Nine Questions (Potts) n. 2

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2. QUESTION 2. Had the Lord a rational soul from Jehovah the Father, to which was united the Divine Esse, whence He became very God and very Man? ANSWER. The Lord from eternity (that is, Jehovah) was Divine love and Divine wisdom, and He then had a Divine Celestial and a Divine Spiritual; but not, before He assumed the Human, a Divine Natural. And as the Rational is predicated solely of the celestial and spiritual Natural, it follows that by the assumption of the Human, Jehovah the Lord did also put on the Divine Rational. He had a Divine Rational before the assumption of the Human, but by means of influx into the angelic heaven; and when He had manifested Himself in this world, He did so by means of an angel whom He filled with His Divinity. For the purely Divine Essence (which as just said was purely Divine celestial and Divine spiritual) transcends both the angelic and the human Rational. But that Divine Rational existed by means of influx. Its nature may be inferred from what is said below on the sixth point. Luther and Melanchthon teach that in Christ Man is God and God is Man, which also is according to Holy Scripture, as may be seen in the True Christian Religion, n. 137. But Calvin denied it, and merely affirmed that Christ is God and Man.


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