ness. Finally, in 2 Cor. ix. 3, he writes: "But I have sent the brethren, that our glorying on your behalf may not be made void, KEVO, in this respect "-that is, be made unjustifiable or less impressive. In all these instances the verb Kevów seems to signify the disparagement of something-not a real emptying of it. We conclude that the phrase avrov ékévwσre is metaphorical. This is obscured by rendering it "emptied Himself," although the revisers have followed the Peshito and Vulgate in translating etymologically. We cannot use a translation, however well considered, as the final basis of exegesis. We must consider the original Greek. The difficulty here lies in the fact that the phrase "emptied Himself" does not readily suggest a metaphorical meaning to an English reader as does the phrase avròv éxévwσe to a Greek reader. The two phrases are etymologically equivalent, but the idiom of the two languages is not precisely the same. We think that the phrase might be translated with substantial accuracy by the words "disparaged Himself." To disparage is to lower in rank or estimation, to make "of no reputation," as the Authorized Version renders it. Our Lord lowered the estimation in which He would otherwise have been held by veiling His majesty in the form of a servant' (pp. 65-8). To quote Bishop Pearson : 'If any man doubt how Christ emptied Himself, the text will satisfy him, by "taking the form of a servant."'1 Or, as it has been well expressed by Dr. Bright, 'If we take avròv ékévwσe in logical connexion with what precedes and follows, we shall see that practically it means " He became inferior to the Father as touching His manhood."' 2 Or, as explained with great power and earnestness by the Bishop of Oxford in a Charge the method of publication of which seems to have hindered it from receiving the attention it deserves: 'Here comes in the speculation about the limitation of our Lord's knowledge, and the interpretation of the word in the Epistle to the Philippians which in the Authorized Version is read "made Himself of no reputation," and in the Revised Version "emptied Himself.” On St. Paul's use of this word, as I need not tell you, a formulated idea has been raised that threatens to affect the most essential doctrines connected with the Incarnation; and our Lord is supposed accordingly to have, in becoming man, divested Himself of certain powers which He had with the Father, of almightiness and all-knowledge, so far as the exercise of them through His human nature could, or could not, be supposed to be possible. 'That such can be the direct and proper meaning of the word emptied Himself" in the passage cited, I cannot, notwithstanding 1 Pearson, Exposition of the Creed, Article ii. the array of authority with which I may be pressed, at all admit. There must be a parallel between the example of our Lord's action and our duty which it is cited to illustrate. There is in fact no parallel whatever between such a κévwσis as that which I have described and that by which it is in our power to imitate the Lord Jesus, as we are exhorted to do upon this principle. It is self-surrender, self-effacement, and humiliation for the sake of others that we are to attempt to practise-not the limitation of our power of helping them, but the devotion of our whole self for them, as He devoted Himself for us. 'It is, to my mind, very incidentally and not at all appropriately that this expression is pressed into the service of the doctrine of limitation. It does, however, illustrate it so far as to give an instance of something which the Son of God becoming man, for us men and for our salvation, did give up; who when He was rich, for our sake became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. And so far it does illustrate the theory of limitation, but only so far. Nor ought it ever to be used as the keyword of a theory with which it has so little to do; or as the decisive proof of a doctrine which if it were intended to be taught could not safely be left to an isolated text. 'That our blessed Lord in the Incarnation did, by His own determinate counsel, one with that of the Father and the Holy Spirit through whom He offered Himself without blemish, place Himself under conditions by which habitually He regulated the exercise of His divine power in and through His humanity, I think is a matter of unquestioned Catholic doctrine an habitual self-restraint put upon the exercise of those powers of fulness of the Godhead which dwell in Him bodily; a restraint upon the display of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge which are all in Him, hidden whilst He was with us, but never suspended or laid aside, never dissembled or repudiated, a λńpwμa with which Kévwσis has no common term or element. Whenever and wherever it is said of our Lord that He could not do this or that, or that this or that which He had with the Father was not His own to give, the expression can certainly be interpreted as meaning that such exercise of will or power was incompatible with the conditions under which He had placed Himself; and the same interpretation applies to all expressions in the Gospel which imply any change, or development of purpose, or exercise of desire in prayer on the part of Him who is, in His divine nature, unchangeable and beyond all limitation of foreknowledge of will; even to the last words of identification with us, Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani. 'But the limitation of knowledge is a very different thing from the limitation of the exercise of power. Power itself has its essence in posse, its manifestation in exercise of will; knowledge has its essence in esse. We cannot, in our thought, define or intelligently explain away the knowledge of the Lord Incarnate. We cannot conceive that He could have knowledge and not use it, as He could have power and not exercise it; His omniscience is of the essence of the personality in which manhood and Godhead united in Him... The doctrine, then, of the perfect possession but habitual restraint of His divine powers by the Son of man during the thirty years of His life on earth does not allow of any imputation of ignorance or incapacity. If such imputation be once admitted, notwithstanding all argumentative safeguards and compensating considerations, the great Gospel of Grace and Salvation is touched on its keystone, and on whomsoever it falls it shall grind him to powder. Grant it-then, could Jesus of Nazareth forget, could He mistake, could He become confused in argument, could He be inconsistent in His teaching, could He be Himself mistaken? Grant it, and what safeguard have we that He did not forget, was not mistaken or confused or inconsistent or Himself deceived? We may ask no end of such questions. If the Saviour was ignorant once, how, when or where does the limitation of His knowledge cease, and within what terms, beyond those of the self-conditioning of constant self-restraint, does it affect the region of His mediatorial work? Could our loving God-for, if all else is a mistake, there must be a true and living God-could He treat us so?'1 Thus, the 'kenotic' interpretation of Philippians ii. 7 is inconsistent with the context in which the verse occurs, the use of the word Kevów in every other place in the New Testament in which it is used, the general teaching of Holy Scripture, the traditional theology of the Christian Church, and those considerations at the very heart of religious life on which the Bishop of Oxford has laid stress. Is it too much to say that to build a theological system on an interpretation which stands thus condemned is to bid farewell to the principles of scholarship and of common sense, as well as of Catholic truth? Dr. Hall takes pains to make clear that in asserting the continued existence of all His divine attributes in the Incarnate Word he does not mean to minimize the truth of our Lord's manhood and the reality of His human limitations. Indeed, he carries the recognition of such human limitations so far that he is constrained to dissent from the view of the knowledge of our Lord's human mind which was advocated by Dr. Liddon in the Bampton Lectures for 1866 (p. 22, note), and is evidently of opinion that consideration of the evidence 1 A Charge delivered to the Clergy and Churchwardens of the Diocese. By William Stubbs, D.D., Bishop of Oxford, at his second visitation, April and May 1893, pp. 17-20. This Charge contains, beside much else of very high value, an important discussion of the subject of Biblical criticism, and a statement, of remarkable ability, about our Lord's words in St. Mark xiii. 32. There was a Short Notice of it in our number for July 1893, pp. 493-5 (cf. p. 492). afforded by the New Testament requires the rejection of the theory that during His ministry our Lord in His human mind knew all things which a human mind is capable of receiving. While we doubt whether he is not disposed to extend too widely the nescience which he ascribes to our Lord's human mind, it is to be recognized that this is a matter upon which there may well be some difference of opinion. It is one thing to ascribe nescience on some points to our Lord's human mind while affirming the retention of the infinite knowledge of God by His divine Person within as well as without the sphere of the Incarnation; it is entirely different to deny that the divine Person of the Son of God abandoned in any sphere of being His divine knowledge on becoming Incarnate. Dr. Hall's book contains much which is valuable on points which we have not touched in this article. We can commend it to the clergy and to students of theology and to general readers as containing a powerful argument very clearly expressed, and as bearing marks of much careful study and thought. We hope it may do something to stop the growing prevalence of 'kenotic' views which imperil alike the doctrine of the Incarnation and the doctrine of God. An important help towards the performance of this work is in the valuable extracts from private letters from Dr. Bright with which it is enriched. Incidentally it has been gratifying to us to learn from one of these (p. 30) that the interpretation which, in opposition to Canon Gore, we attached in a former article to a passage in Dr. Bright's Waymarks in Church History is that which was intended by the author.' Dr. Hall summarizes as follows his 'reasons for rejecting the kenotic theory': 1. The Scriptures do not justify the kenotic theory, but on the contrary contain truths and statements which are inconsistent with it. 2. The theory is inconsistent with the dogmatic decrees of the Ecumenical Councils touching the Incarnation and our Lord's Person. 3. It is rejected by Catholic doctors in general of every age. '4. The arguments by which it is supported are fallacious. '5. It is inconsistent with more than one fundamental truth of our religion, and tends inevitably to Socinianism' (p. 76). In the first instance the direction of the 'kenotic' theory is rather towards denying the true idea of God than towards It is stated in a note on p. 30: 'Dr. Bright in a personal letter writes "In the Church Quarterly Review for January 1896, p. 309, is a note correctly interpreting some words of mine which appear to have been misunderstood."' VOL. XLVII.—NO. XCIV. A A Socinianism. In all else, Dr. Hall supplies amply sufficient proof to substantiate the statements which he thus has made. And, in this one point, while for a time the divine nature of Christ may be declared to exist and to be personally united to His human nature though having surrendered divine attributes, yet, when the true idea of the immutability of God reasserts itself, those who have accepted the misconceptions of 'kenoticism' will be left with the alternative of abandoning their theory or sinking to regard our Lord as merely man. One or two generations of thinkers may retain belief in His Godhead on a basis of 'kenoticism'; it is their pupils for whom the gravest anxiety must be felt. ART. IV. DR. DALE OF BIRMINGHAM. The Life of R. W. Dale, of Birmingham. By his Son, A. W. W. DALE. With Portrait. (London, 1898.) 1 'STRENUOUS' is the word in which we should sum up our impression of Dr. Dale, the great Nonconformist leader, whose biography has been worthily written by his son. Mr. Dale quotes (p. iv) Cicero's remark, 'filio satis amplum patrimonium memoriam mei nominis relinquo,' and his filial piety has shielded him from 'the sin of Ham,' which he says lies as an open pit in the way of any son who writes his father's life' (p. v). There is no indiscreet revelation here of the sanctities of private life, and indeed indiscretion could find little to reveal in the life of a man who kept no diaries, and whose inner life ... he kept to himself,' and who lived before the world or alone, and whose wife passed away before she was able to give the biographer' the help that she alone could give. Except for extracts from private letters, and one or two fleeting glimpses of his home, it is his father's public life which Mr. Dale describes, strenuous in all that he was and 2 1 We should like in self-defence, and also as showing the justice of the epithet, to say that this word occurred to us after reading the book, before we saw (in an advertisement) that it had been employed by a brother reviewer in the Daily News. It is twice at least used by his son, pp. 44, 511; compare p. 265. 2 Among these are the few words on his married life (pp. 98-9), the death of one of his children (p. 208), the books near his bed (p. 44), and a few more details in a chapter on the discipline of sorrow (p. 508), and in the last part of his life. |