Chapter VIOn the Theology of Union in Christ

The first kind of ectypal theology, which is proper to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior alone, is the fullest and most perfect of all that can come into a created thing. For in its condition this kind is nearest to the archetypal, and most closely joined to it in the unity of the subject, that is, the person of Christ; and it subsists in that archetype as in its inseparable principle. This (Thesis XI) theology, which we call of union, is the whole wisdom of divine things communicated to Christ the God-man (θεανθρώπῳ), that is, insofar as the Word was made flesh, according to his humanity. That this theology is in Christ Jesus our Mediator, and that it must be distinguished from the archetypal theology which is in him in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit according to his divine nature in the unity of essence, can be shown by three arguments: from the account of each nature in the person of Christ, from their personal union in Christ, and from our salvation. For if you look to the divine nature, which is most simple, for the divine nature to know is the same as to be; and when we distinguish them, we distinguish only in reason things that are in reality one and most simple. But its being is plainly incommunicable; therefore we must say that its knowing is incommunicable as well. And this divine knowing, by which God knows divine things divinely, or according to the mode of his infinite perfection; this knowing, I say, is that essential and prototypal theology of which we spoke before. Further, if you pass to the human nature, it is certainly no more capable in itself of that divine knowledge than of divine being. That knowledge is contained by divine being; but [human nature] does not contain infinite being, because it is narrow in itself, and there can be no proportion of the finite to the infinite. Therefore human nature does not contain within itself that divine and archetypal knowledge; since it belongs to the divine perfection that it cannot be communicated, [p. 57] and to human slightness that it cannot contain what belongs to the divine perfection. Then too the personal union of the two natures in Christ proves with absolute necessity that the matter is so. For the personal union effects neither a confusion nor a transfusion of the properties that belong to this or that nature, but requires that the properties of each nature be kept intact in their common suppositum and its operations. So in a man the mind understands, not the body; the body serves the mind as an instrument, not the mind the body; while that suppositum constituted of body and mind which we call a man acts in common, both intelligently and instrumentally at once. If, then, the property of the mind remains whole to the mind and cannot be the body's, and the same holds for the properties of the body (for if one held the contrary, it would not be a property), what are we to hold concerning the deity, or that formal knowledge which is supremely proper to the divine essence, or any other property? Lastly, the matter cannot be put otherwise if we want the account of our salvation to stand whole. For no salvation can come to man from Christ Jesus unless we posit that voluntary dispensation according to which Christ (to use the Apostle's words, Phil. 2:7; Heb. 2:14 and 4:15) emptied himself, took the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men, was in all things like his brethren, and was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. If in all things like us, then in knowledge too he must be called like us, although his knowledge is otherwise unequal to and far above the knowledge of us all. What more? Whoever think that Christ's knowledge as man is not to be distinguished from his knowledge as God are certainly sliding little by little, however unwittingly, into the camp of Apollinaris. For as the substance of the divine person does not take away the reality of the human soul in our Savior (as Apollinaris thought), so that divine knowledge which is an essential property of the Deity in the person of Christ does not destroy the knowledge which is a property of the humanity; but both concur in the unity of the suppositum, and each keeps its own reality in the same Christ. The divine knowledge in Christ is incommunicable, yet communicative of its own radiance (ἀπαυγάσματος). That radiance (ἀπαύγασμα), or shining-back, is in the human nature of Christ most fully and most perfectly. Therefore all the fullness of the Godhead is said to dwell in him bodily; and the Apostle declares most weightily that from that fullness it follows [col. 1385] that we are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power, etc. (Col. 1:12).¹ This theology, then, which we call of union, is in Christ. What it is has been nearly made known from what precedes, so far as it can be known in this weakness of ours. For this theology is entirely adequate to that which, in the chapter just before, we said is called theology simply or in itself: as far as theology simply so called (created, I say, and communicated or participated) extends, so far extends the theology of Christ our Savior according to his humanity. There is nothing in created things that is in any respect theological (θεολόγον) except from this theology of Christ. This theology he received from the Father for our sakes, and we from him: he is full of grace and truth, and of his fullness have all we received (John 1:16). What we say is shown by a just comparison of the two theologies according to their definitions. Of the former we said in the preceding chapter, Theology simply so called is the whole wisdom of divine things communicable to a created thing according to the mode of the one communicating. Now turn your eyes and thought to this one: you will see that everything in the two is plainly the same, apart from the determination of act and of subject, when we say, The theology of union is the whole wisdom of divine things communicated to Christ the God-man (θεανθρώπῳ), that is, insofar as the Word was made flesh, according to his humanity. For where the former was called communicable, that is, in potency (so to speak) and indeterminately, here it is called communicated, in determinate act. And where no subject was present in the former's definition, because it was considered simply and in itself, here the most ample and incomparable subject is supplied by saying that this theology is communicated to Christ the God-man (θεανθρώπῳ). [p. 58] This is as much as to say that the theology considered simply in potency is, the whole of it, finally terminated in act in Christ. Yet if anyone should perhaps want it otherwise, come, let us try to define this theology of union by its causes. This theology, then, is the wisdom of divine things communicated divinely to a man in the Spirit of God without measure, for the enlightening of all those who were created after the image of God. This is that theology in itself; and if it is viewed in a subject (as it must be), it is the theology of Christ our Savior alone, according to his humanity, not of any angel in heaven or of any other man. For since the knowledge of the Deity is an inaccessible fountain and a great abyss, wisdom certainly had to be supplied to the humanity which God assumed as a most abundant stream, yet one suited to created things, from which we all may draw; just as water-engineers offer to the thirsty, to be drawn from a reservoir or pool, the water that flows from an inaccessible spring. In this definition the genus is, as before, wisdom; the differences are set down by way of the causes. The matter is divine things, namely, insofar as they can be communicated and must be set forth to us all in Christ. The form is the Spirit of God given without measure. For (as John answered his disciples, John 3:34) he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him; the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. The efficient cause is divine communication: both that by which God the Father communicates the Spirit to the Son, who emptied himself, according to his humanity, and that by which [the Son] according to his divinity communicates the Spirit to his own humanity by the grace of union, as the scholastics call it, and its efficacy.² For the same Christ is anointing and anointed: anointing according to his divinity, anointed according to his humanity, in the unity of the person. The end is the enlightening of those who were created after the image of God. This enlightening the angels and the blessed receive in heaven, by the present vision of God; here on earth the faithful receive it by its revelation, as absent from the Lord. Though he is not far from every one of us, as Paul shows excellently (Acts 17:27); yet while we tarry here in the body, abroad and absent from the Lord, each of us walks by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). In Christ our Redeemer, therefore, there is a twofold mode of theological wisdom: one divine, according to his deity; the other quasi-divine, according to his humanity. This quasi-divine mode is both divine in its eternal principle, abiding eternally in the unity of the person, and quasi-divine, or next to divine, in its own mode. For both had to be in Christ our Mediator at once, so that in this way he might associate and unite divine things with human, reconcile God to men, and bring men to God: the one Immanuel, the Word made flesh, God manifest in the flesh, in whom [col. 1386] are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and who of God is made unto us wisdom, as the Apostle teaches (Isa. 17:14;³ John 1:14; 1 Tim. 3:16; Col. 2:9; 1 Cor. 1:30). And this theology, as it is considered most absolute in Christ himself, is also distinguished from the archetypal theology of which we spoke first, in the very respects we laid down in chapter 4. For although the subject, or suppositum as they call it, of both is one and common, namely the person of Christ, nevertheless that archetypal theology is uncreated from eternity; essential or formal, one and the same of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; most absolute in itself, as having all things in itself from its own light; infinite; whole at once; and incommunicable. But this ectypal theology is created and began in time; it is habitual; it is most absolute according to the mode of a created nature, as having in the person, from the light of the other nature personally united to it, its most simple and absolute principle. It is also quasi-infinite and next to infinite, so that in different respects you might not unfittingly call it infinite and finite: infinite, if you compare it with our measured and scant knowledge; finite, if with that essential and infinite [p. 59] wisdom of God. Nor is it whole at once, but shares in vicissitudes, changes, and succession; nor is it incommunicable, being communicated with created things, and in fact communicated according to the measure of his gifts. So much for the theology of union in Christ our Savior, set forth for the salvation of all.