Jerome Zanchi (1516–90) and the Analysis of Reformed Scholastic Christology [1 ed.] 9783666551048, 9783525551042

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Reformed Historical Theology Edited by Herman J. Selderhuis in Co-operation with Emidio Campi, Irene Dingel, Elsie Anne McKee, Richard Muller, Risto Saarinen, and Carl Trueman

Volume 37

Stefan Lindholm

Jerome Zanchi (1516–90) and the Analysis of Reformed Scholastic Christology

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de. ISSN 2198-8226 ISBN 978-3-525-55104-2 You can find alternative editions of this book and additional material on our Website: www.v-r.de T 2016, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Theaterstraße 13, D-37073 Göttingen/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht LLC, Bristol, CT, U.S.A. www.v-r.de All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Printed in Germany. Typesetting by Konrad Triltsch GmbH, Ochsenfurt Printed and bound by Hubert & Co GmbH & Co. KG, Robert-Bosch-Breite 6, D-37079 Göttingen Printed on aging-resistant paper.

Acknowledgements

Ryszard Kapuscinski once remarked that all serious writing requires concentration and solitude. Anyone who has been engaged in a larger writing project can appreciate the truth of this observation. However, we also need the company of friends (and sometimes also foes) – for without them no demanding work can be done well. Therefore, I want to make known my dependence and gratitude to the following individuals. The present monograph began as a Ph.D. project at Stavanger School of mission and theology, Norway, while working at English L’Abri (a Christian study centre and community in Hampshire, where I lived with my family for several years). I heartily thank my dear colleagues for allowing me to start my doctoral studies amidst our very busy life together. By the same token, I would like to thank the many stimulating people I have had the honour to encounter in this special setting and from whom I have learned more than any book can contain. Although L’Abri is not an academic institution, it encourages the pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty in all aspects of life. It is no exaggeration to say that working and living there has made me a better human and a better academic. And for that I am grateful. Professor Sebastian Rehnman, my doctoral supervisor and friend, has over the past few years played a large part in shaping my philosophical and theological thinking. His keen interest in this project, his generous sharing of his deep and wide knowledge of reformed scholasticism and his exemplary philosophical rigour have been a great source of inspiration and instruction. Our many discussions, ranging from Aristotelian metaphysics to children’s literature, have given me topics and perspectives to ponder for many years to come. And I hope that we shall have opportunity to continue the discussion together in the future. I am grateful for dr. Andreas Nordlander and his wonderful family – Victoria, Lydia, Aron and Alicia. Andreas’ intellectual generosity and steady friendship over the years have been a sine qua non.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks are also due to Professors, Catharina Stenqvist (1950–2014), Gösta Hallonsten and Assistant Professor, Johan Mod8e. Their belief in me, while still an undergraduate in Lund, made me think the unthinkable: that I could become an academic. Thanks to Professors Paul Helm and Maria Rosa Antongazza who gave me much to think about at the Public Defence; dr. Christopher Burchill for encouragement and wisdom; dr. Joar Haga for valuable comments on the manuscript and hospitality ; doctoral student Joshua Schendel (a former student at English L’Abri) for penetrating comments and proof reading the entire manuscript; dr. Per Landgren who kindly proof read my Latin translation and to Per-Olof Hermansson, Gunilla Bäcks, Brad Littlejohn, and Jonathan Roberts for some last-minute proof reading. All remaining errors are my own and whatever truths that are left are a testimony to the grace of God. I have presented drafts of parts of the text in various contexts, notably the conference ‘Metaphysics, Past and Present’, Stavanger, 2010, the research seminar at Stavanger School of Mission and Theology (especially the comments by Professor Knut Alfsv,g) and the research seminaries in Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion at Lund University, Sweden. I am honored that Professor Herman Selderhuis accepted the manuscript for publication in the Reformed Historical Theology series. My hope is that the philosophical focus in this historical study will be well received by the reader. Finally, I want to move from mere gratitude to praise. I am thinking of my beloved and wise wife, Lois. She saw the almost “therapeutic” need for me to engage in this admittedly odd project a few years ago. Her relentless encouragement and realism have kept me sane throughout the process. I dedicate the labour of my hands and mind to her and to our two daughters, Linnea and Emilia.

Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Part I: Analysis and Reformed Scholastic Christology . . . . . . .

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15 15 15 23 24 28 30

Chapter Two: Zanchi’s Christology in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 A Biographical Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Zanchi’s Christological Writings and Character . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Sources and Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 The Contents, Style and Structure of De Incarnatione . . . 2.4 The Character of Zanchi’s Christology : Catholic, Scholastic and Reformed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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37 37 38 40 40 44

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Chapter Three: Virgin Birth and the Process of Hominization . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Zanchi on the Virgin Birth and the Problem of Instant Formation . 3.3 Turretin on the Successive Formation of Christ’s Body . . . . . . . 3.4 A Revisionist Argument for Instant Hominization and Ensoulment.

59 59 61 65 69

Chapter One: Reformed Scholasticism and Analytic Christology 1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Approaches to Reformed Scholasticism . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Philosophical Issues in Christology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.1 Analytic Christology and The Chalcedonian Tradition 1.3.2 Four Modes of Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.3 Which Philosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Part II: The Hypostatic Union

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Contents

3.5 Assuming Body by Assuming Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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77 77 79 86 99 99 102 105

Chapter Five: Zanchi on the Tria Genera and the Non Capax . . . . . 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Understanding the Tria Genera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Two Reformed Principles Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 The Extra Calvinisticum and the Non Capax . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 Simplicity-Composition as Explanation of the Non Capax 5.3.3 Calvin and the Non Capax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Does the Soul-Body Simile Support the Majestic Genus? . . . .

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113 113 114 124 125 129 134 139

Chapter Six: Notions of Presence . . . . . 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Place among Other Categories . . . . 6.3 Ubiquity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 The Inseparability of the Union 6.3.2 Chemnitz on Ubiquity . . . . . 6.4 Christology Provoking Cosmology . 6.5 Two Chemnitzian Arguments . . . .

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149 149 150 158 159 164 168 178

Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviations of Works Frequently Cited . Primary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Secondary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . .

189 189 189 191

Chapter Four : Similes for the Incarnation . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Patristic and Medieval Beginnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Zanchi on Compositionalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Some Suggestions for Compositionalists . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 On the Distinction between Artefacts and Substances 4.4.2 A Functionalist Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.3 Compositionalism Revised . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Part III: Consequences of the Union

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Preface

This is a study of the Christology of Jerome Zanchi (1516–90), a leading 16th century reformed scholastic theologian. Scholars have examined aspects of his theology, but no one has treated his Christology at any length. Filling this gap in the study of reformed scholastic theology in general and Christology in particular, I have adopted a method that is somewhat atypical for reformation studies. This is not primarily a work in church history, historical or systematic theology, although it draws on and should be of interest to practitioners of these disciplines. Primarily, it is a work of philosophy of religion or what is sometimes called philosophical theology.1 While modern philosophy of religion has largely focused on the existence of God and language about ‘God’, in a rather generic sense, philosophical theology analyses theological concepts in their particularity, rooted in various religious traditions. When approaching Christology in a historical thinker, such as Zanchi, a philosophical analysis should not neglect problems of context and historiography. Such issues must be part of the analysis. But a mere historical study will not deliver a proper understanding of Zanchi’s ideas (no more than a historically uninformed philosophical analysis will). I will try to show that a philosophical engagement with Zanchi brings greater understanding of his Christology. Moreover, this study does not stop at the level of explication: it also critically evaluates the findings. Thus, I hope the chosen approach and topic will be equally useful to students of reformation and postreformation theology and history as to students of contemporary systematic and philosophical theology. The text as a whole is bound together by doctrinal topics, themes and trajectories important to the 16th century Christological debates as well as by 1 See e. g. Marcel Sarot, God, Possiblity and Corporeality (Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing, 1992), ch. 1; Thomas P. Flint and Michael Rea eds., The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Oliver D. Crisp and Michael C. Rea eds., Analytic Theology : New Essasy in the Philosophy of Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) and my review essay, “Fr,n religionsfilosofi till analytisk teologi”, Theofilos 4/1 (2012), 74–88.

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Preface

philosophical issues and arguments. It divides into three parts, comprising two chapters each. The first part is concerned with research in reformed scholasticism and Christological method, the second part with the hypostatic union and the third part with the consequences of the hypostatic union. In the first chapter, I situate Zanchi in contemporary research into reformed scholasticism. I give an account of what I will call ‘analytic Christology’ and why it is relevant to the present study. In the second chapter, I contextualize Zanchi’s Christology, historically and theologically. I discuss the sources and context of Zanchi’s Christology and characterize it as catholic, scholastic and reformed. In the second part, on the hypostatic union, I begin by discussing Zanchi’s view of the virgin birth. More specifically, I look at his view of the process of Christ’s hominization. I first conclude that his views are ad hoc, at odds with his general anthropology, and will therefore jeopardize Christ’s true humanity. Then I offer some correctives to Zanchi’s views, arguing for a different application of hylemorphism, the general framework in which his anthropology is worked out. In the fourth chapter, I analyse Zanchi’s uses of the part-whole and soul-body similes for the hypostatic union. What emerges is a rather ambiguous account of the hypostatic union. At the end of this chapter, I offer further correctives, this time to Zanchi’s assumed metaphysical framework in order to better accommodate the sort of claims he wants to make about the hypostatic union. The central theme in the debate between the Lutheran and the reformed theologians, the communication of properties, is treated in the third part. Chapter five begins by discussing an interpretation of Martin Chemnitz’ three genera (tria genera) of the communication of properties, with special attention to the third and most controversial genus, the majestic genus (genus maiestaticum). Then, I introduce two reformed principles that Zanchi used, traditionally expressed as extra calvinisticum and finitum non capax infiniti. I explicate the metaphysical background to the non capax-principle via the distinction between divine simplicity and creational composition. I try to show that the debate was complicated by the fact that Chemnitz, contrary to Zanchi’s assumption, also held a version of the non capax and that some of Zanchi’s arguments, therefore, miss the point. After a brief excursion on Calvin’s view on the non capax (concluding that there is no case of the ‘Calvin against the Calvinist’ thesis), I return to the interpretation of Chemnitz. I argue that Chemnitz’ reluctance to use scholastic terminology led him to find other ways of expressing the third genus. The soul-body simile was perhaps the most central feature of Chemnitz’ Christology, particularly through the patristic concept of perichoresis. However, I find this strategy lacking in plausibility and thus defend Zanchi’s argument against Chemnitz’ reliance on the soul-body simile as a support to the third genus.

Preface

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In the sixth chapter, I analyse the most controverted issue in the debate: ubiquity. The chapter begins with giving an account of three notions of presence (circumscriptive, definitive and repletive). I expound the rather thorny background to these notions in terms of the Aristotelian category of ‘place’ (which is a concept, central to the project of physics, conceived as the science of change). I then show that Zanchi tends to argue against a sort of generalized version of ubiquity. This generalized version of ubiquity is founded on what I call the ‘inseparability thesis’, originating in Luther. Secondly, I examine the ways in which the argument for ubiquity receives a characteristically voluntarist qualification in Chemnitz to the effect that Christ’s humanity can be located at many places at the same time if Christ so wills (multi-voli-presence). I will argue that there is a sense in which also Chemnitz ascribes to ubiquity. This doublesidedness in his Christology makes it rather difficult to assess his actual position as well as the force of Zanchi’s objections. I conclude that Chemnitz’ notion of ubiquity is significantly weaker than is often assumed by Zanchi and that Zanchi, therefore, sometimes fails to present a relevant argument against ubiquity. Thirdly, I will look at Christ’s ascension and his sitting at the right hand of God the Father, as this was one of the ways in which the Lutherans defended some version of ubiquity. I explore what sense ‘heaven’ had, and offer some explorative strategies for solving dilemmas arising from different views of heaven. Finally, I will look at two scholastic arguments in Chemnitz for multilocation and reconstruct a possible Zanchian response to them. In the end, I reflect on the value of this study and suggest some trajectories for future research.

Part I: Analysis and Reformed Scholastic Christology

Chapter One: Reformed Scholasticism and Analytic Christology In my view, all other forms of inquiry rest upon metaphysical presuppositions–thus making metaphysics unavoidable–so that we should at least endeavour to do metaphysics with our eyes open, rather than allowing it to exercise its influence upon us at the level of uncritical assumption. – Jonathan Lowe.1

1.1

Introduction

Scholasticism is known for its explicit use of philosophical tools and notions in the service of theology. So is its modern relative, philosophy of religion or philosophical theology. In this chapter I shall argue that there are convergences between these two fields of study, which might be exploited and make a positive contribution to both. More specifically, I shall focus on Christology in the reformed scholastic, Jerome Zanchi, and lay out a method of analysis I shall call ‘Analytic Christology’. To that end I will, in the first section of this chapter, survey the current state of research in reformed scholasticism and place Zanchi within it. I shall show that, within the study of reformed scholasticism, a significant historiographical shift has occurred in the latter part of the 20th century. However, I shall argue that the new departure needs to be supplemented with a more philosophical approach. In the second section, I try to give an account of what such a philosophical approach entails.

1.2

Approaches to Reformed Scholasticism

A notable historiographical shift has occurred in the study of reformed scholasticism in the last thirty years or so. Idealist presuppositions had shaped research in reformed scholasticism from the mid 19th century to mid 20th century. In theological texts and systems from the reformation and post-reformation era, many scholars attempted to find a ‘central dogma’ (Zentraldogma), an all-governing idea, which was supposed to control the whole theological system or an individual theologian’s thinking. This scholarship more or less assumed that the central dogma for the reformed scholastics was predestination. All 1 The Possiblity of Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), v.

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aspects of reformed theology tended to be conceived in the light of predestination as a sort of key that unlocks the whole reformed system.2 Proponents of the old approach tended to posit: (i) a (then) commonly accepted dualism between the humanism of the first and second generation of reformers and the scholasticism of their heirs,3 (ii) a strong assimilation or continuity between the reformed scholastics and the medieval scholastics, (ii) a strong separation from or discontinuity with the early reformers and (iv) that the scholasticism in the late 16th century was a distortion of the original “piety” or “Christocentrism” of Calvin and (v) that the first and second generation of reformers for whom they assumed that piety and Christ function as the “authentic” central dogma.4 A relevant example of this approach is Otto Gründler’s study of Zanchi’s doctrine of God and predestination. He saw in Zanchi a perversion of the “christocentric” and pastorally motivated theology he attributed to John Calvin. Gründler argued that Zanchi went back to medieval patterns of thought, that of “metaphysical causality”, where Christ and biblical revelation had no real place.5 As a criticism of the central dogma approach, a new direction was sought from the mid 20th century onwards.6 The new wave of scholarship began to see the 2 So for instance, Brian G. Armstrong, Calvin and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth Century France (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969); Basil Hall, “Calvin against the Calvinists” in Gervase E. Duffield ed., John Calvin. Courtenay Studies in Reformation Theology (Appleford: Sutton Cortenay Press, 1966), 12–37 and Alexander Schweizer, Die Protestantischen Centraldogmen in ihrer entwicklung innerhalb der Reformierten Kirche, vol. 1 (Zürich, 1854). There was some variation in how this idea applied to the material. Some scholars thought that predestination is the central dogma of reformed theology as a whole whereas other thought it only pertains to theology in the scholastic period after Calvin. Whatever the differences between these strands both asserted that predestination was antithetical to a genuine care for Christian spirituality and essentially a detached predestinarian system. 3 Building on the views of for instance Jacob Buckhardt from his Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (Leibzig: Phaidon-Verlag Wien, 1860). 4 This use of the central dogma idea goes (at least) back to Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768– 1834) and the German ’mediating theology’ (Vermittlungstheologie) of the 18th and 19th centuries. Christ was made the cognitive foundation for theology and not, as traditionally was the case, Scripture. See Richard A. Muller, “A Note on “Christocentism” and the Imprudent use of such Terminology”, Westminster Theological Journal 68 (2006), 253–60 and Annette G. Aubert, The German Roots of Nineteenth-Century American Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 42–3, 63–5. 5 Die Gotteslehre Girolamo Zanchi und ihre Bedeutung für seine Lehre von der Prädestination (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1965) based on his english dissertation, “Thomism and Calvinsim in the Theology of Girolamo Zanchi (1516–1590)” (Th.D. Dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1961). 6 It has been presented and defended in several publications. For instance Willem van Asselt, “Reformed Orthodoxy : A Short History of Research” in Herman Selderhuis ed., Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy, 11–26 and Richard A. Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the Develop-

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continuity-discontinuity with medieval scholasticism and the early reformation (with their “pure” humanism) as a much more complex business than the central dogma approach had suggested. The awakened awareness of historiographical problems was in part due to scholarly work done in (late) medieval thought in relation to the reformation. For example, Heiko Oberman7 showed that the early reformers were profoundly shaped by medieval scholasticism and that there is significant continuity between them that needs to be taken more seriously. Similarly, Paul Oscar Kristeller8 showed that there is much more continuity and overlap between humanism and scholasticism than had been assumed thitherto. And Charles B. Schmitt9 has demonstrated that the humanists’ use of philosophical concepts drawn from the Aristotelian tradition is much more pluriform than the central dogma approach assumed. Building on the work of scholars such as Oberman, Kristeller and Schmitt, Richard A. Muller has for the past 30 years taken a leading role in the joint efforts of the renewal of historiography in post-reformation studies. He has tried to explicate the complexities in the educational milieu in reformed thought, the function of literary genres and interconnection between different theological and philosophical concepts.10 In contrast to the central dogma thesis, Muller concludes, arguing tirelessly from the sources, that the reformed scholastics were much more eclectic – theologically, philosophically and methodologically – than previously had been assumed. Characteristic of this new perspective is that ‘scholasticism’11 is described as a

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8 9 10

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ment of a Theological Tradition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 63– 102. Heiko Obermann, The Harvest of Medieval Theology : Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (3rd edn.; Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker, 2000); The Dawn of the Reformation: Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought (Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992). Renaissance Thought and its Sources (New York: Comumbia University Press, 1979). The Aristotelian Tradition and Renaissance Universities (London: Variorum, 1984). The most important work is Muller’s four volume Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1987–2003). It encompases: Prolegomena (vol. 1); the Doctrine of Scripture (vol. 2); the Doctrine of God (vol. 3) and the Doctrine of the Trinity (vol. 4). See also Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott Clark eds., Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1999). We should note that the idealist tendency has not completely weaned off in reformation studies. See e. g. Alistar McGrath’s repetition of the central dogma thesis in ch. 10 of his A Life of Calvin (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1995). For more on scholasticism see Willem J. van Asselt and Eef Dekker, “Introduction” to their Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 2001); Willem J. van Asselt, “The Theologian’s Tool Kit: Johannes Maccovius (1588– 1644) and the Development of Theological Distinctions in Reformed Theology”, Westminster Theological Journal 28 (2006), 23–40 and “Scholasticism Protestant and Catholic: Medieval Sources and Methods in Seventeenth Century Reformed Thought” in Judith Frishman, Willemien Otten and Gerard Rouwhorst eds., Religious Identity and the Problem of Historical

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method for theology and not as a school of a particular kind; or, alternatively, a methodology that by some kind of inevitability will shape theology in a particular (and undesirable) way. Scholasticism, understood as a mode of academic discourse, is not antithetical to humanism since they were often co-existing in the institutions and the curricula of the 16th and 17th centuries. Characteristically, Muller says that ’scholasticism’ well describes the technical and academic side of [the] process of the institutionalization of Protestant doctrine [.…] It is a theology designed to develop a system on a highly technical level in an extremely precise manner by means of careful identification of topics, division of these topics into their parts, definition of the parts, and doctrinal or logical argumentation concerning the divisions and definitions. In addition, this school-method is characterized by a thorough use and technical mastery of the tools of linguistic, philosophical, logical, and traditional thought. The Protestant orthodox themselves use the term “scholastic theology” as a specific designation for a detailed, disputative system, as distinct from biblical or exegetical theology and discursive, ecclesial theology.12

Muller contends that, besides conceptual analysis, scholasticism made good use of a wide range of authorities (autoritas) from the bible, the philosophers and the church fathers. This seemingly liberal handling of sources and genres, often against the intention of the quoted authority on one or several issues, can be puzzling to modern readers not acquainted with the particular use of sources in scholastic texts. Instead of quoting for the sake of a particular person or school, the scholastics tended to quote a source for the sake of the truth of the statement.13 Simply quoting or making use of terminology from, for instance, Aquinas does not make one a Thomist. This was not the way the reformed scholastics cited their sources. They were not keen to use “-isms” in the way modern academics have tended to do. The diverse character of post-reformation reformed theology comes forth in the way it is sometimes designated by contemporary scholars by the term, ’reformed orthodoxy’. It refers to an international movement with shared confessional standards expressed in such documents as the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Confession and the Canons of Dort. However, not all members Foundation: The Foundational Character of Authoritative Sources in the History of Christianity and Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 457–470. Influential on van Asselt and Muller was L.M. de Rijk’s work, notably his Logica Modernum: A Contribution to the History of Early Terminist Logic, 3 vols. (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1962–67). 12 PPRD, I, 17–8 13 This is referred to as “reverent exposition” in the literature. For this notion, see e. g. Martijn Bac and Theo Pleizier, “Reentering Sites of Truth: Teaching Reformed Scholasticism in the Contemporary Classroom” in Maarten Wisse, Marcel Sarot and Willemien Otten eds., Scholasticism Reformed. Essays in Honour of Willem J. van Asselt (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), 31–54.

Approaches to Reformed Scholasticism

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of this movement adopted a scholastic style of presentation. The generations following the first and second generations of reformers such as Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin and Bullinger would take on the work of codifying and defending what they perceived as true doctrine (orthodoxy). This project took on a variety of styles and genera – and the scholastic method is the closest equivalent to what we think of as academic or scientific prose, although the foundational training in conceptual analysis and logic was far more rigorous for the average early modern academic than for contemporary academics. The scholastic method was, then, not adopted as an alien add-on but was an established form of academic discourse. The context or occasion of writing and presentation determined when it was used. Naturally, then, scholasticism provided the reformed orthodox with a useful tool for the defence of theological truths when combatting theological opposition – both within the wider protestant movement (e. g. Lutherans and Arminians) and with other groups (e. g. Roman Catholics and Socinians). Rather than outmoding scholasticism, humanism added to scholastic discourse a stronger emphasis on the original sources and language in the 16th century than in medieval scholasticism. Hence, academic texts in the 16th century could sometimes mix different styles and genres, depending on the topic and context (homiletics, rhetorical, exegetical etc.), simply because they were part of the accepted academic toolbox. Typically, the dedications and prefaces of theological scholastic tracts would be written with an adorned humanist Latin style whereas the bulk of the text contained technical jargon and terminology. A patent result of this augmentation is that the reformed scholastic texts would be significantly longer than their medieval forbearers.14 The historiographical shift is also evident in Zanchi scholarship. I shall briefly review some of the significant contributions and situate my own. First, John Donnelly’s work has been important in the revision of the historiographical assumptions concerning Zanchi. He has for instance analysed the similarities between Zanchi’s theology with both Aquinas’ and Calvin’s theologies. Contrary to Gründler’s one-sided “Thomist” Zanchi, Donnelly suggests Zanchi is a “Calvinist Thomist”. Second, the work of Christopher Burchill is important for putting Zanchi in historical context. His biographical account (often based on archive material and correspondence) has not only given us a more nuanced view of aspects of Zanchi’s theology and life, but also given researchers new avenues to explore.15 Third, in his works Richard A. Muller often discusses 14 For instance, Zanchi’s De Natura Dei closley resembles locus de deo in Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologia although its is much longer. See Harm Goris, “Thomism in Zanchi’s Doctrine of God” in Willem J. van Asselt and Eef Dekker eds., Reformation and Scholasticism, 121–139. 15 It is worth quoting him at length: “Without wishing to take direct issue on the problem of Zanchi’s scholastic orientation, it is at least notable that the previous studies of both

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Zanchi.16 Zanchi is portrayed as an important link between the reformers and the scholastics. Fourth, there is more recent scholarship building on the works of such as Donnelly, Burchill and Muller. John Farthing has written several valuable articles dealing with exegesis, patristics and scholasticism in Zanchi’s theology.17 Patrick O’Banion18 and Dolf Te Velde19 have studied aspects of Zanchi’s theology in its historical context. Recently, the first book-length study on Zanchi since Gründler’s and Burchill’s works was written by Kevin Budiman who examined natural law and ethics in Zanchi.20 My own study takes account of the above, but attempts to introduce a hitherto relatively neglected subject into the field in that it focuses on Christology proper in the early modern period and combines an explicitly philosophical approach with the historically oriented approach promoted by Muller and his colleagues. There are few studies in reformed scholastic Christology. Most of the scholarly efforts have been spent at methodological issues, divine attributes and actions, creation, the covenants and salvation. The existing studies in reformed scholastic Christology have generally concentrated on the work of Christ while the person and natures of Christ have been given a more cursory treatment.

16 17

18 19 20

Gründler and Donnelly have been almost exclusively drawn from the De Natura Dei, together with its blueprint in the final section of the Strasbourg Miscellany. To suggest on this basis that Zanchi’s theology led to an undervaluation of the role of Christ is simply misleading. The vast bulk, of his exegetical work, not to mention the magnum opus De Tribus Elohim, was concerned both to assert and to defend his interpretation of the Chalcedonian teaching on Christology. At least from a formal point of view it would seem difficult to prove any notable departure for them the position of Calvin. Certainly a proper answer to this question will presuppose a more balanced treatment of Zanchi’s work as a whole.” (Burchill, ‘Girolamo Zanchi: Portrait of a Reformed Theologian and His Work”, Sixteenth Century Journal, 15/2 [1984], 206–7.) The present study is a partial response to Burchill’s request. See also his “Girolamo Zanchi in Strasbourg, 1533–1563” (Doctoral Thesis University of Cambridge, 1979). There is, for instance, a whole chapter on Zanchi’s view of Christ and predestination in Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker, 1988. 2nded. 2008). To mention some: “Patristics, Exegesis, and the Eucharist in the Theology of Girolamo Zanchi” in Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott Clark eds., Protestant Scholasticism; John L. Farting, “Praeceptor Carissimus: Images of Peter Martyr Vermigli in the Published Correspondence of Girolamo Zanchi” in Frank A. James III ed., Peter Martyr Vermigli and the European Reformations: Semper Reformanda (Leiden: Brill, 2004) and “De coniugio spirituali: Jerome Zanchi on Ephesians 5:22–33”, Sixteenth Century Journal 24 (1993), 621–52. Patrick O’Banion, “Jerome Zanchi, the Application of Theology, and the Rise of the English Practical Divinity Tradition”, Renaissance and Reformation 29/2–3 (2005), 97–120. The Doctrine of God in Reformed Orthodoxy, Karl Barth, and the Utrecht School (Leiden: Brill, 2013) and “Soberly and Skillfully : John Calvin and Jerome Zanchi as Proponents of Reformed Doctrine”, Church History and Religious Culture 91/1–2 (2011), 59–71. “A Protestant Doctrine of Nature and Grace as Illustrated by Jerome Zanchi’s Appropriation of Thomas Aquinas” (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Baylor University, 2011).

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Hopefully a study of the person of Christ in reformed scholasticism might widen our view of reformed scholasticism. The historiographical shift has occurred through a closer attention to the sources, language, structuring principles and the intellectual context of reformed scholastic theology. Without denying the value of all this some scholars have also found it necessary to go beyond this approach and I substantially agree with them.21 They are positive to Muller’s historical approach but also want to let the sources engage with contemporary systematic and philosophical theology. The usefulness of a philosophic approach, as a complement to a more historically oriented approach, is motivated, at least in part, by the fact that medieval and protestant scholastic theology is deeply embedded in philosophical concepts that are not well known to modern readers. Explication of such concepts is not merely a historical but a philosophical task. As I shall show, a historical cum philosophical approach can inquire in nuanced ways about the metaphysical assumptions in Christology. That is, it takes such concepts seriously as philosophical concepts in their theological usage and context. Moreover, my interaction with the sources will not merely involve explication of the philosophical concepts in their theological use. I will also offer a theologico-philosophical assessment of the result. It should be noted that explication and evaluation are closely interlinked in the study though they are analytically and methodologically distinct concepts. The assessment will sometimes take the form of defence or elaboration and sometimes constructive revision of aspects of Zanchi’s Christology. I have chosen to interact in a constructive and evaluative manner with the texts, because I believe that reformed scholastic Christology is not merely interesting for historians of theology, but also for contemporary constructive work in theology. A similar kind of philosophico-theological oriented methodology has become staple in the study of medieval scholastic theology and philosophy. Our understanding of medieval theology and philosophy has improved due to contemporary philosophers’ scrutiny of the period. Older, idealistically motivated interpretations, which were also common in medieval 21 Dolf Te Velde, wrote: “Muller emphasizes the need for unbiased consultation of the sources and for a keen awareness of the historical and traditional context of the theology in the era of Reformed [Scholasticism]. Nevertheless, he seems to restrict his research to the explicit statements made by the examined theologians. I think we should in addition try to analyse and assess what is going on in their arguments in a more implicit way.” in The Doctrine of God, 42. I am not sure that Muller’s work, at least from the early 1990s and on, contains the kinds of problem Te Velde thinks. The volumes of PRRD show ample evidence that he gets beyond the explicit statements and tries to uncover the philosophical underpinnings. Furthermore, connected to Muller’s research is the systematic and philosophical engagement with reformed scholasticism in so-called ‘Utrecht School’, lead by scholars such as Willem van Asselt and Antonie Vos. For an extensive discussion of these two strands see Dolf Te Velde, The Doctrine of God and Martijn Bac and Theo Pleizier, “Reentering Sites of Truth”.

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studies (portrayed as “the dark ages”), have been replaced with an account of a dynamic and diversified period of intellectual history. More than getting a better understanding of medieval concepts and techniques, it has brought the medievals to bear on issues in contemporary philosophy and theology. Philosophers and theologians are today willing to interact with and learn from the medieval scholastics. These developments in medieval studies have a small-scale parallel in the study of and interaction with reformed scholasticism. A study like this should not proceed without mentioning some of the main players. First, scholars, such as Antoine Vos, Willem van Asselt, Andreas Beck and Dolf Te Velde, are examples of how philosophical perspectives have expanded on the mere historical methodology.22 They are part of what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Utrecht School’ and has provided a context for an interchange of ideas not merely about reformed scholasticism but also for an interaction with contemporary theology. Secondly, there are some scholars from the Utrech School23 and beyond with a closer association with the Anglo-American philosophical context such as Paul Helm,24 Oliver D. Crisp25 James E. Dolezal26 and Sebastian Rehnman.27 Indicative 22 Some of them (starting with Vos) have argued that there is a distinctly scotistic influence in reformed scholasticism. They argue that the reformed scholastics relied on so called ‘synchronic contingency’. This is exemplified for instance in the contributors to the collection by Gijsbert van den Brink and Marcel Sarot eds., Understanding the Attributes of God: Contributions to Philosophical Theology vol. 1. (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1999). Paul Helm and Richard Muller disagree with the idea of a scotistic influence, arguing that there is at best inconclusive evidence for this thesis. See Paul Helm, “Synchronic Contingency in Reformed Scholasticism. A Note of Caution”, Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 57 (2003), 207–23, the response by Andreas Beck and Antonie Vos, “Conceptual Patterns Related to Reformed Scholasticism”, Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 57 (2003), 223–33 and Helm’s rejoiner “Synchronic Contingency Again”, Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 57 (2003), 234–8; Richard Muller under the pesudonym, R.A. Mylius, “In the Steps of Voetius. Synchronic Contingency and the Significance of Cornelius Ellbogius’ Disputationes de Tetragrammato to the Analysis of his Life and Work” in Wisse et al., Scholasticism Reformed, 94–103. 23 For instance, Martin Bac, Perfect Will Theology : Divine Agency in Reformed Scholasticism as Against Suarez, Episcopus, and Spinoza. Brill’s Series in Church History (Leiden: Brill, 2010). 24 E. g. John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 25 Humanity and Divinity: The Incarnation Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology (New York: T & T Clark, 2009); Revisioning Christology : Theology in the Reformed Tradition (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011) and “Desiderata for Models of The Hypostatic Union” in Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders eds., Christology Ancient and Modern: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 19–41. 26 God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metapahysics of God’s Absoluteness (Eugene: Pickwick Publication, 2011) 27 E. g. Divine Discourse: The Theological Methodology of John Owen. Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002) and “The Doctrine of God: A Semantical Analysis” in Selderhuis ed., Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy.

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of these is their interaction with the analytic philosophical tradition, which in different ways informs their presentations and evaluations of the reformed scholastics. For my purposes, the work of Crisp in particular is interesting, since he examines Christology in the reformed tradition. Finally, a scholar I shall be interacting with (especially in chapters 3 and 4) who deserves a special mentioning is Richard Cross. Although he is an expert on medieval scholasticism, particularly John Duns Scotus, and has only written a couple of articles directly relating to the reformation period, his work is significant for my study, not the least as a model. His The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: From Aquinas to Scotus28 is a tour de force in the study of medieval scholasticism and an excellent example of what philosophical analysis can do for both historians of theology as well as contemporary philosophical theology. Using Christology as a case study, it is hoped the present study in some measure can contribute to the renewed interest in protestant scholasticism for its own sake as well as a resource in contemporary theology and philosophy. It is now time to turn to an explanation of how I envision philosophy informing the study of reformed scholasticism.

1.3

Philosophical Issues in Christology

We have discussed some recent developments in the study of reformed scholasticism and Zanchi’s place within it. I closed the previous section with a gesture toward a more philosophical approach to Christology. In this section I shall explore the relationship between philosophy and Christology and in the first two subsections give an account of what I call ‘Analytic Christology’. In the third subsection, I discuss how we may assess what philosophy can do for Christology in order to arrive at a defensible Christological position.

28 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Other notable studies in this vein are Alfred Freddoso, “Logic, Ontology and Ockham’s Christology”, New Scholasticism 57 (1983), 293-330 and “Human Nature, Potency and the Incarnation”, Faith and Philosophy 3 (1986), 27–53; Eleonore Stump, Aquinas (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 407–26; Michael Gorman “Uses of the Person-Nature Distinction in Thomas’s Christology”, Recherches de Th8ologie et Philosophie M8di8vales 67 (2000), 58–79 and “Christ as Composite According to Thomas Aquinas”, Traditio 55 (2003), 143–57.

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1.3.1 Analytic Christology and The Chalcedonian Tradition In this subsection I will discuss a particular mode of interaction between philosophy and Christology, which I call ‘Analytic Christology’. The term is borrowed from Richard Sturch who says: Analytic Christology takes something about Jesus for granted. What this is may vary from one theologian to another [….] Analytic Christologists seek to work out what sort of states of affairs must hold, what propositions about Jesus Himself, about God, and about the human race must be true if their ‘basis’ is to make sense. They are setting out to analyse the implications of their own starting-points; aware that these startingpoints, however true they may be, are only true because certain other things are true as well, they seek to work out what these latter may be.29

Sturch claims that Analytic Christology describes one of the modes in which many major theologians have approached Christology. In Sturch’s formulation, the basic idea of analytic Christology is simple: given some starting-point in Christology, other things are implied. The work of the Christologist is to analyse these implications. Now, there are several ways in which Christological implications may be worked out.30 I shall argue that Chalcedon’s formula is an exercise in analytic Christology.31 Indeed, it also served as a Christological starting-point for Zanchi and other scholastics, a starting-point that was worked out in a variety of ways. Let us therefore turn to a relevant section of the Chalcedonian formula, which states that the incarnate person of Christ is to be: recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons.32

The fathers of Chalcedon formulated the implications of the incarnation in terms of one person in two natures with their distinctive characteristics. They took this to be the Scriptural view of Christ. It is important to note that their use of terms such as ‘nature’, ‘person’ and ‘subsistence’ were not intended to adopt Greek philosophical terminology and concepts without discretion. Rather, writing before the advent of higher biblical criticism, they did not know of any strong division between, say, biblical and systematic theology. Although I have left 29 The Word and the Christ: An Essay in Analytic Christology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 1–2. Emphasise mine. 30 Sturch distinguishes between analytic, proclamatory and revisionist Christologies and gives example from history. My sense of analytic is broader and includes what Sturch called ‘proclamatory’ and ‘revisionist’. See The Word and the Christ, 1–6. 31 For a similar understanding see Crisp, “Desiderata”. 32 Norman P. Tanner ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), I, 86.

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proper exegetical issues outside of this study, I think it is important to note these differences between a contemporary and a pre-modern understanding of theology. As analytic Christologists, the fathers of Chalcedon worked out the implications of their Christological basis as found in passages like the prologue of John and Philipians 2:5–8. Hence, for Zanchi, writing from within this tradition, there was a seamless move from exegesis to dogmatic formulation, as they both were embedded in the same whole. Further, one might say that Chalcedon has an apophatic tenor.33 The formula provides a basic analysis and not a complete one, since it does not say what the incarnation is but rather what it is not. It is a longstanding practice of creedally orthodox Christologists to identify and reject false (or heretical) views of Christ, views that are perceived as reducing the reality and mystery of the incarnation. This is clearly seen in Chalcedon’s four negative adverbs directed against (perceived) heresies. According to the formula, the two natures are to be recognized “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation”. These are some fundamental implications of the Christological dogma the fathers of Chalcedon worked out. Had, for instance, the two natures been confused or changed into a third nature the reality and mystery of Christ would have been reduced or eliminated according to the fathers. Chalcedon is recognised as an authoritative Christological formulation in a majority of the Christian theological traditions. However, Chalcedon is not authoritative because it says everything that can be said about Christ but because it purports to give a basic analysis of or (some of) the necessary conditions for an orthodox doctrine of Christ. Therefore, the formula is, as a starting point, open to developments.34 There is work left to do for every generation of theologians. Oliver Crisp aptly says that Chalcedon is dogmatically minimalist: it does not say everything that can be said, it only express some rudimentary but important basic claims about Christ. It is not very forthcoming about what person and nature means. Chalcedonian Christology, therefore, may be consistent with a number of analyses of the underlying metaphysics of ‘person’ and ‘nature’. The historical Christological developments give plenty of evidence to such an

33 See also Helm, Calvin’s Ideas, ch. 3 and Sarah Coakley, “What Does Chalcedon Solve and What Does It Not? Some Reflections on the Status and Meaning of the Chalcedonian ‘Definition’” in Stephen T. Davies, Daniel Kendall and Gerald O’Collinds eds., The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 143–63. 34 As Karl Rahner famlously wrote: “Yet while [Chalcedon’s] formula is an end, an acquisition and a victory, which allows us to enjoy clarity and security as well as ease in instruction, if this victory is to be a true one the end must also be a beginning.” in “Current Problems in Christology” in Theological Investigations, Vol. 1, trans. Cornelius Ernst (Baltimore, MD: Helcon, 1963), 149.

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openness of the formula.35 Put in a slightly different way, we might say that Chalcedon is metaphysically underdetermined – the formula does not automatically determine the kind of metaphysics underlying its concepts. However, although the formula might be understood as underdetermined we should not be lead to think that the fathers of Chalcedon and their heirs were uninterested or na"ve concerning the metaphysical implications.36 Neither should we read into it a modern anti- or post-metaphysical perspective.37 On the contrary, it cries out for metaphysical elaboration but not in an unrestrained and unprincipled way. For the metaphysical underdetermination and the negative character of Chalcedon is at the same time a note of caution to Christologists not to align themselves too quickly with a particular metaphysics. Still, the analytic Christologist must cross the metaphysical Rubicon at some point. For instance, the anti-Nestorian adverb seems to imply that some metaphysical accounts of natures would yield an unorthodox confusion of them. In other words, the formula tacitly puts a bar on what kind of metaphysics is viable in subsequent analysis but not on the fact that there are metaphysical implications to be worked out from its basic claims. Let me clarify why I bring up metaphysical implications here. It is because my study primarily deals with those aspects of metaphysics and natural philosophy, intrinsic to scholastic Christology. Maybe it goes without saying that there are also other implications of Chalcedon that are not entirely or not at all metaphysical that might be of interest to analytic Christologists. For instance, Constantinople III (681–3) worked out what we might call the basic psychological implications of Christ’s human nature. Through the thorny process of councils and debates the church fathers came to the conclusion that there are two further implications in Chalcedon’s claim that Christ had a human nature (with a rational soul and a physical body), namely, the possession of a human and a divine will and mind. This conclusion was reached in the formula of Constantinople III and I take this to be another illustrative example of analytic Christology.38 Again, 35 See Crisp, “Desiderata”. 36 There are some notable studies on the philosophical, and more particularly, metaphysical, implications in the church fathers’ theology, for instance, Christopher Stead, Divine Substance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977); Harry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1964). 37 So, for instance, George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Doctrine in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), 92–6. 38 Should there remain any doubts concerning the relevance of metaphysics to Christology, reflection on this particular historic development indicates that what I just called the psychological developments follows the metaphysical. That is, first we need a notion of person and nature and then we might work out whatever psychological consequences that follow. In fact, this development tells us something important about the (assumed) view of person and nature, in Chalcedon’s formula. Conversely, the particular development from Chalcedon to

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this conclusion provides us with further starting-points for Christological reflection. How can one person have a human and divine will and mind? These are questions theologians continue to ponder.39 Having said all this, it is historically true that the various analytic developments in the Chalcedonian tradition have gone in different and, sometimes, in seemingly opposite directions. An excellent example of this is the debate between Lutheran and reformed theologians over the communication of idioms or properties (communicatio idiomatum) in the 16th century. Wolfhart Pannenberg captured some central issues in analytic Christology in the Chalcedonian tradition up until the reformation: The essential difference from the discussion of the fifth century was that in the Reformation the unity of person of God and man in Christ was presupposed as a result of the patristic dogmatic formulation, while the community of the natures and the transfer of their peculiarities, whether to the other nature or to the entire person and his actions, became the object of controversy. In the fifth century the discussion of the communicatio idiomatum involved the question of what constituted the unity in Christ. In the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, as already in High Scholasticism, the discussion involved the consequences of this unity as unity of person for the relation between the natures.40

This quote situates Zanchi in the development of analytic Christology as well as the structure of this study. After this first part on the analysis of reformed scholastic Christology, the second part looks at Zanchi’s continuity with the patristic and medieval scholastic tradition in their focus on the unity of the person. The third part treats the relation between the natures and Zanchi’s rejection of (some) Lutheran versions of the communication of properties, notably their doctrine of ubiquity.

Constantinople III, I think, limits the range of metaphysical interpretations of person and natures. I am well aware that this development or, indeed, method, might be considered illegitimate by modern readers and that, had the formula been written today, the development would probably have run in the opposite direction, from psychology to metaphysics. That is, if a contemporary Christological formula would have found a need at all to follow a metaphyical lead. Contemporary theologians would rather tend take a post-metaphysical perspective also with regard to traditional positions in theology. 39 See Corey L. Barnes, The Two Wills of Christ in Scholastic Theology : The Christology of Aquinas in Its Historical Context (Toronto: PIMS, 2012) for an excellent survey and analysis of Aquinas and some medieval scholastic views on these matters. 40 Jesus: God and Man, trans. Lewis L. Wilkins and Daune A. Priebe (London: SCM Press, 1968), 298. In Pannenberg’s own evaluation of the conflict “[The Lutherans] thus removed themselves from the Latin tradition and moved closer to the Alexandrinian-inspired thinking of Greek Orthodoxy.” (Jesus, 300).

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1.3.2 Four Modes of Analysis I will now briefly exemplify four ways in which analytic Christology has functioned historically. Together they serve as a portfolio of analytic Christology. I shall use examples from the history of Christology and not be restricted to Zanchi, in order to exhibit the wide spread of such an approach to Christology. First we might distinguish between two types of Christological implication. Take the doctrine of the virgin birth. It has traditionally been viewed as a central implication of the incarnation, something that has to be if there is going to be a genuine incarnation. The early church fathers concluded that Mary begot Jesus and, thus, Mother of God (theotokos) and not merely a ‘Christ-bearer’ (Christotokos). However, we need to ask in what sense is the virgin birth an implication of the incarnation. What is its modal status? Some theologians assert that the virgin birth is necessary for a genuine incarnation.41 That is, the incarnation could not have happened without the virgin birth. In other words, the incarnation entails the virgin birth. This analysis is certainly harmonious with Chalcedon. But there are also other theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, who thought that the virgin birth is not an entailment of it. Although the virgin birth did in fact take place – because, as Aquinas puts it, it was “fitting” – there could have been a genuine incarnation without it.42 Both of these positions assert a virgin birth but differ in their modal claims. However, both seem consistent with the basic requirement of a Chalcedonian Christology. Thus, discerning modalities of the Christological implications is a central part of analytic Christology. A second way something might be implied in Christology is as consequences of a given starting-point: i. e. truths that obtain and/or are discoverable because of the incarnation. A relevant example of this is the effect the 16th-17th century controversy over the ubiquity of Christ’s body had on the notions of ‘place’ and ‘space’ in pre-modern natural science. The Aristotelian category of place (or ‘where’, ubi) was extended to its breaking point to harbour the idea of the ascended body of Christ.43 (I shall touch on this issue in chapter 6.) Closer in time Thomas F. Torrance argued that the central concept of homoousion (‘of the same substance’) in the early Trinitarian and Incarnational debates paved the way for 41 For a discussion, see Brian Hebblewhite, Philosophical Theology and Christian Doctrine (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), 67–8. 42 ST, III, q. 28, art. 1–2. 43 See Cees Leijenhorst, “Place, Space and Matter in Calvinist Physics: Petrus Ramus, Clemens Timpler, Bartholomäus Keckermann and Johann Heinrich Alsted”, The Monist 84 (2001), 520–541 and Cees Leijenhorts and Christoph Lüthy, “The Erosion of Aristotelianism: Protestant Eucharistic Theology and Natural Philosophy in Early Modern Germany and the Dutch Republic” in Cees Leijenhorst, Christoph Lüthy and Johannes M.M.H. Thijssen eds., The Dynamics of Aristotelian Natural Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 375–411.

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modern physical notions of space (and time) culminating in Einstein’s theory of relativity.44 In both examples, the revelation of God incarnate in space and time pushed our thinking about physics up a level. Whatever we make of these claims, it is clear that Christology had a lasting and deep effect on other areas of human knowledge of the world.45 Third, analytic Christologists have often illuminated aspects of the hypostatic union and its consequences by way of similes. The use of similes goes back to the early church fathers, for whom the soul-body simile was the most frequently used, although there were plenty of others (like the glowing iron and the sun and its rays). Christologists have been aware that similes, like the soul-body union, are not exact parallels to the incarnation; the incarnation is not a species of the same genus of unions as the soul-body union. Still there are important similarities that might assist our understanding of the incarnation. Since all similes are approximations, the mode of application and use always reveals something about the presuppositions of a particular Christologist. When taking a historical (theologian’s) view as starting point we therefore need to be attentive to the particular function and use of the simile in context. For in their debates, the Lutherans and the reformed revived the church father’s frequent use of similes, but they were employed for quite opposite positions. Hence a substantial portion of their debate concerned the correct application of similes to the incarnation. In my analysis I shall argue that Zanchi’s hylemorphic understanding of soul-body needs to be supplemented with further metaphysical principles when used as a simile (chapter four). I shall also argue that Chemnitz’ use of the soul-body simile conflicts with his views on the third genus (chapter five). Fourthly, an analytic method can lead to a qualification of the adopted starting point, or maybe, if analysis brings you there, a rejection of it for another starting point. A prime example of this is the rejection of Chalcedonian Christology by 19th century higher biblical criticism. It sought to start with a primitive historical notion of Jesus and then mainly focus on ethical implications or consequences of that starting point. This example is interesting, since it shows that analytic Christology always involves philosophy in some form. As much as higher biblical critics thought that the biblical, patristic and scholastic tradition of Christology was steeped in Hellenistic concepts and therefore needed revision they were themselves often (tacitly or overtly) motivated by some form of idealist philosophy, which (arguably) in part functioned as a cause for the shift from the Christ of tradition and confession to the so-called quest for the historical Jesus. One might have different opinions about the value and legitimacy of these 44 Space, Time and Incarnation (London: Oxford University Press, 1969). 45 Crisp discusses the consequences of the ethics of embryology from the incarnation in God Incarnate, ch. 5.

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changes and the intrinsic link between philosophy and Christology, but it is nevertheless clear that higher biblical criticism provided modern theologians with a new or additional Christological starting point, often referred to as Christology ‘from below’. Although it falls outside of the scope of this study, I think that (if correctly understood) there is no necessary conflict between a ‘Christology from below’ and ‘above’, or, for that matter, ‘high’ and ‘low Christology’.46 In the present context, my defence and qualifications of some aspects of Zanchi’s Christology can be seen as a revision or, maybe better, rehabilitation of a Chalcedonian approach to Christology. In the first two subsections I have presented the basic idea of analytic Christology and briefly illustrated some of the ways it has functioned from the history of Christology. I argued that Chalcedon in itself is an example of analytic Christology and that it also became a starting point for developments in analytic Christology for later generations of theologians. In the final subsection, I will explore the problem raised in the preceding paragraph concerning the influence of philosophy on Christology.

1.3.3 Which Philosophy? In the history of theology there are different opinions about the distance between Jerualem and Athens. Despite the lack of consensus, it is hard to question the fact that philosophy has influenced Christian theology in a variety of ways. Through history, Christian theologians have sometimes aligned themselves closely to one school of philosophy but never has Christian theology at large reached a consensus on which philosophy should be universally incorporated and accepted. Instead Christian theology has – with varying degrees of success, we should add – revealed an astonishing ability to accommodate and incorporate intellectual virtues and concepts from different philosophical traditions. Arguably, the premodern theologian had a more limited range of available philosophical options than the contemporary theologian has. With a view to Christology, Gerald O’Collins has rightly noted that today we are faced with a “philosophic pluralism”, which has “complicated Christological (and more generally, theological) work”. O’Collins adds “The upshot is that the practitioner of Christology must choose today between philosophies.”47 The need for making an informed choice has accompanied theologians of every age, but our contemporary situation is 46 For a critical discussion about these matters and the conceptual confusion concerning terms like ‘Christology from above’ and from below’ see, Oliver D. Crisp, God Incarnate, ch. 1 and “Desiderata”. 47 Christology : A Biblical, Historical and Systematic Study of Jesus. 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 223.

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comparatively complicated due to the sheer number of competing philosophical alternatives. How can one make a responsible choice of philosophical sources and concepts in Christology today? Furthermore, finding a satisfying answer to this question is complicated by the fact that I engage with pre-modern theologians whose philosophical alliances are in a minority position in contemporary theology. As this is vast topic, I shall here be content to give the outlines of what I take to be a defensible position. Analytic Christology is not to be understood as a school of thought in its own right, but as a general framework for the negotiation of philosophical alternatives in Christology. On one level, analytic Christology is a form of Christology assisted by analytic philosophy. However, I would caution the reader to conclude that analytic Christology is limited to this tradition in modern philosophy. The analytic element is broadly conceived.48 As a scholastic theologian, Zanchi’s theological methodology lends itself to analytic philosophy – they are both species of a form of analysis with analogous tools, aims and praises similar intellectual virtues – but is not identical its 20th century form. Thus my use of ‘analytic’ carries two senses: Zanchi’s scholasticism and my critical engagement with it. As I have declared, the primary philosophical focus of this study is metaphysical. But there are several metaphysical frameworks for the analytic Christologist to choose from (Platonist, Stoic, Aristotelian, Cartesian, Idealist, Process, Modal Essentialist, Neo-Kantian etc.) just as there are several Christological starting points (the Synoptic, Johanite, Pauline, Jewish, Alexandrinian/ Antiochene, Chalcedonian, Thomist, Lutheran, Schleiermachian, Rationalist, Existentialist, Marxist, Feminist etc.). There are evidently many attempted and interesting combinations of these, partly because in practice theologians tend to be eclectic and not always consistent. However, I think it is safe to say that not all of these philosophical and Christological positions will be consistent combinations. As I envision a successful analytic process, if I may call it that, it will through a series of sound judgements single out which philosophical frameworks posses explanatory resources for the Christological task. With this in mind, there are two questions I want to raise. First, the historical question: What is a reasonable interpretation of Zanchi’s Christology? Secondly, the philosophical question: How can we philosophically evaluate Zanchi’s pos48 We might point out some similarities with so-called analytic Thomism, i. e. the attempt to combine Thomism with analytic philosophy. It is clear that analytic thomists do not only think that analytic philosophy is a tool for understanding Thomism but also the other way around. For instance, they argue that thomist natural law, virtue ethics and anthropology can solve some conundrums in modern ethics and philosophy of mind. For a survey of some issues, see Craig Peterson and Matthew S. Pugh eds., Analytic Thomism: Traditions in Dialogue (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006).

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tion? There is an obvious a danger that contemporary philosophical and Christological views are unduly mixed up with historical views and result (either or both) in confusion about the historical view or in contemporary delusion. It might be objected that my predilection for Chalcedonian Christology in the reformed scholastic tradition and a broadly construed Aristotelian metaphysics49 makes me blind not merely with regard to the philosophical question but also to the historical question. Contrary to such putative objections, I contend that in order to answer to the historical question, one has to be able to properly engage with the philosophical question too. With regard to Zanchi, let me cite Richard Muller’s mistaken view. There is: absence from Zanchi’s and from Reformed doctrine in general of a genuine ontic and metaphysical problem concerning the union of the natures. The need to make the hypostatic union comprehensible or at least definable within the bounds of a given ontology so evident in the teaching of the Greek fathers does not appear to have concerned Zanchi.50

The two general presuppositions here seem to be the notions (i) that theology and Christology can (or should) be done without the resource to ontological or metaphysical inquiries and (ii) that the absence of ontological and metaphysical speculation describes Zanchi’s and reformed Christology. I contest both. Taking Zanchi’s Christology as a case study, I will in the following chapters show the way in which he frequently makes use of traditional Aristotelian metaphysics in Christology. This study will show – as much of Muller’s later scholarship has – that the type of historical approach Muller has carried out involves a more metaphysical understanding of Zanchi and reformed orthodoxy simply because the sources demand that. Thus, a proper methodology should not lead us to an anti-metaphysical view of the Christology of Zanchi or to confuse our own anti49 A broadly construed Aristotelian metaphysics refers to a wide scholarly framework, which made it possible for such diverse scholastics as Aquinas, Scotus and Ockham to find a philosophical common ground. Some notable recent contributions include William A. Wallace, The Modelling of Nature: Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997); David S. Oderberg, Real Essentialism; Jonathan Lowe, The Possibility of Metaphysics and Michael Loux, “Aristotle’s Constituents Ontology” in Dean W. Zimmerman ed., Oxford Studies in Metaphysics. Vol. 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 207–250. For an older neo-Thomist textbook see Peter Coffey, Ontology or the Theory of Being (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1914). 50 Richard A. Muller, Christ and Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 119. This quote from an early work by Muller is a-typical of his later work. In the previous section, I showed that Muller has been a leading champion of a more historically informed understanding of the sources of reformed orthodoxy. I am merely using the quote here since it represents a kind of objection to my project.

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philosophical bias with that of Zanchi or any historical thinker in such a way that our pre-judgement of them excludes a proper evaluation. With regard to the evaluative task, I would like to submit a piece of advice to Christologists faced with the choice of metaphysics and Christology. The advice is this: keep a clear telos in mind, aiming at the best possible version of both metaphysics and Christology. An adoption of a broadly construed Aristotelian metaphysics and Chalcedonian Christology might be motivated by the claim that both Christian Aristotelian metaphysics and Chalcedonian Christology are instructive and commendable individually as well as in (proper) combination. However, the combination of two desirable things is not always straightforward. Metaphysics of a particular kind might well be misapplied to a Christology of a particular kind. Accordingly, when I see a need, I will adjust or revise what I think are misapplications of Aristotelian metaphysics in Zanchi’s Christology. Moreover, (re-)configured in the right way I shall argue that Aristotelian metaphysics and Chalcedonian Christology are not merely consistent but also mutually enlightening. Allow a detour. I assume that many contemporary theologians consider my choice of method and subject controversial. For instance, an imagined objector might think that Aristotelian metaphysics and Chalcedonian Christology are rendered obsolete or has lost its credibility and contemporary relevance. And if this is so, one might ask what a project like this can hope for. I have a few things to say in response to this admittedly sweeping but not uncommon sort of objection. The acceptance or rejection of some individual Christologist’s views very much depends on the intellectual context. Any Christology will involve premises and principles that are considered controversial by some; I am well aware that my own favoured combination is in a minority in Western theological academic circles today. To defend a controversial position, however, is allowable provided that one present some form of coherent thinking about it. I am within my epistemic rights to do so even if not all rational people would assent to my thesis. And there is nothing strange about this situation. All or most of the classical and modern positions on central issues in theology and philosophy are debatable and controversial: e. g. the status of the soul, whether there are properties, the existence and nature of God and so on. Yet the perennial reflection on these matters is important to the vitality of philosophy and theology. Few questions in philosophy and theology are, at least to day, considered “settled” once and for all. They are open to revision as well as defence by analytically minded practitioners. Accordingly, the analytic Christologist can only strive for a defensible, not an indefeasible, case. I think this distinction is important to keep in mind, since one otherwise ends up answering false dichotomies like: why spend time on a once and for all purportedly defeated idea like Aristotelian metaphysics? Such sentiments

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reveal more about the intellectual climate of the imagined objector than anything substantial about the issue at hand. Let us return to the relationship between philosophy and Christology. In order to arrive at a defensible position, the choice of metaphysical framework should (at lest in part) be dictated by its explanatory power.51 For it seems to be a sounds principle that a framework that explains more aspects of the incarnation than its rivals is preferrable. This reflects a sound principle not only for analytic Christology but all philosophy. However, we should not expect that all aspects of the incarnation are explained by or fit in a certain philosophical framework. Maybe this was the underlying fear of Christology being subsumed by philosophical concepts in the passage I quoted from Muller (that there is a “need to make the hypostatic union comprehensible or at least definable within the bounds of a given ontology”). Nothing of the sort is required for analytic Christology and as I understand Zanchi, it is not characteristic of his position. As I discussed above, Chalcedon’s formula requires us to preserve the incarnational mystery and might even prompt us to use philosophy to defend that mystery. The philosophical task, then, is to discern what the incarnational mystery is and not reduce it to preconceived philosophical notions. But this negative function of philosophy does not take away the importance of weighing the explanatory power of one account over against another. It simply tells us that explanations in Christology must line up with the nature of the phenomena, which lies at the limits of our understanding. Therefore, as in all theology, philosophical concepts have to be extended and stretched to their breaking point. Given such a qualification of explanations in Christology, we can evaluate our stance on the basis of a sort of cost-benefit analysis. Will the cost of adopting a philosophical or Christological position outweigh the benefits? Are we reducing or distorting the chosen Christological starting-point, if we combine it with some metaphysical idea, or are we actually able to make the implications of it clearer? Let me give one example of a possible distortion. It seems to me prima facie that the idealism of, for example, Jonathan Edwards52 is not well suited to account for the fact that the Son assumed a human nature with a material body. I take it that a property of material entities is that they are extended in time and space whereas ideas are not. But if, as the idealist claims, all material things ultimately are ideas, they cannot be extended in time and space. I can think of a few reasons why this is not a good idea. One is that suffering is hard to imagine 51 Cf. with Marilyn M. Adams, Christ and Horrors: On the Coherence of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), ch. 1. 52 Crisp has tried to show (unsuccessfully to my mind) that there is nothing incoherent in being an idealist in metaphysics and Chalcedonian in Christology and takes Jonathan Edwards as an example. See Revisioning Christology, ch. 3.

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without a material body since suffering takes time and happens in space. A number or an idea cannot suffer for they are not extended in space and time. Then, on an idealist understanding of material entities, the Gospel narratives must either eliminate the physical sufferings of Christ or say that they are physical sufferings that do not take time and do not happen in space. Both lemmas are unacceptable. An idealist account of the incarnation would look like Docetism, i. e. a heterodox Christology, which makes the material body of Christ a mere illusion. However, none of this is a foregone conclusion but requires demonstration. I have merely used Edwards’ here as an illustration of the point I have tried to make which is that the cost of loosing the space-time character and materiality of the human nature of Christ is too high a price to pay. I shall close this section with two brief comments. First, I shall respond to a possible objection. It might be thought that metaphysics is not a legitimate science and, therefore, that it should not be brought into dialogue with Christology. This is a challenge that can take many different forms and should be met on a case-by-case basis. I will not answer this objection on metaphysical grounds since that would take up too much space and might in the end be a quite unpersuasive way to respond to critics of metaphysics as such.53 Instead it is worth pointing out that metaphysics as a discipline is alive and well in contemporary philosophy. The vast literature that has seen the light of day just the past few decades is evidence of this. Analytic philosophers have engaged both classical issues and problems (e. g. the soul, God and substances) as well as new (e. g. abstract properties, the mind and modalities). This simple observation does not establish its legitimacy to sceptics but at least it is indicative of a movement in contemporary philosophy that cannot simply be ignored or disregarded. Finally, I want to submit a clarification. It should be said that the Christological starting-point adopted for analysis must not be assented to, believed or even held as the best candidate. Hence, analytic Christology may or may not be an exercise in the fides quaerens intellectum (‘faith seeking understanding’) tradition. It can be if fides is understood in the fides qua sense (the faith with which we believe). If fides is understood as fides quae (that which we believe) it also seems compatible with analytic Christology, since it does not require a personal conviction about the truth of the starting-point. The actual choice of philosophical perspective and Christological stance might be based on quite personal or community-based preferences of the individual theologian. As a method, however, it is not necessarily dependent on personal beliefs. Moreover, some starting-point might also be assumed “for the sake of the argument”, 53 Jonathan Lowe’s, The Possibility of Metaphysics, ch. 1 answers some past and present standard objections to the project of metaphysics.

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because the theologian intends to explore it within a specific philosophical framework for whatever reason, e. g. as an academic assignment or out of mere curiosity. For all that an analytic Christology is, is an exploration into the foundations for and consequences of a given starting-point. Naturally, analytic Christologists will most of the time be motivated by what they hold as an orthodox or at least a plausible starting-point; most likely the one that they assent to (in the fiduciary sense). On the other hand, if analysis reveals that absurdities or impossibilities follow from a certain starting-point, it can constitute a case against it and maybe a reason for revision. The analytic method in Christology may thus be used as a sort of extended reductio ad absurdum argument. In sum, one might say that an analytic method is commendable for both “constructive” and “deconstructive” purposes even if it seems uncontroversial to say that Christology should ultimately be concerned with positive statements about Christ: as faithful, true and coherent a statement about Christ that is possible.

Chapter Two: Zanchi’s Christology in Context In order to point out and justify their own position within the Catholic tradition, Reformed academic theologians adopted a set of definitions and divisions of theology derived from the medieval tradition. This apparent regression to pre-Reformation Scholasticism, however, was not a simple return to a medieval approach to theology, but a move forward towards a critical reappropriation of aspects of the Western tradition in order to develop a restatement of the Catholic roots of Reformed thought. – Willem J. van Asselt1

2.1

Introduction

Having situated this study methodologically, we can now proceed to Zanchi’s Christology. His Christology did not appear in a vacuum. In this chapter I will try to contextualize it historically and theologically. There is value in doing this. First, since there are only a few studies on Christology proper from this period, this study fills a gap. Most studies dealing with Christology in the post-reformation period either tend to focus on Lutheran Christology2 or, if on its reformed counterpart, on the works of Christ.3 Almost no study analyzes the person of Christ.4 My hope is that this chapter will inspire more studies of the same sort in the future, which in the end can help us analyse the intricate connections between the person and the works of Christ. Secondly, (analytic) philosophers of religion have sometimes rightly been accused of an anachronistic and a-historical handling of historical texts. Bringing together research in 1 “Reformed Orthodoxy : A Short History of Research” in Herman Selderhuis ed., A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy. (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 17. 2 See e. g. Joar Haga, Was there a Lutheran Metaphysics? The Interpretation of Communicatio Idiomatum in Early Modern Lutheranism (Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012); Johann Anselm Steiger, “The Communicatio Idiomatum as the Axle and Motor of Luther’s Theology”, Lutheran Quarterly 14/2 (2000), 125–158; Walter Sparn, Wiederkehr der Metaphysik. Der Ontologische Frage in der Lutherische Theologie der Fruhen 17. Jh. Calwer Theologische Monographien (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1976). 3 Typically Muller’s Christ and Decree. See also Scott Clark, “Christ and Covenant: Federal Theology in Orthodoxy”, in Selderhuis ed., Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy, 403–28; Mark Beach, Christ and the Covenant: Francis Turretin’s Federal Theology as a Defence of the Doctrine of Grace (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2007). 4 There are some studies that might constitue exceptions to my statement about studies reformed Christology. For example, (besides relevant works sited in this thesis by Oliver Crisp, Paul Helm, Richard Cross) ch. 4 in Carl Trueman’s The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster Publishing, 2002) and Stephen R. Spencer’s “Reformed Scholasticism in Medieval Perspective: Thomas Aquinas and Francois Turretini on the Incarnation” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University, 1988).

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reformed scholasticism and a more philosophical approach, I try to show that that is not necessarily the case. In the first part of this chapter I shall give a brief biography of Zanchi, as he is not generally well known to contemporary scholars outside the field of postreformation studies. In the second section I turn to his Christological writings, its sources and structure and in the final section I shall characterise Zanchi’s Christology as a whole as catholic, scholastic and reformed. That will hopefully bring together some things from the first part of this study as well as building a bridge into the second and third parts.

2.2

A Biographical Sketch

Jerome Zanchi was born in Alazano, Italy, in 1516.5 After the death of his parents in 1531 he entered the monastery of the Augustinian Order of Regular Canons in Bergamo. Ten years later he transferred to a monastery in Lucca where Peter Martyr Vermigli was prior. Vermigli had read some of the leading Protestants (e. g. Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, Musculus, Bullinger and Calvin) and through him, Zanchi, as well as other Italians, got in contact with the protestant movement. Due to a growing conviction of the truth of the protestant criticism of the Roman Catholic Church, Vermigli fled in 1542. It would take another 9 years before Zanchi followed his lead. Zanchi’s first year in exile was spent in Chiavenna, Lausanne and Geneva where he met and learned from theologians such as Musculus and Calvin. In 1553 Zanchi succeeded Vermigli (who had left to teach in Oxford where Zanchi first was meant to go) as professor of Old Testament at the college of St. Thomas in Strasbourg. During the Strasbourg period Zanchi was drawn into a long lasting debate with the Lutheran Johann Marbach particularly over the Lord’s Supper and predestination. Zanchi was forbidden to publicise due to accusation of teaching heterodox views on a number of issues. 5 I base my biographical sketch, primarily, on the following sources: James M. Kittelson, “Marbach vs. Zanchi: The Resolution of Controversy in late Reformation Strasbourg’”, The Sixteenth Century Journal 8/3 (1977), 31–44; Christopher Burchill, “Girolamo Zanchi: Portrait of a Reformed Theologian and His Work”, The Sixteenth Century Journal 15/2 (1984); Lukas Vischer, “Girolamo Zancho, reformierter Prediger in Chiavenna”, Bu¨ ndnerisches Monatsblatt 10 (1951), 289–301; Otto Gründler, “Zanchi, Girolamo” in Hans J. Hillerbrand ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 305–6; John L. Farthing, “Girolamo Zanchi” in Donald K. McKim ed., Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 412; Luca Baschera and Christian Moser, “Introduction” to Jerome Zanchi, De Religione Christiana Fides – Confession of Christian Religion (1585) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007); Karl Schmidt, “Girolamo Zanchi”, Theologische Studien und Kritiken (1859), 625–708 and John P. Donnelly, “Italian Influences on the Development of Calvinist Scholasticism”, Sixteenth Century Journal 7/1 (1976), 81–101.

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Exhausted from the experiences, he left Strasbourg 1563 to recover and took up a pastorate in an Italian Protestant congregation in the Grisons in Chiavenna. Again, he found himself at one faction of a debate concerning the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, so that his pastoral work was frustrated. Having been offered several prestigious professorships in the emerging European protestant universities, he accepted a call to Heidelberg in 1568 to teach Scripture and common places. In Heidelberg he found the long sought for otium necessary to start writing. He was first commissioned to write against the anti-Trinitarians and the product was the magisterial De Tribus Elohim, which established him as a leading theologian of his day.6 Due to his late conversion and controversies in Strasbourg, his publishing career started late in life, at the age of 51. Yet he continued to publish until his death, 26 years later. Besides De Tribus we might mention two other voluminous works De Natura Dei and De Operibus Dei intra Spatium Sex Dierum, which might have been parts of a reformed Summa Theologiae as one scholar, has suggested.7 His academic peace was briefly interrupted, when the Lutheran prince, Ludwig VI, ascended to the throne and Zanchi together with other teachers had to leave Heidelberg for the newly founded academy nearby in Neustadt an der Haardt in 1578. He remained there as a teacher of the New Testament until his death during a visit to Heidelberg (which was restored to a reformed confession in 1583 under Johann Casimir) in 1590. Zanchi left the task of editing his literary legacy to his three sons and sons in law, a task that would occupy them the coming decades. The first edition Operum Theologicorum in eight volumes was published 1605 and in an expanded form 1613 and in its definitive form 1617–19. Zanchi’s influence is clear from the frequent quotation of him by later protestant scholastics and the esteem he enjoyed by his contemporaries.8 Although Otto Gründler’s judgement that Zanchi was the “Father of Reformed Scholasticism” might be overstated, Zanchi was indeed one of the frontmen in 6 See, John Patrick Donnelly, “A Sixteenth Century Case of Publish or Perish/Parish”, The Sixteenth Century Journal 4/2 (1975), 112–113. 7 Thus Donnelly : “The Heidelberg years were consecrated to a vast “summa” of philosophical theology which is without rival for sweep and synthetic power in sixteenth century Calvinism. Zanchi’s model was obviously the “Summa Theologiae”, and his arrangement of materials often parallels closely that of Aquinas.” (“Italian Influences”, 88) Meijering says that Turretin’s doctrine of God was modelled on Zanchi’s De Natura Dei. E.P. Meijering, “The Fathers and Calvinist Orthodoxy : Systematic Theology. A. Polanus J. Wolleb and F. Turrettini” in Irena Backus ed., The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 867– 887. 8 This is seen in his correspondence with other reformed theologians. See Joseph N. Tylenda, ‘Girolamo Zanchi and John Calvin: A Study in Discipleship as Seen Through Their Correspondence’, Calvin Theological Journal 10/2 (1975), 101–141 and. Farthing, “Praeceptor Carissimus”. Zanchi’s influence upon the piety and theology of the Puritans has been discussed by Patrick O’Banion in “Application of Theology”.

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the development of the reformed movement.9 So much is reflected in Bartholomeus Keckerman’s judgement “The truly great Protestant philosophers were Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi – men eminent in dispute and of great acumen in philosophical matters.”10

2.3

Zanchi’s Christological Writings and Character

In this section I shall give an overview of Zanchi’s Christological writings. I reflect on possible sources and the context in which they were written. My focus shall be on his main work in Christology, De Incarnatione.

2.3.1 Sources and Context Contrary to his own wishes, Zanchi was drawn into the Eucharist controversy while a professor in Strasbourg11 and forced to formulate his position on the manner of Christ’s presence in the elements in his Strasbourg defence of a reformed view of the Eucharist.12 Since the Christological debate grew out of the Lord’s Supper debate between Zwingli and Luther, it is only natural that we find the first fragments of Zanchi’s Christology in this context. No novel Christological contribution can be found in Eucharist defence but it is clear that he had a good grasp of issues involved and the writings of both reformed and Lutheran theologians. Due to the conflicts he was part of in Strasbourg and Chiavenna, it was not until he arrived as professor in Heidelberg that his writing flourished. Zanchi’s Christological material from this period might be divided into three groups. First, the importance of Christology is evident in the large treaty he produced in Heidelberg, notably De Tribus13 and De Natura Dei.14 Zanchi’s 9 “Zanchi, Girolamo” in Hans J. Hillerbrand ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 305–6. 10 “Sed & magni Philosophi fuerunt Petrus Martyr & Hieronymous Zanchius, quorum scripta & disputationes egregia habent Philosophici acuminis specimina.” As translated in Muller’s, After Calvin, 15–6. 11 For the debate, see Burchill, “Portrait”. Zanchi’s concern for Christological orthodoxy is mentioned in the dedication of De Incarnatione to the Elector Friedrich IV where he writes that he had plans to write on Christology already when he wrote De Tribus Elohim as a response to Chemnitz. He mentions, however, that the real cause of the controversy was Johann Brenz’ (and his followers’) view on doctrine of ubiquity. Brenz’ view is compared to Marcions’, which, according to Zanchi, had been effectively refuted by Irenaeus. 12 The full title is Iudicium de Dissidio in Coena Domini et Theses Analyticae de Vera Reformandarum Ecclesiarum Ratione vel de Regula Concilii in OT, VII, 431–40. 13 OT, I, 1–564. 14 OT, II, 1–588.

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Christological concern came out strongly in the section on divine immensity in De Natura Dei15 – it is as much a refutation of the Lutheran view of ubiquity as it is a treatment of the divine attributes. Secondly, Zanchi’s exegetical writings – especially on Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians16 – contain several theological digressions on disputed questions, often directly related to the current Christological debates. Both of these groups of texts can be labelled ‘occasional’ since the proper cause for writing was not Christology. However, the subject must have been pressing him so much that he allowed it to take up considerable space in such different literary contexts. Thirdly, there are the Christological works: Zanchi’s late refutation of the Lutheran Wilhelm Holderius,17 his Ad Ariani libellum responsio,18 his Confession De Religione Christiana Fides19 including a series of appendixed Observationes, drawn from various lectures and disputations pertaining directly to Christology and his defence of the Neustadt Admonition.20 Zanchi’s Christology was finally presented in a systematic fashion in the posthumously published and unfinished De Incarnatione in 1593.21 The “profound De incarnatione”22 has not been given proper attention by modern scholars of reformed scholastic thought and will naturally serve as the main text for the present study.23 As an erudite sample of reformed scholastic Christology, the appearance of De incarnatione not only marks the end of Zanchi’s distinguished career but also temporally coincides with a transitional phase of the Christological debate. The main Lutheran opponents were in this phase Johan Brenz, Jacob Andreae and Martin Chemnitz. By the late 1580s, however, it was clear that Chemnitz’ De Duabus Naturis Christi and the Formula of Concord represented the most authoritative Lutheran Christological position. Toward the end of the 16th century the battle lines between the reformed and the Lutherans became more or less settled and it is in this transition period we find De incarnatione. However, that the debate was live and well during Zanchi’s period of writing is clear from Donnelly’s observation

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

OT, II, 89–138 OT, VI, 1–262 and VI, 1–522. OT, VIII, 939–60. OT, VII, 829–938 OT, VIII, 453–610 Admonitionis Neustadianiae Duo Capita (in the 1613 edition of) OT, VIII, 557–672. OT, VII, 1–299. John Patrick Donnelly, “Calvinist Thomism”, Viator 7 (1976), 441–55, quote at 450. I should also mention the section in Richard Muller’s Christ and Decree that treats Zanchi’s Christology. As far as I know this is the only substantive discussion of Zanchi’s Christology in the modern literature. Unfortunately this early work by Muller suffers from some of the assumptions of the older approach, assumptions Muller criticises in his subsequent career. In the new preface to the republication of the book in 2008 he acknowledges this.

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that there were about two hundred tracts written by Lutherans and Reformed on the issue of the communication of properties between 1560 and 1600.24 I shall highlight the work by four leading reformed theologians from this period, all of which Zanchi knew personally and probably had read. First, Zanchi’s mentor Peter Martyr Vermigli whose influential Dialogus de Utraque in Christo Natura25 was written against Johann Brenz’s Christology. As the title suggests, it was set as a dialogue dealing with the central issues in the debate on ubiquity and related issues between two imagined interlocutors clearly meant to represent Vermigli and Brenz.26 Its style is not through and through scholastic, although it, as many other reformed scholastic texts, is rich in scholastic references and terms. Given the close personal relation and theological affinities between Vermigli and Zanchi this work is undeniably an influence on Zanchi’s own Christology. Secondly, Zanchi’s colleague in Heidelberg, Zacharias Ursinus wrote Admonitio Neostadiaensiae directed against the Formula of Concord. It became an influential defence of the reformed position and evoked a Lutheran apology. It also appeared so important to Zanchi that he wrote the aforementioned response to the Lutheran apology.27 It is noteworthy that the response only deals with the Christological issues, i. e. chapters three and eight in the Admonition. Thirdly, It seems that Zanchi had read Lambertus Danaeus’ erudite Examen Libri de Duabus in Christo Naturis.28 It is a critical point-by-point commentary on Chemnitz’ De Duabus. Zanchi sometimes refers to Danaeus but the Examen is never referenced explicitly although both writers often make the same critical comments on De Duabus. Finally, we may mention the Colloquy of Montebileard in 1586, an important theological and political watershed for the protestant movement.29 At the Colloquy, the Christological positions were cemented to such an extent that further conciliar and political attempts were abandoned.30 Theodore Beza represented the reformed party at the Colloquy and 24 “Calvinist Thomism”, 450. 25 (Zürich, 1561) and Dialogues on the Two Natures of Christ. Volume XXXI, Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies. Translated and edited with an introduction by John P. Donnelly (Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1995). 26 Johannes Brenz, Die Christologische Schriften. Translated by Theodor Mahlmann (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1981). 27 The relevant sections of the Neustadt Admonition and the Lutheran Apology are reproduced in Zanchi’s defence of the Admonition in OT, VIII, 557–672. 28 (Geneva, 1581). 29 Jacob Andræ, Acta Colloquij Montis Belligartensis…. (Tübingen, 1587) and Theodore Beza, Ad Acta Colloqui Montisbelegardensis (Tübingen, 1588). See Jill Raitt, The Colloquy of Montb8liard. Religion and Politics in the Sixteenth Century (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), especially ch. 3 and 4. 30 Donnelly writes in “Introduction” that the colloquy at Montebileard was, after the publication of the Formula of Concord, “a new effort to heal the differences between Protestants” but that it “broke down and further embittered Beza and Andreae, who had enjoyed

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had written several treaties on Christology and the Eucharist, primarily against Brenz.31 I know of no explicit evidence but Zanchi had probably read Beza’s Christological tracts closely as well as the Acta from the Colloquy. We may, for instance, note a similarity in Beza’s continual insistence that the Lutheran view of the ubiquity of the human nature was grounded in a misunderstanding of the distinction between abstract and concrete predication. This is also a central theme in Zanchi’s analysis with the same explicit references to Aquinas as in Beza.32 Although we may rightly assume that there was some kind of influence from this quartet of theologians, it is difficult to know how one might argue for an influence since Zanchi rarely explicitly refers to them or their writings on crucial points.33 The lack of references to esteemed colleagues is, at least in part, explained by the widespread carefulness among the reformed scholastics in not referring to contemporaries. This care is characteristic of their desire to be catholic in order not to be associated with sectarian groups of which there were quite a number at the time. A closer historical study might reveal some direct links, but I shall not spend much time trying to trace an exact chain of historical influence from these. Instead I shall assume that since they were well connected, writing in the same period, reading the same sources and sharing similar theological sensibilities, objectives and opponents, their individual treatments will naturally bear marks of similarity and difference. Differences might be explained by a number of factors, primarily having to do with the intended reader and the immediate cause of writing. Highlighting these writers is rather meant to give an insight into the environment of reformed Christology. We may surmise, however, that together with Zanchi’s previous Christological writings and those of his colleagues, he had plenty of material and models when finally embarking on writing De Incarnatione. It is to this work that I shall now turn.

cordial relations. Both sides sides published contradictory accounts of the Colloquy and claimed a theological victory.” 31 Especially, De Hypostatica Duarum in Christo Naturarum Unione (Geneve, 1579). 32 ST, III, q. 16. 33 Besides these, John Jacob Grynaeus, with whom he probably crossed path in Heidelberg, had published on Christology in the 1580s. See his, Synopsis orationis quae habita est in celebrerrima academia Heydelbergensi a Iohanne Iacobo Grynaeo, quum is, Aprilis die XV … 1584 finem imponeret disputationibus theologicis de controversia eucharistica per octiduum habitis (Heidelberg, 1584).

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2.3.2 The Contents, Style and Structure of De Incarnatione De Incarnatione is divided into two books. The first book is written as an extended exegetical exposition of Philippians 2:5–8, the humiliation of Christ.34 The second book is more than ten times longer than the first and divided into 12 scholastic quaestiones which all include a number of tightly argued theses. It freely moves from exegetical comments and patristic authorities to scholastic terminology, references and arguments. The first eleven questions roughly deal with the hypostatic union and the consequences thereof. They prepare the way for the central issue of the whole debate in the extensive question 12, the communication of properties. The first half of question 12 deals with the doctrine of the real communication of properties more thematically – e. g. Christological predication, the similes of the heated iron and the body-soul union – whereas the second half with the testimonies from the councils, fathers and scholastics. It is clear that the second half of question 12 is a direct response to the ‘catalogue of testimonies’ added to the Formula of Concord – the catalogue being a collection of quotes that the confessors added to the Formula, to demonstrate that the doctrine of their version of the real communication of properties was rooted in the fathers and the early church councils. It is a point-by-point refutation (similar to Danaeus’ Examen of Chemnitz’ De Duabus) often treating the patristic sources appendixed to the Formula in the same order. A wealth of opinions of patristic writers are discussed, e. g. Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Athanasius, Hippolytos, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, Hieronymus, Theodoret of Cyrus, the Cappadocian fathers and Gregory the Great. Zanchi attempted to show that the Lutherans misquote the fathers. Some of the fathers are given more attention like Leo the Great and Damascene35 and the first seven Church councils. Frequently the Greek sources and patristic terminology are quoted in the original language. Among the scholastics, Aquinas is often referred to by name and locus, although less so in the second part of question 12. Sometimes Zanchi merely mentions the opinion of “the scholastics”, as was customary when referring traditional opinions on various topics. From these observations one might get the impression that De Incarnatione lacks an overall organisation or at best has something of an ad hoc structure: a commentary on Philippians 2:5–8 then a scholastic treaties and finally a response to the Formula of Concord’s use of the church fathers. Maybe this is in 34 It is a more or less direct adaptation of the relevant section from his commentary on Philippians. 35 The debate seems to be fuelled by certain ambiguities in Damascene’s use of the term “gifts” and its cognates. See also Jaroslav Pelikan, History of Dogma: A History of Development of Doctrine, vol. 4 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984), 354–9 and Haga, Lutheran Metaphysics, 159–69.

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part due to the fact that Zanchi left the work unfinished and the task of editing to his posterity. However, upon closer scrutiny there appear some reasons for this structure and order, especially with regard to the first book and the scholastic orientation of the first part of the second book. First, there are not merely frequent references to both Aquinas and Damascene, but these seem to some extent to have been models for the structure and issues Zanchi dealt with. Instead of relying on contemporary writers (such as those mentioned in the previous subsection), Zanchi turned to the ancient and medieval doctors for guidance. In using traditional sources and models, Zanchi did not merely repeat but used these sources and models in a creative way for his own dialectic purpose. This can be brought out from some comparisons between De incarnatione, Summa theologiae and De fide orthodoxa. The first book of De Incarnatione reads as an extended commentary on Philippians 2:5–8 and has no parallel in either De Fide Orthodoxa or Summa Theologiae. Moreover, the text from Philippians does not seem to play any systematic or overarching role in De Incarnatione.36 The treatment here is primarily exegetical and ancient sources are mentioned in order to comment on the how doctors of the church had interpreted the passage. However, Phil. 2:5–8 seems a well-chosen text for Zanchi’s dialectic purposes.37 In contrast to the Lutherans, the reformed theologians taught that the “form of God” (forma dei) and the “form of a servant” (forma servi) – the central concepts in the passage – referred to the two natures of Christ. The Lutherans on the other hand interpreted “the form of a servant” as referring to the state of humiliation and “the 36 This is partly contrary to what Richard Muller (once) claimed: “In the De incarnatione the exinanitio Christi and the status humiliationis provide the basic Christological paradigm. Whereas Zanchi does not deal with concept of the determination of the Son from all eternity to be the mediator in the De Religione Christiana Fides, this concept does appear in his De Incarnatione filii Dei. The Son makes himself less than the father in his determination to assume the flesh, though in his divinity he is equal to the Father. The contrast of the ontic, metaphysical issues associated with Chalcedonian doctrine with the economical motifs generated by the conceptions of the designation of the mediator and his self-evacuation manifests a certain tension between paradigms within Zanchi’s Christology : the assumption of the flesh does not alter the nature of the Son, but, as Zanchi argues in his treaties on the incarnation, it does alter that state of his person” Christ and Decree, 119. I think this assertion is problematic. Suffice to say here that I have not found any references in Christ and Decree to the second book of the De incarnatione, which gives the impression that Muller’s judgement might be founded on the first book as indicative of the whole. Provided that this impression is correct, had Muller read book two more closely, he would have found that the concept of eternal mediatorship is there in De Incarnatione also. Also, the “tension” Muller posits between different “paradigms” in Zanchi’s Christology is is hard to justify from the text as a whole, since there is no indication that Zanchi was ever aware of the need of such a choice. Therefore, the comparison with De Religione seems irrelevant. 37 A caveat. It is possible that we should not credit Zanchi with the order of the two books, since it could have been the choice of the editors.

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form of God” to the state of exaltation. Hence, the Lutherans argued that these are not two terms referring to the two natures of Christ but to two states applying to the whole of Christ.38 Zanchi does not move the exegetical debate forward, but it seems that the point of the early placing of this passage is to position his Christology exegetically in a particular tradition. The second book, dealing with various issues concerning the hypostatic union and its consequences, follows naturally as a systematic treatment of this basic interpretation. Although there are some instances of scholastic terminology and references in the first book, they are far more common in the second book. De Incarnatione has some obvious structural similarities to the Christology of Aquinas as found in the third part of the Summa Theologiae. Sometimes the sequence of questions is the same and texts reproduced almost verbatim.39 Just as the Christology in the tertia pars of the Summa Theologiae, De Incarantione might also be divided into two parts. In the Summa III, qq. 1–15 treats the mode of union and qq. 16–26 treats the consequences of the union.40 The division between the mode of union and the consequence of the union constitutes the basic substructure of the second book of De Incarnatione and it is not farfetched to conclude that Zanchi borrows it from the Summa. Also, if it indeed was the case that De Incarnatione constituted the third part of a planned reformed Summa Theologiae, we might also have a further motif for this parallelism. Here we need to make a note of caution. In light of the recent research I discussed in the previous chapter we know that the reformed scholastic use of traditional sources is not to be understood as a desire in the individual theologian to be aligned with a particular school but for the sake of the truth of the statement. In other words, we should not automatically conclude that Zanchi’s Christology is “Thomist” from these close parallels and his use of Aquinas. Moreover, there is significant discontinuity in Zanchi’s use of Aquinas. One difference is that the sheer length and emphasis of these questions differ vastly. Most importantly, the Summa deals with the communication of properties (which is equivalent to ‘the consequences of the union’ part in the Summa) in 38 See Henrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis: Ausburg Publishing House, 1875 and 1999) 294–6. 39 This similarity is very much like his De Natura Dei, which closely follows the doctrine of God in the first part of Summa Theologiae, although De Natura Dei is much longer and contains more exegetical material. However, the biblical loci discussed seem to go back to the traditional sources as found in Lombard’s Sentences. Zanchi often refers to the Sentences, but it is not always clear if it is merely for the sake of signalling a traditional text or if it is to Lombard or Aquinas’ Commentary. 40 Qq. 27–59 treats ‘The Life of Christ’ forcusing on pivotal elements in the career as a redeemer and Mediator (Christ as Mediator being the systematic bridge in q. 26). De Incarnatione was left unfinished and thus we do not know whether the similarities of the second part on the work of Christ would have had the same similarities as did the first.

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three comparatively short questions, whereas in the De Incarnatione the questions are given much more space. Another striking difference between the two is that the whole Summa is structured around the notion of ‘fittingness’ (convenio). This pattern is also seen in the first question of the Tertia pars about the motivation for the incarnation. Fittingness is a concept that runs through Aquinas’ Christology and binds the questions together.41 This important aspect has no obvious parallel in Zanchi’s De Incarnatione; there is neither reference to the first question of the Teria pars (where the fittingness is explicitly treated) nor to the notion of fittingness in general. Zanchi seems content to motivate the incarnation in terms of our salvation. From these observations we see that Zanchi is not uncritically but selectively depending on Aquinas. We should also indicate his relationship to John Damascene’s Christology. Overall, Damascene appears to be a weightier authority than Aquinas in De Incarnatione – at least judging from the sheer number of times that he is quoted (often in the original). Some sections in De Incarnatione are more or less a (scholastic) commentary on select parts of Damascene’s text. However, Zanchi is selective in his use of Damascene. In De Fide Orthodoxa book 3 and 4 (roughly comprising the person and work of Christ) another less tightly knit structure than in the Summa appears. Its orientation is, as Andrew Louth puts it, “broadly eschatological”.42 Let me give a couple of examples. Both De Incarnatione and De Fide Orthodoxa book 3 place the incarnation and the doctrine of the virgin birth early. The Tertia pars of the Summa, has it as a part of the ‘Life of Christ’ section, which is much later. Book four of De Fide Orthodoxa starts with Christ’s resurrection and ends with the general resurrection and has no parallel and is rarely referred to in De Incarnatione. Although it is hard to make definite inferences from such observations on structure, it underscores the general point that Zanchi’s use of Aquinas and Damascene is selective. There are further reasons for Zanchi’s use of Damascene and Aquinas and I shall come back to their significance through the course of the study. I shall now try to characterise Zanchi’s Christology as a whole.

41 Scholars have argued that this notion is modelled on the virtue of wisdom and therefore pertains to the intellect and the will. Aquinas’ Christology begins with the question of the motivation for the incarnation, explicitly asking whether it was fitting for God to become incarnate in order to answer the question: ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’. See Barnes, Two Wills, 193–9. 42 St. John Damascene. Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 84–9.

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The Character of Zanchi’s Christology: Catholic, Scholastic and Reformed

The overview of Zanchi’s Christological writings showed their context. He wrote as a theologian of good standing from within an international community of reformed theologians in an on-going debate. As I have already said, this theological context and orientation cannot be boiled down to one single person, place or proposition – e. g. Calvin, Geneva or predestination. As a writer from within the reformed movement he had colleagues and friends with the same sensibilities concerning the role of the theologian in service of the church. There was also a variation in emphasis and explicit claims within this group on matters that were central as well as adiaphora. It was therefore natural that Zanchi did not use the term ‘calvinist’ about himself and it is, even now, disputable how useful the term ‘calvinist’ is for so broad a tradition.43 Calvin was held a high esteem in this movement but was one among many leading figures in many places like Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531), William Farel (1489–1565), Martin Bucer (1491–1551), Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499–1562), Heinrich Bullinger (1505–75), John Knox (1514–72), Fransiscus Junius (1545–1602), William Perkins (1558–1602), Bartholomeus Keckerman (1572–1608), Gisbertus Voetius (1589–1676), Johannes Coeccius (1603–69), John Owen (1616–83) and Francis Turretin (1623–87). Further, one can identify later (modern) heirs of this heritage working from within the reformed tradition. Although we may detect developments and reactions to the tradition in which they stood, there is a clear sense of continuity with later generations of reformed theologians ranging from Jonathan Edwards (1705–58) to William Shedd (1820–94), Herman Bavinck (1854–1921), B.B. Warfield (1851–1921), Karl Barth (1886–1968), Thomas F. Torrance (1913–2007) and Jürgen Moltmann (1926–).44 These individual theologians write from within a broad reformed tradition, the contours of which are hard, and maybe unwise, to define in a clear-cut manner. Certainly, Christology in the reformed tradition is deeply shaped by Chalcedon (despite the fact that some modern reformed theologians give it rather different philosophical underpinnings than did the

43 To use the adjective ‘Calvinist’ of Zanchi is perhaps legitimate if one qualifies it strictly as for instance John P. Donnelley did: “Here Calvinist theology refers not only to the personal thought of John Calvin but also to the teachings of the founders of the Reformed or Calvinist tradition as it spread out from Geneva and Switzerland to France, Germany, England, Scotland, Poland and the Low Countries. In this context Calvin emerges as the brightest star in a galaxy of Reformed theologians…These theologians were often more influential than Calvin himself at a give place or time or on a given point of doctrine” (“Italian Influences”, 81). 44 For a study of some individual Christologies from within the reformed tradition, see Crisp, Revisioning Christology.

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pre-moderns) and this arguably was and remains a feature of the catholic aspirations of the reformed movement. I shall, therefore, treat Zanchi as a member of a community that is not ‘Calvinist’ in any strict sense. In the “galaxy of Reformed theologians”,45 Zanchi was one bright star who exerted influence on contemporaries as well as successors. Moreover, I shall neither be restricted to the 16th century theologians but occasionally make comparisons to theologians prior to Zanchi (e. g. Damascene, Aquinas and Scotus) and after (e. g. Turretin). Since the study of reformed scholastic Christology is in its cradle, my claims are rather modest. Therefore, my comparisons to other theologians are not intended to be arguing a particular historical influence unless that is explicitly stated. Instead I shall use some thinkers from within the broad reformed tradition and beyond in what might be called a ‘typological’ sense; they serve as types of some particular position that is relevant to discuss in relation to Zanchi. For instance, when I interact with Scotus I do not intend to argue that there is some influence on Zanchi, whereas when I discuss the views of Damascene and Aquinas, I will try to show that there is some kind of influence (as seen in the former section of this chapter). Zanchi was interested in both the unity and the purity of the church, two objectives he sought to reflect in his writings. Doctrine and the well being of the church were thought of as an organic unity, not ‘academic’ vs. ‘practical’, as might be the case in some (post-)modern conceptions. As an academic, that is, as a scholastic, theologian, Zanchi saw it as his duty to defend the purity of the church as well as its unity by paying attention to heresies and warding off parochialism and sectarianism that tended to make the church a matter of national, territorial or even personal interest.46 For these reasons, it seems right to describe Zanchi’s tendencies and inclinations in theology in general and his Christology in particular as catholic, scholastic and reformed. More so, Zanchi’s Christology should be characterised in that particular order: catholic, scholastic and reformed. Being a reformed theologian in the 16th century primarily meant being a catholic theologian, someone who wrote from within the tradition of scripture and the early church. I hasten to add that this catholic ambition was not unique to Zanchi as a reformed theologian, but was shared with his opponents.47 This meant that

45 See quote in footnote 43. 46 See his inauguration speeches at Hedelberg (1568) “Oratio de conservando in ecclesia puro puto Dei verbo” (as introduction to his De Sacra Scriptura) in OT, VIII/1, 297–452 and at Neustadt (1578), “Oratio de aperiendis in ecclesia scholis.” in OT, VI/1, vi–xvii. 47 Cf. Daniel H. Williams writes: “There is no question that the early Reformers believed they were seeking to restore the faith of the early church. The basic thrust of their mission was not to point to themselves as begetters of a new “Protestantism” but to the establishment of a

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Lutheran and reformed theologians had a shared framework for debates, a framework that is lost or fragmented in many modern theological debates. Disputed theological questions were too important to be viewed as merely academic or merely ecclesiastical. All parties shared the conviction that clear public statements (confessions) and arguments (scholastic treaties and polemical tracts) were needed in order to bring harmony to the church. One might say that there was a certain kind of objectivity involved in this process. Neither was it an objectivity building on the consensus of a scientific community nor on some kind of impersonal scientific norm, but on the conviction that, although confessional statements and theological opinions are fallible, the ground for theology, Scripture, was infallible. Being faithful to Scripture, then, meant working out its implications and defending its contents. Here we see the importance of the tradition of the early creeds and the continual confessional and theological writings of the major doctors of the church.48 Naturally, Zanchi held that analogia fidei was a path to orthodoxy, the notion that there is a characteristic pattern in orthodox teaching that can be detected; not one that is dependent on personal belief but on the true faith handed down from the fathers.49 He worked on the assumption that Christological statements from, say, the prologue of John to Chalcedon contains a common doctrine on which further developments and statements can build. Indeed, the whole history of Christology can, at least in part, be seen as a process in which theologians have continually sought to explicate the truth of the dogma. An illustration of Zanchi’s international recognition as a champion of reformed orthodoxy, catholicity and scholasticism is found in the circumstances leading up to the publication of his confession, De Religione.50 At first glance it appears to be an instruction written for his sons. However, it was originally drafted as an official reformed confession. In 1577, the Palatinate, John Casimir gathered some of the leading Reformed theologians from different European countries and commissioned them to issue a response to the Formula of Concord with the expressed intention to unite the European reformed movement and demonstrate its catholicity.51 During the meeting Zanchi suggested that, instead

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proper Catholicism”. Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic/Paternoster, 2005), 85. For a relevant discussion, see Muller PRRD, II, 499–510 who argues that Zanchi follows Zabarella’s analytic method of biblical interpretation and dogmatic formulation. He also shows that Augustine De Doctrina Christiana was central to Zanchi’s hermeneutics. For this see Zanchi’s In Mosen and universa Biblia, Prolegomena, in OT, VIII, 18. For the details here I rely on Baschera and Moser, “Introduction”, 14–7. Thus, Baschera and Moser, “Introduction”, 15: “The conference [….] adopted Johann Casimir’s proposal for the drafting of an official pan-Reformed confession, the general parameters of which were sketched out in its minutes. The confession was to begin with a chapter on scripture and was to include a comprehensive refutation of contemporary heresies.

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of drafting a new pan-reformed confession, a harmonization of the Second Helvetic Confession and the Augusburg Confession should be put together. His suggestion was not accepted and Casimir’s request for a new unifying document was granted. Somewhat ironically, when Zanchi’s colleague, Zacharias Ursinus (1534–83), did not want to assume the responsibility for drafting the Confession, the question of drafting a new unifying document returned to Zanchi who then accepted the task. A plan for how this was to be achieved was drawn up. Theodore Beza and Rudolph Gwalther would first review Zanchi’s draft and, then, send it for anonymous peer-review by some hundred European reformed churches. However, after the meeting doubts were raised by Ursinus and others concerning the suitability of Zanchi’s complicated writing style for such a unifying document. Without Zanchi’s awareness Beza, together with some colleagues, started to work on what became the Harmonia Confessonum Fidei based on already existing reformed statements, very much like Zanchi had suggested.52 When Zanchi was almost finished he was made aware of this development and the editors of the Harmony and other involved had to apologize to Zanchi. Nevertheless, they encouraged him to publish what he had written as a “private confession”, which he did in 1585 together with the appendixed Observations. Although Zanchi’s part in this project was handled rather poorly, the fact that he was officially asked tells us something of the conception other theologians had of him. He was perceived as a theologian at the forefront of the reformed movement for his catholic aspirations and (in-)famous for his scholastic style of writing. In this case, the latter ability proved to be his weakness. As a scholastic theologian, much effort was spent on defending orthodoxy. Zanchi had no interest in being ‘original’ or (in the modern sense) ‘constructive’ in his Christology, but was prompted to write partly due to what he perceived as heresies in his own time. On the other hand, I shall argue that in doing this, he did make some constructive although not wholly original contributions to the debate, in the attempt to defend and explicate the implications of creedally orthodox Christology. As was customary in 16th century polemics, Zanchi’s defence of Christological orthodoxy led him to identify the positions of his contemporary opponents with ancient Christological heresies. In his arguments against the Lutherans (Brenz, Andreae and Chemnitz) he assumes a distinction between the ‘catholics’ and ‘ubiquitarians’.53 Further, beside the ubiquitarians he However, the use of excessively harsh language in relation to the Lutherans was to be avoided, so that dialogue with supporters of the Augsburg Confession was not rendered impossible.” 52 The Heidelberg Catechism was the most successful up until this point and has continued to be the most important reformed confession also after these affairs. See, Sebastian Rehnman, “Hedelbergkatekesen 450 ,r”, Theofilos 6/1 (2014), 82–97. 53 “Venio ad ea, quæ ipsam unitione naturarum consecuta sunt: quibus de rebus magna iam controversa est inter catholicos & ubiquitarianos.” (DI, 122/331).

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also made a case against others theologians and groups, like Michael Servetus (1509–53), which be brands as Arian and the ‘Anabaptists’ as Marcionites.54 The burden of proof he had to carry as a defender of orthodox Christology was to argue for these identifications. I hope it is clear by now why I have put catholic before scholastic and reformed. Reading Zanchi reveals that the exegetical, conciliar and patristic arguments and sources are weightier authorities than his contemporaries and the medieval scholastic theologians. He operated on the premise that older theologians, with a wide acceptance in the churches, were more reliable witnesses to the truth. However, at the stage of the debate we find Zanchi, many of the central Christological passages in Scripture and in the church fathers’ writings had been used and debated so frequently that there was a need to find good examples of theologians who faithfully reflected or transmitted the older tradition.55 Where did Zanchi turn for such theologians? As a first response, we should point out (although without making it an argument from silence) that in the De Incarnatione the names of Zanchi’s contemporaries are rare. John Calvin is only mentioned once and among his other reformed colleagues Musculus, Martyr, Beza and Danaeus are mentioned, but mostly on minutiae or as confirmation of what Zanchi had already established on exegetical and patristic grounds.56 Likewise, Luther is mentioned a couple of times against the ‘Lutherans’, but it would be an exaggeration to claim that Luther was used as an authority against the ubiquitarians. Clearly more important than his contemporaries are Damascene and Aquinas as reliable transmitters of the older theological tradition. We may here take note of two differences between Zanchi’s and Chemnitz’ relation to Damascene, Aquinas and the wider scholastic tradition. First, it is a common understanding among reformation scholars that Damascene is the most important extra-biblical source for the development of Chemnitz’ third genus. (However, Chemnitz did not take De Fide Orthodoxa as a structural model for his Christological writing as Zanchi did.) I shall argue in later chapters that Chemnitz’ and Zanchi’s use of Damascene is problematic due to some ambiguities in Damascene. Some of the things he says could support Chemnitz and some Zanchi; hence both perceived Damascene as a reliable transmitter of the old theological tradition. 54 See, the “Epistola” in De Incarnatione. 55 See Donnelly, “Introduction”, in Vermigli Dialogues of Christ and “Christological Currents in Vermigli’s Thought” in Frank James III ed., Peter Martyr Vermigli and the European Reformation: Semper Reformanda (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 177–196 and Jason Zuidema, Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499–1562) and the Outward Instruments of Divine Grace (Reformed Historical Theology) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 55–92. 56 On Zanchi’s relation to Calvin and Vermigli see, Tylenda, “Girolamo Zanchi and John Calvin” and Farthing, “Praeceptor Carissimus”.

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Since Damascene had been used so frequently in De Duabus to support the third genus, Zanchi’s claim on Damascene is possibly strategic. If he could show that Chemnitz’ most important doctor was misinterpreted, he would have a strong case against Chemnitz claim on catholic Christology. Second, we should comment on Zanchi’s and Chemnitz’ relation to Aquinas and the scholastic tradition. Chemnitz never supported his views from Aquinas in De Duabus. Chemnitz begins many discussions with the opinions of ‘the scholastics’, often with explicit reference to the opinion reported by or (supposedly) held by Peter Lombard. When he refers explicitly to scholastic theologians it is always to the nominalists, such as Saint PourÅain Durandus (1275–1332/1334) and Gabriel Biel (1418–95). Like Chemnitz, Zanchi also starts his discussion with reference to the scholastics in a similar, general sense and frequently to Lombard. However, his explicit scholastic references are to Aquinas’ two Summae as well as his Commentary on the Sentences and never to the nominalists (besides one irenic reference to Scotus).57 These differences, no doubt, reflect the educational milieus of the Lutheran and the reformed theologians.58 To Zanchi, as well as many other continental reformed theologians, Aquinas was a prime example of a catholic theologian. By contrast, in many German Lutheran institutions the nominalist Gabriel Biel was the most respected scholastic theologian and it was his Sentences commentary that became the standard textbook for theology in many of their schools.59 We might sum up the overall differences between Lutheran and reformed scholasticism in order to further understand the catholicity and scholasticism of Zanchi as well as his place within reformed theology. Zanchi’s expressed intentions are catholic and he perceives the Chalcedonian tradition as normative of a biblical and orthodox Christology. Aquinas is the scholastic that, to 57 In case the reader gets the impression that Zanchi was uninterested in or unacquainted with more contemporary or late medieval writers, see Kalvin S. Budiman, “Nature and Grace”, 41– 7 for a discussion and a list of writers, ancient and later, that Zanchi refers to (largley based, it seems, on the indices to the OT, which are far from complete.) 58 See Joseph S. Freedman, “Aristotle and the Content of Philosophy Instruction at Central European Schools and Universities during the Reformation Era (1500–1650)”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 137/2 (1993), 213–53. 59 At this stage in reformation research, I do not know of any in-depth study of these differences in theology or philosophy in Lutheran and reformed camps and, in order not to be overly speculative, I have simply proceeded with care. A useful comparison between Aquinas and Biel is available in John Farthing’s study, Thomas Aquinas and Gabriel Biel: Interpretations of St. Thomas Aquinas in German Nominalism on the Eve of the Reformation. Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Durham, N.C. and London: Duke University Press, 1988). Later generations of Lutheran scholastics did refer to Aquinas by name and referenced him to a much larger extent than the 16th century Lutheran scholastics. They saw in him a catholic ally. But as this study suggest, their reliance on him in matters pertaining to disputed questions in Christology seems hard to justify.

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his mind, most faithfully expounds this tradition and it is for that reason (and not for Aquinas’ scholastic method) Zanchi finds him a great teacher of the church. Hence he never waged war on the scholastics or the scholastic method (typical of some humanist rhetoric) but simply considered Aquinas as a reliable academic model and not a specific school of thought, ideology or theology. Characterising Zanchi’s Christology as catholic and scholastic is not meant to neglect the fact that there are issues and notions that in some sense are distinctively reformed. From the focus point of this study, I shall in chapters five and six discuss the two notions that traditionally have been expressed with the phrases finitum non capax infiniti and Logos non extra carnem (or extra calvinisticum). Zanchi use this language explicity and gives it a rather interesting philosophical treatment. These two phrases express two distinctives of reformed theology in general and Christology in particular. However, from an historical point of view, they are arguably part of a wider catholic tradition as David Willis has showed in his study entitled Calvin’s Catholic Christology.60 Willis argues that these notions are not original to the reformed theologians of the 16th century, but found and developed in the church fathers and the scholastics.61 It was rather out of a need in the particular historical situation that the reformed theologians (re-)emphasised notions such as these, but they never understood them to be distinctively ‘reformed’ or ‘calvinistic’. With that qualification, I think it is legitimate to talk of reformed distinctives in Christology.62 However, even if the reformed theologians never intended to be constructive or original, I shall argue that their emphasis on notions such as these 60 Full title: Calvin’s Catholic Christology : The Function of the so-called “Extra” Dimension in Calvin’s Theology (Leiden: Brill, 1966). 61 That is not to say that parts of the patristic tradition and to some extent the scholastic tradition, at least in its nominalist phase, would give reason to the Lutheran criticism of these two phrases and the ideas they signify. See for instance, Sparn, Wiederkehr der Metaphysik; Jack Kilcrease, The Self-Donation of God. A Contemporary Lutheran Approach to Christ and His Benefits (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013) and Graham White, Luther as Nominalist: A Study of the Logical Methods used in Martin Luther’s Disputations in the Light of their Medieval Background (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola Society, 1994), for different ways of arguing for this. What Willis’ study argue (and what I will try to argue in ch. 5 and 6) is that Zanchi’s and the reformed theologians’ re-emphasising these notions is at least grounded in a significant part of the tradition. 62 There are other distinctives of reformed Christology that fall outside of the scope of this study. Primarily, I think of the account of Christ as Mediator in both natures and that Calvin (and other reformed theologians) seems to have inaugurated or revived (depending on ones’ view of the history of Christological dogma) the notion of Christ as Mediator before the incarnation. For a treatment of this, see my “Would Christ have become Incarnate had Adam Not Fallen? Jerome Zanchi (1516–90) on Christ the Mediator”, Journal of Reformed Theology 8/1 (2015).

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did in fact make a significant contribution to the history of Christology and that there are philosophical issues involved that have not been given the proper attention in the literature so far. The following two parts of the book will substantiate this claim.

Part II: The Hypostatic Union

Chapter Three: Virgin Birth and the Process of Hominization The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” – Luke, 1:35

3.1

Introduction

The doctrine and the historicity of the virgin birth, have been questioned by several modern theologians on exegetical grounds; some argue it is a superflous doctrine on the level or myth and legend.1 However, for pre-modern theologians, the virgin birth was not considered as a doctrinal locus that follows merely from a couple of passages in the Gospels (Math. 1:18–25 and Luke 1:26–38), but was situated in the overall teaching about the mystery of Christ.2 The importance of the virgin birth in the development of Christological dogma is clear from the fact that it found a place in the early Creeds. Embedded in this larger context the virgin birth serves several functions. For instance, it functions as a bar to adoptionism, the view that the Logos assumed or adopted an already existing human person. Had Christ not been human from conception, theologians would have been inclined to think that the Son assumed an already existing human. Maybe more important – according to Scripture Jesus of Nazareth is like us in all respects but without sin (Heb. 4:15). The virgin birth is a guarantee that Christ is human like us but neither adopted nor sinful. Some ancient theologians per1 See convenient summaries of the discussions in Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ. Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 21–44; Pannenberg, Jesus, 141–50 and Donald G. Bloesch, Jesus Christ: Lord and Saviour (Downer Groove, IL: InterVaristy Press, 1997), 80–131. 2 For Zanchi the foundational character of this doctrine is highlighted by the fact that the doctrine is placed at the beginning of De Incarnatione. As I indicated in the previous chapter, Zanchi is sometimes following John Damascene and sometimes Thomas Aquinas in structuring his De Incarnatione (and sometimes both). A marked difference between Aquinas and Damascene is the placing of the virgin birth, and possibly also its systematic importance. Damascene puts it almost at the beginning, signalling the inauguration of the divine economy in the miraculous birth. Aquinas has other structuring principles and does not bring the virgin birth into his larger Summa until the ‘Life of Christ’ section, as a “consequence” of the incarnation. Zanchi approach is more like Damascene’s approach but pays more attention to the details of the exposition, which is closer to Aquinas’. These considerations also motivate the early placing of this topic in the present study.

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ceived the virgin birth as an antidote to sin because there was no sexual act involved at conception. Consequently, this led to the view that Mary was sinless from birth and remained a virgin her whole life in order to give birth to a sinless Son.3 Zanchi, like the majority of the reformers, thought that both of these doctrines are unnecessary, since the child was made holy through the work of the Holy Spirit and not through a sinless mother or her perpetual virginity.4 My focus in this chapter, however, shall not be on the theological function(s) of the virgin birth but on its implications for some foundational principles in natural philosophy and embryology. That is, I shall not look at the evidence for the doctrine but take it in the form found in Zanchi and look at its implications. Some moot points of this doctrine caused a subtle but significant disagreement among reformed theologians.5 My explorations here are the first fruits of the methodology I have adopted in this thesis: analytical Christology as an attempt to work out the implications – e. g. in metaphysics, psychology, natural philosophy – of the incarnation. In the first section of this chapter I present Zanchi’s view on the virgin birth and focus on one crucial aspect: the purported requirement of Christological orthodoxy that Christ became human instantly at conception. This is hardly a surprise to find in a catholic theologian like Zanchi, but the twist of the tale comes when we find that he has to make some rather drastic ad hoc moves in natural philosophy and embryology. In the second section I will use a later reformed scholastic, Francis Turretin, to critique the idea of instant formation. Turretin quite successfully argued that delayed hominization is consistent with Christological orthodoxy. In the third section I attempt to show that instant formation, or at least instant hominization, is possible without Zanchi’s ad hoc move; that is, it is consistent with the basic principles of hylemorphism. In the fourth section, I will briefly examine a presupposition in Zanchi’s doctrine of the Virgin Birth – that the Logos assumed the human nature by assuming the soul directly and the body indirectly via the soul. I argue that Zanchi – and contemporary hylemorphists – would be much better off dropping this presupposition. At the end of the chapter I offer some thoughts on how to combine the insights found in Zanchi and Turretin.

3 However, not until 1854 was it received as a binding doctrine of Roman Catholic dogma. 4 DI, 65/154–60 and 69/167–8. 5 For the reformed on this see Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics. Translated by G.T Thomson; revised and edited by Ernst Bizer (London: Wakeman Trust, 2000), 421–7.

Zanchi on the Virgin Birth and the Problem of Instant Formation

3.2

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Zanchi on the Virgin Birth and the Problem of Instant Formation

As most (pre-modern) scholastics, Zanchi accepted the Galenian-Aristotelian embryology according to which the human embryo is thought to be animated by a human soul around 40 days after conception, making the process of hominization successive.6 At conception the zygote is animated by a vegetative soul, some time later by a sentient soul and eventually by a rational soul. The advent of the rational soul marks the coming into being of a human. A rational soul cannot be present from the beginning, because the embryo has not yet fulfilled the minimum requirements of bodily development to support a human soul. Exactly what these requirements are is not important for our purpose. It is noteworthy, however, that pre-modern and modern embryology tend to agree that hominization is a process, since at conception the bodily development necessary for a rational soul or some kind of conscious life (as we might put it) has not yet been sufficiently formed. Zanchi is here following Christian theologians like Damascene and Aquinas who were happy to accept this general theory with one crucial addition: the animation of a rational soul in the first trimester of pregnancy is not a natural development but an act of God, creating the soul in the human embryo ex nihilo.7 (We may note in passing that this theory of embryonic development was the cause of a sustained debate in ethics,8 since it seems that the Angelic doctor’s 6 According to this view female embryos are ensouled 90 days after conception. For Zanchi, De Operibus [lib. II, cap. VI] in OT, 598–604 and Aquinas, ST, I, 118–9. For Aristotle see De Generatione Animalium, II, 3 (736b7–20) where he famously says that the soul comes to the body “from the outside”. See Leo Elders, The Philosophy of Nature (Frankfurt a. M.: Lang, 1997), 263–70 on Aristotle’s commentators. 7 For Aquinas, see ST, I, q. 118, art. 1–3. Tertullian and Augustine are famous for holding the minority position (traducianism), claiming that the soul, or a part of it, is somehow inherited from the parents, resulting in instant hominization at conception. For Zanchi’s views on this see DI, 70/168. For an extended discussion see his De Operibus [lib. II, cap. V “De Origine Animarum”, “VI, Argumentorum per Origine Animorum ex traduce refutatio”] in OT, III, 618–27. Interestingly, in this context Zanchi draws heavily on the doctrine of the virgin birth as premise in an anti-traducian argument. In the reformed tradition William Shedd stands out for his embrace of Augustinian realism and traducianism. For discussions about the Christological implications of this, see Crisp, God Incarnate, ch. 4 and Revisioning Christology, ch. 4. 8 See especially, Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa Theologiae, 1a 75–89 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002), 100–119 and the following debate: John Haldane and Patrick Lee, ”Aquinas on Human Ensoulment, Abortion and the Value of Life”, Philosophy 78/2 (2003), 255–278; Robert Pasnau, “Souls and the Beginning of Life (Reply to Haldane and Lee)”, Philosophy 78/4 (2003), 521–31 and John Haldane and Patrick Lee, “Rational Souls and the Beginning of Life. (A reply to Robert Pasnau)”, Philosophy 78/4 (2003), 532–40. See also, William A. Wallace, ”Aquinas’s Legacy on

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view of human life did not allow the view that human embryos are fully human from the beginning.)9 More importantly for the purpose of the topic at hand, the acceptance of this embryology forced the church fathers and the medieval scholastics to make some exceptional moves in the realm of Christology. According to Christological orthodoxy, the Logos assumed a human nature like ours in all respects except sin; “true man of true man” and “of the virgin Mary” as the Nicene Creed has it. Hence, they argued, that in the incarnation these three have to be simultaneous: assumption, conception and hominization. The obvious problem here is that it runs contrary to the Galenian-Aristotelian theory. As I mentioned, normally a human embryo is not yet a human being, but a being becoming human. So an exception must be made in the case of the incarnation.10 Zanchi then mentions Aquinas’ triparte summary of this received doctrine: the “preparation” of the womb of Mary, the “formation” and “perfection” of the body of Christ.11 Zanchi thinks that there is a temporal succession involved in the preparation of Mary’s body and the perfection of the body of Christ, but not in its formation. The Holy Spirit prepared Mary’s body. This does not, however, entail the sinlessness of the mother, as we have noted. Only the child and the perfection of the body of Christ tell us what may be obvious: that there is growth after conception more than in terms of size but also in bodily perfection. Rejection of temporal succession on all three points would probably have constituted a version of Docetism and made the birth of a virgin unfitting. I shall focus on instant formation. Zanchi asserts that instant formation is possible through the power of the Holy Spirit who is powerful enough to create a complete (and sinless) human nature without the ordinary embryonic development.12 He says:

9

10

11 12

Individuation, Cogitation and Hominisation” in David M. Gallagher ed., Thomas Aquinas and His Legacy (Washington, DC.: Catholic University of America Press, 1994). Aquinas argued that the human embryo in the early stages was worthy of the same protection as a living human. This is clear from his severe view of punishment for killing a pregnant woman. John Haldane and Patrick Lee in ”Aquinas on Human Ensoulment” argues that had Aquinas known what we know today, he might have modified his views so that hominization and conception are simultaneous. John Damascus, summarising the patristic view, says that the Power of the Most High overshadowed the virgin Mary and so “from [Mary’s] holy and most pure blood He formed flesh animated with the spirit of reason and thought […] not by procreation but by creation through the Holy Spirit: not developing the fashion of the body by gradual additions but perfecting it at once.” in DFO, III, 2. Zanchi quotes this at DI, 74/182. DI, 75–6/184–8. For Aquinas see, ST, III, 33, 1. Zanchi remarks that Adam came from God, Eve from Adam, men afterwards from men and women. That Christ comes from God and a woman has salvific overtones in Zanchi’s mind. See DI, 67/160.

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The given reason is, that you nowhere read that the Logos was made body or soul, but human. But even though John 1 states that it [the Logos] was made flesh, there with the word ‘flesh’ you understand it synecdochically as complete man. For a human is not merely a body. It was, therefore, necessary that he assumed a body endowed with a rational soul at the same temporal moment [as the assumption]. Otherwise there would have been some moment of time during which the Son of God was not true human but only a human body.13

A generation later, Johannes Wollebius (1589–1629) makes this point more explicitly, saying that if Christ could not have been instantly formed as a man at conception, “there would have been conceived [sic.] not Christus homo but Christus embryo.”14 In other words Christological Orthodoxy requires that Christ became man instantly in order to avoid the suspicion of an albeit short but important period of Christ’s early mundane career as something less than human. We may also gather an indirect argument for instant formation found in the context of a discussion of the unity of the soul. Zanchi thinks that normal embryos (at least when they have developed a rational soul) are not necessarily a tabula rasa but can have a surprisingly functioning intellect in utero. God can speak to the embryonic intellect. For instance, the leap of joy of the embryo later known as John the Baptist in the womb of Elisabeth when Mary saluted her is a sign of the Holy Spirit working on the mind of the foetal Baptist. This might appear to be a claim against the view that some of the soul’s intellective powers are not present or functional unless the organs are fully formed. However, it is plausible that the claim is made for the 40 days or older foetal Baptist, as Jesus and John must have “met” after the first trimester according to Scripture. Hence the foetal Baptist has a rational soul. Whatever the details here, Zanchi seems to take his cue from Tertullian and not from Aristotle. Tertullian, according to Zanchi, claimed that just as the not yet fully formed embryo is endowed with the five senses due to its sentient soul it cannot use the senses since there is no occasion to use them. Similarly, then, the rational soul in the embryo has the powers of intellect and will but no occasion to exercise them.15 Since the senses 13 DI, 75/185, ”Ratio in promtu est: quia logos nusquam legitur, quod factus sit corpus, aut anima, sed quod homo: at licet Ioh. 1. dicatur factus caro: ibi tamen nomine carnis, synecdochikos intelligitur homo perfectus. Atqui homo nj est ipsum solum corpus. Oportuit igitur sumsisse corpus anima rationali præditum: idque simul eodem temporis momento. Alioqui daretur alioquod temporis momentum, quo non fuerit Filius Dei verus homo: sed tantum corpus humanum.” 14 Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 424. 15 That seems to open the door to early animation. Why could not the intellective powers and the rest of the soul’s power’s be present from conception, although only having the occasion to exercise the basic ones while awaiting and activating the other bodily parts for future developed functions less basic? In that way, Zanchi has everything needed to claim that

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have not yet delivered any stimulus to the mind, there are no phantasmata16 in the embryo so that the cognitive functions can get started. But nothing prevents The Holy Spirit from putting a wealth of phantasmata in the developing embryonic soul of Jesus (or John the Baptist, provided that the foetal Baptist had been endowed with a rational soul), since it is endowed with a fully functioning mind from conception. Although farfetched, it is this possibility that the example of John the Baptist seeks to make plausible.17 An implication of Zanchi’s doctrine of the virgin birth is that the body of Christ in the womb was not developing as a human in significant ways other than in terms of size. That is, Christ’s body was sufficiently formed so that it could support a soul from conception. I said that the body does not develop in significant ways, since it is clear that Zanchi allowed bodily development (and not merely growth in size). Christ’s body was gradually perfected both in utero and extra utero. However, it implies that Jesus from conception, however small in size, had everything required in order to support a rational soul – say a brain and cerebral cortex. But then, plausibly, many other bodily functions must have been in place as well resulting in a well formed human body already at conception. Beyond the above motivations that seem to have guided Zanchi’s conclusion, I shall mention two more. First, as a traditional theologian, Zanchi asserts that Christ had all the virtues infused and had the same beatific vision of God as the blessed in heaven. This assertion presupposes a human soul from conception. Hence, it was not merely phantasmata endowed by the Holy Spirit that the embryonic Christ must have, but also a higher form of knowledge of God’s actual knowledge by vision. Secondly, Zanchi thinks that the Logos assumed the body via the soul. Hence, in order to assume a human body it had to be sufficiently formed to support a human soul’s functions, because the body’s assumption is mediated through the immediate assumption of the soul. This also explains why the assumption of body and soul should be simultaneous. I find both of these assertions complicating matters beyond necessity. In the final section of this chapter will argue that Zanchi would have been better off dropping the second assertion. Suffice to say here, a central problem with Zanchi’s maximalist view of the assumed human nature at its earliest stages is not only its theoretical implausibility but also that it theologically endangers the likeness of Christ’s human nature with ours. Embryonic development – both according to pre-modern and modern views – seems to be an important part of being human and if Christ is to truly share in our humanity, he would also share in the process of becoming man. animation and conception could be simultaneous for all humans. I will discuss this possibility in the next part of this section. 16 For phantasma see Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Mind (London: Routledge, 1993), 37–9. 17 De Operibus in OT, III, 600.

Turretin on the Successive Formation of Christ’s Body

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Again, remember that Zanchi’s anthropologically daring ad hoc move in Christology, quite contrary to the best-of-his-day embryology and his principles of hylemorphism, was made due to the felt pressure of orthodoxy. But we have to ask, was it really necessary and does it have the intended theoretical advantage? In order to find a robust criticism of Zanchi’s claims, one does not have to consult modern theologians as they are legio. Instead, I will look at the views of Francis Turretin who might provide us with a more congenial alternative as he shared Zanchi’s catholic, scholastic and reformed heritage.

3.3

Turretin on the Successive Formation of Christ’s Body

Turretin makes three general observations in favour of the successive formation of Christ’s body.18 First, Scripture (Luke 1:26, 38, 56; 2:6) says that there are “spaces of time” between the “acts of conception, generation and birth” which are “distinctly enumerated and the ordinary time is ascribed to them”. Secondly, Christ is like us even in our “infirmities” and therefore conception and gestation should be “according to the ordinary way, little by little”. Thirdly, Christ’s body grew like other bodies outside the womb “therefore there should be no differences as to its formation in the womb.” He adds: “If Christ’s body was perfected in a moment, it could equally be born in the same moment.”19 For the rest of Turretin’s argument I will quote him at length: It must not be thought that this dogma [of successive formation of the body of Christ] advances anything unworthy of the Holy Spirit. Although he could without delay and in a single moment have formed completely the body of Christ, still nothing hinders his having operated here successively (as he usually proceeds from imperfect to perfect in the works of nature and grace). Nor is it of importance to inquire curiously at what time the soul was united to the body, the Logos to the flesh. It is enough for us to believe that the human nature from the time it began to be never existed apart from the Logos, but was assumed by and hypostatically united to him. And if the soul could not be poured into the body unless already organized and completely formed (a point on which physicians are not agreed among themselves), it does not follow that the Logos could not at once unite the flesh to himself, since his work could not be constrained either with the soul present or absent. Nor is it more absurd for the body of Christ (not as yet animated) to be united to the Logos, than for the same (when lifeless in the sepulchre) 18 An additional difference is this: Turretin does not agree with Zanchi on the beatific vision of Christ in via, whether in or extra utero. This disagreement makes it clear that Turretin has less (or no) need of a rational soul in the early stages of the Christ’s embryo contrary to Zanchi who thought that Christ had to have a rational soul so that all the virtues and the beatific vision could be infused from conception. 19 The Institutes of Elenctic Theology, translated by G. M. Giger and edited by J. T. Denison (Phillipsburg, NJ: P. and R. Publishing, 1992–7), vol. II, q. XI, xiii, 343.

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to remain conjoined with the same (as theologians acknowledge was done at the death of Christ).20

Turretin’s comment that one should not “inquire curiously” about these matters should not be taken as an excuse to avoid thinking about the topic. After all, he did have a few things to say about the matter himself, all of which border on speculation in the quoted passage. Rather, Turretin means that in the doctrine of the virgin birth we should not align ourselves too quickly with an account that lies too far away from our general knowledge of embryonic development. The recommendation is to be wary of fitting metaphysics and natural philosophy into theology and to avoid undue ad hoc moves in Christology (as we have seen in Zanchi’s case). Instead one should look for ways in which the two can be harmonised. In this spirit I will consider three objections to Turretin’s account of successive formation from a broadly Aristotelian perspective. First, Turretin’s position has a potential problem if the above passage is taken at face value: the relation between the body and the soul in Christ’s human nature might be compromised since they are co-assumed by the Word. For the implication of his assertion that “it does not follow that the Logos [Logon] could not at once unite the flesh to himself, since his work could not be constrained either with the soul present or absent” is that the proper relation between body and soul is not radically different from other human beings. They can (at least in principle) be conjoined to the Word directly at extreme circumstances – since he leaves the question open, it is reasonable to assume that this is not impossible in the normal cases as well. What is the problem? It seems that the type of union of body and soul Turrettin supposes here is not a hylemorphic union, but a union between the Word and the two parts of the human nature respectively. In that case, the soulbody union in Christ was not essential or primitive as in standard hylemorphism, but a contingent union mediated by the Logos. Since their union is secondary, it seems that there are too many unions in the incarnate Christ.21 This makes the assumed human nature radically different from all other human nature, since Christ’s soul and body are not united in a primitive sort of way but in a mediated (and supernatural) way. Ultimately, this difference may cause the suspicion that the Word did not become a man like us. Turretin indirectly responds to this objection in another context. He grants 20 Institutes, II, q. XI, xiv, 343. See also Leonard Rijssen (1635–1700) in Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 425. 21 A similar worry motivated Aquinas’s rejection of Lombard’s habitus-account (which we will touch on in the next chapter). According to the habitus-account, the body and soul were assumed as separate items and joined together in the Word. According to Aquinas, this raises the suspicion of Nestorianism. See Aquinas interpretation in S, III, 2, 6, resp.

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“in Christ a twofold union: one personal (of the two natures, the divine and human in one person), the other natural (of soul and body in the one human nature).”22 He mentions this explicitly, because he reports that reformed theologians have been charged by the Lutherans of Nestorianism. He adds some rather concise support among which the most important are the following. He says that the two unions differ in that: (i) the first is supernatural and the second natural; (ii) that the first is inseparable (“What the Logos has once assumed he never laid aside.”) and the second separable by death. In other words, since there are two sorts of unions, there are not too many unions and the nature of the union of body and soul is not different from ours in that it is a direct union. But here is also another argument. At the end of the longer passage above, Turretin argues from the triduum – i. e. the three days the body of Christ lay in the tomb and the soul was in paradise. As we just saw, Turretin asserts that even in this severed state, both body and soul remained somehow conjoined to the Word although they had lost their natural union with each other. Turretin’s point here is to make the assertion plausible that Christ could have assumed what was not yet naturally a human being. Second, a potentially problematic implication of this is – even if Turretin does not say so – that the severed state of Christ’s body and soul in the triduum meant that Christ was not a human being (and so for all other dead human persons) just as the early embryo is not (yet) human.23 This presupposition can be questioned: is it necessary for Christological orthodoxy to assert that Christ was human during the triduum and in assuming an embryo? Is it possible that Christ was not human in the triduum? Maybe the best we can say is that Christ was sub-human in the triduum and, by parallel reasoning, a precursor of a human from conception to ensoulment. In response we might say that ‘being human’ can fall under a different phase sortals.24 ‘Being a child’ is a phase sortal of a human being, since it denotes a phase that a human being (might) go through and still be fully human. In the same way, ‘being a vegetative embryo’ and ‘being a sentient embryo’ are two 22 Institutes. II, q. 6, ix, 312. 23 This is complicated by the fact that when the body is separated from the soul at death it is only a body equivocally, since the body is not strictly speaking a substance over against the soul. Thus it is correct to say it is a ‘corpse’. It is only a human body as long as it is animated by the rational soul. So although Turretin’s talk of a separated body reflects the tradition it does not sit well with the basic assumptions of hylemorphism. The same problem is also found in Zanchi talking about the not yet ensouled embryo as a “human body”. See quote above. I shall deal with this question in the next section since I believe that there is a misapplication of the principles of hylemorphism in general in both Zanchi and Turretin which led them astray. 24 For a contemporary defence, see David Wiggins, Sameness and Substance Renewed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), ch. 2 and 3.

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phase sortals human beings fall under. It is simply part of being human to be growing through several stages – and it is “normal” for human beings to be divided at death into body and soul.25 Third, Oliver D. Crisp has argued that Turretin’s position ends up in a “temporary Apollinarianism.”26 He reasons that what is assumed in the incarnation is not a human nature but a human body (in the making). Crisp objects to Turretin by saying that since the Son assumes an embryo with no human soul the Son must play the role of the human soul until it is infused at a later stage. Yet, this objection is based on a threefold confusion, one historical and two conceptual ones. First, Turretin, Zanchi and all other card-carrying hylemorphists, emphatically reject the idea that the Son (or any other person of the Trinity) ever can function as the form or the soul of a chunk of matter due to divine simplicity. The incarnation is not, even for a limited time in the early stages of conception and gestation of Jesus’ humanity, a case of a form-matter composition where the functions of the soul are performed by the Logos. For the Logos cannot “play the role” of a soul due to the simplicity of the divine nature that the Logos is identical to. Although question-begging as a response to the opponent of divine simplicity, it maintains that it is a misunderstanding to say that Turretin’s view of delayed hominization leads to “temporary Apollinarianism” on historical grounds. I shall have more to say about divine simplicity in subsequent chapters, which will support the argument in this paragraph. Second, the assumption of an embryo is not the assumption of a chunk of matter, but neither is it the assumption of a human body, properly speaking.27 According to hylemorphism there exist no pure quantitative matter – no existing matter that is uninformed.28 Matter qua matter is not assumable. Instead the assumed embryo is a specific kind of form-matter composition, matter animated by a vegetative soul. Add to this, that being informed by a rational soul can be seen as an early phase in the history of a normal, growing human being and there 25 Keckerman suggests, rather creatively, that maybe we should give the term ’incarnation’ a wider meaning of in–carnatio, in-fleshment. See Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 425. 26 See Crisp, God Incarnate, 86–88. 27 Crisp does not pay sufficient attention to this basic aspect of an Aristotelian-Thomist position generally acknowledged by the reformed scholastics (unbeknownst to himself it seems). Strictly speaking, what is assumed here is not a human body but an embryo that will, if the biological processes are not interrupted, develop into a human body when it is informed by a rational soul. However, Crisp’s reading is only possible if one understands hylemorphism (as Crisp seems to do) as a version of substance dualism where the body (in and ex utero) is a chunk of self-forming matter that we can recognize as a human body independently of a human soul informing it. 28 See Oderberg, Real Essentialism, ch. 4, Christopher Brown, Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus: Solving Puzzles About Material Objects (London: Continuum, 2005), ch. 3 and Stump, Aquinas, 191–216.

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will be nothing strange about assuming an embryo for the Word: being an embryo, not yet infused by a rational soul, is simply a phase in the life of a human being. Hence, the assumption of an embryo is the assumption of a form-matter composite that naturally will develop into a human foetus and thus be infused by an ex nihilo created soul. So it is clearly superfluous to think that the Word has to play the role of a rational soul so early in the history of such a composite. Third, hylemorphists like Turretin and Zanchi only allow for one substantial form per form-matter composite.29 Hence, if Crisp had been consistent in his interpretation of Turretin in this matter, the Word would also have played the role of a vegetative and sentient soul as well as that of a rational soul. The latter supposition (the Word playing the role of the rational soul) was just refuted as superfluous and, from what said a little earlier, it is metaphysically untenable due to divine simplicity. So, from Turretin we learn that there is a case for delayed hominization. I conclude that for anyone interested in such a view, Turretin’s is promising. However, in the next section, I shall return to Zanchi’s view of instant formation and develop a revisionist case for it. This discussion will show the variety of options available within the scholastic reformed tradition.

3.4

A Revisionist Argument for Instant Hominization and Ensoulment

Instant formation and ensoulment of the embryo was for Zanchi a requirement for an orthodox Christology. However, this view had some rather alarming implications, which are theoretically ad hoc and endangered the likeness of Christ’s human nature to our human nature. Still, maintaining instant ensoulment without instant formation was (it seems) an alternative not considered by the pre-modern scholastics, but one which appears to be a viable option. To make progress here, I suggest a slightly different application of hylemorphism. We have said that the rational soul is not infused from the beginning, but comes later in the foetal development. Why? Because a human body has to have a suitable configuration in order to support a human soul. But what would explain the configuration of the foetus to make it suitable for the soul? Zanchi seems to suppose some form of emergentism without a sufficient explanation. It assumes that the sentient soul can prepare the foetus sufficiently for the infusion of a rational soul. But that seems to overrate the formative powers of the sentient soul. The human soul itself seems to be a better candidate, since it has all the 29 See e. g. Zanchi, De Operibus [lib. II, cap. IV, th. II] in OT, 604.

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powers of a sentient soul and can thus prepare the foetus for the stage when the rational powers can begin to manifest. Hence, a better application of hylemorphic principles is to posit a human teleology from the beginning. To see the relevance of this, consider an analogous problem: Are brain-damaged people rational creatures? Arguably, they are rational creatures, albeit with dysfunctional mental capacities. That is, they have a rational soul but their brain structure does not allow all their functions to manifest themselves properly. By analogy, in the Christ embryo there is a rational soul present from the beginning and it is not dysfunctional – it might be said to be sub-functional – since there is not yet a suitably developed central neural system. The absence of such a brain structure does not allow for the soul’s powers to manifest themselves properly. The crucial similarity between these two cases consists in the presence of a soul in a brain that is not suitable (for different reasons) to support the soul’s normal functioning. According to traditional Aristotelianism a human being goes through stages of development from vegetative life to a budding rational life. With contemporary philosophers of mind, we might talk of the soul’s gradual emergence in the life of the foetus. But why cannot a rational soul animate the zygote from conception if the soul can be present in a person with brain damages? I cannot think of any good reason. On the contrary, I think it is all the more plausible on the principle of one substantial form, according to which higher forms assume (off course, not in the incarnational but in the natural sense of ‘assume’) proper functions of the lower.30 In other words, what the vegetative and the sentient soul can do, the rational soul can do as well. Aquinas thought that the sentient part of human nature does not have a soul or form of its own and the same goes for the vegetative part. All of these functions are ascribed to the rational soul.31 In effect, there are no metaphysical obstacles – pace Galen – to the guidance of embryonic development from conception by a rational soul. On the contrary it seems all the more plausible.32 What is more, this helps to explain why the gradual development from vegetative over sentient to rational life happens, since there is a unified formal cause which has the powers needed to guide the development of the embryo through these stages. By the same token, no ad hoc move is needed in the case of the incarnation, 30 See e. g. Oderberg, Real Essentialism, 65–70. 31 See e. g. ST, I, q. 76, art. 6, ad. 1. (”Una et eadem forma est per essentiam per quam homo est ens actu, et per quam est vivum et per quam est animal et per quam homo.”) 32 Haldane and Lee argue that had Aquinas known what we know today about embryology and biology, he would have said that ensoulment and conception are simultaneous. Although they argue for this in order to uphold a traditional view of abortion, the proposal has philosophical merits that can be evaluated independently of that issue. See their ”Aquinas on Human Ensoulment”.

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since the normal human development of Christ’s embryo was guided by a rational human soul from the beginning. Christ assumed, at conception, a human nature with a rational soul, but the “debut” of the soul’s higher functions happened gradually just as for other human beings. These revisionist suggestions are clearly harmonious with Zanchi’s claim that Christological orthodoxy requires the assumption of a human being and not a mere human body. However, his view that body and soul must be co-assumed in order to avoid the appearance that Christ assumed a human body will have to be modified. Christ might instead be said to assume a human body which is at an early stage of formation and which is potentially rational due to the presence of a rational soul. If this modification is acceptable, I have shown that there are plausible ways in which we might still hold a view, on Zanchi’s own principles, which denies instant formation but affirms instant ensoulment. Should those principles be too hard to stomach, there is the alternative strategy found in Turretin who espoused delayed hominization and ensoulment but, of course, instant incarnation. At the end of the final section I shall suggest that there is a “happy exchange” if we try to combine their respective insights. As an aside, reflection on this somewhat abstruse issue can potentially shed light on the viability of hylemorphism. Some of our best insights in philosophy come from consideration of the extreme or baffling examples – after all, philosophy starts with a sense of wonder and puzzlement. The virgin birth is admittedly an extreme case, challenging our philosophical intuitions. However, upon reflection it suggests an unsought for, incarnational reason to revise some aspects of delayed hominization to instant hominization at conception. Revisionist steps have already been taken by a number of moral philosophers but on different grounds, the insights that modern medicine and biology have given to us about the development of the foetus, not available to the pre-modern scientists. The virgin birth is an additional example for those interested in an Aristotelian solution to various ethical problems concerning the earliest stages of human life.33

3.5

Assuming Body by Assuming Soul

In this final section, I shall briefly deal with a problem related to Zanchi’s view of the virgin birth. It will also pave the way for talking about the hypostatic union in the next chapter. Zanchi follows the scholastics in discerning an order of assumption. The term 33 For a different argument to a similar conclusion, see Crisp, God Incarnate, 103–121.

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‘order’ does not denote temporal but what he calls “natural order”.34 God the Son assumes the body by assuming the soul (anima mediante). This idea seems to go back at least as far as Origen.35 As a matter of fact, Zanchi makes this point a little sharper than I have just indicated. A human being is hierarchically ordered. The soul consists of: (i) a higher part, the mind and its faculties, intellect and will, and (ii) a lower part, the capacities for appetite, sensation and vegetation. The higher part is described as the “pure” while the body is described as “crass.”36 Now, the Logos unites the whole man through the mind, for the mind unites the soul and the soul the body. His reasoning is based on a general observation: it is more fitting for the simple nature of God to assume the soul directly since it is the simplest part of the human nature. Simplicity and purity, here, should be understood as degrees of unity and being. A soul has no proper or integral parts, which would involve diversity and it is therefore more like God’s simple a nature. Consequently, a body, which naturally has physical and integral parts, is less like God and a less fit “meeting point”37 for the assumption of the human nature. Zanchi culled two arguments for this view from Aquinas’ discussion. First, Zanchi argues from degrees of dignity. The soul has a higher dignity than the body and the mind or the higher faculty of the soul than the lower ; hence the Logos should assume directly what has a higher nobility. Second, Zanchi argues from the order of causes in a human nature. The soul is the formal cause of the body and the higher faculties of the mind is the formal cause of its lower faculties; hence it seems more fitting that the Logos assumes the lower causes through the higher.38 Zanchi’s view is here dependent on an aspect of medieval cosmology according to which God acts in the world through higher substances.39 Aquinas, for one, argued that God’s providence must work in this way in order to respect and integrity of created secondary causes – contra occasionalism and determinism.40 On this view, it is reasonable to think that the 34 See DI, 74–6/185–8. With reference to ST, III, q. 6, art 1 and 2 and DFO, III, ch. 6. 35 That is, despite his Word-Flesh paradigm and doctrine of the pre-existence of souls. See Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 154–60. E. g., 155, ”the soul…formed the ideal meeting point between the infinite Word and the human nature.” Also, Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition. Volume One. From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451) (London: Mowbrays, 1975), 153 and 404–13. 36 DI, 75/186. The terms “pure” and “crass” do not necessarily denote (although it certainly sounds like it to many modern ears) a devaluation of the body, or a sort of value or even moral judgement on the material realm of reality. The distinction is one of ontology (and not of projecting values on reality) based on a general observation that the soul is more like God’s being in its being immaterial or spiritual whereas the body is palpable and material. 37 See footnote 35. 38 Zanchi refers to Augustine Epistle 3 to Volusianus. 39 See DI, 76/186. Zanchi cites a gloss from Dionysious the Areopagite Celestial Hierarchy, ch. xiii. in which it is said that that God works on lesser substances through higher ones. 40 See e. g. ST, I, q. 22, art. 3. (”There are certain intermediaries of God’s providence; for He

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highest part of the human substance is the most well ordered “meeting point” for divine agency in the assumption of a human nature. I shall raise two concerns. First, there is an unwelcome sort of (substance) dualism implicit in Zanchi’s account, which can be brought out by a comparison. The view I have ascribed to Zanchi is similar to that of Augustine, whose account of it is more explicit.41 According to Augustine, the union of body and soul is more puzzling than the union of the Logos to the soul, since in the first case we have the union of something immaterial and material whereas in the latter two immaterial things. God and soul are “consubstantial” or “made of the same stuff”.42 The soul is, naturally then, considered to stand midway between God and body, and can therefore serve as a midpoint between two otherwise irreconcilable forms of being. A direct consequence of such a view is that the mystery of hypostatic union is made more comprehensible to the human mind since its parallel in nature (union of soul and body in man) is less comprehensible. I suggest that there is a family likeness in Augustine’s and Zanchi’s accounts in that they both require the assumption of the body via the soul – due to the similarity of the Logos and the soul. One problem with the Augustinian presupposition is that assumption through the soul seems to be entrenched in substance dualism. And this does not sit well with Zanchi’s overall hylemorphic account of the soul-body union. Fundamental to (anthropological) substance dualism is that the soul is a separate substance contingently related to a body whereas in the hylemorphic account, the soul is the formal cause, which is naturally bent to a union with matter.43 Zanchi’s adoption of the doctrine of assumption through the soul creates a tension within his view of the incarnation where he has to rely on an anthropological presupposition he otherwise rejects. A possible reason why Turretin could defend delayed hominization of the Christ embryo is that he might have rejected the Origen-Augustinian idea of assuming flesh by assuming the soul.44 Once this idea is rejected there is no obstacle left to the view that the assumption of an embryonic body occurs (temporally) first, since the body is not necessarily assumed indirectly via the soul but directly or, alternatively, co-assumed.

41 42 43 44

governs things inferior by superior, not on account of any defect in His power, but by reason of the abundance of His goodness; so that the dignity of causality is imparted even to creatures.”). See his Epistle 137 to Volusian. See Grillmeier’s discussion and translation of the relevant passage, Christ in Christian Tradition, 409–13. Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, 411. For Zanchi’s anti-dualist arguments, see OT, III, 626–34. Suggested e. g. by the following passage: ”God condescended to such a degree as to be willing not only to associate with himself the soul (which is the nobler part of man), but assumed what is the meanest and most weak in us (to wit, this fragile and mortal flesh).” (Institutes, II, q. 3, ii, 299)

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Moving beyond Aquinas’, Zanchi’s and Turretin’s view of divine causality to our contemporary, more complex view of the physical universe, we need not in general think that God’s providence must merely or primarily work from the top down. It seems that there are several possible entry points for divine agency, ranging from quarks to larger organisms on the biological and physical scale to the whole universe.45 Such a view of divine agency can potentially make the assumption of the human nature through the soul irrelevant, since God could just as well assume the whole, body and soul, immediately and simultaneously, from the bottom or from the top or both at once. Second, whatever we make of delayed hominization, form and matter are natural principles of material beings and according to hylemorphism, there exist no formless matter. In other words, the Logos cannot assume non-being (matter) only some informed matter (body). Hence, a necessary condition for the assumption of a body is that it is constituted as a body of a certain kind or developing as a certain kind. No bodies – human or other – are of a certain kind unless they are informed. It is impossible to assume only a human body without a human soul. Both constitutional principles must be assumed directly in order to assume the whole, a human nature. Hence, it is the composite of soul and body that is the proper object for assumption by the Logos. We might now, mutatis mutandis, combine some insights from Zanchi and Turretin. From Zanchi we might retain the view that in order to assume a human nature, the rational soul must be present. From Turretin, we might retain the idea that though the soul is present, there is a delayed process of hominization even for the Christ embryo. For Christ as incarnate is going through certain phases, one of which is the embryonic phase. Their insights are in harmony provided that we accept that ensoulment and conception are simultaneous without resulting in instant formation or hominization. In order to accomplish this, however, we should discharge the Origen-Augustinian doctrine of assuming the body anima mediante, since it is the whole human nature that is assumed by the Logos. The importance of these revisions is to make the “being like us in every respect except sin” more plausible. Increasing plausibility, however, does not entail that we rob the incarnation of its inherently mysterious character, but rather distinguish the mystery from incoherent thinking and simplistic solutions. Having said that, it obviously does not prove the truth of the virgin birth. It merely provides an analysis and exploration of its implications. Its

45 See e. g. Benedict Ashley, ”Causality and Evolution”, The Thomist 36/2 (1972), 199–230 and Brian Leftow, “Divine Action and Embodiment”, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 71 (1997), 113–24.

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truth must be demonstrated on further grounds. However, attempting to make a coherent and plausible statement about its implications must be one of these grounds.

Chapter Four: Similes for the Incarnation Et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis: et vidimus gloriam ejus gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre plenum gratiæ et veritatis. – John 1:14

4.1

Introduction

In the previous chapter, I discussed some hylemorphic implications of Zanchi’s view of the virgin birth, a doctrine intimately connected to the incarnation. My interaction with Zanchi should not be understood as an attempt to make the virgin birth (or the incarnation) comprehensible or explainable in a philosophical framework. In the same spirit, I shall in this chapter move on to issues more metaphysical and closely connected to the heart of Chalcedonian Christology : the hypostatic union. Zanchi describes the incarnation as a mystery handed down from the apostles. He writes, in fact, the mode, through which these two most diverse natures are united in one and the same person, they [the apostles] did not explicate but all the same indicated sufficiently clear.1

This view of the incarnational mystery is consistent with my portrayal of the Chalcedonian formulation as a negative and a doctrinally minimalist statement – it says more about what the incarnation is not than what it is. At its most positive, it claims that we may talk of Christ incarnate as one person in two natures, but the exact metaphysical import of these terms is not made explicit. Hence, the formula is open to development. The medieval scholastics did indeed take the analysis of the hypostatic union to another level. However, although Zanchi agrees with the trajectory of the medieval scholastic development, he does not offer as detailed an exposition of the hypostatic union as his medieval forbearers. For instance, he accepted the traditional Boethian definition of ‘person’ as “an individual substance of a rational nature” and adds the standard qualification of Richard of St. Victor, which interprets the mark of a person’s 1 DI, 79/197, “Modum verk, quo hae duae diversissimae naturae in una & eadem persona unitae sunt, non explicarunt quidem, sed satis tamen luculenter indicarunt.”

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subsistence as independence or existence through itself (per se). He concludes, after a fairly short discussion, that “a person, therefore, is a rational nature, individual and perfectly subsisting without any dependence on anything else.”2 A well-known problem with such a definition of person is that the human nature of Christ seems to satisfy it as well. A human nature is a substance-like thing of a rational nature just like a person is. What is more, Zanchi accepts Damascene’s view of Christ’s human nature as an individual (in atomo), which underscores the independent character of the human nature. This seems to lead to Nestorianism, since both the Logos and the human nature have everything required for being persons. Zanchi is content to claim that the human nature does not have independence, although being an individual; the human nature exists in another (in alio). But this is a question-begging answer. For instance, how can a human nature exist in another and still be an individual substance? Such problems do not detain Zanchi. By contrast, the medieval theologians debated at length about the subsistence of the human nature.3 Although contemporary readers might perceive a subsistence problem here – or, maybe more likely, a problem with the fact that the question emerged in the first place4 – Zanchi did not see any need to pursue it, since he simply alluded to a standard medieval solution. The lack of a sustained discussion about the nature of subsistence signals that Zanchi did not have the same problem in focus in his Christological writings. As we noted in the second chapter, the state of the Christological controvery had changed since the middle ages: as in the patristic era, the scholastic discussion focused on the unity of the person whereas the reformation discussion tended to focus on the relation between the natures. However, that Zanchi is less detailed than the medievals in his account of the hypostatic union does not entail that he had a less nuanced view of it or that it was irrelevant for his case against the ubiquitarians. A correct understanding of the hypostatic union was indeed important to both reformed and Lutheran theologians, since it informed their respective view of the communication of properties. In order to explicate and analyse Zanchi’s view of the hypostatic union, one 2 See DI, 55–64/123–53. In De Tribus Elohim [bk I, ch. II.] in OT, I, 8, Zanchi has an overlapping definition: “A person is defined as an individual substance, intellective, volitional and incommunicable.” (“Persona autem sic definitur : Est substantia individua, intelligens, volens, incommunicabilis.”) So, what is added here is volition or agency. It would seem uncontroversial that a person is some acting and willing thing since it is rational. Maybe volition should even be thought of as intrinsic to rationality, so that in essence nothing new is added to the definition of person, merely that it is brought out more clearly what the basic definition implies. 3 For this, see Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 230–310. 4 C.J.F. Williams, “A Programme for Christology”, Religious Studies 3 (1967), 513–24.

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should not merely look at his explicit treatment of it. In this chapter, I propose a strategy that hones in on the subtle nuances in Zanchi’s uses of similes. In particular, this chapter describes and evaluates his use of the parts-whole and soul-body similes. It should be said that what follows is not necessarily to be seen as a presentation of Zanchi’s conscious view of the hypostatic union but merely a plausible reconstruction of his position drawn from his various uses of similes. I conclude that his use is ambiguous and is so because of a lack in the metaphysical underpinning. In a final section I will also make some constructive suggestions, using insights from contemporary thinkers in dialogue with Aristotelian (meta-)physics in order to eliminate some of the ambiguities found in Zanchi. Before turning to Zanchi, however, I need to present some preliminaries stemming from the patristic and medieval scholastic debates.

4.2

Patristic and Medieval Beginnings

From the influential compiler of the Patristic legacy, John Damascene, the medieval scholastics accepted the claim that Christ is a “composite subsistence.”5 Being somewhat detached from the exact metaphysical underpinnings of Damscene’s account of the hypostatic union,6 the medieval and protestant scholastics used his terminology but felt quite free to develop their own understanding of compositionalism. Zanchi’s primary manner of talking about the hypostatic union is as a substantial union: the human nature and the Logos somehow compose a substance. This seems to be a fair reading of Damscene. In this regard, Zanchi also closely follows Aquinas. It is, however, noteworthy that Zanchi here follows Aquinas in matters where Aquinas was more or less rejected by his fellow medieval schoolmen. For the dominant medieval scholastic simile for the incarnation was the substance-accident union. Aquinas and Zanchi thought that such a simile had unacceptable consequences.7 5 DFO, I, ch. 2 and III, ch. 3. 6 Which was an eclectic mix of Stoic, Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic ideas. For an able analysis, see Richard Cross, “Perichoresis, Deification, and Christological Predication in John of Damascus”, Mediaeval Studies, 62 (2000), 69–124. 7 Zanchi’s main opponent, Martin Chemnitz briefly mentions the substance-accidence model with reference to “the scholastics” and says that it can be applied “to some degree to our purpose” but that it has “several weaknesses”. The human substance cannot “correctly be compared with an accident.” And the divine nature is not changed as a substance is by the union of accidents. And, finally, the divine majesty is not accidentally communicated to the human substance. Chemnitz then adds “Thus the simile of engrafting is much more satisfactory to some” since it keeps the two joined things distinct in the union (TNC, 87–8) See also Schegk’s views in in Haga, Lutheran Metaphysics, 145–54 and Danaeus, Examen Libri De Duabus in Christo Naturis…. (Geneva, 1581), 164–166.

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The whole medieval Christological debate was also informed by the three opinions about the hypostatic union, reported by Peter Lombard: the so-called assumptus homo account, the subsistence account and the habitus account.8 The medieval scholastics thought that the subsistence account was the orthodox opinion. The habitus and the assumptus homo accounts were rejected as heretical on ecclesial authority by the scholastics but they differed in their philosophical reasons.9 Aquinas argued that these two accounts are heretical because they are accidental unions. He concludes that the subsistence account is a substantial union and, therefore, an article of faith.10 Here Aquinas differs from the majority of the medieval scholastics who defended some version of the substance-accident simile. Taking the subsistence account as some kind of substantial union provided Aquinas, and later also Zanchi, with a philosophical reason for rejecting the heretical accounts. One problem with the assumptus homo account is that the body and the soul of Christ are not joined together directly (as in ordinary human natures) but ony through their individual and direct union with the Logos. Therefore, this account seems to require a radical version of substance dualism since body and soul are constituted separately from each other. Also, since body and soul are joined together indirectly due to their individual and direct union union the Logos, the likeness to ordinary human natures seems to be seriously lacking. A hylemorphist would quite naturally find such an account unattractive. The habitus account was modelled after the putting on of a garment, at least going back to Augustine’s loose way of talking about the incarnation.11 Aquinas argued, that such an account, if taken literally, entails Nestorianism. We may note that, in one passage, Zanchi in general agrees with Aquinas’ reception but that he is also open to use the simile metaphorically becasue it was a “phrasing customary in the Church.” However, it has has to be denied that the assumption of flesh is “exactly as [a man] puts on a coat” since “[The Logos] takes upon 8 Peter Lombard, Sent, III, 6, qq. 2, 4, 6. Zanchi discusses the three “sententiae” (DI, 117–9/ 311–14) and it seems that he thought that Lombard’s own (and correct) view was the subsistence account. 9 For scholarly discussion on this see Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 30–3, 240–2; Henk Schoot, Christ the ’Name’ of God: Thomas Aquinas on Naming Christ (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 1993), 124–8; Jason L.A. West, “Aquinas on Peter Lombard and the Metaphysical Status of Christ’s Human Nature”, Gregorianum 88/3 (2007): 557–586; Michael B. Raschko, “Aquinas’s Theology of the Incarnation in Light of Lombard’s Subsistence Theory”, The Thomist 65 (2001), 409–39. 10 Thomas Aquinas, ST, III, q. 2, a. 6: “Therefore it is plain that the second of the three opinions, mentioned by the Master… which holds one hypostasis of God and man, is not to be called an opinion, but an article of Catholic faith. So likewise the first opinion which holds two hypostases, and the third which holds an accidental union, are not to be styled opinions, but heresies condemned by the Church in Councils.” 11 In Augustine, De Div. Qu, 73.2, n. 2.

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himself a human nature in which he subsists essentially. But a coat does not belong to the essence of man.”12 Furthermore, Aquinas thinks that the habitus account is Nestorian because the Word’s union with the human nature is (at best) one of indwelling (in-habitation) and a union of wills and, therefore, not in the person. Hence, the incarnational indwelling and union of wills is virtually indistinguishable from God’s indwelling in the saints.13 There is an interpretational problem both in contemporary scholarly commentaries as well as in the medieval theologians that I would like to draw attention to. It concerns the distinction between an accidental union of two complete substances and the union of an accident to a substance. If the incarnation is thought of as a union of two complete things, Nestorianism seems to follow unless seriously debilitating ad hoc qualifications were added. If, on the other hand, the incarnation is more like the union of an accident inhering in a substance (like whiteness inhering in Socrates), then Nestorianism does not follow straightforwardly. An accident is typically not something that has an independent existence and hence the charge that the human nature is a person is not naturally raised given such a view of accidents.14 However, some scholastics attributed a kind of independent existence to accidents. Scotus, for one, habitually (no pun intended) reified accidents so that they were (to some extent) individuated independently of their inherence in a substance. Armed with this reified conception of accidents, its adherents seem to approach Nestorianism.15 Moreover, despite the particular account of accidents one adopts, some types 12 As translated in Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 431. Compare with DI 99/260 and 122/330 (“Naturam humanam partem esse factam substantialem personae Christi: non autem esse instar nudae vestis qua quis inditus est.”) See also Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 30. 13 ST, III, 2, 6. Aquinas gives three further characteristics of Nestorianism: (iii) union of operations since the human nature was an “instrument of the Word of God”, (iv) equal honor belong to the Son of God and the Son of man, (v) communication of names by an equivocal predication of names between the man and the Son of God. 14 This is the background to the debate about the number of esse (existence) in Christ. Aquinas thought that the assumption of the human nature does not add an extra esse to Christ, since he thought that parts do not have an esse of their own. This seems to be motivated by his view of the subsistence account as based on the idea of a part-whole simile like a substance and its part and not a substance and its accidental modifications. However, his followers would not agree, since one might well hold a one-esse account of the union on the basis of a substanceaccidents simile since accidents are not considered things in themselves or have their own esse. See Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, ch. 12 for this. This whole discussion is largely absent in Zanchi and this is also why I treat it in a cursory footnote. 15 Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 44–6, esp. n 56 on page 45; The Physics of Duns Scotus: The Scientific Context of a Theological Vision (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 96–8. Scotus’ general metaphysical approach is conveniently summarized in Peter King, “Scotus on Metaphysics” in Thomas Williams ed., Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 15–68.

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of accidents are better candidates than others. The habitus-account seems to be modelled on the category of ‘having’ which is the most external of all the categories. For example, my wearing clothes is an accidental relation to an independent thing that is put on me; clothes do not have the same ontological status as, say, whiteness, since whiteness only exists in so far as it exists in a subject (if we follow Aquinas), whereas clothes can exist as clothes independently of being put on a body. So even if one, as Aquinas, would say that accidents and parts do not have an independent esse that would not be true of accidents in the category of ‘having’. This is, it seems to me, why Aquinas treats the habitus-account as Nestorian. For, if the human nature is like a garment that is put on a person, it seems to be a thing in itself with its own independent existence – presumably personal – with a loose connection to the Logos. Despite their differences, the medieval scholastics commonly assumed certain limits to the compositional similes used for the incarnational union.16 Fundamentally, both the parts-whole and the substance-accident similes were expected to satisfy two basic desiderata: (D1) The assumed human nature does not stand in a relation to the Logos such that it a. perfects the Logos b. informs or actualizes any passive potency in the Logos (D2) The assumed human nature stands in some sort of dependence relation to the Logos What I have tried to capture in (D1a) is the view that the union of some parts or accidents can make a more perfect whole. This is manifest, given a basic Aristotelian outlook, in the case of a soul-body union. Taken separately, body and soul are incomplete in the sense that they are “not complete in their species”, as Aquinas puts it.17 Properly united, they compose something that is perfect, a whole individual, a complete individual in the species of rational animal. Also, certain accidents are perfecting the substance they inhere in, like virtue in the soul of Socrates. The union of the Logos and the human nature is not like any of these examples since the assumption of a human nature, whether conceived of as an accident or a part, does not perfect the Logos. As I have pointed out, Aquinas argues that the substance-accident simile is not suitable since an accident informs the subject it is in, which is contrary to 16 For studies of the senses of composition and identity in Aquinas, see Christopher Brown, Ship of Theseus and for Scotus, see Richard Cross, The Physics, ch. 2–8. For the whole medieval debate on parts and whole, (the somewhat idiosyncratic) Medieval Mereology (Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner, 1991) by Desmond P. Henry is valuable. Strangely it does not treat Scotus at any length. 17 ST, I, q. 75, art. 2, ad. 1 and art. 4, ad. 2.

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(D1b). The Logos is pure act in virtue of being simple and cannot be informed in the sense of having any passive potency actualized. The part-whole simile, on the other hand, escapes these traps, according to Aquinas, since a part is not informing the substance, i. e. actualizing any passive potency. Scotus, and most other medieval scholastics, disagree with Aquinas and argues that the human nature must contribute something to the Logos. Although none go so far as to accept (D1b), they embrace some or other form of (D2) in order to explain how an accident can be in a subject without informing it. Scotus’ explains this by saying that there is a difference between the hypostatic union and the union of an accident to a substance in that the latter not merely actualizes potency in the substance but that it also depends on the substance (remember that he thinks that accidents are individuated separately of their dependence on a substance) whereas in the hypostatic union there is merely dependence.18 The merit of Scotus’ account is that it tries to capture that something new, a new relation to a part of the world, is given to the Logos through the union with the human nature without violating (D1a-b). The above differences boil down to or at least are partially explained by two metaphysical presuppositions. Aquinas’ account is undergirded by a unitary view of substantial forms: there is only one substantial form per substance. Aquinas follows an Aristotelian principle here according to which a part of a substance does not merely depend on it for its existence but also for its identity or nature.19 A hand, to take one of his examples, is only a hand when it is an integral part of the whole. A cut off hand is no longer a hand since its identity is received by the whole. At first sight is seem to run counter to common sense, but it becomes less counterintuitive when Aristotelians add that identity is conceived of in terms of function: a hand that is cut off cannot function as a hand and has thereby lost its identity as a hand. The human nature as a part of Christ then must in some sense receive its identity from the whole of which it is a part. But there is another problem: the human nature is also a substance or something like a substance and therefore not a part of another substance. I will argue at greater length in this chapter that the substantiality of the human nature cannot be squared with the unitarian doctrine of substantial forms. Scotus, on the other hand, (according to scholars) allowed a kind of plurality

18 Scotus goes on making a distinction between causal and non-causal dependence. But since that is not relevant to my presentation of Zanchi I leave that rather thorny issue out of my account. For more on this see Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 121–4. 19 See Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII, 17 (1041a7–1041b33) and also Hill and Marmodoro, “Models of Incarnation”, 483–6. For an in-depth study of substantial forms in Aquinas see, John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington, DC; The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 327–50.

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of substantial forms in a substance.20 For him to take up the parts-whole simile for the hypostatic union, as a way to develop Damascene’s compositionalism, would have been a natural move since he thought that some wholes can be substantially united although there is more than one substantial form in them. But for various reasons Scotus resists this possibility and argues that the incarnation is like a union of substance and accident. One reason is his reifying ontology where accidents are considered as things in themselves. We could, accordingly, distinguish between two sorts of options stemming from Scotus’ thinking (even though only the former is faithful to Scotus’ own view): (i) his own substance-accident account and (ii) given the plurality position on substantial forms, a kind of compositionalism, which allows a hypostatic union of two substances into one substance. This distinction will be relevant in the next sections when we exegete and evaluate the use of compositional similes in Zanchi. Before we move on to Zanchi, I want to introduce one final preliminary distinction concerning the relation between the Logos and Christ (incarnate). Given the reality of the hypostatic union either of these Consequences follow : (C1) Christ is identical to the Logos (C2) Christ is not identical to the Logos (C1) and (C2) are intended to capture the ‘being’ and the ‘becoming’ of the incarnation. They are also designed to reveal a certain tension or ambiguity in the history of the doctrine of the incarnation. A combination of both tendencies are found in what might be seen an attempt at a balancing act, for instance, in the Athanasian dictum that the Logos remained what he was and became what he was not.21 Athanasius wants to have it both ways: that the Logos in some sense remains unchanged in the incarnation and that there is some sense of becoming involved in the incarnation. However, much of the subsequent traditions have, for various philosophical and theological reasons, tended to cultivate either of these tendecies more than the other in their articulation of the Christological dogma. One interpretation takes (C1) as the Logos persisting as the second person of the Trinity in his assuming a human nature. But such an interpretation suggests that the Logos either is or became termporal in the incarnation and such a view was not an option for the scholastics.22 If identity is taken strictly, (C1) is hard to 20 For the details see, e. g. Thomas M. Ward, “Animals, Animal Parts, and Hylomorphism: John Duns Scotus’s Pluralism about Substantial Forms”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 50/4 (2012), 531–58; Cross, The Physics, ch. 2–5. 21 Thus Zanchi in, DI, 84/224. The allusion is to Athanasius’ Contra Arianos 2.8. 22 It is, it seems to me, an option for kenotic Christologists who argue that the Logos abdicates from divine attributes that are perceived as incompatible with human opposites or con-

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square with the common scholastic view of the divine nature as simple, infinite, immutable, immaterial and so on. Immutability, for one, flatly contradicts a real becoming of the Logos in the incarnation along the lines of (C1). Hence, the type of identity involved in (C1) cannot be strict identity.23 Now, medieval philosophers are generally more relaxed in their view of identity than post-Leibnizian philosophers. For instance, many medieval philosophers did not think of parts as identical to the whole in the way that many contemporary analytic philosophers do.24 Accordingly, a weaker version of (C1) can be seen in some of Aquinas’ texts where the human nature is construed as a part of the Logos. Recall his example of a hand being a part of the body.25 But the view, suggested in this simile, is hard to square with Aquinas’ strong affirmation of divine simplicity, which claims that the divine nature (which is identical to the Logos) can not have parts or accidents. There is an ongoing debate among scholars as to whether Aquinas committed to (C1) or (C2) or to neither.26 For my purposes, whether or not Aquinas did hold some version of (C1) does not matter so much, since it is the specific types of interpretation of (C1) that interest me. Finally, if (C2) is taken strictly, some version of Nestorianism might follow since the Logos and Christ – as non-identicals – seem to be separate persons. But the scholastics did not necessarily take all instances of non-identity as separation and thus Nestorianism could be avoided.27 They gave an account of the incarnation as composition and used various similes, which implied different kinds of distinctions between the Logos and the human nature, in order to flesh out the proper sense of compositionalism. In what follows, I shall primarily deal with compostionalist interpretations of (C2) that are not basing the non-identity between the Logos and the human nature on separation but on distinction.

23 24

25 26

27

traries. Since the metaphysics in the old and new kenotic Christology was removed from the broad Aristotelian tradition I am discussing, I will simply mention this as one alternative interpretation of (C1). Perhaps (C1) might be developed in terms of, say, Geach style relative identity. Interesting as this sounds, it is not an option that was viable to the scholastics and, hence, neither to this thesis. For instance, Peter van Inwagen, “Composition as Identity” in James E- Tomberlin, Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 8 Logic and Language. (Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishong Company, 1994), 207–20 and Harold W. Nooan, “Constitution is Identity”, Mind New Series 102/402 (1993), 133–46. This isCross interpretation in The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 52–64. See e. g. Michael Gorman “Christ as Composite According to Thomas Aquinas”, Traditio 55 (2003), 143–57; Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 51–62; Stump, Aquinas, 407–26; West, “Aquinas on Peter Lombard”; Schoot, Naming Christ, 127–33 and especially Jonathan Hill’s convenient summary of predeeding scholars’ opinions in “Aquinas and the Unity of Christ: A Defence of Compositionalism”, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 71 (2), 117–135. I will return to Hill’s constructive account of compositionalism in the last section of this chapter. For this, see Brown, The Ship of Theseus, ch. 5–6.

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Richard Cross has observed that some version of (C2) is implicit in most medieval accounts of the hypostatic union and that this implication was brought out most explicitly in Scotus.28 Scotus version of (C2) uses the designation ‘Christ’ to refer to the composite whole, made up of the human nature and the Logos. From this he infers that the Logos and Christ must also be distinct objects: the Logos is not identical to Christ since the human nature is not a part of the Logos but both the Logos and the human nature are parts of Christ. So on my account, (C1) and (C2) can both be taken as compositionalist – either the human nature is part of the Logos or the Logos compose a whole (‘Christ’) with the human nature. Armed with these two types of interpretations of the identity or non-identity of the Logos and Christ, together with the preliminary concepts and distinctions discussed in this section, we are now ready to move on to Zanchi’s use of similes for compositionalism.

4.3

Zanchi on Compositionalism

Similes are intended to illuminate some aspect of the hypostatic union and are drawn from some similitude in natural unions. For quite traditional reasons, Zanchi discriminates between similes: some are closer to the incarnational mystery than others. But even the closest natural union will never be an exact parallel to the incarnational union. Hence, he is careful in his use of similes and here he has the church fathers as his primary model.29 But despite best in28 I will discuss a relevant passage from Scotus when looking at Zanchi. A few comments on Cross’s assertion is in order. It seems correct to claim that (C2) came out clearest in Scotus, but it needs to be said that at least as far as terminology goes, the designation of the incarnate Logos as Christ, in contradistinction from the pre-incarnate Logos, is not new (whatever mereologicial niceties involved). Moreover, an early example of (C2) is seen in the early medieval nominalists, the so-called nominales in the 12th century. They maintained that nothing could grow without changing its identity. Hence it seems that they should reject (C1) since apparently they saw the incarnation as a case of growth. See Christopher J. Martin, “The Logic of Growth: Twelfth-century Nominalists and the Development of Theories of the Incarnation”, Medieval Philosophy and Theology 7/1 (1998), 1–15. A related strategy has reappeared in some contemporary philosophical theologians. Its defenders use as example Peter Geach’s miserable hypothetical cat, Tibbles, which grows and shrinks in the hand of his torturous theoreticans in their hunt for an simile for the incarnation. See e. g. Brian Leftow, “The Humanness of God” in Anna Marmodoro and Jonathan Hill eds., The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) and his “ATimeless God Incarnate” in Davis et al. The Incarnation with a response by Thomas Senor “The Compositional Account of the Incarnation”, Faith and Philosophy, 24/1 (2007), 52–71, esp. 54–6. See also, Andrew Loke “Solving a Paradox against Concrete-Composite Christology : A Modified Hylomorphic Proposal”, Religious Studies 47/4 (2010), 493–502. 29 Donald Fairbairn captures the care with which Zanchi and the church fathers used similes. Commenting on the influential theologian, Cyril of Alexandria, Fairbairn says that: “ana-

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tentions, there are times when even a careful user of similes can push the similes and in worst case overstep the accepted boundaries set by Christological orthodoxy. Unintended discrepancies, however subtle, can be brought into the light through an exegesis of the various uses of similes and they can tell us something about implicit aspects of Zanchi’s treatment of the hypostatic union. I will begin with his favourite simile: the soul-body union. The church fathers’ frequent use of the simile, to which Zanchi often refers, tended to presuppose some sort of substance dualism whereas the medieval and the protestant scholastics held a hylemorphic view of the soul and body union. This difference affects the simile’s functions in Christology. It seems that a substance dualistic account of the soul-body union is better suited to illustrate the distinction between the natures and the hylemorphist account, their unity.30 Cyril of Alexandria used it primarily to illustrate the fact that the when the Logos assumed a human nature he still remained what he was (echoing Athanasius). Donald Fairnbairn comments on Cyril: In the soul-body simile, the soul, is a human being’s locus of personality, and the body is a property of the soul. In the same way, the Logos is the personal centre of Christ, and he has added humanity to himself as a property.31

Being an heir of the church fathers and the medieval scholastics, we can detect tensions in Zanchi’s use of the soul-body simile. Sometimes he comes close to that of the church fathers’s substance dualism. But Zanchi’s anthropology is officially hylemorphist and he would, therefore, not normally identify the soul as the “locus of personality.” Zanchi’s hylemorphic comittment implies certain

logies are not so much inconsistent with Cyril’s primary conception as they are incomplete. There are no real analogies to the incarnation, nor (according to Cyril) is there any satisfactory way to explain it. He often writes that the incarnation is beyond our understanding, and one of his criticisms of Theodore and Nestorius is that they remove the mystery from the incarnation.” (Grace and Christology in the Early Church. Oxford Early Christian Studies [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006], 118) For more on the use of similes in the fathers, see: Fairnbairn, Grace and Christology, 111–20; Thomas Weinandy, Does God Change? The Word’s Becoming in the Incarnation. Studies in Historical Theology, 4 (Still Water, MA: St. Bede’s Publication, 1984) and “The Soul/Body Analogy and the Incarnation: Cyril of Alexandria”, Coptic Church Review 17/3 (1996), 59–66; Richard A. Norris, “Christological Models in Cyril of Alexandria” in Studia Patristica 13, Texte und Untersuchungen, 116 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975), 225–68; Hans van Loon, The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009), 205–219. 30 In the previous chapter we encountered Augustine’s substance dualism in the context of the virgin birth and how his application of substance dualism tended to make the mystery of the incarnation more comprehensible or explanable in accordance with a given framework. Of course, not all substance dualist must apply similes in the same sort of way. I mentioned it here for illustrative purposes. 31 Faribairn, Grace and Christology, 118.

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restrictions on the use of the soul-body simile. They may be summarized as follows:32 (R1) The soul-body union constitutes a new thing, a tertium quid or human person. (R2) The soul is the form of the body. (R3) The soul and body are, considered as parts, incomplete. Neglect of (R1) could potentially lead to a Nestorian version of (C2) since the Logos and the assumed human nature compose an entity – Christ – that is not the same person as the Logos. Neglect of (R2) would clearly fail to meet (D1b). Neglect of (R3) could lead to a version of substance dualism and hence either makes the Logos and the Christ distinct persons or the human nature a part of the Logos. Although these are the restrictions Zanchi puts on the use of the simile, he relaxes some of them in practice. My strategy here is to look at the actual uses of the simile and from these to gain an insight into the assumptions of Zanchi’s view of the hypostatic union. I shall begin looking at a passage where he uses the parts-whole and soul-body simile together : [1] Therefore, even if [on account of ubiquity] God is in us with his whole essence and divinity, however, we are not gods, because he is not in us as a part of us, but only as the efficient cause. But in Christ, or in the human nature of Christ, he exists and indwells, not merely as efficient cause, but also as a part of a composite, because he was made to partake in flesh and blood. For Christ exists in these two natures, divine and human, and in the same way as he is true man he is also true God. Accordingly, the apostle did not say without qualification: “In him the whole fullness of divinity dwells”, but added ‘bodily’ [somatikos] signifying with that word that the body was a conflated unity out of divine and human nature, as out of matter and form, that is, the one true and truly subsistent person consists of these two natures, so that he is true God and man. And it is this union they call hypostatic.33

[1] is part of a section dealing with divine ubiquity as an expression of divine immensity. When Zanchi in this context talks about the divine presence in Christ 32 For Zanchi see DI, 78/194–6. Martin Chemnitz has a similar list of restrictions attributed to Pseudo-Justin Martyr in TNC, 87–9. 33 DND [lib. II, cap. VI] in OT, II, 104: “Idek etsi Deus in nobis est tota sua essentia & Deitate, non sumus tamen dii: quia non inest ut pars nostri, sed tantFm ut causa agens. Sed in Christo, seu in humana Christi natura, inest & in habitat, non tantFm ut causa efficiens, sed etiam ut pars compositi: quia carnis & sanguinis particeps factus est. Constat enim Christus his duabus naturis, divina & humana: ac proinde, ut verus est homo, ita etiam verus est Deus. Proinde non simpliciter dixit Apostolus: In ipso habitat omnis plenitudo Deitais sed adiecit somatikos hac voce significans, ex divina & humana natura, quasi ex materia & forma, unum conflatum esse corpus, hoc est, unam veram, & verH subsistentem personam his duabus constare naturis, ita ut verus sit Deus & homo. Et haec est unio illa, quam hypostaticam vocant.” My emphasis.

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he notes that it is not merely a case of presence, as in the saints, since Christ’s human nature is a “part of a composite.” Indwelling is not explained as a case of the habitus account but as the Logos and the human nature composing Christ. Zanchi even uses the phrase “as if it was from matter and form” talking about the manner in which the Apostle Paul used the word somatikos for the hypostatic union. He is pushing the soul-body simile here – by relaxing (R1–2) – in order to show the intimate union of the divine and human natures. All this points strongly in the direction of (C2) as literal compositionalism. However, if taken literally, this way of speaking is inadequate, since the Logos is not to Christ what a form is to matter. It would seem, then, that Zanchi’s flexibility with regard to (R1–2), becomes suspiciously Monophysite. But I think (because of a passage that I will soon quote) that we should understand Zanchi’s use of the simile here in a loose sense and that the worry of Monophysitism is not an immediate threat. Zanchi’s relaxed use of compositional similes might stem from a need to show the intimacy of the two natures against the Lutheran charge of Nestorianism as well as a “rethorical” possibility of using the soul-body simile more freely without raising suspicion from his reformed peers. However, he is not unaware of the potential problems with a relaxed use of part-whole discourse. This is evident from an earlier passage in De Natura Dei, from where [1] was taken also and where Zanchi maintains that it is proven by the most effective arguments that: [2] God does not enter into composition with any created thing, so that he becomes a part of a composite thing. Now, concerning Christ, who consists of two natures, there is another account. For the human [nature] does not have the divine as form. Even these things can indeed also be confirmed by the testimonies of Scriptures.34

[2] satisfies (D1a-b) and, by extension, makes the restrictions (R1–3) reasonable. Hence, it seems that we should not read these two quoted passages as contradictories but as [2] qualifying the looser use of the simile in [1]. Zanchi clearly states that, due to divine simplicity, the Logos cannot be a part of – or come to 34 “Quare efficacissimis his rationibus evincitur, Deum in null[i]us rei conditae compositionem venire: ita ut fiat rei compositae pars. De Christo, qui duabus constat naturis, alia est ratio. Neque enim humana, divinam habet pro forma. Haec verk possunt etiam Scripturarum testimoniis confirmari.” DND in OT, II, 71. Zanchi does not in the latter passage spell out what “another account” (alia ratio) is supposed to mean. It is a likely that Zanchi was thinking of the qualification Aquinas makes about compositional similes based on numerical distinction although leaving the exact meaning of it: ST III, q 2, a 4, ad 2. (“Dicendum quod illa compositio personae ex naturis non dicitur esse ratione partium, sed potius ratione numeri, sicut omne illud in quo duo conveniunt, potest dici ex eis compositum.”) Elsewhere, Zanchi says that Christ is not constituted from the two natures as it were from quantitative and integral parts as the body and its members. DI, 81/202 (“Quia persona Christi non constat ex ijs duabus naturis, tamquam ex partibus quantiativis, & integralibus, sicut corpus ex membris.”)

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compose an object with – other things. That would, for instance, entail the apparently repugnant proposition that the Logos changed from an absolutely simple to a composite object in the incarnation. Although the metaphysics is not made so explicit in [1] and [2], the background is standard: composite objects are changeable and can be perfected. But God is simple, and therefore immutable and absolutely perfect. For a simple or non-composite being, as God, to come into composition with a human nature is for God to change. Zanchi claims that a simple being cannot be divided or separated into parts of any really distinct kind. God, as a non-complex being, cannot be resolved into some kind of parts (omniscience, infinity, eternity, creator, truth etc.) because God does not have any parts or accidents; i. e. the divine attributes are not to be understood as composite parts of or accidents inhering in a substance. For God’s nature is ‘irresolvable’ by any kind of process or causal influence whereas all created beings are composed and resolvable and therefore causally dependent beings.35 This metaphysical and theological backdrop motivated Zanchi to argue against substance-accident similes for the incarnation from divine simplicity. Briefly and without much argument (though not without reason) he is therefore able to say, “subject and accident are one but the human nature is not an accident, neither can the divine nature be a subject of accidents because of its absolute simplicity. In no way can the two natures constitute a third.”36 One might say that Zanchi’s method of arriving at the proper use of compositional similes is negative. He uses simplicity to negate options that are inadequate and is cautious about positive affirmations. Instead of being an obstacle to an authentic incarnation, divine simplicity functions as a criterion by which one may single out orthodox from heretical options. Although the same kind of reasoning from divine simplicity could be used against parts-whole compositionalism as well (for divine simplicity is not merely a negation of accidental properties but of

35 In DND, he spells this out in an important “rule” (regula) about composition and resolution: “Thus there is a most certain rule: the existential principle for composition and resolution is the same, so that from which something is composed also can resolve the nature, even if it is hindered though something from which it is in truth possible to dissolve. God is in his nature unchangeable and non-resolvable. Therefore it is clear since his existence is in every way simple” (Certissima enim est regula: eadem esse principia resolutionis, quae & compositionis: ita ut, ex quibus aliquid est compositum, in eadem possit suapte [sic] natura resolvi: etiamsi per aliud, quo minus possit reapse dissolvi, impediatur. Atqui Deus est sua natura immutabilis & irresolubilis. Manifestum igitur est cum esse etiam omnibus modis simplicem.) in OT, II, 65. 36 DI, 86/218: “Cum ex subiecto & accidenti sit unum. Sed humana naura non est accidens: neque etiam divina subiectum esse accidenti potest, cum sit simplicissima. Nullo igitur modo duae naturae in unam tertiam coire potuerunt.”

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all kinds of composition) Zanchi does not view simplicity in this way.37 Instead, he affirms parts-whole discourse with qualifications, as we saw above in [1] and [2]. This is also seen in the following passage, when Zanchi comments on Aquinas: [3] What is more, he [Aquinas] explains how something might be said to be composed: not on account of parts but on account of a numerical distinction. Not [on account of] parts as if the divine [nature] is a componing parts. That which is a part of anything composite, has a natural incompleteness and is incomplete with regards to the whole. But the divine nature is absolutely perfect. Therefore, he [Aquinas] denies that the person of the Word is composed of two natures as if [of] parts. But he agrees that he [the person of the Word] is composed of them [the natures] as if of two numerically distinct things, or on account of a numerical distinction.38

One the other hand, then, divine simplicity does not, of course, help us to understand what ‘parts’ or ‘composition’ mean in the context of the incarnation. Maybe we should understand Zanchi to be bowing before the mystery at this point, leaving the nature of composition untouched since literal composition would entail “incompleteness with regard to the whole” – in keeping with (D1a). The only “positive” assertion in [3] is – echoing Aquinas – that composition receives its meaning from the account of a numerical distinction (ratio numeri) and not form the parts. The numerical simile, if it is a simile, was cited by the reformed scholastics but not with much explication. The best I can make of it is that it highlights that Christ is not, without qualification, an object composed from parts and that there is some kind of numerical distinction between the divinity and humanity in Christ. This is quite uninformative, though it preserves the mystery of the incarnation, at the expense of a worked out metaphysics.39 37 For a sophisticated argument from divine simplicity against aspects of Aquinas’ Christian theology, including the incarantion, see Christopher Hughes, On a Complex Theory of a Simple God: An Investigation in Aquinas’ Philosophical Theology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), 241–298. 38 DI, 88/224, “Caeterum explicat, quo sensu dici possit composita: nempe non ratione partium, sed ratione numeri. Non partium, quasi nam divina sit una pars componens. Quod enim est pars alicuius compositi rationem habet imperfecti, & imperfecta res est respectu totius. Natura autem divina res est perfectissima. Negat igitur personam Verbi ex duabus naturis tanquam partibus esse compositam: sed concedit esse compositam ex illis tanquam ex numeris, seu ratione numeri.” Emphasis mine. Again, there is an allusion to ST, III, 2, ad 4. 39 Zanchi also talks about the union in terms of the assumed nature’s being brought into communion with the Logos. But it seems that this way of talking does not add anything to the picture. The Latin term ‘communio’ must then be given a much stronger meaning than usually, approaching ’unio’ or ’pars’. “So also the most perfect human nature comes to the Son of God so that it is taken up in communion with him, not according to the divine nature or the esse of divinity but according to the hypostasis” (“Sic etiam humana natura perfectissime substantiem filij Dei advenit, ut in eius communionem recipiatur, non quoad natura divinam, aut esse divinum, sed sed quoad hypostasin.”) DI, 103/272. For a related idea in Aquinas (ST, III, q. 2, art. 6, ad 2), see Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 58

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There are, however, other passages (as [1]) in which compositional similes are not as cautiously used: [4] Why are both natures truly and really predicated of the person? Because the person truly and really consists of both, and subsists in both: the form of God and the form of a servant. Why are those things, which belong to the soul and which belong to the body, predicated of one and the same human being; such as being mortal and immortal, visible and invisible, corporeal and incorporeal? Because [the human being] consists of soul and body and subsists in both[….]On this depends the the truth of these locutions and propositions: Christ is truly and perfectly God and man. Why is that? Because he subsist truly and perfectly in the form of God and the form of a servant, as his essential parts.40

This passage points to a need for litteral compostionalism (in order to support communication of properties to the person of Christ). Zanchi goes so far as to say that it is because the natures are “as his essential parts” that we may truly predicate divinity and humanity of the person of Christ. In some sense Zanchi is pushed in this direction and found a way to satisfy (D1a-b) by saying that (D2), the dependence of the parts on the whole, is something like essential parts of Christ. And this suggests that Zanchi does hold (C2) true, at least in “practice.” In other words we have a rather mixed picture of Zanchi’s compositionalism: one the one hand he has a need for literal compositional similes and, on the other, he is keen to qualify similes so he does not fail to satisfy (D1a-b). At this point we must notice a difference between Aquinas and Zanchi. Aquinas (and other medieval scholastics, though for different reasons) does not merely depend on compositionalism in his articulation of the hypostatic union but also on a relational account. Famously, Aquinas argued that God is not really related to the world but only ‘according to reason’. If we ascribe a real categorical relation to God, it would entail a change in the being of God, contrary to divine simplicity. But God is the Creator of the world and it seems like there should be some sort of relation between the two. Aquinas solves this by saying that the world is really related to God – being created – whereas God – being creator – is rationally related to the world. This is what Aquinas called a ‘mixed relation’. In the incarnation, Aquinas makes use of the same concept and says that only the assumed human nature is really related to the Logos whereas not the Logos to the 40 “Cur, quæ utriusq; sunt naturæ, ea de persona verH & realiter prædicantur? Quia ipsa persona verH, ac realiter ex utraque constat: & in utraque subsistit, forma Dei, & forma servi. Cur de eodem homine prædicatntur, quæ sunt animæ & quæ sunt corporis? Ut quod sit mortalis & immortalis, visibilis & invisibilis, corporeus & incorporeus? quia constat ex anima & corpore, & in utroque; subsitit…. Hinc pendet veritas harum omnium locutionum & propositionum: Christus est verus ac perfectus Deus, verus ac perfectus homo: quid ita? Quia in vera et perfecta forma Dei, in vera ac perfecta forma serui, tanqu#m suis partibus essentialibus verH subsistit.” DI 124/334–5.

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human nature. The incarnation takes place without any without any change in God since the Logos is merely related to the human nature ‘according to reason.’41 It is easy to see the appeal of the mixed relations accounts since it seems to safeguard divine simplicity, immutability, impassibility, eternity, and so on, in the incarnation. The ‘becoming’ in the incarnation takes place on the side of the human nature, not in the Logos.42 Still it is true to say that the Logos is incarnate since there is a unique relation to him in the assumed human nature without a real or corresponding relation in the Logos. Supposedly, this is a way to cash out (D2). The trouble is that this sort of reasoning seems impotent with regard to the incarnation; seen as a case of composition it apparently does not add any radically new relation between the Logos and the assumed human nature than that between God and every other human nature or creation in general. Surely the human nature’s being related to the Logos is necessary if there is going to be an incarnation. But how can the human nature’s being related to the Logos be sufficient for a hypostatic union, given that the basic simile is that of a partswhole union as in a substance? Reasonably, both relata must stand in some sort of mutual relation in a compositional union, like the parts of a substantial whole; otherwise the union is accidental (in the category of relation).43 41 Aquinas is sometimes misunderstood to say that God is not at all related to the world. That is not necessarily so. Aristotelian scholastics generally held that relations are properties in things and not something that stands between them. Some relations exist in virtue of some change or property of one of the relata. Like the object known and the knower, the intellect is changed and becomes related to an object without that (necessarily) being the case with the object. A similar sort of reasoning, Aqinas and other medieval scholastics, holds between God and creation as well as in the incarnation. ST, III, q. 2, art .7, ad. 1 and ST, III, q. 16, art. 6, ad. 2. For a discussion see Weinandy, Does God Change?, 86–89 and Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 208–13. Mark G. Henninger, Relations: Medieval Theories 1250–1325 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 19–23 and Thomas M. Ward, “Relations Without Forms: Some Consequences of Aquinas’s Metaphysics of Relations”, Vivarium 48/3–4 (2010), 279–301. Ward’s account is revisionist and I came across it too late in the writing process to have it worked into this chapter. He argues that there are resources in Aquinas’ metaphysics to claim that God is really related to the world or “analogical real relation”. He applies this reasoning to the God-world relation, but as far as I can see it could just as well apply to the incarnation. 42 Michael Gorman articulates Aquinas’ view, “In the hypostatic union, the human nature receives from the relation, the property of being related to the Word, while the Word itself receives nothing from anything; the first of these facts is sufficient for the being a union between them.” (“Christ as Composite”, 148.) 43 Now this is a moot point in Aquinas’ metaphysics since there are passages that suggest that parts stand in a relation of dependence on the whole in a substance such that they receive their existence and function from the whole and there are passages that point in the other direction, that the substance, at least in some cases depend on its parts for its existence and function. It seems plausible that Aquinas thinks that there is room for some sort of inter-

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Zanchi, as far as I have been able to ascertain, neither makes explicit nor implicit use of mixed relation nor rejects it in the incarnational context. His reason for this might not be very controversial but since he follows Aquinas closely on a number of Christological issues it is worthy of notice. However, his omission is fortunate and there is, maybe, even a sort of silent criticism of Aquinas because he thinks it has the sort of weakness I just pointed out. It is likely, then, that Zanchi does not think that it illuminates the incarnational union more than the compositional similes do. Zanchi seems to think that the substantial account of the incarnation is sufficient and, therefore, that the mixed relation account does not add anything: [5] But in truth, the human nature comes to and is added and united to the person of the Logos, so that [the Logos] is made flesh, that is, man. To be man is not accidental, but in the genus of substance. The human nature is, therefore, not in the person of the Logos as an accident but as a true substance, that is, a substantial nature.44

In [5] Zanchi (again) disregards the potential problems of compositionalism posed by divine simplicity. What shall we make of this? Here he makes it sound as if there was no problem with (D1b). But we have just noticed his caveats in [2] and [3]. Maybe he simply thinks that since – ultima facie! – there are no proper similes for the incarnation the best we can do is to talk as coherently as we possibly can with the awareness that all talk of God in general and of the incarnation in particular is inadequate.45 I would suggest we focus on what the similes Zanchi uses point to even if they do not reach all the way there; what type of metaphysics that is at work, even to a limited degree, in the hypostatic union. By talking about the hypostatic union as substantial he gestures at his metaphysical presuppositions as well as pushing them to their limit. To summarize some of the findings so far : a substance is a composite of parts and accidents. The incarnation is explicated after the simile of a substance, that is, of parts composing a whole and not of a substance-accident whole. Presumably the fundamental reason is that Zanchi thinks that a part does not actualize any potency in the substance, as an accident does. A part, on the contrary, receives its being from the whole and it is therefore possible to view the dependence of parts and whole, at least in some cases. Consider e. g. ST, I, q. 92, art. 1, ad. 1. and a passage in De Mixtu Elementorum, quoted in Terrence Nichols, “Aquinas’s Concept of Substantial Form and Modern Science”, International Philosophical Quarterly 36/3 (1996), 315. 44 DI 64/153 “At verk humana natura ita advenit & addita ac vnita est personæ to logou, vt ex eius aduentu ipse factus sit caro, id est, verus homo. Esse autem hominem verum non est accidens, sed in substantiæ genere. Humana igitur natura non inest in persona to logou tanquam accidens, sed tanquam vera substantia [, id est] natura substantialis.” 45 Cf. Eleonore Stump’s interpretation of Aquinas’ compositionalism in Aquinas, 407–26 in light of her understanding of Aquinas’ “metaphysics of things” (Aquinas, 35–60).

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human nature as a part united to the Logos without any actualization of potency in the Logos.46 There are further problems with this account. Similar to Aquinas (at least according to Richard Cross’ interpretation of him) Zanchi’s affirmation of (D1b) leaves the meaning of the parts undetermined. Cross suggests two ways of making sense of Aquinas’ view on parthood: dependence – which is (D2) in my terminology – and ‘truth-making’, which is Cross’ attempt to bring clarity to the medieval discussion.47 The dependence of the human nature on the Logos seems to me to be a quite neutral way to say that there is some sense in which the partswhole relation in the hypostatic union is real (without actualization of potency). Truth-making is related to dependence in that if that parts-whole relation is in some sense real there is something such that it “makes” Christological propositions like ‘God became man’ true.48 Although Zanchi never puts it in this way, I think it is safe to think that he would not object. Zanchi does think that parts receive their identity (or esse) from the whole to which they belong and it is not too farfetched to think that parts could function as a truth-maker for a substance or substance-like entity like Christ. Unfortunately, I am not sure this analysis brings us any greater clarity than [3] or [4] do. 46 We encounter another interpretative difficulty here: Zanchi does not refer to or seems to make use of Aquinas’ discussion of the esse of Christ in ST, III, q. 17. Some of the issues I discuss here, are treated by Aquinas in this question. The issue of the number of esse in Christ is one of the most discussed topics in Aquinas’ Christology ; which, by the way, is ironic due to the relative shortness of the question in the Summa Theologica (although there is a more elaborate and lengthier discussion in De Verbum Incarnati). Maybe Zanchi avoids the question, in order not to get bogged down in differing opinions among Thomist commentators. I will proceed as if he was well acquainted with the issues involved and that he would not at least in principle object to taking a stance – presumably that there is one esse in Christ – even though he does not couch his discussion in such terms. 47 The notion of ’truth-making’ has established itself as a quite standard notion in contemporary analytic philosophy. The term was coined and conceptualized in Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simmons and Barry Smith, “Truth-Makers”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 44 (1984), 287–321. Standardly, truth-making is not to be understood in causal terms so that there is a connection between the truth of a proposition and some entity such that the latter causes the proposition to be true. Instead most philosophers agree, although they disagree on many details, that the connection is a logical one, something like entailment. Also, truth-making has often been connected to a ‘trope theory’ account of properties, a move I resist in this thesis. For Cross’ use of truth-makers as a “neutral” use that “does not “imply any theory of properties” see The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 35, n. 28. Unfortunately his introduction of it merely allows that there is “some sense in which we can allow that accidents are truth-makers” (ibid.) I take this to be an incomplete statement as he later allows parts to perform the same truth-making function. 48 See, e. g. “…in the case of concrete part, but not in the case of accidents, Aquinas will allow truth-making without actualization of potency. It is important to keep in mind that Aquinas seems to want to say that the truth-making function of concrete parts – their esse, in his terminology – is reducible to their being parts of the personal esse of the whole of which they are parts.” (Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 53.)

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Before evaluating Zanchi’s compositionalism I need to present one more perspective on his stance with regard to (C1) and (C2). Zanchi notes that there are some theologians who claim that the person of the Logos is simple but the person of Christ is composite, and this, I take it, goes back to Damascene’s designation of Christ as the God-man (Theoanthropos). Such a way of talking is relatively uncontroversial for it has a Catholic pedigree. “Relatively”, since it has a warning attached to it: use it as long as you do not claim that the Logos and Christ are diverse persons but the same person viewed under two aspects, as subsistent in the simple divine nature and as also subsisting in the human nature. In a spirit of irenicism, Zanchi says that he is content to use the received language of the church and thus he resists speculation that could commit him to (C2). Zanchi does associate (C2) with Scotus. However, though there is evidence that Scotus did commit to (C2), it is a disputed question as to how serious he takes this commitment.49 Zanchi seems to think that Scotus commits to a rather modest version of (C2). Scotus says that the claim that the person of Christ is composed is not generally held properly to speak of composition, viz. from act and potency, as from matter and form or from two things in potency (the sort of thing that, according Aristotle, are called elements, and integrate the whole nature). The Authorities of the Damascene, which sound as though the person is composed should be expounded [to mean] that there is truly both divine and human nature, as if these [natures] composed a person. But they do not compose [a person], nor is any third thing made from them, but they remain distinct and unconfused…It should therefore be expounded and be said that a person is composed on account of the union of natures in which it subsists; but more truly composition can be denied since one does not perfect the other, nor is any third nature [made] from them.50

As far as this statement goes, I believe Zanchi is right about Scotus: composition is to be expounded in terms of “the union of natures in which [the person of the Logos] subsists.” And that does not seem to go beyond what Aquinas and Zanchi say about composition. Zanchi refers (although he does not cite it at length) to the above passage with the words “Even Scotus…says that it is improper to call it composition” – for the usual reasons: (D1a-b).51 Arguably, the “even” (etiam) indicates that he wants to show that there is a broad agreement among the scholastics on the issue since Scotus is rarely used by Zanchi to establish theological opinions. For Zanchi, composition seems, at least, to be a way of 49 Se Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 128–133 and Excursus II. 50 I have borrowed Cross’ translation (Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 132). Zanchi’s reference is probably mistaken: it should be q 3 instead. See Scotus, Lect, III, dist. 6, q. 3 in Opera Omnia. 12 vols. Edited by Luke Wadding (Lyon, 1639), VII, 184. 51 DI, 88/225.

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talking about the Logos under two aspects: in itself and as subsistent in two natures. This is clear from the same context in which he is referring to Scotus: [6] And one of Damscene’s commentators remarks on [DFO] chapter [sic!] 3, I, 2 that this passage of Damscene’s – where he says that Christ is composed of two natures – should be accepted and interpreted with care. It should also be noted that composition does not signify anything else than the union of the two natures. Therefore, others say that the person of the Logos is most simple but that the person of Christ is composite; not because they are diverse persons but becasue the same person can be considered in two ways. Firstly, in itself and subsisting in the one divine nature only, and as such he is absolutely simple. Secondly, in so far as he is Christ subsisting also in a human nature and as such he is, as it where, a certain composite, albeit improperly, from two natures. I find no pleasure in fighting about words and gladly follow the received expressions in the church, provided they are correctly understood. This we ought to retain that, although it is called composite person, this composition excludes all forms of physical composition, but that it is called composition because [the person of the Logos] subsists in two natures or forms.52

On the surface Zanchi is non-committal since he argues that (C1) and (C2) are literally speaking false (although he is willing to use the language of (C2) in an ecclesiastically approved way of talking). Contrary to appearances, I think that we should understand Zanchi as ultimately embracing a version of (C2). For, though “improper”, it is “permissible to talk of the composite person.” “Improper” in this as well as in other contexts, I think, should not be understood as “literally false” but as “with qualification.” In other words, [6] speaks of a kind of qualified composition accepted by the scholastics because the Logos subsists in two natures. This interpretation is emphasised by [4] where he is talking about “Christ”, as the Logos and the human nature constituting a quasi-new entity. Similarly, the more relaxed [1] clearly leans toward (C2). The real problem is that in [3], Zanchi talks about the Logos being composed of two natures and not ‘Christ’ which points in the direction of (C1). Ultimately, for reasons I have presented in this chapter, I would like to gloss this and similar passages as 52 DI, 88/225 “Et Scholiastes Damasceni in cap. 3.I.2. annotat, cautH accipiendum & interpretandum hunc locum Damasceni, ubi dicit, Christum compositum esse ex duabus naturis. Notandum etiam, compositionem nil aliud significare qu/m unionem duarum naturarum. Idcirco alij dicunt, personam tou logou esse simplicissimam: sed personam Christi esse compositam, non qukd sint diuersae personæ, sed quod eadem persona considerari possit bifariam, primk in sese, & subsistens in sola natura natura divina: ita simplicissima est. Secundk, quatenus iam est Christus, subsistens in ipsa etiam natura humana: ita compositum quidd#m est, licet improprie, ex duabus naturis. Ego de vocabulis non libenter digladior, & sequor libenter locutiones receptas in ecclesia, modk dexterH intelligantur. Hoc igitur retineamus, l'cet vocetur composita persona: ab hac tamen compositione, excludi omnes physicas compositions: sed ideo vocari compositam, quia in duabus subsistit naturis, seu formis.” My emphasis.

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fundamentally a semantic or even a terminological issue. I do not think that all this is as confusing as it sounds – however unsatisfying – provided that we accept that Zanchi held a restricted version of (C2). Zanchi’s (C2) renders the incarnation rather mysterious but I think that it is in part a consequence of an inadequate metaphysics. There is, namely, an irredeemable inconsistency in the Aquinas-Zanchi line of argument consisting in their presupposed unitarian view of substantial forms and their construal of compositionalism in terms of two substances or substance-like things. They want to have the cake and eat it. According to their general account there is no substantial unity of two substances – only an accidental union can follow from two substances – yet in the incarnation there is a substantial union of two substance(-like) things. Christ’s human nature must have its own substantial form for it to be a proper substance. If, for instance, the Logos filled the role of the human soul (i. e. a substantial form), then Euthycianism or Apollinarianism would follow. Incidentally, such a construal of the incarnation seems more consistent with their general view of substantial forms. But if the human nature has its own substantial form, which provides it with its humanness – a fair requirement for a genuine incarnation – then compositionalism cannot be a unity of substance, since there can only be one substantial form per substance. Moreover, on the Aquinas-Zanchi line of argument, the human nature is reduced to serve the role of “matter”, which downplays the reality of the human nature. It gives the impression that Christ’s humanness is less real or substantial than in other human beings. More importantly, since such a hylemorphic construal makes a very intimate union between divinity and humanity it is strictly speaking inconsistent with (D1a-b). This is also why both Aquinas’ and Zanchi’s position is hard to pin down. At this stage Aquinas took refuge in ‘mixed relations’, but such a construal, as we have seen, seems quite empty and Zanchi was wise not to go there. So, although their desire is to conceptualize the hypostatic union as a more intimate one than a substance-accident union, they are ultimately held back by their unitarian view of substantial forms. I think the best interpretation of Zanchi is to say that he “in theory” holds a quite restricted view of composition while “in practice” he is sometimes more relaxed. I suggest that we take Zanchi’s practice seriously. What is more, I think he is right that partswhole is the better way, although he is not able to follow it through. In the next section I will try to show that there are ways in which we can remedy some of the illnesses that this sort of compositionalism suffers from and let theory and practice reach a greater concord.

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I think some of the problems Zanchi faces in his articulation of the hypostatic union are not merely due to the obscurity of the topic. I believe there is more to be said, without a breach of the mystery of the incarnation. Provided that we are willing to revise some presuppositions, we might actually reach a greater appreciation of the mystery and get clearer on the metaphysics of the incarnation. In the following two subsections I will give a brief account of what we may call a revisionist framework and in the final section I will explain how it may help us to gain greater clarity in our understanding of compositionalism.

4.4.1 On the Distinction between Artefacts and Substances According to one Aristotelian tradition, the created world is a world of substances and whatever else exists, exists because substances exist.53 And according to the mainline interpretation of Aquinas, an artefact is a whole but not a substance, since it does not have the unity conferred on a whole by a substantial form. Aristotelians think that an artefact is not a real or a natural substance because it is a product of some designer’s or artist’s skill or intervention (ars, techne) on already existing material. Examples include cars, axes and sculptures. They are all aggregates made up of previously existing natural substances, which retain their substantial form in the whole. Artefacts are not without form though. They have what is called an accidental form. A paradigmatic example of a natural substance is a human being, which is no product of art but of natural processes (at least before IVF). Humans are substances due to their substantial forms. Artefacts are not substances in their own right but composed of substances. However, the pre-existing and surviving substances function as ‘matter’ or ‘principles’ in the artefact. We might shape the stone into a sculpture and we might through medical art produce health in a sick human. The accidental forms of the sculpture’s shape and man’s health are products of the art and makes the stone be more than a stone, although never less than a stone either. In a natural substance all lower features and parts are given their function and identity through the form of the whole. Hence the water in my body will, as long as it is water, not be water actually, as Aquinas tended to say, merely potentially, that is, it stands in a hierarchical position with relation to the substance of which it is

53 For a more detailed study of some of the claims made in this subsection, see Michael Rota, “Substance and Artefact in Thomas Aquinas”, History of Philosophy Quarterly 21/3 (July 2004), 241–59. See also Stump, Aquinas, ch. 1.

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part. Its functions in the human body are not functions it takes on from its own proper actions or operations. To sum up, the difference between artefacts and substances is that: (A1) Artefacts are products of art. (A2) Artefacts are not substances. (A3) Substances are substances in virtue of their substantial form. (A4) Artefacts are composed of pre-existing substances and, as a whole, lack a substantial form. (A5) All forms introduced through art are accidental forms. But there are reasons to think that there are some artefacts that are genuine substances, or maybe better, artificial substances. It seems that there are exceptions to the entailment of (A5) by (A1). For there are some substances produced by skill that results in a real substance by the power of natural agents. Aquinas himself takes as examples the bread (by a baker) and frogs and serpents through art (of magicans).54 Although he does not discuss these matters at length (and they both seem a bit fantastical and mundane), at least there is an opening to include examples of substances that seem to be the product of art (or maybe even chance). This calls into question the link between (A1–2), since Aquinas himself gives examples of some things that are both artificially made and substances. Here we should turn our attention to the relation between grades of being and unity in things. Substances are the kind of thing which have unity per se whereas accidents exist through another. That is, substances are one without qualification whereas accidents (and accidental wholes) in a qualified way. Although there are these two types of unity, qualified and unqualified, there are degrees of unity since some accidental wholes have a greater unity than others – a car more than a pile of rocks, for instance. Along these lines it seems right to think this is so because there is an entailment between being and unity : the more being a thing has, the more unity. A car is something in its own right more than a pile of rocks is something in its own right. Of all created things, however, a substance is something in its own right in the highest degree and therefore has the highest degree of unity among composite, finite things. The divine nature is pure being and therefore is simple, in the sense that it has absolute unity. According to the unitarian position, it is the substantial form that confers the identity and function on the whole as well its parts. Hence, the substantial form 54 Here we might think of the less staggering example of dog breeding. The breeder use previously existing dogs and arranges their copulation so that new forms of dogs, clearly substances, are born. But it is not clear if mutation on such a level due to man’s intervention is really to the point.

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of Socrates does not only make him human and act in human ways, but Socrates’ hand also receives its identity and functions as hand through being an integral part of the whole. If the hand is severed from Socrates, it would lose its identity and function and would only be hand in a nominal sense. Notice, again, the strong link here between identity of a part or a thing and its proper operations as a member of a species. Unless a hand can function as a hand, it is no longer a hand; functionality grounds the nature of things since to be is to be in act.55 By contrast, the parts of an accidental whole retain their proper function and nature through their substantial form if separated from the whole (and many parts of accidental wholes are themselves accidental wholes). Another way of making the same point is to say that parts of a substance have the same persistence conditions whereas in an artifact they are not the same. The parts of an artefact survive the destruction of the accidental form (impressed by the skill of an artist) – the stone and the wood in the destroyed house persist through the changes whereas the house does not. In a substance, the parts do not persist through the destruction of the whole. The human hand loses its nature and function if the person is destroyed (or if separated from the living person). And so on for all other parts.56 However, I think that despite these considerations the distinction between artefact and substance is not as clear-cut. There are artefacts that have the unity of a substance and there are substances whose parts persist through separation from the whole and the opposite for accidental wholes, i. e. parts which do not persist through the destruction of accidental wholes. I shall, however, treat it as (for-the-most-part) sufficient to make a distinction between artefacts and substances but not necessary. At least so much is plausible on Aquinas’ own examples. One important consequence of all this is that there are also ways in which the parts of a substance might retain their identity (or maybe part of their identity) even while being parts of a higher substantial whole (and, of course, when separated from the whole). Hence, some parts do not have to be in mere potency with regard to the whole. It seems, then, that we have to be able to distinguish between the natures of various parts. For instance a hand qua hand is in mere potency with regard to the whole while a water molecule is in some sort 55 This does not have to mean that to be it has to act always and in the same way and in a single unified act, at least not for created beings in which action is always found in the dynamic interplay between potency and act. Yet there is a question troubling the Aristotelian and many other traditions of metaphysics here, namely whether, by the so called Principle of Plentitude, for something to have a certain power or capacity it has to at least at some point be actualised – that is, whether the are rare forever un-actualized potencies. 56 A seeming anomaly in Aquinas’ Christian Aristotelianism is, obviously, the survival of the soul or the substantial form itself at death (without any matter to inform). But even here the surviving part does not persist “undamanged” since the soul is not complete in its species but, what Aquinas calls a subsisting “this something” (hoc aliquid). See ST, I, q. 76, art. 2.

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of quasi-potency with regard to the whole. But it seems right to say that the water in my body is water – even though a large part of my organism – and that it is exactly because it is water that it serves the many functions it does in me. We might also consider examples from modern transplant technology, which can keep organic parts alive when taken from a living or recently deceased human body and implant them in a living body. Moreover, some organic parts can be scientifically generated and successfully grafted into a living human person. Such examples seem to blur the persistence condition as a distinction between artefacts and substances. So maybe persistence of the parts is not a necessary condition for the distinction. Still in some cases it might be sufficient, which is clear from the examples. I am bringing this up to pave the way for the discussion in the next subsection. I am here interested in pointing out that there are openings to and even examples in Aquinas of the type of revision I will suggest. Of course, I cannot give a comprehensive philosophical account of these matters here, but I will take the examples discussed here as indicative of the possibility of a particular development. Some substances can be part of some substance (without being accidents), even if is the case that these examples are few and some rather unique. (Well, not the bread example!) To say that the incarnation is of course rather unique is rather an understatement. In the next subsection I shall adjust the traditional Aristotelian notion of substances, and knit together some of the loose threads I have drawn out above. That opens the door for some suggestions about the metaphysics of the incarnation I will propose in the final section.

4.4.2 A Functionalist Account We have seen that Zanchi ran into problems when he tried to combine an account of the incarnation as a union of two substances and the unitarian view of substantial forms. I think this incompatibility should be dealt with by expanding the account of substantial forms. That the opening to such an expansion is there in Aquinas was the burden of the previous subsection. I hasten to add that this is not necessarily an ad hoc move, since I believe that what I have to say is not only relevant to the metaphysics of the incarnation but to metaphysics and natural philosophy in general. At the very least, the incarnation is an occasion to think about themes in natural philosophy and metaphysics in new ways. Also, the position I am sketching here is an attempt to find a middle way between the unitarian and the pluralist accounts. The unitarian admits of merely one substantial form per substance whereas the pluralist one or more. The latter is in danger of dissolving the unity of substances. But is there not a middle

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position to be found or can the unitarian admit some sort of plurality without losing substantial unity? I think so, if we are willing to extend a basically thomist metaphysics and natural philosophy in the manner that, e. g., Terrence L. Nichols has argued for in dialogue with contemporary natural science.57 He advocates a retrieval of what he brands as “thomist” concepts like purpose, nature and substantial form since it will allow for a return to “the world of organism instead of to a world of machines” which would eventually “foster a reunification of the physical and the human sciences.”58 Quantum theory has helped to undermine the older deterministic and mechanistic view of the physical world. In its place, new conceptual patterns have emerged in the last century not focusing exclusively on the particles but on the wholes of natural phenomena. Observations on atom and sub-atomic levels propose that the parts or the particles of a whole are not what determines the behaviour of certain entities. Some wholes seem to behave in a way that is not explainable by the behaviour of the parts, which suggests that they are a unified sort of entity, resembling the notion of substantial form. But according to standard thomist interpretations of micro-level phenomena these are not substances in themselves as long as they are part of a larger substance. For instance the water in a human body is not actually water, but potentially or virtually present in the human organism. This presents us with some seemingly counterintuitive claims: that the apparently substance-like water-molecules in my body are not actually or substantially water, only ‘virtually’ so. These rather obscure claims can be improved if one modified the basic ideas and claimed that the water-molecules in my body are still substantially (and not merely virtually) water. The Old School Thomist objects that, on this account, the water in my body is then not really part of me at all any more than in an accidental way, so that the water dissolves the substantial unity of me. In response, I would say that this does not dissolve me–metaphysically speaking! – but it clarifies the relation of something that is within me as an organism, as a substance. For instance, a water-molecule has, as Nichols puts it, “a partial autonomy and partial participation in a larger whole”59 Such entities have in the recent literature variously been called a ‘holon’, ‘subsidiary form’ or ‘subsidiary unit’. Nichols writes: 57 Nichols, “Aquinas’s Concept” and, to some extent, Wallace, The Modelling of Nature. Of course, not all contemporary thomists agree. See e. g. Oderberg, Real Essentialism. 58 All this is laudable – if it is true, of course! Academia certainly has not been shown, so far, how much mileage there is left in the professed perennial ideas of the Angelic Doctor. The way to make any retrieval plausible is to see how well it suits the facts and concepts. And why not see if it can suit the most odd of all: the incarnation? 59 Nichols, “Aquinas’s Concept”, 313. “holon: that which is both a part of a larger whole and itself a quasi-autonomous whole.” (idem.) Here Nichols is building on Arthur Koestler’s “Beyond Atomism and Holism – the Concept of the Holon,” in Arthur Koestler and John R.

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I would propose, in light of modern research on the relation of wholes and parts, that his [Aristotle’s] philosophy could be “creatively completed” in the direction of what might be called subsidiarity…. I propose that a third category be added to the categories of substantial and accidental form, namely, that of subsidiary form.60 A subsidiary form would inform a subsidiary whole…. Such a form would stand part way between a truly substantial form, which informs an independently existing substance, and an accidental form, which inheres in another. Such would be the form of those organs that are wholes yet also parts (the heart, liver, eye, etc.), of the water molecules in the body, and of the DNA molecules in the cells.61 As the example of water shows, a form may function either as a substantial form or as a subsidiary form, depending on whether its composite, water, exists as an independent substance or as an inclusion in a more comprehensive form.62

Examples of this could be multiplied and made more complex (for instance, proper physical parts such as genes or larger integral parts such as hands). One might also want to debate the extent to which one would like to call the various examples mentioned by Nichols for subsidiary forms. Whatever the exact relation to the whole, it is important for our purposes to see that they serve some function of the whole. A macro-level substance can therefore be made up of micro-level units that are “quasi-autonomous” in that there are smaller organic systems included in the larger organic system.63 What is the contribution of a subsidiary form to the whole? Obviously, the causal contribution of the subsidiary forms might not be qua the forms they are. Water does not contribute to the formal structure of sensation in a sentient organism. However it seems correct to say that the presence of water in an organism is a necessary condition for any sensation to inhere in the organism. Sufficiency is, then, something that belongs to the highest (and we should still say) substantial form. So we might say that subsidiary forms receive a sort of

60

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Smythies eds., Beyond Reductionism: New Perspectives in the Life Sciences (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 192–227. Nichols thinks that subsidiary forms replace accidents, but I do not think that is not a necessary conclusion. I do not actually understand the reason he gives for it although it probably stems from a form of empiricism. I can think of one strong reason to keep accidents – basically the view of Aristotle’s Categories. Substances are the kind of thing that are not predicated of other substances but that which everything that is not a substance is predicated of. Aquinas did give a kind of ontologically independent status to some parts, such as the heart and the brain, so called ‘principal parts’. See Henry, Medieval Mereology, 273–9. “Aquinas’s Concept”, 315–6. Averroes and Albert the Great suggested an entity that can inhere in others, an entity between substance and accident: “Being close to prime matter, they are an imperfect sort of form… They are, so to speak, substantial forms that behave like accidental forms when they are in a compound.” A point Aquinas rejected in De Mixione Elementorum. Albert as quoted in Steven Baldner, “St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Presence of Elements in Compounds”, Sapientia 54 (1999), 41–57 and 51–2.

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supporting role, where they play the second violin yet have a voice of its own (if the mixture of metaphors is allowed). Let me draw out some consequences of all this. First, that which binds the parts and the whole together substantially is the functional unity, a concept, which is as Aristotelian as can be for it is an internal and not an external function as in modern mechanistic physics. Functions follow from substantial form or being, so there is some substantial form that endows the whole and the parts with its functions but this seems to be consistent with the existence of lower-level autonomous parts, something like subsidiary units relevantly like substances. Second, this picture also undermines the false dichotomy so common in, for instance, contemporary philosophy of mind of an bottom up or top down causality. In an organism with subsidiary forms there seems to be both. Third, it will affect the notion of matter (as a principle or cause of material and composite beings) in ways that makes it more potent and less passive and receptive, although matter might retain its major function of being on the “receiving end” of the whole. But it also contributes to the whole. For matter has to be intrinsically active in order to be receptive. Although brief, this general account of the revised framework will hopefully suffice to perfect the gesture of Zanchi at a metaphysics required for compositionalism to work. In the final section we will “road test” it on the incarnation.

4.4.3 Compositionalism Revised Some ideas I have discussed have similarities to those of certain contemporary philosophical theologians. The metaphysics of the incarnation these contemporary philosophical theologians seem to presuppose is akin to the one I presented in the previous section. But few have been as explicit about the metaphysical requirements in the way I have tried to be thus far. Therefore, I think that the concepts I have introduced will help to clarify what these contemporaries have been trying to articulate. I have chosen to mainly interact with two recent articles by Jonathan Hill and Anna Marmodoro, since their account is so clear and use of Aquinas’ ideas constructively.64 64 “Unity of Christ” and with Anna Marmodoro, “Compositional Models of the Incarnation: Unity and Unifying Relations”, Religious Studies 46 (2010), 469–88. Hill’s argument start with Aquinas’ view of compositionalism, but exceeds it in a constructive way and is therefore not to be understood as an interpretation of Aquinas. He defends what he calls “strict compositionalism” by which he means that it is applied literally to the hypostatic union. It is a clear defence of (C2) as he thinks that (C1) can hardly be called compositonalism at all. Further, he does not claim that his defence is a defence of Aquinas own view necessarily but a creative and hopefully consistent reconstruction from things Aquinas says.

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A central idea these writers discuss depends on a distinction of the two notions of union (unio) and unity (unitas) in Aquinas’ Christology. Aquinas claims that the hypostatic union has the highest degree of unity of all unions. This is compared to the degree of unity there is in a natural union of body and soul and Aquinas supposes that the hypostatic union, must have a higher degree (or, as Hill puts it, a “maximal degree”) of unity than the soul-body union since the assumed nature is united to the maximally unified nature of the Logos. The unity in the incarnation is, as Hill expresses it, a “borrowed property”, from the divine nature to the whole. Now, in a human being the unifying function that brings soul and body together into a substantial whole is in the soul as the substantial form. Similarly, the same seems to be the case in Hill’s account, although it is not spelled out like this: the divine nature lends its unity to unify the composite Christ. Using this strategy, it is possible to talk not merely of some general parts-whole simile but an explicitly hylemorphic parts-whole simile for the incarnation.65 Thereby, the soul-body union receives the status of simile par excellance.66 A problem with this interpretation is that the application of hylemorphism to the incarnation, or the kind of compositionalism Hill suggests, ends up in Monophysitism: the soul-body union is a substantial union of a new nature and, by parallel reasoning, the same holds for the hypostatic union. In light of the Restrictions I outlined above, this account appears to threaten (R1) and (R2). But it is not at all obvious that (R3) is endangered and if so neither does this account fail to satisfy (D1a-b). If we conceive of the divine nature as complete in virtue of divine simplicity (which lends maximal unity to Christ) and are allowed to think of the human nature as complete in virtue of having everything necessary for being human except self-subsistence, they form a whole, which is not perfecting the divine nature of the Logos since it is already perfect. At this stage, we will be helped by a the revisions I suggested above – the human nature of Christ is seen as a subsidiary form of a whole, one that has partial autonomy and, at the same time, a functional relation to the whole. In this 65 Michael Rea’s account is called hylemorphic as well. “Hylomorphism and the Incarnation” in Marmodoro and Hill eds., The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 134–52. However, the underlying metaphysics is so different from the one I have presented here that I am not sure how to evaluate it or compare it with my proposal and have therefore left it outside my discussion. Brian Leftow’s defence of compositionalism a la (C2) in several articles have a similar feel as that of Hill and Marmorodo. But Leftow begins his argument by saying that Christologists should have a soft spot for Platonic dualism (See his e. g. his “Composition in Christology”, Faith and Philosophy 28 [2011], 310–22 and “The Humanness of God”). There are ambiguities in Leftow’s way of arguing which is why I left his work outside the discussion. I hope to respond to Leftow and Rea in future publications. 66 And maybe the opposite turns out to be true as well – the soul-body union is a good simile for the incarnation because it points to a greater and maybe primary union in Christ.

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case, the function is received primarily from the substantial form (of the whole) but the human nature will not merely be like passive matter in relation to the substantial form. No, the human nature will be a functional subunit of a greater whole – the part enabling the Logos to be fully human. Furthermore, all this is in keeping with Hill’s suggestion the unity of the incarnation is a borrowed property from the divine nature, due to divine simplicity ultimately. In Christ the divine nature is also a subsidiary form with regard to the whole in a functional sense. But since the divine nature is in pure act, it is never in any passive potency with regard to the whole. Instead, it lends unity to the whole in virtue of its being pure act. If the human and the divine natures remain substances they are also primary bearers of unique properties and activities. At the same time, they contribute to a new set of unique properties and activities in the composite. Coming back to Zanchi, he claims that the properties of the two natures remain intact in the hypostatic union.67 This suggests that he is implicitly treating the two natures as substances. However, his basic account would make much more sense if the human nature were seen as a subsidiary form. The human nature is a substance in itself but in the incarnation it functions as a subsidiary form, which is necessary for the existence of the Logos as man. The supposed benefit is that this understanding will allow a close unity between the natures without Monophystitism and a more worked out metaphysics of the incarnation. I have said that a trademark of a substance is its function and that functions are directed to ends or goals. As I just suggested, the two natures contribute to a function unique to the whole. Christ can be characterized as a functional unity, different from the Logos asarkos, and uniquely constituted in the hypostatic union. The worry about artificial and natural substances crops up here again. The standard answer is that the whole is prior to the parts in a natural substance due to the presence of a substantial form which invests functionality of the specific nature to each of the parts. In other words, a natural substance – which is not a work of art or chance – must not be an aggregate of already existing substances. This “top-down” requirement might be relativized given the revised 67 Zanchi ascribed actions to both natures and persons. Supposedly the most straightforward way to do this is by way of part-whole predications so that the actions attributed to the parts belong also to the whole. In this scenario, the human nature can function as an explanation of why the Logos acts in a human way but is not itself the (exclusive) causal origin of the actions of the Logos. Zanchi works this out by taking the cue from the Damasceneian fourfold distinction (DFO, III, 15) between four different ways of viewing the actions of Christ the Mediator : “[i] The Operator or the agent, [ii] the principle of action according to which and through which the acts are performed, [iii] [kinds of] actions that are carried out and [iv] the work or apotelesmata that is performed” (“operantem seu agentem, principium actionum, secundum quae & per quem operans operatur : inter actiones, quibus operatur : & inter opera seu apotelesmata, quae operator.” (DI, 146/404)

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account. Here we must distinguish between (i) contributions to the function of the whole and (ii) contributions of the whole to the parts. In Aquinas, the parts receive their function since they are parts of the whole. And this was explained by the priority of a substantial form. In the revised account, both (i) and (ii) are true. But there must be different sorts of contributions here. Exactly how these are to be conceptualised is not my task here. Suffice to say that in the revised account, the whole is working on the parts but it can only be so because there is also bottom-up causality as well, that the parts are in-themselves-active. In the incarnation the human nature contribute all the human properties and activities to the whole of Christ and the divne nature of the Logos the divine properties and activies. The resulting functional unity is unique, similar to an artificial substance. Taking a page out of Damascene, this is similar to what reformed scholastics such as Zanchi often talked of as the apotelesamtic actions of Christ the Mediator, that is, actions for the end of salvation. All unique salvific acts are, the joint actions of both natures. Hill and Marmodoro have similar ideas: The Christian tradition has always held that the purpose of the incarnation was salvation. John 3.17 states that God sent His Son into the world in order to save the world, and Christians have endorsed that this is the function of the incarnate Christ [….] Neither a mere human being nor a mere divine person could bring about salvation. So in the case of Christ too, the constituents or part of the whole cannot perform the same function as the whole.68

Christ is here concienved ofas a functional unity with salvation as end. Zanchi explicitly predicates unique properties and activities to the person of Christ, like being redeemer and Immanuel, titles of the office, the office of the person of the Mediator. No such property belongs to one of the natures alone, but to the whole they compose.69 Finally, there seems to be less of a problem with divine simplicity on this account. The notion that the Logos qua God is simple, non-compositional, can remain unaltered. God the Son can compose one substance with a human nature 68 Marmodoro and Hill, “Models of the Incarnation”, 485. 69 See for instance: “I. Apostolus scribit Christum a mortuis excitatum eoque vere mortuum fuisse, albi vero Dominum gloriae fuisse crucifixum, sed et saepe legimus Filium hojminis fuisse morti traditumdf. In iis autem omnibus enuntiationibus de eadem persona, Filio nimirum Dei incarnato, semper est sermo. Persona ergo Christi, quae in his propositionibus subiicitur tribus nominum generibus significari solet, nimirum, quae aut divinam tantum naturam modo ratione essentiae, modo ratione hypostaseos notant, ut Dominus gloriae, unigenitus Dei Filius, aut humanam duntaxat eodem modo, ut homo, filius Mariae, aut utranque simul, ut Christus, Immanuel, Deus incarnatus. II. Addimus vero nominibus etiam, quae ab officiis mediatoris denominantur, personam ipsam Christi significari. Veluti sunt haec: mediator, redemtor, servator, pontifex, advocatus et his similia. Sed haec ad tertium genus referri possunt, quia iis utraque natura in una persona indicatur.” (DR, 734–6).

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if that nature is regarded as a subsidiary form. The function that the divine nature has in the union is not simply as a substantial form of some passive matter but as the unifying whole of some active matter – the assumed human nature. For, as Hill puts it, the property of maximal unity of the divine nature is a “borrowed property” to the whole. This does not (in this case) result in a more perfect whole composite. On the other hand, being part of Christ, it is natural to say that the human nature was made more perfect due to the maximal perfection of the divine nature. In other words, this account satisfies (D1a-b). In sum: we have seen how it is possible to affirm compositionalism, true to Zanchi’s practice of part-whole discourse, with greater metaphysical precision in light of ideas drawn from a revised framework. Admittedly, this is perhaps not an account that Zanchi would have accepted but, as I have argued, one that is consistent and fits better with his use of compositional similes. Ultimately, however, the importance of these revisions (as those revisions I argued for concerning the virgin birth) is to make the “being like us in every respect except sin” more plausible without robbing the incarnation of its mystery.

Part III: Consequences of the Union

Chapter Five: Zanchi on the Tria Genera and the Non Capax The question of Christology cannot be settled in isolation. It interacts so closely with the more general question of our knowledge of God and of his relation to the world that any future progress on the Christological issue must proceed pari passu with progress on our unfinished discussion of the more general issue of the knowledge of God and of his relation to the world. – Maurice Wiles1

5.1

Introduction

As we now enter the chapters of the third part we also enter one of the most controversial periods of the history of Christology. I shall spend some time trying to exegete and explicate some important nuances. I shall also try to be constructive, singling out what is interesting for contemporary Christology. However, that reward comes after some spadework. As in the previous two chapters my approach will be primarily analytic, but here I shall engage the historic material to a larger extent than previously. I shall propose an interpretation of Zanchi’s primary opponent, Martin Chemnitz’ Christology. His defining work for Lutheran Scholastic Christology, De Duabus Naturis Christi2 provides us with ample evidence of the learning and sophistication of Zanchi’s opponent. Less sophisticated but no less rich, is the Formula of Concord, which is also a target for Zanchi. I shall occasionally take the Formula into account although the primary focus will be on Chemnitz’ De Duabus. Zanchi and Chemnitz wrote during the period of confessionalization. We find in them instructive and erudite statements of the position that reflected large parts of the protestant churches’ positions then and would continue to do for some time.3 I shall argue that Zanchi’s argument against and analysis of Chemnitz’ position are lacking in persuasiveness, since he did not fully grasp the meaning of it. Furthermore, I shall provide some reconstructive suggestions as to how a zanchian position could be improved. There are at least three motivations for studying this issue today. First, because it is a part of the history of theology that is so rich and varied, scholars still have much work left to do. Second, because the issues debated by the Lutherans and the reformed have had and still have a considerable influence on debates in 1 The Remaking of Christian Doctrine (London: SCM Press, 1975), 59–60. 2 See the translator’s Introduction in TNC, 11. 3 See the ch. 2, for the stages and important figures and sources in the debate.

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theology, a deeper understanding of the historic position is helpful. My task is not to smoothen out historical differences but to clarify what the problems, arguments and misunderstandings were and then see if we might learn from, and even approach a solution toward, some of them. Finally, and in no way divorced from the two previous motivations, it is both theologically and philosophically rewarding to look at these matters. Though, in order to gain a deeper understanding of these issues a philosophical examination is necessary, however, since the texts from this period are many and rich, my examination is modest and narrow in scope. Zanchi, as a leading theologian of his time, serves as a good representative of the historic reformed position in dialogue with contemporary systematic and philosophical theology. Important to say, my assessment will not follow a fairly common line of argument, which would state that the Lutherans went wrong Christologically because they held (and some still hold) to a deficient concept of God as impassable, simple and unchangeable. Since I do not agree with this (revisionist) understanding of the divine essence, I hope that at least my examination will show that there is nothing demonstrably incoherent in holding to the traditional concept of God for the Lutherans. On the contrary, there is something coherent in holding it (although I am not sure it can be properly demonstrated). In this chapter I shall first discuss the classification of the communication of properties introduced by Chemnitz, which became normative for the Lutheran theologians and confession. In the second part I will take a closer look at two reformed principles and their impact on Christology. In the last section, I shall examine the use of the soul-body simile as a support for the real communication of divine properties and conclude that Chemnitz had invested too much in this simile and that, consequently, some of Zanchi’s arguments do not go far enough in order to fully expose the problems of Chemnitz’ position.

5.2

Understanding the Tria Genera

Zanchi and his Lutheran opponents thought that the communication of properties is a ‘consequence’ of the hypostatic union. Thereby they reflect a major tradition.4 However, it was the meaning and extent of the communication of 4 Here we might divide the issue, as did Aquinas, between (i) the semantics of the hypostatic union and (ii) the metaphysics and operations of the hypostatic union: ST, III, 16 and 17–19 respectively. I have decided to leave out the former in this study and will mainly be concerned with the latter as it was the central issue in the debate. However, there are some interesting passages on the predicative aspects of the communication of properties, that might have been unique to Zanchi and I hope to examine those in a more historically oriented study in the future.

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properties that was the central issue of the conflict. The threefold classification of the communication of properties (tria genera) by Chemnitz in his magisterial De Duabus provided a systematic and comprehensive presentation of the various Lutheran Christological expressions of the consequences of the hypostatic union and soon became normative for the ensuing discussions.5 First he talks about the ‘idiomatic genus’ (genus idiomaticum), which is the natures and the properties communicated or predicated of the person of the Son in the concrete.6 Second, the ‘apotelesmatic genus’ (genus apotelesmaticum) refers to the salvific actions or works performed by the God-man.7 The third genus, the majestic genus (genus majestaticum), refers to the communication of the divine majesty, that is, properties like glory and omniscience and omnipotence and, maybe most importantly, ubiquity predicated of the human nature of Christ.8 As is well known, the Christology of the Formula of Concord9 bears the mark of Chemnitz’ tria genera though it also contains certain tensions as it attempts to bring together various Lutheran strands in harmony. Roughly speaking, it enshrines two extremes often signified in terms of two geographical regions and portal figures.10 First, the Swabians and Johannes Brenz, who maintained a full or absolute communication of majesty, implying an unrestricted sense of ubiquity of the human nature of Christ already from conception. Second, the Lower Saxons and Martin Chemnitz maintained a qualified view of the communication of majesty consisting of two central affirmations: (i) a restricted view of which properties were said to be communicated to the human nature and (ii) an explicit appeal to the divine will and power for the communication of majesty to the human nature, the so-called “multivolipresence” (multivolipraesentia).11 Due to

5 I shall not take a stance on the issue of whether Chemnitz was the true heir of Luther or Melanchthon – in competition with Brenz and Andreae. Suffice here to point out that the typology tries to preserve insights from Luther as well as Melanchthon. See, Bengt Hägglund, ‘‘’Majestas Hominis Christi’, Wie Hat Martin Chemnitz die Christologie Luthers Gedeutet?”, Luther Jahrbuch 47 (1980), 71–88, esp. 73. 6 TNC, ch. 13–6. 7 TNC, ch. 17–8. 8 TNC, ch. 19–26. Later Lutheran Scholastics reversed the order among the genera motivated, in part, by methodological and ontological considerations. See Schmid, Lutheran Theology, 283–302. Moreover, some theologians also added the genus tapeinoticum or kenoticum. However, this idea did not become a live issue until the Gießen-Tübingen debate in the following century. 9 The Formula of Concord is divided into the shorter Epitome, which is the general outline of the main articles whereas the Solida Declaratione, Ch. VIII, contains the Christological material along with a string of quotes from the church fathers, the Catalogus Testimonium. 10 For the historical background to FC, see Charles P. Arand, Robert Kolb and Jes A. Nestingen, Lutheran Confessions (Augsburg Fortress: Fortress Press, 2012), 227–82; Haga, Lutheran Metaphysics, 171–177. 11 Haga (Lutheran Metaphysics, 162) suggests that the “concept” of multivolipresence “origi-

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these restrictions, Chemnitz sometimes argued for a development of the manifestation of majesty over time in the human nature of Christ. I shall make three initial remarks, highlighting some interpretative difficulties. First, Zanchi wrote primarily against Chemnitz’ De Duabus and the Formula, though he often treats them as holding the same basic position. Since the Formula contains previously mentioned tensions, his arguments sometimes seem to attribute to Chemnitz what does not belong to him. Brenz is only mentioned by name once in the De Incarnatione, but it is clear that his position is often assumed indirectly via the Formula. A most curious detail in Zanchi’s discussion is that the chemnitzian voluntarist qualification of the communication of majesty hardly is of any interest to him although it was one of the chief ideas of Chemnitz’ Christology. An appeal to divine will and power is evident in the Swabian strand as well, though it functions in a different way. Primarily this is seen in the question of the mode of omnipresence of the human nature of Christ and therefore I defer this discussion on ubiquity to Chapter 6. Second, according to a common story, it is the third genus that is the controversial one.12 However, this is a simplification of the more complex disagreements between Lutherans and reformed (and to some extent the Roman Catholics). Ever since the early stages of the conflict between Luther and Zwingli there was a lingering suspicion among the Lutherans that the reformed position was Nestorianism. They assumed that unless there some sort of real communication of properties to the human nature of Christ there is no real hypostatic union.13 Likewise, in Chemnitz terminology, the genus majestaticum is a necessary condition for the genus idiomaticum. The same criticism extends to the reality of the apotelesmatic genus. Chemnitz thought, as did most Lutheran theologians before and after him, that the apotelesmatic and majestic genera have a special conceptual relation. Without a communication between the natures, the sufferings of Christ’s human nature would lose their infinite value.14 In

nally came from Theodore Beza”. This slightly overstates the case, since the concept was clearly there in Chemnitz and arguably in previous writers as well. 12 So for instance, Raitt, Colloquy, 110–133; Willis, Catholic Christology, 10–11; Dorner, History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, Division Second, vol. 2. Translated by D.W. Simon (Edingburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1866), 199–205. 13 Franz Pieper’s criticism, for one, does not merely strike against the genus majestaticum but against all the three genera. The idiomatic genus, according to Pieper, becomes “a nominal or imaginary communion of the Son of God with the suffering of His human nature.” (Christian Dogmatics. 4 vols. [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1950–1953], II, 272–3) 14 See e. g. Schmid, Lutheran Theology, 312–3. According to Pieper, the reformed principle finitum non capax infiniti makes the apotelesmatic genus emptied of meaning since it “excludes the human nature from all official acts, the performance of which requires omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.” (Christian Dogmatics, II, 273) For the infinite value of Christ’s merit cannot be a reality, unless performed by an organ participating in the

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other words, a necessary condition for Chemnitz’ first two genera is the acceptance of the third. So it is a simplification to say that the reformed accepted the first two but not the third of the genera, since Chemnitz’ classification interconnects all three. Third, Chemnitz’ restricted view of which properties are communicated to the human generates a tension. As we will see, sometimes he sounds like the Swabians claiming that the whole divine majesty was communicated to the human nature,15 even though he merely gives attention to some divine attributes, notably omniscience, omnipotence, ubiquity, vivification and adoration.16 However, Chemnitz also has a way of arguing that there is a sense in which the attributes of eternity, simplicity, infinity and such like were communicated but only indirectly via attributes expressing the activities or energies of God. The power and knowledge of God is eternal, simple, infinite.17 He then makes a concession, it seems, saying that eternity and infinity do not show themselves or stand out by themselves as peculiar activities (energeiai) in the assumed nature. But the other attributes of God the Logos…manifest their activities (energeiai) in and through it…However, the eternity and boundlessness cohere with an indivisible connection. For the divine power of the Logos which manifests its activities through the assumed nature is an eternal and boundless power.18

In what sense can any divine attribute can be communicated indirectly at all and especially such attributes as simplicity and eternity? Chemnitz’ solution to this problem is rather interesting but ultimately unsatisfying. It seems that this problem was the fundamental issue in the whole debate, occasioning the debate in the following century between Tübingen and Gießen on the notions kenosis

15

16 17

18

infinite power of God. This should, arguably, be understood as an echo of Luther’s “wonderful exchange.” Some have argued that Chemnitz changed his position after writing the De Duabus and allowed a less restricted view of the communication of majesty. Others think that as one out of several confessors to the FC, he peacefully conceded formulations that strictly speaking would contradict aspects of the position set out in the De Duabus. For an overview, see Jack Kilckrease, “Thomas Aquinas and Martin Chemnitz on the Hypostatic Union”, Lutheran Quarterly 37/1 (2013), 1–32, esp. footnote 32. See Cross, “Perichoresis”, 123–4. “[The Logos] has certainly left nothing uncommunicated; for He communicated Himself personally, as the total and entire fullness of the Godhead to the assumed nature. Furthermore, such characteristics or attributes as eternity and immeasurability are joined to the other divine attributes by indissoluble connection. For the divine power which carries on its work through the assumed nature is an eternal, immeasurable, infinite, and divine power.” (TNC, 308) It is important to note that for the Logos to communicate himself ‘personally’ here as elsewhere is equivalent to totum Christi, as in the entire Christ, everything that is in Christ. This way of putting it is an indication that Chemnitz rejected the totus-totum distinction and, implicitly, also the extra. TNC, 308. Emphasis mine.

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and krypsis. We will have reason to come back to this tension in Chemnitz in chapter 6 on ubiquity. These critical and interpretative notes aside, Chemnitz’ majestic genus is the most controversial of the three genera. In part, it functioned as an attempt to moderate the controversial use of abstract and concrete predication as discussed by the first generation of Lutheran theologians. Some Lutherans allowed abstract predication, while others disagreed. 17th century Lutherans seem to have smoothed over these differences and claimed that for their forefathers this was mainly a terminological issue and that the Lutheran disputants were in substantial agreement with each other.19 Since abstract communication easily could give the impression that essential divine attributes are communicated to the human essence – and, therefore, lead to E-utychianism and M-onophysitism – they recommend abstinence from such locutions unless understood in a qualified sense.20 Chemnitz explicitly suggests a solution based on the fact that the human nature of Christ can never be considered in isolation from the hypostatic union. In effect, when we talk of abstract communication, it is not an abstracted human nature in general but the glorified human nature as found in Christ. This nature, it is argued, is found to be like ours in its essential attributes but due to the hypostatic union it has also been enriched with properties of uncreated divine majesty.21 The Formula exhibits the same basic view on abstract predication.22 Zanchi praises Chemnitz and the confessors of the Formula for what he thinks is a largely correct presentation of communication of properties, their emphasis on concrete predication and how when abstract predication is used, it must be understood in a qualified sense.23 However, Zanchi raises a suspicion:

19 Here they seem to have followed Chemnitz’ irenic lead, TNC, ch. 12. See also Pelikan, History of Dogma, Vol. 4, 356. 20 See Kilckrease, Self-Donation, 177–82. 21 For example, TNC, 31–3. See Kilckrease, God’s Self-Donation, 179–80 and “Aquinas and Chemnitz”, 18–20. 22 The writers of the FC, testify in the Preface that “in order to remove all subtle suspicions and causes of offense which might arise from the different significations of the word abstract, (as both the schools and the fathers have hitherto employed this term,) our theologians in distinct and express words wish to testify that this majesty is in no way to be ascribed to the human nature of Christ outside of the personal union, neither are we to grant that the human nature possesses this majesty as its own or by itself (even in the personal union) essentially, formally, habitually, subjectively. (The schools like these terms, although they are not good Latin.) For if we would adopt this method both of speaking and teaching, the divine and human natures with their properties would be confounded, and the human, with respect to its essence and properties, would be made equal to the divine, yea, indeed, would be altogether denied.” 23 DI 128/347.

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This is all well but not fully to the point (but they do not explain the issue fully). For they show through their examples, as though we just talk incorrectly, when we predicate an abstract about an abstract, as if humanity were divinity – but it should be added that [the same also holds] when the concrete is predicated about the abstract, as “God” about “humanity.” It is incorrect to say “humanity is God”: Therefore they seem to have been silent, since they want the divine properties in the concrete to be predicated of the human nature in the abstract. For example [when they say that] “the flesh of Christ or Christ’s human nature is (not ubiquitous presence or omnipotence but) ubiquitously present or omnipotent.” They apply the same mode shrewdly when they talk of properties: “It is the same reason about the essential attributes, so that the attributes of the one nature cannot be predicated of the other nature in the abstract, as if they were also attributes of the other nature.” Therefore the following expressions [would be] false and erroneous if one were to say : “The human nature is omnipotence [sic.] …”24 Do you hear? As if it indeed was not wrong if you said the human nature is omnipotent.25

Zanchi’s reasoning in this passage is hard to follow but I suggest that his analysis of the account put forward in the Formula and in Chemnitz is analogous to the following. “The human body is rational” is a false proposition since human bodies are not the part of the human being that makes them rational. Likewise, it is false to say : “Human nature is omnipotent”, since the human nature is not the part that makes the God-man omnipotent. Nevertheless, the incarnation legitimises such expressions without qualification according to Chemnitz and the confessors of the Formula. Their rationale is, I suggest, inspired by Luther’s idea of a ‘new language’ (nova lingua) according to which words take on a new meaning in the incarnation. Therefore we have to be alert to the way they differ from their normal, non-incarnational use – notably their use in philosophy.26 It is worth quoting Luther here: 20. Nonetheless it is certain that with regard to Christ [in Christo] all words receive a new signification, though the thing signified is the same [in eadem re significata]. 24 Quote from FC, Catalougue of Testimonies, 16. 25 “Hæc ibi bene quidem: sed non plenH rem explicant. Sic enim explicant suis ex8mplis, quasi tunc tantum perperam loquamur, cFm abstractum de abstracto prædicamus, ut humanitas est Deitas: Sed addendum est: cum etiam concretum de abstracto prædicatur, ut, de humanitate Deus. Perperam enim dicitur: humanitas est Deus: sed hoc ideo videntur tacuisse, quia volunt proprietates divinas in concreto prædicari de natura humana in abstracto: Ut, caro Christi seu humana Christi natura est (njn quidem ubique; præsentia, aut omnipot8ntia, sed) ubique præsens vel omnipotens. Subdunt igitur eodem modo, de proprietatibus dicentes: Eadem est ratio essentialium idiomatum, ita, ut vunius naturæ idomata de altera natura in abstracto, quasi alterius naturæ idiomata sint (nota hanc alter# imposituram) prædicari neque#t. Quamobrem falsæ & erronæ locutiones fuerint, si quis dixerit: Humana natura est omnipotentia. Audis? Quasi verk non sint erroneæ eti#m si dicas, humana natura est omnipotens.” (DI 128/348) 26 I should also add that my suggestion is explorative in nature. I am not aware that any Luther scholar has made the connection as explicit as I am doing here.

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21. For “creature” in the old usage of language [veteris linguae usu] and in other subjects signifies a thing separated from divinity by infinite degrees [infinitis modis]. 22. In the new use of language it signifies a thing inseparably joined with divinity in the same person in an ineffable way [ineffabilibus modis]. 23. Thus it must be that the words man, humanity, suffered, etc., and everything that is said of Christ, are new words.27

According to Graham White “The major difference between the new and the old languages is that the new language licences certain inferences which the old does not, and vice versa.”28 Luther’s distinction is based on the hypostatic union: since the human nature is “inseparably joined to God” the meaning of, e. g., ‘creature’ is changed. In a similar way there are some cases of abstract predication, which Chemnitz allowed but merely according to “the plan of the union.” Outside of the union it would be false to claim, “This man is omnipotent”. This is strikingly similar to Luther’s suggestion that not only the concrete term ‘man’ but also the abstract ‘humanity’ receives a new meaning in the Christological context, opening the possibility for inferences that would otherwise not be licenced.29 Zanchi objects by saying that such locutions are not made true in the incarnation since they would entail a real communication of properties between the natures. He is well aware that the mode of signification of terms is very different in the Christological context.30 But change of meaning is quite another thing. As Aristotle’s classic example has it, we may extend the predicative term ‘healthy’ analogically to such diverse subjects medicine, the body and urine without a change of meaning of ‘health’.31 This helps explain why Zanchi labels the Lutheran use of abstract terms – intended to licencing real communication of properties – as ‘fictitious’ in contrast to ‘true’ cases of Christological predication.32 However, Zanchi recognises 27 “Disputation On the Divinity and Humanity of Christ February 27, 1540”, translated by Christopher B. Brown. Available online: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/witten berg/luther/luther-divinity.txt (Accessed, 13 April 2016). 28 Luther as Nominalist, 333. See also pages 344–7 where he is careful to note that the new and the old languages concern the meaning of terms and not the rules of inferences. For it is in order to block certain inferences in theology that Luther argues for the changed meaning of terms in the context of Christology. Hence he does not give up on logic in theology. On the contrary, White’s study is a brave attempt to show that Luther uses the nominalist techniques in both traditional and innovative ways. 29 See Haga, Lutheran Metaphysics, 73–89. 30 See, DI, 123/332 and 204/598 and ST, III, q. 16 art. 1–4. 31 Metaphysics, IV, 2 (1003a33–35). 32 See, DI, 204/598. Rudolphus Goclenius used Zanchi as model in reconstructing a schema for Christological predication. See Lexicon Philosophicum (Frankfurt a.M.: Martin Becker, 1598), 403, on “Communication”. For more on this, see my “Jerome Zanchi on Christological Predication” in Andreas Beck, Stefan Lindholm and Dolf Te Velde eds. Jerome Zanchi 1516–2016 (forthcoming).

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that in Scripture and tradition there are some occurrences of abstract terms in Christological propositions like “The blood saves” and “The flesh makes alive”.33 (‘Flesh’ here signifying the human nature.) He thinks that such propositions should be received as true but as cases of purely verbal predication or synchedoche.34 Nevertheless, if Luther to some extent tried to “redeem” some scholastic terminology in Christology, Chemnitz was less optimistic about such a project. The following is an example of the sort of claim he repeatedly makes: They speak falsely who assert that the force of the term koinonia, “communion” or “communication”, lies in the fact that whatever is said to be communicated [to the human nature of Christ] becomes in itself a proper, essential, formal, subjective, or inherent part of that to which it is said to be communicated [the human nature of Christ].35

Chemnitz says very plainly that “communication” does not entail that any divine property is made a part or a property of the human nature. Apparently he makes this distinction because the most straightforward and familiar scholastic way of understanding the communication of divine properties to the human nature would be to say that divine properties inhere in or are (made) essential to the human nature. For instance, a father and a son share in humanity and the son might be said to have humanity communicated to him essentially. But such an inference is not what Chemnitz has in mind when explaining the third genus. What he seems to be driving at here is simply this: in the incarnation, the regular modes of predication – derived from common school philosophy – are not sufficient to capture the kind of communication at stake in the third genus since they lead to false predications. Since Chemnitz is rather economic and careful in his usage of scholastic terminology, he often uses several overlapping ex33 The example “The flesh makes alive” was used authoritatively at Ephesus (431) and examples as “The blood saves from sins”, “God redeemed the church”, “The Mediator between God and man, man” are either directly or indirectly drawn from Scripture. All examples discussed by Zanchi seem to be based on the Catalouge of Testimonies in FC. 34 See, DR, 752. Here we might note a contrast: the Lutheran criticism that the reformed view merely allowed verbal predication has very little foundation in Zanchi. That is, if we accept Zanchi’s definition of verbal, we find that it is a rather small group of true yet verbal propositions. 35 TNC, 309. See also FC, Solida Declaratione, VIII, 62 “…this communication or impartation has not occurred through an essential or natural infusion of the properties of the divine nature into the human, so that the humanity of Christ would have these by itself and apart from the divine essence, or as though the human nature in Christ had thereby [by this communication] entirely laid aside its natural, essential properties and were now either transformed into divinity, or had, with such communicated properties, in and by itself become equal to the same, or that there should now be for both natures identical or, at any rate, equally natural, essential properties and operations.”

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pressions that are less strict and more vivid, sometimes metaphorical.36 All of these expressions point to the same reality : that there is some sense of real communication of properties, which cannot be expressed by ordinary (philosophical) terminology. A clear advantage of this approach is that it stays closer to biblical terminology. Maybe this observation, and what I have mentioned above about the new language, appears to be a “terminological” and “stylistic” matter, i. e. humanist vs. scholastic. Though, even if it is true, it signals a lack of stringent terminology common to school theology, one which Zanchi and the other reformed scholastics assumed for themselves as well as (rightly or wrongly) required of his opponents. Chemnitz’ ambition was, apparently, to make use of scholastic terminology in a correct way when needed.37 That might also explain some aspect of their disagreement. For instance, Chemnitz’ notion(s) of ‘abstract’ are liable to misunderstanding and hence make the debate more difficult. There is, namely, an ambiguity in Chemnitz’ use of ‘abstract’. In its standard scholastic use, the term ‘abstract’ can either signify the cognitive process of abstracting the form from the sensible matter in the known object or it can signify the grammatical and semantic properties and functions of terms like ‘humanity’ (in contrast to their concrete counterpart ‘human’). These senses are interrelated but not identical. (In philosophy they are two areas of study : epistemology and logic.) It seems that Chemnitz’ understanding of ‘abstract’ has more to do with the cognitive, epistemic side. He sometimes talks about “considering” the human nature as found in Christ and then he seems to not care about the fact that he uses concrete and not grammatically abstract terms, or formal predication, when discussing it. It is therefore hard to make good sense of why he uses the term ‘abstract’.38 36 The same trend is evident in FC. For instance, it is claimed that Christ at the exaltation to the right hand of the majesty and power of God received: “…special, high, great, supernatural, inscrutable, ineffable, heavenly prerogatives (prerogatives) and excellences in majesty, glory, power, and might above everything that can be named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come (Eph. 1:21).” (FC, Solida Declaratione, VIII, 50) For the place of metaphors in Lutheran Christology, see Paul R. Hinlicky, “Luther’s Anti-Docetism in the Disputatio de divinitate et humanitate Christi (1540)” in Bayer and Gleede eds., Creator est Creatura, 139– 85. 37 See e. g. TNC, 32 “We ought to retain these useful and correct suggestions of the Scholastics in dealing with the subject among the learned in the schools, for they serve to explain the differences in terminology which arise in the use of abstract and concrete terms, either when the natures in Christ are under special consideration or when the person itself subsisting in each nature is under discussion.” Yet at times he shows more reluctance as when he suggests that we “summon our teaching concerning the highest genus of communication (koinonia) away from the toying philosophy of the Scholastics and back to the confessions of the ancient Orthodox Church.” (TNC, 265). 38 See e. g. in TNC, 31–3. See also, Danaeus, Examen, 26–31 on this.

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Furthermore, as a scholastic Zanchi perceives the reluctant attitude to scholastic terminology as bypassing the issue at hand and therefore a strategy he thinks is ultimately leading to contradictions. In other words, for Zanchi it was not a matter of style. Basically : One and the same substance [i. e. the human nature of Christ] cannot simultaneously be created and uncreated, finite and infinite, circumscribed and not circumscribed.39

Consequently, the Lutherans let one hand tear down what the other had built up.40 He expands: [The Lutherans] teach that the essential properties of the divine nature are not in the human nature essentially, formally, habitually nor subjectively. In what sense, then, can you talk of a real ‘being in’? Since whatever is in another, this is in it either as a substance or an accident, and either substantially or accidentally predicated of it? To say, therefore, that it is really in [another] or negate any of these modes of ‘being in’ in which something is in another – what is that if not at the same time to affirm and deny the same [thing]?41

Zanchi’s objection here and elsewhere could be read as a sustained reductio argument: if one asserts the genus majestaticum, unacceptable and contradictory consequences follow given the normal modes of predication. But, as we have seen, there is reason to suspect that this type of objection is unpersuasive to Chemnitz since he agrees with Zanchi that those consequences are indeed unacceptable. For it is clear that Chemnitz’ primary reason is that ordinary modes of predication – summarized by Zanchi as substantial and accidental predication – are not sufficient to cover the meaning of the third genus. Chemnitz has other ways of explaining the third genus beyond the ordinary senses, and I shall, accordingly, call these the extraordinary senses. Primarily Chemnitz, as a student of the church fathers, turned the notion of perichoresis (‘interpenetration’) to explicate the third genus. Francis Watson claims that this concept “is at the heart of [Chemnitz’] Christological system.”42 In the hands of 39 DI, 215/625, “Eadem enim substantia non potest simul esse creata & increatea, finita & infinita, circumscripta & incircumscripta.” 40 DI, 196/564, “Quod una manu ædificas, statim altereæ destruere.” 41 “Item docent essentiales proprietates divinae naturae, in humana non esse, vel essentialiter, vel formaliter, vel habitualiter, vel subiective. Quomodo ergo possunt dicere eas realiter inesse? Cum quincquid in alio inest, illud ei insit vel tanquam substantia, vel tanquam accidens, eoque vel substantialiter vel accidentialiter de illo prædicetur? Dicere igitur inesse realiter, & negare inesse ullo euorum modorum, quibus aliquid in alio inest: quid aliud est, quam idem affirmare simul & negare?” (DI 169/480) Similarly in DI, 133–4/365–6; 196/564– 6 (a point-by-point refutation of TNC on the sessio) and 215/624–5. 42 Francis Watson, “Martin Chemnitz and the Eastern Church: A Christology of the Catholic Consensus of the Fathers”, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 38 (1994), 78. Likewise, Richard Cross claims that Chemnitz “relies heavily on John Damascene’s teaching for the socalled genus maiestaticum” in his “Perichoresis”, 123. See also Pannenberg, Jesus, 302.

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Chemnitz it provided a way to move beyond the ordinary senses I just examined. I shall deal more closely with this notion in the last section of this chapter, when I shall seek to show that Chemnitz’ use of the soul-body simile has some peculiar features that partly depend on perichoresis. The next section, however, will be a sort of interlude, where I shall introduce and examine Zanchi’s understanding of two controversial principles explicitly at work in the debate. I return to the extraordinary sense of perichoresis in the last section when I analyse the use of the soul-body simile again, then in the context of the communication of properties.

5.3

Two Reformed Principles Revisited

In order to get a better understanding of the philosophical presuppositions and implications in the debate between Zanchi and his opponents I shall now examine two (in-)famous principles, closely associated with reformed theology : Logos erat etiam extra carnem (‘The Logos was also outside the flesh’) more known as extra calvinisticum. Finitum non capax infiniti (‘the finite is not capable the infinite’).

Although these principles should not be elevated to the regulative status of “ground motifs” or “central-dogmas” from which all aspects of reformed theology can be explained, they might be understood as auxiliary principles or presuppositions, which explain why certain areas of reformed theology in general and Christology in particular have this or that characteristic.43 However, since they were disputed principles and their assistance in Christology depends on their acceptability and coherence, a more thorough examination of them here is motivated. I shall in the following two subsections discuss the general character of the extra and the non capax (as I shall call them) in reformed theology and Christology and then move on to the particular articulation of the non capax in Zanchi. In the final subsection I shall compare Calvin with Zanchi on the non capax. Although Calvin himself never used the non capax terminology, he presupposed it but without the metaphysical underpinning that we will find in Zanchi.

43 For the basic meanings of the terms see the entries “extra calvinisticum” and “finitum non capax infinitum” in Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms. Principally Drawn from Protestant Scholasticism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1985).

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5.3.1 The Extra Calvinisticum and the Non Capax The extra has a central place in western Christological tradition.44 The idea is that, although Christ’s divinity is united hypostatically to a human nature and fully present in it, the divine nature is also (etiam) fully present outside (extra) of the flesh (carnem) everywhere in creation. This became a central principle from the earliest days of reformed Christology. Calvin’s use of the extra sets an example of a type of argument against the Lutherans, which was repeated and developed as an integral part of the reformed Christological tradition.45 Famously, the concept was used in the Catechism (1563). Against the (perceived) Eutychianism and Apollinarianism of (certain) Lutherans, the Catechism reads: [Question 48] If his humanity is not present wherever his divinity is, then aren’t the two natures of Christ separated from each other? [Answer] Certainly not. Since divinity is not limited and is present everywhere, it is evident that Christ’s divinity is surely beyond the bounds of the humanity that has been taken on, but at the same time his divinity is in and remains personally united to his humanity.46

At the meeting of Maulbronn (1564) the pejorative term extra calvinisticum was coined by the Lutherans due to “the increasingly explicit teaching by reformed theologians of the importance of the extra affirmation.”47 Lutherans thought that the whole majesty was communicated (often with reference to Col 2:9, speaking of the fullness of deity dwelling in Christ). Failure to see this had a ring of Nestorianism to them. However, to Zanchi it seemed that if the whole majesty is communicated, then God has restricted his being to the humanity of Christ: The Logos has totally united himself to the flesh, yet he is not made less nor included in the flesh so that he [the Logos] is not also outside [the flesh], just as the heat of the fire is in the iron and also outside of it so that it and neither suffers nor changes.48

44 For an historical overview, see Willis, Catholic Christology, 25–60; Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation, 253–5; Helm, Calvin’s Ideas, 58–92. Of special importance is Augustine’s Epistles 187 to Dardanus and 137 to Volusian. 45 See Calvin, Institutes, II, 13, 4. 46 Available at: http://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/heidelberg-catechism (Accessed, 13 April 2016). Emphases mine. 47 Willis, Catholic Christology, 11. The Colloquy at Montbeilard in 1586 was crucial as it was a last attempt to mediate between the Lutheran and the reformed. See Jill Raitt, Colloquy, 110– 132 and Willis, Catholic Christology, 16–17. 48 “Logos se totum unierit carni, non tamen factum esse minorem: nec inclusum esse in carne, ut non sit etiam extra: sicut et ignis fornacis ita est in ferro, ut tamen sit etiam extra ferrum: nec ullam denique passum esse mutationem” DI, 217/631.

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Together with the extra, the early reformed theologians used the distinction between totus Christi and totum Christi.49 In the context of ubiquity, Zanchi writes: The whole [totus] of Christ is everywhere, but not totally [totum]. ‘The whole’ is due to the person and the ‘not totally’ is due to the human nature. Rather, the whole but not all of Christ is limited to a certain place. Thus it is always important to carefully discern person from the natures.50

Here the extra is presupposed but expressed by means of the totus-totum distinction. Zanchi takes this distinction to be so basic that failure to observe it is a failure to properly distinguish the person of Christ from the natures. He thinks that the Lutherans were guilty of this failure.51 The distinction can be read as an expression of the first two adverbial expressions of Chalcedon – the two natures are united hypostatically without change and without confusion (contra Eutychianism and Monophysitism). The divine nature remains what it was before the incarnation just as the human nature remains human. Since the divine nature is such that it cannot be enclosed or restricted in any way by any created being or nature, it must also exist outside the assumed human nature.52 A strong reason for accepting the extra is then the interrelated principle, finitum non capax infiniti.53 It expresses the distinction between God and cre49 It was, again, Calvin who introduced it in the reformed polemics against the Lutherans. See e. g. Institutes, IV, 17, 30 (“There is a trite distinction in the schools which I hesitate not to quote. Although the whole (totus) Christ is everywhere, yet everything (totum) which is in him is not everywhere. I wish the Schoolmen had duly weighed the force of this sentence, as it would have obviated their absurd fiction of the corporeal presence of Christ. Therefore, while our whole Mediator is everywhere, he is always present with his people, and in the Supper exhibits his presence in a special manner ; yet so, that while he is wholly present, not everything which is in him is present, because, as has been said, in his flesh he will remain in heaven till he come to judgement.”) He borrowed this distinction from Lombard who had used it to explain the manner in which Christ was in hades between death and resurrection, the triduum. Sent, lib 3, d. 22. (“Christus ubiquitus totus est sed non totum: ubiquitus totus est homos verve non totum.”) Zanchi says that the distinction is derived form the fathers (see, Augustine Epistle 187 to Dardanum) through Damascene (DFO, III, 7) and DI 630/216 and DI 88/224. Cf. Chemnitz, TNC, 459–60 who cites Durandus against Lombard’s position. These terms seem to be doing the same job as the so-called qua-locutions, which the medieval scholastic frequently used to distinguish between different ways of signifying Christ as human and as man. See my “Christological Predication” for an argument to this effect. 50 “Totus quidem Christus est ubique, sed non totum: Totus, propter personam: Non totum, propter humanam naturam: sictut contra: Totus Christus est certo loco circumscriptus, sed non totum. Ergo diligenter semper discernenda est persona / naturis: quia sicut hæc ignorantia, caussa fuit faedissimorum lapsuum, & Nestorio & Euthycheti: sicut etiam nunc Ubiquitarijs horrendi monstri caussa est.” (DI 85/216.) 51 DI, 78/194. 52 Further assessment of these claims will be made in ch. 6 on ubiquity. 53 It is well known that this reasoning from the non capax to the extra, is a controversial step. This is why I say it is merely one “strong” reason and not the “only” reason to accept the extra

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ation in terms of capacity. Recall that the extra expresses the idea that God is wholly present everywhere in creation, yet remains wholly outside or independent of any part or the whole of the created world. The reason is that no finite created being is capable of containing the infinite uncreated being. Here we might make a distinction between the epistemic and the ontic sense of the non capax.54 The former signifies our finite intellective incapacity to comprehend God. That is, a finite intellect is unable to know the infinite qua infinite because knowledge, according to Aristotelian epistemology, comes from grasping or approaching the definition of a thing.55 God cannot be defined. Hence, human knowledge of God will be imperfect. Moreover, human knowledge of created things is always composite. Such a mode of knowledge is adequate to the composite nature of created things (mutatis mutandis for immaterial created things like angels and souls). However, our knowledge of God will also be imperfect due to the incommensurability of the composite human intellect and the simple divine essence.56 This does not make knowledge of God impossible since all theological knowledge is somehow mediated through God’s accommodation to our capacities in all his actions.57 Consequently, the non capax functions as an apophatic qualifier in theology, reminding us that we are mere creatures before the Creator. As has already been indicated, the ontic sense of the non capax is closely related to the epistemic sense – the intellectual capacities of a human are grounded in the kind of being she is. Therefore, the ontic sense has priority over the epistemic: human intellectual incapacity to comprehend God follows from the human natural constitution qua finite being. In the next subsection I shall expand on this view, but before we move on, there is an objection to which I should like to respond. F.G. Immink thinks Zanchi’s Aristotelian presupposition of human knowledge as composite – which he curiously labels “Aristotelian empiricism” – should be rejected. For the human composite and discursive way of knowing in general, Immink claims, “also determines our knowledge of God.” That makes our knowledge of God imperfect (since it is inadequate to the object of knowledge). Faith, nevertheless,

54 55 56

57

via the non capax. Calvin, as is also well known, did not use the terminology of the non capax. However, as I makes plain in the next section, he held the concept of the non capax to be true albeit on different but not incompatible grounds than Zanchi. For Zanchi, see e. g. DND [lib. II, ch. 6, q., thesis 1.] in OT, II, 90–4. See also, Rehnman, “Doctrine of God.” E. g. Turretin, Institutes. I, top. III, q. 5, 187–8 and idem. q. 8, 196. “Imperfect” here is not a derogatory term for the minds of human beings but simply that compared to ideal or divine knowledge, which, human knowledge will always be imperfect. However, since God chose to create finite images, there is nothing wrong or bad with the existence of beings that imitate the highest and primary cause in imperfect way according to Christian theologians. See Arnold Huijgen, Divine Accomodation in John Calvin’s Theology : Analysis and Assessment (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011).

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is certain and immediate knowledge of God. But despite this, Zanchi claims that our knowledge of God as simple emerges from the discursive and abstractive forms of knowledge, which seems to contradict the possibility of certain knowledge of God. Immink adds: “the idea of simplicity is also burdened by a false empiricism.”58 However, neither in natural nor in revealed theology does this seem a sufficient reason to abandon Aristotelian epistemology or metaphysics. Immink’s claim is only a rudimentary statement of the implications of Aristotelian epistemology, as rooted in the structure of human nature, cognition and the created order. He thinks that since created reality is composite and our knowledge of it is too, then knowledge of God is impossible through created reality. It seems that he presupposes that knowledge of God must also be composite. We are then presented with the choice that either reality is not composite or God is. Ultimately, he seems to confuse an imperfect mode of knowledge with a source for knowledge that brings certainty. Interrelated as they are, they are not the same thing. I can be sure of what a house looks like by looking at a reliable drawing. That is, I can gain certainty from the imperfect mode of knowledge in two dimensions. In the same way, although our modes of knowledge are adequate for created reality, they are not for the reality of God, unless qualified in this way. In what follows I shall mainly discuss the non capax because, as I have argued, it is a reason for the extra. That is, Zanchi’s claim that the divine essence is not contained in any created category (be it substantial or accidental, or the sum of all existing and mere possible substances with their accidents) is motivated by the distinction between finite and infinite being. And as I have already alluded to, the doctrine of divine simplicity can function as an explanation of it. I take it that so much is at least implicit in the claims just made about the epistemic and the ontic senses of the non capax. Even if it is not the only way to approach the non capax (for we shall in the next section briefly see that Calvin at least had another way to express it), I shall argue that it is a defensible way and one that can be extrapolated not just from Zanchi but virtually from all reformed scholastics. Hence we will now wade deeper into the doctrine of God and the attendant metaphysics.

58 Frederik Immink, Divine Simplicity (Kampen: Kok, 1987), 154–5. What is more, the same kind of criticism should have been directed against Aquinas (in the chapter prior to the one on Zanchi), but strangely enough Immink does not do so.

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5.3.2 Simplicity-Composition as Explanation of the Non Capax The reformed and the Lutheran scholastics had a fairly similar structure of the doctrine of the divine attributes. One of the basic distinctions was that between communicable and incommunicable attributes.59 Divine simplicity is a foundational incommunicable property. That is, it cannot be shared with created beings. Communicable attributes, such as goodness, power and knowledge, are sharable since these are perfections, which are found in created things as well. However, communicable attributes are not communicable as human nature is communicated to all members of the human species.60 Zanchi explains this by the distinction between equivocal and univocal causes. Parents are the univocal efficient cause of their offspring since they share in ‘humanity’ whereas artists are the equivocal efficient cause of their artwork, which is of a different kind and order from the artist. (IVF, cloning and alchemy would maybe be borderline cases.) God’s relation to creation is modelled on the latter example. However, Zanchi assumes, and not without reason, a similarity between cause and effect in equivocal causes.61 This similarity is not based on generic identity but is a more fluid concept (but, pace Immink in the former subsection, absolutely essential for knowledge of God both in nature and in revelation since God makes himself known through the effects and not in himself). As Zanchi says, there is similarity and dissimilarity between God and creation. An artwork somehow resembles the artisan in the kind of being the artisan is. No other animal or inanimate being could create an artwork and hence, by examining the artwork, we might get to know the artisan in some dim way. In a similar way, creation resembles the essence of God. Some works show forth God’s nature better than others, but all in some measure.62 The idea here is that all perfection is unified in God but multiplied and diversified in creation. All of creation in some way imitates the divine essence as effects of it, through God’s causing them to exist.63 It is against this background, then, that the distinction between communi59 See Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 57–104 and Richard Muller, PRRD, II, 216–226 for this distinction the reformed doctrine of God and for the equivalent in Lutheran doctrine of God, see Preus, The Theology of Post-Reformation Lutheranism, Volume II. God and His Creation (St. Louis: Concordia, 1972), 52–111. See also Harm Goris, “Doctrine of God” and my “Zanchi’s use of Thomas Aquinas” in Manfred Svensson and David VanDrunen eds., Aquinas among the Protestants (Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming 2017). 60 DND [I, ch. 8, q. 3] in OT, II, 14–5 61 DND, [I, ch. 10, q. 8] in OT, II, 23–4. 62 I will not deal with the problem of evil, ugly or false things and their relation to God here. 63 DND in OT; II, 16–7. Cf. ST, I, q. 4 art. 2 and 3. John Wippel writes (about Aquinas) that “in every finite substantial entity there is a participated likeness or similitude of the divine esse, that is, an intrinsic act of being (esse) which is efficiently caused in it by God.” (Metaphysical Thought, 121.) The same applies to Zanchi.

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cable and incommunicable attributes should be understood. But it is clear that even when it comes to communicable attributes the dissimilarities are vast. More precisely, the reason for this radical difference (between human and divine communicable perfections like knowledge and goodness) lies in the incommunicable attributes. Take, for instance, God’s knowledge. It is not like ours. It is simple and infinite and eternal, when our knowledge is always composite, finite and temporal. This boils down to saying that the difference between God and all created things is not merely that they are of two different kinds or orders of being but that creation is always found as some kind of being whereas God is never found in any kind of being. For divine simplicity is the negation of all physical and metaphysical composition; the divine modes of will and agency of God are, accordingly, radically different from the modes of created being. Consequently, one might say that in Zanchi’s doctrine of divine simplicity we have implicitly the doctrine of creation. Immink has conveniently summarized this: “Simplicity is the distinguishing mark between God and his creation. Like other scholastic theologians Zanchi holds that created things cannot be simple; there is always some composition involved.”64 With regard to created being, Zanchi thinks that there are degrees of simplicity depending on the type of composition involved.65 Angels are the simplest of all created beings, since they are immaterial and not subject to the kind of change, corruption and decay that material beings composed of form and matter go through. However, the simplicity of angels is not absolute, since there is a real distinction between essence and existence in the angelic nature.66 So even if there is a sense of a degree of simplicity in creation, there is at the same time an absolute distinction between divine and created being. The fundamental distinction consists in the fact that divine being is unreceived being and created being is always received, limited to a certain kind of being. Now, there is an intimate link between simplicity and infinity, on the one hand, and their counterpart notions composition and finitude, on the other hand. In the doctrine of God, infinity follows from simplicity.67 “Follows” here 64 Divine Simplicity, 158. For a modern articulation of the same notion see, David B. Burrell, Faith and Freedom: An Interfaith Perspective (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), especially ch. 1 and 6. 65 OT, II, 63 “quo quid minus est compositum, eo etiam simplicius est.” 66 Aquinas’ ingenious solution was to make angels sui generis, since there are no (material) individuation conditions to separate members of the same species. See, ST, I, q. 50, art. 4. And for Zanchi, OT, III, 85–9. 67 There is a parallelism of the order of the exposition of the divine attributes in Zanchi’s DND and Aquinas’ ST. See Donnelly, “Calvinist Thomism”, 447 for a convenient comparative table and Gründler, “Thomism and Calvinism”, 104–7. Cf. Turretin who introduces infinity thus: “The infinity of God follows from his simplicity and is equally diffused through the other attributes of God, and by it the divine nature is conceived as free from all limit in [sic.]

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seems to be a matter of entailment. As Zanchi succinctly states, “Whatever exist [in a simple] manner is necessarily infinite.”68 The corresponding claims should then be possible to make about composition and finitude in created being. Composition entails finitude. Why? Because finite being is limited by its being composed of form and matter, accidental determinations like being in a place, or having a certain quantity, etc. For Zanchi, infinity has two related aspects. First, like simplicity, it is a negative attribute, the negation of any limitations of the divine nature. All finite being is limited by being of a certain kind, it is always found to be in some genus and species. Finite beings that have a specific existence (i. e. substances) can also be changed accidentally while subsisting as that specific kind of thing it is. However, all finite beings are ultimately receivers of their existence (esse), whereas God is his own existence. Consequently, all finite being is therefore necessarily ontologically dependent. Secondly, infinite being does not have any of these limitations, and will therefore be boundless and pure actuality. This expresses the fullness and perfection of the divine essence. By contrast, finite being is always found somewhere, as it were, in a flux between potentiality and actuality.69 In addition to these two aspects of infinity, we may mention a third. The reformed scholastics talked about divine infinity ad extra as omnipresence in relation to place and as eternity in relation to time. But God’s infinite being cannot be determined by or be contained in any category, like place or time. Hence God is indivisibly in all places without being determined by or contained in any. Mutatis mutandis, the same goes for the immense essence of God in relation to time: God’s life has no past or future because if it did, a part of God’s life would be lost and in potency with regard to the future.70 What is the value of the simplicity-composition distinction for Christology? I shall answer this question in stages in the coming chapters. Here I will limit myself to reconnecting to something I discussed in the previous chapter. It would seem that this strong distinction between God and creation first of all makes the very idea of the incarnation impossible.71 I have tried to show how problems with

68 69 70 71

imperfection: as to essence (by incomprehensibility) and as to duration (by eternity) and as to circumscription, in reference to place (by immensity)”. My emphasis. (Institutes, I, top. III, q. 8, 194) OT, II, 93. “Quod autem tale est, infinitum sit necesse est.” For this, see also Oderberg, Real Essentialism, 62–5. For the details in the paragraph, see Zanchi’s DND, [lib. II, q. 6] in OT, II, 89 (The sections “infintitate et immensitate Dei” in DND correspond to ST, I, q. 7 “De infinitate Dei” och q. 8, “De existentia Dei in rebus”.) For an argument to this effect see Christopher Hughes, On a Complex Theory of a Simple God: An Investigation in Aquinas’ Philosophical Theology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), ch. 7. So far as I know, no defender of divine simplicity has tried to answer the kind of criticism marshalled by Hughes in Complex Theory. The present study has reached some conclusion that would be of interest to the contemporary debate. For this, see ch. 4, the last

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simplicity might be overcome. Moreover, I showed that Zanchi argued against Monophysitism from divine simplicity. So, even though we might detect problems and overcome them, Zanchi himself did not perceive any problems for the incarnation. On the contrary, divine simplicity was a resource used to defend Orthodox Christology, and it proved to be effective against the ubiquitarians. This is indeed a surprising conclusion given the heavy criticism of divine simplicity by modern theologians and the perceived difficulty to reconcile it with the doctrine of the incarnation. There are some indications, however, that the tide is turning. The various defences or alternative constructions of the doctrine of divine simplicity that recently have seen the light of day may very well contribute to Christology if brought into dialogue with it.72 I hope that my revisionist suggestions will at least have contributed to the discussion by showing that there is an overall coherence in Zanchi’s views of theology proper and Christology. In numerous places, Zanchi cogently argues that if it is claimed that some divine properties are communicated to the human nature, then the whole divine nature is communicated. So the human nature shares not only in omniscience and omnipresence, but also in incommunicable attributes like simplicity and infinity. This is so because all properties in the divine nature are inseparable from each other, which makes real communication an all-or-nothing business.73 This argument should have been more convincing to Chemnitz than what might be assumed. In fact, Chemnitz held a view of divine simplicity and creational composition very similar to Zanchi, as I will show. By itself, this does not fully demonstrate that Chemnitz embraced the non capax, but it is difficult to see how the implication could be avoided. Simplicity and its intimate connection with infinity received an extensive treatment by most – although more succinctly in the first generation – of the Lutheran scholastics and was an accepted as part of the orthodox doctrine of God. For instance, the great Lutheran scholastic Johannes Andreas Quenstedt (1617–1688) wrote: Attributes are nothing else than inadequate conceptions of the divine essence, involving in part the essence itself of the object, and inwardly designating the same. Inasmuch as our finite intellect cannot adequately conceive of the infinite and most simple essence of God by a single adequate conception, therefore it apprehends the same by distinct and inadequate conceptions, inadequately representing the divine essence which inadequate conceptions are called the affections and attributes of God;

section. In some future publication I intend to adress this question, arguing (i) that there is no incompatibility between incarnation and divine simplicity and (ii) that divine simplicity can be a resource when navigating in Christological orthodoxy. 72 To mention a couple, see James E. Dolezal, God without Parts and Jeffrey Brower, “Making Sense of Divine Simplicity”, Faith and Philosophy 25 (2008), 3–30. 73 See e. g. in his defence of the Neustadt Admonistion in OT, VIII:577 [K] and DI, 171–2/485–9.

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affections, because they designate the divine essence; attributes, because they are attributed to the same by our intellect.74

Chemnitz briefly treats simplicity and infinity in his Loci Theologici75 (although more explicitly than Calvin, whom we will look at in the next subsection). However, in the context of Christology – more particularly when arguing against monophysitism – Chemnitz could write: The attributes of the Deity [God] are not accidental qualities in the subject, but in simple terms are the very essence of God, with whom they are interchangeable because they are one and the same thing, so that the Logos is not wise with a wisdom which is some kind of quality, not is He powerful with a power which is something accidental or which is an inherent quality in the divine essence, the power and wisdom of the Logos are His very essence itself.76

This is a clear affirmation of the simplicity of the Logos’ divine nature (contrasted with creational composition and limitation). In God attributes are interchangeable and the same thing, in contrast to the attributes of created being. Let me repeat that it is conceptually difficult, if not impossible, to coherently confess divine simplicity and not to implicitly accept some version of the non capax. Since Chemnitz seems to share the basic features of the doctrine of God with Zanchi, Zanchi must have felt at liberty to make this sort of arguments from simplicity expecting them to have a persuasive effect. Prima facie, this shared heritage is an obstacle to the third genus: if the non capax is true, then there is no third genus, quite contrary to Chemnitz’ expressed intentions. But Chemnitz’ actual position is not so easily captured. For one, as has already been made clear, his position on the majestic genus does not imply any essential or accidental communication of properties to the human nature. In accordance with a scholastic truism, he even argues that the human nature does not “posses” divine attributes essentially or accidentally, for attributes cannot leave their subject.77 Hence he also rules out the language of a “transfer” of divine properties, which was often heard in his reformed opponents, so also Zanchi. That would, he says, result in having two omnipotences, vivifying powers and so on, 74 Translation from Schmid, Lutheran Evangelical Theology, 111. Note the similarity to the beginning of the locus de deo in Turretin, Institutes. Johann Gerhard’s writings reveal a similar pattern from the names of God to the unity, simplicity, eternity and infinity and immensity of the divine essence. He cites the traditional loci and sources in Loci theologici (Berlin: Sumptibus Gust. Schlawitz, 1864), I, loc. II, sect. viii, 320. Interestingly, in his polemics with the calviniani he primarily deals with the 16th century reformed like Beza, Keckermann and Zanchi (idem., 325) and not those of his own generation. 75 See Schmid, Lutheran Theology, 111. 76 TNC, 269. 77 TNC, 270 with reference to DFO, IV, 4. This was a well-known “rule” in ancient theology and philosophy.

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which, Chemnitz says, “we reject and condemn in our churches.”78 Furthermore, there are explicit statements where Chemnitz embraces the non capax: “a created nature is by no means capable of assuming those properties which are peculiar to God.”79 Thus, he might, for all we know, have assumed a fundamental affirmation of the non capax. In effect, if this is true, it might undermine some of Zanchi’s reductio arguments which assumes that real communication requires that the human nature actually posses or in some other way is inhered by divine properties. But it might also undermine Chemnitz’ possibilities of holding a coherent view of the third genus. This conceptual backdrop was common among the medieval and (most of) the protestant scholastics. One potentially controversial aspect is my explicitly explanatory connection to the non capax. However, one may still wonder whether the non capax might be held without this or, indeed, any metaphysical specific backdrop at all. Calvin did affirm the non capax yet without a metaphysical account. In the next subsection, I will briefly deal with him for comparative purposes.

5.3.3 Calvin and the Non Capax Although Calvin did not hold the same place among the reformed as Luther did among the Lutherans, his opinions were highly regarded by Zanchi. Calvin’s humanist style of writing and the exegetical focus of his theology have sometimes been contrasted with the scholastic orientation of such as Zanchi. I will argue here that this opposition is unfounded and take the notions discussed in the previous section as example. Calvin did use the terminology of the extra explicitly but he never used the non capax. And when he used the former, it was always without the metaphysical verbiage of Zanchi. This has caused different reactions among students of Calvin and I shall, therefore, not so much deal with Calvin’s texts as with scholarly reconstructions.80 Some say that the concept of the non capax is there in Calvin’s thinking but not the terminology and defend it 78 TNC, 270. See also, page 303. 79 TNC, 273. For a connection between what sounds like the extra and the non capax in one and the same context see Chemnitz when he comments on his adversaries use of some church fathers when they talked about the Logos not being enclosed in the human nature in the incarnation. He says that the Logos does not “lay aside or lose its infinity or immeasurablity of essence through the union, nor is it so altered that by assuming a body which was finite or circumscribed because of the attributes of its nature, the deity itself was made finite…as if it were enclosed, coerced, or circumscribed within the small size of the body.” TNC, 458. 80 We should note that although Calvin himself does not use the terminology of the non capax, it appeared among other reformed writers already during his lifetime and was clearly established in Zanchi.

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as a genuine part of reformed theology.81 Others claim that it is not there, since Calvin was a biblical scholar, he was not prone to such a “philosophical” concept.82 Others go even further, not merely rejecting the non capax (as an alien philosophical dictum), but even affirming its inversion: infinitum capax finiti.83 The last of these interpretations seems the least plausible, as it is largely an argument from silence.84 I want to show that the non capax might be held with or without any (explicit or implicit) philosophical underpinning and thus agree with the view that thinks that the concept is there implicitly. As Richard Muller’s claims, the non capax might “provide a key to our understanding of the extra calvinisitum”,85 as a heuristic tool, rather than as an anachronistic projection. Let us turn to the second conception, which rejects the non capax in Calvin. It is rooted in a widespread opinion that Calvin’s theology in general and his Christology in particular is not shaped by, informed by nor grounded in philosophical language or concepts. This is undoubtedly true, and almost a truism if one looks at the actual writings of Calvin. He is not interested in laying bare the metaphysical background to the doctrines of God and Christ. His primary interest is its effect on the believer, the pastoral side of theology. However, the philosophical interaction with theology in Zanchi and other reformed scholastics should not be taken as a support for the “Calvin against the Calvinist” thesis, for their approach is not by default incompatible with Calvin’s approach.86 Naturally, due to his humanist background Calvin has a strong tendency to be careful with scholastic and non-biblical terminology. Such carefulness should not be misinterpreted as hostility to the use of philosophical categories and terminology in theology or, for that matter, to philosophy as a legitimate discipline in itself. As a matter of fact, Calvin’s view of philosophy in

81 See Helm, Calvin’s Ideas, ch. 1 and 3. 82 Willis, Catholic Christology, 74–5 who misunderstands the non capax as “crudely spatial”. As I tried to show in the previous. 83 Oberman, The Dawn, 253–5. Richard Muller rejects Oberman’s interpretation in Christ and Decree, 188, n. 20. 84 Oberman does not make the distinction between the epistemic and the ontic sense of the non capax. However, his inversion must not, as he suggests, mean a rejection of the non capax as it is understood that God is capable of the finite, e. g. as a higher cause or, as Muller suggest, sola gratia. See his Christ and Decree, 20, with reference to Calvin Institutes, II, xii, 2. (“Relying on his earnest, we trust that we are the sons of God, because the natural Son of God assumed to himself a body of our body, flesh of our flesh, bones of our bones, that he might be one with us [….] Therefore, God, in his infinite mercy, having determined to redeem us, became himself our redeemer in the person of hos olny begotten Son.”) 85 Christ and Decree, 20. 86 For this thesis, see ch. 2.

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general was positive;87 and although he occasionally talked of “the scholastics” and “the philosophers” in a pejorative way, it is clear from recent research that his attitude to, as well as knowledge of, scholastic theology is not negative by default.88 The scholastics Calvin had in mind were the rather speculative scholars of Sorbonne and not the medieval scholastics or scholasticism in general. ‘Scholasticism’ was simply a mode of discoursing, more or less equivalent with academic discourse as we think of it today. It is one thing to criticise a perverted form of academic discourse and quite another to criticise academic discourse in itself. To underscore the view that there is no fundamental disagreement we may also mention that Calvin occasionally used philosophical terminology and concepts in theology89 and promoted philosophy as a separate subject in the Genevan Academy.90 That Calvin did hold a strong distinction between the finite and the infinite but without an explicit philosophical elaboration is articulated well by David Willis: Calvin does stubbornly refuse to minimize the distance between God and man, and he agrees with most theologians that God is infinite and man is finite! But Calvin does not seek to fit his Christology into a philosophical principle before knowing the identity of those two natures in the incarnate Lord. The fearsome gulf is between the greatness of the divine majesty and our smallness, between God’s power, majesty and authority and our limitation. The mysterium tremendum is most experienced when one gazes on Jesus Christ, in whom the hiatus is bridged.91

The context of Willis’ comments here is Calvin’s view of Christ as mediator. The distinction between God and man, according to Calvin, is so great that humanity needed a mediator to stoop down to finite human beings. For humans are incapable of reaching the divine majesty even in their righteous state. God is inscrutable and beyond anything that man can comprehend. Therefore, as our situation is doubly problematic as we are creatures before our Creator and fallen 87 For this see Helm, “Introduction” to Calvin’s Ideas for references to relevant scholarship. E. g. Charles Partee, Calvin and Classical Philosophy (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977). 88 See also Oberman, The Dawn, 248 and Muller, The Unaccomodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University, Press, 2000), 50–2. For instance, a survey of Calvin’s library in Geneva shows that there are several works of the scholastics, not the least, Thomists. Some scholars have showed that the “scholastics” Calvin polemicizes against, is often the Sorbonne scholastics, for their speculative use of the potentia absoluta. The humanist and the scholastic methods and approaches to theology do not necessarily conflict. For this see, David C. Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), ch. 3 and Paul Helm Calvin’s Ideas, ch. 11. 89 For instance, the Aristotelian fourfold causality in his commentary on Ephesians. 90 Gillian Lewis, “The Genevan Academy” in Andrew Pattegree, Alastair Duke and Gillian Lewis eds., Calvinism in Europe 1540–1620 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 91 Catholic Christology, 74.

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before our Judge, God accommodated to our situation in the incarnate Christ, God made manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 2:5). Thus, the incarnation and Christ’s mediatorship are acts of accomodation due to the unabridgable ontological gap between God and man.92 Moreover, in the doctrine of God, Calvin affirmed divine simplicity and other attributes like aseity and immutability but without techical elaboration.93 Richard Muller clarifies the reason: For Calvin, divine simplicity functions not as a philosophical ground for discussion of the divine essence and attributes, but as a biblically revealed divine attribute and as a basic rule of God language identifying God as non-composite, particularly for the sake of a right understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity and the unity and the consistency of the divine power and justice.94

Following Muller here, the conceptual resource of divine simplicity was available to Calvin in some areas of theology (surprisingly, perhaps, the Trinity and Providence) and, if asked, it is plausible that he would agree with Zanchi on the relevance of the connection between simplicity and infinity (and its contradictories, composition and finitude). For the fact that he did not make this connection due to his primary theological interest (the effects of theology) does not mean that he would not have seen that there are other layers of interpretation in theological discourse. Take the example of the meaning of the tetragrammaton in Exodus 3:14. The medieval theologians tended to think that it signified the divine essence, God in himself.95 Calvin thinks that this is basically correct but adds that the name is also signifying the works of God toward us.96 This strategy is not alien to Zanchi’s own theological method. His doctrine of God in De Natura Dei is intimately connected to a reflection on the divine names, since they signify the divine works in creation and salvation history. It is only after an exegetical reflection on the names of God, that the divine nature and attributes are considered, as an explication of the names.97 This is noteworthy for two reasons. First, Zanchi, as a Christian theologian, gives primacy to revelation and wards off undue speculation about God’s nature – just like Calvin. In other words, in Zanchi we find not a mere philosophical concept of God, but a theological concept grounded in reflection on the names and titles for God found in 92 For more on Christ as Mediator, see my “Would Christ have become Incarnate”. 93 E. g. in Intitutes, I, XIII, 20. 94 For this see e. g. Richard Muller, PRRD, III, 273–5 (quote at, 274). On the connection between divine simplicity and Trinity, see Rehnman, “Doctrine of God”, 391–400. 95 See ST, I, q. 13, art. 11. 96 Ad loc. Harmony of the Four Last Books of Moses, translated from the original Latin, and compared with the French edition, with annotations, etc. by Charles William Bingham (Grand Rapids, MI,: Eerdman, 1950). Cf. Muller, PRRD, III, 233. 97 See Muller, PRRD, III, 246–70.

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Scripture. Philosophy assists in the explication of the being and attributes of God but does not usurp the proper place of theology. Secondly, this approach to the doctrine of God is not only in harmony with Calvin’s interest in the effects of theology, but also with Zanchi’s view that we come to know God from the effects of divine operations.98 Consequently, this is an implicit rejection of the opinion that the non capax for reformed theology is a philosophical a priori notion.99 As it is grounded in God’s effects in nature and creation, it is strictly impossible to make the first cause of everything that exist that is not God an object of a priori knowledge.100 Nothing in what I have said so far warrants free ranging speculation about the divine essence. The differences between Zanchi’s explicit and Calvin’s minimal use of philosophy in theology should not be over-interpreted. Calvin did indeed use non-biblical terminology but his preferred choice was not philosophical. As Willis rightly observes, Calvin’s language for divine transcendence and majesty is drawn from “political phraseology”.101 And there is no apparent reason to suggest that “political” terminology is more apt than “philosophical” in theology. To bring this point home we might note that our contemporary use nonbiblical concepts and terminologies, e. g. drawn from literary theory in narrative theology and social theory in liberation theology, are generally not considered a problem. Likewise, it seems like the problem with philosophical concepts arises when we have a bias toward them and their use in theology. In sum: the non capax was Calvin’s as much as Zanchi’s but they, for various reasons, did not use the same terminology (and possibly supporting concepts) to expound it. Among Calvin and his reformed colleagues there seems to have been no conflict between piety and scholasticism as they were two legitimate and established parts of what they all were concerned with as theologians in the service of the church.102 In the first section, I examined the interpretation of the third genus, concluding that (some of) Zanchi’s arguments missed the target since Chemnitz’ 98 Contrary to what Immink suggests in Divine Simplicity. 99 Thus, Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, II, 276 concluded, “Calvin’s theology, therefore, is not basically Biblical, but rationalistically motivated.” 100 Likewise, the older research by Otto Gründler on Zanchi’s scholastic influence which makes “metaphyical causality” and “predestination” a “central dogma “determining” Zanchi’s “thinking and gave structure to the emerging Reformed orthodox dogmatics” must be deemed inadequate. Since others have effectively refuted the central dogma thesis I shall not spend more time on that here (“Thomism and Calvinism”, 23). 101 Catholic Christology, 75. He rightly adds that “governmental language” is part of the Christian tradition, and not merely something that Calvin used due to his training as a lawyer. 102 As an indication of Zanchi’s pastoral interest we many point to the many practical uses of doctrine (usus doctrinae) at the end of his often long discussion on various loci. See O’Banion “The Application of Theology”.

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avoided speaking of the third genus in the ordinary modes of scholastic jargon. Before, I moved on to the two principles in this section, I suggested that Chemnitz turned to the perichoresis as an explanation of the third genus. It is now time to take a closer look at this notion. I will do that by examining the use of the soul-body simile in Zanchi and Chemnitz. We will also see the importance of the non capax and the extra in Zanchi’s response to Chemnitz. I shall (with Zanchi) conclude that Chemnitz pushes the simile too far – with the unintended effect that it does not support the majestic genus – but also that some of Zanchi’s arguments (again) miss the target due to some ad hoc claims inherent in Chemnitz’ position.

5.4

Does the Soul-Body Simile Support the Majestic Genus?

The soul-body simile was not only evoked to illuminate the hypostatic union, which I examined in the previous chapter, but also the communication of properties.103 The question I shall deal with here is whether the soul-body union is a good simile for real communication of properties, or the majestic genus. The nature of a simile is to be an approximation of similitude. That entails that there are also ostensive dissimiltudes, my (R1–3). Zanchi and Chemnitz agree on some dissimilitudes of the soul-body union. For instance that the soul is the form of the human body, whereas the Logos is the efficient cause and that the soul did not exist before the body, whereas the Logos existed before the union with the human nature.104 But there are two dissimilarities that, according to Zanchi, significantly weaken the ubiquitarians’ use of it in support of the third genus. He gives a list of eight central dissimilarities and the two final ones are given special attention: 7. The Soul is finite and for that reason enclosed in a finite body. Divinity is infinite and immense and for that reason nevertheless entirely in the human nature. However, it [the divine nature] is not enclosed there [in the human nature] but also entirely outside the human nature. 8. Hence, since the soul is in the body it cannot operate outside of it. Divinity operates in and outside the human nature. And, these last two dissimilarities, suprise me for their shamelessness and at the same 103 There were further similes at use in the debate, such as the glowing iron and the sun and its rays. They were employed to illustrate the same basic points in Christology. I will not deal with those since mutatis mutandis, what I say about the soul-body simile might be said about them too. Since the soul-body union is the tightest sort of natural union among these similes, it seems to be the best and closest to Christological union and thus of greatest interest to the type of study I am interested in. 104 They both attribute this to [Pseudo-] Justin Martyr : TNC, 94–6 and DI, 113–4/306–10.

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time, the malice of some ubiquitarians who push the soul-body simile, saying that if the soul is elsewhere than in the body, the human being is disunited. Likewise if the divinity of Christ, is positioned elsewhere than in the body, or is believed to be, Christ is disunited. For the whole fullness of the divine nature is also in Christ. Similarly, as the soul is in the body, it does not operate outside of the body, so the divinity of Christ effects nothing outside the human nature. The argument is from distant dissimilarities. For the soul is finite and, therefore, the immense divine nature is enclosed in the body.105

Here is a direct appeal to both of the two principles I have discussed. There are indeed passages in Chemnitz, which would suggest that the incarnation is a case of enclosement. Their interpretation of Col. 2:9, for instance, gives testimony to this as well as their neglect to make the totus-totum distinction. Chemnitz writes: [The Logos] has certainly left nothing uncommunicated; for he communicated himself personally, as the total and entire fullness of the Godhead to the assumed nature. Furthermore, such characteristics or attributes as eternity and immeasurability are joined to the other divine attributes by indissoluble connection. For the divine power, which carries on its work through the assumed nature, is an eternal, immeasurable, infinite and divine power.106

This certainly makes it sound as if Zanchi’s 7 and 8 in the passage above are correct interpretations of Chemnitz’ position. However, I shall argue that Chemnitz’ use of the soul-body simile is more nuanced than what Zanchi here and elsewhere suggests. It is not straightforwardly a matter of mere enclosement. Moreover, I will demonstrate from Chemnitz’ own sources that he held a version of the non capax very close to Zanchi’s. There is also another problem that can be identified in the debate about the 105 DI, 115/308: “7. Anima est finita, & ideo in finito corpore conclusa. Deitas infinita et immensa: ideo licet tota in humana natura, non ibi tamen conclusa, sed tota extra etiam humanam naturam. 8. Ideo anima dum est in corpore, nihil extra corpus operari potest: Deitas & in humana natura, & extra etiam operator. Atque hæ duæ ultimes dissimilitudines, effiiciunt, ut mirer impudentiam simul & malitiam cuiusdam ubiquitarij: qui urgens simile animæ & corporis, ait, sicut anima si alibi sit qu/m in corpore, solvitur homo. Sic si Deitas Christi alibi quam in corpore statuatur, aut esse credatur, solvi Christum. Est enim etiam tota plentitudo Deitatis in Christo. Item ut anima existens in corpore nil operator extra corpus: Ita Deitas Christi nil extra humanam naturam operatur. Argumentum est / longe dissimilibus. Anima etiam finita est, & ideo inclusa in corpore Deitas immensa.” 106 TNC, 308. Please note that for the Logos to communicate himself ‘personally’ here as elsewhere is equivalent to totum Christi, as in the entire Christ, everything that is in Christ. This way of putting it is an indication that Chemnitz rejected the totus-totum distinction and, implicitly, also the extra.

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application of the soul-body simile. It seems that Chemnitz’ presses the simile too far in another direction. First, let us look at his view of the soul-body union and then its application to Christology. He writes: When a soul is united with [the body, it] receives and possesses from this union many and quite different faculties which are simply not in the body if it is separated from the soul and by itself[….]these abilities are in the animated body, but they are not in it because of the actual composition or constitution of the body, but from the union with the soul which dwells in its body through interpenetration (perichoresis) and causes a communion in which: (1) the organs of the body are arranged and formed by the soul so that they are suitable for the activities for which the soul uses them; (2) the soul, not by itself or of itself but through the organs of the body, manifests and exercises its powers and activities, and the organs of the body use these powers of the soul to grow, feel, live, etc.107

The central tenets might be summarized thus: (1) The body receives faculties and abilities, which it did not possess by itself, i. e. separated from the soul. (2) All the parts of the body are formed by the soul’s activity. (3) The soul manifests itself through the organs of the body. (4) The body “uses” the powers of the soul to “grow, feel, live, etc.” (5) The perichoresis of the soul in the body “causes a communication”. (1)–(3) are recognisably hylemorphic. Chemnitz’ (4) is potentially misleading since the body is not merely talked of as an instrument but as a subject – at best a “sub-subject“ if the term is allowed – which “uses” the soul’s powers. Maybe this way of talking is not necessarily harmful but it is potentially misleading. The body’s power to grow, feel, live and so on does not come about through some power of its own – that would contradict (1) and (2) which say that the organisation and the operations of the body are wholly due to the soul’s interpenetration (5). (4) may thus be paraphrased thus: “the bodily organs serve various functions in virtue of the activity of the soul, such as to grow, feel, live etc.” By principle of charity, that would be a viable interpretation but not the one Zanchi opted for since it could lead to the view that the body possesses powers that are communicated to it by the soul and not merely that it participates in the powers of the soul. That the human nature would possess powers is a claim we have seen Chemnitz rejects but – maybe due to a slip of terminology or, as Zanchi claims, pushing it too far – property possession of divine attributes might still be implicit in his use of the soul-body simile.

107 TNC, 100. Emphasis mine.

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(5) is a crucial feature of the simile.108 As I read the passage, perichoresis and communication are not synonyms but correlated as explainer and explained in a causal sense.109 It is by the perichoresis that the soul’s powers are caused to be in the body. (5) is important, at least for my purposes, since I have suggested that perichoresis is what I have dubbed an extraordinary sense of the third genus, beyond the ordinary terminology of the scholastics as well as their interpretation of perichoresis. My distinction, however, is complicated by the fact that the term is here used in a context, which draws on traditional hylemorphic concepts. Still, for analytic purposes, this distinction is important to keep in mind. It shows that the ordinary and the extraordinary senses of the third genus intersect for Chemnitz in his search for a suitable Christological language.110 Chemnitz, then, comes to the Christological application of the simile: [The simile] shows…that we must attribute to the human nature to which the deity in Christ has been personally united not only those [human] qualities which are found in it when considered by itself, in or outside the union (as in the case among us men), or in its own natural or essential constitution, but we must also recognize in His human nature the other far more excellent gifts which this nature possesses because of the hypostatic union[….]Besides [the] created and finite gift we must also note especially that the whole fullness of the deity of the Logos with all its divine attributes dwells personally in the assumed nature through interpenetration (perichoresis), so that it exercises its entire divine power, glory and might in, with, and through the assumed human nature. Because of this interpenetration (perichoresis) the flesh of Christ makes alive and His humanity has all power.111

Due to the hypostatic union, the human nature is not merely supernaturally gifted but comes to possess “the whole fullness of deity…through interpenetration”.112 This is consistent with the application of the simile: some functions are inherent in the body – through the perichoresis – and exercised by the soul. To make this comparison coherent, the perichoresis needs to be the cause of communication, i. e. causing the human nature/body to possess powers 108 This is an Augustinian idea from De Trinitate VI:6, 8 which says that the soul is present to the body in a way that the soul is said to be “wholly in the whole, and wholly in every one of its parts” (in toto est tota, et in qualibet eius parte tota est). 109 See also TNC; 297. “The union of soul and body shows…that the personal union produces and brings with it a communion (koinonia) and that there is no true union without this communion (koinonia), that is, if such a communion does not result in or come into being.” 110 The kind of causality at work here is very similar to formal causality, that is to say the traditional scholastic view of the soul’s operations in the body. David Oderberg writes in a way that resembles this: “substantial form permeates the entity of the substance that possesses it.” (Real Essentialism, 70). 111 TNC, 100–1. 112 There are passages in Chemnitz where this language is used, as in “The human nature received and possessed this majesty in the very first moment of the union, when the whole fullness of the deity began to dwell bodily in Christ.” (TNC, 71) Emphasis mine.

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that the Logos/soul can “exercise”. It suggests that the human nature/body has some properties due to the perichoretic union in process (in fieri) but also after the union having been effected (in facto esse), in some sense independently of the Logos/soul.113 It seems obvious, on my analysis that Chemnitz despite his best intentions will or comes close to violate (R1–3). I have not seen Zanchi criticise this aspect explicitly, but it is clear from the fact that he accuses Chemnitz of implying that there is a transfer of properties from the divine to the human nature and, hence, there is a real property possession of the human nature as such. Zanchi echoes a typical reformed objection to the soul-body simile: As Adam was made alive by the soul, similarly, the soul cannot have communicated to the body its essential properties – immortality, invisibility, incorporeity and the faculties of understanding and will. So, it is not possible to infer from this [fact] that the Logos became flesh and human through the assumption of the flesh, that the Word really communicated its essential properties to the flesh.114

This objection assumes that (i) communication entails property possession and (ii) that the communication in question must be complete (as the whole divine nature must be communicated to the human nature so the whole soul has to be communicated to the body). So in what sense could Chemnitz use the simile then? As we noted earlier in Chemnitz, there is an ambiguity between the body having properties of its own and having them due to the union with the soul. Let me clarify this distinction with a further distinction: the first is a stronger kind of dualism that the latter. The former plausibly implies that the body’s functions are properties it has due to an inherent substantial form. The latter case might, but does not have to assume such a construal of the body’s properties. Chemnitz takes the example 113 This is very close to Richard Cross’ analysis of John Damascene, see his “Christological Predication”. 114 DI, 172/487. “Sicut igitur Adam ita factus est in animam viventem, ut anima non communicarit copori suas proprietates essentiales, immortalitatem, invisibilitatem, incorporietatem, intelleigendi & volendi facultatem: sic neque ex eo, quod assumptione carnis Logos factus est caro & homo, inferri potest, realiter a Verbo cjmunicatas esse carni suas essentiales proprietates.” Zanchi is in this context commenting on the “became” (factus est) in the prologue of John and compares it with the becoming of Adam in 1st Cor. 15. We should notice what has been said here. Zanchi is not merely saying that de facto there is no real communication from soul to body. Zanchi made a stronger claim: he argued from the claim that the soul cannot communicate its properties to the body to the claim that it is very implausible that the divine nature communicated its properties to the human nature. See also “quemadmodum cFm etiam hominem minimH diuidentes, sed tantum distinguentes, consideramus corpus seorsum ab anima, & animam seorsum / corpore, & dicimus vnum esse sua natura mortale, alterum immortale: vnum visibile, alterum inuisibile: ac dicimus proprietates istas animae, non conuenire, aut attribui, aut communicari posse corpori. Non alia ratione de humana Natura Christi loquimur in hanc quaestione.” (DI, 168/475).

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the faculty of sight, which is proper to the soul.115 In a manner of speaking the soul utilises the eye, or the visual organs, so one might say that sight is also in the eye even if it is primarily in the soul. This could give the impression that there are two faculties of sight – one in the soul and one communicated to the visual organ. Perhaps this interpretation should assume that there are two substantial forms at play here, one in the soul and one in the body, performing the same job. But that interpretation is rejected by Chemnitz, since there is only one power of sight that is proper to the soul.116 Yet, the eye and the ear can see and hear but “not with some peculiar natural power of their own but by the power and strength of the soul united with them.”117 Hence, a weaker kind of dualism should be ascribed to Chemnitz. The power an eye has is due to the presence of the powers of sight of the soul, what we might call a virtual presence. In the same way, then, omnipotence and omniscience are in the human nature of Christ due to the virtual presence of the Logos. Another example, is Chemnitz’ quotation of Athanasius on the soul-body simile in the context of the majestic genus. Athanasius said that that the soul’s rational faculty “manifests, exercises and performs” its powers through the human body, similar to the way in which the Logos is working through the assumed human nature. Chemnitz makes the point that the soul uses the body as an organ through which it exercises, manifests and performs its own rational powers. (This phraseology is echoed throughout De Duabus.) But this type of claim is not sufficient to argue for real communication or the third genus. To refute this claim Zanchi only needs to point out that it is one thing to be an instrument or organ of something and another to have properties really communicated to it.118 In a sense, Zanchi’s objection partly seems correct provided that he (which he did not) view the soul/Logos as being virtually present communicating its powers and, qua divine, undividedly permeates the whole body/human nature. However, he held to a stronger objection. A plausible way to describe Chemnitz’ actual position is to say that the effects of perichoresis are simply that the soul’s powers and properties are manifested in, with and through the body, resulting in the bodily parts’ participation in the powers of the soul. The upshot of this 115 TNC, 296–7. 116 TNC, 296, “There are not two faculties in man for feeling, seeing, hearing, understanding, one which is essential to the soul and the other of which through communication is poured out outside the soul and is separate and distinct from it and yet in the body, something which inheres by itself formally and subjectively. Rather there is one faculty of feeling and thinking which is essentially the possession only of the soul and is and remains its own natural property.” 117 TNC, 296. My emphasis. See also TNC, 99. 118 DI, 228/663. (Quoting Athanasius Dialogus 5 de Trinitate.)

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interpretation is that it makes the application of the simile to be quite limited, more limited than what Chemnitz seems to need to support the third genus. Hence, Zanchi’s claim that Chemnitz urges the simile too far might still be right, but not quite in the way he intended. As I tried to show above, Chemnitz’ emphasis when talking about the third genus is on the operative attributes like vivification. These attributes are manifested in, with and through the human nature. But then he claims that incommunicable attributes like infinity, eternity and simplicity are indirectly communicated to the human nature. Chemnitz cannot allow the analogy with the soul-body union in the latter case of the communication of attributes. This is significant, since the language that Chemnitz uses for the third genus is (almost) always operative or, we might say, manifestations of volitions and powers. Such language does not fit very well with attributes, which are not manifestations of volitions but negative and metaphysical in character like the incommunicable attributes. Hence, it appears that the simile does not apply to the communication of the full majesty of divine attributes. As far as a description of the soul-body relation, Chemnitz seems to be within his rights to assert that it “is certain and beyond controversy that this communication of the properties of the soul with the body is true and real, and yet it takes place without any comingling, conversion, abolition or equating of the substances and the essential attributes of the soul and the body.” But the problem comes when he then asserts “how beautifully and accurately” this example applies to the doctrine of the communication of majesty.119 As I just argued, the full communication of properties cannot be illustrated by the simile and it is considerably weakened since there is no sense of property possession of the human nature/body being effected by the perichoresis. In light of the above, Zanchi attempts an a fortiori argument against real communication: Since the distance between divine and human nature is far greater than that between soul and body. If the hypostatic union between soul and body does not effectuate a communication of properties from one to the other, it is much less possible that such an effect [obtains] between the divine and human natures.120

The assumption is this: if there is a real communication between the divine and human nature we might reasonably expect to find something similar in nature where things are ontologically more proximate. According to Zanchi, we have not been provided with any positive reason from nature to think that there is 119 TNC, 297. 120 DI 173/488–9. “Quia longH maior distantia est inter divinam & humanam naturas; quam inter animam & corpus. Si ergo unio hypostatica inter anima & corpus non efficit, ut unius properietates alteri communicentur : multk minus id effecere potest unio inter divinam & humanam naturas.”

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anything like the real communication between the divine and the human nature that he perceives the third genus to entail. This harks back to the point made at the beginning of the section, namely that there is a significant discontinuity in the use of the simile, since the Logos qua divine is infinite and immense whereas the soul is finite. These objections to Chemnitz’ use of the simile seem acceptable as far as they go. But it might be objected that Chemnitz meant to use the simile in a loose sense and not as an actual argument. If so, Zanchi’s (and my) objections seem to loose their force. However, if one considers the frequency with which Chemnitz used the simile and the importance it has in his polemic as well as expressed conviction that it “beautifully and accurately applies to the doctrine of the communication of majesty”, it seems unlikely. And even if it is only used loosely and for illustrative purposes rather than argumentative, it might be objected that it is an illustration not doing the job intended. However, we have seen the relative care Chemnitz takes to say how the two unions relate which makes it seem as though he wants to be as exact as one might be, within the bounds of pious and sound reason.121 One final objection: since Chemnitz explicitly derived the doctrine of the communication of majesty from the plain word of Scripture, he did not need to demonstrate or prove this doctrine from extra-biblical sources.122 There is an obvious truth in this objection, which neither Zanchi or nor any traditional (non-Biblicist) theologian would have a problem with. For there is a distinction to be made between deriving a doctrine from Scripture and analysing its implications – or e. g. illustrating it from a simile, all of which might involve a great deal of argumentation and defence. And that is quite another matter than proving the doctrine from extra-biblical sources. It might appear that analysis prompts a revision or rejection of a putative starting point (the third genus). Zanchi’s analysis of the third genus results in a rejection of Chemnitz attempt at a derivation of the doctrine from Scripture. Indeed, since it was the meaning of central biblical Christological texts that was the bone of contention during the 16th century debates, both parties sought further means to draw from traditional resources in their arguments. The soul-body simile is one such resource with a venerable history and serves as a hermeneutical key to understanding contended biblical passages. Chemnitz himself writes that “the value of similes is that those things which are taught in Scripture about this mystery [of the incarnation] can…be more correctly, easily, and clearly considered and under-

121 In ONTC, 90–102, the discussion is almost exclusively about the proper and improper use of the simile in Christology. 122 The objections were suggested to me by prof. Anders Kraal.

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stood because of the familiarity of the similes, which are better known to us.”123 So it seems inadequate to object that Chemnitz had no need, or interest for that matter, to use the simile to illustrate and defend the third genus.124 In this chapter we have examined some important concepts in the debate between the Lutherans and the reformed as seen through Chemnitz and Zanchi. Some of the issues I have discussed and conclusions I have reached stand on their own, but many of them have a bearing on the topic of the last chapter, which is the controverted question of the ubiquity of the human nature of Christ.

123 TNC, 87. For Zanchi’s criticism of the “abuse” of the ubiquitarians of the scriptures see DI, 196/564 and 244/710. 124 It could be added, off course, that what I have tried to do in this section is to evaluate whether the soul-body simile is serving its purpose as a support to the proposed biblical teaching of the majestic genus; not whether there are other and better reasons to for the truth and coherence of said genus.

Chapter Six: Notions of Presence For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form – Colossians 2:9.

6.1

Introduction

Historically, the Christological question of the multi- or omnipresence of Christ’s human nature grew out of the controversy between Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli over the Lord’s Supper.1 Luther came to the view that while it is natural for bodies to be in a place, through divine omnipotence Christ’s body can be made present in more than one place. More specifically, he affirmed that Christ’s body has three modes of presence: (i) circumscriptive, (ii) definitive and (iii) repletive.2 These concepts of presence were not intended to be an exercise in speculative Christology but to do justice to central claims of Scripture like Christ’s ability to walk the earth like a normal human being, penetrate doors, appear in multiple locations at the same time as well as being true to his promise to be with us until the end – particularly in the elements of the Supper. In the medieval theological traditions it was common currency to say that physical bodies are naturally in a place circumscriptively, souls and angels present definitively in a place and only God repletively present in every place, that is, ubiquitously.3 Luther’s innovation, then, was the ascription of all of these modes 1 There is a slip in the whole debate between talking about the multi- or omnipresence of the human nature of Christ on the one hand and the body of Christ on the other. I will not disentangle this issue here. I hope to return to a more explorative treatment of it in the future. 2 On the three modes of presence see primarily This is My Body in American Edition of Luther’s Works, 55 vols., edited and translated by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehman (Philadelphia and St. Louis: Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing, 1957–1986), XXXVII, 214–35 and Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper in Luther’s Works, XXXVII, 214–222. These two were responses to Zwingli’s views. At the Marburg Colloquy (1529) the two met to discuss the real presence in the Lord’s Supper. Instead of establishing a protestant unity, the fundamental difference became clear to everyone. 3 Thomas M. Osbourne, “Faith, Philosophy, and the Nominalist Background to Luther’s Defense of the Real Presence”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 63/1 (2002), 63–82. Herman Sasse, This is my Body : Luther’s Contention for the Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1959), 48–50 and 155–60; Haga, Lutheran Metaphysics, 54–64.

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of presence to Christ’s human body.4 This provoked a number of responses from both Lutheran and reformed theologians. After a couple of decades of debate, the hope of a unified protestant league against the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation was crushed, and the Christological debate now took on a life of its own. In this chapter I shall discuss Zanchi’s response to some Lutheran strands of thought concerning the issue of ubiquity. In the first section I shall examine the three modes of presence against the background of Aristotelian natural philosophy and metaphysics. Then, in the following sections, I discuss some further related topics. First, I shall look at what I call the Inseparability Thesis, deriving from Luther. Second, I examine the ways in which the argument receives the characteristically voluntarist qualification in Chemnitz, although I will argue that there is a sense in which he also ascribes to ubiquity. Third, I will look at Christ’s ascension and his sitting at the right hand of the Father, explore what sense ‘heaven’ had. I also offer some speculations about various alternative strategies in solving dilemmas arising from the view of heaven as a place. Finally, I will look at two scholastic arguments in Chemnitz for multi-location and then reconstruct a possible Zanchian response.

6.2

Place among Other Categories

Arguably, the resources for the Lutheran development(s) of modes of presence of Christ’s human nature were already there in late medieval philosophy and theology. Of special importance is the category of place and the growing tendency to explain features in theology with reference to the absolute power of God.5 I shall in this section give a representative overview of the conceptual background that eventually made Luther’s move possible. Aristotelians agree that there is an internal order of dependence between the categories of substance and accidents and that there is an order of dependence or priority between the accidents themselves, but disagree over what that order amounts to and how many accidental categories there really are.6 It is this 4 Thomas M. Osbourne in “Nominalist Background”, points out that in This is my Body, Luther does not use real communication of properties to argue for the ubiquity of Christ’s humanity, but instead uses the notion of the power of God (“The right hand of God”) as being everywhere effective. According to Osbourne’s elucidating analysis, Luther argued that the sacramentarians had on philosophical grounds excluded the possibility of God being powerful enough to make the human nature ubiquitous and therefore claims to know more than human beings are able to know about God’s power. The connection between ubiquity appears first in Confession Concerning the Last Supper. 5 See Osbourne in “Nominalist Background”. 6 See the list of the categories (or predicamenta, as the Latin school philosophers called them) in

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agreement and disagreement over the relation between the categories that is at stake in the search for a theoretical framework to explain the nature of those things that makes predications true or false. Here I shall discuss some scholastic opinions that informed (or at least can be taken as representative in comparison with) the protestant scholastics’ debates on the omnipresence of Christ’s human nature.7 I shall start with Aquinas and Zanchi, who had what we might call a realist view8 of the ten Aristotelian categories – that is, all categories are distinct realities.9 Their view of substance along with quality and quantity serve as the foundation for the remaining six categories.10 Place, time, and position – the categories crucial for natural philosophy as the study of change or motion – follow from the quantity of a substance.11 This has to do with the conviction that it is matter, predicated of substances in the category of quantity, that individuates one substance from another.12 For instance, it is the individual and

7

8 9

10 11

12

Aristotle Categories, 4 (1b25–2a4) and Topics, I, 9 (103b20–3). How Aristotle arrives at ten categories has been a matter of prolonged debate. Apparently, Aristotle does not proceed in such a principled way as Aquinas. See Wippel, Metaphysical Thought, 216 and more fully in “Thomas Aquinas’s Derivation of the Aristotelian Categories (Predicaments)”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 25 (1987), 13–34. See also Paul Studtmann, for different interpretations: “Aristotle’s Categories”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta ed., URL = (Accessed, 13 April 2016). The medieval discussion of these matters was very detailed and is found in both theological and philosophical tracts. During the renaissance this did not generate the same level of detailed philosophical discussion. Instead there is a move toward systematisation of the traditional philosophical sources, which was rather aimed at simplification and education than philosophical sophistication. However, we should not think that all kinds of sophistication were absent in the protestant scholastics. Neither should this be confused with a lack of interest in philosophical issues in theology. As I am trying to show in this thesis, the proof is in the pudding, that is, the philosophical details are not always spelled out but assumed. See e. g. Herbert McCabe “Categories” in Anthony Kenny ed., Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays, Modern Studies in Philosophy (London and Melbourne: Macmillan, 1969). Zanchi did not produce a proper commentary on Aristotle’s philosophical works. Scant material is found in his introduction to the Greek edition of Aristotle’s Physics (Aristoteles de Naturali Auscultatione seu de Principiis [Strassburg: V. Rihelius, 1554]) but even more so in his De Operibus. See also Kevin Budiman, “Nature and Grace”, 53–102 for an exposition of Zanchi’s general views on natural philosophy and theology. See Wippel, Metaphysical Thought, 213–28. Substance, quantity and quality causes what may and may not be predicated of a substance. This is the basic idea of hylemorphism. So, in a sense, the other remaining categories are derived from these three. Matter and form are understood as ‘causes’ or what we might call internal explanatory principles of what accounts for what we may and may not predicate accidentally of a substance. For a standard account of Aquinas’ individuation, see De Ente De Essentia, ch. 2–4. See also Wippel, Metaphysical Thought, 351–74.

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designate matter of Luther that individuates and separates him from Melanchthon and, for that reason, they are said to occupy different places. Furthermore, to be a material substance is to be spatially extended, to have parts and parts are at a distance from each other yet all bound together by the same quantity. Hence, a material substance has “no parts outside the parts of the whole” (as the scholastic gloss goes). For in a continuous quantity – like Luther’s body – the parts share the same limit and “hang together”, as it were. So material substances with quantitative dimensions are in some place. Indeed they are necessarily in place according to their natural constitution or in place per se, as Aquinas and Zanchi say.13 So what is place then? They follow Aristotle’s understanding of place as the outmost limit, which contains the body and is in immediate contact with the place.14 The limit is described as a container, which holds the material object in place. On this understanding, place is twodimensional and immobile, since the body can move in and out of a place. If place was to move along with the body, or itself be a sort of material intermediary, nothing could (or at least be observed) to move. In addition, Aristotelians posited a logical distinction between internal and external sense of place. Internal place is the arrangement of the parts of the whole, the category ‘position’ (situs).15 In material substances the reason that the parts belong together as continuous is due to the fact that they share the same ultimate limit. However, extended and continuous parts of a material substance must be spatially distinct. The parts of a material object can move their position with relation to each other, like when I lift my hand, or when the molecules in my body move. They share the same limit but are not in the same spatial position with regard to each other. The internal and the external senses of place are intimately connected, since for a substance to be extended it is required that all its parts are not in the same (internal) place. So, it is the movements of the parts of the body that accounts for its move between places; or properly speaking loco-motion, which relates to the external sense of place.16 13 Zanchi, De Operibus [Pars II, lib. II, ch. 8] in OT, III, 271: “Per se, est corpus Locatum contineri a locante, ipsum circumdante; secundum se totum.” 14 Zanchi in OT, III, 271: “Locus est superficiens ultima corporis continentis: quae immediate tangit locatum.” See Aristotle’s Physics, IV, 4 (211a24–211b4). This two-dimensional and immobile definition of place is often interpreted as incompatible with the one given in Categories, according to which place is three-dimensional and mobile. Both definitions have their own set of problems but commentators have agreed that the Physics definition is Aristotle’s considered view and that it is the better of the two. For discussion see Pierre Duhem’s classic discussion in Medieval Cosmology : Theories of Infinity, Place, Time, Void, and the Plurality of Worlds (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997), 139–294 and for a more up to date discussion, Cross, The Physics, ch. 11. 15 See Coffey, Ontology, 318–9. 16 Aristotle counted six notions of change and motion was one of them. See Categories, 14

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External place is also another way of talking about the spatial relations between bodies. Every corporeal substance with quantitative dimensions is in a place circumscriptively at a spatial distance from other physical substances in other places. However, the surrounding substances might change their place in relation to a substance without the limit of the substance being changed.17 The view described so far, which is that of Aquinas and Zanchi, denies the following: (i) the co–location of two or more (corporeal) substances and (ii) multiple locations of one (corporeal) substance. Ad (i): since quantitative matter is the individuating principle that separates one substance from another, a violation of Aquinas’ policy of one body per place would either result in the destruction of one of the corporeal substances or the substitution of one of them (a substantial change). Ad (ii): since material substances are circumscribed entities, their parts cannot be segregated. (However, Aquinas, as we shall see, had an ingenious way of making an exception to this in his Eucharistic theology).18 As we shall soon see, later medieval scholastics challenged both (i) and (ii). Now, traditional natural philosophy and scholastic theology have also posited spiritual or immaterial substances – paradigmatically, souls and angels – lacking quantitative dimensions, that is, without that distance-making quality to other substances in the cosmos and without any internal quantitative parts.19 Spiritual substances, however, can still be in a place but not as circumscribed corporeal substances. Recall that, according to Zanchi and Aquinas, a corporeal substance is per se in place. A spiritual substance is per accidens in place, that is, they are in a place through something else.20 Yet their mode of presence is restricted to a

17

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19 20

(15b13–31). For instance, a substance might come into a place by moving from another place or by changing substantially without any locomotion. The latter is the notion that Aquinas used in explaining transubstantiation. After Aquinas, Giles of Rome distinguished between formal and material place, a distinction that had its roots in some things Aquinas said. The distinction was later developed at greater length in Scotus. For this see Marilyn M. Adams, Some Later Medieval Theories of the Eucharist: Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Duns Scotus and William Ockham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 111–231. Aristotelians have also distinguished between contiguous and discrete parts of material quantities. A human nature is not of such a kind. See Coffey, Ontology, 316. In contiguous quantities there is some part of the surface that is shared through touch. In discrete quantities it is different. If a part is detached it would no longer hang together and share the same limits in the substance but be part of some other whole or be a whole in its own right (accidentally as made up of smaller substantial units, like the molecules in the cut off hand is no longer a hand but a deformed object with no accidental determination of its former host). Aquinas, ST, I, q. 52, art. 2 for angels and ST, III, q. 75, art. 2, resp. for the soul. See also David Keck, Angels and Angeology in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 75– 114. Zanchi, OT, III, 272: “Per accidens autem est rem esse in Loco non ratione sui, sed alterius, cui est adiuncta.” See also Rudoph Goclenius, “Locus” in Lexicon Philosophicum, 647: “Spiritualis natura per se non est in loco: Erit igitur in loco per accidens.”

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region or place and is thus “defined” by it.21 Angels and souls, though they have no physical parts, are present in a place by acting in that place; through operation and manifestation of their powers in a place. Though souls and angels are metaphysically simple (they have no quantitative parts), their mode of definitive presence differs radically. Souls function as substantial forms of some matter, which by necessity is in place, and therefore the soul’s activities are strictly limited to that body. Moreover, the soul-body composite constitutes an individual of a natural kind: human beings. In contrast, angels do not constitute an individual of a natural kind when acting on a place.22 (Please note that this is foundational to the totus-totum distinction discussed in the previous chapter : the whole soul is in the whole body, but it is not extra.) Finally, repletive presence23 is similar to definitive presence in that God is a simple, separate substance, but different in that God is infinite.24 As we mentioned in our discussion of the non capax, the immensity and infinity of God in relation to time is eternity and in relation to place is omnipresence or ubiquity. For that reason, no place, however big or small, can circumscribe or define the active presence of the divine essence. Instead, divine presence runs through and “fills” all places and the whole of creation in an undivided way. (Again, this relates to something we discussed in the previous chapter : periochoresis. The presence of the Logos in the human nature is very much like this sort of presence but it does not, as I argued, constitute a third genus.) Circumscriptive and definitive presence was variously employed in the me21 Luther described the Scriptural reports of Jesus’ walking through doors and the virgin birth as cases of definitive presence of the human body. He also believed that resurrected bodies will be able to do much the same that the resurrected Christ did. See Confession, Luther’s Works, XXXVII, 216. For this see Jensen, Oddvar Johan Jensen, Kristi person. Til betydningen av læren om Kristi person i Martin Luthers teologi 1520–1546, (Ph.D. Dissertation, Bergen 1987), 172–3. Also, definitive and, even more, repletive presence requires more faith on our behalf and is therefore commendable according to Luther. See, Confession in Luther’s Works, XXXVII, 221. In short, Luther thought that the physical quality of resurrected bodies will be very different from ours so that they can penetrate other physical objects. The scholastics sometimes ascribed supernatural qualities to the glorified body of Christ such as immutability, subtility, agility and clarity. See Aquinas, ST, III, suppl. qq. 82–5. Zanchi echoes this in DR, 705. However, neither the medieval scholastics nor Zanchi went as far as Luther. 22 Even though they can act in larger or smaller areas of the universe but not everywhere at once since their power is limited. For Zanchi, see OT, III, 272. 23 For this, see Zanchi’s late reply to William Holder in Ad Partem Prodromi Vilhelmi Holderi Responsio in OT, VII, 939–60 as well as DI, 196/564. 24 The protestant scholastic notion of divine omnipresence is to a large degree the consequence of exegetical considerations over some central biblical texts. Most notably Jer. 23:23 but also Gen. 18:21, 31; 35:13; Ex. 3:8; 1 Kings 8:27; Is. 66:1; Acts 17:27; 1 Cor. 12:6; Heb. 4:13; 2 Chron. 2:6; 6:16; Acts 7:48; 17:24, 27. For a discussion of the central issue for the reformed with regard to space and ubiquity see Richard Muller PRRD, III, 337–42; Dolf te Velde, The Doctrine of God, 141–3.

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dieval Eucharistic doctrinal developments. Aquinas’ view on Eucharistic presence advocates the ecclesiastically approved doctrine of transubstantiation,25 but not in a way that implies a circumscriptive or (necessarily) definitive presence in the elements of the altar. He claims that the body of Christ “leaves” its own proper quantity circumscribed in heaven, as it were, and becomes present “through the manner of a substance” under the quantities of bread and wine.26 The quantitative dimensions of bread and wine miraculously remain the same through divine power. Marilyn Adams expresses this as Christ’s being immediately in the place of the Eucharist, mediated by the species of the host.27 Aquinas had, thereby, found a philosophically coherent way to maintain multilocation but deny co–location (since it would clash with his view of individuation), for the substances of bread and wine are replaced so that the substance of Christ’s body can be located in many places at the same time substantially under the forms of bread and wine. Duns Scotus and William Ockham also approve of the received church teaching of transubstantiation but tweak it in the direction of consubstantiation.28 Both produced theological and philosophical reasons for holding both co- and multi-location. They argue that Christ’s human body is present in heaven circumscriptively, but also somehow definitively in the Eucharist.29 However, this is only possible through the power of God. It is admittedly a metaphysically odd claim to make that Christ, as man, is definitively present in the elements. Thomas Osborne explains: The oddity of the Nominalist position on the Eucharist is the belief that a body which does have parts, namely Christ’s body, can be present in a location without its parts being distinct from each other. In the Eucharist Christ’s foot and his eye are both present even though they are not spatially distinct from each other.30

But this apparent oddity is at least partly explained by a consideration of the different views of the categories in Scotus and Ockham in contrast to the realist view. Scotus thinks that co–location is possible because place is merely a relation 25 Adopted at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and formalized at Trent (1543–63) and reaffirmed at Vatican II (1962–5). 26 ST, III, q. 76, art. 5. 27 Medieval Theories, 23 and 93–97. 28 Officially condemned as a heresy at various councils in Rome (1050, 1059, 1078 and 1079). Hence Scotus talked about a transubstantia adductiva in contrast to Aquinas’ transubstantia productiva. See e. g. Sasse, This is my Body, 54–60. 29 On some interpretations, Aquinas could be said to have advocated something analogous to definitive presence of the body of Christ in the elements. However, this is an interpretation that is simplifying matters too much. See Adams, Medieval Theories, 85–110, for a sophisticated account. 30 Osbourne, “Nominalist Background”, 77. This leads to the more odd conclusion that Christ could see with his eyes in the bread and the wine!

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to the quantity of a corporeal substance. Scotus admitted substance, quality and quantity as basic accidental categories and the six remaining categories he explained as (internal and external) relations to these basic absolutes.31 For Scotus, there is no formal incompatibility for two material substances to occupy the same place. Ockham had different ways of explaining the possibility of co- and multi-location. His basic argument is that quantity is not a category in its own right, in the sense of being a “thing” or “reality”.32 Ockham’s so-called nominalism, then, reduced the number of really distinct categories to substance and quality (relations was cautiously admitted in theology, due to the Trinity). He viewed the remaining eight categories as “connotative” terms, that is, names that do not signify a distinct reality from the substance and the qualities, which they co-signify. Hence, place does not, for Ockham, signify a reality that is predicated of the substance but is somehow identical to the substance and its qualities. In contrast to Aquinas, Scotus and Ockham think that individuation of a substance is something that is ontologically prior to any inherence of accidents and even, for corporeal substance, prior to their being en-mattered.33 Scotus maintains that a particular flower, besides the flower nature it shares with other flowers, has a certain primitive property of ‘thisness’ (haeceity), which makes it different from “that” flower. Yet the flower’s thisness is not a relational property but an intrinsic property the flower has in virtue if itself. Ockham arguably holds a version of the self-identity of substances that does much the same work as Scotus’ thisness.34 The difference between Ockham and Scotus is that thisness is not a reified quality for Ockham (as it is for Scotus). Ockhams nominalism 31 Scotus, Ordinatio, 4, 10. 1, n. 16 in Opera, VIII, 505–6. See Richard Cross, The Physics, 193– 213. And for the medievals’ view of relations, see Mark G. Henninger, Relations. 32 See Paul Vincent Spade, “Ockhams Nominalist Metaphysics: Some Main Themes” in Paul Vincent Spade ed., Cambridge Companion to Ockham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) and Marilyn M. Adams, William Ockham. 2 vols. Publications in Medieval Studies, The Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame, 26/1, 2. (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1987), I, 3–168. However, place is not nihil, on the other hand, for it is a reality that is able to make propositions true and false. Aquinas’s realism seems to require that accidental categories are things in the sense that they are not reducible to substance and quality, as the nominalist tended to argue. However, both Aquinas and Ockham’s notion of thing is rather wide and flexible, similar to “a reality”. 33 Adams, Medieval Theories, 233–41; Aquinas, ST, III, suppl, q. 83. ‘Prior’ denotes the priority of nature and not of time here. 34 See Richard Cross, “Medieval Theories of Haecceity” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta ed., URL = (Accessed, 13 April 2016) and his “Divisibility, Communicability, and Predicability in Duns Scotus’s Theories of the Common Nature”, Medieval Philosophy and Theology 11 (2003), 43–63, as well as Marilyn M. Adams “Universals in the Early Fourteenth Century” in Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny and Jan Pinborg eds., The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

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simply claims that a substance’s nature has sufficient self-identity in itself to make it different from other substances. The consequence is that a substance’s location and materiality is not tied up with its identity and individuation in the same intimate way as in Aquinas. In other words, a thing can be individuated – exist as an individualized kind of thing, say, this particular flower – without being in a place. Philosophically speaking, two bodies can be in the same place at the same time and a body can be in several locations at the same time, since no body is by necessity in a location per se and does not need to be so in order to be an individual body. A most interesting consequence is that if place is no longer a really distinct category, the door is opened to saying that a body can be in all places. The man who went through that door was a certain Martin Luther, a late medieval monk, schooled in nominalist theology and philosophy. For beyond a circumscriptive and definitive presence he also talked about a repletive presence of the human nature of Christ. Recall that definitive and repletive presence are similar in that they (normally) apply to non-corporeal beings but repletive, in contrast to definitive, presence is a “filling” presence of all place. Although God, angels and souls are all immaterial beings, angels and souls are finite and composite beings and therefore able to be present in a limited place. God’s essence as infinite and absolutely simple can be present in all places in an undivided way without being contained in any or all places together. So if the attribution of definitive presence to a body is metaphysically odd, though explainable given the Scotistic and nominalist view of the categories, the attribution of repletive presence to a body is metaphysically astounding, even on the nominalist background.35 An outstanding problem with the definition of place in Aristotle’s Physics is that heaven or the ultimate sphere is not in place. Aristotle tried to grapple with this problem and commentators differ on the meaning of the Stagirite’s arguments as well as their solutions. The problem is this: since the ultimate sphere is not contained – one necessary condition for Aristotle’s notion of place – but is itself a container, it cannot be in place. And if the ultimate sphere is not in place, nothing is in place (since all places are determined by its relation to other bodies). Some thinkers found ways of arguing that it is in place per accidens and not per se as all other material bodies. Scotus argues that since the universe is not in place per se and, since it cannot be said that the universe is in a place although corporeal, it is not necessary for any body to be located anywhere per se. Hence, locus and ubi are accidental attributes of material bodies. God can therefore, 35 However, there were those in the via moderna tradition like Gabriel Biel who would consider it no logical contradiction – although not actually the case but a hypothetical possibility potentia absoluta – that God could share his omnipotence and omnipresence with a finite creature. See John Farthing, Aquinas and Biel, 19–24.

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without contradiction of any natural principle, create a body that is not in a place36 and this is exactly the argument Luther and his followers picked up to support ubiquity. The historian of philosophy, Cees Leijenhorst, notes that the differences between reformed and Lutheran theologians “had far reaching consequences for natural philosophy”: For most Lutheran philosophers up until the end of the seventeenth century, any concept of place or space had to fulfill one important criterion: it should leave open the possibility of natural bodies not to be circumscribed by a finite, definite place. In other words, it should allow for illocalitas as a viable concept in natural philosophy.37

This consequence seems to undermine the project of natural philosophy in its traditional Aristotelian form, as the study of change where motion is a fundamental species. For motion with regard to space and time is not possible without place. Aristotelian natural philosophy was eventually undermined as a viable scientific framework primarily for other reasons, although there might be a case for the view that the Eucharist debate was a contributing factor.38

6.3

Ubiquity

In the previous section I reviewed some presuppositions to the debate on the multi- or omnipresence of Christ’s human nature. We are now ready to move to the central issue of the debate between the Lutherans and their reformed opponents: ubiquity.39 The background material I examined in the previous section will aid our understanding. I shall first present a general form of ubiquity, with roots in Luther’s early thought, and then consider some of Zanchi’s basic objections. In the following subsection, I will reconstruct Chemnitz’s view of ubiquity. Important in the debate over ubiquity was the view of Christ’s ascended body, sitting at the right hand of the Father, and its mode of presence in the world and especially in the sacraments. This will be the topic of the penultimate section. I close this chapter by considering two arguments Chemnitz has for multi-location drawn from late medieval nominalists. 36 This also helps the notions of co- and multi-location of the body of Christ, discussed earlier. See Richard Cross, The Physics, 205–7. 37 “Space and Matter”, 524. 38 See Leijenhorts, “Space and Matter” as well as Leijenhorst and Lüthy, “The Erosion of Aristotelianism”. 39 For this see, Jürg Baur, “Ubiquität” in Oswald Bayer and Benjamin Gleede eds., Creator Est Creatura. Luthers Christologie Als Lehre von der Idiomenkommunikation (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), 186–301; Richard Muller “ubiquitas” in Dictionary, 312; Sasse, This is my Body, 149–60 and Jensen, Kristi person.

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6.3.1 The Inseparability of the Union Luther and his followers had different ways of arguing for the omnipresence of Christ’s human nature. In several places, when arguing against the Lutherans, Zanchi assumes a sort of generalised form of the ubiquitarian position. Presumably he thinks that a general ubiquity underlies many of their arguments. He rarely refers to any specific opponent besides Chemnitz in this argument, but it is clear that Brenz, Andreae and their reception in the Formula of Concord, are cotargets of his argument.40 Luther is not mentioned here as the source but ubiquity was an idea found in Luther : Wherever you place God for me, you must also place the humanity for me. They simply will not let themselves be separated and divided from each other41…. For he is one indivisible person with God, and wherever God is, he must be also, otherwise our faith is false.42

How should we understand Luther here? Oswald Bayer has argued that Luther’s salvific emphasis in Christology overcomes the (perceived) “chasm” between the finite and the infinite, which, he claims, is presupposed in scholastic accounts of the hypostatic union. Bayer says that Luther ultimately rejects the “suppositional character” of scholastic Christology. In the scholastic tradition – following Boethius and Richard of St. Victor – ‘person’ and ‘suppositum’ marks the individuality and incommunicability of a substance.43 In light of Luther’s nova linguae, it seems like we should ascribe a new meaning to ‘person’ and ‘suppositum’ and that they gain different truth conditions when applied to Socrates and Christ.44 As far as I can tell, according to this interpretation, the person of 40 This is noteworthy, since Chemnitz’s view of ubiquity (as we will see) is rather difficult to make sense of, and, as in the previous chapter, I shall try to show that Zanchi for the most part misses his target. However, some things he says can be pieced together into an argument against a Chemnitzian view of ubiquity. 41 Inseparability (adiaireptous) is the anti-Nestorian adverb in Chalcedon’s formula (the other one being indivisibility [adiairetos]). This is probably what was at the back of Luther’s and Chemnitz’s minds when they talked about this. 42 Martin Luther Confession in Luther’s Works, XXXVII, 219 and 223. See also FC (in the context of the Eucharist): “Even as many eminent ancient teachers, Justin, Cyprian, Augustine, Leo, Gelasius, Chrysostom and others, use this simile concerning the words of Christ’s testament: This is My body, that just as in Christ two distinct, unchanged natures are inseparably united, so in the Holy Supper the two substances, the natural bread and the true natural body of Christ, are present together here upon earth in the appointed administration of the Sacrament.” (FC, VII, 37). 43 See Baur, “Ubiquität”. Joar Haga, presents Brenz as having a “diverging interpretation” of the classical, Boethian, definition of person as an individual substance of a rational nature (Lutheran Metaphysics, 139). Compare also with my treatment of Zanchi’s notion of ‘person’ in in chapter four. 44 See White’s analysis, Luther as Nominalist. It seems that this sort of a revision of the

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Christ signifies the person as constituted by divinity and humanity in such a way that they make an “indivisible person”. Luther’s view of the union is also found in Andreae and Brenz, who are, (as we just said) indirect targets of Zanchi.45 The point of interest in highlightning this issue is that, ultimately, the inseparability of the union or the indivisibility of the person of Christ functions as a condition for ubiquity. Through the union, Christ’s human nature is elevated, “above and beyond”, the natural properties outside of the union – it is in some sense made capax infiniti.46 Zanchi responds by saying that the ubiquitarians are orthodox in so far as they say that the divine and the human nature are hypostatically united in one person, but that they go wrong when they try to make an inference from the hypostatic union – via the premise that inseparably united things are also in some sense co-present – to the conclusion that the divine and the human natures are co-present.47 It can be set out like this: hypostatic union can either be taken as (i) a rejection of traditional metaphysics in theology, (ii) a rejection of metaphysics as such or (iii) as an invitation to develop a new metaphysics, in light of the incarnation. Scholarly opinions are not in unison here. I will place my interpretation in line with what seems to be metaphysically sensible and thus, in what follows, I shall presuppose that (iii) is the better one. Moreover not only do I think (iii) is a good interpretation, it is also integral to the kind of analysis I am doing in this study. Having said that, I am keenly aware that others might disagree. 45 This might at first glance appear to be similar to the view I came to in the fourth chapter but it differs at least in that Lutheran inseparability is presupposed to yield co-presence of both natures whereas the Revised view argues a supreme unity of the whole Christ communicated from the unity of the divine nature. The result is a two-functional unity, where ‘Christ’ refers to the composed person in two natures with their distinctions. 46 Similarily, Jürg Baur, concludes, after an erudite discussion on Brenz, that there is nothing, which prevents the normally “philosophically unacceptable” axiom of finitum capax infiniti to be true in Christology. “Deshalb besteht weder der Anlass noch gar die Notwendigkeit, dem christologisch inakzeptablen philosophischen Axiom ein allgemein gu¨ ltiges “Finitum capax Infiniti” entgegen zu setzen.” (“Ubiquität”, 245). For Brenz see: “In philosophica disciplina manifestum est, quod, finiti ad infinitum nulla sit proportio. So autem hanc rationel sequaris, ne unquam concedes filium Dei esse incarnatium.” (Christologische Schriften, 238) Baur’s conclusion should be qualified by the nuanced interpretation of Christian Brandy, who points out the obvious, that the finitum capax infiniti is not a general or abstract truth for Brenz but only applies to the incarnation. This is clear from Brenz’ use of the qualifier fieri to capax, that is, “is made capable”. In other words, the human nature of Christ is not in itself capax (in virtue of being created) but is made to be so. Brandy also shows that similar ideas are found in Luther. See his Die Späte Christologie des Johannes Brenz. Beitrage Zur Historischen Theologie (Tübingen: MohrSiebeck, 1991), 148–52. (Brandy also goes against the more optimistic interpretation by Theodore Mahlman.) See also Wilbert R. Gawrisch, “On Christology, Brenz and the Question of Ubiquity” in Arnold J. Koelpin, ed., No Other Gospel: Essays in Commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of the Formula of Concord 1580–1980 (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1980). 47 OT, II, 117: “Primum ac praecipuum argumentum, quod etiam totius sententiae suae firmamentum esse statuunt: ducitur ab unione hypostatica duarum in Christo naturarum, divinae scilicet & humanae. Fuit autem hoc argumentum, variis temporibus, ad varios

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1. The divine nature of Christ is inseparably united with the human nature 2. When two things are inseparably united, wherever one things is, the other is also. 3. Wherever the divine nature is present, there is also the human nature Zanchi contends that if one argues in this way, one has simply not understood the meaning of ‘person’ and ‘nature’ in the Christological context. Although terminologically anachronistic, it seems nevertheless adequate to say that Zanchi accepts what Bayer called “the suppositional character of medieval Christology” and that he ascribes a different sort of union, which is foundational for ubiquity to his Lutheran opponents. In a passage from De Incarnatione, Zanchi extends his criticism of inseparability to ubiquity : They are going seriously wrong since they think that the natures are separated unless we allow that wherever the divine is there is also the human. It is as if the inseparable union consists in this: either the human and the divine are coextensive or the divine is contracted or included in the human.48

This is a rather provocative assertion. It goes well beyond the criticism of merely the human body being everywhere present to the divine nature being either extended49 along with the ubiquitous body of Christ or enclosed in the body. syllogismorum modos redactum. Principik enim sic concludebant. Natura divina Christi est tota inseparabiliter unita cum humana: iuxta illud, Verbum caro factum est. Quando autem duo sunt inseparabiliter coniuncta: ubi unum, ibi & alterum. Postea sic: Natura divina sese totam communicavit humanae, & in eam sese transfudit. Ergo & suas omnes proprietates: quarum non postrema est facultas, qua possit esse, & reapse sit ubique. Ali/s alio modo formatum fuit.” I have taken the argument here from De Natura Dei, which predates the De Duabus of Chemnitz and is, therefore, situated in the time of the Brenz-Vermigli debate. Zanchi claims that the inseparability premise is an instance of the fallacy non causa ut causam, a fallacy of inference that is due to an ambiguity of one of the terms. (E. g. in OT, II, 57: “Fallacia hic est non causæ vt causæ. Vnio enim hypostatica duarum naturarum sicut non efficit, vt vna sit altera: sic etiam non efficit, nec efficere potest, vt essentials proprietates vnius naturæ fiant alterius, & quæ de vna, eadem de altera propriH prædientur.” See also OT, II, 122 (in the context of the session): “Si negent: paralogismum ergo admittunt non causae, ut causae: ac proinde nihil probant. Si affirment, consequitur ergo, antequam ascendisset in caelum, & sedisset ad dexteram Patris: hanc humanitatem Christi nequaquam fuisse ubique. Nam nondum posita causa, neque etiam effectus poni potest.”) 48 “GraviFs autem errant isti, quod putant eas naturas separari, si non concedamus, ubicunque est divina, ibi etiam esse humanam: quasi inseparabilis unitio in hoc consistat: vt aut humana coextendatur divinae, aut divina contrahatur & includatur in humana.” (DI, 126/ 342) 49 Basically, the idea of coextension is equivalent to the well-known problem that ubiquity appears to entails that the human nature is in the cabbage as well as the elements in the Lord’s Supper. How might they be distinguished? Luther rejected this with a reference to the limitations of our intellect but primarily because God did not “bind” us with his Word and

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However, such absurd consequences follow from a strong notion of inseparability, according to Zanchi, and further underscore his insistence that his opponents have not properly distinguished between the natures and person of Christ. We should note that this route to ubiquity is made virtually without any appeal to the communication of properties.50 It simply assumes that the hypostatic union entails co-presence in some sense. However, given what we have learnt in the previous chapter concerning the non capax in Chemnitz, we should not be surprised to find that he clearly claims that the human nature is not present according to itself, one infinite or immense thing, not is it immeasurable in its mass, not, as Damascene says, coextensive…with the Godhead, something stretched out or expanded, so that it thus spreads out over a wide area, as the infinite nature of the Deity does.51

In light of the severe criticism in the passage from DI above which, was set against Chemnitz and other “ubiquitarians”, we might wonder whether Zanchi (again) is missing the target. Or should we say that Chemnitz has a more traditional scholastic view of the hypostatic union than Luther does, only that Zanchi missed this detail? That is probably the case. I shall argue in the next section that Chemnitz did hold a version of ubiquity, different from Luther’s although not worlds apart. And in so far as my interpretation is correct, Zanchi’s objections might have some leverage on Chemnitz (and it is possible to make this case against Chemnitz quite independently of his view on the hypostatic union). Let us then review some of Zanchi’s arguments against this generalised form of ubiquity based on the inseparability of the hypostatic union. First, he argues from a seemingly analogous example: the body of the sun and its light are united but it does not follow from that unity that wherever the light is, there is also the body of the sun.52 The same would be true of God’s union with the saints: from promise to the cabbage as to the bread and wine in the Eucharist. Christ is not present in the cabbage as he is present “for us” as in the Eucharist. See Luther’s Works, XXXVII, 147–151. 50 Again, see Osbourne, “Nominalist Background”. 51 TNC, 444. See also 458–9. 52 E. g. in “Postremum hoc adverbium adiairetos [no division] proprium est Damsceni: quo quidam ubiquitarius abutitur, ut doceat, ubi est Deitas ibi esse humanitatem: alioqui una distaret ab altera. Sed fallitur. Una non distat ab altera, quia tota plentitudo Deitatis in tota habitat humana natura, & tota humana natura assumpta est in unitatem totius personae divinae. Sed cum tota Deitas etiam extra naturam humanum: Non sequitur, sunt adiairetos unitae: Ergo Ubicumque; divina est, ibi & humana. Lux etiam sol, & corpus ipsum solare sunt adiairetos unitae. Num igitur ubicumque; lux est, ibi & corpus solare? Anima & caput adiairetos unita sunt: Ergo nullibi est anima, quin ibi sit caput? Deberent ij homines meminisse, quid in council. Chalced. legatur: nempe differentias & proprietates naturarum, propter unionem non tolli neque confundi.” (DI, 113/302)

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God’s indwelling in Peter, it does not follow that Peter is present wherever God is present.53 And there is also the favourite simile of the soul-body union. Although the soul and the body are intimately united, the soul does not communicate the property of immateriality. That would have entailed the impossible proposition that the body is definitvely present. A fortiori, such a communication of presence is much less possible in the case of the hypostatic union of an infinite nature to a finite nature.54 Although Zanchi does not spell it out in great detail, we could well understand these arguments as pinpointing the confusion between definitive and circumscriptive presence of bodies and souls, on the one hand, and God’s repletive presence in the world on the other. According to a realist there are two basic criterias that the quantitative dimensions of a physical body must meet, namely, that its parts necessarily (i) are at a distance from each other and (ii) are not detached from the whole. However, Zanchi’s analogical reasoning – from the unions of sun-body, God-saint and soul-body – different types of presence are compromised. The ubiquitarians are, therefore, not taking seriously the nature of physical parts as being necessarily at a distance from each other (internal place) and not detached from the whole. The fact that a circumscriptive entity is “inseparably united” with a definitve is, then, irrelevant to their being co-present (or not) in the same sense since they have two different modes of being present. Of course, with a nominalist perspective things are different, as I have tried to explain at the beginning of this chapter. Criteria (i) and (ii), at the most, express contingent facts about physical bodies that could, perhaps through divine omnipotence, be suspended. How should the differences between realism and nominalism be evaluated? It is very difficult to conclusively demonstrate the superiority (or inferiority) of realism to nominalism in the present context. I will make a partial defence of realism in the last section of this chapter. For now, let me indicate a way to proceed here. First one might adopt a defensive strategy. As a realist with regard to physical bodies, I do not know of any coherent or de53 OT, II, 121. Danaeus, like Zanchi in DND, uses the simile of head and feet being joined but that does not make the feet to be everywhere the head is. Examen, 440–50. 54 OT, II, 105, “Simile habemus in animis & corporibus nostris. Anima unitur corpori tali unione & vinculo: ut hae duae diversissimae naturae, unam simul constituant personam, seu unum hominem. Sed ita tamen uniuntur : ut neque corpus fiat anima, neque etiam tale fiat, qualis anima: substantia scilicet spiritualis, ratione praedita, immortalis. VerFm & anima suas retinet proprietates, quibus / corpore discernatur : & vicissim corpus suas, quibus dissimile maneat animae. Hoc simili apertH demonstratur, Unionem duarum naturarum in Christo hypostaticam, minimH effecisse, ut natura humana talis omnino sit facta, qualis est divina, puta infinita, ac proinde ut sit ubique, quemadmodum est divina.” Zanchi then proceeds briefly arguing the absurdity of the communication of immortality, omniscience and omnipotence to the human nature. He says, for instance, that it if the assumed human nature were immortal, then it would not be like ours in every respect except sin.

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sirable way of rejecting the substance of Zanchi’s arguments and observations. For rejecting them would imply a reduction of both common sense truths about bodies as well as theological truths. Thus, we may proceed by pointing out the philosophical and theological benefits of realism. Zanchi argues in a similar way : if ubiquity is true of Christ’s human nature, movement from place to place – locomotion – would be impossible. (Indeed, the notion of place would not be possible, it seems.) Omnipresence makes locomotion impossible, or at least a superfluous notion, since an omnipresent being is wholly in all places at once and cannot move from one place to another – “as true philosophy teaches, and Christian theology confirms”, Zanchi adds.55 A most serious theological consequence of the rejection of criterias (i) and (ii) is that the foundation for history is taken away, making the Gospel accounts about Jesus of Nazareth as real spacetime events a mere illusion. I shall now take a closer look at Chemnitz’ view of ubiquity as it will provide a background to evaluate Zanchi’s anti-ubiquitarian arguments. Insofar as it can be demonstrated, I shall in the next section attempt to show that Chemnitz held a version of ubiquity.

6.3.2 Chemnitz on Ubiquity It is a common opinion that Chemnitz did not affirm ubiquity but that Christ’s human nature can be present in many places at the same time. I shall take issue with this opinion.56 Of course, I grant that (at least in some places) Luther, as well as Andreae and Brenz, affirmed a general or unrestricted ubiquity whereas Chemnitz often adds a voluntary qualification. However, Luther also qualified the presence with reference to the will of Christ from early on.57 And in some sense also Philipp Melanchthon added a voluntarist qualifier to the sense of Christ’s presence.58 I shall argue that the voluntary qualification is not used by 55 DR, 723 56 For this kind of presentation see Sasse, This is my Body ; Jack Kilcrease, Self-Donation and Joar Haga, Lutheran Metaphysics. 57 However, he became more cautious later on in his life and seems to have shifted views. This is also why I have only discussed the two early texts by Luther. See my earlier comments on the cabbage example. 58 Melanchthon’s influence on Chemnitz is recognized by many scholars. However his actual position seems to be a topic that demands further study. Melanchthon affirms that Christ’s human nature ascended to a place called “heaven”, that there is no real communication of properties to the human but that Christ is omnipresent when he wants. See Haga, Lutheran Metaphysics, 94–9. The problem here is that if it is the human nature, the God-man or the Logos qua divine (which seems to be ruled out on Haga’s presentation) that wills and effects omnipresence, then there is an ambiguity as to the sense of omnipresence. Who or “what” is

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Chemnitz to replace ubiquity with some sort of voluntary multi-location based on the promises to be present in the church militant and the sacraments.59 If so, his position would not be formally different from that of the nominalists. I do not of course deny that there is a voluntarist qualification in Chemnitz, but I will instead try to show that that qualification pertains to the manifestations of the already ubiquitous Christ. Thus, the task is to ascertain this underlying mode presence of Christ’s body. Chemnitz typically says that Christ in his body, even after His ascension and before his judgement, He can be present or can manifest His bodily presence on earth whenever, wherever, and however He wishes, even in visible form. For it is impious and godless to suggest (as some have dared to do) that Christ did not stand besides Paul in the prison with His own true body but that He gave him a vision, phantom, or image of His body.60

Here Chemnitz talks about Christ’s humanity appearing under its circumscribed form – “His own true body” – and not in the mode of the sacraments (which presumably is like a bodily definite presence). So in his reserve, Christ seems to have the ability to manifest his human nature either invisibly in the mode of the sacraments or visibly in the mode of the circumscribed body. Furthermore, as we saw, (the early) Luther’s and Brenz’ view of the hypostatic union differs from Zanchi’s view. Chemnitz to some extent agrees with his Lutheran peers, but adds that the inseparable union must not lead to impious speculation beyond the promise to be in the sacraments and the church. Chemnitz thinks that piety and Scripture should hold us back from an unrestricted ubiquitarian position.61 He agrees with Luther insofar as it is the union with the Word that makes the presence of Christ in the elements on the altar or anywhere else possible, but it is always with a voluntary qualification or restriction.62 Sometimes the manifestation of the human nature is simply a matter of making the body visible to the human eye and the senses.63

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omnipresent? Again, does omnipresence extend to the human nature, the God-man or the Logos qua divine? See also Jensen, Kristi Person. Passages such as TNC, 451 and 455–6 certainly points in that direction. TNC, 431. Emphasis mine. Also “With the union, however, He can be present with His body where and when He wills, and He can manifest His presence according to the essential conditions or natural properties of the human body visibly, tangibly, in a circumscribed and local manner, in the way in which He moved about on earth, in which He stood besides Paul.” (TNC, 444). That the presence of Christ’s body in many places bodily is dependent on the will of God is a position that Chemnitz embraced. (TNC, 431) although he explicitly denies that it is a question about the absolute power of God but of the promises of Scripture (TNC, 435). Recall what I said about Chemnitz’ attempt to argue for the genus maiestaticum from perichoresis. Through a perichoretic presence, all the powers of the soul are present undivided and un-extended in the whole body and all the parts. This is a microcosmic picture of divine

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However, he also says that, outside of the promise of presence in the sacraments and the church, concerning other creatures…subject to the general rule of God, Scripture is clear in its affirmation [e. g. Ps 8:6–8; Phil 2:9; Rev. 4:11; 1 Cor. 15:27] that all things have been made subject to Christ as to the Lord, also according to His humanity, as the Fathers say, not only in the church but in all ways. Nothing is excepted but Him who subject all things to Himself [….] Christ’s human nature, therefore, cannot and ought not be removed or excluded from the general dominion which He possesses and exercises over all things, or from the administrations of the world, since Scripture expressly affirms that all things, even those which are outside the church have been put under Christ’s feet.64

In the same context, he also makes plain that this power was given to Christ in time because of the personal union. But the humanity in and with the Logos rules all things, not in the sense of being absent, far away, or removed by an immense interval of space, or through some vicarious work and administration, such as kings are accustomed to exercise when their power is extended widely through many distant provinces. But just as the human nature subsists in the Logos and insofar as it personally adheres to the Logos, it also has all things before it in the Logos and in being present it rules over all things in the Logos.65

I suggest that these two passages claim that omnipresence should be predicated of the human nature through divine omnipotence or divine omni-causality.66 Through the union with the Logos the human nature is exercising a divine rule and authority over all things. And that seems to be another way of saying that Christ, as God and man, is present to all things. In the second passage he says that this sort of presence through omnipotence is not through action at a distance, which could have been a possibility provided that the human nature is also located in the cosmos and has a place to operate from, as it were.67 Action at a

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presence in the world. I argued that the simile does not support the third genus, nor does it support ubiquity. In Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper in Luther’s Works, XXXVII, 224 Luther says “For I do not want to deny in any way that God’s power is able to make a body be simultaneously in many places even in a corporeal and circumscribed manner. For who wants to prove that God is unable to do that?” This statement is very close to what Chemnitz seems to want to affirm about the presence of Christ’s humanity. TNC, 462. TNC, 463. I call this ‘omni-causality’ since it is not a matter of omnipotence (in the sense of all the things that God can and actually does) the focus is that the fact that all creation owe their being to divine activity. It is roughly the same sort of analysis of omnipotence as Peter Geach made in “Omnipotence”, Logic Matters (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981). For an interesting argument to that effect, see Richard Cross, “Incarnation, Omnipresence, and Action at a Distance”, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religions-

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distance is ruled out in the example of how a king rules in his kingdom. There are other ways of being present. A soul, for instance, is present in the body not by physical touch, as two bodies touching each other, but through (formally) causing the body to function as a human body. Compare this with the Lombard who claims that God is essentially present to the world by causing existence (although it is not formal causality).68 Similarly, though less technically, Chemnitz says that Christ, as God and man, is present through his rule over all things. To be present to all things in such a sense seems like a version of ubiquity. And this is a sort of presence Chemnitz affords the human nature through its union with the Logos. It is fitting to put together this conclusion with Chemnitz’ voluntary qualification and claim that Christ’s human nature is present to all things through divine omni-causality but has the power to manifest this presence69 whenever and wherever he likes and does so specifically through the Sacraments and in the promises of presence in the church. Multivolipresence is, then, on this reading, a manifestation of an already ubiquitous human nature. What is more, it seems also that this position escapes Zanchi’s allegation that there are two omnipotences in Christ. If there is a real communication of properties, the only omnipotence in Christ is the divine omnipotence of the Logos (which is everywnere present through a general rule of things) in which the human nature has come to share in a personal way. This positions approaches but is not identical to Luther’s constitutional view of personhood that I sketched above. It could be objected that divine omni-causality does not entail omnipresence. For one thing, it seems to simply assert that God effects a change in all places but does not have to be present in those places. Or maybe God, in his omnipotence, could leave a portion of the universe autonomous to function through its own power (and thus restricting the “omni” in omni-causality). In effect, this would be a partial ‘deism’. Neither of these objections are true to traditional Christian doctrine according to which God actually is omnipresent through his activity. So the possibility of a partial deism seems irrelevant to the question of the coherence of my interpretation. Be that as it may. My interpretation does not need to claim an entailment between omnipresence and omnipotence, only that omnipotence (qua omni-causality) would be sufficient for omnipresence. However, I think that divine omnipotence qua divine omni-causality, i. e. power of all things, whether through primary or secondary causes, does entail some sort of divine omnipresence. Since a spiritual substance only can be philosopie 45 (2003), 293–312. Cross explicilty says that his account is very different from Chemnitz’. 68 Sent, I, d. 37, q. 1. For Aquinas see ST, I, q. 8, art. 3. 69 As I showed, the manifestation can sometimes be circumscriptive and sometimes in some other way.

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causally present to material things, it would seem that God’s omni-causality is another way of talking about God’s general omnipresence. Of course this does not exclude the traditional view that God might be present in different ways in different regions of the world. The different modes of presence express the various effects of the different modes of divine causality. Traditionally, God is more intimately present to the saints than to creation in general and most intimately present in the personal union with the human nature in Christ.70 The Chemnitzian innovation is that Christ’s human nature also somehow participates in divine presence through participating in divine omni-causality. Curiously, Zanchi does not pay much attention to the voluntary aspect of ubiquitarianism. And neither have I found in later reformed scholastics much that forwards the discussion. His general posture – without much argument – is to say that should the ubiquity of the human nature of Christ depends on the divine will, it would destroy the human nature as a finite, rational and circumscribed material substance. However, it goes without saying that we should be somewhat cautious here. There are certainly many texts by reformed scholastics on this issue that deserve our attention that could complement the view I have found in Zanchi. In the next section of this chapter, I shall look at the ascension and the session at the right hand of the Father, an issue that was closely related in the debate about ubiquity and I will show the consequences of the two different starting points in Christology as well as in cosmology. It will pave the way to the last section where I will discuss two scholastic arguments for multi-location and co– location of Christ’s human nature and piece together a possible zanchian response.

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Christology Provoking Cosmology

Christians have for centuries confessed in the Apostle’s Creed that Christ incarnate “ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” But what is the theological function of this affirmation? And how does the ascension and the session (as the “sitting at the right hand of the father” traditionally is called) relate to our knowledge of the cosmos? I find that many Christians today, theologians and lay people alike, have little time for these doctrines as they seem to be an embarrassment or simply do not add any real content to theology and spiritual life. However, in the protestant reformation debates they were live 70 The alert reader will understand that I suppose that personal union is also a sort of causal union; although I would not say it is only that, it is at least and minimally that. It would take us far beyond the present context to explore the implications of this issue.

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issues, well connected to physics and cosmology, and with great spiritual significance. Lutherans tended to claim that Christ’s ascension to the right hand of the Father refers to the ascension of the human nature to participate in divine omnipotence. For “the right hand of the Father” does not refer to an exalted place like the ultimate sphere, or heaven, but the almighty power of God. The Formula captures this view of the ascension: Yet [the ascension] occurred not in an earthly way, but, as Dr. Luther explains, according to the manner of the right hand of God, which is no fixed place in heaven, as the Sacramentarians assert without any ground in the Holy Scriptures, but nothing else than the almighty power of God, which fills heaven and earth, in [possession of] which Christ is installed according to His humanity, realiter, that is, in deed and truth, sine confusione et exaequatione naturarum, that is, without confusion and equalizing of the two natures in their essence and essential properties.71

Later Lutheran theologians developed this notion in different ways but stayed close to Luther’s basic idea.72 A consequence was that the ascension was sometimes interpreted as a disappearance before the eyes of the apostles in Acts 1, rather than an upward movement through the skies of the physical body of Christ until it was out of human sight as the reformed theologians had it.73 Christ’s humanity, as it were, entered another dimension of reality. That Christ should be physically located at a great distance, in “heaven”, was a notion that was ridiculed by some Lutherans. We may in passing note a similar ridicule in Karl Barth: There is no sense in trying to visualise the ascension as a literal event, like going up in a balloon…. The point of the story [in Acts 1] is not that when Jesus left His disciples he visibly embarked upon a wonderful journey into space, but that when He left them, He entered the side of the created world which was provisionally incomprehensible, that before their eyes He ceased to be before their eyes.74

Barth insists that Jesus, while still a creature after the ascension, continues to live “on the God-ward side of the universe, sharing his throne, existing and acting in the mode of God.” Christ continues to be present but in a hidden dimension 71 FC, Solida Declaratione, VIII 28. 72 After Luther, Calvin rejected a similar view found in Joachim Westphal. Bullinger and Vermigli similarliy refuted the view of Brenz. See Haga, Lutheran Metaphysics, 130–5. Chemnitz affirmed a physical ascension. See e. g. TNC, 426. 73 Reformed theologians followed Zwingli and Calvin in their emphasis on the connection between place and body. For instance, the Consenssus Tigurinus, (1549), which was prepared by Calvin, talks of the local body of Christ in heaven “philosophically speaking” (art. 25). This is indicative of an implicit affirmation of the common scientific framework in the context of Christological discussion. För the creed, see: http://www.creeds.net/reformed/ Tigurinus/tigur-bunt.htm (Accessed, 13 April 2016). 74 Barth as quoted in Paul D. Molar, Incarnation and Resurrection: Toward a Contemporary Understanding (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 27.

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since he can continue to be all-present (Mt 28:20) in a “heavenly mode of existence all the days, even to the consummation…of the age, but also as the One who will come again to usher in this consummation.”75 Despite his reservations about the genus maiestaticum, Barth comes rather close to affirming something like the Lutheran view in the Forumla of Concord or, perhaps, even closer to my interpretation of Chemnitz.76 Zanchi faithfully represents the Lutheran view as whatever is at the right hand of God (that is, his power) extends everywhere.77 He initially responds by an appeal to the non capax and the extra. God’s power is infinite and, therefore, the divine nature is outside (extra) the human nature because the human nature is finite and cannot be omnipotent or omnipresent. God’s simple and infinite essence is everywhere through his power,78 and therefore wholly everywhere in heaven and all its parts but also wholly outside of heaven.79 The ascension is interpreted as locomotion, an upward movement of Christ’s body beyond the visible heavens to a place, also signified by the phrase “the right hand of the Father” or simply “heaven”. He agrees exegetically with the Lutherans that “the right hand of God” is figurative speech for God’s rule (God does not have a right or a left hand).80 But taking the right hand of God figuratively does not have to mean that the place of sitting cannot be thought of in physical terms, as signifying a physical place of exaltation. Christ according to his human nature ascended to that place – which was interpreted as the empyrean heaven and where the blessed souls and the angels dwell.81 It is outside the ninth sphere, the sphere of the indestructible planetary bodies. Contrary to some Lutherans, then, Zanchi thinks that heaven is not ubiquitous but “far distant from the earth”, a “most happy, fair and perfect place” for he identifies it with what is above the visible 75 Molnar, Incarnation and Resurrection, 28. 76 Kilcrease disagrees with this. See his Self-Donation, 184–90. For a constructive comparison with the Lutheran view and Barth see, Piotr J. Malysz, “Storming Heaven with Karl Barth? Barth’s Unwitting Appropriation of the Genus Maiestaticum and what Lutherans Can Learn from It”, International Journal of Systematic Theology 9/1 (2007), 73–92. 77 “Quocunque locorum sese extendit dextera, id est, potentia Dei: ek etiam extenditur potentia, quam humanitas Christi, in caelum evecta, / Patre accepit. Hoc facilH dabimus. Et ita sequetur vera conclusio: Ergo cFm dextera, id est, potentia Dei ubique locorum extendatur : ubique etiam protenditur potentia, quam Christus, qu. homo est, accepit.” (OT, II, 124. See also DR, 727) Zanchi claims that Chemnitz argued in the same way as Luther : Christ’s body sits at the right hand of God; God’s right hand is everywhere. Therefore, Christ’s body is everywhere. However, Chemnitz argued that Christ’s body according to its natural and essential properties are in heaven and in virtue of divine glory is everywhere. See e. g. TNC, 456. 78 OT, II, 124. 79 DI, 192/551. 80 The reformed scholastics were strong critics of the different anthropomophizing groups (e. g. Socinians). 81 De Operibus [Pars. 1, lib. I, cap. 4, q. 2] OT, III, 50–2

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heavens (Eph. 4:9–10), the “third heaven” whereto Paul claims to have been transported (2 Cor 12:2ff.) and the place he longs for since there he will be able to see the ascended and glorified Christ in the flesh (Phil. 3:20 and 1 Thess 4:16f.). Although physically distant, Zanchi thinks that this notion of heaven has great spiritual significance to the believer as the end of their earthly pilgrimage where they shall find rest with their brother and king.82 Furthermore, Zanchi adds that heaven is referred to by Christ as “his Father’s house” in which he is to “make room” for the saints (John 14:2).83 This concrete view of heaven stands against heaven as a wholly or partly “uncreated room”, which he pejoratively calls the perceived Lutheran position.84 Such a heaven is thought impossible, since only God is uncreated.85 We might briefly pause here and note that it seems odd that Zanchi does not stop where Scripture seems to stop and rests his case. (There is, for instance, no talk of an emphyrean heaven in Scripture).86 However, this objection has not taken into consideration that Zanchi is a traditionalist and so were most reformed scholastics with regard to these issues. In the view I have laid out so far, Zanchi only expresses a concern to be faithful to both revelation and what he, and many with him at this time, still thought of as the most plausible cosmology (and natural philosophy). He lived at the brink of groundbreaking discoveries in both natural philosopy and cosmology that would change not only Christology but our general view of the world. Zanchi’s view of heaven has implications for the manner of place ascribed to Christ’s body. Recall that Scotus argues in a way that some Lutherans would as well: since heaven is in place per accidens all bodies are in place per accidens and, therefore, multi-location and co–location of Christ’s body are quite cogent alternatives. Although neither Scotus nor Luther are mentioned, a view like theirs is probably the background to Zanchi’s following rejection: So, if the body of Christ were ubiquitous, it would be necessary to [be] circumscribed by the ultimate limit of the whole air and furthermore by all heavens and waters. And since two bodies cannot be circumscribed by one and the same limit, it follows that no bodies are in this air, and in the waters and heavens, except the body of Christ. What

82 For this, see John Farthing “Patristics, Exegesis, and the Eucharist in the Theology of Girolamo Zanchi” in Trueman and Clark eds., Protestant Scholasticism. 83 De Operibus, [pars I, lib. 1, cap 4] OT, III, 46–7. The same notion is defended in Bullinger’s Tracatio which is a commentary on John 14 mentioned in his response to Holder. See Zanchi’s reference to Bucer in OT, VIII, 670. 84 OT, III, 53. 85 DR, 705. 86 Although I cannot do full justice to it here, this paragraph is written in response to a comment by prof. Paul Helm.

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could be more absurd? The body is truly physical and so is the limit of the air [and] the place truly physical.87

Thus, he concedes that the ultimate sphere is in place per accidens since there is no ultimate containing limit of the universe. But he resists the inference to all bodies being in place per accidens. More specifically, he claims that though heaven is in a place per accidens it is not a physical place; a place but not an ordinary place. Heaven is, according to Zanchi, a place without air but not a vacuum.88 This raises a problem, for according to Aristotle a genuine vacuum – a place without any content, a non-being – is a physical impossibility.89 Normally, if there is no body occupying a place, it will immediately be filled with air.90 So heaven, as airless yet not empty and void, is an exception given his natural philosophy. However, heaven is not completely discontinuous in its basic physical character from the earth and our common experiences of material objects. For heaven is, after all, a place. Zanchi has a strong theological reason to consider heaven as a place, since Christ’s physical body fills it and the resurrected bodies of the saints shall in the future share that space. As a result, the very existence of physical bodies is essentially bound up with being circumscriptively in a place per se. However, he says, although a place without its being a physical place that is filled with air is beyond our intellectual comprehension, it does not hinder God to create or sustain a non-vacuous place without air or bodies to fill it.91 Zanchi claims that, it is certain that the physical body of Christ is there. Place is therefore [real in heaven] since all true bodies are by necessity in place. Take away place from bodies and they will be nowhere. “And since they are nowhere they do not exist”, says Augustine.92 87 OT, III, 273, “Sic, si corpus Christi esset Ubiqeu, oporeret circumscribi ab ultima superficie totius A[ris: Deinde omnium Coælorum & Aquæ. Et cFm duo corpora non possint: ab una & eadem superficie circumscribi: sequeretur nulla esse corpora in hoc A[re. Aquisque & Coælis: præter corpus Christi. Quo quid absurdius? Est enim corpus vere Physicum: & A[ris superficies, locus verH Physicus.” 88 Although he thinks that the heavens do not contain any infinite substances or elements but is more or less continuous with the terrestrial and lower sphereical substances and elements, he does speculate about a fifth element in the heavenlies. Hence he prefers to call heaven the empyrean heaven. De operibus [Pars. 1, lib. 1, q. 2] in OT, III, 50–2. 89 Physics, IV, 6 (213a23–29). 90 There were reformed scholastics who argued that a vacuum is possible. See Cees Lijenhorst for more on this, “Erosion”. 91 Elsewhere Zanchi speculates about the quality of our present bodies and the heavenly bodies. It will be lighter and more like the Aristotelian fifth element. So although he does not say it, maybe the fifth element fills the places of heaven now. See, OT, III, 52–3. 92 In OT, III, 273 “Certum est ibi esse corpus Christi Physicum. Locus igitur est: quia omne verum corpus, in Loco sit necesse est. Tolle Loca Corporibus: & nusquam erunt. Et quia nusquam erunt: non erunt: inquit Augustinus.” Similarily in Coenam Dei in OT, VII, 433, “Corpus Christi, sua substantia seu, ut scholastici loquuntur, secundum suum esse naturale,

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Besides the fact that it might be hard to imagine a physical body without a physical place, it is a strong affirmation of the necessary connection between materiality and place – a connection that Zanchi is happy to accept through the deliverances of faith. Zanchi allows his cosmology be affected by the needs of Christology. This is the aspect of analytic Christology that focuses on the consequences of a starting point on Christology. Given the accepted truths of Aristotelian cosmology, Zanchi is pushing this cosmology to its (theoretical) limit to make sense of a traditional belief about – and indeed to “make room” for – the ascended Christ and the saints. The generations after Zanchi, notably Bartholomeus Keckerman,93 would look back to Zanchi’s view on physics and continue to let Christology provoke cosmology, especially the notion of place. Details in Zanchi’s Christology and cosmology and especially their interrelation are indeed obsolete – yet there are aspects we should not disregard, i. e. not throwing the theological baby out with the cosmological bathwater. First of all one must laud Zanchi’s attempts to connect place and corporeality. Zanchi wrote well before the 20th century interest in and “discovery” of the importance of the materiality of human beings for theology and spirituality. This should have an appeal for contemporaries wanting to think analytically about the materiality of Christology. Secondly, one must also admire the attempt at a unified theory of truth, the facts of physics are not disregarded but rather incorporated and enhanced by and in theology. This attempt is praiseworthy, regardless of the out-dated cosmological picture. It would also seem to stand in contrast to Luther and Brenz, who tended to emphasise the disjunction of the earthly and the heavenly academy. The eschatological already-and-not-yet tension exists in a continuity-discontinuity paradigm. For many Christians through history, the greater temptation has been to set the physical conditions of creation in too strong discontinuity to creation restored. A common eschatological perspective is to claim that creation is replaced rather than restored and that the new creation is a rather different place – if it is or has a place at all – where the best of our present time science and wisdom are of no worth. Zanchi’s “materialism” and attempt to unify truth wherever it is found challenges this tendency. Thirdly, Zanchi’s realist view of place tends to seriously take into account the physical and, implicitly, historical character of the humanity of Christ. It seems that Zanchi’s strong resistance to making place (and, thereby, time) non-necessary features for material beings are on the right path since such non esse proprie in terries: & multo minus in pane, aut sub pane: sed tantum eo in coelo, in quod ascendit: qaundoquidem nullum corpus, sua substantia proprie in loco nisi localiter esse potest.” 93 Contemplationes Peripateticarum De Locatione et Loco, Libri Duo (Hanoviae: Guilihelmum Antonium, 1598), 16–22.

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a denial would also take away a basic condition for real history and the narration of natural, rational and religious life. The great historian of Christology, Isaac A. Dorner, argued that Lutheran Christology led to (or was undergirded by) an immaterialist view of the human nature of Christ, which enjoyed a “freedom from the conditions of space, to be the realization of its true idea.”94 Being a disciple of Hegel, Dorner did not regard this immaterialism as problematic but as a precursor of his own idealist Christology, which saw the incarnation as the necessary outworking in time and space of the Ideal.95 Indeed, he says that, the reformed notion of Christ’s and our humanity is “better guaranteed in the form which corresponds to our present earthly circumstances” whereas “the Lutherans adheres rather to the ideal, or the idea of a glorified humanity, as compared with which, it considers the empirical form of our human life to be somewhat transitory, to be marked by a mere semblance of reality.”96 Dorner’s comments are strongly suggestive and made at the end of a rather detailed exposition of Lutheran and reformed Christology. I do not say that we should take them at face value. Nevertheless, he highlights some of the basic differences between a reformed and a Lutheran vision of Christ’s humanity. Dorner’s claim that Christ’s humanity “corresponds to our presently earthly circumstances” resonates with Zanchi’s ambition as I have presented it here. These possible benefits aside, it can never be escaped that Zanchi’s claim that Christ’s body (and soul) is right now seated above the visible heavens somewhere, sounds extremely implausible to modern ears and sounded impious to most of the 16th century Lutherans, who more or less shared Zanchi’s cosmology. Connected to the question of cosmology is also the question of relevance: what is the theological and spiritual significance of an ascended Christ? One of Zanchi’s answers is to “make room”, since the saints, according to this eschatological view, are marching home.97 It is hard to see how this scenario is spiritually helpful to pilgrims in via or the saints in patria. For the pilgrim’s progress will be carried out in the absence of Christ while the pilgrims triumphant will be living a life which is so drastically different from out life that it is hard to imagine why 94 Person of Christ, 246. 95 See Chr. Van Driel, Incarnation Anyway : Arguments for Supralapsarian Christology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), ch. 3. 96 Person of Christ, 247. He also maintains that the “illocal” union of the Logos with the human nature is motivated by this kind of ultimate vision. The participation of humanity in divinity is also the other way around for a time, the human participation in eternity and God in time and space. 97 For more on this, see John Farthing, “Christ and the Eschaton: The Reformed Eschatology of Jerome Zanchi” in Fred W. Graham ed., Later Calvinism: International Perspectives. Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies XXII (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1994), 333–354.

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they would need to be embodied at all; in the glorified state the resurrected body does not appear to be used for anything. This eschatological picture of the consummation seems to be in conflict with the materialism I have ascribed to Zanchi.98 Luther and his followers claimed that Christ as man had entered the hidden and majestic dimension of heaven – similar to Barth’s “God ward side”. However, a ubiquitous view of the human nature of Christ is also hard to give any spiritual relevance. Zanchi raises quite a few serious objections concerning the spiritual effects of ubiquity. The essence of them is that ubiquity, whatever it boils down to, makes Christ’s humanity so different from ours that our salvation and his sharing of our condition are rendered illusory.99 In other words, both parties seem to have their implausibilities and irrelevancies to deal with. Is there a place (if the pun is allowed) for the ascension and the session in contemporary theological reflection? Theologically, these two doctrines are crucial as they tie together the resurrection and the parousia, salvation and consummation. It would seem right, then, to claim that as the resurrection was physical, in space and time, the ascension and the session were as well. However, even if their theological value seems indisputable, their integration with modern science is no less easy than with premodern science. I can see three alternative strategies. First, one could argue that the ascension and the session entail a discarnation. Since a literal ascension and a litteral sitting at the right hand of God are embarrassments, we should get rid of them. One could still keep the basic structure of the narrative of decent and ascent: Christ the Son returns from his earthly voyage, his kenosis in the form of man, to the Father in the form of God.100 I have (anecdotally) found this to be a common conception among many 98 For an investigation of this issue see the explorative article by, Marilyn M. Adams, “Why Bodies as Well as Souls in the Life to Come?” in Gregory T. Doolan ed. The Science of Being as Being: Metaphysical Investigations (Washington, DC: Catholic Univertsity of America, 2012), ch 12. 99 John Farthing writes about this in a study of Zanchi’s commentary on Ephesians 5. He says that our union with Christ, given the disastrous consequences of ubiquity, is “something analogous to bestiality. To worship a ubiquitous Christ is to indulge in the spiritual equivalent of the most repugnant of sexual perversions. Zanchi makes full use of Aristotelian logic, but the most forceful appeal in his critique of ubiquity is centred not so much in purely logical considerations as in the revulsion aroused at the image of a conjugal relation between two who are of different species. The body of the Bride is not ubiquitous; how can she be conjoined with one whose body differs from hers in such a radical way? The doctrine of ubiquity makes the difference between the body of the Bride and the body of her heavenly Spouse so vast as to constitute an unbridgeable qualitative distinction. Only if the doctrine of ubiquity is false will the spiritual union between Christ and the Church be possible. We who are finite in our embodied humanity could never become “one body and one flesh”… with a ubiquitous Christ.” (“De coniugio spirituali: Jerome Zanchi on Ephesians 5:22–33”, Sixteenth Century Journal 24 (1993), 621–52, quote at page 628). 100 For an argument to this effect, see Peter Forrest, “The Incarnation: A Philosophical Case for Kenosis”, Religious Studies 36 (2000), 127–140.

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Christians. For after the resurrection and the ascension, we seem to have no need of a bodily incarnate Christ any longer. After all, he sent his Spirit to minister to us and he is with us as God. A related strategy is to try to save these doctrines by spiritualizing these doctrines in some way, maybe through allegory. The ascension and the session are in this view not historical events but some form of religious fiction, meant to entice faith in Christ. This does not necessarily involve a dis-carnation but rather a non-incarnational view of the whole life of Jesus of Nazareth. Second, there are some such as Douglas Farrow,101 Thomas Torrance102 and N.T. Wright103 who have attempted to integrate Christology and cosmology. According to them, the present rule of God, the kingdom of God and the eschaton are all closely tied together on a continuum. Hence they argue a continued incarnation after the resurrection. At least some of them, explicitly inspired by Barth, say that Christ at the ascension enters another dimension of reality – one that incidentally appears to be congenial to contemporary views of physics where time and space are made relative notions, especially according to Thomas Torrance. Wright metaphorically says that the right hand of the Father is for the Son to be in the “control room” of the universe.104 This certainly looks like a respectable route to take as it tries to make good sense of and include these doctrines into the larger theological pattern as well as at least make some cautious connection to modern physics, which through quantum mechanics and string theory has made physical realities much more open-ended and multilayered than was previously assumed. In other words, some have found a contemporary way to lodge a continuous incarnation after the resurrection in a post-Einsteinian universe. The problem I see with this view is that it is in danger of being reduced to the first alternative response because of the seeming immateriality of the human Christ after the ascension, which indicates a strong discontinuity with our present existence.105 These two approaches might be contrasted with the historic reformed view as seen in Zanchi, which asserted that Christ’s ascension and sitting are literal space-time events, on a continuum with our this-worldly and present view of physical reality.106 To my knowledge there are no theologians still holding to the 101 Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Eccelsiologyand Christian Cosmology (Edinburgh: T& T Clark, 1999). 102 Space, Time and Incarnation. 103 Surprised by Hope (London: SPCK, 2007), 109–116. 104 Surprised by Hope, 111. 105 A further problem seems to be that these theologians have followed a similar path to that of Barth and Luther (but part ways with Luther in their rejection the notion of ubiquity). For both Luther and these theologians say something like this: the ascension stories say that Christ disappeared and entered some other dimension of reality. 106 A glance at some early 20th century dogmatics reveals that the topic is mostly treated

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notion of heaven as some form of empyrean heaven! Our view of the universe has changed drastically, both on the micro- and the macro-level. However, the change does not so much concern the basic notions of Aristotelian physics as cosmology – from a rotating spherical to an expanding universe with no fixed centre.107 But is there, then, a way to lodge a physically located Christ in a postEinsteinian universe? And does that have any spiritual significance? These are two difficult questions and whatever the answer is, it would involve keeping the interconnection between place and body on a rather continuous scale between this and the glorified earth in contrast to the previous alternative strategy. There is also an anthropological desiderata that a historic reformed view might assist in fulfilling. If being human entails physicality then we should be wary of talking about another dimension or an “immaterial” in–carnate Christ. Moreover, if the very physicality and materiality of the incarnation is of eschatological as well as present time significance we should instead try to find a way in which we might make theological sense of a continued incarnation that is consistent with contemporary physics and spiritually nourishing. I have already pointed out an inconsistency in Zanchi, namely, that he has a remarkably immaterial view of heaven and the eschaton and at the same time a remarkably material view of the incarnation. These two could be brought into better harmony, provided that we, following the lead of many contemporary exegetes, replace the view of heaven as a distant and happy place with the view exegetico-theological and at best mentions the historic problems in passing. E. g. Bavinck (in Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2002], 446) claims that the Christian church “has always refrained from a further specification of the place of Christ’s exaltation.” Bavinck, who is normally historically wellinformed, here seems to brush the problems in his own tradition under the carpet. 107 In fact there are some scholars who have argued for the convergence of modern and Aristotelian notions of physics, such as place: Wallace, The Modelling of Nature and Benedict M. Ashley, “The River Forest School and the Philosophy of Nature Today” in James R. Long ed, Philosophy and the God of Abraham: Essays in Memory of James A. Weisheipl (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991), 1–15 and Elders, The Philosophy of Nature, 85–6. In particular, Vincent E. Smith: “Local movement [after Einstein] thus becomes an affair of relation and gives primacy to neither of the terms.” “But the failure to measure immobility does not argue to its non-existence.” “In quantum mechanics, the position and velocity of small particles cannot be exactly measured when considered simultaneously. But despite the please of scientism, this does not mean that particles have no position or have indeterminate ones…To affirm that a position cannot be exactly measured and to state that it does not exist is to say two very different things. Positionless particles on the level of atoms could no more give rise to positioned bodies like the rock of Gibraltar than a house can be built by simply laying vacuums on top of each other. Whether in the Aristotelian, Copernian, Einsteinian, or quantum systems, the two terms of motion are somehow immobile or the motion is an absurdity staggering from nowhere to nowhere, hence not motion at all [….] The theory of relativity seeks to relativize the absolute but ends by absolutizing the relative.” (Philosophical Physics [New York: Harper & Bros, 1950], 327– 8).

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that heaven is the coming of God’s rule to earth. Hence, there is also a possible convergence with the second alternative strategy. For physicality is indeed a rather thick concept in a post-einsteinian world. There are layers of reality that we, at present – perhaps due to our finitude, sinfulness and the present divine dispensation – cannot access. Provided that a robust notion of place, akin to Zanchi’s ditto, and modern physics are not at variance, a combination of the second strategy and desiderata taken from the historic reformed view seems to be a way forward. I offer these speculative thoughts as a mere invitation to explore these issues since a proper study would take us well beyond the present context. This chapter as well as the bulk of this study ends with an examination of two scholastic arguments that I have found in Chemnitz and with a reconstruction of a Zanchian response.

6.5

Two Chemnitzian Arguments

Chemnitz did on occasion cite the late medieval nominalists in support of his views. Like them he claims that it is not contradictory to say that a body can be in more than one place at the same time. I shall here examine two such arguments and then reconstruct a possible response from Zanchi. The first is drawn from Gabriel Biel and I formulate it as follows108 (1) A body has from its essence a natural necessity to be in one place. (2) But the power of God is not bound by natural necessities of created essences. (3) Hence, God can make a body to be in more than one place. A second, drawn from Durandus of Saint-Porcain, adds some complexity :109 (1) Contradictions only pertain to essential qualities. (2) It is not of the essence of a body to be in only one place since a. The ultimate sphere is not in place b. God can create a sphere without a body 108 Chemnitz quotes Biel in response to the objection that to be in many or all places at the same time is an incommunicable divine property : “This is true when something has this quality by reason of its definite essence, so that in itself it is of necessity everywhere and in many places at the same time; but it is different when through the will and power of God some creature which by nature is finite, circumscribed, and in one place is now at the same time in many places, if God wills, disposes, and works in a supernatural way.” (TNC, 461) Chemnitz does not refer to a passage in Biel, neither in the English translation nor in the Jena edition. For more on this, see Farthing, Aquinas and Biel, 23. 109 See Durandus’ commentary on Sent III, d. 22, q. 8. (See, In Sententias Theologicas Petri Lombardi Commentariorum Libri Quator (Lugundi: apud Guilhelmum Rouilium, 1563), 217a.)

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(3) Hence, God can create a body without place. (4) Hence, a body can be in more than one place without contradiction We may begin by noticing that none of these arguments contradict the non capax or, for that matter, rely on its inversion, finitum capax infiniti. Both arguments assume a close connection between multi-location and divine omnipotence but in no way does such supernatural or miraculous action result in or presuppose that the human nature shares in the uncreated attribute of omnipresence.110 Earlier in the same chapter, Chemnitz wrote that God is “not bound by secondary and natural causes” and can, therefore, work “many things which are above and contrary to their nature; yet their essence remains intact.” He mentions as an example the burning bush, which was not consumed by the fire and takes this as an argument for the possibility of Christ’s body being located in many places at the same time through divine omnipotence.111 Furthermore, Chemnitz resists a stronger conclusion: if a body can be in more than one place, then Christ’s body is in every place (de potentia absoluta).112 Such a conclusion seems to be possible on the above premises or at least, there is nothing in the premises that contradicts such a conclusion. For why could not a body that is not restricted to one place be in all places simultaneously? Again, that is not necessarily equivalent to ubiquity, at least not in Luther’s early and rather strong sense of the repletive presence of the body of Christ. For the mode of ubiquity in this stronger conclusion is not argued from the inseparability of the union, or some direct consequence thereof, but from the absolute power of God and its compatibility with natural philosophy.113 110 In TNC, 436, Chemnitz writes that the body of Christ does not come to “possess as an essential or natural property the quality of being present in different places at the same time.” Unless limited by place and time the essence of Christ’s human nature “would really be denied and abolished.” For the multi-locatedness of the human body of Christ is through the power of God and “in another way than the natural way.” “For there is no boundary to divine power and there is no estimate of His wisdom.” Hence, Chemnitz distinguishes between essential and supernatural attributes, concluding: “For there are no contradictions if contrary qualities are attributed to the same thing in different respects and in different ways.” (437). 111 TNC, 439. 112 At TNC, 461 it is explicit as a possibility although not embraced. 113 In neither of the arguments is Chemnitz very forthcoming about the mode of presence, but we might presume it is something like a definitive presence of the body of Christ in many places simultaneously as well as definitive presence along with other bodies being there circumscriptively (e. g. the Eucharistic elements.) This raises questions. First can two things be present definitively in the same place? More specifically, can two souls or angels occupy the same place or overlap (even on a nominalist view of physics)? And can a body be definitively present at a place where there is both a soul and a body of a human being already present? I suppose that the answer to these questions depends on the activity of the present object. If Christ’s body is present in a place definitively where there is already another body

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A Zanchian response should major on the claim that bodies are in place per se (due to their quantitative dimensions as material beings). If this claim is defensible, it constitutes a challenge to both of Chemnitz’ arguments. The Bielargument starts from the premise that it is natural though not necessary – in some stricter sense than natural necessity – for a corporeal nature to be in place whereas the Durandus-argument takes a step further, saying that single location is a non-essential attribute of bodies. The Biel-argument is content to say that there is some strong tendency or capacity in the human nature to be in one place but that this tendency might be overridden by divine omnipotence. It is possible that the scholastic notion of obediental potency (potentia obedientiae) is in the background here. The second premise in both arguments appeals to divine omnipotence saying that divine omnipotence is not bound by natural tendencies or that there is any contradiction for omnipotence to intervene in a substance’s accidental properties, such as place. However, since my construal of Zanchi’s claim about the per se necessity of the location of bodies as basic, I take it that his objection primarily contends with the first premise; the appeal to divine omnipotence has less bearing on his case.114 We might here take a page from a contemporary of Zanchi, Lambertus Danaeus, who charges that divine omnipotence cannot cause the multi-location of a body without contradiction.115 Moreover, if God could make contradictory things happen, God would be a liar.116 Danaeus insists that not being able to make a physical body be in more than one place does not detract anything from divine omnipotence but it rather expresses the divine constancy and wisdom (constantia, & sapientia).117 Neither Chemnitz nor Zanchi would assume that God can do the impossible, but they disagree as to what is impossible when it comes to physical nature. Implicit in Zanchi’s view is that the per se location of bodies is a stronger kind of necessity than that presupposed in Chemnitz’ two arguments. It is stronger than mere natural tendencies (Biel) or accidential attributes (Durandus). Zanchi’s conviction that bodies are in place per se runs so deep that he thinks that even Christ’s body must be in a place, even in an airless heaven. It appears that he claims that there is place in heaven because the actual presence and even the

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present circumscriptively it is less of a problem (provided that we grant definitive presence of some sort of bodies) than two objects being definitively present in one place. In Defensio Admonitionis in OT, VIII, 669–70, Zanchi makes a rare comment on the voluntary qualification of the possiblity of multi-location of the apologists. He simply responds “Bene dicitis, QUOD VULT: Quomodo probabitis eujm velle vere contradictoria: idem corpus, secundum idem, eodem sensu & eodem tempore, esse praesens & absens: uno certo duntaxat loco, & in multi locis, finitum & infinitum?” This is compatible with my interpretation of his focus and my reconstruction of his response. Examen, 440. At. 435f. the term Multivolipraesentia appears. Examen, 441. Examen, 442.

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potential presence of a body with quantitative dimensions causes place to be (contra Durandus). Maybe we could think of this as the emergence of place: that the existence of place supervenes on existence of bodies. However, the complementary causal relation seems suggested by the saying of Augustine: “Take away place from bodies and they will be nowhere. And if they are nowhere they do not exist”, which Zanchi favourably quoted. On that basis, it might be objected against the Durandus-argument, that contradictions can indeed pertain to accidents – place is an accident inhering in a material substance. While Aristotelians of all stripes agree that contradictories can be affirmed of different parts of a substance at the same time, it is a contradiction to claim that the corporeal part of a human being is not in a particular place. Something like this seems to be presupposed in the second argument: the body is naturally and accidentally in one place but can through divine omnipotence be in many places. However, it then makes a fallacious conlusion. Something’s not being determined by a particular place does not entail the possibility of being in more than some particular place. For bodies are in some place and have some colour by necessity but only contingently are they in this or that place and have this or that colour. But we cannot move from “some” to “more than one” when talking about place or colours. Strictly speaking, being “here” or “there” are not contradictories but contraries, like north and south. They are neither essential attributes of a human like “rational” and “animal”. So far the Durandus’ argument seems to have some force. However, being in place flows from the animal nature, which is essentially physical. On the other hand something’s being here and not being here (because it is elsewhere at the same time) seems to be a contradiction.118 It is like saying that while one is located on the North Pole one is at the same time on the South Pole. From this it follows that, even if we grant for the sake of the argument, that bodies are in place per accidens, when a body is in place de facto, being circumscribed in a place, it cannot be simultaneously in another and remain one and the same body. This is, at least, true if we are talking about continuous bodies, which have no detached parts in other separate places. Of course a body could be divided, as matter is divisible by nature. If a body is divided it might be said in an equivocal sense to be “one body” though it is in more than one discontinuous place at the same time. Think of an object with detached parts, like the city of Heidelberg. However, none of these consequences seems to capture what Chemnitz (nor his Lutheran colleagues and their nominalist forbearers) intended to say. Nevertheless such conlusions seem deducible from 118 Obviously, a king can be present in several places in his kingdom at the same time in virtue of his authority but then we are not talking about the kind of locatedness.

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their insistence on the separability of a body and place. I would add that it also points to the desirability of quantitative matter as the principle of individuation for finite material substances. So what about the Biel-argument presupposition, that material beings merely have a natural tendency or capacity but not a necessity of nature to be in a place? Here we need to distinguish between different senses of natural necessity. Presumably, some tendencies but not all tendencies can be overruled by divine omnipotence. Human beings have the capacity to use language, since they have a rational nature. However, failing to use language – failing for whatever reason – does not take away this capacity or natural tendency from human nature. Natural tendencies or capacities are (normally) not necessary for the survival of the individual possessor’s existence or essence and can still persist in a dormant or frustrated manner in the substance. But, considered as an accidental property (propria), our capacity for language use as rational animals is not comparable to the necessity of being in a place as corporeal beings. A body cannot fail (for any reason) to be in a place and still be a body whereas a rational animal can fail (for some reasons) to use language and still be a rational animal. Hence there is a radical difference between these sorts of capacities.119 Thus, the Biel argument seems to rely on a false dichotomy between different sorts of capacities or necessities. My attempt at a (re-)construction of a Zanchian-style objection to the first premises in both arguments seem to be in favour of his cause. We would have to move into the next century to find more elaborate constructions of these issues. But as far as a basic statement of the reformed view goes, Zanchi functioned as a source of inspiration and model for later generations. It takes the materiality and necessary single-locateness as as basic features of a reformed scholastic Christology and are clearly venues for further explorations in a constructive engagement with contemporary theological issues. I will close this chapter with a concession and a recommendation to Chemnitzians who want to stay Aristotelian. Generally, unless bodies are bound up with being in place, locomotion, change and growth either become impossible or illusory. Zanchi argued in this way against unrestricted ubiquitarianism. If things are not in place or merely in one place at the time, then the whole historical flow of the biblical portrayal of Christ – the ascension included – is 119 Here it does not help if we make a distinction between a strong and a weak natural tendency. Some accidents are simply necessities for the identity of the substance, whereas strong and weak tendencies are not. For more on this see Freddoso, “Human Nature, Potency and the Incarnation”. It might also be objected that it is unadvisable to talk of being in place as a capacity of physical bodies. I have simply done so in this paragraph, in order to talk about natural tendencies and my argument does not depend on the term or any particular account of capacities.

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emptied of its content. This objection might not strike as sharply at Chemnitz. This is my concession. For as I have reconstructed his implicit view of ubiquity it is not a normal corporeal and circumscribed presence in all places although that seems to be a possibility de potentia dei absoluta as my discussion has showed. Chemnitz views ubiquity as the human nature’s sharing in the omni-causality of the Logos. Still, he claims that the body of Christ retains its own proper qualities and quantities while it also comes to receive qualities and capacities far above its natural endowment through the union with the Logos – such as being causally active in all places. And that is sufficient for omnipresence. Although a staggering claim (which I think we should reject for reasons that I have offered in this and the precious chapters) it is not strictly contradicting the possibility of locomotion in the way Zanchi suggested. For the human body of Christ, seated in heaven locally (or however we want to construe an updated version of the reformed historic position), can still participate in the omni-causality of the Logos.120 On the other hand, there is also a possible warning to be heeded in all of this. As Cees Leijenhorst noted toward the end of the first section, Lutherans tended to include illocalitas as part of the natural philosophy due to the Eucharistic and Christological desiderata. Hence, it may cause us to reconsider one of the most basic objects of study of Aristotelian natural philosophy as well as modern physics: motion and change in natural bodies. And insofar as one desires to bring natural philosophy into dialogue with theology, that causes an unnecessary problem.

120 For two interesting discussions, see Richard Cross, “Catholic, Calvinist, and Lutheran Doctrines of the Eucharistic Presence: A Brief Note Towards a Rapprochement”, International Journal of Systematic Theology 4 (2002), 301–18 and “Action at a Distance”.

Concluding Remarks I engage with philosophy in the morning, with the garden in the afternoon. – R.S. Thomas.1

In retrospect, one may view this study as an exercise in theological retrieval or resourcement theology.2 Unlike the 20th century Aggiornamento-movement’s preference for the patristic tradition and critical edge to scholasticism, the resourcement project enshrined in the previous chapters will not insert such a wedge between patristics and scholasticism. Indeed, such a dichotomy was as foreign to the medieval as to the reformed scholastic theologians.3 However, theological retrieval should not glorify the past or na"vely adopt concepts and methods that now are rendered obsolete. On the contrary, I think that all retrieval in theology should be conscious of the problems involved in reading and using older sources (hermeneutical, historiographical, cultural etc.) as well as the suitability of the methods employed. But none of these problems should hinder a constructive engagement. I have no illusions that my modest contributions, Christological and methodological, will be convincing to all readers. Many of the arguments and conclusion from Zanchi and my critical engagement with his views can be perceived as controversial for several reasons. No doubt, there is much more that could be said about them. It seems to me that such is the nature of theological retrieval – there is always more to say. I shall chasten myself and make two concluding remarks, one on the future of research in reformed scholastic Christology and one the perennial value of scholasticism. Future Research in Reformed Scholastic Christology This study has primarily focused on Jerome Zanchi’s De Incarnatione – an early reformed scholastic Christological text written at the end of the con1 “Presence” in Collected Poems. 1945–1990 (London: Phoenix, 2000), 325. 2 This is how Oliver Crisp has described his own work in Christology. See also, somewhat tangentially, John Webster, “Ressourcement Theology and Protestantism” in Gabriel Flynn and Paul D. Murray eds., Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twenteenth-Century Catholic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 3 See e. g. Meijering’s, “The Fathers and Calvinist Orthodoxy”.

186

Concluding Remarks

fesionalisation period. It is indicative of the best of the reformed tradition thitherto and became an example to the tradition thereafter. Still, this narrow focus limits the range of the possible conclusions that can be drawn about the shape of reformed Christology as a whole.4 There were hundreds of Christological texts written in the 16th and 17th centuries and many of them adopt a similar style, use concepts in similar ways and refer to the same bulk of traditional sources as I discussed in chapter 2. However, these similarities should not lead us to conclude that they were all saying the same thing in the same way. These texts would require a much more detailed scholarly attention if a proper understanding of reformed scholastic Christology as a whole is going to be reached.5 I would like to suggest, that beyond examination of Christology embedded in the traditional theological text-genres of the refomed scholastics, researchers should also focus on the philosophical works (e. g. logic, physics and metaphysics). A glance at such sources reveals the permanence and importance of Christology in the minds of the reformed scholastics.6 When they discussed explicitly philosophical topics, examples were often taken directly from Christology.7 What speculative and constructive Christological notions might be found in such (con-)texts? Also, are there areas where Christology has influenced philosophy in the refomed scholastics? Approaching reformed scholastic Christology and philosophy in this way might provide us with a fresh perspective on the nature of the integration of philosophical and theological issues and an occasion to reflect on the reformed scholastics’ emphatic rejection of the theory of the double truth, the supposition that some truths of theology are not truths in philosophy and vice versa.8

4 I make an attempt to make a comprehensive statement about the nature of reformed scholastic Christology in my chapter, “Reformed Scholastic Christology” in the projected antology by Jon Balserak and Jim West eds., In the Shadow of Martin Luther: The ‘Other’ Reformations (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, forthcoming). 5 As I have said, the contemporary scholarly situation is not the same in Lutheran Christology in this histrorical period. However, as much as I believe that many of these studies are valuable, their value would increase by a more explicitly philosophical study of the sort I have carried out here. 6 The work done by Leijenhorst and Lüthy in the context of physics should be expanded. 7 For instance, see Franco Burgersdijk in Institutionum Metaphysicarum Libri Duo (Leiden, 1675), Lib. II, ch. 1 where his primary examples of substance are taken directly from Christology when he is discussing the notion of substance and subsistence. Similarly in Goclenius’, Lexicon, several of the entries are illustrated from Christology. Examples could easily be multiplied. 8 For Keckerman, see, Muller, After Calvin, ch. 7.

Concluding Remarks

187

The Perennial Value of Scholasticism Nicholas Wolterstorff recently remarked: Never since the late Middle ages has philosophical theology so flourished as it has during the past thirty years…This flourishing has occurred within the analytic tradition of philosophy.9

Wolterstorff ’s observation seems correct as far as it goes. But it is incomplete. It is somewhat ironic that Wolterstorff does not mention the flourishing of the scholasticism in his own, reformed, tradition. Remarks such as Wolterstorff ’s are not unusual and signal a kind of ignorance (even where it should not be found) of the existence, extent and eminence of the reformed scholastic tradition. This study should be seen as a witness to scholasticism in its medieval and refomed varieties as well as its contemporary guise of philosophical theology. Extending the gallery of people in the scholastic tradition to include members of the reformed communties makes us more aware that it was not a monolithic tradition, but rather a “space” within which academics in different times and places (even times and places near to where we now happen to be situated) were allowed to move in a number of directions. Broadly speaking, the Lutheran and the reformed theologians I have looked at are participants in a perennial tradition, even if they sometimes, as I am, are critical of elements within it. But criticism of elements in a tradition should not to be confused with the breaking away from that tradition. The vitality of a tradition may be measured by the presence of internal criticisms and differences; this is how traditions evolve and keep live. For at least some of the real differences between the Lutherans and the reformed scholastics were not necessarily about philosophy or Aristotelianism as such, but about the application and use of a perennial philosophical tradition to theological topics. I have tried to step into this tradition and point out the underlying philosophical notions at play in the interchange primarily between Zanchi and Chemnitz, and also more contructively in Zanchi’s relation to some preceeding (Damascene, Aquinas and Scotus) and succeeding (Turretin) theologians. Hopefully my constructive arguments and conclusions may contribute to the continuation of scholasticism and the viability of its reformed variety. Moreover, having engaged the reformed scholastic tradition, I hope this study will be received as an invitation to contemporary theologians to explore a more broadly construed Aristotelian tradition as a resource for contemporary discussions in theology – a scholasticism reformed.10 9 “How Philosophical Theology Became Possible within the Analytic Tradition of Philosophy” in Crisp and Rea eds., Analytic Theology, 155. 10 I am here alluding to the title and spirit of the contributions in the volume edited by Wisse, Sarot and Otten, Scholasticism Reformed.

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Abbreviations of Works Frequently Cited DFO DI DND FC OT TNC PRRD DR Sent. ST

De Fide Orthodoxa De Incarnatione Filij Dei De Natura Dei Triglot Concordia. The Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Operum Theologicorum. The Two Natures of Christ Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics De Religione Christian Fide Sententiae in Quatuor Libris Distinctae Summa Theologica

I refer to page numers in Zanchi’s De Incarnatione, both in the 1593 edition and the Operum Theologicorum, VIII. I distinguish them with “/”, like this: DI, 192/350. For all other works by Zanchi I refer to volume and page numbers in Operum Theologicorum except De Religion where I refer to the page numbers in the Brill edition. I refer to Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica in the customary way (e. g. ST, III, 1, 1). The same goes for the works of other classical authors, like John Damascene, Peter Lombard, John Calvin and Francis Turretin. For Aristotle’s works, I refer to book, chapter and Becker numbers. I have used English translations of authors when available.

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