Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/139

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OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
127

τριάδος. What weight this sanction had is illustrated by the remark of the same council, that the Holy Trinity did not receive any addition when "one of the Trinity" became man[1]. This remark is purposely directed against Nestorius, who himself deals with the reproach, that his doctrine led to the result, that the man in Christ was added to the Trinity as the fourth person[2]. He did not give a satisfactory answer to this reproach[3]. Nor did Marcellus master the difficulty. For him the problem did not lie in the fact, that on account of the flesh, he had to regard the historical and exalted Christ as another beside God, in spite of his dynamic unity with God, for this is undoubtedly the view held by the N.T. also; but he confesses, that he did not know, what would become of the manhood (flesh) of Christ, when the Logos should finally be reabsorbed in the unity of God, so that God might be all in all[4]. There was no difficulty here for the old tradition; for when finally all Christians are made perfect and wholly filled with the Spirit of God, then naturally the beginner of the new humanity would no longer have a peculiar position to himself, although

  1. Anath. 5: οὔτε γὰρ προσθήκην προσώπου ἢ ὑποστάσεως ἐπεδέξατο ἡ ἁγία τριὰς καὶ σαρκωθέντος τοῦ ἑνὸς τῆς ἁγίας τριάδος, θεοῦ λόγου.
  2. Liber Heracl. B. 33 = N. 19; B. 34 = N. 20; B. 38 = N. 23.
  3. B. 360 = N. 231 (comp. note 4): Le prosôpon de l'humanite n'est pas odieux à la trinité; what is said B. 33 f. = N. 20 suffices just as little.
  4. Klostermann, 121, p. 211.