Incarnation (of the Logos)

JOHN A. MCGUCKIN

The term denotes the concept of the eternal Word of God (the divine Logos) “becoming flesh” within history for the salvation of the human race. It derives from the Latin in carne and hence “incarnation,” or enfleshment. In Ortho­doxy the preferred term is significantly different, deriving from the Greek of St. Athanasius of Alexandria (as set out in his masterful 4th-century treatise Peri Enanthropeseos tou Theou Logou): the “En-Manment” or “Inhomination” of the Logos (Enanthropesis). In Orthodox under­standing, incarnation does not simply refer to the act itself (such as the conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin, or the event of Christmas); it stands more generi- cally for the whole nexus of events of the life, teachings, sufferings, and glorifica­tion of the Lord, considered as the earthly, embodied activity of the Word of God. As such the theological concept of incarnation is a profoundly soterio- logical term: it always has reference to the dynamic effects of God’s involvement in the cosmos. It is also an obviously Christocen­tric way of approaching the concept of salvation.

As was always true in Christian history, when one approaches a theology of salva­tion through the medium of the incar­nation of the Logos, one soon finds the argument turns into the profoundly related areas of the trinitarian doctrine of God and transfigured anthropology. If we strictly applied the concept of incarnation as it derives from the Latin “in the flesh,” it would be a translation of the Greek “made flesh” (sarkothenta). This was one element (mainly 3rd and 4th century) of the overall scheme of patristic incarnational theology. It was latterly defended by Apollinaris of Laodicea, so as to lay a heavy stress on the divinity of Jesus, and the subordination of his human reality to his divine will. But many at the time (especially St. Gregory the Theologian in his Letter 101) felt that this was a serious undermining of the truly human reality of Christ’s incarnation; one that rendered it mythological, wherein the Word had merely visited humankind, not become a man himself.

After the 4th-century refutation of Apollinaris, this schema was extensively rejected from the writings of the fathers, though it can be discerned in many patterns of proto-Christian writings, especially of the heterodox type. To envisage that the Word of God enters the “flesh” of Jesus of Nazareth is often called in modern textbooks a Logos- Sarx Christology. It implies something of a fundamental contrast between categories of “divinity” and “flesh” (standing in for “God and creature”). This Logos-Sarx the­ology was witnessed in early christological schemes, most radically in the Gnostic Docetics who could not accept any funda­mental connection between the Logos and a “fleshly” reality which they saw as profane. More sophisticated Logos-Sarx thinking can be seen vividly in Apollinaris of Laodicea, who thought that the intellectual power of the Logos of God “stood in” for the human powers of reason in Jesus. When the Logos entered flesh, therefore, it had no need of a human mind or soul, itself pro­viding for those basic functions. Apollinaris thought that this was a useful way of insisting on the single personality of the

Divine Word in the figure of the Incarnate Christ, but his opponents such as the Cap­padocian fathers soon answered that it was a highly defective Christology since it ren­dered the humanity of Christ mindless and soulless (cf. Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle 101 to Cledonius).

From the beginning, Christian accep­tance of the scheme of incarnation was widespread, with several variants in early times. Most writers before the 3rd century do not think about it in great detail, concerned only when extremes appeared, such as the denying of the full reality of either the human or divine character of the Christ. After the 3rd century the partic­ular issues of incarnationalism become more and more specified, and turn mainly on the issue of the problem of a coherent subjectivity: in what way could a divine being (the Logos) be a human being? The Greek fathers generally used a broader range of terms than incarnation and thus the simple and singular application of the English word commonly falsifies their varied senses. They generally speak of the “En-hominization” of the Word of God (enanthropesis), a broader and more inclu­sive notion (the Greek term “Man” in this instance being seen as the genus, as well as being a biblicism directly evoking “The Man” or New Adam). The mainstream christological tradition (and it is something that applies to the Greeks and Latins alike) was adamant that the humanity was not merely an empty suit that the Word “put on” (even though this Pauline image of putting on clothes was heavily used), but a genuine human life which the Word of God used as his primary medium of living on earth. Origen had tried to insist on the authenticity of both the Logos and the earthly Jesus, in the face of several alterna­tives (such as the Gnostics, who argued for an apparitional Christ, or the Adoptionists, who argued that the Spirit ofGod possessed a man temporarily), by his own complex theory of the Word dwelling in the Great Preexistent Soul Jesus who had become human within history. The scheme never quite managed to work, for it never saw Jesus as synonymous with the Word- Incarnate.

Later theologians such as Athanasius (On the Incarnation of the Word of God) set out a fuller elaboration of the Word as the single psychic subject of the Christ. His work was taken to a pitch by St. Cyril of Alexandria (That The Christ is One), who argued against Nestorius that a single subjectivity in the Incarnate Lord meant that flesh and spirit, God and Man, previ­ously alien and disparate categories, had finally been reconciled in the Mystery of the Christ. This mystery of communion which belonged to Christ naturally was passed on to the church as a grace. Thus the incarnation of the Word became the paradigm for the deification of the race. Humanity’s previous inevitable sub­jection to corruption and death (ptharsia, thanatos) had now given way to the poten­tial for immortalization and divine com­munion (metousia theou, theopoiesis). Cyril argued that nowhere was this more vividly seen than in the deifying grace of the Eucharist and the sacraments, which ensured the immortality of the Christian.

The Alexandrian incarnation (En- hominization) theology became standard in the Orthodox Church through its adoption and promulgation by the 4th- and 5th-century ecumenical councils.

SEE ALSO: Christ; Council of Chalcedon (451); Council of Ephesus (431); Deification; Ecumenical Councils; Eucharist; Holy Trinity; Humanity; Logos Theology; St. Atha­nasius of Alexandria (ca. 293–373); St. Cyril of Alexandria (ca. 378–444); Sophiology; Soteriology

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Fairburn, D. (2003) Grace and Christology in the Early Church. New York: Oxford University Press.

Gavrilyuk, P. (2005) The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought. New York: Oxford University Press.

Grillmeier, A. (1975) Christ in Christian Tradition, Vol. 1. London: Mowbray.

McGuckin, J. A. (2001) St. Cyril of Alexandria: On the Unity of Christ (That the Christ Is One). New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. McGuckin, J. A. (2004) St. Cyril ofAlexandria and the Christological Controversy: Its History, Theology and Texts. New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Norris, R. A. (1980) The Christological Controversy. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.