I. The Heresy and its Condemnation by

THE Church. — The dogmatic definition of the humanity of Jesus Christ against the Docetae clearly involved the inference that the manhood of our Blessed Redeemer was essentially com- posed of a material body and a spiritual soul. Nevertheless Arius declared Christ to be a syn- thesis of the Logos with inanimate flesh, while Apollinaris argued that, though our Lord had a soul, He lacked reason.
a) The Arians were consistent with themselves in affirming that Christ, whom they believed to be a synthesis of the Logos with soulless flesh, had no human soul.
The Arian idea was that the Logos simply supplied and exercised the functions of a human soul. The im- piousness of this heresy lay in its denial of the Divinity of the Logos, — which explains the remark made by St. Athanasius : " The Arians vainly have recourse to sub- tleties, saying that the Saviour assumed mere flesh, and
ARIANISM AND APOLLINARIAXISM 49
impiously ascribing the passion to the impassible God- head." ^
Thus Arianism was a Christological heresy- only indirectly and by implication, whereas Apol- linarianism expressly attacked the integrity of our Lord's manhood.
Apollinaris was Bishop of Laodicea in Syria and died in the year 390. After having valiantly supported St. Athanasius in his defense of the Homoousion, he fell away from the orthodox faith and asserted that the body of Christ was animated by an inferior life-prin- ciple (^ux^ CotTucT] oAoyos), but had. no himian or rational soul (fv)^ XoytKij, voepd) ; the place of the missing vow being supplied by the Divine Logos.^ In other words, the Son of God actually assumed living flesh (adp^, i. e., an animated body), but the place of the human vous or TTvevfia was supplied by the Godhead- This new heresy ' was based on two separate and distinct errors : ( i ) A wrong notion of the human synthesis, which Apollinaris imagined to consist of three separate and distinct ele- ments, vis.: flesh, soul, and reason;* (2) a misconcep- tion of the true nature of the Hypostatic Union, by virtue of which Divinity and humanity subsist side by side in the personal unity of the Logos. If Christ were a perfect man, argued Apollinaris, He would have two na- tures, which means two persons, and hence there would be two Sons of God, one begotten and the other adopted, be-
1 Contr. Apollin., I. 3 Bardenhewer-Shahan, Patrology,
2 Cfr. Funk-Cappadelta, A Manual pp. 242 sq.
of Church History, Vol. I, pp. 153 * aap^, aufia, ^I'XV oXoyo^; povs,
sq., London 1910; Pohle-Preuss, irvev/JUlj ''f'^'XV ^•7**'?. This di-
God the Author of Nature and the vision is Platonic. Supernatural, p. 145.
50 DUALITY IN UNITY
cause two beings each of which is perfect in itself, can
never be united into one (Suo rcActa cv yevecrdai ov Swarat).^
b) In condemning Apollinarianism the Church simultaneously struck at the Christological heresy of the Arians.
a) Regardless of his early friendship for Apollinaris, St. Athanasius persuaded the Council of Alexandria (A. D. 362) to anathematize the errors of that heretic. A more important definition is contained in the seventh anathema of Pope Damasus at the Council of Rome, 380: " Anathematizamus eos, qui pro hominis anima rationabili et intelligihili dicunt Dei Verbum in humana came ver- satiim — We pronounce anathema against those who say that the Word of God is in the human flesh in lieu and place of the human, rational, and intellective soul." The phrase Ik crees of many subsequent councils, especially that of Chal- cedon (A. D. 451),' and soon takes rank as a technical term. Among Western creeds the " Athanasian " is mod- elled upon the symbol of Chalcedon in the passage which reads : " Perfectus Deus, perfectus homo, ex anima ra- tionali et humana carne subsistens — Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh sub- sisting." ^ Arianism and Apollinarianism were again condemned in the fifteenth century by Eugene IV in his Decretum pro lacobitis, published at the Council of Florence: " Anathematisat [Ecclesia] Arium etiam, qui
6 Cfr. St. Athanasius, Contra in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. I.
Apoll., I, 2; J.Draseke, Apollinaris 6 Also in that of Constantinople,
von Laodicea, sein Leben und seine A. D. 381.
Schriften, Leipzig 1892; G. Voisin, 7 Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, En-
L'Apollinarisme, Louvain 1901; J. chiridion, n. 40, 65. F. Sollier, art, " ApoUinarianiam "
ARIANISM AND APOLLINARIANISM 51
asserens corpus ex znrgine assumptum animd caruisse voluit loco animal fuisse deitatem; Apollinarem quoqtte, qui intelligcns, si anima corpus informans negetur in Christo, humanitatem veram ibidem non fuisse, solam posuit animam sensitivam, sed deitatem Verbi vicem ra- tionalis animae tenuisse — [The Church] pronounces anathema also against Arius, who, asserting that the body [which Jesus] assumed from the Virgin lacked a soul, held that the Godhead took the place of the soul; and likewise against Apollinaris, who, aware that if we deny the existence in Christ of a soul informing the body, He cannot have possessed a true human nature, taught that Jesus had only a sensitive soul and that the Godhead of the Logos supplied the place of the ra- tional soul." ®
P) Of exceptional importance among the ec- clesiastical definitions of our dogma is a decree of the Council of Vienne,^ which not only asserts the co-existence in Jesus Christ of a body and a rational soul, but defines their mutual relation. "Confiteyniir, unigenitiim Dei Filium in Us omni- bus, in quibiis Dens Pater existit, una cum Patre aeternaliter siihsistentem, partes nostrae naturae simul unitas, ex qiiibns ipse in se verus Dens existens Heret verus homo, hiimamim videlicet corpus passibile et animam intellectivam sen ra- tionalem ipsum corpus vere per se et essentialiter informantem assumpsisse ex tempore in virginali thalamo ad unitatem suae hypostasis et personae."
8 Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 710. » A. D. 1311.
52 DUALITY IN UNITY
Anglice: "We profess that the only-begotten Son of God, who eternally subsists with the Father in all those respects in which the Father exists, assumed in time, in the virgin's bridal chamber, the parts of our nature united together, by which He, being in Himself true God, became true man; vis.: a passible human body and an in- tellective or rational soul informing that body truly per se and essentially ; and that He assumed them into the unity of His Hypostasis and Person." '"
.2. The Teaching of Revelation. — The dog- matic teaching of the Church in regard to the integrity of Christ's human nature is merely the technical formulation of a truth plainly contained in Holy Scripture and Tradition.
a) The New Testament writings, especially the Gospels, portray Jesus Christ in His daily intercourse with men, in His joys and sorrows. They tell how He suffered hunger and thirst, weariness and exhaustion. It is impossible to assume that He who conversed as a man with men and shared their sentiments, had no human (i. e. rational) soul.
That He Himself expressly claimed such a soul is evidenced by a number of unmistakable texts ; e. g. John X, 17: "Ego pono animam meam {rrjv \jrvxr}v fiov), ut
10 On the bearing of this definition see Pohle-Preuss, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, pp. 142 sqq.
CHRIST'S HUMAN NATURE 53
iierum sumam earn." Our English Bible renders this passage as follows : " I lay down my life, that I may take it again." But even if anitna were here synonymous with " life" (z'ita, ^otrj), we should evidently have to as- sume the existence of a soul, because without a soul there can be neither life nor death. Our Divine Re- deemer exclaims on the Cross : " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." " " Spirit" in this con- text manifestly does not mean the " Divinity " of the Logos, but His human soul, about to leave His body. For St. Luke adds : " And saying this, he gave up the ghost." ^^ What is here called " spirit " (spiritiis, TTvevfia) is elsewhere referred to as " soul " (anima, ijn^xT]), so that we have solid Scriptural warrant for say- ing : Spirit = soul, 1. e., spiritual soul (anima rationalis) .
Probably the text most fatal to Arianism and Apolli- narianism is Matth. XXVI, 38: " My soul is sorrowful even unto death." Here Christ imequivocally asserts that He has a soul susceptible to the spiritual affection of sor- row. Such a soul cannot be other than a spiritual soul.^^
The mutual relationship of body and soul in the sacred humanity of our Lord, as defined by the Council of Vienne, has a solid Scriptural foundation in the fact that the Bible again and again refers to Jesus Christ as " true man," " the Son of man," and " Son of Adam." One of the most effective texts is i Tim. II, 5 : " There is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Obviously Christ would not be true man, nor could He act as mediator between God and men if,
11 rh iTpevfxa fiov. Luke XXIII, X: " Tristis est non ipse Deus, sed 46. anima; suscepit enim animam meant,
12 i^irvevaey^ expiravit. See Luke suscepit corpus meum; non me fe- XXIII, 46. fellit, ut alius esset et alius videre-
13 Cfr. St. Ambrose, In Luc, 1. tur."
54 DUALITY IN UNITY
instead of being united in an essential unity of nature, body and soul had existed separately in His Person.
But does not the Johannine dictum : ^* " Et verbum caro ^^ factum est " preclude the existence of a spir- itual soul in Christ? It does not, because the synec- dochical use of " flesh " for " man " is quite common throughout the Bible.^^
b) In formulating the Patristic argument for our thesis it will be advisable to regard the Fathers ( i ) as simple witnesses of Tradition and (2) as theologians or philosophers concerned with the speculative demonstration of the dogma.
a) Let us first consider their testimony as that of simple witnesses to Tradition.
Those of the Fathers who lived after the ter- mination of the Arian and ApoUinarist contro- versy, express themselves with unmistakable clearness. ^^ The case is different with certain earlier Fathers, who are charged by Protestant writers ^^ with having held Arian or ApoUinarist views on the subject of Christology. It is easy to show that this charge is unfounded. Some of the earliest among the Fathers believed that Christ was constituted of "flesh" {caro, (spiritus, -rrvfvfm) ; but they were far from regard- ing Him as a compound of Divinity and in-
14 John I, 14. 17 Cfr. Thomassin, De Incarna-
115 a&pi- tione, IV, 8 sq.
18 For the necessary references 18 E. g,, Miinscher, De Wette,
consult Card. Franzelin, De Verba Neander. Incarnato, thes. 11.
CHRIST'S HUMAN NATURE 55
animate flesh. By "spirit" they simply imder- stood His Divinity, and for this reason they could not and did not attach to "flesh" any other meaning than does the Bible when it employs the term by s^Tiecdochy for **man."
Take, e. g., St. Ignatius of Antioch, who stands in the front row of the Fathers thus accused. Though he re- peatedly describes the Saviour as 6po bearer), he is careful to explain that our Lord was a
" perfect man " (reXeio? avOfxo-n-o'i) .^*
St. Irenaeus employs ** flesh " and " man " as synony- mous terms when he teaches that " The Word of God was made flesh, . . . because the Word of God was also true man."^* The correctness of this interpretation is confirmed by the fact that in another passage of the same work Irenaeus expressly mentions the soul of Christ. Adopting a similar expression from St. Qement of Rome,^^ (who has also been accused of heresy), Irenaeus says : " The mighty Word was also true man . . . since He redeemed us with His blood and gave up His soul for our souls ^^ and His flesh for our flesh." ^^
Not even Tertullian, who notoriously held false views on the metaphysical essence of spiritual substances (e. g., God, the soul),^* can be convicted of heresy in his Christological teaching. It is sufficient for our present purpose to note that, in common with the rest of the Fathers, Tertullian attributes to the Godman a soul sub-
19 Episi. ad Smyrn. 23 Conir. Haer., V, i, i.
ZOContr. Haer.,\, \i, 3: " Ver- 24 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His
bum Dei caro factum est, ... quo- Knowability, Essence and Attri-
niam Verbum Dei et homo verus." butes, pp. 293 sqq.; and also Pohle-
21 T Ep. ad Cor., n. 49. Preuss, God the Author of Nature
22 Soirros Tr)v ^XV" vWp tuv and the Supernatural, pp. 166 sq.
56 DUALITY IN UNITY
stantially like ours. Distinguishing clearly between body and soul,^" he asserts the existence in Christ of two con- stitutive elements, vis.: a material body and a human soul, and indignantly combats Marcion's assertion that Christ, in His outward appearance, was merely a soul clothed in the semblance of flesh (anima carnalis) .^ Towards the end of his anti-Docetic treatise De Came Christi, Tertul- lian gives the following perfectly orthodox account of the constitution of our Blessed Redeemer: "Homo, qua caro et aipma, et filius hominis; qua autem Spiritus Dei et Virtus Altissimi, Deus et Dei Filius — As flesh and soul, He was a man, and the Son of man ; but as the Spirit of God and the Power of the Most High, he is God and the Son of God." "
/3) In order to obtain a more accurate notion of the teaching of the Fathers on this subject, we must study the explanations they give with a view to bringing Christ's humanity as nearly as possi- ble within the grasp of reason. All we can do within the limits of this treatise is to call attention to two important points of view.
Not a few of the Fathers ^^ demonstrate the necessity of a rational soul in Christ by
25 The soul he identifies with the mam quoque humanae conditionis Ego. Cfr. De Came Christi, c. ostenderit, non faciens earn carnem, 12: "In hoc vana distinctio est, sed induens earn came."
quasi nos seorsum ab anima simus, 27 De Came Christi, c. 14. On
quum totum quod sumus anima sit; the Christological teaching of Ter-
deinde sine anima nihil sumus, ne tullian cfr. J. Tixeront, History of
hominis quidem, sed cadavcris no- Dogmas, Vol. I (English ed.), pp.
men." 31S sqq., St. Louis 191 1.
26 De Came Christi, c. 11: 28 Cfr. Petavius, De Incarnationt, " Redde igitur Christo fidem suam, V, II.
ut qui homo voluerit incedere ani-
CHRIST'S HUMAN NATURE 57
the famous soteriological axiom: "Quod as- sumptum non est, non est sanatum," or, as St. Gregory of Nazianzus expresses it: To yap aTrpoakrprTov ddepdvevTov.-^ The meaning of this axiom is: Our own souls would remain unre- deemed, had not the Son of God assumed a spir- itual soul. Gregory develops this thought as fol- lows: "If any one put his hope in a man desti- tute of reason, he is indeed unreasonable and un- w^orthy of being wholly redeemed. For that which has not been assumed, is not cured ; but that which is united with God [/. e. the Logos] par- takes of salvation. If only half of Adam fell, let but half of him be assumed and saved. But if the whole [Adam] sinned. He [i. e. the Logos] is also united with the whole, and the whole [man] attains to salvation." ^^ Similar passages can be cited from TertuUian and St. Ambrose.^ ^
Another Christological principle, which some of the Fathers effectively urged against Apol- linaris, and which was subsequently incorporated into the Scholastic system, is this : "Verhiun as- sumpsit carnem mediante aiiimd (rationali) ,'' i. e., The Word assumed flesh through the media- tion of the rational soul.
29 Rp. 101 ad Cledon,, 7. turn utique suscepit, quod erat hu- so Ibid. manae perfectionis." Cfr. St. Au- 31 Ambros., Ep. 48 ad Sabin., 5: gustine, De Civitate Dei, X, 27; St.
" Si enim aliquid ei [i. e. Christo'i Fulgentius, Ad. Trasamundum, I, 6.
defuit, non totum redemit , . . to-
58 DUALITY IN UNITY
This does not mean that the Son of God first assumed a spiritual soul and then, flesh. Nor does it signify that the spiritual soul of Christ constituted, as it were, a per- manent bond of union between His body and His Divin- ity. The Fathers wished to say that the only kind of flesh capable of being assumed by the Godhead was flesh animated by a truly human, i. e. rational soul, as its forma essentialis, because it would have been altogether unbecoming for God to enter into Hypostatic Union with a body animated by a mere brute soul. But did not the Logos remain united with the body of Christ during the three days from His death to His Resurrection? Yes, but our axiom loses none of its truth for that. For, as St. Bonaventure explains, " Anima non recedehat a cor- pore simpliciter, sed solum ad tempus; et corpus illud ex prima conitmctione sui ad animam dispositionem ad in- corruptionem habebat: et idea propter separationem ipsius animae congruitatem ad unionem [hypostaticam] non amittebat; et ideo quamvis anima separaretur a came, non tamen oportebat divinitatem a came separari." ^^ It is only by taking anima rationalis as the forma essentialis of the body that we shall be enabled to understand why the Fathers, after the time of Apollinaris, so strongly emphasized the " rationality of Christ's flesh " — which is really a somewhat paradoxical expression. Thus St. Athanasius says : " The Saviour having become man, it is impossible that His body should lack reason." ^^ And St. Cyril of Alexandria teaches : " We must be- lieve that He who is by nature God, was made flesh, i. e., a man animated by a rational soul." ^* The same
82 Comment, in Quatuor Libros 83 it/67]TOi' elvai rb CufM airov.
Sent., Ill, (list. 2, art. 3, qu. i. Ep. ad Antiochen. (Migne, P. G.,
Cfr. Petavius, De Incarnationc, IV, XXVI, 795 sqq.).
13, and St. Thomas, 5wmma Theol., 84 grt Kari vaiv Geis uv y^yope
3a, qu. 6, art. i sq. aip^> ijyovv AvOpwiros i/jLyf/vxon^
THE " THREE SUBSTANCES " FORMULA 59
Saint habitually employs the phrase awfia \(rvx Sophronius even speaks of a aapi Ifjulruxo^ Aoyoc^.^^ All of which proves that the dogmatic definition of the Council of Vienne was firmly rooted in Tradition.
3. The Theological Formula of the ''Three Substances." — Apollinarianism raised a new problem, viz.: Must Christ be conceived dichotomically, as consisting of Divinity and hu- manity, or trichotomously, of "three substances," i. e., Logos, soul, and body?
A tacit compromise finally led to the adoption of the famous Scholastic formula : " Diiae naturae et ires sub- stantiae." By expressly emphasizing the two natures in Christ, this formula was calculated to prevent the mis- conception that body and soul are, like the Logos, each a complete nature or substance, while in fact they are merely component parts of Christ's sacred humanity. The sole excuse for speaking of " three substances " was the necessity of safeguarding the integrity of our Lord's human nature against Arianism, and especially against Apollinarianism. In this sense alone was the phrase em- ployed by the Fathers. Justin Martyr enumerates awixa Koi X6yo Christ.^' The teaching of St. Augustine is more definite still : " Man consists of a soul and flesh," he says, " and consequently Christ consists of the Logos, a soul, and flesh." "
In spite of this legitimate use, the phrase did not al- ways meet with favor on the part of the Church. The
vos ^fwxv ^07"f^. £/'• 3i n. 19. ural, p. 146.
35 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Cod the Au- 36 ApoL. II, n. lo.
37 Serm. Contr. Arian., IX, n. 7.
6o DUALITY IN UNITY
Eleventh Council of Toledo (A. D. 675) taught that " Christ exists in two natures, but in three substances." ^* But when the Fourteenth Council of Toledo, held only nine years later, repeated this phrase, Pope Sergius the First demanded an " explanation." The demand was complied with by St. Julian of Toledo, and His explana- tion satisfied the Pope.^^ A century later (A. D. 794) the formula was expressly disapproved by a provincial council held at Frankfort against the Adoptionists. The decrees of this council, which are vested with special au- thority on account of their formal approbation by Pope Hadrian I, contain the following passage : " In profes- sione Nicaeni symboli non invenimus dictum, in Christo ' duas naturas et tres substantias ' et ' homo deificatus ' et ' Deus humanatus.' Quid est natura hominis nisi anima et corpus? Vel quid est inter naturam et suhstantiam, ut 'tres substantias' nee esse sit nobis die ere? . . . Consu- etudo ecclesiastica solet in Christo duas substantias no- minare, Dei videlicet et hominis." *" In spite of this rep- rimand, however, the formula of the " three substances " continued in use and ultimately became part of the ap- proved Scholastic terminology. St. Bonaventure unhes- itatingly speaks of a " threefold substance " in Christ, and St. Thomas Aquinas teaches : " The name ' man,' applied to Christ, also signifies His Divine Person, and thus im- plies three substances." *^ The orthodoxy of the formula, therefore, when used in the sense which we have ex- plained, cannot be questioned.^^
38 " Christus in his duabus na- de Christo, dicit etiam divinam per-
turis, tribus exstat subslantiis." sonam, et sic dicit tres substantias."
(Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiri- (Comment, in Quatuor Libros Sent,,
dion, n. 284). Ill, dist. 6, qu. 1, art. 3.)
3» Cfr. Vasquez. Comment in S. 42 Cfr. L. Janssens, De Deo-
Th., Ill, disp. 37, c. 2-3. Homine, I, 156 sqq., Friburgi 1901;
40 Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, En- De Lugo, De Myst. Incarn., disp. chiridion, n. 312. 13, sect. 1 (ed. Paris. 1890, t. II,
41 " Hoc nomen ' homo ' dictum pp. 636 sqq.).