substance mysteriously united to a material substance, so as to form but one person; so the divine and human natures, by means of the hypostatical or personal union, constitute the one Person of Christ, who is at the same time true God and true man. "As the reasonable soul and the flesh," says the Athanasian Creed, "is one man, so God and man is one Christ." The existence of the two natures in Christ shows us how we are to explain the assertions of Holy Scripture respecting Him, which seem to contradict each other. Thus when our Lord says (St. John xiv. 28), "The Father is greater than I,” He speaks of His human nature; and when He declares (St. John x. 30), "The Father and I are one," He speaks of His divine nature. For, as the Athanasian Creed says, He is "equal to the Father according to His Godhead, and less than the Father according to His manhood."

We shall now better understand the infinite value of the merits by which Jesus Christ repaired the honour of God, which had been outraged by our transgressions. The satisfaction which is made in atonement of an offence increases in value in proportion to the dignity of the person by whom it is offered. Thus, if we had suffered some dishonour, it would be a sort of reparation if a common person were to ask us to pardon the injury which we had received; but it would be a much greater reparation if a person raised high in dignity and authority were to interpose and entreat us to forgive the offence. That is, the honour which would accrue to us in having so distinguished a suitor for pardon, would more abundantly compensate the dishonour which we had received by the offence. Now, as in Jesus Christ the Person is of infinite dignity and majesty, the merit of every one of His actions was also infinite. We see, therefore, that any action or suffering of our Lord was in itself sufficient to redeem the world; but our redemption is in a special manner ascribed to His most precious blood and death on the cross. For it was fitting that we, who by sin had incurred the sentence of eternal death, should be rescued by the second Person of the Blessed Trinity,

taking unto Himself our suffering humanity, and undergoing for us the death which we had deserved. The superabundant satisfactions of Christ, though not necessary for our redemption, are exceedingly advantageous: first, because they give greater honour and glory to God; and secondly, because they show forth in a more striking and more wonderful manner the immensity of the divine love towards us.

CHAP. XIV. Errors on the Incarnation.

Ir does not belong to the plan of this work to treat of the various errors which have been broached against the infallible teaching of the Church, excepting so far as the mention of the erroneous opinions which have prevailed at different times, will help to place the opposite truth more clearly before our minds. Every part of the doctrine of the Incarnation has been contradicted by some class of heretics. But, without distinctly noticing all the different shades of their heresies, it will suffice briefly to state their opinions under the threefold classification of errors affecting (1) the divine nature; (2) the human nature; and (3) the union of the two natures in Jesus Christ.

1. Cerinthus, Ebion, Paul of Samosata, Arius, Photinus, and their disciples, admitted the human nature alone in Christ. If they sometimes called Him God, they merely meant that by the merits of His good works He had acquired a participation of divine glory.

2. The Marcionites and Manichæans held that the visible creation was the work of an evil principle, and, as a consequence of this error, they taught that our Lord did not assume a real body, but merely the appearance of a body, something similar to the corporeal appearances with which angels were clothed when they visited holy persons, as recorded in Scripture. The Apollinarians also erred about the human nature of our Lord. They taught that He assumed a real body, but not a reasonable soul. The Monothelites,-so called from a Greek

word signifying one will,-admitted that our Lord took a real body and soul, but denied His human will.

3. The Nestorians taught that there were two Persons in Christ, or two Christs, one the Son of God, and the other the Son of Man, and consequently that the Blessed Virgin was not the Mother of God, but of the man Christ. The Eutychians, on the other hand, while defending the unity of our Lord's Person against the Nestorians, fell into the opposite error, by denying the two natures, and asserting that at the moment of the Incarnation the human nature was changed into the divine. A favourite comparison among them was this, that in the same way as a drop of honey would be absorbed in the immensity of the ocean, so was the human nature absorbed in the immensity of the divine.

It would not be a difficult task to refute these errors, one by one, but it will be sufficient to point out that all of them destroy the work of the redemption. If, for instance, with the Arians and other heretics, we deny the divinity of our Lord, or if, with the Nestorians, we admit two persons in Christ, it would clearly follow that the person who suffered and died for us was merely man, and consequently the merit of his satisfaction would be finite, and as such insufficient for our redemption. If, on the other hand, we deny the reality of our Lord's human nature, or if we assert that by the Incarnation the humanity was lost or changed into the divinity, it would follow that our Redeemer was God and not also man, and consequently that He could not really suffer or die for us.

CHAP. XV.

Third Article: "Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."

WHEN the time had come in which the mystery of the Incarnation and the redemption of man was to be accomplished, the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to a Virgin named Mary, to declare unto her that she had been chosen to be the Mother of the expected Messiah. As the fall of our first parents had been brought about by the temp

tation of one of the rebel angels, it was fitting that one of the good angels should be the messenger appointed by God to treat with our Blessed Lady of the Incarnation, by which the effects of the fall were to be repaired. "And the angel being come in, said unto her, Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.' Mary was troubled at hearing herself praised, and hesitated to give her consent to the angelic message, because she had already consecrated her body and soul to God, by a vow of perpetual virginity; and she was willing to forego the dignity of Mother of God, rather than recall the irrevocable sacrifice which she had once made. But when the angel had assured her that the mystery would be accomplished by the Holy Spirit without detriment to her virginity, she humbly bowed her head and said, "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word." At that same moment the Holy Spirit overshadowed her, and in a miraculous manner formed in her womb, and of her substance, a body like ours; for which God created a most pure and most excellent soul, and in one and the same instant, and by the same act, the Son of God, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, was united to this body and soul, so as to form but one person with it. This union is so strict that it was not even broken by death, but will subsist for all eternity.

We learn from the Book of Genesis, that when in the beginning God created this world, "the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep" (Gen. i. 2), but the Spirit of God moved over the waters, and order gradually took the place of chaos. Without cultivation, without receiving on its surface the fertilising seed, but by the creative power of God, the virgin earth brought forth the green herb, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind" (Gen. i. 12). So in like manner, when God was about to renew the work of creation, and to destroy the chaos of sin, we are told that His Divine Spirit overshadowed our Blessed Lady, and by the Divine operation a body and soul were formed in her virginal womb, to which the second Person of the Blessed Trinity was hypostatically or personally united.

For nine months our Divine Lord, now made Man for us, remained enclosed in His Mother's womb, in order to conform to the laws of that humanity which He had assumed for our sakes. As He was miraculously conceived without detriment to the virginal integrity of His Blessed Mother, so was He miraculously born into this world.

He came forth from His Mother's womb in the same mysterious manner in which He afterwards came forth from the tomb, without breaking the seal which had been placed upon it; or as He passed through the closed doors, when He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection. All this is implied by the words of the third Article of the Creed, "who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," and is no more than the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaias, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and His name shall be called Emanuel" (Is. vii. 14). Emmanuel' signifies 'God with us;' and the Hebrew phrase, 'His name shall be called Emmanuel,' is equivalent to the expression in our own language,' He shall be Emmanuel or God with us.' Thus the name given by the prophet to the Son of the Blessed Virgin pointed out His Divine nature, while His conception and birth of a Virgin as clearly expressed His human nature.

CHAP. XVI. The Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God. THE Holy Spirit having formed of the substance of the Blessed Virgin Mary the body which the Eternal Word united to His own Divine Person, the only Son of God has become the Son of Mary, and Mary has become the Mother of the only Son of God. She is, then, the Mother of the Creator and Sovereign Lord of the universe. The same Divine Person whom the heavenly Father calls His Son, because He was begotten of the Father before all worlds, Mary likewise calls her Son, because she conceived and brought Him forth in the world. For there are not two Sons, one born of the Father from all eternity, and the other conceived in time in the womb of the Blessed Virgin; but in Jesus Christ there is but one Person, who is