1. Among the prominent theories involving a .sacrifice of this kind the Apollinarian is the most explicit and intelligible. By its supposition that the Logos took the place of tlie rational soul in the Redeemer, so that tlie Incarnation involved only the assumption of a human body with its principle of animal life, it evidently simplifies very much the problem of Christ's person. But the simplihca- tion takes place at too great a cost. The immut- able Logos clothed in a fleshly garment is obviously no proper .subject for temptation or for a real ini- plication in human experiences generally. He cannot be brought into accord with the Gospel representations, except by resort to an artificial, Docetic interpretation. As lacking the most essen- tial factor of manhood. He is destitute of the most appreliensible bond of brotherhood and ground of companionship. In short, the advantage which pertains to the Apollinarian theory, on the score of simplicity and intelligibility, is overmatched by the disadvantage wluch it incurs by its incompati- bility will I Co-jiel facts and by its abridgment of Clirist's eoniiieieiiey to enter into the life of men, and thus to tullil tlie complete office of mediation. In effect it abolishes the Son of Man ; for the archetypal manhood, which Aiiollinaris supposed to be resident in the eternal Logos, is a far off thing in comparison with the concrete reality whicli naturally is present to our thought when we use the term 'manhood.'
2. A second historic theory which has a distinct bearing upon our theme is that of Monophysitism. This differs from Apollinarism in its formal ac- knowledgment that by the incarnation of the Son of God is to be understood the assumption of a complete, liuiuaii na,t\ire. This acknowledgment, however, turns onl to In- rather verbal than sub- stantial. 'I'lie ,\loiio|.|iysite assertion of a single
, nature in the inenrn.it e,l I lirist involved the com- ' i>ouniiin;j iif I he liunian nature in Him with the I 'nine: niiil ilii.^, in eounexicm with the vast pre- ; 'iideianic assi,i;ne.| loilie Divine in post-Nicene ininkih'j, meant \irlu.dly the reduction of the Ininiau to the rank of an accident, a secondary and contingent property or group of properties, superinduced upon a Di\ine subject. Such an outcome, it is needless to say, runs very close to the .submergence of the Imman side of Christ. It leaves no place for the thought of a real ethical manhood ; for a proper ethical character is not predicable of a selfless accident. And with this ilelicit is conjoined a serious metaphysical diffi- ( ulty, since fundamental thinking insists upon a lelation of commensurability between attributes and their subject, and does not approve the notion that attributes appropriate to a finite personality can be made properly to inhere in an infinite .subject.
3. A theory favoured with more orthodox asso- ciations than the Monophysite, but having a some- what questionalrle bearing on the Christological problem, is the tlieory of the impersonMlity of Christ'ti manhovd, or more specifically, the theory that His nianliood, being devoid of a personality of its own, obtained from the first moment of sub- sistence its personal subject in the Ego of the pre- existent Logos (the so-called doctrine of enhtjpos- tasis). This theory was broached by Leontius in the 6th cent., was advocated by John of Damascus in the 8th cent., and has had in later times con- siderable currency among theologians of reputed orthodoxy, though never receiving any distinct oecumenical sanction. As handled by John of Damascus, the notion of the impersonality of Christ's manhood cannot be said to have been suitably reconciled ^^■ith the full reality of that manhood. While formally he assigned to the Redeemer the full complement of human faculties,
822 INDn'IDUALITY (OF CHEIST)
INFANCY
: another to den-
he felt obliged in one
to them their characteristic forms of activity, would not do, as he conceived, to admit pro{^ in knowledge on the part of Christ, as this would contravene the truth that the hypostatic union of the human with the Divine in Him was complete from the start. For a like reason it was con- sidered inadmissible to impute real prayer to Him. Divinity needs nothing, and a humanity that is perfectly united with Divinity shares in its suffi- ciency. In relation to the will also the Damascene considered it nece.ssai-j' to retrench from the proper human mode. The logical issue of his representa- tions is to deny to the human will in Christ all power of initiative, and to reduce it entirely to tlie office of a ' medium through wliich the Logos moved the man Jesus.' Quite possibly John of Damascus does not afford the best specimen of what can be done in Christological construction with the notion that the human nature of Christ, being without personality of its own, derived such personal character as pertained to it from its rela- tion to the person of the Logos. But certainly it is difficult in the light of his exposition to discover the real Son of Man. The image of a genuine and living manhood does not stand forth in his repre- -sentation of the Redeemer.
It has sometimes been concluded that a special advantage belongs to the doctrine of the imperson- ality of the human nature of Christ, as helping to explain the atoning efficacy of His work. The inference is made that human natuie in this char- acter is not a concrete, limited entity, such as is the human nature of the individual man, but rather generic or universal. It is then argued that Christ in perfecting His own human nature sanctified human nature in general. Again, it is claimed that, in v-iitue of His literal community with men. His doing was in the proper sense a transaction >rithin, as well as for, the whole body of humanitj-. As an eminently spiritual writer has expressed the thought, ' every man was a part of Him, and He felt the sins of every man, not in sympathy, but in sorrow and abhiinenoe' (Thoniiis Erskine). To such repre-i'iitati'in^ it is legitimate to reply, that what nonl^ to li, Muutified is not human nature in itself, lnu luxiiads of human beings ; that the sanctihcatioii ot liuman nature in Clirist cannot rationally be conceived to have any immediate effect upon its sanctification elsewhere, inasmuch as human nature in Christ cannot be regarded as a stuff out of which men universally are fashioned ; and that a generic or universal human nature belongs purely to the realm of the conceptual, and cannot possibly have any place in the sphere of real being. In short, the line of representation in question rests upon a fiction which modem philosophy for the most part has discountenanced — the fiction of the real existence of universals.