FROM his studies and writings on St. Athanasius Newman was very familiar with that saint's doctrine of theosis, discussed in detail in Select Treatises of St. Athanasius (1877).  His pastoral application of that doctrine is discernible in his Parochial and Plain Sermons (1834-42, repr.1866) and Lectures on Justification (1838, revised 1874), and then on the eve of his conversion to Catholicism in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845, revised 1866).  He particularly understands theosis as the baptismal grace of the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  In describing this he uses a variety of terms, including divine “indwelling,” “fellowship,” “participation,” “glory,” and “union.”

Links to Primary Sources

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6.

The Arian controversy had led to another development, which confirmed by anticipation the cultus to which St. Augustine’s doctrine pointed. In answer to the objection urged against our Lord’s supreme Divinity from texts which speak of His exaltation, St. Athanasius is led to insist forcibly on the benefits which have accrued to man through it. He says that, in truth, not Christ, but that human nature which He had assumed, was raised and glorified in Him. The more plausible was the heretical argument against His Divinity from those texts, the more emphatic is St. Athanasius’s exaltation of our regenerate nature by way of explaining them. But intimate indeed must be the connexion between Christ and His brethren, and high their glory, if the language which seemed to belong to the Incarnate Word really belonged to them. Thus the pressure of the controversy elicited and developed a truth, which till then was held indeed by Christians, but less perfectly realized and not publicly recognized.

Without misgiving we may apply to them the most sacred language of Psalmists and Prophets. “Thou art a Priest for ever” may be said of St. Polycarp or St. Martin as well as of their Lord. “He hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor,” was fulfilled in ^[p.141] St. Laurence. “I have found David My servant,” first said typically of the King of Israel, and belonging really to Christ, is transferred back again by grace to His Vicegerents upon earth. “I have given thee the nations for thine inheritance” is the prerogative of Popes; “Thou hast given him his heart’s desire,” the record of a martyr; “thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity,” the praise of Virgins.

7.

Devt_of_Doct_7_1_Christ_makes_us_what_he_is_matter_can_be_sanctified

^[p.323] IT appears then that there has been a certain general type of Christianity in every age, by which it is known at first sight, differing from itself only as what is young differs from what is mature, or as found in Europe or in America, so that it is named at once and without hesitation, as forms of nature are recognized by experts in physical science; or as some work of literature or art is assigned to its right author by the critic, difficult as may be the analysis of that specific impression by which he is enabled to do so. And it appears that this type has remained entire from first to last, in spite of that process of development which seems to be attributed by all parties, for good or bad, to the doctrines, rites, and usages in which Christianity consists; or, in other words, that the changes which have taken place in Christianity have not been such as to destroy that type,—that is, that they are not corruptions, because they are consistent with that type. Here then, in the preservation of type, we have a first Note of the fidelity of the existing developments of Christianity. Let us now proceed to a second.

When developments in Christianity are spoken of, it is ^[p.324] sometimes supposed that they are deductions and diversions made at random, according to accident or the caprice of individuals; whereas it is because they have been conducted all along on definite and continuous principles that the type of the Religion has remained from first to last unalterable. What then are the principles under which the developments have been made? I will enumerate some obvious ones.

2.

They must be many and positive, as well as obvious, if they are to be effective; thus the Society of Friends seems in the course of years to have changed its type in consequence of its scarcity of principles, a fanatical spiritualism and an intense secularity, types simply contrary to each other, being alike consistent with its main principle, “Forms of worship are Antichristian.” Christianity, on the other hand, has principles so distinctive, numerous, various, and operative, as to be unlike any other religious, ethical, or political system that the world has ever seen, unlike, not only in character, but in persistence in that character. I cannot attempt here to enumerate more than a few by way of illustration.

3.

For the convenience of arrangement, I will consider the Incarnation the central truth of the gospel, and the source whence we are to draw out its principles. This great doctrine is unequivocally announced in numberless passages of the New Testament, especially by St. John and St. Paul; as is familiar to us all: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, that declare we to you.” “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus ^[p.325] Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.” “Not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

4.

In such passages as these we have

1. The principle of dogma, that is, supernatural truths irrevocably committed to human language, imperfect because it is human, but definitive and necessary because given from above.

2. The principal of faith, which is the correlative of dogma, being the absolute acceptance of the divine Word with an internal assent, in opposition to the informations, if such, of sight and reason.

3. Faith, being an act of the intellect, opens a way for inquiry, comparison and inference, that is, for science in religion, in subservience to itself; this is the principle of theology.

4. The doctrine of the Incarnation is the announcement of a divine gift conveyed in a material and visible medium, it being thus that heaven and earth are in the Incarnation united. That is, it establishes in the very idea of Christianity the sacramental principle as its characteristic.

5. Another principle involved in the doctrine of the Incarnation, viewed as taught or as dogmatic, is the necessary use of language, e.g. of the text of Scripture, in a second or mystical sense. Words must be made to express new ideas, and are invested with a sacramental office.

7. It cannot elevate and change us without mortifying our lower nature:—here is the principle of asceticism. ^[p.326]

8. And, involved in this death of the natural man, is necessarily a revelation of the malignity of sin, in corroboration of the forebodings of conscience.

§ 39 .3. Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to make us gods ([theopoiesei].). Since, if when He became man, only then He was called Son and God, but before He became man, God called the ancient people sons, and made Moses a god of Pharaoh, (and Scripture says of many, God standeth in the congregation of gods (Ps. 81.1; Sept 82.1) it is plain that He is called Son and God later than they. How then are all things through Him, and He before all? or how is He first-born of the whole creation (Col. i. 15.) (vid. infr. ii. § 62.), if He has others before Him who are called sons and gods? And how is it that those first partakers (do not partake of the Word? This opinion is not true; it is an evasion of our present Judaizers. For how in that case can any at all know God as their Father? for adoption there cannot be apart from the real Son, who says, No one knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him (Matt. xi. 27.). And how can there be deifying apart from the Word and before Him? yet, saith He to their brethren the Jews, If He called them gods, unto whom the Word of God came (John x. 35.). And if all that are called sons and gods, whether in earth or in heaven, were adopted and deified through the Word, and the Son Himself is the Word, it is plain that through Him are they all, and He Himself before all, or rather He himself only is very Son (18. p. 18, note O.), and He alone is very God from the very God, not receiving these prerogatives as a reward for His virtue, nor being ^[p.237] something else beside (p. 234, ref. 4.) them, but being all these by nature and according to substance. For He is Offspring of the Father’s substance, so that one cannot doubt that after the resemblance of the unalterable Father, the Word also is unalterable.

Athan_Treat_Annot_1_DEIFICATION

THE titles which belong to the Divine Word by nature, are by grace given to us, a wonderful privilege, of which the Arians showed their sense, not by teaching the elevation of the creature to the Son of God, but by lowering the Son to the level of the creature. The means by which these titles become ours are

“The Word was made flesh in order to offer up this body for all, and that we, partaking of His Spirit, might be made gods.” Decr. § 14.

“While all things which are made, have by participation (ek metousias) the grace of God, He is the Father’s Wisdom and Word, of whom all things partake. It follows that He, being the deifying and enlightening power of the Father, in which all things are deified and quickened, is not alien in substance from the Father, but one in substance.” Syn. § 51.

“He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to make us gods.” Orat. i. § 39.

“This is our grace and high exaltation, that even ^[p.89] when He became man, the Son of God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers are not startled at all of us, who are one body with Him, being introduced into their realms.” ibid. § 42.

“Because of our relationship to His body, we too have become God’s Temple, and in consequence are made God’s Sons, so that even in us the Lord is now worshipped, and beholders report, as the Apostle says, that ‘God is in them of a truth.’“ ibid. § 43.

“God created Him for our sakes, because of us, preparing for Him that created body, that in Him we might be capable of being renewed and made gods.” Orat. ii. § 47.

“Therefore did He assume the body generate and human, that, having renewed it as its framer, He might make it god … For man had not been made god, if joined to a creature, ... the union was of this kind, ... that his salvation and deification might be sure.” ibid. § 70.

“Although there be but one Son by nature, True and Only-begotten, we too become sons, ... and, though we are men from the earth, we are yet called gods ... as has pleased God who has given us that grace.” Orat. iii. § 19.

“As we are sons and gods, because of the Word in us, so shall we be in the Son and in the Father, because the Spirit is in us.” ibid. § 25.

“We men are made gods by the Word, as being joined to Him through His flesh.” ibid. § 34.

“That He might redeem mankind ... that He ^[p.90] might hallow them and make them gods, the Word became flesh.” ibid. § 39.

“What is this advance but the deifying and grace imparted from Wisdom to men?” ibid. § 53.

Vid. also Adelph. 4; Serap. i. 24; Cyr. in Joann. p. 74; Theod. Hist. p. 846 init.

Athan_Treat_Annot_2_Freedom_of_Moral_Nature

THIS, it need hardly be said, is one of the chief blessings which we have secured to us by the Incarnation. We are by nature the captives and prisoners of our inordinate and unruly passions and desires; we are not our own masters, till our Lord sets us free; and the main question is, how does He set us free, and by what instrumentality?

1. Here we answer, first, by bringing home to us the broad and living law of liberty and His own pattern which He has provided for us. “Whereas,” Athan. says, “of things made the nature is alterable, ... therefore there was here need of One who was unalterable, that men might have the immutability of the righteousness of the Word as an image and type for virtue.” Orat. i. § 51. (Disc. n. 84.)

Vid. Athan. de Incarn. § 13, 14; vid. also Gent. 41 fin. “Cum justitia nulla esset in terrâ, doctorem misit, quasi vivam legem.” Lactant. Instit. iv. 25. “The Only-begotten was made man like us, ... as if lending us His own steadfastness.” Cyril. in Joann. lib. v. 2, p. 473; vid. also Thesaur. 20, p. 198; August. de Corr. et Grat. 10-12; Damasc. F.O. iv. 4. And this pattern to us He is, not only through His Incarnation, but as manifested in a measure by His glory, as (prototokos), in the visible universe. ^[p.128] Vid. a beautiful passage, contr. Gent. 42, &c. Again, “He made them (men) after His own image, imparting to them of the power of His own Word, that, having as it were certain shadows of the Word, and becoming rational, (logikoi), they might be enabled to continue in blessedness.” Incarn. 3; vid. also Orat. ii. § 78, (Disc. n. 215,) where he speaks of Wisdom as being infused into the world on its creation, that the world might possess “an impress and semblance of Its Image.”

So again, “He is the truth, and we by imitation become virtuous and Sons; ... that, as He, being the Word, is in His own Father, so we too, taking Him as an exemplar, might live in unanimity,” &c. &c. (Kata mimesin). Orat. iii. § 19. (Disc. n. 252;) Clem. Alex. (ton eikonon tas men ektrepomenous, tas de mimoumenous). Pædag. i. 3, p. 102, ed. Pott. and (mimesei tou noos ekeinou). Naz. Ep. 102, p. 95 (ed. Ben.). Vid. Leo. in various places, infra, p. 190, art. Incarnation; ut imitatores operum, factores sermonum, &c. Iren. Hær. v. 1; exemplum verum et adjutorium. August. Serm. 101, 6; mediator non solum per adjutorium, verùm etiam per exemplum. August. Trin. xiii. 22, also ix. 21, and Eusebius, though with an heretical meaning, (kata ten autou mimesin). Eccl. Theol. iii. 19.

2. But of course an opportunity of imitation is not enough: a powerful internal grace is necessary, however great the beauty of the Moral Law and its Author, in order to set free and convert the human heart. “Idly do ye imagine to be able to work in yourselves newness of the principle which thinks (phronountos) and ^[p.129] actuates the flesh, expecting to do so by imitation ... for if men could have wrought for themselves newness of that actuating principle without Christ, and if what is actuated follows what actuates, what need was there of Christ’s coming?” Apoll. i. § 20 fin. And again: “The Word of God,” he says, “underwent a sort of creation in the Incarnation, in order to effect thereby our new creation. If He was not thus created for us,” but was absolutely a creature, which is the Arian doctrine, “it follows that we are not created in Him; and if not created in Him, we have Him not in ourselves, but externally, as, for instance, receiving instruction from Him as from a teacher. And, it being so with us, sin has not lost its reign over the flesh, being inherent and not cast out of it.” Orat. ii. § 56. (Disc. n. 180.) And this is necessary, he goes on to say, “that we might have (eleutheron to phronema).”

He speaks, contr. Gent., of man “having the grace of the Giver, and his own virtue from the Father’s Word;” of the mind “seeing the Word, and in Him the Word’s Father also,” § 2; of “the way to God being, not as God Himself, above us and far off, or external to us, but in us,” 30, &c. &c.; vid. also Basil. de Sp. S. n. 19. This is far more than mere teaching. “Rational creatures receiving light,” says Cyril, “enlighten by imparting principles, which are poured from their own minds into another intellect; and such an illumination may be justly called teaching rather than revelation. But the Word of God enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world, not in the way of a teacher, as for instance Angels do or ^[p.130] men, but rather as God, in the way of a Framer, doth He sow in each whom He calls into being the seed of Wisdom, that is, of divine knowledge, and implant a root of understanding,” &c. Cyril. in Joan. xix. p. 75. Athan. speaks of this seed sometimes as natural, sometimes as supernatural, and indeed the one order of grace is parallel to the other, and not incompatible with it. Again, he speaks of “a reason combined and connatural with everything that came into being, which some are wont to call seminal, inanimate indeed and unreasoning and unintelligent, but operating only by external art according to the science of Him who sowed it.” contr. Gent. 40. Thus there are three supernatural aids given to men of which the Word is the (arche), that of instinct, of reason, and the “gratia Christi.”

E.g. “The Word of God was made man in order to sanctify the flesh.” Orat. ii. § 10. (Disc. n. 114 fin.) “Ye say, ‘He destroyed (the works of the devil) by not sinning;’ but this is no destruction of sin. For not in Him did the devil in the beginning work sin, that by His coming into the world and not sinning sin was destroyed; but whereas the devil had wrought sin by an after-sowing in the rational and ^[p.131] spiritual nature of man, therefore it became impossible for nature, which was rational and had voluntarily sinned, and fell under the penalty of death, to recover itself into freedom (eleutherian) ... Therefore came the Son of God by Himself to establish (the flesh) in His own nature from a new beginning (arche) and a marvellous generation.” Apoll. ii. § 6.

“True, without His incarnation at all, God was able to speak the Word only and undo the curse ... but then the power indeed of Him who gave command had been shown, but man would have fared but as Adam before the fall by receiving grace only from without, not having it united to the body ... Then, had he been again seduced by the serpent, a second need had arisen of God’s commanding and undoing the curse; and thus the need had been interminable, and men had remained under guilt just as before, being in slavery to sin,” &c. Orat. ii. § 68. (Disc. n. 200); vid. arts. Incarnation and Sanctification. And so in Incarn. § 7, he says that repentance might have been pertinent, had man merely offended, without corruption following; but that that corruption involved the necessity of the Word’s vicarious sufferings and intercessory office.

“If the works of the Word’s Godhead had not taken place through the body, man had not been made god; and again, had not the belongings of the flesh been ascribed to the Word, man had not been thoroughly delivered from them; but though they had ceased for a little while, as I said before, still sin had remained in man and corruption, as was the case with mankind before He came; and for this reason:— ^[p.132] Many, for instance, have been made holy and clean from all sin; nay, Jeremias was hallowed, even from the womb, and John, while yet in the womb, leapt for joy at the voice of Mary Mother of God; nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression; and thus men remained mortal and corruptible as before, liable to the affections proper to their nature. But now the Word having become man and having appropriated the affections of the flesh, no longer do these affections touch the body, because of the Word who has come in it, but they are destroyed by Him, and henceforth men no longer remain sinners and dead according to their proper affections, but, having risen according to the Word’s power, they abide ever immortal and incorruptible. Whence also, whereas the flesh is born of Mary Mother of God, He Himself is said to have been born, who furnishes to others a generation of being; in order that, by His transferring our generation into Himself, we may no longer, as mere earth, return to earth, but as being knit into the Word from heaven, may be carried to heaven by Him.” Orat. iii. 33. (Disc. n. 270.)

“We could not otherwise,” says S. Irenæus, “receive incorruption and immortality, but by being united to incorruption and immortality. But how could this be, unless incorruption and immortality had first been made what we are? that corruption might be absorbed by incorruption and mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of Sons.” Hær. iii. 19, n. 1. “He took part of flesh and blood, that ^[p.133] is, He became man, whereas He was Life by nature, ... that uniting Himself to the corruptible flesh according to the measure of its own nature, ineffably, and inexpressibly, and as He alone knows, He might bring it to His own life, and render it partaker through Himself of God and the Father ... For He bore our nature, re-fashioning it into His own life; ... He is in us through the Spirit, turning our natural corruption into incorruption, and changing death to its contrary.” Cyril. in Joan. lib. ix. cir. fin. pp. 883, 4. This is the doctrine of S. Athanasius and S. Cyril, one may say, passim.

Vid. Naz. Epp. ad Cled. 1 and 2 (101, 102, ed. Ben.); Nyssen. ad Theoph. in Apoll. p. 696. “Generatio Christi origo est populi Christiani,” says S. Leo; “for whoso is regenerated in Christ,” he continues, “has no longer the propagation from a carnal father, but the germination of a Saviour, who therefore was made Son of man, that we might be sons of God.” Serm. 26, 2. “Multum fuit a Christo recepisse formam, sed plus est in Christo habere substantiam. Suscepit nos in suam proprietatem illa natura,” &c. &c. Serm. 72, 2; vid. Serm. 22, 2; “ut corpus regenerati fiat caro Crucifixi.” Serm. 63, 6. “Hæc est nativitas nova dum homo nascitur in Deo; in quo homine Deus natus est, carne antiqui seminis susceptâ, sine semine antiquo, ut illam novo semine, id est, spiritualiter, reformaret, exclusis antiquitatis sordibus, expiatam.” Tertull. de Carn. Christ. 17; vid. Orat. iii. § 34.

Such is the channel and mode in which spiritual life and freedom is given to us. Our Lord Himself, ^[p.134] according to the Holy Fathers, is the (arche) of the new creation to each individual Christian. If it be asked of them, What real connection can there possibly be between the sanctification of Christ’s manhood and ours? how does it prove that human nature is sanctified because a particular specimen of it was sanctified in Him? S. Chrysostom explains: “He is born of our substance; you will say, ‘This does not pertain to all;’ yea, to all. He mingles (anamignusin) Himself with the faithful individually, through the mysteries, and whom He has begotten those He nurses from Himself, not puts them out to other hands,” &c. Hom. 82. 5. in Matt. And just before, “It sufficed not for Him to be made man, to be scourged, to be sacrificed; but He unites Himself to us (anaphyrei heauton hemin), not merely by faith, but really, has He made us His body.” Again, “That we are commingled (anakerasthomen) into that flesh, not merely through love, but really, is brought about by means of that food which He has bestowed upon us.” Hom. 46. 3. in Joann. And so S. Cyril writes against Nestorius: “Since we have proved that Christ is the Vine, and we branches as adhering to a communion with Him, not spiritual merely but bodily, why clamours he against us thus bootlessly, saying that, since we adhere to Him, not in a bodily way, but rather by faith and the affection of love according to the Law, therefore He has called, not His own flesh the vine, but rather the Godhead?” in Joann. 10, p. 863, 4. And Nyssen: “As they who have taken poison, destroy its deadly power by some other preparation ... so when we have tasted what ^[p.135] destroys our nature, we have need of that instead which restores what was destroyed ... But what is this? nothing else than that Body which has been proved to be mightier than death, and was the beginning, (katerxato), of our life. For a little leaven,” &c. Orat. Catech. 37. “Decoctâ quasi per ollam carnis nostræ cruditate, sanctificavit in æternum nobis cibum carnem suam.” Paulin. Ep. 23. 7. Of course in such statements nothing simply material is implied. But without some explanation really literal, language such as S. Athanasius’s in the text seems a mere matter of words. Vid. infr. p. 225. ^[p.136]

Athan_Treat_Annot_3_GRACE_of_GOD

IT is a doctrine much insisted on by S. Athanasius, that, together with the act of creation, there was, on the part of the Creator, a further act conservative of the universe which He was creating. This was the communication to it of a blessing or grace, analogous to the grace and sonship purchased for us by our Lord’s incarnation, though distinct in kind from it and far inferior to it; and in consequence the universe is not only (geneton) but (genneton), not only made, but in a certain sense begotten or generated, and, being moulded on the Pattern supplied by the Divine Nature, is in a true sense an Image or at least a Semblance of the Creator. (Vid. art. (genneton).)

In controversy with the Arians, he explains with great care the nature of this gift, because it was their device to reduce our Lord’s Sonship, in which lay the proof of His Divinity, to the level of the supernatural adoption which has been accorded by the Creator to the whole world, first on its creation, and again through the redemption upon the cross of the fallen race of man.

This grace of adoption was imparted in both cases by the ministration of the Eternal Son, in capacity of Primogenitus or First-born, (as through His Incarnation in the Gospel Economy, so through His (sunkatabasis), or the coming of His Personal ^[p.137] Presence into the world in the beginning,) and was His type and likeness stamped upon the world, physical and moral, and a fulness of excellence enriching it from the source of all excellence. (Vid. (prototokos).)

“Since God is self-existing and not composed of parts,” says Athan., “such too is His Word also, being One Only-begotten God, who from a Father, as a Fount of Good, has gone forth (proelthon) Himself Good, and put into order and into consistency all things. The reason for this is truly admirable, and evidently befitting. For the nature of creatures, as coming into subsistence out of nothing, is dissoluble, and feeble, and, taken by itself, is mortal, but the God of the universe is good and of surpassing beauty in His nature. (vid. (rheustos) ... Beholding then that all created nature was in respect of its own laws dissoluble and dissolving, lest this should happen to it, and the whole world fall back again into nothing, having made all things by His own Eternal Word, and having given substance to the creation, he refused to let it be carried away and wrecked (cheimazesthai) by stress of its own nature, and, as a Good God, He governs and sustains it all by His own Word, who is Himself God, ... through whom and in whom all things consist, visible and invisible,” &c. contr. Gent. § 41.

Again, “In order that what came into being might not only be, but be good, it pleased God that His own Wisdom should condescend (sunkatabenai) to the creatures, so as to introduce an impress and semblance of Its Image on all in common and on each, that what was made might be manifestly wise works and worthy of God. For as ^[p.138] of the Son of God, considered as the Word, our word is an image, so of the same Son considered as Wisdom is the wisdom which is implanted in us an image; in which wisdom we, having the power of knowledge and thought, become recipients of the All-framing Wisdom, and through It we are able to know Its Father.” Orat. ii. 78. (Disc. n. 215.)

S. Cyril, using another figure, says that the universe is grafted on the Word: “He is Only-begotten according to nature, as being alone from the Father, God from God, Light kindled from Light; and He is First-born for our sakes, that, as if on some immortal root, the whole creation might be ingrafted and might bud forth from the Everlasting. For all things were made by Him, and consist for ever and are preserved in Him.” Thesaur. 25, p. 238.

Moreover, Athan. goes so far as to suggest that the universe does not evidence the Creator, except as being inhabited by the Son, and that what we see divine in it is His Presence. “He has said, ‘The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, His eternal Power and Divinity.’ ... Study the context, and ye will see that it is the Son who is signified. For after making mention of the creation, he naturally speaks of the Framer’s Power as seen in it, which Power, I say, is the Word of God, by whom all things were made. If indeed the creation be sufficient of itself alone, without the Son, to make God known, see that you fall not into the further opinion that without the Son it came to be. But if through ^[p.139] the Son it came to be, and in Him all things consist, it must follow that he who contemplates the creation rightly, is contemplating also the Word who framed it, and through Him begins to apprehend the Father. And on Philip’s asking, Show us the Father, He said not, ‘Behold the creation,’ but, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father.” Orat. i. § 11, 12. (Disc. n. 17.)

Our Lord, then, came on earth, not merely as the physician of our souls, but as the First-born and the Parent of a new Family, who should be the principle of propagation of a new birth in a fallen world. “The flesh being first sanctified in Him, we have the sequel of the Spirit’s grace, receiving out of His fulness.” Orat. i. § 50 fin. (Disc. n. 83 fin.) “Therefore did He assume the body created and human, that, having renewed it as its Framer, He might make it God in Himself, and thus might introduce us all into the ^[p.140] kingdom of heaven after His likeness.” Orat. ii. § 70. “How could we be partakers of that adoption of sons, unless through the Son we had received from Him that communion with Him, unless His Word had been made flesh, and had communicated it to us?” Iren. Hær. iii. 18, 7.

Hence it is that the adoption of Sons which is the gift which we gain by the Incarnation, is far more than an adoption in the ordinary sense of that word, and far stronger terms are used of it. Athan. says that we are made sons “truly,” (huiopoioumetha alethos). Decr. § 31 . (Nic. n. 45.) Again S. Basil says, that we are sons, (kurios), “properly,” and (protos), “primarily,” in opposition to (ek metaphoras) and (tropikos), “figuratively,” contr. Eunom. ii. 23, 24. S. Cyril too says that we are sons “naturally,” (physikos), as well as (kata charin), vid. Suicer. Thesaur. v. (huios), i. 3. Of these words, (alethos), (physikos), (kurios), and (protos), the first two are commonly reserved for our Lord; e.g. (ton alethos huion), Orat. ii. § 37. (Disc. n. 150 fin.) (hemeis huioi, ouk hos ekeinos physei kai aletheiai), Orat. iii. § 19. (Disc. n. 251.) Hilary indeed seems to deny us the title of “proper” sons, de Trin. xii. 15; but his “proprium” is a translation of (idion), not (kurios).

The true statement is, that, whereas there is a primary and secondary sense in which the word Son is used,—the primary, when it has its formal meaning of continuation of nature, and the secondary, when it is used nominally, or for an external resemblance to the first meaning,—it is applied to the regenerate, not in the secondary sense, but in the primary. S. Basil and S. ^[p.141] Gregory Nyssen consider Son to be a “a term of relationship according to nature” (vid. art. Son), also Basil, in Psalm. 28, 1. The actual presence of the Holy Spirit in the regenerate in substance (vid. Cyril. Dial. 7, p. 638) constitutes this relationship of nature; and hence after the words quoted from S. Cyril above, in which he says, that we are sons (physikos), he proceeds “naturally, because we are in Him, and in Him alone,” vid. Athan.’s words which follow in the text at the end of Decr. § 31. And hence Nyssen lays down as a received truth, that “to none does the term ‘proper,’ (kuriotaton), apply, but to one in whom the name responds with truth to the nature.” contr. Eunom. iii. p. 123. And he also implies, p. 117, the intimate association of our sonship with Christ’s, when he connects together regeneration with our Lord’s eternal generation, neither being (dia pathous), or, of the will of the flesh. If it be asked what the distinctive words are which are incommunicably the Son’s, since so much is man’s, it is obvious to answer, first, (idios huios) and (monogenes), which are in Scripture; and, next, the symbols “Of the substance,” and “One in substance,” of the Council; and this is the value of the Council’s phrases, that, while they guard the Son’s divinity, they allow full scope, without risk of trenching on that divinity, to the Catholic doctrine as to the fulness of the Christian privileges. ^[p.142]

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