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Home , Henosis, Kenosis

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Christologies Ancient and Modern. BY THE REV. H. R. MACKINTOSH, D.PHIL., D.D., PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC IN THE NEW COLLEGE, EDINBURGH.

THE late Professor A. B. Davidson is credited running commentary on Dr. Sanday’s more with the remark, propos of Dr. Sanday’s well- important results in historical Christology, and known article ’ Christ,’ in Hastings’ thereafter to devote special attention to his new Dictional)’ of t!ze Bible, that the thing could not and unexplored’ theory that we may find the be better done.’ Since that we have all key to our ’s higher in the modern been pleasurably aware that Dr. Sanday was psychological idea of the Subliminal Conscious- invited, and has agreed, to undertake the ness. It will be seen that this theory, if sound, Life of Christ for the International Theological will involve some considerable alteration in our Library.’ No one could have been found better thoughts of Christ, and that it cannot be accepted qualified for the great task. His preparations or declined without close scrutiny. have been made slowly; this is the third pre- Good people are now and then perturbed by liminary volume issued within the last five years, ~,Dr. Sanday’s almost clairvoyant appreciation of all of them being composed of lectures delivered other points of view, and his plea in the first a , originally to students of theology, and preserving chapter for the naturalness even of is even in book form much of the informal charm notable instance of that sympathy which makes him of direct speech. He tells us now that of these one of the most alert and hospitable conservatives. introductory studies this is, as he hopes, the last ; ’Docetism was not all folly. Rather we may in his own words, ‘,It is necessary that I should regard it as one primitive form of the assertion make clear, as much to myself as to others, the I of that mystical element which has never been broad lines of the conception which I have formed wanting to Christianity, from the first days until of the most central portion of my subject-that now’ (p. 9). The gospel came from the Orient, portion round which everything else really and if it is now to be attractively reintroduced to revolves.’ Hence in a survey of Christologies the Oriental , and to satisfy its immemorial ancient and modern, followed by the sketch of an native forms of thought, its latent must original hypothesis, he seeks to bring out leading be allowed for. Docetism and are both principles, unhampered by details, and to ethically impossible, but on the other hand a these principles in terms intelligible to the wide Christianity without mysticism is religiously im- general public. In the preface Dr. Sanday affirms possible. A docetic view of Christ treats .history anew his in the fundamental decisions of as moonshine; yet Christ must be so conceived the ancient Church, as having been arrived at that we may dwell in Him, and He in us. And under the providential influence of : ’it is the Docetics were groping after this. The success to me incredible,’ he writes, ’that He should of Ignatius’ reply to them was owing to his intend the course of modern development to in the indwelling Christ as the source of life for issue in direct opposition to them.’ To this all believers. general acquiescence the argument of the book is I At more than one point, in this first section, faithful, .but it is an acquiescence, as we shall see, ; or. Sanday comes into friendly collision with men which is conceived as quite in harmony with frank like Harnack and Loofs. They, I imagine, would criticism of the older phrases, and it goes along disown his approving remark that the essential with a firm resolve not to ’play fast and loose principle which underlies the doctrine of the with criticism.’ Dr. Sanday holds that criticism finds its first expression in a Valentinian and tradition really meet, though not perhaps writer,’ and in his brief estimate of the Apologists within the range of our present instruments of he crosses their path intentionally. If Loofs vision. On neither side must there be anything complains that the Apologists by their doctrine like coercion. ~ -- of the Logos- tended to lower Christology instead My purpose now is first of all to give a brief of heightening it, Dr. Sanday’s reply is that

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‘sooner or later, it was inevitable that Christianity But Dr. Sanday makes no apology for Trinitarian should be brought into relation with the con- doctrine, nor need we. ’~17hy should there not be temporary philosophy. And, if that was to be in that abyss which we call &dquo; God &dquo; some differentia- done at all, was there any grander idea, already tion of being or function which does not amount coined and current, than that of the Logos, that to division ?’ As the background to what we know could be used for the purpose ? Was there any of Christ, of God in Christ, something of this idea with anything like the same sweep and kind is an essential postulate ; and if it be said range?’ It is well that this should be said, and that the description of such distinctions within for a final judgment we no doubt have to con- the Godhead is negative merely, not affirmative, sider the further point also that the Apologists the objection may be conceded, but with the certainly did not conceive of the activity of the query whether it is one which the Christian Logos as purely intellectual.’ At the same time, theologian has any right to put. Most Christian Loofs appears to be so far right that St. John theologians lay it down that God is ccarrsca sui, yet and the Apologists come to the Logos-idea from when we look into our own is that phrase appreciably different points of view. To the one more than negative, however indispensable? It it is a useful philosophic symbol; the pre-existent cannot be positively defined, yet we are obliged to One normally thought of as Sooa (this is clear, I grant its truth. There is point in the celebrated think, if we take the Prologue and chap. 171-5 Moses S~uart of Andover’s reply to Channing, together), may for a special didactic purpose be ’When you will give me an afhrmative description designated as Logos ; to the Apologists, on the of underived existence, I may safely engage to others hand, the Logos is the influential and furnish you with one of persou in the Trinity.’ paramount idea, distinctively metaphysical, and Dr. Sanday will carry most of us with him in his with at best a neutral relation to concrete history. severe allusions to Tritheistic forms of doctrine. They interpret Jesus Cilrist by the Logos ; St. John Had there been less Tritheism, we might have interprets the Logos by Jesus Christ. The chasm wanted . Strictly we use the word is not quite impassable, but for all that it is ’ person’ merely because of the poverty of there. language ; to designate our belief in a real dis- In some fresh pages on Irenaus and Tertullian tinction in God, that is, not to affirm independentt I may single out a few particularly well-timed conscious , possessing separate ’ essence words on the conception of an economic Trinity. and ‘we must never cease to be grateful’to St. No doubt for a real synthesis we are compelled to Augustine for that phrase-lIoll ut illrici dice~~etrrn, probe deeper, unless forbidden by a purely rslativ- sed ne /t7~/’~/M/’.’ istic theory of knowledge ; we cannot rest content It was the Christian instinct that vanquished with a Triune Life that is merely provisional or on ; but has Dr. Sanday any real ground the surface. But we do well, nevertheless, to note for saying that this instinct operated uncon- that it was right and proper, because it was natural, sciously ? His exact words are: ’Such in- that the conception should begin in this form.’ stinctive tendencies are really of no slight rnoment ; It not only began in this form historically ; it must they show the working of forces that do not take always begin thus, if it is not to be separated shape in tangible argument, but are none the less from its basis in history and experience. Nothing part of that constructive whole to which the we discover afterwards as to the value of the unconscious processes of the human mind Trinitarian idea for speculation can touch the fact contribute as much or more than ’the conscious ’ that ’the first impulse to it was given by the (p. 43). The passage is worth noting as indicating belief in the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ ; and a slight bias, more definite in other places, towards then as a further step came the necessity to co- what I may perhaps call the glorification of the ordinate with this that -wide movement ’ unconscious.’ Some of these passages will come which all Christians described as the work of the up later. Here it is only necessary to urge that Holy Spirit’ (p. 7 ). So that advocates of what naive and unreflective states of mind need not be are. usually described as ‘economic’ and at all unconscious. Men do not take sides in ‘:ontologicai’ views of the Trinity may travel at controversy except as the result of some quite ’least part of the way in each other’s company. conscious reasonings, however defective such

Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com at NORTH DAKOTA STATE UNIV LIB on May 22, 2015 488 reasonings may be, and indeed usually are, in a is a clear gain. We come back at last to the real formal point of view. Christ-historic or (as we should say) supernatural.’ As regards the definition of Chalcedon, Dr. As an expository clue to the last hundred years, Sanday pleads in mitigation of the modern hostile this could hardly be improved. It not only helps tone. He says truly that it was no slight thing to memory but promotes insight. I cannot dwell on save the integrity and reality of Christ’s manhood, the fine feeling of the pages which bring back even though it were done at some expense of logic. T. H. Green to us, pages for which Dr. Sanday When he says, however, that it is not for us to will be thanked by many. No part of the book blame Leo and Pope Martin before we have is written so plainly COIl all/ore; and nothing was got a coherent and consistent theory of our own better worth doing just now, when Green’s figure that we can substitute for theirs,’ he appears to tends to grow dim a little in the dust-clouds of me to suggest a principle which, if taken seriously, modern philosophic strife. One feels that the would put an end to all criticism of the past. treatment of Dorner and the Kenotic theologians occurs an to is Happily the principle only in ohile~- j I is somewhat slight, not say unfriendly, which dictrrm, and is freely transgressed by its author in the more surprising that many people would be case of need. Two Natures, Two Energies, Two inclined to put Dr. Sanday himself rather close up Wilts in Christ-such categories ’are no longer to the Kenoticists in ultimate affinity. As a guide as living as they were.’ Who can help criticising to the English literature of the subject, however, them, whether he will or not ? Among reasonable these pages (71-78) have much value. It is men, I suppose, there is little more difference here perhaps time that we should now disengage the than may be represented by the varied order of principle of from the details of its applica- words in a sentence. One says: The older tion in the familiar historic theories. When Dr. language scarcely contents us now, but we should Sanday remarks that the formal theory of Kenosis consider that at the time no other solution was rests upon an altogether insufficient basis, both possible. Another says: No other solution was biblical and historical,’ he appears to be thinking possible, doubtless, but the older language must of Thomasius and Gess or of some other detailed now be modernized. And into either form we hypothesis which almost invites the fatal charge may really put as much sympathy and historic of theosophy, because it professes to explain such sense, I feel, as we are capable of. things as-even if real-never could be really Students of nineteenth-century Christology ought known to any one. So far as I can see, how- to ponder some of the implications of the following ever, we are brought back irresistibly to the idea passage in the third lecture ; Dr. Sanday is at his of a real -not merely Kenosis ’ ’in a best in such brief aj~c~yus. ’There are in German sense’-by motives which at bottom are genuinely three related terms which may be used in this con- religious. Somehow we must get into our theory nexion, and I think that they may be taken as each the wonder of Christ’s self abnegation ; the fact marking a distinct step above the other. The that in He gave up qualities or conditions terms are Christus-Idee, Christus-Prinzip, and of a former being, gave them up besides by Christus-Person. I would venture to distinguish a real surrender, which was incompatible with between them thus. The idea is the expression His yet retaining them at a different centre of of a general truth; in this case the general truth consciousness. And if we be asked what these of the intimate mutual relation of God and man, qualities were, only the historic record of His of Deity and Humanity. It is implied, but not life, I think, can tell us. He gave up whatever directly expressed, that this idea embodies itself, was necessary to His that. At various or works itself out, in history. The term principle, points in his argument Dr. Sanday implies approval as compared with idea, lays more stress on this of the modern view that the life of Jesus was active working out or realization ; it brings to the veritably human, and that-it is really a second forefront the fact that the idea is not a mere aspect of the same thing-there were in Him not abstraction of the mind, but a working creative two consciousnesses or- two wills, but a funda- force in history. Both these terms are less heard mental unity of experience ; that, to quote Bishop of than they were. In their place we hear more BVeston, ‘ the importance of arriving at a concep- now of the Christus-Person. I take it that this tion of a single consciousness of the Christ cannot

Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com at NORTH DAKOTA STATE UNIV LIB on May 22, 2015 489 be overestimated.’ But how to think these two is a great advance on anything that had been tried data together-the true manhood and the single previously. consciousness-without the postulate of an actual Again, the Ritschlians perhaps too much figure Kenosis, involving much more than ‘the external in Dr. Sanday’s pages as a single homogeneous circumstances of majesty and glory,’ I confess to group. There are really very considerable differ- finding it always more difficult to understand. ences ; Haering and Julius Kaftan, for example, The estimate of Ritschlianism is very much done would say a good deal as to the pre-existence of from the inside. How sympathetic it is the follow- Christ which Harnack and J. Weiss would incline ing sentences prove. The formula on which [the strongly to disown. Apart from this, however, Ritschlian] insists, and will insist as much as we Dr. Sanday looks upon the Ritschlian point of is as one of the two main of please, contained in those words of St. Paul’s,’, view illustrating types &dquo; God was in Christ, reconciling the world to contemporary Christian thought. Of these he himself&dquo; (2 Co 51v’). His assent to this is whole- writes : ’I will call the one &dquo; full Christianity,&dquo; heared.... To find Christ or be found of and the other &dquo; reduced Christianity &dquo;; and each of Christ, is to find God or be found of God ; to these, as it seems to me, has a Christology of its he in touch with Christ is to be in touch with own.’ Roughly it may be said that the reduced God, and to feel His presence in the . That Christianity confines itself to the Synoptics ; the is the religious nucleus of Ritschlianism, in regard fuller typ~ tal;es in all the rest of the New to which, as I said just now, it is quite whole- Testament, and particularly writers like St. Paul hearted..~lnd I confess that to me this profession and St. John. Both parties might conceivably of faith, brief and guarded as it is, is of immense meet on the ground of the brief creed suggested value. I am not sure that it is not really the by Dr. Denney from the ‘fuller’ side; but the essence of everything’ (pp. I04.-I05). This is surely distinction of the one reading from the other is as far as sincere mediation and compromise could by no means to be minimized. It would be fairly go ; and the difference which after all does remain correct to say that the radical group are unanimous is rather theological than religious. But the in discarding the mysticism of the New Testament; question we have still the right to put, is just the apostolic emphasis on something inclusive in whether the Ritschlian gets as much truth out of the life and mission of our Lord,’ and even our this religious conviction as it actually Lord’s own consciousness of His own universal holds. If faith is in touch with ultimate reality, and representative character, are scarcely per- and if for faith Jesus and God are one, the right mitted to have weight. Dr. Sanday quotes from inference would appear to be that the dualism Moberly and Du Bose memorable passages which introduced between Christ and God by the logical bear out his own strongly mystical interpretation understanding is only provisional and temporary- of all such Biblical data, adding that there was a one more consequence indeed of the fact that life, time when I should have very much hesitated to by its very idea, is the perpetual despair of thought, give any kind of endorsement to this teaching which comes halting slowly in the rear of vital myself.’ Now it seems to him to be after all experience. Jesus and God are one, alike for nothing more than a Christian application of the simple faith and for the ideal Dogmatic that idea of Divine . Not only so; it shall transcend the oppositions of discursive think- furnishes an analogy which may go some way ing. A propos. of Ritschl, by ine way, is it quite to explain other difficulties of the Incarnation.’ correct to say (p. 83). that there is nothing What follows is important. ’The presence of distinctive in his treatment of the categories of this divine element, whatever it is-the Christian Prophet, Priest, and King? It has usually been would say, the working of the Holy Spirit even in regarded as a happy originality in him to take the its highest degree-is seen to be no wise incompat- Kingship as the superior conception, with Prophet- ible with the fullest humanity.... The full ship and Priesthood as joint aspects or sub- recognition of this fact will determine the shape divisions ; Christ being Priest in so far as He of that constructive attempt at a modern Chrim- dealt with God for us, Prophet in so far as He ology that I hope to offer’ (pp. I32-I3~). Already dealt with us for God, and the title in each case we can see that the two predominant ideas in Dr. covering the whole of what He was and did. This Sanday’s new reading of our Lord’s Person are

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going to be those of the Mystic Union and the that cannot be set down instantly in plain words. Subliminal Self, if indeed he would concede that Paley, as a fond admirer once happily expressed it, they are two ideas, and not rather one. But the ’ had the credit of putting Christianity into a form exposition of this theory in more detail, with which could be written out at examinations.’ Now whatever criticism may offer, must be deferred. of all this Dr. Sanday is the antipodes : he has no Looking backward, we can see that we have been dry, stony confidence in arguing with other men, under the leadership of a singularly and congenially never treats ideas as if they formed a fixed, dead appreciative mind. ‘I am perhaps conscious of a skeleton, refuses to ignore the delicate organic laws certain call to offer to mediate,’ are the writer’s own of growth and change. At least I have noted but words. This sympathy and knowledge are mani- one exception to this rule of sympathy. That fest throughout, and they enable him to be always exception is Luther. He is mentioned only once, courteously conciliatory without being complaisant. a little unkindly ; and of his contributions to the No wonder he is so widely trusted. True sympathy interpretation of Christ there is not a word. And and a feeling for the delicacies of spiritual thought yet it is not too much to say that with the Reforma- are, if not rare, at any rate never too abundant. tion, and particularly with Luther, there came into Though much less common than before, the hard the world a richer and more profound, because a type of divine is still with us ; sagacious, shrewd, more religious, understanding of our Lord’s Person circumstantial, business-like, sceptical of everything than had been known since the Apostles.

The Breat Text Commentary. THE GREAT TEXTS OF .

I. REVELATION XXII. I7. THE INVITATION TO CHRIST TO COME. ‘And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is The invitation is given ( i ) by the Spirit, ( ^ ) by let him come : he that let him the athirst, will, take the bride, and (3) by the hearer. The Spirit and water of life freely.’ the bride are not identical, as if the Spirit simply There are two kinds of ’coming’ in this verse. spoke through the bride, that is, the Church. There is the coming of the Saviour, and there is And yet the writer of the Apocalypse does not coming to the Saviour. First there is the invita- mean that the Spirit, as the third Person in the tion to the Lord Jesus Christ to come. The Trinity, gives the invitation dircctly to the second invitation is addressed to Him by the Spirit and Person to hasten His coming. By the Spirit, St. the bride, and every one that hears is invited to John means those who are specially endowed with join in it. And then there is the invitation to the spirit of wisdom and of utterance. There was come to the Lord, or, as the expression is, to take in the early Church a distinct order or school of the water of life freely,’ an invitation which is ad- ’prophets’ to whom the word of the Lord came, dressed first to ’him that is athirst,’ and next to as it came to the prophets of the old dispensation. ‘ whosoever will.’ So we have’ But it did not come from without. The word was I. The Invitation to Christ to come. in their heart. It was the Spirit within them ; it . i. From the Spirit. was the Spirit of God expressing itself by them. .. 2. From the Bride. People, says Dr. BV. M. Macgregor, had the - . ’ : 3. From the Hearer. wisdom and the courage in those days to believe ell. The Invitation to the Sinner to come to that in their lowly gatherings the voice of God was Christ. sometimes heard. When plain men spoke above 1. To the Thirsty One. themselves, in words all depth and fire and 2. To every one that is willing.. essential insight, speaking so as to catch their

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