(a) .The doctrine of the eonmumcatio idiomahm, the communication of attributes or properties of one na- ture to the other or to the whole person. The begin- ning of it may be Ibund in Cjrril of Alexandria and John of Damascus ; but it has been much more fhlly Awfoped by the Lutheran Church in the interest of W peculiar tenet of the ubiquity of Christ's body, in order to support Luther's eucharistic theory of consub- Btaotiation so called. It was embodied in the Formu- ^ ConeordicB, but has never been adopted in the Re-
formed or Calvinlstic churches. The Lutheran divines distinguish three kinds of the commwnicaHo idiomatum, which is derived fix>m the oommumo naturantm : (1) ge- nua idiomatiatm (or UioToiriTiK6v)y whereby the prop- erties of one nature are transferred and applied to the whole person (Rom. i, 8 ; 1 Pet. iii, 18 ; iv, 1) ; (2) ge^ nua cpoieieamaticum (rotvowoMyriwSi/), whereby the dirO' TikiafMTa, L e. the redemptoiy ftmctions and actions which belong to the whole person are predicated only of one or the other nature (1 Tim. ii, 6 sq. ; Heb. i, 2 sq.) ; (8) genua caidtematicum (ahxril^f^ov) or majea- iaticum^ whereby the human nature is clothed and magnified by the attributes of the divine nature (John iii, 18; V,27; Matt, xxviii, 18, 20 ; Rom. ix, 6; Phil, ii, 10). Under this head the Lutheran Chureh claims a certain ubiquity or omnipresence for the body of Christ, on the ground of its personal union with the divine nature ; yet she makes this ubiquity dependent on the wUl of Christ, who can be present with his whole person wherever he pleases to be or has prom- ised to be. But for this very reason the Reformed divines reject the whole doctrine of the commumcatio uUomaiumj and pronounce the propoaitionea idiomatica to be mere figures of speech (6XKoiut(riQt a rhetorical exchange of one part for another). See Commuvica- Tio Idiomatitm.
(5) The doctrine of a twofold atate of Christ— the state of humiliation and the state of exalktiion. This is based upon Phil. Ii, 6-9, and is no doubt substan- tially true. The ataiua exinaniiionia (kunuliatioma) embraces the supernatural conception, birth, circum- cision, education, earthly life, passion, death, and bur- ial of Christ ; the atcfhu exaJUOionia includes the resur- rection, ascension, and the sitting at the right hand of God. As to the descent into hell, or Hades rather, the Lutheran and the Reformed churches differ accord- ing to their different conceptions of this difficult article in the Apostles' Creed. The Lutheran Confessions, re- garding it as a triumph over hell, make the deacenaua ad injeroa the first stage of the atatita exaUadomi, while the Reformed Confessions view it as the last stage of the atatua exinanitionia. It is properly the turning- point fh)m the one state to the other, and thus belongs to both. The Lutheran Creed, moreover, refers the ' two states only to the human nature of Christ, regard- ing the divine as not susceptible of any humiliation or exaltation. The Reformed symbols refer them to both natures, so that Christ's human nature was in a state of humiliation as compared with its fhture exal- tation, and hb divine nature was in the state of humil- iation as to its external Manifestation (ratione occulta' tUmia). With them the incarnation itself is the begin- ning of the state of humiliation, while the Lutheran symbols exclude the incarnation ft-om the humiliation. Between the Lutheran divines of TObingen and Gies- sen there was a controversy in the 17th century about the question whether Christ in the state of humilia- tion entirely abstained fh>m the use of his divine at- tributes («vfcKric), or whether he used them secretly (Kpv^ig). The divines of Giessen defended the former, those of Tubingen the latter view. Both schools were agreed as to the possession (icTfjffic^j and difiered only as to the use (xpvc^yt o^ ^^ divine attributes. This controversy has been renewed, in a modified form, among recent German divines. See Kenosis.
(c) The threefold office of Christ. (1) The prophet- ical office (mtmuf, or offidum propheticum) include^ teaching and the miracles of Christ (2) The prie^y office (mtmttf aacerdoiale') consists in the satis&ction made for the sins of the world by the death on the cross, and in the continued intercession of the exalted Saviour for his people (redemptio et inierceaaio aacer^ dotaUa}. (8) The Janglg office (fntrnw regium)^ where- by Christ founded his kingdom, defends his Church against all enemies, and rules all things in heaven and on earth. The old divines distinguish between the reign of nature (regmm natitra sive potential)^ which
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embraces all things ; the reign of grace (rtgmm grcL- tia\ which relates to the chorch militant on earth ; and the reign of glory (rtgnum giorim)^ which belongs to the church triumphant in heaven.
4. Modem Christological speculations. Upon the whole, the orthodox doctrine has laid the main stress upon the divine element in Christ, and left the human element more or less out of sight, without ever deny- ing it. Bationalism, on the contrary, developed the human element to the exclusion and denial of the di- vine. When evangelical theology revived after the reign of Rationalism in Germany, it endeavored to do justice to both elements, and so to reconstruct the old Christology as to set forth the sinless, yet truly human character of Christ fh>m his infuicy to full maturity, without prejudice to his deity. Schleiermacher open- ed a new era of Christological speculation, but, forsak- ing the Chalcedonian basis of two natures in one pec- son, he discarded the proper idea of the incarnation as the union of the eternal personal Logos with human nature, and, after all, presented Christ merely as a perfect model man without sin, in whom God dwelt in a peculiar manner, as he did in no other man before or since. This indwelling of God is with him only a principle, a power of life, and not the second person of the Holy Trinity. Schleiermacher^s view of the Trinity is essentially Sabellian. From him and from Hegers philosophy proceeded two opposite currents of Christological speculation — a humanitarian, nega- tive and infidel, culminating in Strauss and Benan (see below, under the second division, No. 15), and an evangelical, positive and in the main orthodox, which labors to reconcile the old faith of the Church in the God-Man with the demands and forms of modem thougliU The principal evangelical writers on the Christological problem, under its latest phases, are Domer, Lange, Goeschel, Liebner, Martensen, Thoma- sius, Gess, Kahnis, Ebrard. Some of these, especial- ly Thomasius, Gess, and Godet (Commentary qn John), have •strained the Pauline idea of the henotisy the self- limitation, self-renunciation of the Logos, far beyond former conceptions, even to a partial or entire self- emptying of the divine essence and suspension of the inner Trinitarian process during the earthly life of Christ, while others restrict the henotk to the laying aside of the divine form of existence or divine dignity and glory. Domer opposes these modem Kenotics or Eenosists (KenoHker) as a new sect of Theopaschites and Patripassians, and he assumes a gradual ethical and vital unification of the pre-existent Logos and the human nature, by a condescension of the former and an elevation of the latter. This view leaves room for the growth of the Messianic consciousness, but malces the incarnation itself a process of growth which was not completed till the resurrection, or. at least till the baptism of Christ.