Institutes of the Christian Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)

Mediator.

When it is said that “the Word was made flesh,”(1170) this is not to be understood as if the Word was transmuted into flesh, or blended with flesh. Choosing from the womb of the Virgin a temple for his residence, he who was the Son of God, became also the Son of man, not by a confusion of substance, but by a unity of person. For we assert such a connection and union of the Divinity with the humanity, that each nature retains its properties entire, and yet both together constitute one Christ. If any thing among men can be found to resemble so great a mystery, man himself appears to furnish the most apposite similitude; being evidently composed of two substances, of which, however, neither is so confounded with the other, as not to retain its distinct nature. For the soul is not the body, nor is the body the soul. Wherefore that is predicated separately of the soul, which cannot be at all applied to the body. On the contrary, that is predicated of the body, which is totally incompatible with the soul. And that is predicated of the whole man, which cannot with propriety be understood either of the soul or of the body alone. Lastly, the properties of the soul are transferred to the body, and the properties of the body to the soul; yet he that is composed of these two parts is no more than one man. Such forms of expression signify that there is in man one person composed of two distinct parts; and that there are two different natures united in him to constitute that one person. The Scriptures speak in a similar manner respecting Christ. They attribute to him, sometimes those things which are applicable merely to his humanity; sometimes those things which belong peculiarly to his Divinity; and not unfrequently those things which comprehend both his natures, but are incompatible with either of them alone. And this union of the two natures in Christ they so carefully maintain, that they sometimes attribute to one what belongs to the other—a mode of expression which the ancient writers called a communication of properties.