(b) Mediwval period (5th to 15th centuries).— The conciliar definitions remained undisturbed as tlie official formulas of the Church right through tlie Middle Ages up to the present ; and without im- portant modification or advance. To account for this prolonged acquiescence of the mediteval mind is not at once simple, for the Nicene system is both uncritical and incomplete. The Church had to address herself to new and arduous tasks, chiefly of organization. She had assumed the external efjuipment of the Roman empire for practical effi- ciency in educating the multitude of peoples brought within her pale. Her paramount require- ments were unity and a working belief. All avail- able spiritual forces were ranged in a practical order for a practical end. The effect on the doctrine of Christ's Person is observable in the following results : (1) the less speculative and more practical discussion of the older problems, especially those concerned with the effect of the Incarnation on Christ's knowledge and will ; (2) the consideration of Christ's Person in association with the soterio- logical aspects of His Work ; (3) the systematic co-ordination of the several parts of Christologieal science into a connected whole, and of the whole with other doctrines such as those of God and the Church ; (4) the more lucid realization of the nature and principles of this doctrine in line with the elaboration of the doctrine of transubstantiation and the Mass ; (5) the popular illustration of its truth, mainly in its place as part of the Trini- tarian rnn(P]itioii, by analogies drawn from out- ward n.idiri', niiil --lill more from the human mind. Two Mili-idiny -Mciiiis are not to be omitted, notewdi I hy l.iraii-, (if their influence in helping to discredit tiio methods of the Schoolmen and in pre-
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ring for the Reformation ; viz. (6) free and ruitless inquiry into ' quotlibeta,' i.e. questions arbitrarily suggested and only remotely afiecting religious interests or fundamental truth; and (7) the rise of mystical and pietist communities cherish- ing an emotional, sometimes sentimental, contem- plation of the Saviour in His purelyhuraanqualities. Scholasticism has often been criticised ; but it taught the thoughtful theologian at least one great lesson, that it is unsafe to develop the theological consequences of any doctrine without continual reference to the proportion of the whole. It effec- tually awakened also the more religious minds to return for that reference to the primitive sources in the Scriptures and the Fathers.
(c) Modern (from Reformation era, 16th cent., onward). — The new spiritual experiences in which the Reformation originated brought out into clearer relief the disparity between the matter and tiie method of the Scholastic disputations. A religious Reason began to assert itself independently of the Scholastic process. It gave the intellect a new freedom to question the authority and relevancy of the old ; one of whose first utterances expressed dislike of further speculation as empty. It blessed only those energies which made religion inward and personal. As the previous centuries had deepened the mind sufficiently to speak for itself, so now the age was dawning whicli should so com- pletely sanctify the moral nature as to make its instincts supreme. In Luther pre-eminently, but not less in Calvin, Zwingli, and others, the ethical interpretation of spiritual facts takes rise. Hence the immense importance ascribed to that act of faith by which the individual soul connects itself with Christ (justification by faith), in a union not of intellect but of heart. Out of the experiences of this inner union we reach the true knowledge of Christ (and also of God). ' The man now who so knows Christ that Christ has taken away from him all liis sin, death and devil, freely through His suffering, he has truly recognized Christ as the Son of God' (Luther, Werke, x\ii. 265). And when we thus know Christ, we ' let go utterly all thoughts and speculations concerning the Divine Majesty and Glory, and hang and cling to the humanity of Christ . . . and I learn thus through Him to know the Fatlier. Thus arises such a light and know- ledge within me that I know certainly what God is and what is His mind' (.\.\. i. 161). It is in the experience of redemption that we know the Re- deemer. Modern religious theoiy has been one long endeavour to appropriate this position. It has sought to explicate its principles (1) by a more radical and penetrating criticism of the j)ast ; (2) by the application to the problems of Christian theism of other categories than that of the Nicene Oima or substance ; (3) in particular by insistence on moral personality as the determining principle of theological construction.
When we look back at this great historical development, it is impossible not to be struck by the parallel between the age of earlj' Christianitj% the beginnings of the Middle Ages, and the Re- formation. The bankruptcy of the pagan world was not its defect but its merit. It had generated a universal need and a universal mode of feeling which were incompatible with the highest culture which had generated them, but which were destined ultimately to combine that culture itself with something beyond, viz. the new Christian ex|)eri- ence. The so-called Dark Ages were brought on by a new possibility and a new necessity, the necessity of disciplining the mass of believers to appreciate that combination and appreliend its elements of culture and faith, — a discipline which, when it had accomplished its ends, left its subjects with a deeper experience than ever, and a more