Appendix I. The Deification of the Sacred Humanity

Though the proofs from Fathers, Schoolmen, Theologians, and Councils already given in the notes be fully sufficient, the following may be of use, as they show how the doctrine and terminology of the Deification of the Sacred Humanity pervades Theology.

Petavius says: ' That humanity is assumed by God is nothing else but that it is deified.'1

Franzelin also writes: ' In the human nature, Incarnation is the being so united that the humanity subsists not in itself but as a nature of the Word in the Word, which is properly that which is called by the Fathers the deification of the human nature.'2

S. John Damascene writes as follows:

' It is necessary, then, that we should know that the flesh of the Lord is deified, and, moreover, is called God and becomes God, as Gregory Theologus says (speaking of the two natures), " of which one deified and the other was deified," and I am bold to say, is partaker of the same deity. The Anointer

1 Petav. de Incarn. lib. iv. c. ix.

2 De Verio Incarn. p. 290.

became man, and the Anointed, God; and this not by change of nature, but according to the economic, that is, the hypostatic union, by which (humanity) was indissolubly united with God the Word, and the two natures mutually embraced each other, as we say of fire when it pervades iron: for as we confess the incarnation (of God) without change or conversion, so also we affirm of the deification of the flesh. For neither because the Word was made flesh did it pass beyond the bounds of its own Godhead, nor of its own proper and divine perfections; nor, indeed, did the deified flesh depart from its own nature or from its natural properties: for after their union the natures were unconfounded and the properties of each were inviolate: but the flesh of the Lord was enriched with divine operations by reason of its most pure hypostatic union with the Word, for the flesh by no means forfeited its natural properties, nor from its own energy did it exercise divine operations, but through the Word who was united with it, and through it manifesting His own power. For the glowing iron does not possess the power of burning by reason of its own nature, but by reason of its union with fire.

' For the flesh, which was mortal in itself, was life-giving by reason of its hypostatic union with the Word. In like manner we affirm the deification of

D the will, not as if its natural movement were changed, but because it was united to the Divine and Almighty Will, and became the Will of God made man. Wherefore, when it would conceal itself it was not able of itself: forasmuch as the Word of God was pleased to manifest the infirmity of the human will truly existing in Himself; and again by His Will He cleansed the leper by reason of the union of the (human) with the divine. We must know, then, that the deification of the nature and of the will declares emphatically and demonstratively the two natures and the two wills, as the glowing of fire does not change the nature of that which is heated by it into the nature of fire, but manifests both that which is ignited, and that which ignites, and shows them to be not one but two, so the deification does not make up one compound nature but contains the two (natures), and the hypostatic union: for Gregory Theologus declares one of the two natures deifies and the other is deified, for in saying "of which" and " the one and the other," he demonstrates that they are two.'8

De Lugo writes thus: (The Deity is the same in the Father and the Son, yet it is not the Father that

3 De Fide Orthod. lib. iii. c. xvii. torn. i. p. 239. See also lib. iii. o. xii. p. 224, and lib. iv. c. xviii.

formally deifies or sanctifies the humanity, but the Son, because the Deity as it is in the Son, and not as it is in the Father, has the condition necessary for that effect, that is to say, the Subsistence (hypostasis) of the Son, by means of which it is united to the humanity.'4

De Lugo continues: ' The Personality is not (forma deificans) that which deifies, nevertheless the Deity formally deifies the humanity by means of the Personality (mediante personalitate), not that this is the cause of deification, but because it is the condition necessary to this effect, namely, that the Deity may deify (the humanity).'6

The humanity subsisting in the hypostatic union is therefore deified mediately, that is by union with the Divine Nature.

He argues farther: ' We cannot conceive the Humanity of Christ as united to the Word, or, as having union with the Word, without (eo ipso) by that conception itself predicating that the Humanity is denominated and deified by the Word: for what else is union with the Word, but being informed, as I may say, or deified by the Word.'6

4 De Incarn. dig. xvi. sect. ii. 39. 5 Ib. 48.

• Ib. s. 48. So also in s. 49.