Sect. 182Christ as a Person Relatively and Virtually Distinct from GodChrist as a Person Relatively and Virtually Distinct from God
I. Notwithstanding that Christ is God, that He subsists and acts in the Divine Nature, and further, that the same, by reason of the exchange of idioms, must be said materially of the “Man” Christ; the language of Scripture and Church represents Him over and over again as a subject of attributions distinct and separate from God. He is the Mediator between God and man; He is “of God,” as “we are of Christ” (ὑμεῖς δὲ Χριστοῦ, Χριστὸς δὲ Θεοῦ, 1 Cor. 3:23), and even where His intimate union with God is set forth, it is spoken of in terms analogous to those expressing the union of creatures with God through grace. In the Old Testament He is “the chosen Servant of God” (Isaias), “the man that cleaveth” to the Lord (Zach. 13:7); in the New Testament He is begotten, sanctified, glorified, protected, and guided by God; He prays to God, and reconciles the world with Him, etc.
II. To account for these apparent anomalies, it is not sufficient to say that in such texts “God” means God the Father exclusively. This is only true where Christ is represented as the Son of God; in all other cases Christ is set forth as a subject distinct from God purely and simply, from the Word as well as from the other Divine Persons. We have to explain how this can be done without destroying the unity of Person in Christ.
The unity of person in man is not injured by speaking of man’s lower nature as distinct and opposed to his higher nature. But our lower nature is deprived of reason, and, therefore, is never spoken of as a person. In Christ, on the contrary, the lower nature is a complete, rational and animal, human nature, receiving its personal complement through the Logos or Word. Hence we may speak of Him as a human person, existing side by side with God or inferior to Him, provided we conceive Him formally as a human personal being, viz. as the Logos “subsisting”—not only dwelling—in “the flesh,” not in the Godhead. This way of conceiving the Word Incarnate is evidently implied in the names “Christ” and “Emmanuel” (God with us). It affords sufficient foundation for mentally distinguishing in Christ two personal beings, and consequently for speaking of the Man-God as relatively independent and virtually distinct from the God-Man. This distinction is not tantamount to abstracting from Christ’s Divinity: He is considered as God, but the mental stress is laid on His subsistence in a human nature. The analogical designations for Christ, taken from all orders of created things—the Anointed or Branch, the limb or member, the image of God—might indeed express no more than a union with God through grace. Yet they likewise may be used as descriptive of the Hypostatic Union, for they all represent a most real and intimate union between some being and a higher principle differing from it in essence. We have dealt with them in former chapters. It is to be remarked that Holy Scripture, and the Church after its example, are most careful to avoid phrases which, by representing Christ as a subject distinct from God, might imply a real distinction of persons or a multiplication of the Divine Nature.
III. The notion of Christ as a subject of attributions distinct from God, has been entirely perverted by Berruyer, and only imperfectly proposed by theologians even of high note. Berruyer, in order to avoid Nestorianism, calls the Man Christ a quasi-suppositum (or quasi-person), but then describes Him as a Person perfect in every respect. St. Alphonsus opposed the new form of the old heresy with holy zeal, and it was condemned by Benedict XIV. and Clement XIII. Yet traces of it are still found in many modern Nestorianizing theologies. Berruyer’s heresy and cognate Catholic opinions fail to understand, or at least to work out, the consequences of the principle that “the Man Christ, however He be considered, is and always remains the personal human compound constituted through the anointment of humanity with the Logos; that in this compound the human essence is the material part, and the Divine Logos the formal principle, of its substantial—subsistential or personal—existence.” In the same way, in whatever manner we consider natural man, he is and remains a body informed by a soul. Christ cannot be considered independently of the personality of the Logos by which He subsists, though, as the Fathers express it, He can take the part of a servant (gerere personam servi), and also can act in the Person of God (esse et agere in persona Dei). In the stage of His life which the Apostle calls “the days of the flesh,” He acted the part of a servant, and “in the day of His power,” He acts as Divine Person. See Franzelin, De Verbo Incarn., p. 366, sqq.
I. Notwithstanding that Christ is God, that He subsists and acts in the Divine Nature, and further, that the same, by reason of the exchange of idioms, must be said materially of the “Man” Christ; the language of Scripture and Church represents Him over and over again as a subject of attributions distinct and separate from God. He is the Mediator between God and man; He is “of God,” as “we are of Christ” (ὑμεῖς δὲ Χριστοῦ, Χριστὸς δὲ Θεοῦ, 1 Cor. 3:23), and even where His intimate union with God is set forth, it is spoken of in terms analogous to those expressing the union of creatures with God through grace. In the Old Testament He is “the chosen Servant of God” (Isaias), “the man that cleaveth” to the Lord (Zach. 13:7); in the New Testament He is begotten, sanctified, glorified, protected, and guided by God; He prays to God, and reconciles the world with Him, etc.
II. To account for these apparent anomalies, it is not sufficient to say that in such texts “God” means God the Father exclusively. This is only true where Christ is represented as the Son of God; in all other cases Christ is set forth as a subject distinct from God purely and simply, from the Word as well as from the other Divine Persons. We have to explain how this can be done without destroying the unity of Person in Christ.
The unity of person in man is not injured by speaking of man’s lower nature as distinct and opposed to his higher nature. But our lower nature is deprived of reason, and, therefore, is never spoken of as a person. In Christ, on the contrary, the lower nature is a complete, rational and animal, human nature, receiving its personal complement through the Logos or Word. Hence we may speak of Him as a human person, existing side by side with God or inferior to Him, provided we conceive Him formally as a human personal being, viz. as the Logos “subsisting”—not only dwelling—in “the flesh,” not in the Godhead. This way of conceiving the Word Incarnate is evidently implied in the names “Christ” and “Emmanuel” (God with us). It affords sufficient foundation for mentally distinguishing in Christ two personal beings, and consequently for speaking of the Man-God as relatively independent and virtually distinct from the God-Man. This distinction is not tantamount to abstracting from Christ’s Divinity: He is considered as God, but the mental stress is laid on His subsistence in a human nature. The analogical designations for Christ, taken from all orders of created things—the Anointed or Branch, the limb or member, the image of God—might indeed express no more than a union with God through grace. Yet they likewise may be used as descriptive of the Hypostatic Union, for they all represent a most real and intimate union between some being and a higher principle differing from it in essence. We have dealt with them in former chapters. It is to be remarked that Holy Scripture, and the Church after its example, are most careful to avoid phrases which, by representing Christ as a subject distinct from God, might imply a real distinction of persons or a multiplication of the Divine Nature.
III. The notion of Christ as a subject of attributions distinct from God, has been entirely perverted by Berruyer, and only imperfectly proposed by theologians even of high note. Berruyer, in order to avoid Nestorianism, calls the Man Christ a quasi-suppositum (or quasi-person), but then describes Him as a Person perfect in every respect. St. Alphonsus opposed the new form of the old heresy with holy zeal, and it was condemned by Benedict XIV. and Clement XIII. Yet traces of it are still found in many modern Nestorianizing theologies. Berruyer’s heresy and cognate Catholic opinions fail to understand, or at least to work out, the consequences of the principle that “the Man Christ, however He be considered, is and always remains the personal human compound constituted through the anointment of humanity with the Logos; that in this compound the human essence is the material part, and the Divine Logos the formal principle, of its substantial—subsistential or personal—existence.” In the same way, in whatever manner we consider natural man, he is and remains a body informed by a soul. Christ cannot be considered independently of the personality of the Logos by which He subsists, though, as the Fathers express it, He can take the part of a servant (gerere personam servi), and also can act in the Person of God (esse et agere in persona Dei). In the stage of His life which the Apostle calls “the days of the flesh,” He acted the part of a servant, and “in the day of His power,” He acts as Divine Person. See Franzelin, De Verbo Incarn., p. 366, sqq.
Seção 62% da obra, de A Manual of Catholic Theology (Wilhelm & Scannell, sobre a Dogmatik de Scheeben). Ver o original.