[631] We anticipate, for the sake of clearness, from the later orthodox writers the names of the three genera. The substance is already in the Formula, and in the treatise of Chemnitz, De duabus naturis in Christo, 1580. For a fuller exposition, with ample quotations from Chemnitz, John Gerhard, Hafenreffer, Hutter, Calov, Quenstedt, König, Baier, Hollaz, see Heinrich Schmid's Dogmatik der evang. lutherischen Kirche (2d ed. 1847), pp. 252 sqq.; comp. also Luthardt, pp. 144 sqq., and Kahnis, Vol. II. pp. 335 sqq.
[632] This genus was subsequently subdivided into three species, corresponding to the concretum of the divine nature, the concretum of the human nature, and the concretum of both natures, of which the idiomata are predicated, viz., (a) idiopoiesis, or oikeisis, i.e., 'appropriatio, quando idiomata humana de concreto divinæ naturæ enuntiantur,' Acts iii. 15; xx. 28; 1 Cor. ii. 8; Gal. ii. 20; Psa. xlv. 8. (b) Koinonia ton theion, 'divinorum idiomatum, quando de persona verbi incarnati, ab humana natura denominata, idiomata divina ob unionem personalem enuntiantur,' John vi. 62; viii. 58; 1 Cor. xv. 47. (c) Antidosis, or sunamphoterismos, 'alternatio s. reciprocatio, qua tam divina quam humana idiomata de concreto personæ sive de Christo, ab utraque natura denominato, prædicantur,' Heb. xiii. 8; Rom. ix. 5; 2 Cor. xiii. 4; 1 Pet. iii. 18. See Schmid, p. 258.
[633] 'The expression is borrowed from John of Damascus. apotelesma means properly completion of the work (consummatio operis), effect, result; but it is here used for each action in the threefold office of Christ.
[634] From auchema, gloria. This genus is also called beltiosis, huperupsosis, metadosis, theosis, apotheosia, theopoiesis, unctio.
[635] Sol. Decl. Art. VIII. p. 685 (ed. Müller).
[636] P. 689.
[637] Sol. Decl. p. 684: 'Was die göttliche Natur in Christo anlanget, weil bei Gott keine Veränderung ist (Jac. 1,17), ist seiner göttlichen Natur durch die Menschwerdung an ihrem Wesen und Eigenschaften nichts ab-oder zugegangen, ist in oder für sich dadurch weder gemindert noch gemehret.' This raises the question how far the unchangeableness of God is affected by the incarnation, about which Dr. Dorner has written some profound articles in the Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theologie, 1856 and 1858.
[638] As Thomasius and Kahnis (Vol. III. p. 339) admit.
[639] 'Weil Gottheit und Menschheit,' he says (Vol. XXX. p. 204, Erl. ed.), 'Eine Person ist, so giebt die Schrift um solcher persönlichen Einigkeit willen auch alles, was der Menschheit widerfährt, der Gottheit, und wiederum. Und ist auch also in der Wahrheit. Denn da musst du ja sagen: Die Person leidet, stirbt; nun ist die Person wahrhaftiger Gott: durum ist's recht geredet: Gottes Sohn leidet.'
[640] See above, pp. 290-294.
[641] Epit. VIII. (p. 545, ed. Müller): 'Wir gläuben, lehren und bekennen, dass die göttliche und menschliche Natur nicht in ein Wesen vermenget, keine in die andere verwandelt, sondern ein jede ihre wesentliche Eigenschaften behalte, Welche der andern Natur Eigenschaften Nimmermehr Werden. Die Eigenschaften göttlicher Natur sind: allmächtig, ewig, etc., sein, welche der menschlichen Natur Eigenschaften nimmermehr werden. Die Eigenschaften menschlicher Natur sind: ein leiblich Geschöpf oder Creatur sein, etc., welche der göttlichen Natur Eigenschaften nimmermehr werden.' Comp. the Sol. Decl. Art. VIII.
[642] Epit. VIII. (p. 545): 'Sondern hie ist die höchste Gemeinschaft, welche Gott mit dem Menschen wahrhaftig hat, aus welcher persönlichen Vereinigung und der daraus erfolgenden höchsten und unaussprechlichen Gemeinschaft alles herfleusst, was menschlich von Gott, und göttlich vom Menschen Christo gesaget und gegläubet wird; wie solche Vereinigung und Gemeinschaft der Naturen die alten Kirchenlehrer durch die Gleichniss eines feurigen Eisens, wie auch der Vereinigung Leibes und der Seelen im Menschen erkläret haben.' The Sol. Decl. repeats the same at greater length.
[643] The words ' dass Christus auch nach und mit seiner assumirten Menschheit gegenwärtig sein könne und auch sei, wo er will,' clearly express the multivolipræsentia of Chemnitz and the Saxons. Nevertheless, Chemnitz, to his own regret, could not prevent the wholesale indorsement and quotation of Luther's views--that wherever Christ's divinity is, there is also his humanity; that he may be and is in all places wherever God is; that the ascension is figurative; that the right hand of God is every where, etc. Hence it is scarcely correct when Kahnis says (Vol. II. p. 581) that the compromise of the Formula leans to the side of Chemnitz. Compare the thorough discussion of Dorner, Entwicklungsgeschichte, Vol. II. pp. 710 sqq., who clearly shows that Chemnitz made several fatal concessions to the Swabian Christology. Hence the opposition of Heshusius and the Helmstädt Lutherans (see p. 293).
[644] Dorner, Vol. II. p. 771, 'Die Vermittlungsversuche des I. Andreæ und Chemnitz erreichten in Betreff des eigentlichen Gegensatzes zwischen den Schwaben und Niederdeutschen keine innere Einigung, sondern nur eine Vereinigung van disharmonischen Sätzen von beiden Seiten her in einem Buch. Die Folge war daher nicht Eintracht, sondern vielseitige Zwietracht.'
[645] The Formula teaches the ktesis with a partial kenosis chreseos, and so far seems to favor the later Giessen view, although the issue was not yet fairly before the authors. Sol. Decl. Art. VIII. (p. 767 ed. Rech., p. 680 ed. Müller): 'Eam vero majestatem statim in sua conceptione etiam in utero matris habuit, sed ut apostolus loquitur (Phil. ii. 7), se ipsum exinanivit, eamque, ut D. Lutherus docet, in statu suæ humiliationis secreto habuit, neque eam semper, sed quoties ipsi visum fuit, usurpavit.' An occasional use of the divine attributes during the state of humiliation was expressly conceded by the Giessen divines; they only denied the constant and full (though secret) use contended for by the Tübingen school. See above, p. 295. The Lutheran scholastics were more on the side of the Giessen divines.
[646] This is admitted, in part at least, by Dr. Stahl, one of the ablest and most clear-headed modern champions of orthodox Lutheranism, when he says: 'Die Lehre von der Allgegenwart des Leibes Christi ist, abgesehen von der Anwendung auf das Abendmahl, von gar keinem religiösen Interesse' (Die lutherische Kirche und die Union, Berlin, 1859, p. 185).
[647] It is objected that omnipotence could not be given to the divine person of Christ, who had it from eternity essentially and of necessity, but only to his human nature. But this reasoning implies a virtual denial of the kenosis, or laying aside of the pre-existent glory which Christ had as God, and was going to take possession of again as God-man at his exaltation, John xvii. 5 (doxason me . . . te doxe e eichon pro tou ton kosmon einai para soi).
[648] According to the Romish liturgy, the elements are literally changed or transubstantiated into the very body and blood of Christ by the consecration of the priest when he repeats the words of institution, Hoc est corpus meum; and hence the priest is blasphemously said to create the body of Christ. But, according to the Oriental and Greek liturgies, the presence of the body and blood of Christ is effected by the Benediction or Invocation of the Holy Ghost, which follows the recital of the words of institution. Calvin and the Reformed liturgies likewise bring in the agency of the Holy Ghost, but simply for conveying the energy or the power and effect of the body and blood of Christ in heaven to the believing communicant.
[649] The Roman Catholic Bellarmin (see below) and Reformed polemics (also Steitz on Ubiquity, in Herzog's Encykl.) argue that the ubiquity dogma destroys the Lutheran corporeal presence, and logically ends in the Calvinistic theory of the spiritual real presence. But we would rather say that it ends in a crypto-panchristism, which is quite foreign to Calvin. The doctrine of ubiquity was, before Luther, always connected with a leaning to Gnosticism and Pantheism, as in Origen and Scotus Erigena.
[650] The Lutherans exclude all ideas of local extension or expansion from the body of Christ, and describe it just as the scholastics and the ancient philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Philo) describe the presence of incorporeal substances, and especially of the Deity itself, which is 'unextended,' 'indistant,' 'devoid of magnitude,' not part of it here and part of it there, but whole and undivided every where and nowhere. See Cudworth's Intellectual System of the Universe, Harrison's ed. (Lond. 1845), Vol. III. p. 248.
[651] Including such unbiased philological commentators as De Wette and Meyer. See especially Meyer on Matthew xxvi. 26 (pp. 548 sqq. of the 5th ed.), and my annotations to Lange on Matthew, Am. ed., pp. 470-474. Kahnis, who formerly wrote an elaborate historical work in defense of the Lutheran doctrine (Die Lehre vom Abendmahl, Lipz. 1851), has more recently (1861) arrived at the conclusion that 'the Lutheran interpretation of the words of institution must be given up,' though he thinks that this affects only the Lutheran theology, not the Lutheran faith.
[652] I have briefly expressed my own view in Com. on Matthew, p. 471: . . . 'But we firmly believe that the Lutheran and Reformed views can be essentially reconciled, if subordinate differences and scholastic subtleties are yielded. The chief elements of reconciliation are at hand in the Melanchthonian-Calvinistic theory. The Lord's Supper is: (1.) A commemorative ordinance, a memorial of Christ's atoning death, and a renewed application of the virtue of his broken body and shed blood. (This is the truth of the Zwinglian view, which no one can deny in the face of the words of the Saviour: 'Do this in remembrance of me.') (2.) A feast of living union of believers with the ever-living, exalted Saviour, whereby we truly, though spiritually, receive Christ with all his benefits, and are nourished by his life unto life eternal. (This was the substance for which Luther contended against Zwingli, and which Calvin retained, though in a different scientific form, and in a sense rightly confined to believers.) (3.) A communion of believers with one another as members of the same mystical body of Christ. . . . It is a sad reflection that the ordinance of the Lord's Supper--this feast of the unio mystica and communio sanctorum, which should bind all pious hearts to Christ and each other, and fill them with the holiest and tenderest affections--has been the innocent occasion of the bitterest and most violent passions and the most uncharitable abuse. The eucharistic controversies are among the most unrefreshing and apparently fruitless in church history. Theologians will have much to answer for at the judgment-day for having perverted the sacred feast of divine love into an apple of discord. No wonder that Melanchthon's last wish and prayer was to be delivered from the rabies theologorum. Fortunately, the blessing of the holy communion does not depend upon the scientific interpretation and understanding of the words of institution, but upon the promise of the Lord, and upon childlike faith which receives it, though it may not fully understand the mystery of the ordinance. Christians celebrated it with most devotion and profit before they contended about the true meaning of those words, and obscured their vision by all sorts of scholastic theories and speculations. Fortunately, even now Christians of different denominations and holding different opinions can unite around the table of their common Lord and Saviour, and feel one with him and in him who died for them all, and feeds them with his life once sacrificed on the cross, but now living forever. Let them hold fast to what they agree in, and charitably judge of their differences; looking hopefully forward to the marriage supper of the Lamb in the kingdom of glory, when we shall understand and adore, in perfect harmony, the infinite mystery of the love of God in his Son our Saviour.'
[653] See, especially, Meyer (who ably defends the patristic and Reformed exegesis against the objections of De Wette and Philippi), and Braune on Phil. ii. 6 sqq. (Am. ed. of Lange). The latter says: 'hos of has for its antecedent Christo Iesou, and points to his ante-mundane state, as verses 7 and 8 refer to his earthly existence, and verses 9-11 refer to his subsequent glorified condition. The subject is the Ego of the Lord, which is active in all the three modes of existence. It is the entire summary of the history of Jesus, including his ante-human state.' Among the dogmatic theologians of the Lutheran Church, Liebner, Thomasius, Kahnis, Gess, and others, give up the old Lutheran exegesis of the passage. Kahnis (in the third volume of his Luth. Dogmatik, 1868, p. 341) makes, as the result of his earnest investigation, the following clear and honest statement: '(a) Dass Paulus in der Offenbarungsgeschichte Jesu Christi drei Stadien unterscheidet: das Stadium der Gottesgestalt, da der Logos beim Vater war; das Stadium der Knechtsgestalt, das mit der Selbstverleugnung Christi in der Menschwerdung begann und zur Erniedrigung am Kreuze fortging; das Stadium der Erhöhung, da im Namen Christi sich alle Knie beugen und ihn als Herrn bekennen. (b) Dass das Subjekt der Erniedrigung der logos asarkos ist, wie schon die alte Kirche in ihren namhaftesten Lehrern sah, die reformirten Theologen richtig erkannten und auch die bedeutendsten neueren Ausleqer aller Confessionen zugestehen, das Subjekt der Erhöhung aber der logos ensarkos. (c) Dass die Entäusserung (eauton ekeuose) darin besteht, dass der Logos sich der Gottesgestalt (morphe theou) d. h. des Herrlichkeitsstandes beim Vater begab, um Knechtsgestalt (morphe doulou) anzunehmen, d.h. ein Mensch wie wir zu werden, ja als Mensch sich zum Kreuzestode zu erniedrigen (etapeinosen eauton): Entäusserung also gleich Menschwerdung ist. Darnach fordert dieses Lehrstück eine andere Fassung, als die alte [Luther.] Dogmatik ihm gab.'