says: "Sin, which has the character of a moral disease of the mind, is not only the negation of the good, but the presence of an evil disposition. As therefore, in so far as it is a lack of righteousness which ought to be within, it is properly called privation, so in so far as it infects and corrupts the soul, it is called an evil quality." (Locus IX. quæst. 1.) Limborch scouts the idea that sin is to be called a mere nothing, or a simple privation. "Not indeed a defect, but something positive, is the cause of sin." (Lib. II. cap. 29; Lib. V. cap. 4.)

CHAPTER IV.

REDEEMER AND REDEMPTION.

SECTION I.-THE PERSON OF CHRIST.

THE principal developments in Christology in this period were within the bounds of Lutheranism, and concerned the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum. This doctrine had its general starting-point in Luther's mystical bent, in accordance with which he held very positive views of the receptivity of the human for the divine. Its specific occasion, however, lay in his theory of the real bodily presence of Christ in the eucharist. Being under pressure to explain how the body of Christ could be at the right hand of God and at the same time in many places upon earth, he taught that the right hand of God implies, not definite locality, but a state of supreme majesty and power, and went on to assert the theory, that in virtue of the union of the two natures ubiquity is imparted to the body of Christ. This was comparatively a new theory. To be sure, a similar conception had been entertained by a few speculative writers, such as Gregory of Nyssa and Erigena, but in general the theory of the ubiquity of Christ's body had been foreign to Christian theology. Luther, as indicated, was in the first instance mainly interested in the bearing of his novel teaching upon the Lord's Supper. But naturally the subject was not allowed to rest there. Other properties besides that of ubiquity must needs come into the account. The extent and the manner of the interchange of the human and the divine characteristics must

needs be discussed. In short, a re-statement of the whole subject of Christology was involved.

Melanchthon rejected the communicatio idiomatum in the sense of Luther, that is, as an actual transference of properties from one nature to the other. But Luther's theory found zealous advocates. Brenz and the Swabian theologians carried it out in the most unqualified terms, that is, as respects the communication of divine properties; the communication of human properties to the divine was but little considered. According to Brenz, the incarnation of itself involved a full communication of the divine predicates, so that Christ as man was omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient from the first moment of His conception. Chemnitz, on the other hand, and the Saxon divines wished to modify the communicatio as far as this could be done in harmony with the demands of the bodily presence in the eucharist. They taught, accordingly, that no absolute possession of the divine properties pertains to the human nature, and that such properties are only temporarily superinduced by an act of the divine will. The Formula of Concord was designed to satisfy both of these parties, and so naturally did not fully satisfy either, and the controversy was continued. In the later stage of the discussion, the division was between the Tübingen and the Giessen theologians. Both of these schools followed Luther in assuming that the kenosis, or emptying of Himself, which is affirmed of Christ in the Scriptures, did not pertain to Him as the Son of God, but consisted rather in the renunciation of prerogatives which from the fact of the incarnation pertained to His human nature. Both said that to Christ as man belonged from the very first omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and the government of the universe. According to the Tübingen theologians, Christ made constantly a secret employment of these divine properties and powers, renouncing not the use, but only the manifest use of them. The Giessen theologians, on the

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other hand, taught that Christ renounced the use of them, at least in large part, during the time of His earthly sojourn. The latter view, which seems to have commanded ultimately the larger patronage, was accepted by Gerhard. "The communication of divine properties," he says, made in the first moment of the incarnation, but Christ deferred the full use of them till He ascended into heaven and took His place at the right hand of God; thence proceeds the distinction between the state of inanition and exaltation." (Locus IV. § 293. Compare Quenstedt, De Statibus Christi, Quæst. I.; Hollaz, Pars III. sect. 1, cap. 3, qu. 54.)

Reformed theologians were content to remain on the basis of the Chalcedonian creed, only exhibiting a larger interest in the human nature of Christ than had been shown in general by the preceding expounders of that creed. Approving the maxim, Finitum non est capax infiniti, they emphatically repudiated the Lutheran doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum. They decided also against the Lutheran view of the kenosis. "Unlike the Lutherans," says A. B. Bruce," the Reformed theologians applied the category of exinanition to the divine nature of Christ. It was the Son of God who emptied Himself, and He did this in becoming man. The incarnation itself, in the actual form in which it took place, was a kenosis for Him who Iwas in the form of God before He took the form of a servant. But the kenosis or exinanition was only quasi, an emptying as to use and manifestation, not as to possession, -a hiding of divine glory and of divine attributes, not a self-denudation with respect to these. The standing phrase for the kenosis was occultatio, and the favorite illustration the obscuration of the sun by a dense cloud." (The Humiliation of Christ.)

Roman Catholic theologians were likewise hostile to the Lutheran doctrine of communication. At the same time, leading representatives took the position that to the human

soul of Christ there was imparted the knowledge of all things past or to come, that is, of all in the range of the actual, the full knowledge of the possible being regarded as pertaining to the infinite mind alone. (Bellarmin, De Christo, Lib. IV. cap. 1; Petavius, De Incar. Verbi, Lib. XI. cap. 3.)

Among peculiar views we note the following:-1. Osiander's, that the Son was ideally man from eternity. 2. Schwenkfeld's, that the flesh of Christ was transformed into the divine substance. 3. Menno's, that the Son of God becoming man took no substance from the Virgin, Christ as Son of Man being simply the pre-existent Son of God made little and abased to a low estate. 4. Weigel's, that Christ besides the body from the Virgin Mary had an invisible and immortal body, derived from the Eternal Virgin, or the Divine Wisdom, through the Holy Spirit. 5. Barclay's, similar to Weigel's view, but set forth under a less mystical and fantastic guise, his idea being that the Son, prior to taking a body from the Virgin, had a spiritual body, which in all the ages of human history was a medium of divine revelation and fellowship. 6. Poiret's, that Christ drew a human nature from the primitive unfallen Adam, and that this human nature took on mortal flesh in Mary, as a white and shining garment takes the tincture of a dark liquid into which it is plunged. The addition of the mortal flesh did not involve an additional body. 7. The theory of Henry More and a number of English writers, such as Edward Fowler, Robert Fleming, J. Hussey, Francis Gastrell, Thomas Bennet, and Thomas Burnet, affirming the pre-existence of Christ's human soul. (Dorner, Hist. of Doct. of Person of Christ.)