RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Kenosis
earthly and human development of Jesus is clear enough; but these views have nothing in common with a kenosis theory like that of Thomasius.
Through Paul of Samosata and Lucian, with some direct influence from Irenaeus, these views came down to the Antiochian school; and it is neither unfair nor surprising that Cyril 6. The and Apollinaris object to their the- Antiochian ology that it goes only as far as School and uniting man with God, not as far as Tertullian. God in man (enanthropesis) . But this weakness of the early teaching on the Incarnation shows itself not only in Origen and the Antiochian school. Similar thoughts are met with in Athanasius, though already with the complementary ideas which alone remain in Cyril; and from the Council of Nica?a a direct road leads through Marcellus to the dynamic Monarchianism of Photinus. In the West also, which followed Antiochian lines down to 553, in spite of the insistence on the single personality, there are clear enough traces of the idea of a dynamic indwelling of the Logos in the man Jesus. It is evidently not worth while to seek echoes of kenotic ideas in Tertullian; if it could be done at all, it could only be after all danger was past of getting lost in the maze created by a mixture of " simple-modalistic " thoughts, of apologetic conceptions of a theophany, and of traditions of a dynamic indwelling of the verbum ( = sapientia = spiritus) in Christ. The matter is still more complicated in the case of Hilary, even after the painstaking labors of Baur, Dorner, Thomasius, and Wirthmuller. But a minute examination of the works of that eloquent and deepthinking theologian should convince the unprejudiced student that his doctrine is as little kenotic, in the sense of Thomasius, as that of Irenaeus, on whom he shows a certain dependence.
That in theoretical expositions of the Incarnation which held strongly to the immutability of the Godhead expressions should now and then be used which give color to kenotic ideas is not to be wondered at; and the phenomenon occurs not only in Hilary, not only in Irenaeus and Ori- 7. Kenotic gen, but also in the two Gregories, Under- of Nazianzus and of Nyssa. This was current, natural enough, both because the doctrine of the Incarnation rested on the thought of " God manifest in the flesh," and because simple souls understood " the Word was made flesh " for themselves, regardless of the restrictions of theologians; and when " simple-docetic " views were ruled out, there was scarcely anything left for them but the kenotic. The spread of Arianism may possibly be explained by the fact that without hair-splitting it recognizes its Logos as the passible subject of the historic person Jesus. The kenotic undercurrent is partly responsible for the title " Mother of God " and for the phrase (very old in a simple-modalistic sense) " God crucified." In proportion as the Antiochian school, which disapproved of these expressions, was suppressed, the undercurrent came to the surface; and Apollinaris, the antithesis of the Antiochian theologians, sought to give a theological dress to the ideas which it bore with it. After the condemnation of Apollinarian-
ism, such kenosis theories as he had framed were of course impossible — though it is strange that the Alexandrian theology won its victory over Nestorianism and its final triumph at the Council of Chalcedon without showing traces of them. For if (as was de fide after 553) the hypostasis tou logon took to itself an impersonal human nature, a real human life of the historic Jesus is unthinkable if the real subject of this historic person, the Logos, retained his omniscience and his impassibility. But so far as it was possible without endangering the conceptual integrity of the two natures, theologians combated the undercurrent; and they were content to guard the formulas which set the " mystery of the Incarnation " beyond understanding.
In the medieval West, the scholastic theology spent much formal labor on the doctrine of the Incarnation, without paying any attention to the passage in Philippians. That " the Word of God was not changed " in the Incarnation 8. The was an accepted axiom; but whether Problem the finally prevalent formula, that not Ignored the nature common to the divine Perby Scho- sons, but the person of the Word, belasticism. came incarnate, was ever brought into connection with the Philippian passage, it is impossible to say. In any case, its distinction between the nature and the person of the Word would have no significance for the question under discussion; and in regard to the kenosis the medieval Church did not get beyond the early consensus indicated above. The present Roman Catholic theology is in the same position, and pays no heed to the question of kenosis.
Nor did Calvinistic theology go beyond the early consensus, although the use made of the text in Philippians has given the impression that there was a special Calvinistic doctrine on the subject. Calvin says (Institutes II., xiii. 2) : " Paul shows in Phil. ii. 7, that Christ, since he was 9. Calvin- God, might have at once manifested ism not his glory openly to the world, but Really waived his right and of his own will Kenotic. emptied himself, putting on the form of a servant and, content with that humble station, suffering his Divinity to be hidden by a veil of flesh." This kenosis is sometimes described in language which seems to imply a real alteration of the condition of the Logos; but too much weight must not be laid on these expressions, the limitations of which may easily be shown by other more authoritative words, especially the socalled Extra Calvinisticum: " Since the Godhead can not be comprehended and is everywhere present, it follows of necessity that it exists outside of {extra) the human nature which it assumed, but none the less abides within it and personally united with it " (Catechism, ques. 48); " the Logos united human nature with himself in such a manner that he totally inhabited it, and yet totally remained outside of (extra) it, since he is immeasurable and infinite " (Maresius in Schneckenburger, p. 9). There is really here no self-emptying; the Calvinist theologians said with Augustine that the Logos " hid what he was," and the veil was humanity
Kenosis Kent