The following excerpts are from:
Peter
Martyr Vermigli, Dialogue on the Two Natures in Christ (trans. John
Patrick Donnelly; The Peter Martyr Library 2; Sixteenth Century Essays &
Studies 31; Moscow, Idaho: The Davenant Institute, 2018)
It
is a mock dialogue with a Lutheran “Pantachus”.
By the grace of God all our churches
not only accept the holy Scriptures but also the three creeds, namely the
Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds as well as the first six Councils, in
what they defined regarding the most blessed Trinity, the person of the Son of
God and his two natures and also regarding the salvation given to us through
him. For we recognize that whatever has been decided in them on these questions
agrees with divine revelation. (p. 23)
You now have enough for you to know about
me—that although I deny that the Word of god really suffered and died, still I
do not claim that the passion and death, as has been said, because of the
hypostatic union, although in a quiescent way. It was not affected by any
suffering or by a new quality. Hence it is not empty words that the Son of God
suffered and died since the nature and flesh, which he made his own and to
which he was present by a union of person, really and truly suffered and died.
But I would never say, as you are used to asserting, that the Word [λογον] himself really and truly both suffered and
died. (pp. 60-61)
As
Eastern Orthodox apologist Perry Robinson noted about this statement, it is
clearly Nestorian in part
because they in turn on conflating person and nature. The relevant point being
that the given metaphysical beliefs select for specific exegetical
possibilities and rule out others in core areas of theology. (A
Divided Dividing Line: James White and the Hankamess, August 2, 2018)
Since sanctification is somehow given by
an external spoken word and by baptism, it should not seem surprising if it is
also granted to the body of Christ as being a far more intimate instrument of
sanctifying than an external spoken word or the sacraments. (p. 75)
And when it is said that the son of
man descended from heaven, the term “son of man” designates the person of
Christ which is the hypostasis of the Son of God. For he descended from heaven,
not the human nature. How could that which did not exist before it was conceived
of the Virgin has descended from heaven? It is not difficult to see why Jesus
Christ called that person the son of man because when he said this he already
had the human nature joined to him through the hypostatic union. And by
speaking this way he removed the suspicion that some could have conceived that
he was speaking about two sons subsisting in themselves, as if his divine
person were in heaven and his human person were on earth. That would have been
the division of Nestorius. Augustine does not assert that in the incarnation the
human nature really descended from the Virgin and not from heaven. He could
indeed have said that the Son of God descended from heaven and that the Son of
God is in heaven, as is written and said repeatedly; but he said the son of man
descended because, when he said this in his person, his humanity but not the
divine nature was involved. Hence you can see that the descent from heaven was
not communicated to the human nature in the incarnation since that came forth
not from heaven but from the flesh or bowels of the Virgin. (p. 84)
But so you can grasp the question more
clearly, you should think of God’s right hand as a term with several meanings,
because it does not signify just the divine power and force which creates and
governs all things, but it also signifies supreme and perfect happiness. Saint
Augustine writes this way in chapter 26 of his On the Christian Struggle,
“Does God the Father have a right hand and a left hand such as bodies have? We
don’t think that way about God the Father: God is not limited or shut in by the
shape of a body. Rather the right hand of the Father is the eternal happiness
which will be given the saints,” and so forth. (p. 118)
Since I don’t side with Helvidius, I
don’t want to call into question the incorrupt virginity of Mary with these citations
from the Fathers. I am aware of the passage from Ezekiel, chapter 44, about the
closed door, which the most renowned of the Fathers used to apply to the Blessed
Virgin, as does Ambrose along with certain other bishops in book 10, item 81,
of his letters. (p. 146)
Then you add later that after his
resurrection Christ came in to his disciples through closed doors; the basis
for his is no more solid. For the Evangelist does not state that the Lord came
while the doors remained closed, so that we can understand from this that the
doors were closed against his approach and entrance. Neither is it unlikely
that they immediately gave way before his presence, which was no ordinary
miracle. Thus the Red Sea gave way before the rod of Moses. So when the Lord
wished to enter, the doors opened of their own accord. I pass over the fact
that he could have entered through the windows or through the roof and any
other way he wanted. I do not strip from his body his agility or subtlety.
Could he has ascended into heaven as the Apostles watched and could he not have
reached the roof or the windows of that house? Hence in my opinion you
recognize that the two passages that you took from Augustine are not so solid
that they cannot be rejected. Therefore you can establish nothing from them
with a secure link. (p. 146)
But in the proposition, ‘The Son is in
heaven,’ the statement is to be understood according to the communication of
idioms. The Word [λογος] is always in heaven, even if its
body is in the Virgin by bodily location. (p. 165)
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in
our image and likeness,’” and so forth. From the anthropomorphists [ανθρωπομορφιται] claimed that he was made up: God has a body
and a soul and the other parts, as we see them fashioned in a man. But we
refute them by other passages of Scripture: For it is written of God: “God is
spirit.” And, “A spirit has not flesh and bones.” “No man has ever seen God,
and so forth.” (pp. 198-99)
