Issac-Joseph Berruyer's Errors
The abstruse matters treated of in this Chapter will not, perhaps, be interesting to the general reader; but several will be desirous to study profoundly the mysteries of the Faith, and to them this will be highly interesting and instructive.
SUMMARY OF THESE ERRORS.
I. Jesus Christ was created in time, by an operation ad extra, natural Son of God, of one God, subsisting in three Persons, who united the Humanity of Christ with a Divine Person.
II. Jesus Christ, during the three days he was in the sepulchre, as he ceased to be a living man, consequently ceased to be the Son of God, and when God raised him again from the dead, he again begot him, and caused him to be again the Son of God.
III. It was the Humanity alone of Christ which obeyed, prayed, and suffered; and his oblations, prayers, and meditations were not operations, produced from the Word, as from a physical and efficient principle, but, in this sense, were mere actions of his Humanity.
IV. The miracles performed by Jesus Christ were not done by his own power, but only obtained by him from the Father by his prayers.
V. The Holy Ghost was not sent to the Apostles by Jesus Christ, but by the Father alone, through the prayers of Jesus Christ.
VI. Several other errors of his on various subjects.
1. Reading in the Bullarium of Benedict XIV. a Brief, which begins " Cum ad Congregationem" &c., published on the 17th of April, 1758, I see there prohibited and condemned the second part of a work (the first having been condemned in 1734), entitled the "History of the People of God, according to the New Testament," written by Father Isaac Berruyer; and all translations of the work into any language whatever are also condemned and prohibited. The whole of Berruyer’s work, then, and the Latin Dissertations annexed, and the Defence, printed along with the Italian edition, are all condemned, as containing propositions false, rash, scandalous, favouring and approaching to heresy, and foreign to the common sense of the Fathers and the Church in the interpretation of Scripture. This condemnation was renewed by Pope Clement XIII., on the 2nd of December, 1758, and the literal Paraphrase of the Epistles of the Apostles, after the Commentaries of Hardouin, was included in it: " Quod quidem Opus ob doctrine fallaciam, et contortas Sacrarum Litterarum interpretationes scandali mensuram implevit." With difficulty, I procured a copy of the work, and I took care also to read the various essays and pamphlets in which it was opposed. It went, however, through several editions, though the author himself gave it up, and submitted to the sentence of the Archbishop of Paris, who, with the other Bishops of France, condemned it. Besides the Pontifical and Episcopal condemnation, it was prohibited, likewise, by the Inquisition, and burned by the common hangman, by order of the Parliament of Paris. Father Zacchary, in his Literary History, says that he rejects the Work, likewise, and that the General of the Jesuits, whose subject F. Berruyer was, declared that the Society did not recognize it.
2. I find in the treatises written to oppose Berruyer’s work, that the writers always quote the errors of the author in his own words, and these errors are both numerous and pernicious, especially those regarding the Mysteries of the Trinity, and the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, against which especially the devil has always worked, through so many heresies; for these Mysteries are the foundation of our Faith and salvation, as Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God made man, the fountain of all Graces, and of all hope for us; and hence, St. Peter says that, unless in Jesus, there is no salvation: " Neither is there salvation in any other" (Acts, iv, 12).
3. I was just concluding this Work, when I heard of Berruyer’s work, and the writings opposing it; and, to tell the truth, I was anxious to conclude this work of mine, and rest myself a little after the many years of labour it cost me; but the magnitude and danger of his errors induced me to refute his book as briefly as I could. Remember that, though the work itself was condemned by Benedict XIV. and Clement XIII., the author was not, since he at once bowed to the decision of the Church, following the advice of St. Augustine, who says that no one can be branded as a heretic, who is not pertinaciously attached to, and defends his errors: " Qui sententiam suam, quamvis falsam, atque perversam, nulla pertinaci animositate defendunt corrigi parati cum invenerint, nequaquam sunt inter Hrereticos deputandi."
4. Before we commence the examination of Berruyer’s errors, I will give a sketch of his system, that the reader may clearly understand it. His system is founded principally on two Capital Propositions, both as false as can be. I say Capital ones, for all the other errors he published depend on them. The first and chief proposition is this, that Jesus Christ is the natural Son of one God, but of God subsisting in three Persons; that is to say, that Jesus Christ is Son, but not Son of the Father, as Principal, and first Person of the Trinity, but Son of the Father subsisting in three Persons, and, therefore, he is, properly speaking, the Son of the Trinity. The second proposition, which comes from the first, and is also what I call a Capital one, is this, that all the operations of Jesus Christ, both corporal and spiritual, are not the operations of the Word, but only of his humanity, and from this, then, he deduced many false and damnable consequences. Although, as we have already seen, Berruyer himself was not condemned, still his book is a sink of extravagancies, follies, novelties, confusion, and pernicious errors, which, as Clement XIII. says, in his Brief, obscure the principal Articles of our Faith, so that Arians, Nestorians, Sabellians, Socinians, and Pelagians, will all find, some more, some less, something to please them in this work. There are mixed up with all this many truly Catholic sentiments, but these rather confuse than enlighten the mind of the reader. We shall now examine his false doctrine, and especially the first proposition, the parent, we may say, of all the rest.
BERRUYER SAYS THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS MADE IN TIME, BY AN OPERATION AD EXTRA, THE NATURAL SON OF GOD, ONE SUBSISTING IN THREE PERSONS, WHO UNITED THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST WITH A DIVINE PERSON.
5. He says, first: " Jesus Christus D. N. vere dici potest et debet naturalis Dei Filius; Dei, inquam, ut vox ilia Deus supponit pro Deo uno et vero subsistente in tribus personis, agente ad extra, et per actionem transeuntem et liberam uniente humanitatem Christi cum Persona Divina in unitatem Persons" (1). And he briefly repeats the same afterwards: "Filius factus in tempore Deo in tribus Personis subsistenti" (2). And again: "Non repugnat Deo in tribus Personis subsistenti, fieri in tempore, et esse Patrem Filii naturalis, et veri." Jesus Christ, then, he says, should be called the Natural Son of God, not because (as Councils, Fathers, and all Theologians say) the Word assumed the humanity of Christ in unity of Person; and thus our Saviour was true God and true man true man, because he had a human soul and body, and true God, because the Eternal Word, the true Son of God, true God generated from the Father, from all eternity, sustained and terminated the two Natures of Christ, Divine and human, but because, according to Berruyer, God, subsisting in three Persons, united the Word to the humanity of Christ, and thus Jesus Christ is the natural Son of God, not because he is the Word, born of the Father, but because he was made the Son of God in time, by God subsisting in three Persons, " uniente humanitatem Christi cum Persona Divina." (1) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 59. (2) Idem, ibid, . 60. Again, he repeats the same thing, in another place: "Rigorose loquendo per ipsam formaliter actionem unientem Jesus Christus constituitur tan turn Filius Dei naturalis." The natural Son, according to Hardouin’s and Berruyer’s idea; because the real natural Son of God, was the only begotten Son, begotten from the substance of the Father; and hence, the Son that Berruyer speaks of, produced from the three Persons, is Son in name only. It is not repugnant, he says, to God to become a Father in time, and to be the Father of a true and natural Son, and he always explains this of God, subsisting in three Divine Persons.
6. Berruyer adopted this error from his master, John Hardouin, whose Commentary on the New Testament was condemned by Benedict XIV., on the 28th of July, 1743. He it was who first promulgated the proposition, that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God as the Word, but only as man, united to the Person of the Word. Commenting on that passage of St. John, " In the beginning was the Word, “ he says: " Aliud esse Verbum, aliud esse Filium Dei, intelligi voluit Evangelista Joannes. Verbum est secunda Ss. Trinitatis Persona; Filius Dei, ipsa per so quidem, sed tamen ut eidem Verbo hypostatice unita Christi humanitas." Ilardouin, therefore, says that the Person of the Word was united to the humanity of Christ, but that Jesus Christ then became the Son of God, when the humanity was hypostatically united to the Word; and, on this account, he says, he is called the Word, in the Gospel of St. John, up to the time of the Incarnation, but, after that, he is no longer called the Word, only the Only-begotten, and the Son of God: "Quamobrem in hoc Joannis Evangelic Verbum appellatur usque ad Incarnationem. Postquam autem caro factum est, non tam Verbum, sed Unigenitus, et Filius Dei est."
7. Nothing can be more false than this, however, since all the Fathers, Councils, and even the Scriptures, as we shall presently see, clearly declare that the Word himself was the only-begotten Son of God, who became incarnate. Hear what St. Paul says: " For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" (Phil, ii, 5, &c.) So that the Apostle says, that Christ, being equal to God, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. The Divine Person, which was united with Christ, and was equal to God, could not be the only-begotten Son of God, according to Hardouin, but must be understood to be the Word himself, for, otherwise, it would not be the fact that He who was equal to God emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. St. John, besides, in his First Epistle (v, 20), says: " We know that the Son of God is come." He says, " is come;" it is not, therefore, true, that this Son of God became the Son, only when he came, for we see he was the Son of God before he came. The Council of Chalcedon (Act. v) says, speaking of Jesus Christ: " Ante sæcula quidem de Patre genitum secundum Deitatem, et in novissimis autem diebus propter nos et propter nostram salutem ex Maria Virgine Dei Genitrice secundum Humanitatem……………. non in duas personas parti turn, sed unum eundemque Filium, et unigenitum Deum Verbum." Thus we see it there declared, that Jesus Christ, according to the Divinity, was generated by the Father, before all ages, and afterwards became incarnate in the fulness of time, and that he is one and the same, the Son of God and of the Word. In the Third Canon of the Fifth General Council it is declared: " Si quis dixerit imam naturam Dei Verbi incarnatam dicens, non sic ea excipit, sicut Patres docuerunt, quod ex Divina natura et humana, unione secundum subsistentiam facta, unus Christus effectus talis ………………anathema sit." We see here there is no doubt expressed that the Word was incarnate, and became Christ, but it was prohibited to say absolutely that the Incarnate Nature of the Word was one. We say, in the Symbol at Mass, that we believe in one God, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father, before all ages. Jesus Christ is not, therefore, the Son of God, merely because he was made the Son in time, or because his humanity was united to the Word, as Hardouin says, but because his humanity was assumed by the Word, who was already the Son of God, born of the Father before all ages.
8. All the Fathers teach that the Son of God who was made man is the very Person of the Word. St. Irenaeus (3) says: " Unus et idem, et ipse Deus Christus Verbum est Dei." St. Athanasius (4) reproves those who say: " Alium Christum, alium rursum esse Dei Verbum, quod ante Mariam, et sæcula erat Filius Patris." St. Cyril says (5): " Licet (Nestorius) duas naturas esse dicat carnis et Verbi Dei, differentiam significans attamen unionem non confitetur; nos enim illas adunantes unum Christum; unum eundem Filium dicimus." St. John Chrysostom (6), reproving Nestorius for his blasphemy, in teaching that in Jesus Christ there were two Sons, says: "Non alterum et alterum, absit, sed unum et eundem Dom. Jesum Deum Verbum carne nostra amictum," &c. St. Basil writes (7): "Verbum hoc quod erat in principio, nec humanum erat, nec Angelorum, sed ipse Unigenitus qui dicitur Verbum; quia impassibiliter natus, et Generantis imago est." St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (8) says: " Unus est Deus Pater Verbi viventis perfectus pcrfecti Genitor, Pater Filii unigcniti." St. Augustine says (9): " Et Verbum Dei, forma qurcdam non formata, sed forma omnium formarum existens in omnibus. Quærunt vero, quomodo nasci potuerit Filius coævus Patri: nonne si ignis æternus esset, coævus esset splendor?" And in another passage he says (10): " Christus Jesus Dei Filius est, et Deus, et Homo; Deus ante omnia secula, Homo in nostro seculo. Deus, quia Dei Verbum: Homo autem, quia in unitatcm personæ acccssit Vcrbo anima rationalis, et caro." Eusebius of Ccscrca says (11), not like Hardouin: " Non cum apparuit, tune et Filius: non cum nobiscum, tune et apud Deum: sed qucmadmodum in principio erat Verbum, in principio erat in principio erat Verbum, de Filio dicit." We would imagine that Eusebius intended to answer Hardouin, by saying that the Word, not alone when he became incarnate and dwelt amongst us, was then the Son of God, and with God, but as in the beginning he was the Word, so, in like manner, he was the Son; and hence, when St. John says: " In the beginning was the Word," he meant to apply it to the Son. It is in this sense all the Fathers and schoolmen take it, likewise, as even Hardouin himself admits, and still he is not ashamed to sustain, that we should not understand that it is the Word, the Son of God, who became incarnate, though both Doctors and schoolmen thus understand it. Here are his words: " Non Filius stilo quidem Scripturarum sacrarum, quamquam in scriptis Patrum, et in Schola etiam Filius." (3) St. Iræneus, l 17, adv. Hæres. (4) St. Athan. Epist. ad Epictetum. (5) St. Cyrill. in Commonitor. ad Eulogium. (6) St. Chrisost. Hom. 3, ad c. 1, Ep. ad Cæsar. (7) St. Basil. Horn, in Princ. Johann. (8) St. Greg. Thaumat. in Vita St. Greg. Nyss. (9) St. August. Serm. 38, de Verb. Dom. (10) St. August, in Euchirid, c. 3o. (11) Euseb. Ces. l. I, de Fide.
9. This doctrine has been taken up, defended, and diffusely explained, by Berruyer; and to strengthen his position, even that Jesus Christ is not the Son of the Father, as the first Person of the Trinity, but of one God, as subsisting in the three Divine Persons, he lays down a general rule, by which he says all texts of the New Testament in which God is called the Father of Christ, and the Son is called the Son of God, should be understood of the Father subsisting in three Persons, and the Son of God subsisting in three Persons. Here are his words: " Omnes Novi Testamenti textus, in quibus aut Deus dicitur Pater Christi, aut Filius dicitur Filius Dei, vel inducitur Deus Christum sub nomine Filii, aut Christus Deum sub nomine Patris interpretans: vel aliquid de Deo ut Christi Patre, aut de Christo ut Dei Filio narratur, intelligendi sunt de Filio facto in tempore secundum carnem Deo uni et vero in tribus Personis subsistenti." And this rule, he says, is necessary for the proper and literal understanding of the New Testament: " Hæc notio prorsus necessaria est ad litteralum et germanam intelligentiam Librorum Novi Testamenti" (12). He previously said that all the writers of the Old Testament who prophesied the coming of the Messiah should be understood in the same sense: " Cum et idem omnino censendum est de omnibus Vet. Testamenti Scriptoribus, quoties de future Messia Jesu Christo prophetant" (13). Whenever God the Father, or the first Person, he says, is called the Father of Jesus Christ, it must be understood that he is not called so in reality, but by appropriation, on account of the omnipotence attributed to the Person of the Father: " Recte quidem, sed per appropriationem Deus Pater, sive Persona prima, dicitur Pater Jesu Christi, quia actio uniens, sicut et actio creans, actio cst omnipotcntiao, cujus attributi actiones Patri, sive prima Personæ, per appropriationem tribuuntur" (14). (12) P. Berruyer, t. 8, p. 89 & 98. (13) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 8, (14) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 83.
10. This false notion of the Filiation of Jesus Christ Berruyer founds on that text of St. Paul (Rom. i, 3, 4): " Concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh, who was predestined the Son of God in power," &c. Now, these words, " his Son, who was made to him according to the flesh," he says, prove that Jesus Christ was the Son of God made in time according to the flesh. We reply, however, to this, that St. Paul, in this passage, speaks of Jesus Christ not as Son of God, but as Son of man; he does not say that Jesus Christ was made his Son according to the flesh, but " concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the flesh;" that is, the Word, his Son, was made according to the flesh, or, in other words, was made flesh was made man, as St. John says: " The Word was made flesh." We are not, then, to understand with Berruyer, that Christ, as man, was made the Son of God; for as we cannot say that Christ, being man, was made God, neither can we say that he was made the Son of God; but we are to understand that the Word being the only Son of God, was made man from the stock of David. When we hear it said, then, that the humanity of Jesus Christ was raised to the dignity of Son of God, that is, understood to have taken place by the communication of the idioms founded on the unity of Person; for the Word having united human nature to his Person, and as it is one Person which sustains the two Natures, Divine and human, the propriety of the Divine Nature is then justly affirmed of man, and the propriety of God, of the human nature he assumed. How, then, is this expression, " who was predestined the Son of God in power," to be taken? Berruyer endeavours to explain it by a most false supposition, which we will presently notice. It is, he says, to be understood of the new filiation which God made in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for when our Lord died, as his soul was separated from his body, he ceased to be a living man, and was then no longer, he said, the Son of God; but when he rose again from the dead, God again made him his Son, and it is of this new filiation St. Paul, he says, speaks in these words: " Who was predestinated the Son of God in power, according to the spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead (Rom i. 4). Commentators and Holy Fathers give different interpretations to this text, but the most generally received is that of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Estius, and some others, who say that Christ was from all eternity destined to be united in time, according to the flesh, to the Son of God, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who united this man to the Word, who afterwards wrought miracles, and raised him from the dead.
11. To return to Berruyer. In his system he lays it down for a certainty, that Jesus Christ is the natural Son of one God, subsisting in three Persons. Is Christ, then, the Son of the Trinity? an opinion which shocked St. Fulgentius (15), who says that our Saviour, according to the flesh, might be called the work of the Trinity; but, according to his birth, both eternal and in time, is the Son of God the Father alone: " Quis unquam tantæ reperiri possit insania?, qui auderet Jesum Christum totius Trinitatis Filium prædicare? Jesus Christus secundum carnem quidem opus est totius Trinitatis; secundum vero utramque Nativitatem solius Dei Patris est Filius." But Berruyer’s partizans may say that he does not teach that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Trinity; but granting that he allows two filiations one eternal, the filiation of the Word, and the other in time, when Christ was made the Son of God, subsisting in three Persons he must then, of necessity, admit that this Son made in time was the Son of the Trinity. He will not have Jesus Christ to be the Word, that is, the Son generated from the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, from all eternity. If he is not the Son of the Father, whose Son is he, if not the Son of the Trinity? Had he any Father at all? There is no use in wasting words on the matter, for every one knows that in substance it is just the same to say the Son of one God subsisting in three Persons, as to say the Son of the Trinity. This, however, is what never can be admitted; for if we said Christ was the Son of the three Persons, it would be the same, as we shall prove, as to say that he was a mere creature; but when we say he is the Son, we mean that he was produced from the substance of the Father, or that he was of the same substance as the Father, as St. Atha-nasius teaches (16): " Omnis films ejusdem essentiæ est proprii parentis, alioquin impossibile est, ipsum verum esse filium." St. Augustine says that Christ cannot be called the Son of the Holy Ghost, though it was by the operation of the Holy Spirit the Incarnation took place. (15) St.Fulgent. Fragm. 32, I. 9. (16) St. Athan. Epist. 2, ad Scrapion. How, then, can he be the Son of the three Persons? St. Thomas (17) teaches that Christ cannot be called the Son of God, unless by the eternal generation, as he has been generated by the Father alone; but Berruyer wants us to believe that he is not the Son, generated by the Father, but made by one God, subsisting in three Persons.
12. To carry out this proposition, if he understands that Jesus Christ is the Son, consubstantial to the Father, who subsists in three Persons, he must admit four Persons in God, that is, three in which God subsists, and the fourth Jesus Christ, made the Son of the Most Holy Trinity; or, in other words, of God subsisting in three Persons. If, on the other hand, he considers the Father of Jesus Christ as one person alone, then he falls into Sabellianism, recognizing in God not three distinct Persons, but one alone, under three different names. He is accused of Arianism by others, and, in my opinion, his error leads to Nestorianism. He lays down as a principle, that there are two generations in God one eternal, the other in time one of necessity, ad intra the other voluntary, ad extra. In all this he is quite correct; but then, speaking of the generation in time, he says that Jesus Christ was not the natural Son of God the Father, as the first Person of the Trinity, but the Son of God, as subsisting in three Persons.
13. Admitting this, then, to be the case, it follows that Jesus Christ had two Fathers, and that in Jesus Christ there are two Sons one the Son of God, as the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, who generated him from all eternity the other, the Son made in time by God, but by God subsisting in three Persons, who, unking the humanity of Jesus Christ (or, as Berruyer says, uniting that man, hominem ilium,) to the Divine Word, made him his natural Son. If we admit this, however, then we must say that Jesus Christ is not true God, but only a creature, and that for two reasons, first because Faith teaches us that there are only two internal operations (ad intra) in God, the generation of the Word, and the spiration of the Holy Ghost; every other operation in God is external (ad extra), and external operations produce only creatures, and not a Divine Person. (17) St. Thom. 3, p. 711, 32, art. 3. The second reason is because if Jesus Christ were the natural Son of God, subsisting in three Persons, he would be the Son of the Trinity, as we have already stated, and that would lead us to admit two grievous absurdities first, the Trinity, that is, the three Divine Persons would produce a Son of God; but as we have already shown, the Trinity, with the exception of the production of the Word and the Holy Ghost, ad intra, only produces creatures, and not Sons of God. The second absurdity is, that if Jesus Christ was made the natural Son of God by the Trinity, he would generate or produce himself (unless we exclude the Son from the Trinity altogether), and this would be a most irrational error, such as Tertullian, charged Praxeas with: " Ipse se Filium sibi fecit" (18). Therefore, we see, according to Berruyer’s system, that Jesus Christ, for all these reasons, would not be true God, but a mere creature, and the Blessed Virgin would be, as Nestorius asserted, only the Mother of Christ, and not, as the Council decided, and Faith teaches, the Mother of God; for Jesus Christ is true God, seeing that his humanity had only the Person of the Word alone to terminate it, for it was the Word alone which sustained the two natures, human and Divine.
14. Berruyer’s friend, however, says that he does not admit the existence of two natural Sons one from eternity, the other in time. But then, I say, if he does not admit it, where is the use of torturing his mind, by trying to make out this second filiation of Jesus Christ, made in time the natural Son of God, subsisting in three Persons. He ought to say, as the Church teaches, and all Catholics believe, that it is the same Word who was from all eternity the natural Son of God, generated from the substance of the Father, who assumed human nature, and has redeemed mankind. But Berruyer wished to enlighten the Church with the knowledge of this new natural Son of God, about whom we knew nothing before, telling us that this Son was made in time, not from the Father, but by all the three Divine Persons, because he was united to, or, as he expressed it, had the honor of the Consortium of the Word, who was the Son of God from all eternity. We knew nothing of all this till Berruyer and his master, Hardouin, came to enlighten us. (18) Tertull. adv. Praxcam, n. 50.
15. Berruyer, however, was grievously astray in asserting that Jesus Christ was the natural Son of one God, subsisting in three Persons. In this he has all Theologians, Catechisms, Fathers, Councils, and Scripture, opposed to him. We do not deny that the Incarnation of the Word was the work of the three Divine Persons; but neither can it be denied that the Person who became incarnate was the only Son, the second Person of the Trinity, who was, without doubt, the Word himself, generated from all eternity by the Father, who, assuming human nature, and uniting it to himself in unity of Person, wished by this means to redeem the human race. Hear what the Catechisms and the Symbols of the Church say; they teach that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God made in time by the Trinity, as Berruyer imagines, but the eternal Word, born of the Father, the principal and first Person of the Most Holy Trinity. This is what the Roman Catechism teaches: " Filium Dei esso (Jesum) et verum Deum, sicut Pater est, qui eum ab æterno genuit"(19). And again (N. 9), Berruyer’s opinion is directly impugned: " Et quamquam duplicem ejus nativitatem agnoscamus, unum tamen Filium esse credimus; una enim Persona est, in quam Divina et humana natura convenit." The Athanasian Creed says that the Son is from the Father alone, not made nor created, but begotten; and speaking of Jesus Christ, it says that he is God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before all ages; and man, of the substance of his mother, born in time, who, though he is God and man, still is not two, but one Christ one, not by the conversion of the Divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God. As Jesus Christ, therefore, received his humanity from the substance of his mother alone, so he had his Divinity from the substance of his Father alone. (19) Catech. Rom. c. 3. art. 2, n. 11,
16. In the Apostles Creed we say: " I believe in God, the Father Almighty …..and in Jesus Christ, his only Son….. born of the Virgin Mary, …..suffered," &c. Remark, Jesus Christ, his Son, of the Father, the first Person, who is first named, not of the three Persons; and his only Son, that is one Son, not two. In the Symbol of the Council of Florence, which is said at Mass, and which comprises all the other Symbols previously promulgated by the other General Councils, we perceive several remarkable expressions. It says: "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and born of the Father before all ages (see, then, this only begotten Son is the same who was born of the Father before all ages), consubstantial to the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and became incarnate," &c. The Son of God, then, who wrought the redemption of mankind, is not he whom Berruyer supposes made in time on this earth, but the eternal Son of God, by whom all things were made, who came down from heaven, and was born and suffered for our salvation. Berruyer, then, is totally wrong in recognizing two natural Sons of God, one born in time of God, subsisting in three Persons, and the other generated by God from all eternity.
17. But, says Berruyer, then Jesus Christ, inasmuch as he was made a man in time, is not the real, natural Son of God, but merely his adopted Son, as Felix and Elipandus taught, and for which they were condemned? But this we deny, and we hold for certain that Jesus Christ, even as man is the true Son of God (See Refutation vii, n. 18), but that does not prove that there are two natural Sons of God, one eternal and the other made in time, because, as we have proved in this work, as quoted above, Jesus Christ, even as man, is called the natural Son of God, inasmuch as God the Father continually generates the Word from all eternity, as David writes: "The Lord hath said to me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee" (Psalm ii, 7). Hence it is that as the Son, previous to the Incarnation, was generated from all eternity, without flesh, so from the time he assumed humanity he was generated by the Father, and will for ever be generated, hypostatically united to his humanity. But it is necessary to understand that this man, the natural Son of God created in time, is the very Person of the Son, generated from all eternity, that is the Word, who assumed the humanity of Jesus Christ, and united it to itself. It cannot be said, then, that there are two natural Sons of God, one, man, made in time, the other, God, produced from all eternity, for there is only one natural Son of God, that is the Word, who, uniting human nature to himself in time is both God and man, and is, as the Athanasian Creed declares, one Christ: " For as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ. And as every man, though consisting of soul and body, is still only one man, one person, so in Jesus Christ, though there is the Word and the humanity, there is but one Person and natural Son of God."
18. Berruyer’s opinion also is opposed to the First Chapter of the Gospel of St. John, for there we read: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;" and then it is said that it was this same Word which was made flesh: " And the Word was made flesh." Being made flesh does not mean that the Word was united to the human person of Jesus Christ, already existing, but it shows that the Word assumed humanity in the very instant in which it was created, so that from that very instant the soul of Jesus Christ and his human flesh became his own proper soul and his own proper flesh, sustained and governed by one sole Divine Person alone, which is the Word, which terminates and sustains the two Natures, Divine and human, and it is thus the Word was made man. Just pause for a moment ! St. John affirms that the Word, the Son, generated from the Father from all eternity, is made man, and Berruyer says that this man is not the Word, the Son of the eternal God, but another Son of God, made in time by all the three Divine Persons. When, however, the Evangelist has said: " The Word was made flesh," if you say and understand that the Word is not made flesh, are you not doing just what the Sacramentarians did, explaining the Eucharistic words, "This is my body," that the body of Jesus Christ was not his body, but only the figure, sign, or virtue of his body? This is what the Council of Trent reprobates so much in the heretics, distorting the words of Scripture to their own meaning. To return, however, to the Gospel of St. John. The Evangelist says, he dwelt among us. It was the eternal Word, then, which was made man, and worked out man’s redemption, and, therefore, the Gospel again says: "The Word was made flesh and we saw his glory, as it were the glory of the only-begotten of the Father." This Word, then, who was made man in time, is the only-begotten, and, consequently, the only natural Son of God, generated by the Father from all eternity. St. John (I. Epis. iv, 9), again repeats it: " By this has the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him." In this text we must remark that the Apostle uses the word " hath sent." Berruyer then asserts what is false, in saying that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, made in time, for St. John says that he existed Before he " was sent," for in fact it was the eternal Son of the Father that was sent by God, who came down from heaven, and brought salvation to the world. We should also recollect that St. Thomas says (20), that speaking of God, whenever one Person is said to be sent by another, he is said to be sent, inasmuch as he proceeds from the other, and therefore the Son is said to be sent by the Father to take human flesh, inasmuch as he proceeds from the Person of the Father alone. Christ himself declared this in the resurrection of Lazarus, for though he could have raised him himself, still he prayed to his Father that they might know he was his true Son, " That they may believe that thou hast sent me" (John, xi, 42), and hence St. Hilary says (21): " Non prece eguit, pro nobis oravit, ne Filius ignoraretur."
19. Along with all this we have the Tradition of the Fathers generally opposed to Berruyer’s system. St. Gregory of Nazianzen (22) says: " Id quod non erat assumpsit, non duo factus, sed unum ex duobus fieri subsistens; Deus enim ambo sunt, id quod assumpsit, et quod est assumptum, naturæ duæ in unum concurrentes, non duo Filii." St. John Chrysostom (23) writes: "Unum Filium unigenitum, non dividens dum in Filiorum dualitatem, portantem tamen in semetipso indivisarum duarum naturarum inconvertibiliter proprietates;" and again, " Etsi enim duplex natura, verumtamen indivisibilis unio in una filiationis confitenda Persona, et una subsistentia." (20) St. Thomas, p. 1, q. 4, ar. 1. (21) St. Hilar. l. 10, de Trin (22) St. Greg. Naziaii. Orat. 31. (23) St. John Chrysos. Ep. ad Cæsar. et Hom. 3, ad cap. 1 St. Jerom says (24): " Anima et caro Christi cum Verbo Dei una Persona est, unus Christus" St. Dionisius of Alexandria wrote a Synodical Epistle to refute Paul of Samosata, who taught a doctrine like Berruyer; " Duas esse Personas unius, et solius Christi; et duos Filios, unum natura Filium Dei, qui fuit ante sæcula, et unum homonyma Christum filium David." St. Augustine says (25): "Christus Jesus Dei Filius est Deus et Homo: Deus quia Dei Verbum: Homo autem, quia in unitatem Personæ necessit Verbo Anima rationalis et caro." I omit the quotations from many other Fathers, but those who are curious in the matter will find them in the Clypeum of Gonet and in the writings of Petavius, Gotti, and others.
20. Another reflection occurs to my mind. Besides the other errors published by Berruyer, and which follow from his opinions, which we will immediately refute, if the reader goes back to N. 9, he will perceive that the faith of Baptism, as taught by all Christians and Councils is jeopardized. According to his system, all passages in the New Testament in which God is called the Father of Christ, or the Son is called the Son of God, or where anything is mentioned about God, as Father of Christ, the Son of God, must be understood to apply to the Son of God made in time, according to the flesh, and made by that God, subsisting in three Persons. On the other hand, it is certain that Baptism is administered in the Church in the name of the three Persons, expressly and individually named, as Jesus Christ commanded his Apostle to do: " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt, xxviii, 19). But if the general rule laid down by Berruyer, as we have explained it, should be observed, then the Baptism administered in the Church would be no longer Baptism in the sense we take it, because the Father who is named would not be the first Person of the Trinity, as is generally understood, but the Father Berruyer imagined, a Father subsisting in three Divine Persons in a word, the whole Trinity. The Son would not be the Word, generated by the Father, the Principle of the Trinity, from all eternity, but the Son, made in time by all the three Persons, who, being an external work of God, ad extra, would be a mere creature, as we have seen already. (24) St. Hieron. Tract 40, in Jo. (25) St. August, in Euchirid. cap. 33. The Holy Ghost would not be the third Person, such as we believe him, that is, proceeding from the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, and from the Son, the second Person, that is, the Word, generated from all eternity by the Father. Finally, according to Berruyer, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost would not be what they are in reality, and what the whole Church believes them to be, the real Father, the real Son, and the real Holy Ghost, in opposition to what that great theologian, St. Gregory of Nazianzan teaches: " Quis Catholicorum ignorat Patrem vere esse Patrem, Filium vere esse Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, vere esse Spiritum Sanctum, sicut ipse Dominus ad Apostolos dicit: Euntes docete, &c. Hæc est perfecta Trinitas," &c. (26). Read, however, further on the Refutation of the third error, and you will find this fiction more diffusely and clearly refuted. We now pass on to the other errors of this writer, which flow from this first one. (26) St. Greg. Nazian. in Orat. de Fide, post. init. II
BERRUYER SAYS THAT JESUS CHRIST, DURING THE THREE DAYS HE WAS IN THE SEPULCHRE, CEASED TO BE A LIVING MAN, AND, CONSEQUENTLY, WAS NO LONGER THE SON OF GOD. AND WHEN GOD AGAIN RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD, HE ONCE MORE GENERATED HIM, AND AGAIN MADE HIM THE SON OF GOD.
21. One must have a great deal of patience to wade through all these extravagant falsehoods. Christ, he says, during the three days he was in the sepulchre, ceased to be the natural Son of God: "Factum est morte Christi, ut homo Christus Jesus, cum jam non esset homo vivens, atque adeo pro triduo quo corpus ab Anima separatum jacuit in sepulchro, fieret Christus incapax illius appellationis, Filius Dei (1); and he repeats the same thing in another part of his work, in different words: " Actione Dei unius, Filium suum Jesum suscitantis, factum est, ut Jesus qui desierat essc homo vivens, et consequenter Filius Dei, iterum viveret deinceps non moriturus." This error springs from that false supposition we have already examined, for supposing that Jesus Christ was the Son of God subsisting in three Persons, that is the Son of the Trinity by an operation ad extra, he was then a mere man, and as by death he ceased to be a living man, he also ceased to be the Son of God subsisting in three Persons; because if Jesus Christ were the Son of God, as first Person of the Trinity, then in him was the Word, which, being hypostatically united to his soul and body, could never be separated from him, even when his soul was by death separated from his body.
22. Supposing, then, that Jesus Christ, dying, ceased to be the Son of God, Bcrruycr must admit that in those three days in which our Lord’s body was separated from his soul, the Divinity was separated from his body and soul. Let us narrow the proposition. Christ, he says, was made the Son of God, not because the Word assumed his humanity, but because the Word was united to his humanity, and hence, he says, as in the sepulchre he ceased to be a living man, his soul being separated from his body, he was no longer the Son of God, and, therefore, the Word ceased to be united with his humanity. Nothing, however, can be more false than this, for the Word assumed and hypostatically and inseparably united to himself in unity of Person the soul and body of Jesus Christ, and hence when our Lord died, and his most holy body was laid in the tomb, the Divinity of the Word could not be separated either from the body or the soul. This truth has been taught by St. Athanasius (2): " Cum Deitas neque Corpus in sepulchro dcsereret, neqno ab Anima in inferno separarctur." St. Gregory of Nyssa writes (3): " Deus qui totum homincm per suam cum illo conjunctionem in naturam Divinam mutaverat, mortis sempore a neutra illius, quam semel assumpserat, parte recessit;" and St. Augustine says (4): " Cum credimus Dei Filium, qui sepultus est, profecto Filium Dei dicimus et Carnem, quæ sola sepulta est." (1) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 63. (2) St. Athanasius, contra Apollinar l. 1, w. 15. (3) St. Greg. Nyss. Orat. 1 in Christ. Resur. (4) St. Aug. Tract 78, in Joan. w. 2.
23. St. John of Damascus tells us the reason the soul of Christ had not a different subsistence from his body, as it was the one Person alone which sustained both: " Neque enim unquam aut Anima, aut Corpus peculiarem atque a Verbi subsistentia diversam subsistentiam habuit" (5). On that account, he says, as it was one Person which sustained the soul and body of Christ, although the soul was separated from the body, still the Person of the Word could not be separated from them: " Corpus, et Anima simul ab initio in Verbi Persona existentiam habuerant, ac licet in morte divulsa fuerint, utrumque tamen eorum unam Verbi Personam, qua subsisteret, semper habuit." As, therefore, when Jesus descended into hell, the Word descended, likewise, with his soul, so, while his body was in the sepulchre, the Word was present, likewise; and, therefore, the body of Christ was free from corruption, as David foretold: "Nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption" (Psalm, xv, 10). And St. Peter, as we read in the Acts (ii, 27), shows that this text was applied to our Lord lying in his tomb. It is true, St. Hilary (6) says, that, when Christ died, the Divinity left his body; but St. Ambrose (7) explains this, and says, that all the Holy Doctor meant to say was, that, in the Passion, the Divinity abandoned the humanity of Christ to that great desolation, which caused him to cry out: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" (Matt, xxvii, 46). In his death, therefore, the Word abandoned his body, inasmuch as the Word did not preserve his life, but never ceased to be hypostatically united with him. Christ never, then, could cease to be the Son of God in the sepulchre, as Berruyer teaches; for it is one of the axioms of all Catholic schools (8): " Quod semel Verbum assumpsit, nunquam misit" The Word, having once assumed human nature, never gives it up again. But when Berruyer admits, then, that the Word was united in the beginning in unity of Person with the body and soul of Jesus Christ, how can he afterwards say that, when the soul was separated from the body, the Word was no longer united with the body? This is a doctrine which surely neither he nor any one else can understand. (5) St. Jo. Damasc. 1. 3, de Fide, c. 27. (6) St. Hilar. r. 33, in Matth. part 2, pag. 487. (7) St. Ambros. I. 10, in Luc. c. 13. (8) Cont. Tournely, de Incarn. t, 4,
24. When Berruyer says that Jesus Christ, at his death, ceased to be the natural Son of God, because he was no longer a living man, he must, consequently, hold that the humanity, previous to his death, was not sustained by the Person of the Word, but by its own proper human subsistence, and was a Person distinct from the Person of the Word. But, then, how can he escape being considered a Nestorian, admitting two distinct Persons in Jesus Christ. Both Nestorius and Berruyer are expressly condemned by the Symbol promulgated in the Council of Constantinople, which says that we are bound to believe in one God, the Father Almighty, and in one only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, and consubstantial to the Father, who, for our salvation, came down from heaven, and became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, suffered, was buried, and rose again the third day. It is, therefore, the only-begotten Son of God the Father, generated by the Father from all eternity, and who came down from heaven, that was made man, died, and was buried. But, how could God die and be buried? you will say. By assuming human flesh, as the Council teaches. As another General Council, the Fourth of Lateran, says (9), as God could not die nor suffer, by becoming man he became mortal and passible: " Qui cum secundum Divinitatem sit immortalis et impassibilis, idem ipse secundum humanitatem factus est mortalis et passibilis."
25. As one error is always the parent of another, so Berruyer having said that Jesus Christ in the sepulchre ceased to be the natural son of God, said, likewise, that when God raised Christ-man again from the dead, he again generated him, and made him Man-God, because, by raising him again, he caused him to be his Son, who, dying, ceased to be his Son. We have already (N. 18) alluded to this falsehood. He says: " Actione Dei unius, Filium suum Jesum suscitantis, factum est, ut Jesus, qui desierat esse homo vivens, et consequenter Filius Dei, iterum viveret deinceps non moriturus." He says the same thing, in other words, in another place: " Deus Christum hominem resuscitans, hominem Deum iterate generat, dum facit resuscitando, ut Filius sit, qui moriendo Filius esse desierat" (10). (9) Conc. Lat. IV. in cap. Firmiter, de Summ. Trin. &c. (10) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 66. We should, indeed, be rejoiced to hear of this new dogma, never before heard of, that the Son of God twice became incarnate, and was made man first, when he was conceived in the holy womb of the Virgin, and, again, when he arose from the tomb. We should, indeed, feel obliged to Berruyer, for enlightening us on a point never before heard of in the Church. Another consequence of this doctrine is, that the Blessed Virgin must have been twice made the Mother of God; for, as Jesus ceased to be the Son of God while in the tomb, so she ceased also to be the Mother of God at the same time, and then, after his resurrection, her Divine Maternity was again restored to her. In the next paragraph we will examine even a more brainless error than this. I use the expression, "brainless," for I think the man’s head was more in fault than his conscience. A writer, who attacked Berruyer’s errors, said that he fell into all these extravagancies, because he would not follow the Tradition of the Fathers, and the method they employed in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and the announcement of the unwritten Word of God, preserved in the Works of these Doctors and Pastors. It is on this account, as the Prelate, the Author of " The Essay," remarks, that Berruyer, in his entire work, does not cite one authority either from Fathers or Theologians, although the Council of Trent (Sess. iv, Dec. de Scrip. S.) expressly prohibits the interpretation of the Sacred Writings, in a sense contrary to the generality of the Fathers. We now pass on to the examination of the next error a most pernicious and enormous one.
III. BERRUYER SAYS THAT IT WAS THE HUMANITY ALONE OF CHRIST THAT OBEYED, PRAYED, AND SUFFERED, AND THAT HIS OBLATIONS, PRAYERS, AND MEDITATIONS, WERE NOT OPERATIONS PROCEEDING FROM THE WORD, AS A PHYSICAL AND EFFICIENT PRINCIPLE, BUT THAT, IN THIS SENSE, THEY WERE ACTIONS MERELY OF HIS HUMANITY.
26. Berruyer says that the operations of Jesus Christ were not produced by the Word, but merely by his humanity, and that the hypostatic union in no wise tended to render the human nature of Christ a complete principle of the actions physically and super naturally performed by him. Here are his words: "Non sunt operationes a Verbo elicitæ………….. sunt operationes totius humanitatis" (1). He had already written (2): " Ad complementum autem naturæ Christi humanæ, in rationo principii agentis, et actiones suas physice sive supernaturaliter producentis, unio hypostatica nihil omnino contulit." In another passage he says that all the propositions regarding Christ, in the Scriptures, and especially in the New Testament, are directly and primarily verified in the Man-God, or, in other words, in the Humanity of Christ, united to the Divinity, and completed by the Word in the unity of Person, and this, he says, is the natural interpretation of Scripture: " Dico insuper, omnes et singulas ejusdam propositiones, quæ sunt de Christo Jesu in Scripturis sanctis, præsertim Novi Testamenti, semper et ubique verificari directe et primo in homine Deo, sive in humanitate Christi, Divinitati unita et Verbo, completa in imitate personæ………Atque hæc est simplex obvia, et naturalis Scripturas interpretandi methodus," &c. (3).
27. In fine, he deduces from this, that it was the Humanity alone of Christ that obeyed, and prayed, and suffered that alone was endowed with all the gifts necessary for operating freely and meritoriously, by the Divine natural and supernatural cohesion (concursus): " Humanitas sola obedivit Patri, sola oravit, sola passa est, sola ornata fuit donis et dotibus omnibus necessariis ad agendum libere et meritorie (4). Jesu Christi oblatio, oratio, et mediatio non sunt operationes a Verbo elicitæ tamquam a principio physico et efficiente, sed in eo sensu sunt operationes solius humanitatis Christi in agendo, et merendo per concursum Dei naturalem et supernaturalem completæ" (5). By this Berruyer deprives God of the infinite honour he received from Jesus Christ, who, being God, equal to the Father, became a servant, and sacrificed himself. He also deprives the merits of Jesus Christ of their infinite value, as they were the operations of his humanity alone, according to him, and not performed by the Person of the Word, and, consequently, he destroys that hope which we have in those infinite merits. Besides, he does away with the strongest motive we have to love our Redeemer, which is the consideration that he, being God, and it being impossible that he could suffer as God, took human flesh, that he might die and suffer for us, and thus satisfy the Divine justice for our faults, and obtain for us Grace and life everlasting. But what is more important even, as the Roman Censor says, if it was the Humanity of Christ alone which obeyed, prayed, and suffered, and if the oblations, prayers, and mediation of Christ were not the operations of the Word, but of his Humanity alone, it follows that the Humanity of Christ had subsistence of its own, and, consequently, the human Person of Christ was distinct from the Word, and that would make two Persons. (1) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 53. (2) Idem, p. 22. (3) Idem,;p. 18, 19. (4) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 20, 21, & 23. (5) Idem,p. 53.
28. Berruyer concludes the passage last quoted, " Humanitas sola obedivit," &c., by these words: " Ille (inquam) homo, qui hæc omnia egit, et passus est libere et sancte, et cujus humanitas in Verbo subsistebat, objectum est in recto immediatum omnium, quæ de Christo sunt, narrationum" (6) It was the man, then, in Christ, and not the Word, that operated: " Ille homo qui hæc omnia egit." Nor is that cleared up by what he says immediately after: " Cujus humanitas in Verbo subsistebat;" for he never gives up his system, but constantly repeats it in his Dissertations, and clothes it in so many curious and involved expressions, that it would be sufficient to turn a person’s brain to study it. His system, as we have previously explained it, is, that Christ is not the Eternal Word, the Son, born of God the Father, but the Son, made in time by one God, subsisting in three Persons, who made him his Son by uniting him to the Divine Person; so that, rigorously speaking, he says he was formally constituted the Son of God, merely by that action which united him with the Divine Person: "Rigorose loquendo, per ipsam formaliter actionem unientem cum Persona Divina." He, therefore, says that God, by the action of uniting the Humanity of Christ with the Word, formed the second filiation, and caused Christ-Man to become the Son of God, so that, according to his opinion, the union of the Word with the Humanity of Christ was, as it were, a means to make Christ become the Son of God. All this, however, is false, for when we speak of Jesus Christ, we cannot say that that man, on account of being united with a Divine Person, was made by the Trinity the Son of God in time; but we are bound to profess that God, the Eternal Word, is the Son, born of the Father from all eternity, born of the substance of the Father, as the Athanasian Creed says, " God, of the substance of the Father, born before all ages," for, otherwise, he never could be called the natural Son of God. He it is who, uniting to himself Humanity in unity of Person, has always sustained it, and he it is who performed all operations, who, notwithstanding that he was equal to God, emptied himself, and humbled himself to die on a cross in that flesh which he assumed. (6) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 53 & 95.
29. Berruyer’s whole error consists in supposing the humanity of Christ to be a subject subsisting in itself, to which the Word was subsequently united. Faith and reason, however, would both teach him that the Humanity of Christ was accessary to the Word which assumed it, as St. Augustine (7) explains: " Homo autem, quia in unitatem personæ accessit Verbo Anima et Caro." Berruyer, however, on the contrary, says that the Divinity of the Word was accessary to the Humanity; but he should have known, as Councils and Fathers teach, that the Humanity of Jesus Christ did not exist until the Word came to take flesh. The Sixth Council (Act. 11) reproved Paul of Samosata, for teaching, with Nestorius, that the humanity of Christ existed previous to the Incarnation. Hence, the Council declared: " Simul enim caro, simul Dei Verbi caro fuit; simul animata rationabiliter, simul Dei Verbi caro animata rationabiliter." St. Cyril (8), in his Epistle to Nestorius, which was approved of by the Council of Ephesus, writes: " Non enim primum vulgaris quispiam homo ex Virgine ortus est, in quem Dei Verbum deinde Se dimiserit; sed in ipso Utero carni unitum secundum carnem progcnitum dicitur, utpote sure carnis generationem sibi ut propriam vindicans." St. Leo the Great (9), reprobating the doctrine of Eutyches, that Jesus Christ alone, previous to the Incarnation, was in two natures, says: " Sed hoc Catholicæ mentes auresque non tolerant natura quippe nostra non sic assumpta est, ut prius creata postea sumeretur, sed ut ipsa assumption crearetur." St. Augustine, speaking of the glorious union of the Humanity of Christ with the Divinity, says: "Ex quo esse Homo cœpit, non aliud cœpit esse Homo> quam Dei Filius" (10). And St. John of Damascus (11) says: " Non quemadmodum quidam falso prædicant, mens ante carnem ex Virgine assumptam Deo Verbo copulata est, et turn Christi nomen accepit." (7) St. Augus. in EucMrid. c. 35. (8) St. Cyrill. Ep. 2, ad Nestor. (9) St. Leo, Ep. ad Julian. (10) St. Aug. in Euchir. c. 36(11) St, Jo. Dam. l. 4 Fide orth, c.6.
30. Berruyer, however, does not agree with Councils or Fathers, for all the passages of Scripture, he says, which speak of Jesus Christ are directly verified in his humanity united to the Divinity: " Dico insupere omnes propositiones quæ sunt de Christo in Scripturis verificari directe et primo in homine Deo, sive in humanitate Christi Divinitati unita," &c. (12). So that the primary object of all that is said regarding Christ, is according to him, Man-God, and not God-Man: " Homo-Deus, non similiter Deus-homo objectum primarium," &c.; and again, as we have already seen, that Jesus Christ was formally constituted the natural Son of God, solely by that act which united him to the Word: " Per ipsam formatter actionem unientem Jesus Christus constituitur tantum Filius Dei naturalis." This, however, is totally false, for Jesus Christ is the natural Son of God, not on account of the act which united him to the Word, but because the Word, who is the natural Son of God, as generated by the Father from all eternity, assumed the humanity of Christ, and united it to himself in the unity of Person. Berruyer then imagines that the humanity was the primary object in recto, and self- subsisting, to when the Word was united, and that by this union Christ-Man was subsequently made the Son of God in time. Hence, he says, that the humanity alone obeyed, prayed, and suffered: and it was that man (Christ), he says, who did all those things: " Ille (inquam) homo qui hæc omnia egit objectum est in recto immediatum eorum, quæ de Christo sunt," &c. In this, however, he is wrong. Faith tells us that we ought to regard as the primary object, the Eternal Word, who assumed the humanity of Christ, and united it to himself hypostatically in one Person, and thus the soul and body of Jesus Christ became the proper soul and body of the Word. (12) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 18. When the Word, St. Cyril says, assumed a human body, that body was no longer strange to the Word, but was made his own: "Non est alienum a Verbo corpus suum" (13). This is what is meant by the words of the Creed; " He came down from heaven, and was incarnate, and was made man." Hence we, following the Creed, say God was made man, and not, as Berruyer says, man was made God; for this mode of expression would lead us to think that man, already subsisting, was united with God, and we should then, as Nestorius did, suppose two Persons in Christ; but faith teaches us that God was made man by taking human flesh, and thus there is but one Person in Christ, who is both God and man. Neither is it lawful to say (as St. Thomas instructs us) (14), with Nestorius, that Christ was assumed by God as an instrument to work out man’s salvation, since, as St. Cyril, quoted by St. Thomas, teaches, the Scripture will have us to believe that Jesus Christ is not an instrument of God, but God in reality, made man: " Christum non tanquam instrumenti officio assumptum dicit Scriptura, sed tanquam Deum vere humanatum."
31. We are bound to believe that there are in Christ two distinct Natures, each of which has its own will and its own proper operations, in opposition to the Monothelites, who held that there was but one will and one operation in Christ. But, on the other hand, it is certain that the operations of the human nature of Jesus Christ were not mere human operations, but, in the language of the schools, Theandric, that is, Divine-human, and chiefly Divine, for although, in every operation of Christ, human nature concurred, still all was subordinate to the Person of the Word, which was the chief and director of all the operations of the humanity. The Word, says Bossuet, presides in all; the Word governs all; and the Man, subject to the direction of the Word, has no other movements but Divine ones; whatever he wishes and does is guided by the Word (15). St. Augustine says that as in us the soul governs the body, so in Jesus Christ the Word governed his humanity: " Quid est homo," says the saint, " anima habens corpus. Quid est Christus? Verbum Dei habens hominem." St. Thomas says: " Ubicunque sunt plura agentia ordinata, inferius movetur a superiori………. Sicut autem in homine puro corpus movetur ab animo ………….ita in Domino Jesu Christo humana natura movebatur et regebatur a Divina" (16). (13) St. Cyr. Epist. ad Nestor. (14) St. Thom. 3;p. qu. 2, ar. 6, ad 4. (15) Bossuet, Diss. Ilistor. p. 2.(16) St. Thom, p. 3, q. 19, a. 1. All, then, that Berruyer states on the subject is totally false: " Humanitas sola obedivit Patri, sola passa est, Jesu Christi oblatio, oratio, et mediatio non sunt operationes a Verbo elicitæ tanquam a principio physico et efficiente. Ad complementum naturæ Christi humanæ in ratione principii producentis, et actiones suas sive physice sive supernaturaliter agentis, nihil onmino contulit unio hypostatica." If, as the Roman Censor says, it was the humanity alone of Christ that obeyed, prayed, and suffered; and if the oblations, prayers, and mediation of Jesus Christ were not operations elicited by the Word but by his humanity alone, so that the hypostatic union had, in fact, added nothing to the humanity, for the completion of the principle of his operations, it follows that the humanity of our Redeemer operated by itself, and doing so must have had subsistence proper to itself, and a proper personality distinct from the Person of the Word, and thus we have, as Nestorius taught, two Persons in Christ.
32. Such, however, is not the fact. All that Jesus Christ did the Word did, which sustained both Natures, and as God could not suffer and die for the salvation of mankind, he, as the Council of Lateran said, took human flesh, and thus became passible and mortal: "Qui cum secundum Divinitatem sit immortalis et impassibilis, idem ipse secundum humanitatem factus est mortalis et passibilis." It was thus that the Eternal Word, in the flesh he assumed, sacrificed to God his blood and his life itself, and being equal to God became a mediator with God, as St. Paul says, speaking of Jesus Christ: " In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins; who is the image of the invisible God for in him were all things created in heaven and on earth Because in him it has well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell" &c. (Col. i, 13). According to St. Paul, then, it is Jesus Christ who created the world, and in whom the plenitude of the Divinity dwells.
33. One of Berruyer’s apologists says, however, that when his master states, that the humanity alone of Christ obeyed, prayed, and suffered, that he then speaks of this humanity as the physical principle Quo, that is, the medium by which he operates, and this physical principle belonged to the humanity alone, and not to the Word, for it is through his humanity that he suffered and died. But we answer, that the Humanity, as the principle, Quo, could not act of itself in Christ, unless put in motion by the principle, Quod that is, the Word, which was the one only Person, which sustained the two Natures. He it was who principally performed every action in the assumed Humanity, although it was by means of that he suffered, prayed, and died. That being the case, how can Berruyer be defended, when he says that it was the Humanity alone which prayed and suffered? How could he say that the oblations, prayers, and mediation of Christ were operations elicited by the Word? And, what is even of greater consequence, how could he say that the hypostatic union had no influence on the actions of Christ Nihil omnino contulit unio hypostatica? I said already that the Word was the principal agent in all operations. But, say those of the other side: Then, the Humanity of Christ performed no operations? We answer that the Word did all; for, though the Humanity might also act, still, as the Word was the sole Person sustaining and completing this Humanity, he (the Word) performed every operation both of the soul and body, for both body and soul, by the unity of Person, became his own. Everything, then, which Jesus Christ did his wishes, actions, and sufferings all belonged to the Word, for it was he who determined everything, and his obedient Humanity consented and executed it. Hence it is that every action of Christ was holy and of infinite value, and capable of procuring every grace, and we are, therefore, bound to praise him for all.
34. The reader, then, should totally banish from his mind the false idea which Berruyer (as the author of the "Essay" writes) wished to give us of Christ, that the Humanity was a being, existing of itself, to whom God united one of his Sons by nature; for, as will be seen, by referring back to N. 11, there must have been, according to him, two natural Sons one, generated by the Father from all eternity; the other, in time, by the whole Trinity; but, then, Jesus Christ, as he teaches, was not, properly speaking, the Word made incarnate, according to St. John " The Word was made flesh" but was the other Son of God, made in time. This, however, is not the doctrine of the Holy Fathers; they unanimously teach that it was the Word (17). St. Jerome writes: " Anima et Caro Christi cum Verbo Dei una Persona est, unus Christus" (18). St. Ambrose (19), showing that Jesus Christ spoke sometimes according to his Divine, and, at other times, according to his human nature, says: " Quasi Deus sequitur Divina, quia Verbum est, quasi homo dicit humana." Pope Leo says: " Idem est qui mortem subiit, et sempiternus esse non desiit." St. Augustine says: " Jesus Christus Dei Filius est, et Deus, et homo. Deus ante omnia secula, homo in nostro seculo. Deus quia Dei Verbum, Deus enim erat Verbum: homo autem, quia in unitatem personæ accessit Verbo Anima, et Caro ………Non duo Filii, Deus, et homo, sed unus Dei Filius" (20). And, in another place (Cap. 36): " Ex quo homo esse cœpit, non aliud ccepit esse homo, quam Dei Filius, et hoc unicus, et propter Deum Verbum, quod illo suscepto caro factum est, utique Deus ut sit Christus una persona, Verbum et homo." The rest of the Fathers speak the same sentiments; but it would render the Work too diffuse to quote any more. 35. The Holy See, then, had very good reasons for so rigorously and so frequently condemning Berruyer’s Book; for it not alone contains many errors, in opposition to the doctrines of the Church, but is, besides, most pernicious, because it makes us lose that proper idea we should have of Jesus Christ. The Church teaches that the Eternal Word that is, the only natural Son of God (for he had but one natural Son, who is, therefore, called the only-begotten, born of the substance of God the Father, the first Person of the Trinity), was made man, and died for our salvation. Berruyer, on the contrary, would have us to believe that Jesus Christ is not the Word, the Son, born of the Father from all eternity, but another Son, which only he and Hardouin knew anything about, or, rather, dreamed of, who, if their ideas were founded in fact, would have the name alone, and the honour of being called the Son of God; for, in order that Jesus Christ should be the true natural Son of God, it was requisite that he should be born of the substance of the Father, but the Christ, according to Berruyer, was made in time by the whole Trinity. The whole idea, then, we had hitherto formed of our Redeemer is totally changed. (17) St. Hieron. Tract. 49, in Joan. (18) St. Ambr. ap. St. Leon, in Ep. 134. (19) St. Leo, Serm. 66. (20) St. Augu. in Euchirid. c.
35. We considered him to be God, who, for our salvation, humbled himself to take human flesh, in order to suffer and die for us; whereas Berruyer represents him to us, not as a God made man, but as a man made the Son of God, on account of the union established between the Word and his Humanity. Jesus Christ crucified is the greatest proof of God’s love to us, and the strongest motive we have to induce, nay, as St. Paul says, to force us, to love him " For the charity of Christ presseth us" (II. Cor. v, 14) is to know that the Eternal Word, equal to the Father, and born of the Father, emptied himself, and humbled himself to take human flesh, and die on a cross for us; but, according to Berruyer’s system, this proof of Divine love to us, and this most powerful motive for us to love him, falls to the ground. And, in fine, to show how different is Berruyer’s errors from the truth taught by the Church: The Church tells us to believe that Jesus Christ is God, made man, who, for us, suffered and died, in the flesh he assumed, and who assumed it solely to enable him to die for our love. Berruyer tells us, on the contrary, that Jesus Christ is only a man, who, because he was united by God to one of the Divine Persons, was made by the Trinity the natural Son of God, and died for the salvation of mankind; but, according to Berruyer, he did not die as God, but as man, and could not be the Son of God at all, according to his ideas; for, in order to be the natural Son of God, he should have been born of the substance of the Father, but, according to Berruyer, he was a being ad extra, produced by the whole Trinity, and if he was thus an external product, he could not have been anything but a mere creature; consequently, he must admit two distinct Persons in Christ one Divine, and one human. In fine, if we held this man’s doctrine, we could not say that God " loved us, and delivered himself up for us" (Ephcs. v, 2); for, according to him, it was not the Word " who delivered himself up for us," but the Humanity of Christ, honored, indeed, by the union with the Word, that alone it was which suffered, and was subjected to death. Let him keep these opinions to himself, however, for every faithful Catholic will say, with Saint Paul: "I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me" (Gal. ii, 20). And we will praise and love with all our hearts that God who, being God, made himself man, to suffer and die for every one of us.
36. It is painful to witness the distortion of Scripture which Berruyer has recourse to in every part of his work, but more especially in his Dissertations, to accommodate it to his false system, that Jesus Christ was the Son of one God, subsisting in three Persons. We have already (N. 7) quoted that text of St. Paul (Phil, ii, 5, &c.): " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant," &c. Here is conclusive evidence to prove that the Word, equal to the Father, emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, in becoming man. Berruyer says, on the contrary, that it was not the Word, not the Divine Nature, which humbled itself, but the human, conjoined with the Divine Nature: " Humiliat sese natura humana naturæ Divinæ physice conjuncta." To consider the Word humbled to become incar nate, and die on the cross, would, he says, be degrading the Divinity; it should, therefore, he says, be only understood according to the communication of the idioms, and, consequently, as referring to the actions of Christ after the hypostatic union, and, therefore, he says it was his Humanity that was humbled. But in that case we may well remark, what is there wonderful in the humiliation of humanity before God? That prodigy of love and mercy which God exhibited in his Incarnation, and which astonished both heaven and earth, was when the Word, the only-begotten Son of God, equal to the Father, emptied himself (exinanivit), in becoming man, and, from God, became the servant of God, according to the flesh. It is thus all Fathers and Catholic Doctors understand it, with the exception of Berruyer and Hardouin; and it is thus the Council of Chalcedon, also (Act. V.), declared that the Son of God, born of the Father, before all ages, became incarnate in these latter days (novissimis diebus), and suffered for our salvation.
37. We will take a review of some other texts. St. Paul (Heb. i, 2) says, that God " in these days hath spoken to us by his Son by whom he also made the world." All the Fathers understand this, as referring to the Word, by whom all things were created, and who was afterwards made man; but Berruyer explains the passage, " By whom he also made the world," thus: In consideration of whom God made the world. He explains the text of St. John, " By him all things were made," in like manner, that in regard of him all things were made, so that he does not even admit the Word to be the Creator. But hear St. Paul, on the contrary. God, speaking to his Son, says: " Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever In the beginning, O Lord, didst thou found the earth, and the works of thy hands are the heavens" (Ileb. i, 8, 10). Here God does not say that he created the heavens and the earth in consideration or in regard of his Son, but that the Son himself created them; and hence St. Chrysostom remarks: " Nunquam profecto id asserturus, nisi conditorem Filium, non ministrum arbitraretur, ac Patri et Filio pares esse intelligent dignitates."
38. David says: " The Lord hath said to me, thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee" (Psalm ii, 7). Berruyer says that the expression, " This day have I begotten thee," has no reference to the eternal generation, as all understand it, but to the generation in time, of which he is the inventor, when Jesus Christ was made in time the Son of one God, subsisting in three Persons. He thus explains the text, " This day have I begotten thee": I will be your Father, and you will be my Son that is, according to the second filiation, made by the one God in three Persons, as he imagines.
39. St. Luke says: " And, therefore, also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke, i, 35). Berruyer says that these words do not refer to Jesus Christ, as the Word, but as man; for the expression " Holy" is not adapted to the Word, but rather to Humanity. All Doctors, however, understand by the Holy One, the Word, the Son of God, born before all ages. Bossuet sagaciously remarks, that the expression, " Holy," when it is only an adjective, properly speaking, is adapted to the creature; but when, as in the present case, it is a substantive, it means Holiness essentially, which belongs to God alone.
40. St. Matthew (xxviii, 19) tells us, that Christ said to his disciples: " Going, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Berruyer says, then, that, by the name of Father, the first Person of the Trinity is not meant, but the God of the Jews that is, one God, subsisting in three Persons; by the name of the Son, the Word is not understood, but Christ, as man, made the Son of God, by the act by which God united him to the Word. He says nothing at all about the Holy Ghost. Now, by this doctrine the Sacrament of Baptism is not alone deranged, but totally abolished, I may say; because, according to him, we would not be baptized, at first, in the name of the Father, but in the name of the Trinity, and Baptism, administered after this form, as all theologians hold, with St. Thomas, would be null and void (21). In the second place, we would not be baptized in the name of the real Son of God that is, the Word, who became incarnate, but in the name of that Son, invented by Berruyer, made in time by the Trinity a Son which never did nor ever can exist, because there never was nor will be any other natural Son of God, unless that only-begotten one, generated from all eternity from the substance of the Father, the Principle, and first Person of the Trinity. The second generation, made in time, or, to speak more exactly, the Incarnation of the Word, did not make Christ the Son of God, but united him in one Person with the true Son of God; that did not give him a Father, but merely a Mother, who begot him from her own substance. Rigorously speaking, this cannot be called generation, for the generation of the Son of God is that alone which was from eternity. The Humanity of Christ was not generated by God, but was created, and was begotten solely by the Virgin Mary. Berruyer says, that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God by two titles first, by begetting the Word; and, secondly, by giving Christ his humanity, since, as he says, the union established between this humanity and the Word has caused Jesus Christ to be made the Son of God. Both reasons, however, are false, for, first, we cannot say that the Blessed Virgin begot the Word, for the Word had no Mother, but only a Father, that is God. Mary merely begot the Man, who was united in one Person with the Word, and it is on that account that she, the Mother of the Man, is justly called the true Mother of God. His second reason is equally false, that the Blessed Virgin has contributed, with her substance, to make Jesus Christ become the Son of God, one subsisting in three Persons, for, as we have proved, this supposition is totally false, so that, by attributing thus two Maternities to the Blessed Virgin, he does away with it altogether, for one destroys the other. Berruyer mangles several other texts; but I omit them, not to weary the reader with such folly any longer. (21) St. Thomas, 3, p. qu. 60, art. 8.
IV. THE MIRACLES WROUGHT BY JESUS CHRIST WERE NOT PERFORMED BY HIS OWN POWERS, BUT OBTAINED FROM HIS FATHER, BY HIS PRAYERS.
41. Berruyer says that Jesus Christ wrought his miracles in this sense alone, that he operated, with a beseeching power, by means of his prayers: " Miracula Christus efficit, non precatio …………prece tamen et postulatione……….. eo unice sensudicitur Christus miraculorum effector." In another place, he says that Christ, as the Son of God (but the Son in his sense that is, of one God, subsisting in three Persons) had a right, by his Divinity, that his prayers should be heard. Remark the expression, " his prayers." Therefore, according to Berruyer, our Saviour did not work miracles by his own power, but obtained them from God by his prayers, like any other holy man. This doctrine, however, once admitted, we should hold, with Nestorius, that Christ was a mere human person, distinct from the Person of the Word, who, being God, equal to the Father, had no necessity of begging the Father to grant him power to work miracles, since he had all power himself. This error springs from the former capital ones we have refuted that is, that Christ is not the Word, but is that Son of God existing only in his imagination, his Son merely in name, made in time by God, subsisting in three Persons, and, also, that in Christ it was not the Word that operated, but his Humanity alone: " Sola humanitas obedivit, sola passa est," &c.
42. He was just as much astray in this proposition, that Christ wrought miracles merely by prayer and supplication, as he was in his previous statements. St. Thomas, the prince of theologians, teaches, " that Christ wrought miracles by his own power, and not by prayer, as others did" (1). And St. Cyril says, that he proved, by the very miracles he wrought, that he was the true Son of God, since he performed them not by the power of another, but by his own: " Non accipiebat alienam virtutem." Only once, says St. Thomas (2), did he show that he obtained from his Father the power to work miracles; that was in the resurrection of Lazarus, when imploring the power of his Father, he said: " I know that thou nearest me always, but because of the people who stand about have I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me" (John, xi, 42). But, as the holy Doctor remarks, he did this for our instruction, to show us that in our necessities we should have recourse to God, as he had. St. Ambrose, then, tells us not to imagine, from this fact of Lazarus, that our Saviour prayed to his Father for power to perform the miracle, as if he had not power to work it himself; that prayer, he says, was intended for our instruction: " Noli insidiatrices aperire aures, ut putcs Filium Dei quasi infirmum rogare, ut impetret quod implere non posit…… ad præcepta virtutis suæ nos informat exemplo" (3). St. Hilary says just the same; but he also assigns another reason: Christ, he says, did not require to pray, but he did so to make us believe that he was in reality the Son of God: " Non prece eguit, pro nobis oravit, ne Filius ignoraretur" (4).
43. St. Ambrose (5) remarks, that when Jesus Christ wished, he did not pray, but commanded, and all creatures obeyed the sea, the winds, and diseases. He commanded the sea to be at rest, and it obeyed: " Peace, be still" (Mark, iv, 39). He commanded that disease should leave the sick, and they were made whole: " Virtue went out from him, and healed all" (Luke, vi, 19). He himself tells us that he could do, and did, every thing equal to his Divine Father: " For whatsoever things he (the Father) doth, these the Son also doth in like manner For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth life, so the Son also giveth life to whom he will" (John, v, 19, 21). (1) St. Thom. 3, p. q. 44, art. 4. (2) Idem, ibid, qu. 21, art. 1, ad 1. (3) St. Ambros. in Luc. (4) St. Hilar. l. 10, de Trinit. (5) St. Ambros. l. 3, de Fide, c. 4. St. Thomas says (6), that the miracles alone which Christ wrought were sufficient to make manifest the Divine power which he possessed: " Ex hoc ostendebatur, quod haberet virtutem coæqualem Deo Patri." This was what our Lord said to the Jews when they were about to stone him: " Many good works have I showed from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me? The Jews answered him: For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and because that thou, being a man, maketh thyself God. Jesus answered them: You say: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works," &c. (John, x, 32, &c.) We have said enough on this subject.
V. THE HOLY GHOST WAS NOT SENT TO THE APOSTLES BY JESUS CHRIST, BUT BY THE FATHER ALONE, AT THE PRAYER OF CHRIST.
44. Berruyer says that the Holy Ghost was not sent to the Apostles by Jesus Christ, but by the Father, at his prayer: " Ad orationem Jcsu Christi, quæ voluntatis ejus efficacis signum erit, mittet Pater Spiritum Sanctum. Quæ quasi raptim delibavimus de Jesu Christo missuro Spiritum Sanctum, quatenus homo Deus est Patrem rogaturus."
45. This error is also a necessary consequence of the former ones; that is, Jesus Christ, the Word, did not operate, but the Humanity alone, or the Man made the Son of one God subsisting in three Persons, by reason of the union of the Person of the Word with the Humanity; and from this false supposition he deduces this present falsehood, that the Holy Ghost was not sent by Jesus Christ, but by the Father, at the prayer of Jesus Christ. If he said that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Word, but from the Father alone, he would fall into the Greek heresy already refuted (Ref. iv); but he rather leans to the heresy of Nestorius, who, admitting two Persons in Christ, a Divine and a human Person, said, consequently, that the Divine Person dwelling in Jesus Christ, together with the Father, sent the Holy Ghost; and the human Person in Christ obtained from the Father, by his prayers, that the Holy Spirit should be sent. Berruyer does not expressly say this; but when he asserts that the Holy Ghost was not sent by Jesus Christ, only by his prayer alone, he appears to believe, either that there is no Divine Person in Christ at all, or that there are two Persons one Divine, which sends, of himself, the Holy Ghost; the other human, which obtains, by his prayers, that he may be sent. He shows that that is his opinion, when he says that in Jesus Christ it was the Humanity alone that acted and suffered, that is, the Man alone made in time the Son of God by the whole three Persons. This was not, certainly, the Word who was born of the Father alone before all ages. (6) St. Thom. 3 p. q, 43, art. 4. But the Word, he says, was already united to the Humanity of Christ in unity of Person; but then we should remember, that according to his opinion the Word had nothing to do, for it was only the Humanity that acted in Christ. That being the case, of what service was the union of the Word in unity of Person with the Humanity? Merely, as he said, that by means of the hypostatic union Christ might be made the Son of God, of the three Divine Persons; and hence, he says, the operations of Christ were not elicited by the Word, but merely by his humanity, and the hypostatic union gave no value to his actions: "in ratione principii agentis unio hypostatica nihil omnino contulit."
46. With what face could Berruyer assert that the Holy Ghost was not sent by Jesus Christ, when he himself several times said he was, and promised his Apostles that he would send them the Paraclete: " But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father" (John, xv, 26); " For if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John, xvi, 7). Listen to this ! Christ says that he sent the Holy Ghost; and Berruyer says that the Holy Ghost was not sent by him, but only at his prayer. Perhaps he will argue that Christ himself said: " I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete" (John, xiv, 16). But we answer with St. Augustine, that Christ then spoke as man; but when he spoke as God, he said not once, but several times, " whom I will send to you." And again he says: " The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things" (John, xiv, 26). St. Cyril, explaining this text, says, " in my name," that is, by me, because he proceeds from me. It is certain the Holy Ghost could not be sent unless by the Divine Persons alone, who were his Principle, the Father and the Son. If, then, he was sent by Jesus Christ, there can be no doubt that he was sent by the Word, who operated in Jesus Christ, and the Word being equal to the Father, and with the Father, co-principle of the Holy Ghost, had no necessity to pray to the Father (as Berruyer says) that he might be sent; for as the Father sent him, so did he likewise.
VI. OTHER ERRORS OF BERRUYER ON DIFFERENT SUBJECTS.
47. Those writers who have refuted Berruyer’s work remark several other errors which, though they may not be clearly opposed to Faith, still, in my opinion, are most extravagant, and totally opposed to the general opinion of Fathers and Theologians. I will here refute some of the most strange and reprehensible.
48. In one place he says: " Revelatione deficiente, cum nempe Deus ob latentes causas eam nobis denegare vult, non est cur non teneamur saltem objecta credere, quibus religio naturalis fundatur." Speaking here of the revelation of the mysteries of the Faith, he says, that should no such revelation be made to us, we are, at all events, obliged to believe those objects on which natural religion is based. And then he assigns the reasons subsequently: " Religio pure naturalis, si Deus ea sola contentus esse voluisset, propriam fidem, ac revelationem suo habuisset modo, quibus Deus ipse in fidelium cordibus, et animo inalienabilia jura sua exercuisset." Now the extravagance of this doctrine is only equalled by the confused manner in which it is stated. It would appear that he admits that true believers can be found professing mere natural religion alone, which, according to him, has, in a certain way, its own faith, and its own revelation. Then in mere natural religion there must be a faith and revelation with which God is satisfied. But, says Berruyer’s friend, he intends this a mere hypothesis; but this does not render it less objectionable, for it would lead us to believe that God would be satisfied with a religion purely natural, without faith in the merits of Jesus Christ, and sufficient to save its professors. St. Paul answers this, however, for he says: " Then Christ died in vain" (Gal. ii, 21.) If natural religion be sufficient to save those who neither believe nor hope in Jesus Christ, then he died in vain, for man’s salvation. St. Peter, on the contrary, says that salvation can only be obtained in Christ: "Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved" (Acts, iv, 12). If any infidels, either under the New or Old Law have been saved, it has only been because they knew the Grace of the Redeemer, and hence St. Augustine says that it was granted to no person to live according to God, and save his soul, to whom Jesus Christ has not been revealed, either as promised or already come: " Divinitas autem provisum fuisse non dubito, ut ex hoc uno sciremus etiam per alias Gentes esse potuisse, qui secundum Deum vixerunt, eique placuerunt, pertinentes ad spiritualem Jerusalem: quod nemini concessum fuisse credendum est, nisi cui divinitus revelatus est unus Mediatur Dei, et hominum homo Christus Jesus, qui venturus in carne sic antiquis Sanctis prænunciabatur, quemadmodum nobis venisse nuntiatus est" (1).
49. This is the faith required for the just man to live always united with God: " The just man liveth by faith," says the Apostle: " But that in the law no man is justified with God it is manifest, because the just man liveth by faith" (Gal. iii, 11). No one, says St. Paul, can render himself just in the sight of God, by the law alone, which imposes commandments, but gives no strength to fulfil them. Neither can we, since the fall of Adam, fulfil them merely by the strength of our free will; the assistance of Grace is requisite, which we should implore from God, and hope for through the mediation of our Redeemer. (1) St. Aug. l. 18 de C. D. c. 47. " Ea quippe fides," says St. Augustine (2), "justos sanavit antiques, quæ sanat, et nos, idest Jesu-Christi, fides mortis ejus." In another passage he tells us the reason of this (3): " Quia sicut credimus nos Christum venisse, sic illi venturum; sicut nos mortuum, ita ilia moriturum." Where the Jews went astray was in presuming, without prayer, or faith in a Mediator to come, to be able to observe the law imposed on them. When God commanded Moses to ask them if they wished to perform all that he would reveal to them, they answered: "All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do" (Exod. xix, 8). But after this promise our Lord said to them: " Who shall give them to have such a mind to fear me, and to keep all my commandments at all times?" (Deut. vi, 29). They say that they desire to fulfil the commandments, but who will give them power to do so? By this God means that if they had the presumption to hope to fulfil them, without praying for Divine assistance, they could never accomplish it. Hence it was that immediately after they forsook the Lord, and adored the golden calf.
50. The Gentiles, who, by power of their own wills alone expected to make themselves just, were even more blind than the Jews. What more has Jupiter, says Seneca, than other good men, only a longer life: " Jupiter quo antecedit virum bonum? diutius bonus est. Sapiens nihilo so minoris æstimat, quod virtute ejus spatio breviore clauduntur" (4). And again he says Jupiter despises worldly things, because he can make no use of them, but the wise man despises them, because it is his will to do so: " Jupiter uti illis non potest, Sapiens non vult" (5). A wise man, he says, is like a God in every thing, only that he is mortal: " Sapiens, excepta mortalitate, similis Deo" (6). Cicero said we could not glory in virtue, if it was given to us by God: " Do virtute rete gloriamur, quod non contingeret, si id donum a Deo, non a nobis, haberemus" (7). (2) St. Aug. de Nat. et Grat. p. 149. (3) St. Aug. de Nupt. et concup. l. 2 p. 113 (4) Seneca, Eplst. 73. (5) Idem, de Constantia Sap. c. R, (6) Idem, Epist. 53. And again he says: " Jovem optimum maximum appellant, non quod nos justos, sapientes efficiat, sed quod incolumes, opulentos," &c. See here the pride of those wise men of the world, who said that virtue and wisdom belonged to themselves, and did not come from God.
51. It was this presumption which blinded them more and more every day. The most learned among their sages, their philosophers, as they had a greater share of pride, were the most blind, and although the light of nature taught them to know that there was but one God, the Lord and Creator of all things, still, as the Apostle says, they did not avail themselves of it to thank and praise God as they ought: " Because that, when they knew God they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks: but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise they became fools" (Rom. i, 21). The presumption of their own wisdom increased their folly. Nay, so great was their blindness that they venerated as Gods not only their fellow-mortals, but the beasts of the field: " And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds and of four-footed beasts and of creeping things" (ver. 22.) Hence it was that God deservedly abandoned them to their own wicked desires, and they slavishly obeyed their most brutal and detestable passions: " Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness," &c. (ver. 24). The most celebrated among the ancient sages is Socrates, who, it is said, was persecuted by the Idolaters, for teaching that there was but one supreme God, and still he called them who accused him of not adoring the gods of his country calumniators, and ordered his disciple Zenophon before his death to sacrifice a cock he had in his house in honor of Esculapius. St. Augustine tells us (8) that Plato thought sacrifices ought to be offered to a multiplicity of gods. The most enlightened among the Gentiles, the great Cicero, though he knew there was only one supreme God, still wished that all the gods recognised in Rome should be adored. Such is the wisdom of the sages of Paganism, and such is the faith and natural religion of the Gentiles which Berruyer exalts so much that he says that it could, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ, make people good and innocent, and adopted children of God. (7) Cicero de Nat. Deor. p. 253. (8) St. Aug. de Civit. Dei, I. 8, c. 12.
52. We now proceed to examine the other foolish opinions of this work. He says: " Relate ad cognitiones explicitas, aut media necessaria, quæ deficere possent, ut eveherentur ad adoptionem filiorum, dignique fierent cralorum remuneratione, præsumere debemus, quod viarum ordinariarum defectu in animabus rectis ac innocentibus bonus Dominus cui deservimus, attenta Filii sui mcdiatione, opus suum perficeret quibusdam omnipotentiæ rationibus, quas liber um ipsi est nobis haud dctegere" (9). He says, then, that when the means necessary for salvation are wanting, we ought to presume that God will save the souls of the upright and innocent, by certain measures of his omnipotence, which he has not revealed to us. What an immensity of folly in few words. He calls those souls upright and innocent who have no knowledge of the means necessary for salvation, and, consequently, know nothing of the mediation of the Redeemer a knowledge of which, as we have seen, has been, at all times, necessary for the children of Adam. Perhaps, these upright and innocent souls were created before Adam himself, for, if they were born after his fall, they are undoubtedly children of wrath. How, then, can they be exalted up to the adoption of the children of God, and, without faith in Jesus Christ (out of whom there is no salvation), and without Baptism, enter into heaven, and enjoy the beatific vision of God? We have always believed, and do still, that there is no other way of obtaining salvation, but by the mediation of Christ. He himself says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John, xiv, 6). And again: " I am the door; by me, if any man go in, he shall be saved" (John, x, 9). St. Paul says: " For by him we have access to the Father" (Ephes. ii, 18). Berruyer, however, tells us that there is another way a hidden one, by which God saves those upright souls who live in the religion of nature a way, of which neither Scripture, Fathers, nor Ecclesiastical Writers tell us anything. All Grace and hope of salvation is promised to mankind, through the mediation of Jesus Christ. (9) Berruyer, t. I, p. 58. If you read Selvaggi, the Annotator of Moshoim (10), you will see that all the Prophecies of the Old Testament, and even the historical facts narrated, all speak of this in a prophetic sense, as St. Paul says: " These things were done in a figure" (I. Cor. x, 6).Our Saviour himself proved to the disciples, in the journey to Emmaus, that all the Scriptures of the Old Law spoke of him: " Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things that were concerning him" (Luke, xxiv, 27). And still Berruyer says, that souls, under the Law of Nature, were adopted as Children of God, without any knowledge of the mediation of Jesus Christ.
53. How could those persons obtain the adoption of the children of God without Jesus Christ, when it is he who has given to the Faithful the power "to become the children of God." Berruyer says: " Quod adoptio prima, eaque gratuito, cujus virtute ab Adamo usque ad Christum, intuitu Christi venturi fideles omnes sive ex Israel, sive ex Gentibus facti sunt filii Dei, non dederit Deo nisi filios minores semper et parvulos usque ad tempus præfinitum a Patre. Vetus hæc itaque adoptio præparabat aliam, et novam quasi parturiebat adoptionem superioris ordinis." He then admits two adoptions the first and the second. The latter is that which exists in the New Law; the former, that by which all those who have received the Faith among the Jews or Gentiles, in regard to the promised Messiah, and these were only, as it were, younger children of God, minors. This ancient adoption, he said, prepared, and, we may say, brought forth, another one of a superior order; but those who were adopted under this ancient one, scarcely deserved to be named among the faithful " Vix filiorum nomen obtinerent." It would take volumes to examine all the extravagant opinions and extraordinary crotchets of this writer, which were never heard of by Theologians before. The adoption of children of God, as St. Thomas says (11), gives them a right to a share in his birthright that is, Eternal Beatitude. Now, supposing Berruyer’s system to be true, as the ancient adoption was of an inferior order, we ask, would it give a right to entire beatitude, or only to an inferior or partial sort, corresponding to the adoption? It is quite enough to state such paradoxical opinions, and the reader will perceive that they refute themselves. The truth of the matter is, that there never was but one true Religion, which never had any other object but God, nor no way of approaching to God unless through Jesus Christ. (10) Selvag. in Mosh. vol. 1, n. GS. (11) St. Thom. 3, p. q. 23, a. 1. It is the blood of Jesus Christ which has taken away all the sins of the world, and saved all those who are saved, and it is the Grace of Jesus Christ that has given children to God. Bcrruycr says, that the Natural Law inspired Faith, Hope, and Charity. What folly ! These Divine virtues are gifts infused by God; and how, then, could they be inspired by the Law of Nature. Why, Felagius himself never went so far as that.
54. In another place, he says: " Per annos quatuor millo quotquot fucrunt primogeniti, et sibi successerunt in heriditate nominis illius, Filius Hominis, debitum nascendo contraxerunt." And again: " Per Adami hominum Parentis, et Primogeniti lapsum oneratum est nomen illud, sancto quidem, sed pœnali debito satisfaciendi Deo in rigore justitise, et peccata hominum expiandi." Berruyer then says that, for four thousand years, the first-born were obliged to make satisfaction for the sins of mankind. This opinion would bear rather heavy on me, as I have the misfortune to be the first-born of my family, and it would be too hard that I should make atonement, not only for my own manifold sins, but also for the crimes of others. But can he tell us where this obligation is laid down. He appears to think that the law of nature imposed it: " Erat præceptum illud quantum ad substantiam naturale." But no one with a grain of sense will admit this to be a precept of the law of nature, when neither the Scriptures nor the Canons of the Church make any allusion to it. It is not, then, imposed by the law of nature, nor by any positive command of God, for all children of Adam, as well as the first-born, are born with the guilt of original sin (with the exception of our Lord and his Immaculate Mother), and all are equally bound to have them selves cleaned from this stain.
55. Berruyer leaves the first-born alone, then, and applies this new doctrine of his to our Lord. All those, he says, from whom Jesus Christ sprung were first-born down to Joseph, and hence, in the person of Christ, by the succession inherited from St. Joseph, all the rights and all the debts of his first-born ancestors was united; but as none of these could satisfy the Divine justice, the Saviour, who alone could do so, was bound to make satisfaction for all, for he was the chief among the first-born, and on that account, he says, he was called the Son of Man. This title, however, St. Augustine says, was applied to our Lord as a title of humility, and not of majority or obligation. As the Son of Man, then, he says, he was the first-born among men; and as the Son of God, he was bound, according to the rigour of justice, to sacrifice himself to God for his glory, and the salvation of mankind: " Dobitum contraxerat in rigore justitiæ fundatum, qui natus erat Filius hominis, homo Primogenitus simul Dei Unigenitus, ut so Pontifex idem, et hostia ad gloriam Dei restituendam, salutemque hominum rcdimendam Deo Patri suo exhiberet." Hence, he says that Christ, by a natural precept, was bound, ex condigno, to satisfy the Divine Justice by his Passion: " Offere Se tamen ad satisfaciendum Deo ex condigno, et ad expiandum hominis peccatum, quo satis erat passione sua, Jesus Christus Filius hominis, et Filius Dei præcepto naturali obligabatur." Christ, therefore, he says, as the Son of Man, and the first-born of man, contracted a debt, obliging him, in rigorous justice, to atone to God, by his Passion, for the sins of mankind. We answer, that our Saviour could not, either as Son of Man, or first-born of man, contract this strict obligation to make satisfaction for mankind. He could not be obliged, as the Son of Man, for it would be blasphemous to assert that he incurred original sin: " Accepit enim hominem, says St. Thomas (12), absque peccato." Neither could he be obliged to it, as the first-born among men. It is true, St. Paul calls him the first-born among many brethren; but we must understand in what sense the Apostle applies this term. The text says: " For whom he foreknew he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren" (Rom. viii, 29). The Apostle here instructs us, that those whom God has foreseen will be saved, he has predestined to be made like unto Jesus Christ, in holiness and patience, poor, despised, and persecuted, like him on earth. (12) St. Thom. 3 p. q. H, a. 3.
56. Berruyer, however, asserts, that according to strict justice Christ could not be the mediator of all mankind, if he was not at the same time Man-God, and the Son of God, and thus make full satisfaction for the sins of man. But St. Thomas says (13) that God could be satisfied in two ways in regard to man’s sin, perfectly and imperfectly perfectly, by the satisfaction given him by a Divine Person, such as was given him by Jesus Christ; imperfectly, by accepting the satisfaction which man himself could make, and which would be sufficient, if God wished to accept it. St. Augustine says those are fools who teach that God could save mankind in no other manner, unless by becoming man himself, and suffering all he did. He could do so if he wished, says the Saint; but then their folly would not be satisfied: " Sunt stulti qui dicunt: * Non poterat aliter sapientia Dei homines liberare, nisi susciperet hominem, et a peccatoribus omnia ilia pateretur. Quibus dicimus, poterat omnino; sed si aliter faceret, similiter vestra? stultitiæ displiceret " (14).
57. Such being the case, it is insufferable to hear Berruyer assert that Christ, as the Son of Man, and firstborn of man, had contracted, in rigorous justice, the obligation of sacrificing himself to God, by dying for the satisfaction of man’s sins, and obtaining salvation for them. It is true in another place he says that the Incarnation of the Son of God was not a matter of necessity, but merely proceeded from God’s goodness alone; but then he contradicts himself (see n. 55). No matter what his meaning was, one thing is certain that Christ suffered for us, not because he was obliged to do so by necessity, but of his own free will, because he voluntarily offered himself up to suffer and die for the salvation of mankind: " He was offered because it was his own will" (Isaias, liii, 7). He says himself: "I lay down my life no man taketh it away from me, I lay it down of myself" (John, x, 17, 18). In that, says St. John, he shows the extraordinary love he bore to mankind, when he sacrificed even his life for them: "In this we have known the charity of God, because he hath laid down his life for us. This sacrifice of love was called his decease by Moses and Elias on the Mount of Thabor: " They spoke of his decease, which he should accomplish in Jerusalem." (13) St. Thorn, p. 3, ar. 1, ad. 2. (14) St. August, lib de Agone Christiano, c. 11.
58. I think I have said enough about Berruyer’s errors; the chief and most pernicious of all, the first and third, I have rather diffusely refuted. In these the fanatical author labours to throw into confusion all that the Scriptures and Councils teach regarding the great mystery of the Incarnation, the foundation of Christianity itself, and of our salvation. In conclusion, I protest that all that I have written in this Work, and especially in the Refutation of Heresies, I submit to the judgment of the Church. My only glory is, that I am her obedient child, and as such I hope to live and die.