Chapter IX. That as in God there is One Nature subsisting in Three Persons, so in% Christ there are Three Natures subsisting in One Person

Something similar is the belief I profess to hold regarding the unity to which I have assigned the second place amongst all. For I believe that in Christ the Word Divine, the Human Soul, and the Human Body are one and the same Person without any confusion of their essences, and that the essences preserve their distinction without prejudice to the unity of the Person. Nor am I disposed to deny that this species of unity exhibits some analogies to that whereby soul and body constitute one man. Indeed it was only natural and befitting that the mystery of the Incarnation, accomplished for man's benefit, should bear a certain degree of resemblance to the constitution of man. It was no less natural and befitting that it should have a relation of likeness to the supreme Unity which is in God and is God, so that as in Him three Persons are one

Essence, in the Incarnate Word, by a most becoming contrariety, three essences should be one Person. Dost thou not see how beautifully between the Unity proper to God and that natural to man has been placed this other, in Him Who has been constituted the " one Mediator of God and men, the Man Christ Jesus " ? (1 Tim. ii. 5). A most beautiful disposition indeed, through which the mystery of our salvation corresponds by a certain degree of likeness to both extremes, that is, to Him Who saves and to him who is saved. Accordingly, the unity of Christ, intermediate between the Unity of God and that of man, is less perfect than the former and more perfect than the latter ; and is as far above the latter as it is below the former.

So great and intimate is the union effected between God and man by the Person of the Word, existing in Christ in two natures, that each of them thou mayest truly predicate of the other. That is, the true and Catholic faith authorises thee to say that God is man' and that man is God. But not in the same manner mayest thou predicate either the body of the soul or the soul of the body — that would be most absurd — although body and soul constitute one man, just as the Divine and Human Natures are one Christ. Nor is it^ anything very wonderful that the soul by the vital power of her intention, mighty though it be, and by the force of her affections cannot unite and bind to herself the body as intimately as the Divinity clasps to Itself the Man " Who was predestinated the Son of God in power " (Rom. i. 4). Divine predestination is a long and a strpng chain for binding, because it reaches back to eternity. What can belonger than that which is eternal ? What can be stronger than that which is divine ? Hence it is that not even by death could this union be in any degree dissolved, for it continued intact whilst Soul and Body were parted from each other. And perhaps the Precursor had this in mind when, speaking o'f Christ, he declared himself unworthy to loose the latchet of His shoe f (Mark i. 7 ; Luke iii. 16 ; Acts xiii. 25).