THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
yet divinely human being, speaking of himself always as a unit. It was suggested by Zinzendorf in the form of devout sentimentalism that brought the divine Christ down to the closest 1. General intimacy with men; it was scientif- Outline. ically developed, though with various modifications, by a number of eminent German divines of the Lutheran Confession (Thomasius, Liebner, Gess, Von Hofmann, Kahnis, Delitzsch, Schoberlein, Kiibel), and several Reformed divines (Lange, Ebranl, Godet, Pressens^, in Europe, Henry M. Goodwin and Howard Crosby in America). It is hardly just to call it (with Dorner) a revival of Apollinarianism and Patiipassianism; for, while it resembles both in some features, it differs from them by assuming a truly humanized Logos dwelling in a human body. It carries the Kcnosis much farther than the Giessen Lutherans, and makes it consist, not in a concealment merely (krypsis), but in an actual abandonment of the divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, during the whole period of humiliation from the incarnation to the resurrection; the differences between the advocates of this theory referring to the degree of the Kenosis. It substitutes a genus kenoticum, or tapeinoticum, for the genus majesticum of the Lutheran Creed: in other words, a communication of the properties of humanity to the divinity for a communication of the properties of the divine nature to the human. Instead of raising the finite •ito the infinite, the Kenotic theory lowers the infii rite to the finite. It teaches a temporary self- ^exinanition or depotentiation of the preexistent Logos. In becoming incarnate, the second Person of the holy Trinity reduced himself to the limitations of humanity. He literally emptied himself, not only of his divine glory, but also of his divine mode of existence (the morphe theou), and assumed the human mode of existence (the morphe doulou), subject to the limits of space and time and the laws of development and growth. The incarnation is not only an assumption by the Son of God of human nature, but also a self-limitation of the divine Logos; and both constitute one divinehuman personality. Otherwise the infinite consciousness of the Logos could not coincide with the human consciousness of the historical Christ: it would transcend and outreach it, and the result would be a double personality. The self-limitation is to be conceived as an act of will, an act of God's love, which is the motive of the incarnation; and his love is absolutely powerful, even to the extent of the utmost self-surrender. This was the view of Thomasius, a Bavarian Lutheran. He and Liebner held, first, that the Logos actually became a rational himian soul; but afterward they assumed a truly human soul along with the Kenosis of the Logos, and thereby they lost the chief benefit of the Kenosis theory.
Gess, a Swabian divine brought up under the influence of the school of Bengel, Oetinger, and Beck, and starting from a theosophic Biblical realism, carried the Kenosis to the extent of a suspension of self-consciousness and will. He identified it with the outgoing of the Son from
the Father, or his descent from heaven, which resulted in a temporary suspension of the influx of the eternal life of the Father into
2. Gees, the Son, and a transition from a state
of equality with God into a state of dependence and need. Gess and Ebrard assume an actual transformation of the Logos into a human soul, i.e., he assumed a human body from the flesh of the Virgin, but became a rational human soul so that he had no need of assuming another soul. Consequently the soul of Christ was not derived from Mary: it was the result of a voluntary Kenosis, while an ordinary human soul derives its existence from a creative act of God. It is very questionable whether such a soul, which is the result of a transformation which begins with divinity and ends with divinity, can be called a truly human soul any more than the ApoUinarian Logos, who, remaining unchanged, occupied the place and exercised the functions of the human soul.
Martensen, the Danish theologian, more cautiously taught only a relative, though real, Kenosis.
The eternal Logos continues in God
3. Mar- and in his general revelation to the tensen. world as the author of all reason;
while at the same time he enters into the bosom of humanity as a holy seed, that he may arise within the human race as a mediator and redeemer. He would, however, have become man even without sin, though not as redeemer. Martensen taught, with several of the Fathers and modern German theologians, that the incarnation was necessary for the highest revelation of God, and was only modified, not conditioned, by the fall.
Kahnis and Lange limitpd the T^pnngia substantially to an abandonment of the use, rather 4 Kahnis ^^^^ possession, of the attri-
and Lange. butes. Lange's christology abounds ' in fruitful and original hints for further and clearer development.
Julius Mtiller, one of the profoundest theologians, taught likewise in his lectures a. moderate Kenosis theory. Paul contrastsTTie 5. Julius earthly and preearthly existence of
MuUer. the Son of God as poverty and riches (II Cor. vii. 9), and represents the incarnation as an emptying himself of the full possession of the divine mode of existence (Phil, ii. 6). This implies more than a mere assumption of human nature into union with the Son of God: the incarnation is a real self-exinanition (Selbstentdusserung), and a renunciation, not only of the use, but also of the possession, of the divine attributes and powers. The Church is undoubtedly right in teaching a real union of the di\ine and human nature in Christ. But in the state of humiliation this union was first only potential and concealed; and the unfolded reality belongs to the state of exaltation. Only with the assumption of a self-exinanition can we fully appreciate the act of the self-denying condescension of divine love; while in the orthodox dogma God gives nothing in the incarnation, but simply receives and unites something with his person.
Goodwin differed from the German Kenoticists by assuming that the Logos is the human element