Divine Word Seminary School of Theology
Tagaytay City
____________________________________________________________
THE CHRISTOLOGY OF
ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA ANDHILARY OF POITIERS
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A Report Paper Presented to
the Professor of Christology
In Partial Fulfilment of the
Requirements in the Subject of
Christology
Requirements in the Subject of
Christology
Rev. Fr. Stephen Gonzales, OSJ
Professor
By
Philip James Baided
Ritchie Fortus
Ray-An Jerico Jabay
August 2011
___________________
I. INTRODUCTION
Christology is part of theology which deals with Jesus Christ. In its full extent it comprises the doctrines concerning both the person of Christ and His works. Accordingly, many writers in Christology presented Jesus Christ with different themes and emphases. Some modern writers even used different approaches or methodologies (e.g., patristic, speculative, ontological, functional and cosmic) to discuss the nature of Jesus Christ.[1]
This report paper will be focusing on Christology in the perspectives of Athanasius of Alexandria and Hilary of Poitiers as two of the greatest defenders of Catholic faith.
II. ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA
A. Biography[2]
Athanasius was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in about the year 300 A.D. He received a good education before becoming a deacon and secretary to the Bishop of Alexandria, the great Egyptian metropolis. As a close collaborator of his Bishop, the young cleric took part with him in the Council of Nicaea, the first Ecumenical Council, convoked by the Emperor Constantine in May 325 A.D. to ensure Church unity. The Nicene Fathers were thus able to address various issues and primarily the serious problem that had arisen a few years earlier from the preaching of the Alexandrian priest, Arius. The Bishops gathered in Nicaea responded by developing and establishing the "Symbol of faith" ["Creed"] which, completed later at the First Council of Constantinople, has endured in the traditions of various Christian denominations and in the liturgy as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.
In 328 A.D., when Bishop Alexander died, Athanasius succeeded him as Bishop of Alexandria. He showed straightaway that he was determined to reject any compromise with regard to the Arian theories condemned by the Council of Nicaea. His intransigence - tenacious and, if necessary, at times harsh - against those who opposed his episcopal appointment and especially against adversaries of the Nicene Creed, provoked the implacable hostility of the Arians and philo-Arians.
St. Anthony Abbot, with his spiritual strength, was the most important champion of Athanasius' faith. Reinstated in his See once and for all, the Bishop of Alexandria was able to devote himself to religious pacification and the reorganization of the Christian communities. He died on 2 May 373.
The most famous doctrinal work of the holy Alexandrian Bishop is his treatise: De Incarnatione, On the Incarnation of the Word, the divine Logos who was made flesh, becoming like one of us for our salvation.
Among the other works of this great Father of the Church - which remain largely associated with the events of the Arian crisis - the four epistles he addressed to his friend Serapion, Bishop of Thmuis, on the divinity of the Holy Spirit which he clearly affirmed, and approximately 30 "Festal" Letters addressed at the beginning of each year to the Churches and monasteries of Egypt.
B. Christology
i. General Remarks
Shenouda III stated: “Athanasius defended equally both the divinity and humanity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Cyril of Alexandria based his Christological teaching on the Christology of Athanasius and offered the letter of Athanasius to Epictetus as a primary reference to the correct Christological teaching of the Church, calling it “the letter of our blessed father Athanasius to Epictetus.”[3]
Athanasius, defending the perfect humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, refused the wrong ideas that “the body born of Mary is coessential with the Godhead of the Word, or that the Word has changed into flesh, bones, hair, and the whole body, and altered from its own nature.”[4]
He stated clearly “the body in which the Word was is not coessential with the Godhead, but was truly born of Mary, while the Word Himself was not changed into bones and flesh, but came in the flesh. For what John said: “The Word was made flesh,”[5] has this meaning, as we may see by a similar passage; for it is written in Paul: “Christ has become a curse for us.”[6] And just as He has not Himself become a curse, but He is said to have done so because He took upon Him the curse on our behalf, so also He has become flesh not by being changed into flesh, but because He assumed on our behalf living flesh, and has become man.”[7]
Athanasius also was clear in his teaching about the living flesh assumed by the Word of God that it meant a whole humanity, i.e. the body and the rational soul together. He wrote: “But truly our salvation is not merely apparent, nor does it extend to the body only, but the whole man, body and soul alike, has truly obtained salvation in the Word Himself.”[8] Also he said, “For to say “The Word became flesh”, is equivalent to saying “the Word has become man;” according to what is said in Joel: “I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh;”[9] for the promise did not extend to the irrational animals, but to men, on whose account the Lord is become Man.”[10]
Athanasius also denied that the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ existed before the incarnation of the Word from the Holy Virgin. He wrote, “They all will reasonably condemn themselves who have thought that the flesh derived from Mary existed before her, and that the Word, prior to her, had a human soul, and existed in it always even before His coming.”[11] It is very clear that Athanasius was never affected by the teaching of Origen about the pre-existence of the souls.
ii. Athanasius versus Arianism[12]
Arius, whose name identifies the school of thought of which he was leader, was a presbyter in charge of the Baucalis (c. 313), a church in Alexandria. The influence upon him by his former teacher, Lucian, and his own intellectual endeavours provided the seed from which a dispute grew between the young scholar and Bishop Alexander (c. 319), and subsequently among the greater Church.
A chief difficulty of Arius’ position in the view of those who considered themselves orthodox was that this presbyter denied the deity of the Son of God. According to Arius, God is personally and substantially singular, having an individual nature, and being unchangeable, self-existent, and eternal. Everything else was created by Him ex nihilo in time. The Son of God, likewise, was created out of nothing by an act of God’s will to be His agent in the creation of the world; Christ was neither eternal nor identical with God. God is immutable; the Son is changeable. God is perfect; the Son progresses toward perfection. Although the Son is the Logos, He is not God’s own logos or reason. The Son existed before this world and was incarnate in Jesus Christ, who was born of a virgin and took on flesh but not a human soul. Although Jesus was not God, Arius agreed to His being worshiped because of His unique relationship to the Father; in addition, Jesus may be called God, but this does not mean that He really is God.
Thus, Arius attempted to combine the Logos Christology (i.e., the idea of the pre-existent Son of God incarnate in Jesus Christ) and a form of adoptionism. Christ was sharply distinguished from God, but He was not just a man either, but rather the Incarnation of the Logos. Therefore, according to Arius, Christ was neither fully God nor fully man, but someone in between.
Sometime before becoming a Bishop, Athanasius was secretary to Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria. Having been in direct touch with Arianism, Athanasius became an active opponent of the Arian party.
This Alexandrian’s theology centred about the motif of the true deity of God the Son, a concept contrary to the Arian school of thought.
Being concerned with the Incarnation as fundamental to salvation, the great opponent of Arianism had the problem of combining the idea of Christ’s deity (made necessary by Athanasius’ doctrine of salvation) with the Logos Christology.
If man was to be saved, it was necessary, so Athanasius thought, that a union in Christ of the nature of God and the nature of man be present. It was not necessary, however, that Jesus should personally be identical with God the Father, but it was essential that Christ and God be substantially one.
“...He (God the Father) is ever, and is now, and as the Son is, so is He, and is Himself He that is, and Father of the Son. But if ye say that the Son was once, when He Himself was not, the answer is foolish and unmeaning. For how could He both be and not be?”[13]
“...when we say that Father and Son are two, we still confess one God, so when we say that there is one God, let us consider Father and Son two, while they are one in the Godhead, and in the Father’s Word, being indissoluble and indivisible and inseparable from him.”[14]
Furthermore, according to Athanasius, for Christ to be equal with God or in harmony with His will was not sufficient for an adequate Christology. Jesus must actually possess God’s very nature, which, though one and indivisible, is shared eternally by both Father and Son. The pre-existent Son becomes incarnate in Christ.
“...for no holy Scripture has used such language (as Arius’) of the Saviour, but rather “always” and “eternal” and “co-existent always with the Father.” For, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”[15]
The Son was, however, subordinate to the Father, but not in essence. Both the Father and the Son are equally God and self-existent. The Son, though was begotten of the Father, being derived from Him, but yet retaining his self- existence.
“...if He (Christ) is called the eternal offspring of the Father, He is rightly so called. For never was the substance of the Father imperfect; ...nor as man from man, has the Son been begotten, so as to be later than His Father’s existence, but He is God’s offspring, and as being proper Son of God, who is ever, He exists eternally.”[16]
The philosophical idea of the unity and equality of the Divine and the subordination idea of the Logos Christology are combined in Athanasius’ understanding of the person of Jesus Christ.
iii. Athanasius versus Nestorianism
Although Nestorius came later than Athanasius, yet Athanasius offered a rigid teaching against Nestorian heresy.
He wrote, “How did men called Christians venture even to doubt whether the Lord, who proceeded from Mary, while Son of God by Essence and Nature, is “of the seed of David according to the flesh,”[17] and of the flesh of the Holy Mary? Or who have been so venturesome as to say that Christ who suffered in the flesh and was crucified is not Lord, Saviour, God, and Son of the Father? Or how can they wish to be called Christians who say that the Word has descended upon a holy man as upon one of the prophets, and has not Himself become man, taking the body from Mary; but that Christ is one person, while the Word of God, Who before Mary and before the ages was Son of the Father, is another? Or how can they be Christians who say that the Son is one, and the Word of God another?[18] He wrote also, “The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was He alone, the image of the Father, who could recreate man made after the Image.”[19]
Contrary to the orthodox teaching of Athanasius, Nestorius taught as follows: “For this reason also Christ is named God the Word, because he has an uninterrupted conjoining to the Christ.”[20] And again, “Accordingly, let us safeguard the unconfused conjoining of natures, for let us admit God in man and because of the divine conjoining let us reverence the man worshiped together with the almighty God.”[21] Nestorius also said, “God is inseparable from the one who is visible, because of this, I do not separate the honour of the one not separated. I separate the natures; but I unite the adoration.”[22]
On this last passage Cyril of Alexandria, in his letter to Acacius, commented as follows: “Not having known the meaning of the incarnation, he names two natures but separates them from one another, putting God apart and likewise man in turn, conjoined to God by an external relationship only according to the equality of honour or at least sovereign power” (paragraph 16 of the letter).
Athanasius rejected any separation between the divinity and the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. He wrote, “The others, dividing what is indivisible, denied the truth that “the Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us.” [23] He also wrote, "We do not worship a creature. Far be the thought. For such an error belongs to heathens and Arians. But we worship the Lord of Creation, Incarnate, the Word of God. For if the flesh also is in itself a part of the created world, yet it has become God’s body. And we neither divide the body, being such, from the Word, and worship it by itself, nor when we wish to worship the Word do we set Him far apart from the flesh, but knowing as we said above, that ‘the Word was made flesh’ we recognize Him as God also, after having come in the flesh. Who, accordingly, is so senseless, as to say to the Lord: “Leave the body that I may worship Thee,” or so impious as to join the senseless Jews in saying, on account of the Body, “why dost Thou, being a man, make Thyself God?”[24] But the leper was not one of this sort, for he worshipped God in the Body, and recognized that He was God, saying, “Lord if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.”[25]
Athanasius explained how the Word of God made the properties of the Body His own and wrote, “the incorporeal Word made His own the properties of the Body, as being His own Body. Why, when the Body was struck by the attendant, as suffering Himself He asked, “Why smittest thou Me?”[26] And being by nature intangible, the Word yet said, “I gave My back to the stripes, and My cheeks to blows, and did not turn My face from shame and spitting.”[27] For what the Human body of the Word suffered, this the Word, dwelling in the Body, ascribed to Himself... And verily it is strange that He it was Who suffered and yet suffered not. Suffered, because His own body suffered; suffered not, because the Word, being by nature God, is impassable.”[28]
On the other hand Athanasius explained how the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ was glorified beyond its own properties of the nature. He wrote, “But the Body itself being of mortal nature, beyond its own nature rose again by reason of the Word which was in it; and it has ceased from natural corruption, and having put on the Word which is above man, has become incorruptible.”[29]
But truly our salvation is not merely apparent, nor does it extend to the body only, but the whole man, body and soul alike, has truly obtained salvation in the Word Himself.[30]
III. HILARY OF POITIERS
A. Biography[31]
Hilary was born in Poitiers, probably, in about the year 310 A.D. From a wealthy family, he received a solid literary education, which is clearly recognizable in his writings. It does not seem that he grew up in a Christian environment. He himself tells us of a quest for the truth which led him little by little to recognize God the Creator and the incarnate God who died to give us eternal life. Baptized in about 345, he was elected Bishop of his native city around 353-354.
In the years that followed, Hilary wrote his first work, Commentary on St. Matthew's Gospel. It is the oldest extant commentary in Latin on this Gospel. In 356, Hilary took part as a Bishop in the Synod of Béziers in the South of France, the "synod of false apostles", as he himself called it since, the assembly was in the control of Philo-Arian Bishops who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. "These false apostles" asked the Emperor Constantius to have the Bishop of Poitiers sentenced to exile. Thus, in the summer of 356, Hilary was forced to leave Gaul.
Banished to Phrygia in present-day Turkey, Hilary found himself in contact with a religious context totally dominated by Arianism. Here too, his concern as a Pastor impelled him to work strenuously to re-establish the unity of the Church on the basis of right faith as formulated by the Council of Nicea. To this end he began to draft his own best-known and most important dogmatic work: De Trinitate (On the Trinity). Hilary explained in it his personal journey towards knowledge of God and took pains to show that not only in the New Testament but also in many Old Testament passages, in which Christ's mystery already appears, Scripture clearly testifies to the divinity of the Son and his equality with the Father. To the Arians he insisted on the truth of the names of Father and Son, and developed his entire Trinitarian theology based on the formula of Baptism given to us by the Lord himself: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit".
In the years of his exile, Hilary also wrote the Book of Synods in which, for his brother Bishops of Gaul, he reproduced confessions of faith and commented on them and on other documents of synods which met in the East in about the middle of the fourth century.
Ever adamant in opposing the radical Arians, St. Hilary showed a conciliatory spirit to those who agreed to confess that the Son was essentially similar to the Father, seeking of course to lead them to the true faith, according to which there is not only a likeness but a true equality of the Father and of the Son in divinity.
In 360 or 361, Hilary was finally able to return home from exile and immediately resumed pastoral activity in his Church, but the influence of his magisterium extended in fact far beyond its boundaries.
A synod celebrated in Paris in 360 or 361 borrows the language of the Council of Nicea. Several ancient authors believe that this anti-Arian turning point of the Gaul episcopate was largely due to the fortitude and docility of the Bishop of Poitiers.
In the last years of his life he also composed the Treatises on the Psalms, a commentary on 58 Psalms interpreted according to the principle highlighted in the introduction to the work: "There is no doubt that all the things that are said in the Psalms should be understood in accordance with Gospel proclamation, so that, whatever the voice with which the prophetic spirit has spoken, all may be referred nevertheless to the knowledge of the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Incarnation, Passion and Kingdom, and to the power and glory of our resurrection" (Instructio Psalmorum, 5). He saw in all the Psalms this transparency of the mystery of Christ and of his Body which is the Church.
Hilary died in 367. His liturgical Memorial is celebrated on 13 January. In 1851 Blessed Pius IX proclaimed him a Doctor of the universal Church.
B. Christology
i. General Remarks[32]
His work on the Trinity is a scriptural confirmation of the philosophic doctrine of the divinity of Christ, and is of permanent value. It was not a mere restatement of traditional orthodoxy, but a fresh and living utterance of his own experience and study. In the discussion of the co-essentiality of the Son, Hilary lays emphasis on the Scripture titles and affirmations, and especially on his birth from the Father, which he insists involves identity of essence. In the elaboration of the divine-human personality of Christ, he is more original and profound. The incarnation was a move went of the Logos towards humanity in order to lift humanity up to participation in the divine nature. It consisted in a self-emptying of himself, and the assumption of human nature. In this process lie lost none of his divine nature; and, even during the humiliation, he continued to reign everywhere in heaven and on earth. Christ assumed body, soul, and spirit, and passed through all stages of human growth, his body being really subject to pain and death. Redemption is the result of Christ’s voluntary substitution of himself, out of love, in our stead. Between the God-man and the believer there is a vital communion. As the Logos is in the Father, by reason of his divine birth, so we are in him, and become partakers of his nature, by regeneration and the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
ii. Three-Stage Christology[33]
Hilary has a dynamic understanding of christology structured by the framework of Philippians 2:6-11 and especially the notions of forma dei and forma serui.[34] Hilary’s christology, as Grillmeier has noticed, prefers to use the three stages of the logos to make predicative distinctions rather than the static two natures.[35] These three stages are pre-existence (God), mortal life (God and man), and resurrected life (God and man).[36] Hilary outlines these stages often in the course of the Tractatus super Psalmos. In his commentary on the second Psalm he says:
For when he said soon you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power (Mt. 26:64), he showed that time in which the son of man, who is both Christ and the Son of God, would be worthy of sitting with God: so that that which is then son of man—namely he who before was Son of God, and then also was son of man—should be born for the perfection of the Son of God: that is, for resuming and granting the glory which, while being in the body, he asked of the Father, to his eternal body through the power of the resurrection. For he who was in the form of God received the form of a slave. And he asks that the glory of God, in which he remained, be received by this form of a slave, saying: Father, glorify me with you with that glory which I had with you before the world came to be (Jn. 17.5).[37]
Each stage of the Son’s existence receives ample treatment in the Tractatus super Psalmos. The first stage provides the scene for Hilary’s Trinitarian explanations. The Son is eternally generated of the Father,[38] which makes the Father greater than the Son,[39] though the Son is one nature (una natura) with the Father,[40] and has the same substance of the divinity (non dissimilis aut differens a se substantia diuinitatis),[41] and the same power (inseparabilis uirtus)[42] as the Father. There is no interval of time between the Father and the Son.[43] Hilary speaks of the Son as the revealer of the Father,[44] and though he often speaks of the Son as the right arm, Word, wisdom and power of the Father,[45] he shows hints of having a doctrine of common operation.[46] The Father and Son are one God, one God from one God,[47] and both in one.[48]
The second stage of the Son’s existence is the incarnate life of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here we find discussions of Christ’s weakness and suffering,[49] and it is in this context that Hilary lays out his teaching of Christ’s assumption of all humanity into his body. The incarnation is the beginning of something new both for humanity and for the Son.[50] For humanity it is the beginning of hope for it is the beginning of participation in the divine life. For the Son, the incarnation is the assumption of a non-divine created nature, which is infirm, weak and sinful as well. Christ’s incarnation and his assumption of all humanity, and all the weakness that pertains to humanity, are accomplished for the purpose of bringing about humanity’s participation in the divine life. Hilary says quite explicitly in De Trin. 9.38 that the incarnation brings about an obstacle to the unity of the Father and the Son.[51] The assumption of humanity separates the Son in some way from the Father because what the Son has assumed shares neither the same nature nor the same glory with the Father as the Son’s own divine nature does.
This third stage contains the definitive participation of humanity in the immortal glory of divine reign and sonship. Hilary outlines the end of the dispensation in the framework of 1 Corinthians 15 to show that Christ’s handing over of the reign and subjection to the Father are expansions and indeed the accomplishment of the incarnation. This stage is also the resolution of the Trinitarian obstacle presented in the second stage, namely the incarnation. The glorification changes man’s habitus: he ceases to be characterized by humility and infirmity and instead is a participant in the glory and majesty of the forma dei. In this way, the glorification of the assumed humanity, the forma serui, resolves this divide of the Son from the Father because it allows all of humanity, including Christ’s own, to enter into a new relationship with the Father: that of son.[52]
However, this obstacle to the relationship between the Father and the Son presented in the incarnation and resolved in the glorification is a subject that, while discussed quite explicitly in the De Trinitate, is implicit at best in the Tractatus super Psalmos. Hilary’s eschatological interest at the time of the Tractatus super Psalmos is motivated more strongly by soteriological concerns and less by the Trinitarian concerns that dominate the De Trinitate. The Tractatus, with regard to the incarnation and glorification, is concerned primarily to show these actions of the Son of God to be the unique and effective implementation of God’s will to save humanity. In this context, Hilary makes clear that the incarnation entails for the Son a loss of glory; his resurrection and glorification are a resumption of his prior glory, now shared by humanity as well.
Hilary’s interest is centered on the end of this process—the glorification of humanity—rather than the temporary results of the means—namely the presentation and removal of an obstacle to divine unity.
IV. SUMMARY/ CONCLUSION IN THE LIGHT OF BENEDICT XVI
A. Athanasius of Alexandria[53]
Athanasius of Alexandria was above all the impassioned theologian of the Incarnation of the Logos, the Word of God who - as the Prologue of the fourth Gospel says - "became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:14).
During the time of Athanasius, Arius threatened authentic faith in Christ, declaring that the Logos was not a true God but a created God, a creature "halfway" between God and man who hence remained forever inaccessible to us.
The most famous doctrinal work of Athanasius that answered Arius or Arianism is his treatise: De Incarnatione, On the Incarnation of the Word, the divine Logos who was made flesh, becoming like one of us for our salvation. In this work Athanasius says with an affirmation that has rightly become famous that the Word of God "was made man so that we might be made God; and he manifested himself through a body so that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and he endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality" [Emphasis mine] (54,3). With his Resurrection, in fact, the Lord banished death from us like "straw from the fire" (8, 4).
The fundamental idea of Athanasius' entire theological battle was precisely that God is accessible. He is not a secondary God, he is the true God and it is through our communion with Christ that we can truly be united to God. He has really become "God-with-us".
B. Hilary of Poitiers
Hilary of Poitiers, one of the important episcopal figures of the fourth century. In the controversy with the Arians, who considered Jesus the Son of God to be an excellent human creature but only human, Hilary devoted his whole life to defending faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ, Son of God and God as the Father who generated him from eternity. He explained this in his own best-known and most important dogmatic work: De Trinitate (On the Trinity). Hilary explained in it his personal journey towards knowledge of God and took pains to show that not only in the New Testament but also in many Old Testament passages, in which Christ's mystery already appears, Scripture clearly testifies to the divinity of the Son and his equality with the Father.
To the Arians he insisted on the truth of the names of Father and Son, and developed his entire Trinitarian theology based on the formula of Baptism given to us by the Lord himself: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." [Emphasis mine] The Father and the Son are of the same nature. And although several passages in the New Testament might make one think that the Son was inferior to the Father, Hilary offers precise rules to avoid misleading interpretations: some Scriptural texts speak of Jesus as God, others highlight instead his humanity. Some refer to him in his preexistence with the Father; others take into consideration his state of emptying of self (kenosis), his descent to death; others, finally, contemplate him in the glory of the Resurrection. Ever adamant in opposing the radical Arians, Hilary showed a conciliatory spirit to those who agreed to confess that the Son was essentially similar to the Father, seeking of course to lead them to the true faith, according to which there is not only a likeness but a true equality of the Father and of the Son in divinity. This too seems to me to be characteristic: the spirit of reconciliation that seeks to understand those who have not yet arrived and helps them with great theological intelligence to reach full faith in the true divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He also composed the Treatises on the Psalms, a commentary on 58 Psalms interpreted according to the principle highlighted in the introduction to the work: "There is no doubt that all the things that are said in the Psalms should be understood in accordance with Gospel proclamation, so that, whatever the voice with which the prophetic spirit has spoken, all may be referred nevertheless to the knowledge of the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Incarnation, Passion and Kingdom, and to the power and glory of our resurrection" (Instructio Psalmorum, 5). He saw in all the Psalms this transparency of the mystery of Christ and of his Body which is the Church.
To sum up the essentials of his doctrine, Hilary found the starting point for his theological reflection in baptismal faith. In De Trinitate, Hilary writes: Jesus "has commanded us to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (cf. Mt 28:19), that is, in the confession of the Author, of the Only-Begotten One and of the Gift. The Author of all things is one alone, for one alone is God the Father, from whom all things proceed. And one alone is Our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things exist (cf. I Cor 8:6), and one alone is the Spirit (cf. Eph 4:4), a gift in all.... In nothing can be found to be lacking so great a fullness, in which the immensity in the Eternal One, the revelation in the Image, joy in the Gift, converge in the Father, in the Son and in the Holy Spirit" (De Trinitate 2, 1).
God the Father, being wholly love, is able to communicate his divinity to his Son in its fullness. One may find particularly beautiful the following formula of Hilary: "God knows not how to be anything other than love, he knows not how to be anyone other than the Father. Those who love are not envious and the one who is the Father is so in his totality. This name admits no compromise, as if God were father in some aspects and not in others" (ibid., 9, 61).
For this reason the Son is fully God without any gaps or diminishment. "The One who comes from the perfect is perfect because he has all, he has given all" (ibid., 2, 8). Humanity finds salvation in Christ alone, Son of God and Son of man. In assuming our human nature, he has united himself with every man, "he has become the flesh of us all" (Tractatus super Psalmos 54, 9); "he tool on himself the nature of all flesh and through it became true life, he has in himself the root of every vine shoot" (ibid., 51, 16).
For this very reason the way to Christ is open to all — because he has drawn all into his being as a man —, even if personal conversion is always required: "Through the relationship with his flesh, access to Christ is open to all, on condition that they divest themselves of their former self (cf. Eph 4:22), nailing it to the Cross (cf. Col 2:14); provided we give up our former way of life and convert in order to be buried with him in his baptism, in view of life (cf. Col 1:12; Rom 6:4)" (ibid., 91, 9).
After the discussions about Christology of Athanasius of Alexandria and Hilary of Poitiers, one could say that they are, Athanasius and Hilary, indeed the greatest defenders of Catholic faith.
ENDNOTES
[1] Jean Galot, “Various Approaches ,” in Dictionary of Fundamental Theology, ed. René Latourelle and Rino Fisichella (Makati: St Pauls, 1990), 126-130.
[2] Benedict XVI, Message to the General Audience, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria (June 20, 2007), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20070620_en.html (accessed July 26, 2011).
[3] Letter of St. Cyril to Eulogius, the priest, at Constantinople, The Fathers of the Church, CUA Press, 189.
[4] Letter to Epictetus, par. 2., N.& P.N. Fathers, Oct. 1987, Vol. IV, 570.
[5] John 1:14
[6] Gal. 3:13
[7] Letter to Epictetus, par. 2., N. & P.N. Fathers, Oct. 1987, Vol. IV. par. 8, 573.
[8] Ibid., Par. 7, 572.
[9] Joel 2:28.
[10] Letter to Epictetus, par.8, N.& P.N. Fathers, Oct. 1987, Vol. IV. p.573
[11] Ibid.
[12] Richard Nolan, “Athanasius’ Writings on Arianism: A Brief Essay,” (Essay, New haven, Connecticut: Berkeley Divinity School, 1960), 1-3.
[13] E.B. Pusey, et al. (ed.), “S. Athanasius’ Treatises Against Arianism,” Part I, A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1542), VIII: 195.
[14] Op.cit. IX (pub. 1844), 524.
[15] Op.cit. VIII, 196.
[16] Ibid., 201.
[17]Rom.1: 2.
[18]Letter to Epictetus, par.2, N.& P.N. Fathers, Oct. 1987, Vol. IV, 571.
[19]On the Incarnation, chap. III, par.13, SVS Press, 1982, 41.
[20]Letter of St. Cyril to Acacius, Bishop of Melitene, CUA Press, 1987, p.159, p.160, p.162. See Loofs, Nestoriana, 275. 9-11, 249. 1-4, 262. 4-6
[21]Ibid.
[22]Ibid.
[23]John I.14.
[24]John X.33
[25]Mat. VIII.2
[26]John XVIII. 23.
[27]Isaiah 50.6
[28]Letter to Epictetus, par. 6, N.& P.N. Fathers, Oct. 1987, Vol. IV, p.572
[29]Ibid., par. 10, p.574.
[30]Letter to Epictetus, Par.7, N.& P.N. Fathers, Oct. 1987, Vol. IV p.572. 573
[31] Benedict XVI, Message to the General Audience, Saint Hilary of Poitiers (October 10, 2007), www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20071010_en.html (accessed July 26, 2011).
[32] Semisch, "HILARY, Bishop of Poitiers," Philip Schaff, ed., A Religious Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology, 3rd edn., Vol. 2. (Toronto, New York & London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1894) 922-923.
[33] Ellen Scully, “The Assumption of All Humanity in Saint Hilary of Poitiers’ Tractatus Super Psalmos” (PhD Thesis, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University, 2011), 67-75.
[34] Hilary’s three stage christology in the context of the forma dei – forma serui of Philippians 2 can be found in Tr. ps. 2.27, 68.25, 126.17, 131.7, 138.5, 138.19,21-24, 143.7. See the useful section “Philippians 2 as a Hermeneutical Guide,” in Mark Weedman, The Trinitarian Theology of Hilary of Poitiers (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2007), 130-135. Weedman says later that “the key to understanding Hilary’s christology is to recognize the weight he gives to Philippians 2.6-7 as the Christological proof-text” (137). Weedman argues that Hilary’s use of Philippians 2 in the De Trinitate has precedents neither in Hilary’s earlier work nor in the Latin tradition (161-163). Hilary only quotes this section of Philippians once in the In Matthaeum (In Matt. 16.11). Burns concurs and adds that neither can a precedent be found in the extant work of Origen (Burns, “Hilary of Poitiers’ Tractatus,” 189). Both Weedman and Burns suggest that Hilary’s treatment of Philippians 2 depends upon its use by Homoiousians, particularly Basil of Ancyra (Weedman, 161-168; Burns, 125-134, 189). However, the Ancyran texts use the language of “image” from Colossians 1.15, “form” from Philippians 2. 6-7 and “likeness” from Romans 8.3 to emphasize the distinctiveness of the Son against potential modalist interpretations associated historically with Sabellius and later with Marcellus of Ancyra and his student Photinus. Hilary, on the contrary, uses forma dei to highlight the unity and equality between Father and Son rather than distinction (see Weedman, 158-166; Burns, 128).
[35] Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 1: From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451), trans. J. S. Bowden (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965), 308.
[36] Ladaria outlines these three stages in CristologÃa de Hilario, 3; in the context of Phillipians 2:70-80.
[37] Tr. ps. 2.27 (CCL 61 56.6-16): …cum enim ait: A modo uidebitis filium hominis sedentem a dextris uirtutis, tempus quo filius hominis, qui et Christus et Dei Filius est, consessu Dei dignus esset ostendit, ut, qui antea Dei Filius, tum quoque et hominis filius esset, id quod tum hominis filius est ad perfectum Dei Filium, id est ad resumendam indulgendamque corpori aeternitatis suae gloriam per resurrectionis potentiam gigneretur, quam gloriam a patre corporeus reposcebat. Qui enim in forma Dei erat, formam serui acceperat; et acceptae huic formae serui gloriam Dei, in qua mansit, expostulat dicens: Pater, clarifica me apud te ipsum ea claritate quam habui, priusquam mundus esset apud te (Jn. 17.5). See Ladaria’s discussion of this passage in CristologÃa de Hilario, 243-246.
[38] Tr. ps. 2.23.
[39] See De Trin. 9.54-56.
[40] Tr. ps. 2.10 (CCL 61 43.5-7): Qui enim per genuinam Patris et Filii secundum se legitimam que naturam in gloria diuinitatis unum sunt....
[41] Tr. ps. 122.7 (CCL 61B 39.19-20):…non dissimili scilicet aut differente a se substantia diuinitatis in utroque.
[42] Tr. ps. 122.2 (CCL 61B 36.12-13): Sed non nunc de inseparabili uirtute Patris et Filii sermo est.
[43] Tr. ps. 63.10 (CCL 61 231.14):... nullo a Patre interuallo temporis separatum...
[44] Tr. ps. 134.7.
[45] Tr. ps. 63.10, 118 Teth 9, 118 Iod 10, 137.15.
[46] Tr. ps. 135.13, 91.4,5-8.
[47] Tr. ps. 134.8.
[48] Tr. ps. 61.9 (CCL 61 203.18): ...in uno utrumque…
[49] Tr. ps. 53.10, 55.2, 68.17, 138.3.
[50] See Tr. ps. 2.33 (CCL 61 61.20-25): Et in gloria Dei Patris hodie genitus nascitur, id est, in manentem antea Dei formam per praemium mortis formae seruilis adsumptio honestatur; fitque sub tempore noua, nec tamen inusitata natiuitas: cum ad resumendam gloriam Dei patris, qui ex forma Dei forma serui erat repertus, primogenitus ex mortuis nasceretur.
[51] De Trin. 9.38 (CCL 62A 412.24-26): quia dispensationis nouitas offensionem unitatis intulerat, et unitas, ut perfecta antea fuerat, nulla esse nunc poterat, nisi glorificata apud se fuisset carnis adsumptio. See Ladaria, CristologÃa de Hilario, 73-74.
[52] See De Trin. 9.38-41. See also Ladaria’s discussion in CristologÃa de Hilario, 236-37.
[53] Benedict XVI, Message to the General Audience, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria (June 20, 2007), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20070620_en.html (accessed July 26, 2011).
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