CHRIST IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
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1. The Lutheran Church led the ^vay in this scholastic development, by its endeavours to set in clearer li<j;ht the unity of tiie God-manhood of Christ. Tlie Formula of Concord (1577, published in the Book of Concord, 1580) struck a compromise between the diverjient views of the Brenzian and tlie Cliemnitzian doctrine. It held tliat the two natures of Clirist had direct and real communion with each otlier ; and it condemned as Nestorian tlie view that rested the unity of Christ upon the unity of the Person, as if the natures were com- bined in an external way, like two boaids glued together. There was a real passing over of the properties of the Divine nature to the human nature ; not in the sense that tlie human nature was essentially altered thereby, or made the Divine properties its own l)y a ' physical communication ' or ' essential transfusion,' but in the sense of a real and permanent communication, such that Christ ' performed all the works of His omnipotence in, through, and with His human nature.' It was admitted that this majesty communicated to the human nature was liidden or withheld during Christ's earthly life ; He did not always manifest it, but only when it pleased Him to do so ; or (as it is elsewhere expressed) He 'divested Himself of His Divine majesty in the state of His humilia- tion,' thougli retaining it througli the personal union. By the resurrection this occultation of tlie Divine majesty came to an end, and He was placed in tlie plenary use, revelation, and mani- festation of all Divine powers, so tliat 'now not only as God but also as man He knows all things, is able to do all tilings, and exercises an omni- present dominion.'
This Formula of Concord proved in reality a formula of discord to the Lutheran divines ; it Avas variously interpreted, and not even universally accepted. The theologians of Helmstadt, who followed the more moderate Chemnitzian view, were all the more opposed to the Formula that it was interpreted by the Swabian theologians in a sense that restored the Brenzian tradition. The Swabiansjiresented the doctrine of the C'omHi?<?iicnriio idiomntum in the most uncompromising form ; and, in the most incautious and absolute terms, they attributed the Divine attributes of eternity, omni- presence, omnipotence, and omniscience to the earthly human Christ. For a time the Swabian views prevailed ; but something had still to be done to harmonize them with the historical facts of Christ's earthly life. A new controversy arose, in which the differences between Chemnitz and Brenz reappeared in an acuter form, as to what was involved in the state of humiliation, or the extent to which the human Christ had divested Himself of the Divine powers. The controversy raged chiefly between the theologians of Giessen and Tiibingen. The theologians of Giessen, follow- ing the line of thought of Chemnitz and the divines of Helmstadt, endeavoured to reconcile theory with fact by distinguishing between the possession, of Divine powers and their use. Looking to the facts of weakness, ignorance, and growing develop- ment in the life of the earthly Christ, they main- tained that, while possessing all Divine properties, Christ did not make use of them in the state of humiliation, but entered on the full exercise of His powers at His exaltation. Only occasionally (miracles, transfiguration) did rays from the Divine majesty shine through ; in general the Logos re- mained quiescent, and the human natiire, though Divinely endowed, did not advance to the actuality of exercise (Kivw<n^ r^s xpM^'^'^)- This doctrine was contested by the theologians of Tiibingen, who regarded the distinction as futile and involving a betrayal of the Lutheran position. Tliey insisted that there would be no real communication of VOL. II. — 55
Divine attributes to the humanity unless the human Christ both possessed and used them. They would admit only that the earthly Christ hid His majesty for the time, and usually made a veiled use of His Divinely communicated powers (Kpv\f/is). This theory was apparently more logical than that of the Giessen theologians ; but neither could be harmonized with the facts of Christ's earthly life, and the Tiibingen theory brought the inconsistency into more startling evidence. The Giessen dis- tinction between use and possession of Divine powers might be applied with some meaning to the property of omnijiotence ; but it had no con- ceivable meaning as applied to omniscience or omnipresence. But it fared even worse with the Tiibingen view when brought face to face with the facts. For how could a CTirist who possessed and used the property of omnipresence in His humanity be at the same time and in the same nature ciicum- scribed in time and space ? How could a growing intelligence be at the same time endowed with absolute omniscience ? Or how could the weak, human, sufi'ering Christ be also in the full exercise of His omnipotence? The Tiibingen theologians did their best to .solve these startling contradic- tions by making small concessions, and minute distinctions that concealed these concessions. Thus they maintained that the earthly human Christ exercised His omnipresence not actu naturce but actn personcc ; or, in other words, that the Person exercised it while the human nature remained under limitations — a verbal distinction which left the difficulty where it Mas. In regard to the omniscience of Christ, which seemed to clash with the fact of His gradual growth in knowledge, they submitted that omniscience Avas not incompatible with growth in a perfected human nature ; and they suspected Mk 13^^, where Christ confesses His own ignorance, of being an interpolation. Or, again, when pressed with the facts of Christ's suffering and weakness as being inconsistent with a full energizing omnipotence, they admitted that Christ, for the sake of His redemptive work, ' retracted ' somewhat of His Divine majesty. They made a distinction between the ' reflex ' and the ' direct ' use of omnipotence, declaring that Christ, qtia Snccrdos, withdrew the reflex use of His majesty with reference to His own body, while He still, qzia Rex, exercised the direct use of it in reference to creation.