The divinity of Christ






WESTMINSTER LECTURES
(SECOND SERIES)

Edited by Rev. FRANCIS AVELING-, D.D.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

BY THE

Ret. JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J.
M.A., B.Sc.

LONDON AND EDINBURGH

SANDS & COMPANY
ST LOUIS, MO.

B. HERDER, 17 South Broadway

1906



JJihil ®bstat.

T. M. Taffe,
Censor Deputatus .

itnprimi p-crtesi.

Gulielmus, Episcopus Arindelensis,

Vicanus Generate.

Westmonasterii,

Die 26 Maii, 1906.

Deacfdiffed



PREFACE

The following lecture on the Divinity of
Christ was delivered by the author, as the

third of the second series of Westminster

Lectures
,

in March 1906. The treatment of
the subject is, as will be seen, theological

rather than purely philosophical : for no

attempt is made to discuss the rational aspects

of the union of natures in, or the Divine

personality of, Jesus Christ. Such and

kindred questions, interesting as they are,

hardly lend themselves to a popular dis-

cussion : and, had an attempt been made to

touch upon them in connection with the

main contention of the lecture, it would not

only have been necessarily superficial, but

would also have tended to obscure the central

subject.

While recognising that there are other

methods of dealing with the question than that

adopted, it seemed best to limit the range of



4 PREFACE

the discussion to a definite issue, and to present

as complete and full an aspect of the theo-

logical witness—which after all is the most
direct and the most striking—as was possible
within the limits of a lecture.

The very striking fact of the concrete

existence in the world of a witness giving

testimony at all times and in all places to the

truth of the Divinity of Christ, is highly signifi-

cant and noteworthy
;
and it is with regard to

this perennially concordant testimony that the

early documents, whether scriptural or patristic,

are examined in the following pages.

Joseph Rickaby, S.J.

Pope’s Hall,
Oxford.



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

/ believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
(Acts viii. 37.) Thereby I mean much more

than that He was just before God
, _ ,.

,

walking in all the commandments of 0f the

the Lord without blame (Luke i. 6),
Chnstian

or that He was of the number of the merciful
and forgiving to whom He Himself promises,
Your reward shall be great, and ye shall be

sons of the Most High (Luke vi. 35) to wit,

by grace and adoption. I believe that Jesus

Christ is the Son of God by nature, from all
eternity, not by any concession made in time.

I believe, in opposition to the heresy of Arius,

that the Son of God is in all things equal to
the Father, one God with Him. I believe, in
opposition to another heresy, that He is not
less truly Man for being God, nor less truly
God for being Man. He is not a compound,
or blend, of God and Man, as though He were
neither one nor the other, but some third



6 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

entity, for Deity can be compounded with

nothing created. His Godhead is not turned

into flesh : His Humanity, that is to say, His

Body and Soul, is not converted into God.

But though His Body and his Soul, His Flesh,

Heart, Blood, and Wounds, are not God, never-

theless they are of Divine dignity, and adorable

with Divine adoration, because they are the

Body, Soul, Flesh, Heart, Blood, and Wounds
of the Son of God. Whatever Jesus of Naza-

reth did and suffered, God did and suffered.
God was born of the Virgin Mary, God
laboured at Nazareth, God taught in the
Temple, God was scourged, was crucified and
died, not indeed according to His Godhead,

but according to the Human Nature which He
has united with that Godhead in the unity of

one Person. This is a great mystery (Eph. v.

32). It took the Church four centuries to find

proper terms to express it. We use those
terms and do partly understand their meaning,

Theological but full comprehension is not for man
Language on earth. This, however, we do

understand, this is the central fact of our faith :

our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is, in the

full and proper sense of the term, God, and

Man too,—God born of the Father from all



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 7

eternity, Man from the moment of the incar-
nation. He who is Man, is God, though His
Humanity is not His Godhead

;
and He who is

God, is Man. There are not two Jesus Christs,

as Nestorius made out, one God and one Man :
but one only Jesus Christ, at once God and
Man. Such is the doctrine of the Divinity of

Christ.

In proof of it we appeal to history, and

rightly so. But were history blotted out from

human memory, and all historical pr00f—
records lost, one witness still remains, History

testifying that Jesus is God. That witness is

the Catholic Church. The Father in heaven
,

who revealed it to Peter, still reveals witness of
in the heart of every Catholic child, the Church

Thou art the Christ
,
the Son of the living God.

The sublime dialogue between Christ and His
Vicar, Thou art Peter

,
Thou art Christ

,
con-

tinues to the end of the world. The average

Catholic listens with strange indifference to

remote historical proofs of the Divinity of

Christ. He is not interested in the ante-
Nicene Fathers. He is not at home in those
times, but he is at home in the Church of

to-day, and he finds Christ, true God and

true Man, there. The logic of the question



8 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

to him, so far as he has any logic, might take

this form : ‘If Christ is not God, then the

Church is not true
;

if the Church is not true,

God is not true
;
but a God not true is no God

at all
;
and without God human life is a ruin

:

none of which things am I going to believe,
therefore.’—This is not logic to the man
outside

;
but to the Catholic, by the very fact

of his being a Catholic, it carries conviction.
1

Nevertheless, even to the onlooker, to the man
in the street, the Church of Christ must be the

most extraordinary phenomenon on the face of

history. Are its pretensions justified or un-

justifiable? Unjustifiable certainly, if Christ

be not God. Scripture texts, then, and glean-

ings from ante-Nicene Fathers are to be read

in the light of the teaching of the Church of

all ages, the Catholic Church of the present

day. To allege them as mere antiquarian
fragments is to fling away half of their sig-

1 Legal logic, or medical logic, in a technical point, is

not logic to the man in the street. The outsider, in
relation to every society of experts, is a layman, a pro-

fane person, and his judgement is not taken. So of the
society of believers. The natural man perceiveth not the
things that are of the spirit of God: it is foolishness to
him

,
and he cannot understand

,
because it is spiritually

examined; but the spiritual man judgeth all things
(i Cor. ii. 14, is).



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 0

nificance. Such antiquarianism ignores that

article of the Creed, “the Holy Catholic Church.”

It is unfortunately the prevalent fashion among

people who pose as critics and historians. It

is a fashion greatly to beware of. I certainly

do not undertake to prove the Divinity of

Christ apart from the living witness borne by

the universal Church at this hour to Christ

as God. I by no means say that the thing

cannot be done, only that I do not undertake

to do it. In all the documentary evidence that

I am about to allege, I beg my
Interpreta

hearers to remark and observe how tionof
the interpretation which I put upon Documents

any document is the official interpretation taken

by the body to which the writer of the document

belonged, an official interpretation continuous

to this day.

In appealing to the testimony of the Gospels,

I am fully aware of the attacks made on the
credibility of the Gospels. If I disregard those

attacks, as I mean to do, it is because it is

impossible to enter into two distinct and

difficult discussions in one short paper. 1 I am
content to argue thus much only, that the

1 See Westminster Lectures, The Witness ofthe Gospel
and The Higher Criticism.



IO THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

Jesus portrayed in the Gospels is manifestly

God. Indeed our adversaries seem to admit

The Christ
f°r

>
wishing to impugn the

of the Divinity of Jesus, they find no other
Gospels way of doing so than by cancelling the

Gospels entirely, or mutilating their text. The
Gospel text as it stands is too strong for them.

Not, however, to assume too much in the face
of a strenuous opposition, I will draw my
proofs from the Synoptic Gospels, which are

more generally admitted
;

and the grand

witness of the Fourth Gospel to the Divinity

of Christ I will use only as confirmatory

evidence. That I have every logical right to

do: for they who will not allow the Fourth

Gospel to be the work of an apostle and an

eye-witness, are fain to assign it to the sub-

apostolic age. The ‘John’ of the Fourth
Gospel, if he be nothing more—and I hold
that he is much more—is at least the earliest
of the ante-Nicene Fathers, and witnesses to

the belief of the Church as it stood at the

opening of the second century. On this show-
ing, and it is much to show, within a hundred

years of His crucifixion Jesus of Nazareth

was already worshipped as God.

Of the three Synoptics, I choose for my



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST n

witness St Matthew, on whose Gospel, as also

upon that of St John, I have published

a commentary, and have studied,
T . . . St Matthew
I may say, every verse with minute

care. It amazes me to be told in the name
of Criticism that in the Synoptics there is

no evidence for the Divinity of Christ. The

best antidote to such criticism is to search the

Scriptures and have, so to speak, at one’s

fingers’ ends the sacred text.

At Jerusalem, during the Feast of Taber-

nacles, there once stood a knot of Jews dis-

cussing the merits of Jesus the prophet from

Nazareth of Galilee. Some said: He is a
good man. Others said : No, but he seduceth

the people (John vii. 12).' That discussion

has gone on ever since
;

but it is gener-

ally allowed, even by those who will allow
no more, that Jesus was a good man.

Upon that concession I proceed.
1 r • t

r The Claim
With Liddon I say: “If Jesus were 0f Christ
not God, He was not a good man,” that He

, .
was God

Jesus, sz non Deus
,
non bonus. This

was the continual cry of His enemies, He
blasphemeth (Mark ii. 7 ; John x. 33, 36).
They heard His claims to be God, and dis-
allowing them, they, not illogically, argued Him



12 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

to be a wicked man, indeed that wickedest of

wicked men, a blasphemer. Surely it would

be blasphemy, especially to Jewish ears, for

anyone less than God to declare himself
greater than the temple

,
and Lord of the

Sabbath
,
the two most sacred institutions of

Judaism (Matt. xii. 6, 8). Lord, if thou wilt,

thou canst make me clean : I will, be thou made
clean (Matt. viii. 2, 3). This is not the

language of a creature, nor the behaviour of a

subject, for so saying, He touched the leper,
contrary to the law. In the storm on the lake

Jesus did not pray, as the prophet Jonas had

been called upon to do in the like extremity, but

rising up, He rebuked the winds and the sea, and
there came a great calm : but the men wondered,

saying, Who is this, for even the winds and the
sea obey Him? (Matt. viii. 26, 27). They
thought of the words of Ps. cxlviii. 8 : stormy

winds thatfulfil His word.

The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our law-

giver, the Lord is our king, says Isa. xxx. 22,
where by the Lord, as usual in the Old

Testament, is meant fahweh, the God of the
Incommunicable Name. But these same

attributes of God, judgement, legislation,

royalty, Jesus in the Gospel of St Matthew



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 13

claims for Himself. Consider first the char-

acter of lawgiver. Six times in the Sermon on

the Mount, in the fifth chapter of St Matthew,

does Jesus quote the text of the law of God,

and speak as though He would remodel and
reissue it in improved form. Ye have heard

that it was said to them of old, Thou shalt not

kill. But I say to you
,
Whoever is angry with

his brother, etc. (vv. 21, 22). Ye have heard

that it was said to them of old, Thou shalt not

commit adultery. But I say to you
,
Whoever

looketh on a woman to lust after her (vv.

27, 28). It was said to them of old, Thou

shalt perform thy oaths to the Lord. But I
say to you, Not to swear at all (vv. 33, 34).
No canonist durst comment on papal laws, no
prophet on divine laws, in that style. If we

heard such language used of papal laws, we

should exclaim : “ Why, the man might be
Pope himself by the way he speaks.” And
Jesus here speaks as one who is God Himself.
God is judge, says the Psalmist (Ps. lxxiv.).

And Job asks : Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right ? There is no more His riai

-m
distinct attribute of Deity in the Old to be Sup-

Testament than that of judging the
reme Judge

earth. But this is precisely what Jesus



14 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

assumes to Himself, to be judge of all

mankind, and to come in the glory of

Godhead to judge the earth. The texts

in St Matthew to this effect are many and
familiar to all Christian ears.

It is remarkable that our Lord associates these

His judicial functions with that title which

The Son He best loved to use in speaking
of Man Qf Himself, the Son of man. That

title now claims our attention. The title
is taken from Daniel vii. 13, 14: I saw in
vision of the night, and behold in the clouds of
heaven as a Son of man coming, and he came
unto the Ancient of Days, and was presented to

him : and to him was given power
,
and honour

,

and kingdom
,
and all peoples

,
tribes

,
and

tongues shall serve him : his power is an

everlasting power that shall not pass away
,

and his kingdom shall not be destroyed

;

words which evidently point to Messiah.

But it is to be observed that Son of man
is no special title of Messiah in prophecy.

Son of man in this passage of Daniel, without

the article, means simply man, in which sense

the phrase appears continually in Ezechiel in

reference to the prophet himself. Nor does

the title ever occur in the apostolic writings

;



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 15

only in the dying speech of St Stephen, I see
the heavens open and the Son of man standing
on the right hand of God (Acts vii. 56). It is
our Lord’s own peculiar designation of Himself.
The definite article prefixed means that He is
‘the man eminently so called, perfect man
and model of men.’ So construed, the term
yields no indication of Divinity. But we must
observe the predicates which our Lord attaches
to that term as subject. Whenever He speaks
of judgement, it is of “ the Son of man ’’

exercising that divine function. So, then, He
who is truly man is also truly God, which
is the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation.

Let us recall the texts. One function of
judgement is acquittal, absolution, and dis-

charge of the prisoner—a function of God
alone where there is question of sin against

God. Who can forgive sins but God alone ?
(Mark ii. 7). Yet our Lord claims to
Himself that power; the Son of man hath
power on earth to forgive sins (Mark ii. 20)

;

and works a miracle to prove it. Similar
was His behaviour to the penitent woman
(Luke vii. 48, 49). But the title is especially
used in reference to the Last Judgement,
where He always represents Himself as



1

6

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

Judge. The Son of man shall send His
angels

,
and they shall gather His elect (Matt,

xiii. 41 ; xxiv. 31). His angels and His elect /

Yet the angels are the angels of God (Heb.
i. 6), and the elect are the elect of God (Rom.
viii. 33). They shall see the Son of man
coming in the clouds of heaven with great

power and majesty (Matt. xxiv. 30), even as

He was transfigured in the cloud (Matt,
xvii. 5), and afterwards ascended in the cloud

(Acts i. 9-11). Everywhere in Holy Scripture

the cloud is spoken of as the visible accompani-

ment of the present majesty of God. So

Daniel vii. 13, already quoted, to

Meaning which our Lord here refers ; Exod.
of “the xvj # IO ang ifoe glory of the Lord
Cloud” .

& y
y

was seen in the cloud

;

2 Chron. v. 13,

14, and the house was filled with cloud of

glory of the Lord; and the priests could not

stand to minister before the face of the cloud,

because the glory of the Lord had filled the

house of God; Isaias xix. 1, the Lord shall

come seated upon a light cloud; Ps. ciii. 3, who

makest of a cloud thine ascent. The great

power and majesty, then, in which the Son of

man is to come in judgement is the power

and majesty proper to God. What son of



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 1

7

man, what man who fell anything short of God,

would dare to make such a pronouncement

about himself? And again (Matt. xxv. 31-34)

:

When the Son of man shall come in His majesty

,

and all the angels with Him, then shall He sit
upon the seat of His majesty, and all nations

shall be gathered together before Him, and

He shall separate them one from another as
the shepherd separateth the sheep from the

goats, etc. Then shall the King say to them

that shall be on His right hand, etc. There is

only one way to elude the Divinity that declares

itself in these words
;
that is, to tear the page

out of the Gospel, and to assert that Jesus

of Nazareth never said any such thing.

Similar language is read in the pages of

the other Synoptics (Mark xiii.
;
Luke xxi.).

And yet we are gravely assured that there is
no evidence of the Divinity of Christ in the

Synoptic Gospels

!

Though Jesus constantly spoke of God as

His Father, He did not, it appears,
commonly style Himself the Son of witness at
God, There are two passages in which Baptism

He takes that appellation indirectly,
of ^esus

John^ix. 35 ; x. 36 ; in the former, however, the

more approved reading is Son of man. But
B



i8 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

at the opening of His ministry, at His baptism,

a voice cries from heaven : This is my beloved
Son in whom I am well pleased (Matt. iii. 17).
In what sense is He there styled beloved Son ?
Son by nature, or Son by adoption? For

though in the Old Testament Messiah is called

by God my son (Ps. ii. 7), my first-born
(Ps. lxxxviii. 27), the whole people of Israel

is called my son
,
myfirst-born also (Exod. iv. 22 ;

Rom. ix. 4). The answer is not far to seek,
if we turn to St John’s Gospel. There

(i. 12-14) the only-begotten of the Father, the

Word made flesh, is clearly marked off from
other men to whom He, the Son of God by
nature, gave power to be made the sons of God
by faith and the new birth. But let us confine

ourselves to St Matthew. The great dogmatic

utterance in St Matthew’s Gospel, which all

the rest leads up to, or follows from, or is

interpreted by, is the confession of St Peter,

Thou art the Christ, the Son of the

Confession
^v n̂S Cod (xvi. 1 6). Had sonship
by adoption been meant, John Baptist,

in that respect, was a son of God, so was

Elias, so Jeremias, and all the prophets, from

whom Jesus here is clearly differentiated as
well by His own question as by St Peter’s



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 19

answer. But, it is contended, Jesus is

sufficiently marked off from the holy men of

old by being declared the Christ, the Messiah
;

and in the account of this scene given by

St Mark (viii. 29) St Peter’s confession is

limited to this bare pronouncement, Thou art

the Christ. As for the title the Son of the

living God, the children of Israel are promised

the title of sons of the living God in Osee.

i. 10 ; which title, our opponents allege, was

given to Messiah as to one primus inter pares,

inasmuch as he was first-born (Ps. lxxxviii. 28),

or most highly favoured of heaven, and chief

of all the children of Israel—something like
the Sioyevt (3a<ri\evi, or “god-born King,” the

usual style of Kings in Homer. So, if we

may be allowed a quotation from the Fourth

Gospel, Nathaniel at his first introduction to

Jesus, salutes Him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of

God, thou art the King of Israel (John i. 49)

;

a confession of Messiahship, not of Divinity.

To all this argumentation I reply that it is
not a question of what ordinary Jews meant

by applying the title of sons of God to them-
selves, and in some more excellent way to

their Messiah and King, but of what St Peter

meant in this particular case. In applying



20 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

the title to his Master, it is a gratuitous

assumption that St Peter meant nothing more

than what any ordinary Jew would have

understood by the title. Nay, further, the

assumption is not only gratuitous, but false.

For by this time, some eight months before

His Passion, Jesus was quite accustomed to

being hailed as Messiah. The Canaanite
woman had addressed Him Son of David

\

which means Messiah (Matt. xv. 22). She, a

foreigner, cannot have invented the title for

Him, but must have addressed Him in the
style in which she heard Him commonly
spoken of. When He walked upon the
waters, they that were in the ship, His apostles

and Peter among them, came and worshipped

Him, saying : Thou art truly Son of God

(Matt. xiv. 33, the article here is omitted,

which is expressed in xvi. 16, 6 wot),

^of^od"
^ this taken for an acknowledg-
ment of Divinity, so much the better

;

but I am willing to allow that here the
appellation does not pass beyond Messiahship.

In calling Himself the Son of man, and

speaking of His Kingdom (Matt. xiii. 41),

Jesus assumed the title of Messiah as

something which His apostles quite recog-



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 21

nised. Accordingly, St Mark, who gives us

the bare confession, Thou art Christy also

suppresses all reply of our Saviour expressive

of any delight or satisfaction. In the thirtieth

month of His ministry Jesus of Nazareth was

well accustomed to the style of Messiah, and

took it as a matter of course. But how very

different His behaviour on this noteworthy

occasion ! As on one previous occasion
(Luke x. 21 ; Matt. xi. 25), he exulted in the

Holy Ghost, and said in solemn tones of

satisfied majesty, Blessed art thou
,
Simon son

of John, and I say to thee that thou art Peter,
etc. He hails the confession for a signal work
of grace, not of Jlesh and blood, but of the

revelation of the Father. A hundred voices
ere now had saluted Him as Messiah : He
was not much moved by that. Peter meant

more, and Jesus knew it. What he meant,
we must gather as well from the various
utterances of Jesus in this St Matthew’s

Gospel upon which I have already dwelt, as

also from the Catholic tradition which started

from that hour and continues to this day, in

the confession of the Universal Church to

her Saviour and Redeemer, Thou art the Christ,

the Son of the living God.



22 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

Once again this great confession was to be

made, not by the Apostle Peter, now in his

moment of defection and denial, but
Christ’s

solemn by Him whom Peter had confessed,
witness to speaking this time for Himself. And

the high priest rising up, said to Him

:

I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us

if thou be the Christ, the Son of God. fesus

saith to him, Thou hast said it (or as St Mark
gives the answer, accommodating it to Western

ears, I am, xiv. 62) : hereafter ye shall see the
Son of man sitting on the right hand of the
power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

Then the high priest rent his garments, saying
,

He hath blasphemed. But they said, He is
guilty of death (Matt. xxvi. 62-66).

The high priest recognised the quotation from
Daniel : he knew to whom and by whom it was
said in Ps. cix., Sit thou on my right hand

(cf.

Matt. xxii. 42-45) : he understood the signifi-

cance of those attendant clouds of heaven ; and

therefore he said virtually what we find the

Jewish multitude crying in St John xix. 7 : We
have a law, and accordingly to this law He ought
to die, for that He hath made Himself out Son
of God—not surely in the sense in which every
good Jew was son of God, but Son by equality



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 23

and identity of nature. And still more clearly :
For a good work we do not stone thee,
but because thou

,
being a man

,
makest thyself

God (John x. 33). Jesus of Nazareth was

condemned by the high court of His nation

for making Himself out to be God ; and
so indeed He did. If He was not a
blasphemer, or if He was not labouring under
a miserable hallucination, then indeed He was
God. We gather from our Lord’s own account
of Himself in St Matthew’s Gospel this theo-

logical equation, as I may call it, the Son of
Man is the Son of God, and the Son of God is
the Son of Man.
The Fourth Gospel is avowedly the Gospel

of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. They who

deny that Divinity are compelled to The Fourth
make away with the Fourth Gospel. Gospel—

Yet even they are compelled to date ^ofthe
its composition from the first half of Divinity

the second century at latest, and to allow that

it expresses the belief of sub-apostolic times.

Upon which concession a Catholic would
observe : What the Church believed in the
year a.d. 140, as a primary article of faith, she

does right in believing now. The chiefest
evidence for our Lord’s Divinity, as I have



24 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

said before, is the unchanging belief of the

Church from its first institution to this hour.

There is one other Scripture witness which I

must not pass over, that of St Paul. I select

one passage, which is at once a clear

^sTpaui^
testimony to the Divinity of Christ,

and at the same time explains most

of the difficulties which are alleged against

that Divinity from the phraseology of Scrip-

ture. The passage I refer to is Phil. ii. 5-1 1,
with which I will conjoin a parallel passage

from the Epistle to the Hebrews v. 7-10.

These are the two passages in full : Be of that

mind amongyourselves which was also in Christ

Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it

no robbery [oux apiraypov, non rapinam, no prize

(R.V.) to be snatched without paying for it] to

be on an equality with God, but emptied

[e/cewoo-eid Himself, taking theform of a servant

,

becoming in the likeness of man ; and in figure
[a-xmari, outward mien, more superficial than

fjLop<pij> form] found as a man He humbled
Himself, being made obedient unto death, even

the death of the cross : wherefore also God hath

exalted Him, and given Him the name that is
above every name, that in the name of Jesus

every knee may bow of things in heaven, and



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 25

of things on earth, andof things under the earth

,

and every tongue may confess that the Lord

Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father
[or according to the Greek : that Jesus Christ

is Lord unto the glory of God the Father] . . .

(Heb. v.) Who in the days of His flesh

,

putting forth prayers and supplications to Him
that was able to save Him from death, with a
loud cry and tears, was heardfor His reverence,
and

’,
Son though He was, He learned obedience

from what He suffered, and being consummated,
He became to all who obey Him cause of eternal
salvation, being called by God a high priest

,

according to the order of Melchisedech.

The first words to observe are being in the

form of God, He took the form of a servant,
which means that He who was God from
eternity became man in time (this against
Nestorius with his two Christs), and the

form of God was as real as the form of a
servant; that is to say, Jesus was as truly

God as He was truly man. The most difficult
term in the passage is that which is translated

no robbery, or in the Revised Version no prize.

I do not think no robbery correct. St John

Chrysostom in his homily on this passage

gives the key to the right interpretation in



26 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

these words :—“ Whatever a man has possessed
himself of by robbery, and holds beyond his

due, that he ventures not to lay
Interpreta-

. , ,

tion of St aside, fearing lest it be lost and slip
John from him, but clings to it constantly

;

Chrysostom
& 1

whereas he who holds a thing as

his natural right is not afraid to waive that

right, knowing that he shall suffer no such

deprival. Thus the Son of God was not
afraid to waive His right

;
for He did not

regard His Divinity as a thing snatched by

violence, and was not afraid of anyone taking

away from Him His nature or His right

:

therefore He laid it aside [z.e., laid aside the
state and dignity of it], and hid it away,

thinking Himself none the worse for that.

He had not His pre-eminence by robbery,
but by nature, nor as a gift, but as an abiding

and safe possession : therefore He shrinks not
from taking the outward appearance of private

soldiers
(
inratrTicrTwv). The usurper in war

fears to lay aside his purple robe, but the

true king does so with much indifference.”

Those who know St Ignatius’s Spiritual

Exercises will be reminded of the contrast

between Satan the Pretender and Christ our

Lord the Eternal King, in the meditation in



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 27

the Two Standards. With a Doctor of the
Church to lead the way, I now proceed to

explain the passage.

The Philippians are exhorted (vv. 3, 4) not

to be contentious or jealous of dignity, but to

forego their claims and give way to
£ ^)ana

one another, each taking the other for tion of

his superior in all humility, and that P
£jt̂

ge

in imitation of the Man Christ Jesus,
who being in the form, or nature, of God, took

upon Himself the nature of a servant, or

creature, and in that human nature thus

assumed did not consider the glory of the

only-begotten of the Father (John i. 14) a thing

to be greedily seized upon {apiraypov, rapinam
)

and displayed in His flesh from the first, but

came among men as a man like the rest, and
in outward mien (<7XWaTl) was found like an

ordinary man : thus He humbled Himself
in the days of His flesh (Heb. v. 5), that is, in

the days of His mortal life, and lived under

His dignity, shorn of His connatural right,

choosing to behave as God’s servant rather

than as God’s Son, and learning the hard

lesson of obedience even by the death of the

Cross (Heb. v. 8) : wherefore God exalted
Him in the day of His resurrection, and



28 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

showed Him forth as His true Son by nature
(Acts xiii. 33), making the name Jesus

honoured as the Incommunicable Name of
God, and causing all creation willingly or

unwillingly in the end to adore Jesus Christ,

Son of God and Son of man in one person,

with the adoration due to Adonai Jahweh, the

Lord God.1

In this passage we have Good Friday

together with Easter Sunday, the humiliation,

the Kem<ns, or emptying out of divine glory,

characteristic of the one, with the exaltation

and fulness of glory proper to the other

;

and He who is humbled, the same it is that
exalted (Eph. iv. 9, 10)—humbled as Man,
still being God, and then exalted as the Man-

God.

The theological term kenosis, borrowed from
this passage (eavrov enevweev, he emptied himself,

k
v. 7) represents the theme of liveliest

discussion in modern theology. It

concerns us only so far as it yields the

explanation of the passages usually quoted

from the New Testament against our Lord’s
Divinity. If it were proved that a duke had

gone into disguise for several years and earned

1
Cf. Of God and His Creatures

,

notes, pp. 361, 365.



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 29

his own livelihood by the commonest occupa-

tions
;
and someone afterwards in disparage-

ment of his ducal claims were to say : “ He’s

no duke, why, I’ve worked with that man in

the pit”; such evidence would not be difficult

to rebut. Charles II., after his defeat by

Cromwell at Worcester, wandered about in

an involuntary kenosis under various disguises

as a serving man or a peasant, and yet I
suppose he was king all the while. So our

Lord, choosing for thirty-three years to forego

the divine dignity proper to His human nature,
was ignorant, for instance, of the day of

judgement, where He chose to remain ignorant
and shut off a matter from His view (Mark

xiii. 32) :
x He was amazed, and cast down,

and full of grief and fear in the Garden

(Mark xiv. 33, 34), when He opened to
those passions the gates of His soul.

He learnt obedience (Heb. v. 8), inasmuch
as He chose to frequent the school of
suffering.

1 “ Knowing as God, He is ignorant according to the
flesh ” (jjapKiKws), St Athanasius, ad Arianos

,
iii. 43.

So, too, St Cyril of Alexandria and St Gregory
Nazianzen, quoted in Liddon, Bampton Lectures

,

pp. 468-9, eleventh edition.



30 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

The Divinity of Jesus Christ was proclaimed

at the Council of Nice, a.d. 325, against Arius,

Consiliar who taught that the Son of God was
Definitions a creature

;
and in the Councils of

Ephesus and Chalcedon, a.d. 431, 450, against

Nestorius, who taught two Christs, one God

„. and one Man. St Athanasius was
Nice,

Ephesus, the presiding spirit at Nice. St Leo
Chalcedon

gUj(je(j the Fathers at Chalcedon.

SS. Athanasius and Leo are the two doctors

of the incarnation. After Nice, the Fathers of

the Church are unfaltering in their confession

of Christ’s Divinity. But before Nice, the

ante-Nicene Fathers, as they are called, while

saying many things in support of the doctrine

—evidence collected by Liddon in his Bampton
Lectures on the Divinity of Christ, and long

. ... before him by Petavius and Bull

—

(Bampton also speak at other times with a more
Lecture)

uncertajn sound. Thus, Liddon

writes (.Bampton Lectures, pp. 428-9, eleventh

edition) :—“ Undoubtedly, it should be frankly
granted that some of the ante-Nicene writers do

at times employ terms which, judged by a Nicene

standard, must be pronounced unsatisfactory

—terms which, if they admit of a Catholic inter-
pretation, do not always invite one. For, in



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 3i

truth, these ante-Nicene Fathers were feeling

their way, not towards the substance of the

faith, which they possessed in its fulness, but

towards that intellectual mastership, both of its

relationship to outer forms of thought, and of

its own internal harmonies and system, which

is obviously a perfectly distinct gift from the

simple possession of the faith itself.—The
finished intellectual survey and treatment of

the faith is a superadded acquirement : it is the

result of conflict with a hostile criticism.

—

Heresy indirectly contributed to form the

Church’s mind :—it unwittingly forced on an
elucidation of the doctrines of the Church by

its subtle and varied opposition.
“ But before heresy had thus accomplished its

providential work, individual Church teachers

might, in perfect good faith, attempt Rise and
to explain difficulties, or to win Deveiop-

opponents, by enterprising specula- Theological
tions, in this or that direction, which Terminology

were not yet shown to be perilous to truth.

Not indeed that the universal Church, in her
collective capacity, was ever committed to any

of those less perfect statements of doctrine

which belong to the ante-Nicene period.

Particular fathers or schools of thought within



32 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

her might use terms and illustrations which

she afterwards disavowed, but then they had

no Divine guarantee of inerrancy, such as had

been vouchsafed to the entire body of the

faithful. They were in difficult and untried

circumstances
;
they were making experiments

in unknown regions of thought
;
their language

was tentative and provisional. If, without lack

of reverence to such glorious names, the illustra-

tion is permissible, the Alexandrian teachers

of the second and third centuries were relatively

to their successors of the age of the Councils,

in the position of young or half educated

persons, who know at bottom what they mean,

who know yet more distinctly what they do

not mean, but who, as yet, have not so measured

and sounded their thoughts, or so tested the

instrument by which thought finds expression,

as to avoid misrepresenting their meaning

more or less considerably, before they succeed

in conveying it with accuracy.”

The ante-Nicene Fathers were beset with
many heresies

;
and in combating one they

Ariansand sometimes seem to give place to its
Sabeiiians contrary. There was not only the

Incarnation to maintain, but also the mystery

of the Holy Trinity. Not only was the equality



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 33

of the Word with the Father to be asserted
against the Arians, but also against Sabellius

it was necessary to argue the distinction of

Persons between Father and Son, and the

procession of the Son from the Father as from

the origin of all Godhead. Sabellius, an

African in the early third century, taught that

one and the same Divine Being as giving the

Old Law was called the Father, as born of
Mary was called the Son, as given to the

Apostles was called the Holy Ghost : thus

there was no Trinity of Persons, but a Triple

manifestation of one and the same Person.

With such an antagonist as Sabellius before

him, a controversialist was apt to widen to the

utmost the difference between Father and Son,

and in his zeal he might readily be betrayed

into expressions that might seem to confine

Godhead to the Father only. In those days

theological terminology was not yet fixed
;
and

it was easy to accept in an orthodox sense a

phrase which afterwards came to bear an

heretical meaning, as that Christ was the
“ Minister of the Father ”

;
or to repudiate as

containing Sabellian heresy a term like the

6fj.oovm.ov, or consubstantiality, which was after-

wards consecrated as the Catholic expression
c



34 THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

of the unity of substance, although not of

person, between Father and Son. It is much

to our purpose to remark that writers such as

St Justin and Origen, who in some places

speak obscurely of the Divinity of Christ,

enunciate it clearly in others. A Catholic
reading a Catholic author, of two possible

interpretations of his mind will prefer the more

Catholic.

Strongly as I adhere to Newman’s theory of

development of doctrine, yet, in considering the

Development definition at Nice of the equality of

of Doctrine the Son with the Father, and the

definitions at Ephesus and Chalcedon of the

unity of person, along with the distinction of

natures in Christ, so far as these definitions

taken together define the Divinity of Christ

—

I should not call these definitions a develop-

ment of doctrine, but rather a settlement of

terminology, a repudiation of incident heresies,

a vindication of the doctrine clearly held from

the first. From the day of Pentecost the issue
was plain. Jesus Christ crucified, risen, and

ascended into heaven, either is God or He is
not. And the faith of the Apostolic Church
proclaimed him God. But scientific terms like

hypostasis, ousia, persona, natura, those had to



THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 35

be sought out, defined, and adapted as vehicles

for the ever-abiding belief in the Blessed

Trinity and in the Incarnation of the Eternal

Word.

The whole edifice of Christianity is built

upon the Divinity of Christ. If Christianity

is Divine, Christ is God. As Christianity is

the Kingdom of God, so Christ is its King

and He is God. Anything short of the
Kingdom of the God-Man on earth is not
Christianity.



APPENDIX I

Note on questions arising out of the subject of the Lecture.

COMMUNICATIO IDIOMATUM

As one and the same person is at once God and Man,

we can predicate of this same person both divine and

human attributes. This is called communicatio idio-

matum
,
or communication of characteristics. Thus we

say that God was born, God suffered, God died ; nor is

it always necessary to add in the fleshy though that is

always understood. Or we may say, the Son of Mary is

the Eternal God. We may also say, the Man Christ
Jesus is eternal

,
meaning, in His Divine nature. But we

must not put it in the abstract, the Humanity of Christ

is eternal
,
for that would mean that He is eternal as man,

which He is not. Similarly, the Humanity of Christ is
not omnipresent, nor omnipotent, nor self-existent, nor

infinite. The Man Christ Jesus is all these things, but
not as man. Briefly, the Humanity of Christ is not

God, but the Man Christ is God.
We must also notice a small ambiguity that besets the

word humanity. It may be taken for a purely abstract
substantive, for what one might have called the human-

ness of Christ, or the fact of His being man. But it is
36



APPENDIX I 37

usually employed in a concrete sense, to denote that

whereby He is man, namely, His human Body and Soul,
and in that sense we shall speak of the Sacred
Humanity.

The Sacred Humanity is not God, it is not eternal, it

is not infinite, it is not everywhere, but only in Heaven,

and in the Blessed Sacrament. There are Divine

attributes which cannot possibly attach to a human
body and soul. But the “ moral attributes,” as they are

called, of the Godhead do attach to the Sacred Humanity.

These are principally sanctity and dignity. The Sacred

Humanity is holy with all the holiness of God : it is

infinitely holy. Though it is not God, yet it is of Divine

dignity, because it is the Humanity of the Son of God

—

the Flesh and Blood, Hands, Feet, Heart, Body and Soul

of the Eternal Word. It is penetrated through and

through with the Divinity, like a live coal with fire. It

is alive and instinct with Godhead. This causes St

Cyril of Alexandria to say it is “divinised.” Being of

Divine dignity, the Sacred Humanity is adorable with

the one adoration that is given to God Himself, whose
Humanity it is, and inseparable from Him. It is adored,

not as Flesh and Blood simply, but as the Flesh and

Blood of the Son of God. This is why the Church of
God ever makes so much of the Sacred Humanity. You

cannot make too much of it : for it is sovereignly holy

and sovereignly adorable.

On the text, Adore ye His footstool
,
because it is holy

(Ps. xcviii. 5), in connection with that other text,

Heaven is my throne and earth my footstool (Isa. lvi. 1),
St Augustine writes (Enarrationes in Psalmis ) h. 1.)

:

“ I am thrown into perplexity. I fear to adore earth,



38 APPENDIX I

and on the other hand I am afraid of not adoring the
footstool of my Lord. In my doubt I turn to Christ,
and I find how without impiety one may adore earth,
and without impiety may adore His footstool. For He
took earth of earth : for flesh is of earth, and of the

flesh of Mary He took flesh. And because in that same
flesh He here walked, and gave us that flesh to eat for
our salvation, and no one eats that flesh without having

first adored it, a way is found of adoring that footstool of

the Lord, and how we may not only not sin by adoring, but
should sin if we did not adore.” Similar is the language

of St Leo (Serm. 73) :
u That with no doubtful faith, but

with certain knowledge, it should be held, that that

nature was to be seated with God the Father on His
throne, which had lain in the sepulchre.” “To be
seated with God the Father on His throne,” means to be

adorable with the adoration that is given to God the

Father. The phrase is explained by the Church’s hymn
at Matins on Ascension Day :

Peccat caro, mundat caro,

Regnat Deus Dei caro.

li Flesh sinneth, flesh cleanseth : the flesh of God
reigneth as God” ( Oxford and Cambridge Conferences

,

1897-1899, by Joseph Rickaby, pp. 108-m).



APPENDIX II

Works that may be consulted in connection with the
subject of this lecture :

—

Franzelin

—

De Verbo Incarnate>.
Perrone

—

Preelections Theologicce

.

Hurter

—

Theologice Dogmaticce Compendium

.

Fouard

—

Christ the Son of God.

Didon—-Jesus Christ.

Rickaby—Oxford and Cambridge Conferences.
Liddon

—

Bampton Lectures.

Gore—Bampton Lectures.
Sanday—Art. " Jesus Christ” (Hastings1 Biblical Dic-

tionary).

Marsh — The Resurrection of Christ ( Westminster
Lectures

, 1905).

Barnes — The Witness of the Gospels ( Westminster
Lectures

,
1905).

Harris

—

Pro Fide

.

Pearson

—

Exposition of the Creed.

Farrar—The Life of Lives.

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WESTMINSTER LECTURES

MODERN FREETHOUQHT.
By the Rev J GERARD, S.J.

'

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
By the lev. FRANCIS AVELING, D.D.

THE EXISTENCE OF QOD.
By the Right Rev Mgr. Canon MOTES, D.D.

THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL.
By the Rev. A. B. SHARPE, M.A.

THE WITNESS OF THE GOSPELS.
By the Very Rev. Mgr. BARNES, M.A.

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By Dr G. W. B. KARSH, B.A. (Lond.), FiR.Hist.Soo.

SCIENCE AND FAITH
By the Rev, FRANCIS AVELING, D.D.'

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By the Rev. WILLIAM BARRY, D.D.

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By the Rev. JOSEPH RICKaBY, S.J., M.A., B.Sc.

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