The same doctrine is set forth in a more condensed fbrm in the second part of the so-called Athanaslan Creed, which originated probably in the school of Au- gustine during the fifth century, and is the third of the QBCumenicfid symbols :
^^ Furthermore, it is necessary to ereriastlng ealvation that we beliere also rightly in the incamatioo of our Lord J&us Christ. Mow the right iidth is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Crod, is God and nan ; God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds ; and man, of the substance of his mother, bora in the -world. Perfect God; perfect man, of a reasonable eonl and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead; inferior to the Father as toudbing his manhood. And although he is God and man- yet he is not two, but one Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, hot by assumption of the manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For as the reasonable sonl and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation,** etc
(For an analysis and criticism of this osciunenical or Catholic Christology, see Shedd*s History qfChrisiUm Doctrine, i, 899 sq. ; SchafiTs Church History, iii, 747- 762, and the respective sections of the works of Baor, Domer, and others quoted below.)
2. The Scholastic Christology of the Middle Ages is represented mainly by Anselm (the author of Cmt Deus homo, with his epoch-making theory of the <Am^ ' mewt ; see Anselm), Peter the Lombard, and Thomas Aquinas. It confined itself as regards the person of Christ, to a dialectical analyns and defense of the old Catholic dogma, with some unfinitful speculations on minor points, especially on the abstract question whether Christ wtuld have become incarnate if the Fall had not taken place. Thomas Aquinas decided for the former, as the safer formula (si homo nompee- cosset, Deus incaarfuOm nonftdsaet) ; Ruprecht of Deutz, Duns Scotus, and Alexander Hales for the other view. This question has recently been taken up again and ably discussed by J. MliUer against, Domer and Lieb- ner for, the doctrine of Incamatidh without a FUL See Brit, and For, Evang. Review, Jan. 1861, ait. iv.
8. The pBOTESTAivT or Evangelical Qiristology! The churches of the Reformation, both Lutheran and Reformed or Calvinistic, adopted in their confessiotts of faith, either in form or in substance, the three oecu- menical Creeds (the Apostles*, tiie Nicene, and the Athanasian), and with them the ancient Catholic doc- trine of the Trinity and Christ's divine-human charse^ ter and work, which doctrine is, in fact, the sum and substance of those symbols. We quote from the prin- cipal Protestant confessions :
The Augsburg Confession of the Lntheran Church, Art in. DeFilioDei:
CHRISTOLOGT
281
iCHRISTOLOGt
M/tsm doeentt gnod Verbunt, hoe eat, POku DH, tmutrnp- mrU humanam. naharam in uUro beatm Maria v^nia, tU gint dua nature^ divina et hwnmuu in uaUaU permma in- mparaJbitttmr conhmeta.unu$ CMrtatu^ vere Deus^ tt vere '^ tx Virgine Mariat vers vasn
vers iMiMtM, crueifiam^ mar- tfMt k mpuUuSj ut'neoneUiaret noma Patrwut etlioatia watt nm tantumpro culpa ortotmc, aed etkanpro omnOma actu- aUbuahominumpaecatiaJ'*
The T%irtsf^mne ArUdet of the Chnrch of England, Art. II. Of the Word or Son of God, whkh was
very man:
•■^The Son, whkh If the Word of the Father, bMotten firom ereiteatiiig of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one eahsUnoe with the Father, took man*8 natore in the vanb of the blessed Virgin, of her sabetance: so that two whole and perfect natoree, that is to say, the Godhead and manhood, were Joined together in one Person, never to be di- vided, wbereof is one Christ, very God and very man ; who truly saflEered, was emcified, dead, and bnried, to reconcile his Father to as, and to be a sacrifice not only for oric^nal guilt, bat also for actual sins of men.**
The WestmiMler Cmfeanon^ which gives the clear- est and strongest expression to the fiuth of the strictly RefSormed or Calvinlstic churches, thos states the doc- trine of Christ^s person in cb. viil, § 2 :
^Tba Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being
very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fblness of time was come, take upon him man's nature* with all the essential properties and com- mon infirmities thereof^ yet without sin, being conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her sub- stance: so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or con^sion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the ooly Mediator between God and man.**
The 2d Article of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the same as that of the Church of England, except tiiat the words "begotten fh)m everlasting of the Fa- ther,** and ''of her substance," are omitted (probably by ^pographical error).
On this general basis of the Chalcedonian Christol- ogy, and following the indications of the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, the Lutheran and Reformed churches have built some additional views or devel- oped new aspects of Christ's person. Protestantism cannot consistently adopt any doctrinal or disdplinaiy decisions of the Church as strictly in&llible and as an absolute jSno^s, but simply with the reservation of the ri^t of ftirther research, and with the understanding of a constant progress in theology— not, indeed, of a progress beyond Christ and the Bible, but in the ever- deepening apprehension and subjective appropriation of Christ and his in&llible word. There is a charac- teristic difference between the Christology of the Lu- theran and that of the Beformed Confessions which alfeets the whole ^rstem. Upon the whole, we may say that the former has a leaning towards the Euty ch- ian conftision of the divine and human nature, the lat- ter to the Nestorian separation ; yet both distinctly ffisown the Eutychian and Nestorian heresies. (On the differenoe between the Lutheran and Reformed Christology, compare espedally the very able and scute treatise of Schneckenburger, Die orthodoxe Lehre 9em doppelten Stande ChriaU nach lutheriacher und re- firmirter FoMsmg [Pforzheim, 2d ed. 1861] ; also his Var^MMkmdA IktnUBmg d. kOheriachen «. reformirten LArbeffr^a, edited by Glider [Stuttgart, 1866].) The progress made in Christology since the Reformation viUim the limits of the Chalcedonian orthodoxy, or, St an events, not in conflict with it, relates to the com- monion of the two natures, and to the states and the oiBces of Christ.