Jesus Christ, True Man
The genuine human nature of Christ — true body and true soul — acknowledged; the Hypostatic Union of two complete natures in one divine Person explained.
This brief Chapter completes the portrait of the Redeemer as the *God-Man*. That Christ is truly man is not seriously disputed by any serious scholar — the evidence of the Gospels and the testimony of contemporaries make the reality of His human nature unmistakeable. The philosophical significance of this truth is drawn out: Christ has a true human body and a true human soul with its faculties of intellect and will; He truly suffered, truly died, truly was born of a woman. Yet, being God, He is not a human person (*suppositum*) — His person is the divine Person of the Second Person of the Trinity. This union of two complete natures (divine and human) in one divine Person is the Hypostatic Union, the central mystery of Christology. The Chapter is offered for completeness: having proved Christ to be God, and having demonstrated the fulfilment of the promise of a Redeemer, the treatise acknowledges that the Redeemer is as genuinely human as He is genuinely divine.
That Christ is true man is proved simply. Christ said He was man, for He called Himself “the Son of man”; He acknowledged Mary as His Mother; He was truly conceived and born of Mary according to the revealed word; He said He would truly die, which 2ZI
2Z2 would have been impossible if He were not true man. Now, Christ is God. What He says is divine truth. Therefore, it is divinely true that Christ is man. If Christ is not true man, then millions are deceived by Him. But He is God, and cannot be a deceiver. Therefore, Christ is true man. The Scriptures give the list of Christ’s human ancestors (Matthew i, 1-17) and show that He is a true descendant of David. He was truly conceived; He was truly born (Luke ii, 7); He grew up like other children (Luke ii, 52); He acted as a true man, talking, hungering, thirsting, eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, fatigued by travel, shedding blood, scourged, crucified, dead, buried. He was glad, (looking upon the good young man of means who came to Him), troubled, sorrowful even unto death, acting in all as a true man. He exercised acts of religion as man, spending nights in prayer, giving thanks to God the Father, imploring favors and graces for His Apostles. He exercised acts of obedience and humility, proper only in man, and showed human confidence in God by commending His soul into the hands of the Heavenly Father. Christ, therefore, is true man as well as true God. Now, if He were a complete human personality as well as a divine personality, He would be two persons, and the person who is really God would not be the same person that is really man: He would not be the God-Man. Therefore, while Christ has the true and full nature of man, while He has a true human body and a true human soul with its faculties of understanding and will, He is not a human person. He has the nature of man united substantially with the nature of God, and this in the unity of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God. Christ, therefore, has two natures (a divine and a human), but is only one Person, and that the second Person of the Blessed Trinity. The union of the two natures is effected in the Person of the Son of God; this substantial union is called the hypostatic union, a term which comes from the Greek hypostasis, used to signify a Person of the Blessed Trinity; hence the Hypostatic Union is the union of the two natures (of God and man) in the one Person of the Son of God.
Summary of the Chapter
This very brief but important Chapter has given us clear argument in proof of the fact that Jesus Christ, who is true God, is also true man. We have added a word (not strictly within the proper scope of Apologetics) on the manner in which the humanity and the divinity are united in Christ.
In Book First we proved that God exists. In Book Second we proved that the existing God is to be known, loved, and served, in the practice of the true religion. In Book Third we proved that Our Lord Jesus Christ is God, and therefore His religion is the true religion. In this Fourth Book we are to show that the true religion of Christ is that of the Catholic Church, and no other. The Book is divided into three Chapters, as follows: Chapter I. The Church of Jesus Christ Chapter II. The Marks and Attributes of the Church of Jesus Christ Chapter III. The Identification of the Church of Jesus Christ
This Chapter shows that Jesus Christ founded a Church, and that St. Peter, the Rock of foundation, holds the primacy, not only of honor, but also ided into two Articles, as follows: Article i. The Formation of the Church Article 2. The Primacy of St. Peter .