English deaconesses are united' as to the permanence of their calling; but that is not the point. The question is, not whether they intend to persevere, but how far they are bound; not how far they have devoted themselves, but how great an obligation has been placed upon them. There is nothing to prevent the removal of such a (normally) lifelong obligation by the authority which imposed it; and we are of course aware that minor orders, formerly regarded as indelible,* have been made matter for dispensations in the Roman communion since the time of Innocent III. If at some future time the bishops should definitely admit women to an office of a permanent character (even though dispensable in cases of emergency), such as should give them a definite place in the ranks of the clergy, this would place them in a position analogous to that of the ancient deaconess. But such action would not be retrospective, and could have no effect upon those who had already been set apart on an entirely different basis: viz. the basis of a common life of service without any guarantee of permanence. That some such further action is desirable we are convinced; for the present position of the deaconess is a somewhat anomalous one. Qua deaconess, she is neither one thing nor the other-neither a minister of the Church in any strict sense nor a professed sister, though a good deal like both. In fact, she is something like Rudyard Kipling's marine : "E isn't one o' the reg'lar Line, nor 'e isn't one of the crew. 'E's a kind of a giddy harumfrodite,-soldier and sailor too!' But the cases are not at all parallel. It is the very nature of the marine to occupy this intermediate position; whereas it cannot be too clearly recognized that the deaconess and the professed sister are entirely distinct in their aim: the former is ministerial, the latter is 'religious.' A deaconess may also, no doubt, be a professed nun, just as a priest or a deacon may also be a monk; and we believe that the Committee appointed by the Lambeth Conference is quite right in thinking that there is room for both 'religious' and 'secular' deaconesses. But the two things are quite distinct in kind. A deaconess is not 'professed' because she is a deaconess, nor does a professed sister hold any ministerial office in the Church because she is professed. No doubt it is highly expedient that a deaconess should be unmarried, and in many 1 Ministry of Deaconesses, p. 151. 2 See the seventh canon of the Council of Chalcedon. cases that she should be professed; but neither of these can be considered as an essential part of her office.' At present the whole subject is complicated because there is a tendency-natural enough in view of their present precarious position-for deaconesses to fashion their life on the analogy of the life of professed nuns. Those who have seen much of their work in different parishes may have noticed this; and there have been cases-they could be produced if it were necessary-in which grave misunderstanding, to say the least, has been caused by a deaconess apeing the ways of professed nuns wearing a colourable imitation of their dress; calling herself 'Sister' this or that; speaking of the 'obedience' which she owes, not to the bishop and the parish priest, but to the deaconess-institution in which she was trained; and otherwise acting in a way that is equally silly and misleading, however natural it might be in the case of one who was actually under vows. We need hardly say that in all this we have no desire to disparage the work which is being done at the present time by a noble and self-sacrificing body of women; but we desire once more to emphasize the fact that this agency has not yet attained its full development. In the Report which they have already issued, the Committee appointed by the Lambeth Conference express their intention of issuing a 'further Report' at a later date. Is it too much to hope that this further Report may suggest means for securing for the deaconess of the future (a) a definite position in the ministerial life of the Church, with the obligations corresponding to that position; (b) definite limitations of the sphere of the deaconess-institution, as being to the deaconess precisely what a theological college is to a person in Holy Orders; and (c) a clear recognition of the fact that, qua deaconesses, they are not Sisters, but simply ordinary secular folk? It was the old canonical rule of the East that a deaconess should be unmarried or a widow. But this is not based upon the nature of the case it is merely a canonical provision, and may be set aside in just the same way as old regulations enjoining celibacy upon the clergy. We have seen that one married woman separated from her husband (Queen Rhadegund) was ordained a deaconess, and that the wives of those who became bishops might be so ordained. And if, as some think, Priscilla was a deaconess, there is very early precedent for a married woman holding the office. ART, III. HALL'S 'THE KENOTIC THEORY.' The Kenotic Theory considered with particular reference to its Anglican Forms and Arguments. By the Rev. FRANCIS J. HALL, D.D, Instructor of Dogmatic Theology in the Western Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois. (New York, London, and Bombay, 1898.) THERE are three points of view from which the various forms of the theory known as 'kenoticism' may be considered. They may be brought to the test of the teaching of Holy Scripture. They may be examined in the light of the historical theology of the Christian Church. They may be regarded in their bearing on the needs of human life. Each of these three points of view imperatively demands two truths about the Incarnation. They require, first, the assertion of the true and complete Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. They require, in the second place, the assertion that His Manhood was and is no less true and complete than His Godhead. Further consideration shows that these two natures must not be confused, and that there must be one Divine Person whose natures they are. We have on several occasions treated these requirements at length, and we have more than once shown, with some degree of fulness, that any form of the 'kenotic theory,' as impairing the Deity of our Blessed Lord, is contrary to Holy Scripture, contradicts historical Christian beliefs, and destroys the practical value of the Incarnation.1 It is a matter of much satisfaction to find that the dangerous opinions which we have condemned are vigorously refuted in a recently published book entitled The Kenotic Theory, by Dr. Hall, of Chicago. We desire to express our appreciation of Dr. Hall's many kind references to the articles which have appeared in our pages, but the main ground of our satisfaction is in the clearness and ability with which he sets forth important truth. His book is valuable and opportune. It is opportune because of the large numbers of persons both in England and America who are recklessly adopting 'kenotic' theories, less in most cases because they have really studied and thought out the subject than because 1 See especially October 1891 (Our Lord's Knowledge as Man"), January 1896 (Canon Gore on the Incarnation and the Eucharist'), October 1896 (Ottley's Doctrine of the Incarnation'), July 1897 (“Our Lord's Divine and Human Knowledge'), October 1897 (The Sacred Manhood of the Son of God'). of the influence of some individual teacher. It is valuable as ably defending truth which is so near to the heart of the Christian system that to deny it is to imperil all the rest. For, indeed, to accept even the more moderate forms of 'kenoticism' is to take the feet off solid and level ground and to put them on a slippery slope which ends in unbelief. 'Kenoticism' embraces many degrees of error. The essential feature, common to all the different forms, is the assertion that in the Incarnation the Son of God, in addition to acquiring what is human, abandoned something which is Divine. In one form, it says that the Eternal Word abandoned His divine life and functions in the being of the Holy Trinity, the ordering of the universe, and His human life on earth. In another form, attempting to divide the indivisible, it represents Him as having retained His moral attributes of truth and love, and as having abandoned His 'physical'' attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. In the shape in which it has been formulated by a distinguished English Churchman, and has received most acceptance in the English Church, it supposes that He retained all His divine attributes in the being of the Holy Trinity and in the ordering of the universe, but abandoned some of them within the sphere of the Incarnation. In all its forms it contradicts the vital truth of the immutability of Almighty God; in that we have mentioned last it attempts to avoid some of the terrible consequences of the other forms at the cost of approximating to a Nestorian separation between the Word as incarnate and the Word as living the life of God and ruling the universe. Against them all the historical teaching of the Church of Christ declares that in acquiring nature and attributes which are human the Son of God abandoned no attribute which is divine. One of the startling features of Canon Gore's Dissertations on Subjects connected with the Incarnation was his acknowledgment that, with three exceptions-no one of which, as a matter of fact, really supported his position-the Fathers and schoolmen taught concerning the Incarnation in a manner with which his theory was inconsistent. Dr. Hall examines some of the grounds on which such an abandonment of historical belief may be based. In the course of this examination a passage occurs in which he says: 'Nicene theology was content to assert both sides of the truth, placing the divine and human predicates of our Lord's Person in 1 For this use of the word 'physical' see, e.g., Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, pp. 476-7. juxtaposition, without attempting the impossible task of explaining their harmony. This has been criticized, but the criticism is unwarranted. . . . It is in fact the true test of theological balance and a Catholic temper to hold opposite truths in close connexion with each other. Calvinists fasten their attention exclusively upon the almighty sovereignty and will of God, and Pelagians magnify the integrity and freedom of man's will. But Catholic theologians place these truths in juxtaposition and hold them together, making the manner of their holding each truth such as to allow for the other, and recognizing their inability to make an explanation of their harmony. It cannot be wrong to hold in connexion with each other truths found in Scripture. To say we may not put such truths in juxtaposition seems to imply that they are mutually contradictory. Those who object to such juxtapositions are likely to end in preferring one truth at the expense of the other. And this is the fault of the modern kenoticists. They prefer to emphasize the reality of our Lord's Manhood regardless of His Godhead and divine attributes, and in their one-sidedness interpret the theological balance of Athanasian writers as involving a disparagement of the truth which they themselves exaggerate' (pp. 83-5). It was an objection which Canon Gore made against an article which appeared in our own pages that it acquiesced in the 'mere juxtaposition of the two consciousnesses in our Lord." And, what is of more importance, he depreciated the work of the Council of Chalcedon on a similar ground: 'The definition of Chalcedon,' he wrote, 'affirmed the juxtaposition of the divine and human natures in Christ each with its separate and distinct operation, but contributed nothing positive towards the solution of the question: how is this duality of natures and operations related to the unity of the person? How, for example, did the one person Christ, being God, exercise a human consciousness, involving as it does human limitations? The tendency was to regard the divine and human nature simply as placed side by side; to speak of Christ as acting now in the one and now in the other-or, more specifically, to attribute the powerful works and words of the Incarnate Person to His Godhead, and His sufferings and "humble" sayings to His manhood.'2 In accordance with this line of thought, St. Leo's magnificent description of the varying operations of the Divine Person of our Lord3 in His two natures was selected by Canon Gore as a representative instance of the way in which it is inaccurate to speak of the Incarnation." In taking up this position he was able to claim the support of an 1 Gore, Dissertations on Subjects connected with the Incarnation, p. 222, note 1. 2 Ibid. pp. 162-3. St. Leo, Ep. xxviii. 4. Gore, op. cit. pp. 163-6. |