The Bee and Its Honey

Abstract

This paper discusses the book of Richard Cross, Communicatio idiomatum: Reformation Christological Debates (Oxford University Press 2019). It basically agrees with Cross's view that Martin Luther develops a new variant of the medieval theory of suppositional union in his Christology. The paper argues that the view put forward by Cross has consequences for the soteriological role of human body. While “Christ present in faith” is a corporeal and supernatural gift, it may not be an instance of deification in the sense that human beings could sustain divine properties. Another issue concerns the sense in which Christ can be called a human “person” in Cross's view. As Christ carries a specific instance of human nature which in turn carries a particular instance of corporeality, one could claim that Christ as human being has a particular personalitas. This view resembles the trajectory of “patristic philosophy,” as recently argued by Johannes Zachhuber.

In the Lecture on Hebrews, Luther illustrates his case with the following comparison: “As the bee collects honey from the flower, so does the Spirit extract the body of Christ from the purest blood of the virgin Mary.” ¹ In the context, Luther employs several other illustrations that are found in patristic and medieval writings. For instance, the stone cut out without human hands in Daniel 2:34 refers to the virgin birth in the Latin tradition. ²

In medieval spirituality, the bee symbolizes the virgin birth. It was widely believed that bees procreate without sexual intercourse. Honey therefore contributes to the procreation of new bodies in a manner that resembles the emergence of the human body in the virgin birth of Jesus. ³ The modern reader should note that bees and flowers in this context do not relate to pollination but to the emergence of new bees.

Immediately before this illustration, Luther discusses the union of Christ's two natures with the help of another comparison. The justice of faith exalts the human heart so that it is transferred into God. Informed by God, human justice becomes the righteousness of God. Thus a union of divine and human justice occurs in the believer's person. This soteriological picture of the pious believer resembles the union of humanity and divinity in Christ. ⁴

Following this passage, one is tempted to use the example of bee and honey also as an illustration of the role of the human body in the Christological union. The bee is able to extract and carry honey so that it becomes, in virgin birth, the material body of new bees. Honey is thus for the bee what the body or blood is for the material living being, that is, a property of its nature. The bee represents the bearer of this property, the suppositum, which can be associated with Mary (as the bearer of human properties, such as blood), Christ (as the bodily outcome of virgin birth, with Mary as the flower) or the Holy Spirit (as the divine suppositum).

As the comparison is somewhat elliptical, these allegories remain uncertain. They may employ the suppositional-union theory as the foundation of Luther's Christology. In his book Communicatio Idiomatum: Reformation Christological Debates (2019) Richard Cross argues (i) that Luther employs this theory and (ii) that his threefold distinction between person, human nature, and human properties can be regarded as an innovation in the history of this theory. The comparison with its uncertainties therefore captures the essence of my following response to Cross.

Cross argues that Luther continues the medieval tradition that interprets Christology with the help of the suppositional union. In this union Christ, being the second person of the Trinity, bears or carries his human nature. As the human nature carried in this manner resembles the bearing of intrinsic qualities, such as whiteness, it cannot be compared to the extrinsic matter of wearing a coat, a quasi-Nestorian Christological misunderstanding rejected unanimously in the Latin tradition. ⁵ The two natures of this union are neither mixed nor separated, and the suppositional union thus manifests the Chalcedonian doctrine adequately.

This result contradicts the earlier standard interpretation of Luther's Christology, as argued by Reinhard Schwarz. Schwarz considers that the Ockhamist idea of carrying a human nature means that the person of Christ remains basically a divine person. In other words, Christ is a divine person bearing human nature. While the idea of carrying or wearing may sound Nestorian, Luther actually thinks, according to Schwarz, that the Ockhamist view is Docetism. This is so because the person of Christ remains divine in the sense of staying detached from being human. Schwarz considers that Luther, contrary to the Ockhamists, teaches an intimate union of God and human being in Christ. ⁶

Lutherans have traditionally assumed such intimate union in their doctrine of the Lord's Supper, considering that Christ's human nature participates in the divine being so that, for instance, the ubiquity of Christ's body becomes possible. Reinhard Schwarz underlines the other side of this intimacy, namely, that the person of Christ is fully human and thus participates in mortality, corporeality and being a creature.

Both Schwarz and Cross interpret a table-talk of Luther from 1541. In this table-talk Luther defends the view that “this man is God” is christologically true and rejects the view that interprets this locution as “the Son of God, sustaining a human nature, is God.” The table-talk thus seems to support the position of Schwarz, that is, Luther's rejection of suppositional union. Cross claims, however, that Luther here in fact defends the so-called identical predication, holding that in Christ God and this man are the same thing. ⁷

Given this, Cross can argue that Luther only rejects the claim that the predication gives an instance of the subject term. Such a claim is evidently false, as being God is not an instance of being man. Luther's own position assumes the identical predication, holding that “God is man” means “God and this man are the same thing.” Cross further holds that Luther is in this table-talk not at all interested in rejecting the supposital-union theory. Luther only wants to defend his own view regarding the identical predication. ⁸

Let us hypothetically defend Reinhard Schwarz to an extent. First, as the above-mentioned table-talk in fact criticizes the view according to which the Son of God sustains a human nature, it is easy to read it as being critical of supposital union. Second, when Luther explicitly employs supposital union, he also says that this is said awkwardly, meaning that the danger of separating natures (e.g., in the manner of wearing a piece of clothing) is real.

While these two defenses sound more like excuses, the third hypothetical defense of Schwarz is more substantial. Cross holds that Luther assumes a basically medieval supposital-union theory. He nevertheless also holds that Luther undertakes at least one remarkable metaphysical innovation, namely, the so-called LH-semantics (“Luther's hypostasis semantics”). ⁹ According to the LH-semantics, Christ bears a human nature, and this human nature bears human properties like createdness, mortality, and corporeality. Given this, LH-semantics says that Christ also bears these human properties. This is the so-called “ontological piggybacking” in which the divine person bears human properties in virtue of bearing a nature that bears them. ¹⁰

Reinhard Schwarz pays close attention to the communication of human properties to the divine person in Luther. The primary intention of his view is to show how realistic and intimate this communication actually is. For Schwarz, the identical predication means that Christ is not merely a divine person but equally human. When we speak of Christ as person, we also must think of him as human. The Son of God is the Son of man. ¹¹ For Schwarz, the basic theological problem of medieval supposital union is thus found in the alleged neglect of the human character of Christ.

Given this, the LH-semantics offers a helpful corrective. Cross shows how Luther can assume supposital union and at the same time also highlight the humanity of Christ. However, this prominence of LH-semantics rather verifies Schwarz's primary intention than falsifies it. This is the third hypothetical defense of Schwarz.

In our AAR panel in November 2021, Cross very helpfully clarified his relationship to this reading of Schwarz. Cross concedes that the via moderna version of supposital union may neglect Christ's human properties. LH-semantics may upgrade the value of these properties. This does not mean, however, that Luther's LH-semantics is compatible with Schwarz's reading. Schwarz thinks that Luther in his alleged rejection of supposital union refines the patristic conception of Christ as homo assumptus. As human, Christ is finally identical with the divine person so that assumens and assumptus are identical in his personal existence. ¹² The scholastic view of suppositional union does not allow such strong identity. While both Cross and Schwarz argue that the human nature and properties of Christ are uniquely emphasized in Luther's theology, they presuppose very different conceptual frameworks. For this reason, Schwarz's reading cannot be defended with the help of LH-semantics.

There may still be scholars who are not convinced that the textual evidence presented by Graham White ¹³ and Cross is sufficient to establish Luther's Christology as an instance of the suppositional-union framework. Scholars may take Luther's criticism of the semantic distinction between suppositio mediata and immediata as leading to a rejection of all semantic and metaphysical uses of the concept. They may also think that an interpreter must choose between the linguistic theory of signification and the theory of supposition. ¹⁴ Cross helpfully argues that the theory of supposition can be employed in the context of signification theory when Luther rejects some false understandings of supposition.

I will make two additional comments, assuming that Cross is basically right in his defense of LH-semantics.

First, LH-semantics and its “ontological piggybacking” of Christ's human properties are fascinating with regard to the theology of corporeality. Luther's positive appreciation of human body has often been emphasized in the research. This feature is normally interpreted as an aspect of creation theology. Within the scope of LH-semantics, however, it is also a feature of Christology. In terms of our original comparison, this can be expressed as follows. As honey becomes the matter of new bees, so the human body becomes the property of the particular human nature that emerges through virgin birth. Given this, the comparison expresses not only virgin birth but also Christological LH-semantics.

A sober differentiation is here necessary. The human body does not participate in a majestic or divine exchange in the manner of Johannes Brenz, whose Christology Cross criticizes as moving beyond Chalcedon. ¹⁵ Instead, the body is carried by the human nature that is in turn carried by the second person of the Trinity. When the divine person carries “this man,” the bodily existence of this incarnational reality is consciously affirmed.

One could also ask whether this Christological principle can be extended towards soteriology. A soteriological extension could elucidate the attribution of supernatural gifts and so-called deification. “Christ present in faith” would then be a corporeal and supernatural gift. However, it is not an instance of deification, as the human nature is not able to carry divine properties. At the same time, the presence of Christ in the person and nature of the Christian would mean that the bodily dimension is somehow involved in this union. Such soteriological application would need extensive further elaboration. ¹⁶

Second, can we call Christ a “human person” in terms of LH-semantics? In our AAR panel, Cross answered diplomatically that, as Christ is a person and is human, Christ is a human person. As the historians know, the question is complex and challenging. Thomas Aquinas teaches that Christ assumed a human nature but not human personhood. For there cannot be two persons in Christ, and the divine person is not exterminated in the incarnation. At the same time, Thomas affirms John of Damascus's teaching that Christ does not take the species of all human nature nor does he assume the humanity of each individual. The one divine suppositum, Thomas holds, assumes one human nature. Thus Christ assumes his human nature from the tribe of Adam, and from this nature Christ works satisfaction for all human nature. ¹⁷

Johannes Zachhuber has recently studied the emergence of this doctrine in patristic theology. He identifies a trajectory of emerging particular and even individual Christological existence which finds a prominent expression in John of Damascus's concept of hypostasis. For Zachhuber, this trajectory represents a “patristic philosophy” which is different from ancient or Platonic universalism. In patristic philosophy, the relationship between individuals and their species is one of concrete complementarity. God assumes the nature “in the particular, which is the same as the one in the species.” ¹⁸

Zachhuber illustrates this patristic philosophy with the ambiguity of mythical thinking, in which the protagonist represents both an individual and a collective. He considers that the trajectory of John of Damascus leads towards an increased emphasis on individual and concrete historical particularity. This trajectory connects patristic philosophy with later Latin Scholasticism and the Reformation. ¹⁹

Reading Aquinas in the light of Zachhuber's findings, one could say that on the one hand Aquinas continues the ancient tradition of universal human nature in the incarnation and, on the other hand, he also receives John of Damascus's emphasis on the particularity of the human nature of Christ. My second question is therefore related to the continuity of this trajectory in late medieval and Reformation theology. If Luther adopts LH-semantics, he can be read as continuing the reflections of Damascene and Aquinas as follows. Since Christ carries human nature and also the particular properties of this nature, such as a particular kind of corporeality, he assumes one particular instance of human nature. Christ's personal human properties are emphasized, as they appear in addition to the assumption of human nature. In the LH-semantics, Christ has therefore a kind of human personalitas.

Aquinas already considers a similar option, coming to the conclusion that Christ does not lack human personalitas due to some defect or extinction of human traits but because the union with divine person does not leave room for such individuality. ²⁰ One could think, for instance, of the orthodox doctrine of Christ's two wills. While Christ's human will is a real will that is not extinguished, it does not contradict the divine will and thus does not emerge as a distinctive feature of human personality.

Now, if Luther innovatively holds that the individual properties of a human nature are additionally carried by Christ's human nature, then one may consider the opposite possibility. Given this kind of “piggybacking,” one could claim that the human nature's union with the divine person would not impede the emergence of human properties. In other words, even when the human nature of Jesus Christ remains carried and sustained by the divine person in the union of natures, the properties of this human nature could equip the human being Jesus with some distinct personalitas. For instance, one could claim that traits from Mary are discernible in the bodily shape of Jesus. ²¹

While I cannot study this fascinating implication of LH-semantics here in detail, Martin Chemnitz may be interesting in this regard. In keeping with the Chalcedonian tradition, Chemnitz teaches that Christ assumed both human body and soul. Thus he assumed a “chunk” (massa) of human nature, that is, an individual unit of human nature. ²² According to Cross, Chemnitz first adopted Luther's LH-semantics but later dropped the claim that Christ sustains both human nature and its properties. ²³ The historical particularity of the incarnation is thus preserved, but Luther's innovations regarding this particularity continue to be questioned. The tensions between Chemnitz and Brenz can be interpreted as positions taken in this process of differentiation. This means that the trajectory assumed by Zachhuber continues in the Reformation.