of Mary, in the fulfilment of time, a body of union."[1] And, again, in § 4. "He Who is, by His Self-existence, perfect God, the Word, abounded in His compassion for our frailty, and took upon Him our similitude to be an abode for His Divinity, raised and nailed it to the Cross, and yielded it up unto death, thereby to give us life, then raised it again, and seated it in the heavens, far above the highest dominions and powers." And, once more, in § 6. e. "Behold Him, Who is clothed with light wrapped in swaddling bauds; what a mystery is here! No less wonderful is it that He Who is seated on the throne of heaven should have been laid in a manger! The Ancient of times became a Son of Mary in the latter times, and appeared as the Father, Lord, and Master, of the sons of Adam."
In these passages the Only-begotten, Who appeared in the flesh, and Who is called "the Son of God," is exhibited,18 not as a Being distinct from the One Supreme God, or as a companion, attribute, reflection, or emanation of Divinity; but as the Very and Only God, as incapable of being separate in essence from the Father, as it is impossible that reason should be separate from the mind, or, to use the scriptural simile adduced by Mar Abd Yeshua in his chapter on the Trinity, as that the bright shining of the sun should be separate from the sun itself. His words are these: "As the reasonable soul has a threefold, energy, mind, word, and life, and is one and not three; even so should we conceive of the three in one, and one in three. The sun, also, which is one in its disk, radiance, and heat, is another simile adduced by the second Theologus Paul, the chosen vessel:—'He is the brightness of His glory, and the Express Image of His Person;' and, again: 'Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.'" The Sonship of the Son is a propriety[2] of the One Infinite Indivisible Essence,19 and is called a
- ↑ Or, "a united body." This term frequently occurs in Nestorian theology, and is designed to express that body which the Son of God took, and in which His Divinity and Humanity were conjoined or united.
- ↑ I have used this word propriety,20 in order to express the meaning of the Syriac deeleita, which literally signifies a thing or attribute belonging to some one. The term in the original is doubtless derived from the possessive case of the third personal pronoun, viz. His, and designates that which the Latins signify by proprium, as when they say, "Proprium est Spiritui Sancto procedere." Thus the deeleita, (or as I have taken the liberty to write,) the propriety of the
