Adolf Harnack · 9 of 19

Chapter II. The Doctrine of the Perfect Likeness of the Nature of the Incarnate Son of God with that of Humanity.

While the question whether the Divine which had appeared on the earth was identical with the supreme Godhead, was still agitating men’s minds, the second question arose as to the nature of the union of the Divine in Christ with humanity. In this question, comprising as it does two closely connected problems, the problem, namely, as to the character of the humanity of Christ, and the problem as to how the union of divinity and humanity is to be conceived of, that which constituted the supreme concern of Greek theology has its culmination. It accordingly had already necessarily emerged in the Arian controversy, for it was in reference to the thought of the union of Godhead and humanity that the whole controversy was carried on by Athanasius.

The problem was not a new one; on the contrary, it had already engaged the attention of the old theologians who had carried on the struggle against Marcion and Valentin, and since the time of Irenæus it had occupied a central place in men’s thoughts. The doctrine that the flesh of Christ was actual human flesh had been for long an established one, although platonising theologians still continued to find it possible to combine with it dogmatic thoughts and a refined Valentianism; in fact, no single outstanding Church teacher really accepted the humanity in a perfectly unqualified way. Further than that it was necessary to believe in an actual “ of the Logos” (σάρκωσις τοῦ λόγου) all else was uncertain. What in the way of intensification or modification the conception of the σάρξ was susceptible of in order still to rank as human flesh, was a point which was as uncertain as the question as to the relation between σάρξ and ἄνθρωπος, and as the other question as to whether the σάρξ must maintain itself as such in union with the Divine and whether it could or could not do this. All the Christological problems which had before given rise to controversies with the Gnostics returned in a more subtle form, since it was still possible to posit a real σάρξ of Christ in the statement of the problem, and then actually to do away with it again in the course of speculation.

A Christological theory had undoubtedly been propounded by Origen, according to which the presence of a human soul also in Jesus is to be expressly admitted. Others before him had long ago demanded this, perhaps partly because they already felt that everything turned on the human personal life, and that a human body without a soul involves a merely seeming humanity, though they did not actually draw the logical conclusions. But the theory of Origen was not determined by this thought alone. He was also influenced by a cosmological postulate. He required a middle term between the Logos and matter to bind them together, and this was to be found in the human soul of Christ, concerning which he taught that it had not shared in the general antemundane fall of the spirits. Moreover, he was certainly acute enough to perceive that the free human will also must be located in the personality of Christ and that Holy Scripture affirms that it is. But his theory of the human soul and of the nature of the union of the divine and human in Christ scarcely passed beyond the circle of his own pupils. It was too closely connected with the most peculiar and most questionable fundamental presuppositions of the great philosopher and was also too difficult to win approval. Even in Alexandria in the time of Alexander and Athanasius it would appear that attention was no longer given to Origen’s way of putting the doctrine; in those cases in which his view was retained its effect at best was merely still further to increase the elasticity of all the conceptions attached to the person of Jesus.

The general stagnation which marked theology in the first half of the Fourth Century, shewed itself no less in the different views of the Incarnation than in the doctrine of the Godhead of Christ. Most theologians contented themselves with the idea of the ensarkosis, and in connection with this clung to the most naïve doketic views as regard details. If this already involved a reassertion of the opinions held in the oldest theological schools which Christianity possessed, namely, the Valentinian, others went still further in reasserting these opinions and directly taught the doctrine of the heavenly σάρξ of Christ, the Homousia of this σάρξ with the Godhead of the Logos, and so on. Others adopted the theory of a transformation. According to them the σάρξ originated with the Logos Himself, who in view of its appearance or manifestation, by an act of transformation made for Himself a body capable of suffering and thus in part renounced His own nature. We can trace the influence here of the old monarchian theologoumena of the ὑιοπάτωρ who is incapable of suffering when He wills and capable of suffering when He wills. Speculative Pantheistic views, such as afterwards plainly reappeared amongst the Monophysites and which had formerly been propounded by the Gnostics, may already have been in existence at this time, ideas such as those of the moment of finitude in the essence of God Himself, and of the Cosmos as the natural body of the Godhead. In opposition to these views some taught the doctrine of a perfect incarnation (ἐνανθρώπησις), feeling probably that a mere ensarkosis or appearing in the flesh was not sufficient. But they were perfectly in the dark in regard to the question as to whether the Godhead really became a man or adopted human nature. As no one had yet decided this question, so no one knew whether the incarnate Logos had two natures or one, though the great majority clung to the idea of one nature without knowing, however, how to conceive of it. No one knew whether the Logos was blended with humanity or merely joined with it, whether He had transformed Himself into it or whether He had put it on as a dress and dwelt in it as in a temple, whether in becoming man He had taken it up into the Godhead, or in deifying it had left its peculiar nature intact; or had not deified it at all, but had merely associated it with the Godhead. Further, no one knew in what way the Gospel statements were to be employed in connection with the complicated nature of the God-man. Was the flesh, the man, born of the Virgin Mary, or was the Logos born of her together with the flesh. Who suffers, who hungers, who thirsts, who trembles and is afraid, who asks and is anxious, who confesses his ignorance, who describes the Father as the only Good, who dies, the man or the God-man? And again: who does miracles, commands nature, forgives sins, in short, who is the Redeemer, God or the God-Man? There was no fixed, generally accepted answer. Further, no one was able to make any definite statement regarding the permanence of the humanity of Christ and its nature after the Resurrection, and yet the question as to the effect of the Incarnation turned entirely on this point. Finally, the question as to whether the Logos did or did not undergo a change owing to the Incarnation, was one on which complete uncertainty prevailed. The questions regarding exaltation, humiliation, depotentiation, assumption emerged and affected the always half concealed fundamental question, as to the relation of the Divine and human generally. The theologians, however, groped uncertainly about, and however paradoxical many of the doctrines already were of a suffering without suffering, of a humiliation without humiliation, still the most paradoxical by no means passed yet for the most certain. We can easily see that we are here at the very central point of the old Greek theology; at the time of the Nicene Creed this was, however, no rock, but a slippery bit of country shelving down on all sides. The religious thought: Θεὸς σαρκωθεὶς δι᾽ ἡμᾶς—God made flesh for us,—stood firm, but the theology which sought to grasp it slipped off it at every point. How could it possibly be put in intelligible conceptions so long as theologians concerned themselves with the “Natures”! A human nature made divine which nevertheless remains truly human, is a contradictio in adjecto. What those in after times succeeded in doing was accordingly not to give a clear explanation, but simply a paraphrase which as formulated was by no means perfectly suited to express the thought, and whose value consisted in this, that it surrounded the speculative theologians with a hedge and prevented them from falling into abysses.

The Christological problem, however, as it was treated in the ancient Church was not only connected in the closest way with the Trinitarian, and, further, had not only the element of contradiction in common with it, but it also in the last resort issued in the same formulæ. If in the case of the latter the singular of the substance or nature and the plurality of the persons were the accepted terms, it was the reverse way in the case of the other, where the accepted terms came finally to be the plurality of the substances and the unity of the persons. The distinction between “Nature” and “Person” was also the subject of discussion in both cases. That this distinction, with which the West had been long acquainted without, however, using it as a speculative starting-point, supplied the means of escape from the difficulties connected with both problems, theologians had begun to perceive as early as the middle of the Fourth Century, though undoubtedly in a slow and hesitating fashion. This was the anchor to which they fastened themselves, although it was not supplied by any philosophy; they had to provide it for themselves. While, however, so far as the Trinitarian problem was concerned, the distinction once introduced quickly established itself in the East, it was a century before it triumphed there as regards the Christological problem, and this triumph, far from uniting the parties, permanently separated them.

What is the explanation of this remarkable phenomenon? It may be said that neither in connection with the Trinitarian question did the perfect unity of the substance succeed in establishing itself (see pp. 120, 125); but it very nearly did so, and the controversy accordingly ceased. Why then did the formula of the unity of the person not in the same way prove satisfactory in connection with the Christological problem?

This question may already be raised here, though it cannot be settled till the next chapter. Attention must, however, be directed to one point. The antecedents of the “solution” of the Trinitarian and Christological problem which proved victorious in the Eastern Church and consequently in the Catholic Church generally, are to be found only partly in the East; it was naturalised in the West. The Tertullian who in the work “adv. Prax.” created the formula of the “una substantia” and the “tres personæ”, in the same work constructed the formulae of the “utraque substantia (duplex status non confusus—this is the ἀσυγχύτως—sed conjunctus) in una persona” (the substance of two kinds in one person, the twofold state not confused but joined together in one person); “duæ substantiæ in Christo Jesu, divina et humana” (two substances in Christ Jesus, divine and human); “salva est utriusque proprietas substantiæ in Christo Jesu” (the property of each substance in Christ Jesus is not interfered with). He thus laid the foundation for the formally similar treatment of both problems, and created the terminology which was accepted by the East after more than two hundred years. Had he the same interest in the Christological problem as the later Eastern theologians had? Was the deification of humanity a matter of importance to him? By no means. And what philosophy did he make use of? Well, no philosophy at all; on the contrary, he used the method of legal fictions. By the aid of the distinction current among jurists between “substance” and “person” he with great facility explained and securely established as against the Monarchians both the ancient ecclesiastical and, par excellence, Western formula, “Christus deus et homo”, and also the formula, “pater, filius et spiritus sanctus—unus deus.” Substance—for Tertullian never uses the word “nature”—is in the language of the jurists not anything personal, but rather corresponds to “property” in the sense of possession, or to the essence as distinguished from the manifestation or “status”; the person again is not in itself anything substantial, but the subject or individual as capable of entering into legal relations and possessing property, who can quite well possess different substances, just as on the other hand it is possible for one substance to be in the possession of several persons. Tertullian introduced these legal terms into theology. That this is what they were in his use of them, and not philosophical terms, is shewn by the words themselves, shewn too by the application made of them and by the utter disregard of the difficulty which their application must necessarily create for every philosophical thinker. And it was these legal fictions which the East had to accept as philosophy, i.e., theology, or change into philosophy! This became the basis of the “philosophy of revelation.” (!) This was more than the boldest Neo-Platonic philosophy in its strangest intellectual phantasies had ever asked. No wonder that difficulties were made about accepting it, especially when, besides, it did not cover what was still the preponderating interest of the Faith, the interest in the deification of humanity. People always shrank from positing an οὐσία ἀνυπόστατος, a substance without an hypostasis, because when used in reference to a living being it was simply absurd, and because the unity of the person of Christ, “salva utriusque substantiæ proprietate”, gave no security for the unity of the Godhead and humanity. The jurist Tertullian, however, could manage quite well with “person” and “substance”, as if the distinction between them were self-evident, because he did not here develop the logical results of the doctrine of , but gave expression to a matter of fact which was ostensibly contained in the Creed, and because he did not, properly speaking, indulge in philosophical speculation, but applied the artificial language of the jurists. If we accordingly perceive that many centuries afterwards, the philosophical-realistic method of handling the main problem was in Western scholasticism completely displaced by a formal-logical or legal method of treatment, there is nothing surprising in this; for the foundation of such a method of handling the problem was in fact laid by Tertullian.

Irenæus had already clearly discerned and plainly expressed the thought of the most perfect union. The great Western theologians about the year 200 were further advanced in respect of Christology in consequence of the struggle with Gnosticism and Patripassianism, than the East was a hundred years later. But what they had secured in the heat of battle did not possess even in the West itself any general validity; while in the East the greatest uncertainty reigned, having been brought in by the “scientific” Christology of Origen. It delayed or threw back the development, which had certainly begun in a strictly scientific form. Thus at the beginning of the Fourth Century the East had once more to take up the question entirely anew. If we are to estimate correctly what was finally accomplished, it must not be measured by the Gospel, but by the dead state of things which had prevailed a hundred years before.

The assertion of Arius and his pupils that the Logos took only a human body gave the impulse to renewed consideration of the problem. Like Paul of Samosata the Lucianists would have nothing to do with two natures, but they taught the doctrine of one half-divine nature which was characterised by human feelings, limited knowledge and suffering. Like Paul of Samosata they also found fault with the orthodox on the ground that their Christology led to the assumption of two Sons of God or two natures; for these were still regarded as identical. The reply made by the orthodox at first to this charge lacked theological precision. Just because Athanasius was as much convinced of the necessity of the Incarnation (ἐνανθρώπησις) as of the unity of the personality of Christ as Redeemer, he did not put the doctrine in fixed formulæ. On the one hand, as against Arius, he made a sharp distinction between what the God and what the man in Christ had done, in order to keep the Logos Omoousios free of everything human; on the other hand, however, he wished the divine and human to be thought of as a perfect unity; for it is to a strictly uniform being that we owe our salvation, the Word made flesh, the λόγος σαρκωθείς. The prolix amplifications of Hilary were still more uncertain, so much so that there was some for the charge brought against orthodoxy by its opponents, that it led to a division of the Son of God from the Son of Man. But Athanasius had not reflected on this; in this connection too he had stated the mystery simply and forcibly, frequently in the words of Irenæus. The Logos not only had a man, did not only dwell in a man, but was man. He united what was ours with Himself in order to give us what was His. The Logos is not, however, thereby lowered, but on the contrary, the human is raised higher. The question as to the extent of what was comprised in the human nature was one which Athanasius did not think out. He preferred to speak of a natural union, an ἕνωσις φυσική, in Christ, but in this connection he uniformly disregarded the human personality. The free will was the category used, roughly speaking, at that period to express what is called in modern times “human personality”. But Athanasius had not yet thought of this term in connection with Christ, because he had not learned anything from Origen. In all probability he found in fact no problem here, but, like Irenæus, a comforting mystery which could not be other than it was. He did not see that the mind must necessarily go astray on this matter either in the direction of the Gnostic doctrine of two natures or in that of the doctrine of unity, in the sense in which it was held by Valentinian, the doctrine of a heavenly humanity, or in the sense in which it was held by Arius. He believed that the doctrine of one composite being would serve his purpose which in any given case allowed of the distinction being made between what belonged to the divinity and what belonged to the humanity respectively. Neither did the great theologian who attached himself to Athanasius—namely, Marcellus—perceive yet the full difficulty of the problem. His energetic and practical theology could, however, only bring him nearer to the doctrine of a complete unity. The Logos is the Ego of the Personality of Christ; the nature which serves as an organ for the incarnate Logos and gives outward expression to his self-manifestation, is impersonal. The Logos is the ἐνέργεια δραστική, the divine energy; the body is the matter which is moved by it, which is transformed into a perfect instrument for the Logos. Marcellus was still further than Athanasius from assuming the existence of two separate, independent natures. He does indeed incidentally attack the Arian idea of the unity and he also employs the expression σύναφεια, connection, for the union of the Logos with humanity, but at bottom he sees at every point in the incarnate God-Logos a perfect unity. He thus thought about the matter as the great Christologist did after him, who first felt the difficulty of the problem and created a formula which did not harm Greek religious feeling, but rather gave it a secure basis, and which in doing this nevertheless left unnoticed an element of tradition which was indeed concealed, but was not to be rooted out.

Apollinaris of Laodicea whose divine teachers were Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, who had learned from Athanasius, whose theological method was the Aristotelian one, and who because of this had been strongly influenced by the Arian theology, the zealous and acute opponent of Origen and Porphyry, the sober-minded exegete who preserved the most brilliant traditions of the school of Antioch and had a reverence for the letter of Scripture, made it the task of his life to combat the Origenistic and Arian theologies,—their doctrine of the and their Christology. Nemesius and Philostorgius have termed him the most important theologian of his age, and that in fact he was. The most striking proof of his importance is supplied by the fact that many of his works create the impression of having been written in later centuries, so energetically has he thought out the Christological problem and overtaken the coming generations. His syllogistic-dialectic and his exegetic method is akin to that of the later Antiochians, and consequently the Fourth Century possessed in Marcellus, Eunomius, Apollinaris and the Antiochians a series of theologians, who, although not unacquainted with Plotinus and Origen, did not all the same adhere to the Origenistic, Neo-Platonic speculative views, theologians who were united by their employment of the same philosophico-theological method, but who nevertheless arrived at wholly different results.

Apollinaris in combating Arius and his changeable Christ, Χριστὸς τρεπτός, started by allowing that the assumption that in Christ the God-Logos who was equal in substance with God united Himself with a physically perfect man, necessarily led to the idea of two Sons of God, one natural and one adopted. A perfect God and a perfect man can never make a uniform being, and in this he was in agreement with Paul of Samosata, Marcellus and the Arians. They constitute on the contrary a hybrid form, i.e., a fabulous Minotaur, a cross breed, etc. But if there is no such thing as a union between a perfect God and a perfect man, then, if these premises are valid, the idea of the incarnation of God which is the whole point in question, disappears. And further the unchangeableness and sinlessness of Christ disappears also, for changeableness and sin belong to the nature of the perfect man. We are, therefore, not to see in the Redeemer a perfect man, we are on the contrary to assume and believe that the Logos assumed human nature, namely, the animated σάρξ, but that He Himself became the principle of self-consciousness and self-determination (πνεῦμα) in this σάρξ. Freedom too is an attribute of the perfect man, but—this as against Origen—Christ cannot possibly have possessed this freedom; for the Godhead in Him would have destroyed it. God, however, destroys nothing He has created.

Apollinaris sought to prove his doctrine out of the central of Greek piety, and at the same time to establish it by Biblical and speculative arguments. In a lying age he stated it with the most refreshing candour. Everything that Christ had done for us God must have done, otherwise it has no saving power: “The death of a man does not abolish death”—ἀνθρώπου θάνατος οὐ καταργεῖ τὸν θάνατον. Everything that He did must be perfect else it avails us nothing. There is here thus absolutely no room for a human ego. This would do away with the redemption. If it had been present in Him, then Paul of Samosata would be right, and Christ would be merely an inspired man, ἄνθρωπος ἔνθεος; but such a being cannot give us any help; for if he had not essentially united humanity with Himself how could we expect to be filled with the divine nature? Further, if he had been a man he would have been subject to weaknesses, but we require an unchangeable spirit who raises us above weaknesses. Therefore He must have assumed our nature in such a way that He made it the perfect organ of His Godhead and Himself became its νοῦς—the human nature of Christ “is not moved separately”—οὐ κινεῖται ἰδιαζόντως. But this is also the doctrine of Scripture. It says that the Logos became flesh, and by this is denoted the animated body, not the νοῦς. It does not say “He assumed a man”, but that “He was found as a man”—ὡς ἄνθρωπος. It teaches that He appeared in the likeness of sinful flesh—ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας, and was in the likeness or according to the likeness of men—ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων or καθ᾽ ὁμοίωσιν. It shews finally that there was in Him the most perfect unity of the human and the divine, so that it says of the humanity what holds good of the divinity and vice versa; God was born and died, and so on. At the same time, however, the Godhead is not to be thought of as capable of suffering. Owing to the intimate union with the σάρξ which was wholly and entirely its σάρξ, it shared in a complete fashion in the suffering, and the efficacy of redemption consists only in the fact that it did so share in it. And conversely the σάρξ is entirely taken up into the nature of the Logos. “The flesh therefore is divine, because it is united with God, and it indeed saves”—θεϊκὴ ἄρα σάρξ, ὅτι Θεῷ συνήφθη καὶ αὕτη μὲν σώζει. Starting from this Apollinaris attempted to give his doctrine a speculative basis. This also rests on Scripture passages, but at the same time it refers back to a peculiar metaphysic. The attempt indeed to reach it was made long before his day, and it is uncertain how far he himself followed it out, since those who tell us about it had here an occasion for special pleading. Apollinaris starts from the Scriptural statement that Christ is the heavenly man, the second spiritual, heavenly Adam. (See also John III. 13.) Close upon this idea he, like Marcellus, puts in the more general idea of Aristotle that the divine is always related to the human as the moving to the moved. As such they stand opposed. This relation first reached perfect outward embodiment and manifestation in the word made flesh, the λόγος σαρκωθείς. But the Logos as “the mover” was from all eternity destined to become the λόγος σαρκωθείς. He has always been in mysterious fashion “mind incarnate”—νοῦς ἔνσαρκος, and “spirit made flesh”—πνεῦμα σαρκωθέν. Therefore He could be and had to be the λόγος σαρκωθείς, the Logos made flesh. He certainly did not bring His flesh with Him from heaven, but He is nevertheless the “heavenly man”; because it was intended that He should become flesh, His flesh is consubstantial with His Godhead; His Godhead comprised within it the future moment of the incarnation from all eternity, because only thus was it destined to be in the most perfect way the authoritative principle, the ἡγεμονικόν, of the creature. And just for this reason the historical incarnation which cannot be denied, is the direct opposite of anything like the accidental and arbitrary inspiration of a man. It is the realisation of an idea which always had its reality in the essence of the Logos, the heavenly man, the (μεσότης) between God and humanity. After the incarnation too everything in this heavenly man is divine; for death could be overcome only if it was God who suffered and died. The human is purely the passive element only, the organ of the Godhead and the object of redemption.

This doctrine, estimated by the presuppositions and aims of the Greek conception of Christianity as religion, is complete. Apollinaris set forth in a way that cannot be surpassed, energetically developed and in numerous works untiringly repeated, with the pathos of the most genuine conviction, what at heart all pious Greeks believed and acknowledged. Every correction made on his Christology calls in question the basis or at least the vitality of Greek piety. Only this perfect unity of the person guarantees the redemption of the human race and its acquiring of a divine life. “Oh new creation and wondrous mingling. God and flesh produced one nature!” (ὦ καινὴ κτίσις καὶ μίξις θεσπεσία, Θεὸς καὶ σάρξ μίαν ἀπετέλεσαν φύσιν!) All else in the Redeemer is non-existent for faith. The assumption of a human separate personality in Christ does away with His power as Redeemer. Thousands before Apollinaris felt this and had a vague idea of its truth. He alone understood and preached it. He did not juggle with what was a matter of indifference to Faith or dangerous to Faith, but did away with it.

But he perceived at the same time that that separate personality is present whenever a human νοῦς is attributed to Christ. This decided the matter so far as he was concerned. Christ possessed no human νοῦς. He was honest enough not to say anything more about the perfect humanity of Christ, but openly avowed that Christ was not a complete man. The fact that Apollinaris, when called on to decide between the interests of the Faith and the claims of tradition, unhesitatingly decided in favour of the former, is fitted to call forth our admiration, and is a clear proof of the great bishop’s piety and love of truth.

But the very frankness of his language reminded the Church that the Gospel and partly tradition also demand a complete human nature for Christ. Even before the appearance of Apollinaris the conflict with Arius had, from about the year 351, taken a turn which made it as necessary to emphasise the complete human nature of the incarnate one as to reject the thought of a transformation of the Logos into flesh or of a depotentiation. The Christological question became involved with the Trinitarian, and the latter was illustrated by the aid of the former. The full humanity was supposed to prove the full Godhead ex analogia; it had been reached in the struggle against Gnosis, and it was required in order to explain the Gospel accounts which otherwise cast a shadow on the Godhead of the Redeemer. Accordingly the complete humanity of Christ was first expressly asserted at the Council of Alexandria in 362 and, in fact, in opposition to the views of Apollinaris. The great literary activity of the bishop who was equally distinguished as exegete and apologist and as a systematic theologian, and who gathered around him a band of enthusiastic pupils, falls within the sixties. With the beginning of the seventieth year of the century the Cappadocians came forward in opposition to their old master, shewed now their unconcealed indignation and sought to cast suspicion on his doctrine of the Trinity also. Apollinaris accordingly retorted by treating them as they treated him. How far Athanasius himself was mixed up with the controversy is a point which is still uncertain. Apollinaris separated from the Church about the year 375. Soon after he Vitalius bishop of Antioch. It was the West led by Bishop Damasus which hastened to the assistance of the orthodoxy of the East held in fetters under Valens, and which at the Roman Council of 377 condemned Apollinarianism. It could do this with a good conscience since it had always understood the “filius hominis” in the thesis in the full extent of the term and had had no difficulties about the unity. Basil had been the denouncer of the Apollinarian heresy (Ep. 263). The Council of Antioch of 379 sided with the Romans, and that held at Constantinople in 381 in its first canon expressly condemned the heresy of the Apollinarians. The anathemas of Damasus which belong perhaps to the year 381, condemn (No. 7) “those who say that the Word of God dwelt in human flesh in place of the rational and intellectual soul of man, since the Son Himself is the Word of God and was not in His body in place of a rational and intellectual soul, but assumed and saved our soul, i.e., a rational and intellectual soul without sin,” (“eos, qui pro hominis anima rationabili et intelligibili dicunt dei verbum in humana carne versatum, quum ipse filius sit verbum dei et non pro anima rationabili et intelligibili in suo corpore fuerit, sed nostram id est rationabilem et intelligibilem sine peccato animam susceperit atque salvaverit.” Before this those are condemned on the other hand “who assert the existence of two sons, one before time and another after the assumption of flesh from the Virgin”—“qui duos filios asserunt, unum ante sæcula et alterum post assumptionem carnis ex virgine”—With all the zeal of a fanatic who had nevertheless not made the matter his own, Damasus, under the guidance of Jerome, soon after the year 382, once more took up the question and warned the Church against the doctrine of Apollinaris and his pupil Timothy: “Christ the Son of God by His passion brought the most complete redemption to the human race in order to free from all sin the whole man who lies in sin. If therefore anyone says something was wanting either in the humanity or divinity of Christ, he is filled with the spirit of the devil and proves himself to be a son of hell. Why therefore do you once more demand of me the condemnation of Timothy? He has already been deposed here by the sentence of the Apostolic chair, Bishop Peter of Alexandria being also present at the time, together with his teacher Apollinaris, and must await on the day of judgment the chastisement and punishment due to his sin.” Apollinaris was condemned. One after another the representatives of the non-Alexandrian theology, Paul, Marcellus, Photinus, Apollinaris were cut off from the Church. The Antiochians will follow them, but the turn of Origen and his pupils is also to come; the Cappadocians only will be saved “so as by fire.”

The homousia or the identity in nature,—for both words were used,—of the humanity of the Redeemer and humanity, was thus acknowledged. And as a matter of fact many and important arguments could be alleged in support of it. One has to make use of the most desperate exegesis in order to banish it from the Synoptics. And further Christ redeemed only what He assumed; if He did not assume a human soul then the latter has not been redeemed, and this appeared a very obvious argument. Finally, it was only by the assumption of the completeness of the human nature in Christ that His divinity seemed to be secured against sinking down into the region of human feelings and suffering. But what signified these advantages if the unity was insecure? And Apollinaris was perfectly right: it was insecure. His opponents, the Cappadocians, might indeed be able to refute him as regards separate points, but they could not escape from the reproach he brought against them that they reduced the doctrine to the idea of an inspired man. In proportion, however, as they sought to escape it, their assertion of the completeness of the human nature in Christ became a mere assertion. Their long-winded, obscure, and hazy deductions made in truth a miserable appearance alongside of the unambiguous, coherent, and frank avowals of their opponent. There are two natures, but yet there is only one; there are not two Sons, but the divinity effects one thing, the humanity another; Christ possessed human freedom, and nevertheless He acted within the limits of divine necessity. On the other hand, the whole position of the later Monophysites, thought out to all its conceivable conclusions, is already to be found in Apollinaris; but his opponents had not yet at their command a fixed terminology whereby to preserve the contradiction and to protect it against disintegration. At bottom their views were the same as those of Apollinaris, they did not think of two strictly separate natures; but they were unwilling to give up the perfect human nature, and they had learned too much from Origen to sacrifice the thought of freedom to the constitution of the God-man. Probably an historical and biblical element had a share in turning them against Apollinaris, the thought of the man Jesus as he is presented in the Gospels, this, however, not as something which had a well-understood religious value, but as a part of the tradition of the schools and as a relic of antiquity. None of the religious thoughts current at that time led to the idea of a “perfect man” with a free will, i.e., as an individual. The idea that the human vows cannot have been saved if Christ did not assume it too, was one which they themselves could not honestly believe in, for they stripped His humanity of the principle of individuality and of more than that. In Apollinaris, on the contrary, it was really the of faith which supplied him with his doctrine. He merely completed the work of Athanasius inasmuch as he added to it the Christology which was demanded by the Homousia of the Logos. They both made a supreme sacrifice to their faith in that they took from the complicated and contradictory tradition regarding Christ those elements only which were in harmony with the belief that He was the Redeemer from sin and death. They neglected everything else: λόγος ὁμοούσιος ἐν σαρκί, (μία φύσις σύνθετος)—the co-substantial Logos in the flesh, (one composite nature)—was the watchword of Apollinaris, in the sense of a perfectly uniform being. This Apollinarianism dressed in orthodox garb exercised the strongest possible influence upon Church doctrine in the Fifth Century. The Church, however, rejected this particular form of unity and maintained the idea of “the perfect man”, “the perfect humanity” in the unity. The Church knew what it wanted to do—to unite contradictions; there were not to be two sons, but two natures; not two natures, but one substance; though it certainly did not know how this was to be conceived of. Nor did it know how the contradiction was to be expressed. But while it thus loaded its own faith with a heavy burden and thereby weakened its power, by preserving the thought of the perfect humanity of Christ, it did an inestimable service to later generations. And there was further one good result which even those times got the benefit of. The Gnostic speculations regarding the heavenly origin of the flesh of Christ, the transformation of God into a man, and such like, were now forbidden, or at least were rendered excessively difficult.