THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 52
with the disparity of the mode of existence of the two natures,maintaining the presence of Christ to be circumscriptive and local in heaven. 3. The Calvin advanced to the doctrine that Reformed the predicates of redemptive activity Doctrines; apply also really to the human nature Brenz. of Christ, but recoiled from the doctrine of ubiquity. He held that the redemptive powers'‘of the passion and resurrection of Christ are really imparted through the symbols of bread and wine. The believer receives, not the substance, but ‘‘ the communion of the body of Christ ’’ (I Cor. x. 16), mediated by the Holy Ghost. Melanchthon at first adhered to Luther’s concept of the real presence, but always remained skeptical regarding the doctrine of ubiquity. The real presence he desired to see established on mandatory, not magical, grounds. His loyalty to the doctrine is shown by his stanch defense at the Marburg Conference (1529), as well as in art. 10 of the Augsburg Confession (1530-31). But after his dialogue with Gicolampadius he inclined more and more to restrict this presence to Christ as God. As early as 1535, in a letter to Johann Brenz, he adopted the figurative exegesis of the ‘‘is”’ in the words of institution, and he finally came absolutely to deny the doctrine of ubiquity, coming to prefer the ‘‘ communion of the — body of Christ’ as the membership of the faithful in the body of Christ, later emphasized by Calvin. His increasing hostility to ubiquity led to the local view of “‘ the right hand of God”’; and the eucharistic presence of Christ was to him his “* power in the believing.” Melanchthon thus stood much closer to Calvin than to Luther. However favorable the prospects for Protestantism, they were definitely destroyed by the Stuttgart Synod (q.v.) in 1559, when the confession drawn up by Brenz, and adopted, fastened the tenet of ubiquity as a symbol upon the church in Wirttemberg. The result was that in the bitter polemics with Heinrich Bullinger and Pietro Martire Vermigli (qq.v.), Brenz in a series of writings erected on the basis of Luther’s arguments an imposing Christological system. In his De majestate Domini nostri (1562) he reaffirms the two natures in one person upon the broader basis of the incarnation of the Son of God, and consequently the deification of the Son of man. This afforded a double point of departure for the demonstration of ubiquity: ‘‘ the personal union,” and the “ deification.”” The first, which is indissoluble and effected by divine omnipotence, does not involve a mutation of humanity into deity nor a duplication of persons; it is the immediate ground of the communicatio idiomatum, which is not an interchange of specific properties in name only but in fact. To save the human nature from total elimination Brenz drew a distinction between essential and separable, accidental qualities. Deity being without accidental properties, humanity is composite with a constant substance but with such accidents as suffering, mortality, and locality, which may be discarded and replaced by hyperphysical qualities, as accidental accessories, however. Brenz’s weakness consisted in reducing local existence to an accident or negligible quantity, when it was the brunt of his contention. As to the second basis,
53 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Ubiquity
the exaltation, Brenz argues the “ assumption of humanity into deity,” and the infinite domination of the latter. The incarnation is really deification, which transpired in wtero; then was Christ raised to the right hand of God and to full divine majesty, as Lord of all creatures. The human nature is only passively endowed with this power through the grace of the hypostatic union. There is, therefore, a threefold ascension: at the instant of the incarnation, immediately after the resurrection, and, finally, a merely spectacular one. In the state of exinanition Christ lived, during his earthly period, a twofold existence; a divine-human in heaven dominated by his deity, and a human-divine on earth, dominated by his humanity. The “‘ repletive existence,” by virtue of the exaltation at the incarnation, is the real state also of his humanity, only temporarily interrupted or rather attended by the “cireumscriptive existence.” The “ inanition,’’ therefore, postulates only a figurative mode of existence of the man Christ; there was only a “‘ concealment,” not a real ‘‘ kenosis of the function ”’ of the divine properties. Nevertheless, deity was, in an indefinable manner, involved in the process by the communicatio idiomatum. God, although impassible, so appropriated the suffering and death of Christ, or was affected by the same, through the hypostatical union, as though he himself suffered and died. But to take part in suffering and mortality and be impassible at once is a contradiction; so is also an indissoluble union in one person of deity and humanity, both dwelling in bliss and reigning over all the world, and at the same time suffering, dying, and rising again on earth; or, that the man Christ was at oncealiveand dead. Thecommunicatio proved incapable of logical conclusion. On the other hand, the humanity was imperiled, inasmuch as theman Jesus, invisible by his exaltation, i.e., incarnation, was only in loco subject to his condescension. With the proof of ubiquity, the real presence was also established for Brenz. The Maulbronn Conference (q.v.) of 1564 served to reveal the weakness of the Christology of Brenz, yet more enfeebled by Jakob Andrei (q.v.). The doctrine prevailed in Wiirttemberg for the remainder of the century. Martin Chemnitz (q.v.) sought vainly to mediate between the Swabian followers of Brenz and the Philippists of Wittenberg, who rejected ubiquity and the “scholastic disputations’ over the real presence. His teachings, however, re- 4. Chem- mained a mass of disparate elements nitz. of both factions (De duabus naturis in Christo, 1571). Like Melanchthon, following Aristotle’s dictum, “‘ properties do not pass out of their subjects,” he held properties to be essential, not accidental; and locality was, therefore, an essential, not accidental, property of human nature. The genus majestaticum (see CHRISTOLOGY, VIII., 1) thus negated was by degrees regained. Although conceding that human nature can appropriate divine properties only according to the finite human capacity, in the manner of a reenforcement, yet he argued that in Christ this capacity was so augmented by the “‘ personal union ” that the humanity possessed the divine attributes not in substance but efficient power. The humanity was
the automatic organ dynamically of the Logos; the humanity is permeated with deity, after the analogy of heat in the iron, by a process which he termed perichoresis. In the humiliation, the Logos, though never wholly quiescent, retreated to a “‘ concealment of function,” and even to its ‘‘ kenosis.’”” Thus, at the same time, a compensation was rendered for the doctrine of inherent ubiquity, which as an intrinsic possession of the humanity was positively declined, and then regained as a sort of potential ubiquitous presence. This was in conflict with his other assertion of the hypostatic union according to which the humanity embracing all creatures is ever present in the Logos. Chemnitz loses himself, therefore, in distraction between an a priori ubiquity and an a posteriori potential multipresence, and in conflict with his Aristotelian dictum as premise. The logical result of his theories was that the humanity of Jesus was at once essentially circumscribed and potentially omnipresent.
The Formula of Concord (q.v.) presented a loose and incongruous combination of the views of Luther and Brenz and those of Chemnitz. Directly, it may be said, the potential ubiquitous presence is taught by the admission of the views of Chemnitz just mentioned sertatim. While the full possession of the di-
vine majesty is ascribed to the human- 5. Formula ity, omnipresence is never mentioned of Concord. as one of its attributes, being assumed
as implied in omnipotence; and the ‘“‘ repletive existence’ is never expressly asserted of the humanity. Indirectly is taught the essential ubiquity of the body of Christ, by the adoption of large citations from Luther’s eucharistic writings, not excluding the statements on ubiquity and the ‘‘ repletive existence,” particularly by falling back on Luther’s idea of the “ right hand of God” for a figure of the divine majesty. Moreover, the realistic communicatio idiomatum, as the basis of all Christology, was so-carried through with strong emphasis on the integrity of the natures and their properties, the non-receptivity of the divine nature for human properties, and the separation of the two states, that the moderated views of Brenz as promulgated by Andre& and the advanced Melanchthonism of Chemnitz could both accept it.
The inconclusiveness of the Formula proved itself in the reservation entered by Chemnitz with his signature, and the mutual efforts to advance the doctrine of ubiquity to the front on the part of the
two Swabians, Leonhard Hutter (q.v.),
6. The Two who essentially reproduced the views Schools. of Brenz; and Agidius Hunnius (q.v.), who, following Chemnitz (and perhaps
even Luther), maintained an immanent universal presence of the humanity in the Logos, or a passive omnipresence. At the same time, he advanced beyond Chemnitz by raising the “‘ internal presence,” latent during Christ’s humiliation, to an ‘‘ external omnipresence”’ through his exaltation, alongside of which, however, was maintained the continuous spatial presence of the body of Christ in heaven, thus making permanent the dualism of the human existence of Christ which Luther and Brenz had restricted to his humiliation. Thus the doctrine of ubiquity had attained to recognition, and only its
Ubiquit Uhihor