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Now we have often said already that essence is one thing and
subsistence another, and that essence signifies the common and general
form of subsistences of the same kind, such as God, man, while
subsistence marks the individual, that is to say, Father, Son,
Holy Spirit, or Peter, Paul. Observe, then, that the names,
divinity and humanity, denote essences or natures: while the names,
God and man, are applied both in connection with natures, as when we
say that God is incomprehensible essence, and that God is one, and
with reference to subsistences, that which is more specific having the
name of the more general applied to it, as when the Scripture says,
Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee, or again, There was
a certain man in the land of Uz, for it was only to Job that
reference was made.
Therefore, in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing that we
recognise that He has two natures but only one subsistence compounded
of both, when we contemplate His natures we speak of His divinity and
His humanity, but when we contemplate the subsistence compounded of
the natures we sometimes use terms that have reference to His double
nature, as "Christ," and "at once God and man," and "God
Incarnate;" and sometimes those that imply only one of His natures,
as "God" alone, or "Son of God," and "man" alone, or "Son
of Man;" sometimes using names that imply His loftiness and
sometimes those that imply His lowliness. For He Who is alike God
and man is one, being the former from the Father ever without cause,
but having become the latter afterwards for His love towards man.
When, then, we speak of His divinity we do not ascribe to it the
properties of humanity. For we do not say that His divinity is
subject to passion or created. Nor, again, do we predicate of His
flesh or of His humanity the properties of divinity: for we do not say
that His flesh or His humanity is uncreated. But when we speak of
His subsistence, whether we give it a name implying both natures, or
one that refers to only one of them, we still attribute to it the
properties of both natures. For Christ, which name implies both
natures, is spoken of as at once God and man, created and uncreated,
subject to suffering anti incapable of suffering: and when He is named
Son of God and God, in reference to only one of His natures, He
still keeps the properties of the co-existing nature, that is, the
flesh, being spoken of as God who suffers, and as the Lord of Glory
crucified, not in respect of His being God but in respect of His
being at the same time man. Likewise also when He is called Man and
Son of Man, He still keeps the properties and glories of the divine
nature, a child before the ages, and man who knew no beginning; it is
not, however, as child or man but as God that He is before the
ages, and became a child in the end. And Ibis is the manner of the
mutual communication, either nature giving in exchange to the other its
own properties through the identity of the subsistence and the
interpenetration of the parts with one another. Accordingly we can say
of Christ: This our God was seen upon the earth and lived amongst
men, and This man is uncreated and impossible and uncircumscribed.
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