the
phraseology of his enemies, and by the expression ho logos en pros ton theon
gave forth the mystery of the relation of Father with Son: "the Word stood in
relation to the Father", i. e., even in the beginning. At any rate the clause theos
en ho logos means "the Word was God". This meaning is driven home, in the
irresistibIe logic of St. John, by the following verse: "All things were made by
him." The Word, then, is the Creator of all things and is true God. Who is the
Word! It was made flesh and dwelt with us in the flesh (verse 14); and of this
Word John the Baptist bore witness (verse 15). But certainly it was Jesus,
according to John the Evangelist, Who dwelt with us in the flesh and to Whom
the Baptist bore witness. Of Jesus the Baptist says: "This is he, of whom I said:
After me there cometh a man, who is preferred before me: because he was
before me" (verse 30). This testimony and other passages of St. John's Gospel
are so clear that the modern rationalist takes refuge from their forcefulness in the
assertion that the entire Gospel is a mystic contemplation and no fact-narrative
at all (see JOHN, GOSPEL OF SAINT). Catholics may not hold this opinion
denying the historicity of John. The Holy Office, in the Decree "Lamentabili",
condemned the following proposition: "The narrations of John are not properly
speaking history but a mystic contemplation of the Gospel: the discourses
contained in his Gospel are theological meditations on the mystery of salvation
and are destitute of historical truth." (See prop. xvi.)
(b) WITNESS OF ST. PAUL
It is not the set purpose of St. Paul, outside of the Epistle to the Hebrews, to
prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The great Apostle takes this fundamental
principle of Christianity for granted. Yet so clear is the witness of Paul to this fact
of Christ's Divinity, that the Rationalists and rationalistic Lutherans of Germany
have strived to get away from the forcefulness of the witness of the Apostle by
rejecting his form of Christianity as not conformable to the Christianity of Jesus.
Hence they cry: "Los von Paulus, zurück zu Christus"; that is, "Away from Paul,
back to Christ" (see J¨licher, Paulus und Christus", ed. Mohr, 1909). We assume
the historicity of the Epistles of Paul; to a Catholic, the Christianity of St. Paul is
one and the same with the Christianity of Christ. (See PAUL, SAINT). To the
Romans, Paul writes: "God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh
and of sin" (viii, 3). His Own Son (ton heautou) the Father sends, not a Son by
adoption. The angels are by adoption the children of God; they participate in the
Father's nature by the free gifts He has bestowed upon them. Not so the Own
Son of the Father. As we have seen, He is more the offspring of the Father than
are the angels. How more? In this that He is adored as the Father is adored; the
angels are not adored. Such is Paul's argument in the first chapter of the Epistle
to the Hebrews. Therefore, in St. Paul's theology, the Father's Own Son, Whom
the angels adore, Who was begotten in the today of eternity, Who was sent by
the Father, clearly existed before His appearance in the Flesh, and is, in point of
fact, the great "I am who am",--the Jahweh Who spoke to Moses on Horeb. This
identification of the Christ with Jahweh would seem to be indicated, when St.
Paul speaks of Christ as ho on epi panton theos, "who is over all things, God
blessed for ever" (Rom., ix, 5). This interpretation and punctuation are sanctioned
by all the Fathers that have used the text; all refer to Christ the words "He who is
God over all". Petavius (De Trin., 11, 9, n. 2) cites fifteen, among whom are
Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose,
Augustine, and Hilary. The Peshitta has the same translation as we have given.
Alford, Trench, Westcott and Hort, and most Protestants are at one with us in
this interpretation.
This identification of the Christ with Jahweh is clearer in the First Epistle to the
Corinthians. Christ is said to have been Jahweh of the Exodus. "And all drank the
same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and
the rock was Christ)" (x, 4). It was Christ Whom some of the Israelites "tempted,
and (they) perished by the serpents" (x, 10); it was Christ against Whom "some
of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer" (x, 11). St. Paul takes
over the Septuagint translation of Jahweh ho kyrios, and makes this title
distinctive of Jesus. The Colossians are threatened with the deception of
philosophy (ii, 8). St. Paul reminds them that they should think according to
Christ; "for in him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead (pleroma tes theotetos)
corporeally" (ii, 9); nor should they go so low as give to angels, that they see not,
the adoration that is due only to Christ (ii, 18, 19). "For in Him were all things
created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
dominations or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for
Him" (eis auton). He is the cause and the end of all things, even of the angels
whom the Colossians are so misguided as to prefer to Him (i, 16). The cultured
Macedonians of Philippi are taught that in "the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; and that every
tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the
Father" (ii, 10, 11). This is the very same genuflexion and confession that the
Romans are bidden to make to the Lord and the Jews to Jahweh (see Rom., xiv,
6; Is., xiv, 24). The testimony of St. Paul could be given at much greater length.
These texts are only the chief among many others that bear Paul's witness to
the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
C. Witness of Tradition
The two main sources wherefrom we draw our information as to tradition, or the
unwritten Word of God, are the Fathers of the Church and the general councils.
(a) THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH
The Fathers are practically unanimous in explicitly teaching the Divinity of Jesus
Christ. The testimony of many has been given in our exegesis of the dogmatic
texts that prove the Christ to be God. It would take over-much space to cite the
Fathers adequately. We shall confine ourselves to those of the Apostolic and
apologetic ages. By joining these testimonies to those of the Evangelists and St.
Paul, we can see clearly that the Holy Office was right in condemning these
propositions of Modernism: "The Divinity of Christ is not proven by the Gospels
but is a dogma that the Christian conscience has evolved from the notion of a
Messiah. It may be taken for granted that the Christ Whom history shows us is
much inferior to the Christ Who is the object of Faith" (see prop. xxvii and xxix of
Decree "Lamentabili").
The Fathers Themselves
St. Clement of Rome (A. D. 93-95, according to Harnack), in his first epistle to
the Corinthians, xvi, 2, speaks of "The Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of the
Might of God" (Funk, " Patres Apostolici", T¨bingen ed., 1901, p. 118), and
describes, by quoting Is., 1ii, 1-12, the humiliation that was foretold and came to
pass in the self-immolation of Jesus. As the writings of the Apostolic Fathers are
very scant, and not at all apologetic but rather devotional and exhortive, we
should not look in them for that clear and plain defence of the Divinity of Christ
which is evidenced in the writings of the apologists and later Fathers.
The witness of St. Ignatius of Antioch (A. D. 110-117, according to Harnack) is
almost that of the apologetic age, in whose spirit he seems to have written to the
Ephesians. It may well be that at Ephesus the very same heresies were now
doing havoc which about ten years before or, according to Harnack's chronology,
at the very same time, St. John had written his Gospel to undo. If this be so, we
understand the bold confession of the Divinity of Jesus Christ which this grand
confessor of the Faith brings into his greetings, at the beginning of his letter to
the Ephesians. "Ignatius . . . . to the Church . . . which is at Ephesus . . . . in the
will of the Father and of Jesus Christ Our God (tou theou hemon)." He says: "The
Physician in One, of the Flesh and of the Spirit, begotten and not begotten, who
was God in Flesh (en sarki genomenos theos) . . . Jesus Christ Our Lord" (c. vii;
Funk, I, 218). "For Our God Jesus Christ was borne in the womb by Mary" (c.
xviii, 2; Funk, I, 226). To the Romans he writes: "For Our God Jesus Christ,
abiding in the Father, is manifest even the more" (c. iii, 3; Funk, 1, 256).
The witness of the Letter of Barnabas: "Lo, again, Jesus is not the Son of man
but the Son of God, made manifest in form in the Flesh. And since men were
going to say that the Christ was the Son of David, David himself, fearing and
understanding the malice of the wicked, made prophecy: The Lord said to my
Lord . . . . . Lo, how David calls Him the Lord and not son" (c. xiii; Funk, I, 77).
In the apologetic age, Saint Justin Martyr (Harnack. A. D. 150) wrote: "Since the
Word is the first-born of God, He is also God" (Apol. I, n. 63; P. G., VI, 423). It is
evident from the context that Justin means Jesus Christ by the Word; he had just
said that Jesus was the Word before He became Man, and used to appear in the
form of fire or of some other incorporeal image. St. Irenaeus proves that Jesus
Christ is rightly called the one and only God and Lord, in that all things are said
to have been made by Him (see "Adv. Haer.", III, viii, n. 3; P. G., VII, 868; bk. IV,
10, 14, 36). Deutero-Clement (Harnack, A. D. 166; Sanday, A. D. 150) insists:
"Brethren, we should think of Jesus Christ as of God Himself, as of the Judge of
the living and the dead" (see Funk, I, 184). St. Clement of Alexandria (Sanday,
A. D. 190) speaks of Christ as "true God without any controversy, the equal of
the Lord of the whole universe, since He is the Son and the Word is in God"
(Cohortatio ad Gentes, c. x; P. G., VIII, 227).
Pagan Writers
To the witness of these Fathers of the Apostolic and apologetic age, we add a
few witnesses from the contemporary pagan writers. Pliny (A. D. 107) wrote to
Trajan that the Christians were wont before the light of day to meet and to sing
praises "to Christ as to God" (Epist., x, 97). The Emperor Hadrian (A. D. 117)
wrote to Servianus that many Egyptians had become Christians, and that
converts to Christianity were "forced to adore Christ", since He was their God
(see Saturninus, c. vii). Lucian scoffs at the Christians because they had been
persuaded by Christ "to throw over the gods of the Greeks and to adore Him
fastened to a cross" (De Morte Peregrini, 13). Here also may be mentioned the
well-known graffito that caricatures the worship of the Crucified as God. This
important contribution to archaeology was found, in 1857, on a wall of the
Paedagogium, an inner part of the Domus Gelotiana of the Palatine, and is now
in the Kircher Museum, Rome. After the murder of Caligula (A. D. 41) this inner
part of the Domus Gelotiana became a training-school for court pages, called the
Paedagogium (see Lanciani, "Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome", ed.
Boston, 1897, p. 186). This fact and the language of the graffito lead one to
surmise that the page who mocked at the religion of one of his fellows has so
become an important witness to the Christian adoration of Jesus as God in the
first or, at the very latest, the second century. The graffito represents the Christ
on a cross and mockingly gives Him an ass's head; a page is rudely scratched
kneeling and with hands outstretched in the attitude of prayer; the inscription is
"Alexamenos worships his God" (Alexamenos sebetai ton theon). In the second
century, too, Celsus arraigns the Christians precisely on this account that they
think God was made man (see Origen, "Contra Celsum", IV, 14; P. G., XI, 1043).
Aristides wrote to the Emperor Antonius Pius (A. D. 138-161) what seems to
have been an apology for the Faith of Christ: "He Himself is called the Son of
God; and they teach of Him that He as God came down from heaven and took
and put on Flesh of a Hebrew virgin" (see "Theol. Quartalschrift", Tübingen, 1892,
p. 535).
(b) WITNESS OF THE COUNCILS
The first general council of the Church was called to define the Divinity of Jesus
Christ and to condemn Arius and his error (see ARIUS). Previous to this time,
heretics had denied this great and fundamental dogma of the Faith; but the
Fathers had been equal to the task of refuting the error and of stemming the tide
of heresy. Now the tide of heresy was so strong as to have need of the authority
of the universal Church to withstand it. In his "Thalia", Arius taught that the Word
was not eternal (en pote ote ouk en) nor generated of the Father, but made out of
nothing (ex ouk onton hehonen ho logos); and though it was before the world
was, yet it was a thing made, a created thing (poiema or ktisis). Against this
bold heresy, the Council of Nicaea (325) defined the dogma of the Divinity: of
Christ in the clearest terms: "We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, the Only-begotten, generated of the Father (hennethenta ek tou patros
monogene), that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light,
True God of True God, begotten not made, the same in nature with the Father
(homoousion to patri) by Whom all things were made" (see Denzinger, 54).
(2) THE HUMAN NATURE OF JESUS CHRIST
The Gnostics taught that matter was of its very nature evil, somewhat as the
present-day Christian scientists teach that it is an "error of mortal mind"; hence
Christ as God could not have had a material body, and His body was only
apparent. These heretics, called doketae included Basilides, Marcion, the
Manichaeans, and others. Valentinus and others admitted that Jesus had a
body, but a something heavenly and ethereal; hence Jesus was not born of Mary,
but His airy body passed through her virgin body. The Apollinarists admitted that
Jesus had an ordinary body, but denied Him a human soul; the Divine nature
took the place of the rational mind. Against all these various forms of the heresy
that denies Christ is true Man stand countless and clearest testimonies of the
written and unwritten Word of God. The title that is characteristic of Jesus in the
New Testament is Son of Man; it occurs some eighty times in the Gospels; it
was His Own accustomed title for Himself. The phrase is Aramaic, and would
seem to be an idiomatic way of saying "man". The life and death and resurrection
of Christ would all be a lie were He not a man, and our Faith would be vain. (I
Cor., xv, 14). "For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man
Christ Jesus" (I Tim., ii, 5). Why, Christ even enumerates the parts of His Body.
"See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle and see: for a spirit hath not
flesh and bones, as you see me to have" (Luke, xxiv, 39). St. Augustine says, in
this matter: "If the Body of Christ was a fancy, then Christ erred; and if Christ
erred, then He is not the Truth. But Christ is the Truth; hence His Body was not a
fancy' (QQ. lxxxiii, q. 14; P. L., XL, 14). In regard to the human soul of Christ, the
Scripture is equally clear. Only a human soul could have been sad and troubled.
Christ says: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matt., xxvi, 38). "Now is my
soul troubled" (John, xii, 27). His obedience to the heavenly Father and to Mary
and Joseph supposes a human soul (John, iv, 34; v, 30; vi, 38; Luke, xxii, 42).
Finally Jesus was really born of Mary (Matt., i, 16), made of a woman (Gal., iv,
4), after the angel had promised that He should be conceived of Mary (Luke, i,
31); this woman is called the mother of Jesus (Matt., i, 18; ii, 11; Luke, i, 43;
John, ii, 3); Christ is said to be really the seed of Abraham (Gal., iii, 16), the son
of David (Matt., i, 1), made of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom., i,
3), and the fruit of the loins of David (Acts, ii, 30). So clear is the testimony of
Scripture to the perfect human nature of Jesus Christ, that the Fathers held it as
a general principle that whatsoever the Word had not assumed was not healed, i.
e., did not receive the effects of the Incarnation.
(3) THE HYPOSTATIC UNION OF THE DIVINE NATURE AND THE HUMAN
NATURE OF JESUS IN THE DIVINE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST
Here we consider this union as a fact; the nature of the union will be later taken
up. Now it is our purpose to prove that the Divine nature was really and truly
united with the human nature of Jesus, i. e., that one and the same Person,
Jesus Christ, was God and man. We speak here of no moral union, no union in a
figurative sense of the word; but a union that is physical, a union of two
substances or natures so as to make One Person, a union which means that
God is Man and Man is God in the Person of Jesus Christ.
A. The Witness of Holy Writ
St. John says: "The Word was made flesh" (i, 14), that is, He Who was God in
the Beginning (i, 2), and by Whom all things were created (i. 3), became Man.
According to the testimony of St. Paul, the very same Person, Jesus Christ,
"being in the form of God [en morphe Theou hyparxon] . . . emptied himself,
taking the form of a servant [morphen doulou labon]" (Phil., ii, 6, 7). It is always
one and the same Person, Jesus Christ, Who is said to be God and Man, or is
given predicates that denote Divine and human nature. The author of life (God) is
said to have been killed by the Jews (Acts, iii, 15); but He could not have been
killed were He not Man.
B. Witness of Tradition
The early forms of the creed all make profession of faith, not in one Jesus Who is
the Son of God and in another Jesus Who is Man and was crucified, but "in one
Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, Who became Man for us and
was crucified". The forms vary, but the substance of each creed invariably
attributes to one and the same Jesus Christ the predicates of the Godhead and
of man (see Denzinger, "Enchiridion"). Franzelin (thesis xvii) calls special
attention to the fact that, long before the heresy of Nestorius, according to
Epiphanius (Ancorat., II, 123, in P. G., XLII, 234), it was the custom of the
Oriental Church to propose to catechumens a creed that was very much more
detailed than that proposed to the faithful; and in this creed the catechumens
said: "We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of God
the Father . . . that is, of the substance of the Father . . . in Him Who for us men
and for our salvation came down and was made Flesh, that is, was perfectly
begotten of Mary ever Virgin by the Holy Spirit; Who became Man, that is, took
perfect human nature, soul and body and mind and all whatsoever is human save
only sin, without the seed of man; not in another man, but unto himself did He
form Flesh into one holy unity [eis mian hagian henoteta]; not as He breathed
and spoke and wrought in the prophets, but He became Man perfectly; for the
Word was made Flesh, not in that It underwent a change nor in that It exchanged
Its Divinity for humanity, but in that It united Its Flesh unto Its one holy totality
and Divinity [eis mian . . . heautou hagian teleioteta te kai theoteta].' "The one
holy totality", Franzelin considers, means personality, a person being an
individual and complete subject of rational acts. This creed of the catechumens
gives even the Divinity of the totality, i. e. the fact that the individual Person of
Jesus is a Divine and not a human Person. Of this intricate question we shall
speak later on.
The witness of tradition to the fact of the union of the two natures in the one
Person of Jesus is clear not only from the symbols or creeds in use before the
condemnation of Nestorius, but also from the words of the ante-Nicaean Fathers.
We have already given the classic quotations from St. Ignatius the Martyr, St.
Clement of Rome, St. Justin the Martyr, in all of which are attributed to the one
Person, Jesus Christ, the actions or attributes of God and of Man. Melito, Bishop
of Sardis (about 176), says: "Since the same (Christ) was at the same time God
and perfect Man, He made His two natures evident to us; His Divine nature by
the miracles which He wrought during the three years after His baptism; His
human nature by those thirtv years that He first lived, during which the lowliness
of the Flesh covered over and hid away all signs of the Divinity, though He was at
one and the same time true and everlasting God" (Frag. vii in P. G., V, 1221). St.
Irenaeus, toward the close of the second century, argues: "If one person suffered
and another Person remained incapable of suffering; if one person was born and
another Person came down upon him that was born and thereafter left him, not
one person but two are proven . . . whereas the Apostle knew one only Who was
born and Who suffered" ("Adv. Haer.", III, xvi, n, 9, in P. G., VII, 928). Tertullian
bears firm witness: "Was not God really crucified? Did He not realiy die as He
really was crucified?" ("De Carne Christi", c. v, in P. L., II, 760).
II. THE NATURE OF THE INCARNATION
We have treated the fact of the Incarnation, that is, the fact of the Divine nature of
Jesus, the fact of the human nature of Jesus, the fact of the union of these two
natures in Jesus. We now take up the crucial question of the nature of this fact,
the manner of this tremendous miracle, the way of uniting the Divine with the
human nature in one and the same Person. Arius had denied the fact of this
union. No other heresy rent and tore the body of the Church to any very great
extent in the matter of this fact after the condemnation of Arius in the Council of
Nicaea (325). Soon a new heresy arose in the explanation of the fact of the union
of the two natures in Christ. Nicaea had, indeed, defined the fact of the union; it
had not explicitly defined the nature of that fact; it had not said whether that
union was moral or physical. The council had implicitly defined the union of the
two natures in one hypostasis, a union called physical in opposition to the mere
juxtaposition or joining of the two natures called a moral union. Nicaea had
professed a belief in "One Lord Jesus Christ . . . true God of true God . . . Who
took Flesh, became Man and suffered". This belief was in one Person Who was
at the same time God and Man, that is, had at the same time Divine and human
nature. Such teaching was an implicit definition of all that was later on denied by
Nestorius. We shall find the great Athanasius, for fifty years the determined foe
of the heresiarch, interpreting Nicaea's decree in just this sense; and Athanasius
must have known the sense meant by Nicaea, in which he was the antagonist of
the heretic Arius.
(1) NESTORIANISM
In spite of the efforts of Athanasius, Nestorius, who had been elected Patriarch of
Constantinople (428), found a loophole to avoid the definition of Nicaea. Nestorius
(q. v.) called the union of the two natures a mysterious and an inseparable joining
(symapheian), but would admit no unity (enosin) in the strict sense of the word to
be the result of this joining (see " Serm.", ii, n. 4; xii, n. 2, in P. L., XLVIII). The
union of the two natures is not physical (physike) but moral, a mere juxtaposition
in state of being (schetike); the Word indwells in Jesus like as God indwells in
the just (loc. cit.); the indwelling of the Word in Jesus is, however, more excellent
than the indwelling of God in the just man by grace, for that the indwelling of the
Word purposes the Redemption of all mankind and the most perfect
manifestation of the Divine activity (Serm. vii, n. 24); as a consequence, Mary is
the Mother of Christ (Christotokos), not the Mother of God (Theotokos). As is
usual in these Oriental heresies, the metaphysical refinement of Nestorius was
faulty, and led him into a practical denial of the mystery that he had set himself
to explain. During the discussion that Nestorius aroused, he strove to explain
that his indwelling (enoikesis) theory was quite enough to keep him within the
demands of Nicaea; he insisted that "the Man Jesus should be co-adored with
the Divine union and almighty God [ton te theia symapheia to pantokratori theo
symproskynoumenon anthropon] "(Serm., vii, n. 35); he forcibly denied that
Christ was two persons, but proclaimed Him as one person (prosopon) made up
of two substances. The oneness of the Person was however only moral, and not
at all physical. Despite whatsoever Nestorius said as a pretext to save himself
from the brand of heresy, he continually and explicitly denied the hypostatic
union (enosin kath hypostasin, kata physin, kat ousian), that union of physical
entities and of substances which the Church defends in Jesus; he affirmed a
juxtaposition in authority, dignity, energy, relation, and state of being (synapheia
kat authentian, axian, energeian, anaphoran, schesin); and he maintained that
the Fathers of Nicaea had nowhere said that God was born of the Virgin Mary
(Sermo, v, nn. 5 and 6).
Nestorius in this distortion of the sense of Nicaea clearly went against the
tradition of the Church. Before he had denied the hypostatic union of the two
natures in Jesus, that union had been taught by the greatest Fathers of their
time. St. Hippolytus (about 230) taught: "the Flesh [sarx] apart from the Logos
had no hypostasis [oude . . . hypostanai edynato, was unable to act as principle
of rational activity], for that its hypostasis was in the Word" ("Contra Noet.", n.
15, in P. G., X, 823). St. Epiphanius (about 365): "The Logos united body, mind,
and soul into one totality and spiritual hypostasis" ("Haer.", xx, n. 4, in P. G.,
XLI, 277). "The Logos made the Flesh to subsist in the hypostasis of the Logos
[eis heauton hypostesanta ten sarka]" ("Haer.", cxxvii, n. 29, in P. G., XLII, 684).
St. Athanasius (about 350): "They err who say that it is one person who is the
Son that suffered, and another person who did not suffer ... ; the Flesh became
God's own by nature [kata physin], not that it became consubstantial with the
Divinity of the Logos as if coeternal therewith, but that it became God's own
Flesh by its very nature [kata physin]." In this entire discourse ("Contra
Apollinarium", I, 12, in P. G., XXVI, 1113), St. Athanasius directly attacks the
specious pretexts of the Arians and the arguments that Nestorius later took
up,and defends the union of two physical natures in Christ [kata physin], as
apposed to the mere juxtaposition or joining of the same natures [kata physin].
St. Cyril of Alexandria (about 415) makes use of this formula oftener even than
the other Fathers; he calls Christ "the Word of the Father united in nature with
the Flesh [ton ek theou Patros Logon kata physin henothenta sarki] ("De Recta
Fide", n. 8, in P. G., LXXVI, 1210). For other and very numerous citations, see
Petavius (111, 4). The Fathers always explain that this physical union of the two
natures does not mean the intermingling of the natures, nor any such union as
would imply a change in God, but only such union as was necessary to explain
the fact that one Divine Person had human nature as His own true nature
together with His Divine nature.
The Council of Ephesus (431) condemned the heresy of Nestorius, and defined
that Mary was mother in the flesh of God's Word made Flesh (can. i). It
anathematized all who deny that the Word of God the Father was united with the
Flesh in one hypostasis (kath hypostasin); all who deny that there is only one
Christ with Flesh that is His own; all who deny that the same Christ is God at the
same time and man (can. ii). In the remaining ten canons drawn up by St. Cyril
of Alexandria, the anathema is aimed directly at Nestorius. "If in the one Christ
anyone divides the substances, after they have been once united, and joins them
together merely by a juxtaposition [mone symapton autas synapheia] of honour
or of authority or of power and not rather by a union into a physical unity [synode
te kath henosin physiken], let him be accursed" (can. iii). These twelve canons
condemn plecemeal the various subterfuges of Nestorius. St. Cyril saw heresy
lurking in phrases that seemed innocent enough to the unsuspecting. Even the
co-adoration theory is condemned as an attempt to separate the Divine from the
human nature in Jesus by giving to each a separate hypostasis (see Denzinger,
"Enchiridion", ed. 1908, nn. 113-26).
(2) MONOPHYSITISM
The condemnation of the heresy of Nestorius saved for the Church the dogma of
the Incarnation, "the great mystery of godliness" (I Tim., iii, 16), but lost to her a
portion of her children, who, though dwindled down to insignificant numbers, still
remain apart from her care. The union of the two natures in one Person was
saved. The battle for the dogma was not yet won. Nestorius had postulated two
persons in Jesus Christ. A new heresy soon began. It postulated only one
Person in Jesus, and that the Divine Person. It went farther. It went too far. The
new heresy defended only one nature, as well as one Person in Jesus. The
leader of this heresy was Eutyches. His followers were called Monophysites.
They varied in their ways of explanation. Some thought the two natures were
intermingled into one. Others are said to have worked out some sort of a
conversion of the human into the Divine. All were condemned by the Council of
Chalcedon (451). This Fourth General Council of the Church defined that Jesus
Christ remained, after the Incarnation, "perfect in Divinity and perfect in humanity
. . . consubstantial with the Father according to His Divinity, consubstantial with
us according to His humanity . . . one and the same Christ, the Son, the Lord,
the Only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures not intermingled, not
changed, not divisible, not separable" (see Denzinger, n. 148). By this
condemnation of error and definition of truth, the dogma of the Incarnation was
once again saved to the Church. Once again a large portion of the faithful of the
Oriental Church were lost to their mother. Monophysitism resulted in the national
Churches of Syria, Egypt, and Armenia. These national Churches are still
heretic, although there have in later times been formed Catholic rites called the
Catholic Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian rites. The Catholic rites, as the Catholic
Chaldaic rite, are less numerous than the heretic rites.
(3) MONOTHELITISM
One would suppose that there was no more room for heresy in the explanation of
the mystery of the nature of the Incarnation. There is always room for heresy in
the matter of explanation of a mystery, if one does not hear the infallible teaching
body to whom and to whom alone Christ entrusted His mysteries to have and to
keep and to teach them till ihe end of time. Three patriarchs of the Oriental
Church gave rise, so far as we know, to the new heresy. These three heresiarchs
were Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Cyrus, the Patriarch of Alexandria,
and Athanasius, the Patriarch of Antioch. St. Sophronius, the Patriarch of
Jerusalem, remained true and delated his fellow patriarchs to Pope Honorius. His
successor in the see of Peter, St. Martin, bravely condemned the error of the
three Oriental patriarchs, who admitted the decrees of Nicaea, Ephesus, and
Chalcedon; defended the union of two natures in one Divine Person; but denied
that this Divine Person had two wills. Their principle was expressed by the
words, en thelema kai mia energeia, by which they would seem to have meant
one will and one activity, i. e. only one principle of action and of suffering in Jesus
Christ and that one principle Divine. These heretics were called Monothelites.
Their error was condemned by the Sixth General Council (the Third Council of
Constantinople, 680). It defined that in Christ there were two natural wills and two
natural activities, the Divine and the human, and that the human will was not at
all contrary to the Divine, but rather perfectly subject thereto (Denzinger, n. 291).
The Emperor Constans sent St. Martin into exile in Chersonesus. We have trace
of only one body of Monothelites. The Maronites, about the monastery of John
Maron, were converted from Monothelism in the time of the Crusades and have
been true to the faith ever since. The other Monothelites seem to have been
absorbed in Monophysitism, or in the schism of the Byzantine Church later one
The error of Monothelism is clear from the Scripture as well as from tradition.
Christ did acts of adoration (John, iv, 22), humility (Matt., xi, 29), reverence
(Heb., v, 7). These acts are those of a human will. The Monothelites denied that
there was a human will in Christ. Jesus prayed: "Father, if Thou wilt, remove this
chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done," (Luke, xxii, 42). Here
there is question of two wills, the Father's and Christ's. The will of Christ was
subject to the will of the Father. "As the Father hath given me commandment, so
do I" (John, xiv, 31). He became obedient even unto death (Phil., ii, 8). The Divine
will in Jesus could not have been subject to the will of the Father, with which will
it was really identified.
(4) THE CATHOLIC FAITH
Thus far we have that which is of Faith in this matter of the nature of the
Incarnation. The human and Divine natures are united in one Divine Person so as
to remain that exactly which they are, namely, Divine and human natures with
distinct and perfect activities of their own. Theologians go farther in their attempts
to give some account of the mystery of the Incarnation, so as, at least, to show
that there is therein no contradiction, nothing that right reason may not safely
adhere to. This union of the two natures in one Person has been for centuries
called a hypostatic union, that is, a union in the Divine Hypostasis. What is an
hypostasis? The definition of Boethius is classic: rationalis naturae individua
substantia (P. L., LXIV, 1343), a complete whole whose nature is rational. This
book is a complete whole; its nature is not rational; it is not an hypostasis. An
hypostasis is a complete rational individual. St. Thomas defines hypostasis as
substantia cum ultimo complemento (III:2:3, ad 2um), a substance in its entirety.
Hypostasis superadds to the notion of rational substance this idea of entirety;
nor does the idea of rational nature include this notion of entirety. Human nature
is the principle of human activities; but only an hypostasis, a person, can
exercise these activities. The Schoolmen discuss the question whether the
hypostasis has anything more of reality than human nature. To understand the
discussion, one must needs be versed in scholastic Philosophy. Be the case as
it may in the matter of human nature that is not united with the Divine, the human
nature that is hypostatically united with the Divine, that is, the human nature that
the Divine Hypostasis or Person assumes to Itself, has certainly more of reality
united to it than the human nature of Christ would have were it not hypostatically
united in the Word. The Divine Logos identified with Divine nature (Hypostatic
Union) means then that the Divine Hypostasis (or Person, or Word, or Logos)
appropriates to Itself human nature, and takes in every respect the place of the
human person. In this way, the human nature of Christ, though not a human
person, loses nothing of the perfection of the perfect man; for the Divine Person
supplies the place of the human.
It is to be remembered that, when the Word took Flesh, there was no change in
the Word; all the change was in the Flesh. At the moment of conception, in the
womb of the Blessed Mother, through the forcefulness of God's activity, not only
was the human soul of Christ created but the Word assumed the man that was
conceived. When God created the world, the world was changed, that is. it
passed from the state of nonentity to the state of existence; and there was no
change in the Logos or Creative Word of God the Father. Nor was there change
in that Logos when it began to terminate the human nature. A new relation
ensued, to be sure; but this new relation implied in the Logos no new reality, no
real change; all new reality, all real change, was in the human nature. Anyone
who wishes to go into this very intricate question of the manner of the Hypostatic
Union of the two natures in the one Divine Personality, may with great profit read
St. Thomas (III:4:2); Scotus (in III, Dist. i); (De Incarnatione, Disp. II, sec. 3);
Gregory, of Valentia (in III, D. i, q. 4). Any modern text book on theology will give
various opinions in regard to the way of the union of the Person assuming with
the nature assumed
III. EFFECTS OF THE INCARNATION
(1) ON CHRIST HIMSELF
A. On the Body of Christ
Did union with the Divine nature do away, with all bodily inperfections? The
Monophysites were split up into two parties by this question. Catholics hold that,
before the Resurrection, the Body of Christ was subject to all the bodily
weaknesses to which human nature unassumed is universally subject; such are
hunger, thirst, pain, death. Christ hungered (Matt., iv, 2), thirsted (John, xix, 28),
was fatigued (John, iv, 6), suffered pain and death. "We have not a high priest,
who cannot have compassion on our infirmities: but one tempted in all things like
as we are, without sin" (Heb., iv, 15). "For in that, wherein he himself hath
suffered and been tempted, he is able to succour them also that are tempted"
(Heb., ii, 18). All these bodily weaknesses were not miraculously brought about
by Jesus; they were the natural results of the human nature He assumed. To be
sure, they might have been impeded and were freely willed by Christ. They were
part of the free oblation that began with the moment of the Incarnation.
"Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith: Sacrifice and oblation thou
wouldest not; but a body thou hast fitted to me" (Heb., x, 5). The Fathers deny
that Christ assumed sickness. There is no mention in Scripture of any sickness
of Jesus. Sickness is not a weakness that is a necessary belonging of human
nature. It is true that pretty much all mankind suffers sickness. It is not true that
any specific sickness is suffered by all mankind. Not all men must needs have
measles. No one definite sickness universally belongs to human nature; hence
no one definite sickness was assumed by Christ. St. Athanasius gives the
reason that it were unbecoming that He should heal others who was Himself not
healed (P. G., XX, 133). Weaknesses due to old age are common to mankind.
Had Christ lived to an old age, He would have suffered such weaknesses just as
He suffered the weaknesses that are common to infancy. Death from old age
would have come to Jesus, had He not been violently put to death (see St.
Augustine, " De Peccat.", II, 29; P. L., XLIV, 180). The reasonableness of these
bodily imperfections in Christ is clear from the fact that He assumed human
nature so as to satisfy for that nature's sin. Now,to satisfy forthe sin of another is
to accept the penalty of that sin. Hence it was fitting that Christ should take upon
himself all those penalties of the sin of Adam that are common to man and
becoming. or at least not unbecoming to the Hypostatic Union. (See Summa
Theologica III:14 for other reasons.) As Christ did not take sickness upon
Himself, so other imperfections, such as deformities, which are not common to
mankind, were not His. St. Clement of Alexandria (III Paedagogus, c. 1),
Tertullian (De Carne Christi, c. ix), and a few others taught that Christ was
deformed. They misinterpreted the words of Isaias: "There is no beauty in him,
nor comeliness; and we have seen him, and there was no sightlinesss" etc. (liii,
2). The words refer only to the suffering Christ. Theologians now are unanimous
in the view that Christ was noble in bearing and beautiful in form, such as a
perfect man should be; for Christ was, by virtue of His incarnation, a perfect man
(see Stentrup, "Christologia", theses lx, lxi).
B. On the Human Soul of Christ
(a) IN THE WILL
Sinlessness
The effect of the Incarnation on the human will of Christ was to leave it free in all
things save only sin. It was absolutely impossible that any stain of sin should
soil the soul of Christ. Neither sinful act of the will nor sinful habit of the soul were
in keeping with the Hypostatic Union. The fact that Christ never sinned is an
article of faith (see Council, Ephes., can. x, in Denzinger, 122, wherein the
sinlessness of Christ is implicit in the definition that he did not offer Himself for
Himself, but for us). This fact of Christ's sinlessness is evident from the
Scripture. "There is no sin in Him" (I John, iii, 5). Him, who knew no sin, he hath
made sin for us" i. e. a victim for sin (II Cor., v, 21). The impossibility of a sinful
act by Christ is taught by all theologians, but variously explained. G¨nther
defended an impossibility consequent solely upon the Divine provision that He
would not sin (Vorschule, II, 441). This is no impossibility at all. Christ is God. It
is absolutely impossible, antecedent to the Divine prevision, that God should
allow His flesh to sin. If God allowed His flesh to sin, He might sin, that is, He
might turn away from Himself; and it is absolutely impossible that God should
turn from Himself, be untrue to His Divine attributes. The Scotists teach that this
impossibility to sin, antecedent to God's revision, is not due to the Hypostatic
Union, but is like to the impossibility of the beatified to sin, and is due to a
special Divine Providence (see Scotus, in III, d. xiii, Q. i). St. Thomas (III:15:1)
and all Thomists, Suarez (d. xxxiii, 2), Vasquez (d. xi, c. iii), de Lugo (d. xxvi, 1,
n. 4), and all theologians of the Society of Jesus teach the now almost
universally admitted explanation that the absolute impossibility of a sinful act on
the part of Christ was due to the hypostatic union of His human nature with the
Divine.
Liberty
The will of Christ remained free after the Incarnation. This is an article of faith.
The Scripture is most clear on this point. "When he had tasted, he would not
drink" (Matt., xxvii, 34). "I will; be thou made clean" (Matt., viii, 3). The liberty of
Christ was such that He merited. "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto
death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted
him" (Phil., ii, 8). "Who having joy set before him, endured the cross" (Heb., xii,
2). That Christ was free in the matter of death, is the teaching of all Catholics;
else He did not merit nor satisfy for us by His death. Just how to reconcile this
liberty of Christ with the impossibility of His committing sin has ever been a crux
for theologians. Some seventeen explanations are given (see Summa Theologica
III:47:3, ad 3; Molina, "Concordia", d. liii, membr. 4).
(b) IN THE INTELLECT
The effects of the Hypostatic Union upon the knowledge of Christ will be treated
in a special article (See KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST).
(c) SANCTITY OF CHRIST
The Humanity of Christ was holy by a twofold sanctity: the grace of union and
sanctifying grace. The grace of union, i. e. the Substantial and Hypostatic Union
of the two natures in the Divine Word, is called the substantial sanctity of Christ.
St. Augustine says: "Tunc ergo sanctificavit se in se, hoc est hominem se in
Verbo se, quia unus est Christus, Verbum et homo, sanctificans hominem in
Verbo" (When the Word was made Flesh then, indeed, He sanctified Himself in
Himself, that is, Himself as Man in Himself as Word; for that Christ is One
Person, both Word and Man, and renders His human nature holy in the holiness
of the Divine nature) (In Johan. tract. 108, n. 5, in P. L., XXXV, l916). Besides this
substantial sanctity of the grace of Hypostatic Union, there was in the soul of
Christ, the accidental sanctity called sanctifying grace. This is the teaching of
St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and
of the Fathers generally. The Word was "full of grace" (John, i, 14), and "of his
fullness we all have received, and grace for grace" (John, i, 16). The Word were
not full of grace, if any grace were wanting in Him which would be a perfection
fitting to His human nature. All theologians teach that sanctifying grace is a
perfection fitting the humanity of Christ. The mystical body of Christ is the
Church, whereof Christ is the Head (Rom., xii, 4; I Cor., xii, 11; Eph., i, 20; iv, 4;
Col. i, 18: ii, 10). It is especially in this sense that we say the grace of the Head
flows through the channels of the sacraments of the Church--through the veins of
the body of Christ. Theologians commonly teach that from the very beginning of
His existence, He received the fullness of sanctifying grace and other
supernatural gifts (except faith, hope, and the moral virtue of penance); nor did
He ever increase in these gifts or this sanctifying grace. For so to increase would
be to become more pleasing to the Divine Majesty; and this were impossible in
Christ. Hence St. Luke meant (ii, 52) that Christ showed more and more day
after day the effects of grace in His outward bearing.
(d) LIKES AND DISLIKES
The Hypostatic Union did not deprive the Human Soul of Christ of its human likes
and dislikes. The affections of a man, the emotions of a man were His in so far
as they were becoming to the grace of union, in so far as they were not out of
order. St. Augustine well argues: "Human affections were not out of place in Him
in Whom there was really and truly a human body and a human soul" (De Civ.
Dei, XIV, ix, 3). We find that he was subject to anger against the blindness of
heart of sinners (Mark, iii, 5); to fear (Mark, xiv, 33); to sadness (Matt., xxvi, 37):
to the sensible affections of hope, of desire, and of joy. These likes and dislikes
were under the complete will-control of Christ. The fomes peccati, the
kindling-wood of sin--that is, those likes and dislikes that are not under full and
absolute control of right reason and strong will-power--could not, as a matter of
course, have been in Christ. He could not have been tempted by such likes and
dislikes to sin. To have taken upon Himself this penalty of sin would not have
been in keeping with the absolute and substantial holiness which is implied by
the grace of union in the Logos.
C. On the God-Man (Deus-Homo, theanthropos)
One of the most important effects of the union of the Divine nature and human
nature in One Person is a mutual interchange of attributes, Divine and human,
between God and man, the Communicatio Idiomatum. The God-Man is one
Person, and to Him in the concrete may be applied the predicates that refer to
the Divinity as well as those that refer to the Humanity of Christ. We may say
God is man, was born, died, was buried. These predicates refer to the Person
Whose nature is human, as well as Divine; to the Person Who is man, as well as
God. We do not mean to say that God, as God, was born; but God, Who is man,
was born. We may not predicate the abstract Divinity of the abstract humanity,
nor the abstract Divinity of the concrete man, nor vice versa; nor the concrete
God of the abstract humanity, nor vice versa. We predicate the concrete of the
concrete: Jesus is God; Jesus is man; the God-Man was sad; the Man-God was
killed. Some ways of speaking should not be used, not that they may not be
rightly explained, but that they may easily be misunderstood in an heretical
sense (see COMMUNICATIO IDIOMATUM).
(2) THE ADORATION OF THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST
The human nature of Christ, united hypostatically with the Divine nature, is
adored with the same worship as the Divine nature (see ADORATION). We adore
the Word when we adore Christ the Man; but the Word is God. The human
nature of Christ is not at all the reason of our adoration of Him; that reason is
only the Divine nature. The entire term of our adoration is the Incarnate Word; the
motive of the adoration is the Divinity of the Incarnate Word. The partial term of
our adoration may be the human nature of Christ: the motive of the adoration is
the same as the motive of the adoration that reaches the entire term. Hence, the
act of adoration of the Word Incarnate is the same absolute act of adoration that
reaches the human nature. The Person of Christ is Iadored with the cult called
latria. But the cult that is due to a person is due in like manner to the whole
nature of that Person and to all its parts. Hence, since the human nature is the
real and true nature of Christ, that human nature and all its parts are the object of
the cult called latria, i. e., adoration. We shall not here enter into the question of
the adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (see HEART OF JESUS, DEVOTION
TO THE). (For the Adoration of the Cross, CROSS AND CRUCIFIX, THE, subtitle
II.)
(3) OTHER EFFECTS OF THE INCARNATION
The effects of the incarnation on the Blessed Mother and us, will be found treated
under the respective special subjects. (See GRACE; JUSTIFICATION;
SATISFACTION; IMMACULATE CONCEPTION; MARY, THE BLESSED
VIRGIN.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fathers of the Church: ST. IRENAEUS, Adversus Haer.; ST.ATHANASIUS, De
Incarnatione Verbi; IDEM, Contra Arianos; ST. AMBROSE, De Incarnatione; ST.
GREGORY OF NYSSA, Antirrheticus adversus Apollinarium; IDEM, Tractatus
ad Theophilum contra Apollinarium; the writings of ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN,
ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, and others who attacked the Arians, Nestorians,
Monophysites, and Monothelites.
Scholastics: ST. THOMAS, Summa Theologica, III, QQ. 1-59; ST.
BONAVENTURE, Brevil., IV; IDEM, in III Sent.; BELLARMINE, De Christo Capite
Tolius Ecclesia, Controversiae., 1619; SUAREZ, De Incarnatione, DE LUGO, De
Incarnatione, III; PETAVIUS, De incarn. Verbi: Theologia Dogmatica, IV.
Walter Drum
Transcribed by Mary Ann Grelinger
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII
Copyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org
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