THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
sion to the faith in the incarnation for :if;cs to come. It saves the full idea of the God-in:iii as to
the essential elements, however imper- 3. Ileal feet the form in wliich it is cast. It "Value. defines with sound religious judgment
tlie boundary-line which separates christologieal truth from christological error. It guards against two opposite dangers — the Scylla of Nestorian dualism, and the Charybdis of Eutychian Monophysitism, or against an abstract separation of the divine and human, and an absorption of the human by the divine. It excludes also every kind of mixture of the two natures which would result in a being which is neither divine nor human. With these safeguards, theological speculation may boldly and hopefully move on, and penetrate, if possible, deeper and deeper into the central truth of Christianity.
VII. The Orthodox Protestant Christology: The
churches of the Reformation (Lutheran, Anglican, and Cahdnistic) adopted in their confessions of faith, either in form or in substance, the three ecumenical creeds, and with them the ancient Catholic doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ's divinehuman character and work. They condemned the old and new Antitrinitarians, and the peculiar doctrine of the Socinians — that Christ was raised by his own merit to a participation in the divine honor and dignity. The Unitarians, like the Anabaptists, were everywhere (except in Poland and Transylvania) imprisoned, exiled, or executed; and the unfortimate Servetus was burned as a heretic under the eyes of Calvin and with the approval of the mild BuUinger and Melanchthon. The following are the relevant passages from the principal Protestant confessions.
The Augsburg Confession of the Lutheran Church (1530), Art. iii. {De Filio Dei):
" The Word, that is, the Son of God, took unto him man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, so that there are two natures, the divine and the human, inseparably joined together in unity of person; one Christ, true God and true man: who was born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried."
The Second Helvetic Confession, by BuUinger (1566), chap, xi.:
" There are in one and the same Jesus Christ our Lord, two natures, the divine and the human nature; and we say that these two are so conjoined or united that they are not swallowed up, confounded, or mingled together, but rather united or joined together in one person, the properties of each nature being safe and remaining still: so that we do worship one Christ our Lord, and not two; I say, one, true, God and man; as touching his divine nature, of the same substance with the Father, and as touching his human nature, of the same substance with us, and ' like unto us in all things, sin only excepted.' "
The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, Art. ii.:
" The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God and very man; who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried."
The Westminster Confession, chap, viii., § 2:
" The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity being
very and ctornal God, of one substance and equal with the Fath.^r, did when the fulness of time was come, take upon him man's nature with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sm, being conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance: so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the Manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and men."
The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which is famous for clear and terse definitions, says (Qu. xxi.):
" The only Redeemer of God's elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man, in two distinct natures, and one person forever."
VIII. The Scholastic Lutheran Christology: On
the general basis of the Chalcedonian christology, and following the indications of the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, the Protestant, especially the Lutheran, scholastics, at the close of the sixteenth, and during the seventeenth, century, built some additional features, and developed new aspects of Christ's person. The propelling cause was the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence or omnipresence of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper, and the controversies growing out of it with the Zwinglians and Calvinists, and among the Lutherans themselves (see Lord's Supper; Ltjther; Zwin- GLi; Brenz; Chemnitz; etc.). These new features relate to the communion of the two natures, and to the states and the offices of Christ. The first was the production of the Lutheran Church, and was never adopted, but partly rejected, by the Reformed; the second and third were the joint doctrines of both, but with a very material difference in the understanding of the second.
1. The Communioatio Idiomatum: The communication of attributes or properties (Gk. idiomata, Lat. proprietates) of one nature to the other, or to the whole person. It is derived from the unio personalis and the communio naturarum. The Lutheran divines distinguish three kinds or genera: (1) The genus idiomaticum (or idiopoietikon) , whereby the properties of one nature are transferred and applied to the whole person, for wliich are quoted such passages as Rom. i. 3; I Pet. iii. 18, iv. 1. (2) The genus apotelesmaticum (koinopoietikon), whereby the redemptory functions and actions which belong to the whole person (the apotelesmata) are predicated only of one or the other nature (I Tim. ii. 5-6; Heb. i. 2-3). (3) The genus auchematicum, or majestaticum, whereby the human nature is clothed with and magnified- by the attributes of the divine nature (John iii. 13, v. 27; Matt, xxviii. 18, 20; Rom. ix. 5; Phil. ii. 10). Under this head the Lutheran Church claims a certain ubiquity or omnipresence for the body of Christ, on the ground of the personal union of the two natures; but as to the extent of this omnipresence there were two distinct schools which are both represented inthe Formula of Concord (1577). Brenz and the Swabian Lutherans maintained an absolute ubiquity of Christ's humanity from his very infancy, thus making the incarnation not only an assumption of the human nature, but also a deification of it, although the divine attri-