INCARNATION (Σάρκωσις). - A term with a Semitic flavor, derived from the Johannine expression (John 1:14: καὶ ὁ Λόγος σάρξ ἐγένετο), in which the word σάρξ (caro) simply means human nature, according to biblical usage (cf. Gen. 6:12; Isa. 40:5; Rom. 3:20), which continues in tradition from the first century onward. St. Ignatius Martyr (Eph. 7:2) says that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh (ἐν σαρκὶ γενόμενος θεός); St. Irenaeus is the first to use the term σάρκωσις and writes indifferently that the Word was made flesh and was made man (Adv. haer., III, 19; V, 18). In the same way Origen (De princ., I; praef., 4). The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed sanctions the traditional equivalence of the two terms σαρκωθείς-ἐνανθρωπήσας (incarnate-inhumanized). Despite the abusive interpretation of the Apollinarians in the 4th century, who reduced the human nature of Christ to flesh animated only by the sensitive soul, the word I. (σάρκωσις) prevailed over others with which Sacred Scripture and the Fathers customarily indicate the mystery of the union of the Word with human nature, such as ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί (1 Tim. 3:16); ἐκένωσεν (Phil. 2:7); ἐπιφάνεια (2 Tim. 1:10); λῆψις (Heb. 2:16); and among the Fathers: οἰκονομία (dispensatio = divine counsel for the salvation of men; cf. Irenaeus, Adv. haer., III, 17, 4; IV, 26, 1);
ἀνάληψις, ἐσωμάτωσις, σύνοδος (cf. Petavius, De Incarn., II, 1).
The real meaning of I. in the active sense is the divine action that in the most pure womb of the Virgin Mary forms and unites to the Word hypotatically a determinate human nature. In the passive sense, the I. is a marvelous and singular union of the divine nature and the human nature in the single Person of the Word.
This truth is the central mystery of Christianity; it must be studied under two aspects: first, in its origin, in its relations with man, in its history, in its conditions and purposes; and this almost extrinsic aspect will be the object of the present treatment. Then the I. can be considered intrinsically in its essential constitution and in its immediate consequences; for this aspect v. UNIONE IPOSTATICA.
I. THE INCARNATION IN HOLY SCRIPTURE
The most formal and most explicit revelation of the Incarnation is in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel: "And the Word was made flesh" (Jn. 1:14). But already in the Old Testament the future Messiah is spoken of as a figure both human and divine (v. GESÙ CRISTO). He will be semen mulieris, one born of a woman (Gen. 3:14-15), but also the Son of God (Ps. 2:7; ibid. 109); he will be a child conceived by a Virgin (Is. 7:14), but also the mighty God (ibid. 9:6); he will be the faithful Servant of Yahweh, who will save men by his sufferings and his immolation (ibid. 53); he will be the Son of Man who will reign forever (Dan. 7:13-14).
In the New Testament Jesus Christ is presented first of all as the One in whom all the messianic prophecies are fulfilled; then his theandric constitution is brought to light. He is the true Son of God, proclaimed as such from heaven during the Baptism and the Transfiguration (Mt. 3:17 and 17:5; Mk. 1:11 and 9:7; Lk. 3:22 and 9:35), by Peter through divine inspiration (Mt. 16:16), and even by the demons (ibid. 8:29; Mk. 5:7). Jesus himself declares himself the Son of God and for this is condemned to death (Mt. 26:63-64; v. FIGLIO DI DIO). His Divinity shines forth in his words and in his works: he proclaims himself greater than David and Solomon (ibid. 12:41 ff.; Mk. 12:35), than the Angels (Mt. 4:11); he places himself on a par with God, completing the ancient law (ibid. 5:21 ff.), saying that he alone knows the Father and that only the Father knows him, his Son (ibid. 11:27). In St. John and in St. Paul the divinity of Jesus Christ is more than evident: Jesus is the Word, who is God from all eternity (Jn. 1:1 ff.); he is the Only-begotten of the Father (ibid. 1:18), existing before Abraham (ibid. 8:58), indeed before the world was made (ibid. 17:5). The Father has sent the Son to save the world (ibid. 3:16; Gal. 4:4); Jesus is God's own Son (Rom. 8:32; 18; ibid. 9:5), the image of the invisible God, the firstborn (begotten before) of all creation, because all things were created by him and for him (Jn. 1:3 and Col. 1:15-19).
This same Jesus, the Word, the Son of God, is however also true man, as appears from the Synoptics (birth, carnal genealogy, growth in age, in wisdom and in grace, hunger, thirst, passions and passibility). The humanity of Jesus is not only real, but also very robust, as is shown by his physical endurance of labor, of long journeys on foot, of sufferings. St. John, although placing the accent on his divinity, does not fail to underscore his profoundly human traits (the episode of the Samaritan woman [chap.
4], of the resurrection of Lazarus [ch. 11], of the Last Supper [ch. 13, 23]). Likewise St. Paul, who recalls the Davidic origin of Jesus according to the flesh (Rom. 9:5) and the assumption of human nature (formam servi) so that Christ might be in all things like his brethren and could suffer and immolate himself for them, made both priest and victim (Heb. 2-5).
But the Gospel, besides explicitly affirming the divinity and humanity of the Savior, brings out their physical, personal unity. It is enough to recall a few decisive texts: St. Paul (Phil. 2) reminds the faithful that Christ (indicated by the pronoun 6c in v. 6), already subsisting in the divine nature, humbled himself to the point of taking the human nature of a servant and thus appeared as a man among men. The same Jesus, who descends from David according to the flesh, is God blessed forever (Rom. 9:5).
In the Gospel of St. John, divine and human actions are attributed to Jesus as to a single acting subject: Jesus, weary from the journey and thirsty, sits by the well of Shechem and asks for a drink, but immediately reveals himself as the awaited Messiah (Jn 4); he weeps as a man at the tomb of Lazarus, but invokes his Father and performs the miracle. Throughout the whole of Revelation it is not possible to distinguish two subjects in Jesus, although two series of actions are distinguished in him, one divine, the other human. The personal unity is expressed in the monosyllable I, which resounds continually on his lips whether he speaks as man or speaks as God, without a shadow of dualism.
II. THE TRADITION
From the sources of written Revelation there emerges a single Christ, God-Man, not a Man and a God. From the very dawn the living tradition of the Church took possession of this basic truth and expressed it concretely in the Creed: "I believe in God the Father... and in the only-begotten Son... who came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man." This profession of faith does not permit us to think of a Christ split in two despite his human-divine, theandric constitution. The whole christological mystery is here, in this Word made flesh, who, as a single person, subsists and lives in two natures and therefore in two worlds.
Around this mystery, jealously guarded and defended by the Church, the great crises of thought were kindled, which gave rise to the christological heresies, to which the ecclesiastical magisterium responded with its dogmatic definitions. The history of these controversies is very significant. In a first period the attack on the Humanity of Christ prevailed: once his Divinity was supposed, union with human nature, with matter, seemed impossible, which the Gnostics and the Neoplatonists (not without the influence of the Persian religion which soon gained the upper hand with Mani) declared to be a negation of being and the source of all evil. This is Docetism, traces of which are found as early as the apostolic age. St. John insists on faith in the real Humanity of Christ. "Whoever confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God" (I Jn. 4:2). St. Ignatius the martyr manifests the same concern when he writes that "there is only one physician, carnal and spiritual, begotten and not made, God subsisting in the flesh, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord" (Eph. 7, 2). This testimony is from the beginning of the 2nd century, but Docetism continued to creep about for a long time still: at the end of the same century Tertullian combated it in the De carne Christi, and Irenaeus refuted the Gnostics, who among other errors also taught that the Humanity of Christ was not real, truly born of the Virgin Mary, but phantasmal.
More threatening, however, was the attack on the divinity of Christ. Already the Ebionites and Cerinthus in the apostolic age spoke of a Jesus who was a pure man, into whom the Word would have descended; the Gnostics, holding firmly to the absolute transcendence of God, saw in Christ one of the aeons, intermediate beings between God and the world. At the end of the 2nd century in Rome Theodotus the Byzantine taught a form of adoptionism (v.), which made of Christ a simple man adopted by God as Son. The same error is found in the 3rd century in Paul of Samosata. But the most serious heresy was Arianism (v.), which, starting from the concept of God's unbegottenness, equated the generation of the Word with creation, making of him a simple creature, albeit a most noble one, brought into being when God willed to create the world. It followed that the Word-Son was not equal to the Father, of the same substance or nature as him (ὁμοούσιος = consubstantial). The Church, having perceived the gravity of the error, which undermined Christianity from its foundations, responded with the Council of Nicaea (325), where it was defined that Christ, as true Son of God, is consubstantial with the Father, that is, has the identical nature of the Father. With this definition all the errors concerning the Divinity of Jesus Christ fell (v. CONSUBSTANTIAL).
In the second half of the 4th century Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea, opened a series of errors concerning the manner in which the two natures are united in Christ. Apollinaris, to demonstrate the depth of the union, maintained that the Word had assumed a nature with a soul without intelligence, whose function was abundantly supplied by the incarnate divine Wisdom. This was a return to the mutilation of the human nature of Christ, but at the same time it was a stimulus to deepen the question of the personal unity of the Savior despite the duality of the natures.
Thus a delicate crisis opened up before the central nucleus of the mystery of Christ, which always lent itself over the course of the centuries to two temptations: either to accentuate the natural dualism to the point of compromising the unity of person, or to push personal unity to the point of compromising the distinction of the natures. The two temptations are expressed in two great heresies: Nestorianism and Eutychianism, also called Monophysitism. The battle lasted throughout the 5th century and had strong repercussions down to the 7th century (for it v. HYPOSTATIC UNION). Here it is of interest to note that both the one and the other heresy pervert the genuine sense of the I. as it results from the sources of divine Revelation. In fact Nestorianism, by breaking the personal unity of Christ, considered in him a man alongside the Son God, or a God as guest of the man. But the I. demands a God-Man, that is, a God become man. Eutychianism or Monophysitism presented a hybrid being, in which the human and the divine are fused together losing their respective characteristics: hence there results a Christ who is neither true God nor true Man, but a mixture of both.
The I., on the contrary, suggests a theandric being, in whom the Person of the Word subsists and operates in two distinct natures. The union compromises neither the Divinity nor the assumed Humanity, which remain integral and distinct even in the absolute unity of the Person of the Word.
To Nestorianism the Church responded in 431 with the Council of Ephesus (v.), defending the true, real, physical unity of the two natures in the one subject who is Jesus Christ; to Eutychianism it responded in 451 with the Council of Chalcedon (v.), safeguarding the integrity and distinction of the two natures, even in the unity of the Person.
The expression of the orthodox faith concerning the I. is marked as an echo of the genuine tradition of the Church in the Athanasian Creed, which was compiled by an unknown author, probably between the Council of Ephesus and that of Chalcedon, to summarize epigrammatically its Trinitarian doctrine (for which St. Athanasius had fought so much) and the christological doctrine that was maturing precisely then in the warlike climate of the 5th century: "The right faith consists in confessing that our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, is God and Man. He is God begotten of the substance of the Father before the ages, and he is Man born of the substance of the Mother in time. Perfect God, perfect Man subsisting in a rational soul and in human flesh. Equal to the Father according to the divinity, less than the Father according to the humanity. Although he is God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ. One not by mutation of the Divinity into the flesh, but by assumption of the humanity into God. Perfectly one not by confusion of substances, but by unity of person. For as the rational soul and the flesh make one man, so God and man are one Christ." A clear exposition that fixes the three terms: Divinity, Humanity and Person, and explains their mutual relationship, eliminating the confusion of the two natures and the division of the Person. The emphasis on the union of the soul with the body as a term of comparison has the value of an example, which however must be taken with caution, all the more so since the Apollinarians and the Monophysites were already abusing it.
III. THEOLOGY OF THE INCARNATION
On the dogmatic definitions of the Church's magisterium and on the thought of the Fathers, laboriously matured over the first five centuries, Christological theology flourishes luxuriantly from Leontius of Byzantium (6th century) to John Damascene (7th-8th centuries), down to Scholasticism, which reaches its apogee in St. Thomas, who especially in the Sum. Theol. (3rd part) gathers and systematically expounds the substance of traditional doctrine. Here, following in the footsteps of St. Thomas, we refer to the principal questions of the theology of the Incarnation.
1. Fittingness
Every divine action is already fitting and therefore justified in itself, because it springs from an infinitely wise nature. But the Incarnation has its fundamental reason of fittingness in the divine goodness, which loves to communicate itself to the creature as much as possible. The act of the Incarnation, while it redounds to immense glory for man, does not detract from the dignity of God, the supreme good and infinite love, nor does it compromise His immutability, because in the Incarnation a relation is established that is real from the human nature to the divine Person, but from the latter to the former it is only logical (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 1, a. 1). Particular reasons of fittingness are assigned by St. Thomas to the Incarnation (ibid., a. 2), both in order to the good that derives to man in the natural plan and even more in the supernatural plan, and with regard to the evil from which man is freed through the work of the Incarnate Word. But it is interesting to consider the reasons why the Word became incarnate and not the other Persons. In itself an Incarnation of the Father and of the Holy Spirit is not repugnant, but it was more fitting that the Word should become incarnate: 1) because the Incarnation is a restoration of creation; now creation implies order, especially to the Word, «per quem omnia facta sunt» (Io. 1, 3), and therefore it was fitting that it be restored by the Word Himself; 2) because man as a rational creature reaches his perfection in the wisdom that derives from the Word; 3) because man's salvation lies in the supernatural adoptive filiation, which is an imitation of the natural divine filiation proper to the Word (Sum. Theol., q. 3, a. 8). On the part of the human nature there was no right to the benefit of the Incarnation, but, according to the reason of obediential potency (v.), it more than any other nature could fittingly be assumed by the Word because it is rational and needed to be healed from original sin. Therefore it was not fitting that the Word should assume a nature lower than man nor the angelic nature (ibid., q. 4, a. 1).
2. Necessity
God in His actions ad extra, such as creation, is fully free (cf. Vatican Council, sess. III, c. 1: Denz-U, 1783 and 1805) and therefore cannot be subject to any necessity, whether physical, metaphysical or moral. The Church has always held this principle firm against contrary errors and opinions (Eckhart, Wyclif, Leibniz, Rosmini). All the more is God free when it is a question of things belonging to the supernatural order, which is essentially gratuitous, because it transcends the capacity and the exigencies of created nature.
Now the Incarnation, as the restoration of man in order to his supernatural end, is always presented in the sources of Revelation as a work of divine love and mercy, as a great gift of God: «God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son» (Io. 3, 16). «But God, who is rich in mercy, for the immense love with which He has loved us, even when we were dead through sin, has brought us to life in Christ» (Eph. 3, 4). The voice of tradition is found, for example, in Epiphanius (Adv. haer., 69, 52): «God the Word, creator, not subject to any cause...
through a certain hidden mystery, became incarnate spontaneously... out of overflowing love for man, not driven by necessity, but by voluntary deliberation» (cf. Irenaeus, Adv. haer., III, 23, 5; V, 21, 3; Augustine, Sermo 214, 5, 6; Leo the Great, Sermo 22, 3). Even if one takes into account the fall of Adam, the necessity of the Incarnation is not evident, because the goods lost with original sin were supernatural and therefore gratuitous; on the other hand their loss was culpable in Adam and in his descendants, and therefore God, without violating justice, could have abandoned to himself the human race that had voluntarily fallen.
Finally, the necessity of the Incarnation does not arise even from the hypothesis that God wished to save man fallen into original sin and personal sins, because for that purpose a simple act of forgiveness could have sufficed (cf. Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 46, a. 2, ad. 3). St. Anselm (Cur Deus homo, I, 16-18) seems to admit a true and proper necessity of the Incarnation, on the basis of arguments that are not apodictic; some reduce Anselm's thought to that of the other Scholastics, equating the necessity of which he speaks with a maximal fittingness.
But if one supposes that God wills the restoration of the human race by way of rigorous justice with a satisfaction de condigno, then theologians are almost unanimous in recognizing a true necessity of the Incarnation, because, since sin is an offense against God and therefore, in a certain sense, infinite, a reparation of infinite value was required, which could not be made by a creature, even an angel. Only God could offer such reparation to Himself, but to accomplish it one had to suffer, and therefore God had to assume a passible nature such as the human. Hence the decree of the Incarnation, which is connected with the other decree of the exigency of a rigorous and adequate satisfaction for sin. This exigency surfaces here and there in Sacred Scripture, especially when Christ speaks of a grave precept (levos.ii) of the Father with regard to the bloody sacrifice of Calvary. The matter is clear for one who, like St. Thomas (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 1, a. 2, ad. 2 and elsewhere), admits that «peccatum contra Deum commissum quamdam infinitatem habet ex infinitate divinae maiestatis». But Scotus (In IV Sent., d. 19, a. 2, q. 1; Ox., III, d. 20, q. unica) weakens this argument by observing that sin is not infinite intrinsically, but only for an extrinsic reason, namely because it touches God; and besides, if the creature can sin in such a way as to posit a morally infinite sinful act, it can also make reparation by positing a morally infinite act of charity, again for the extrinsic reason of its term, which is God. The Thomists reply that there is no parity between the offense and the reparation, because the offense is in direct proportion to the dignity of the person offended, whereas the reparation derives its value from the person of the one who makes reparation. The question is connected with the other concerning the end, which has a more complex history and is still very much alive today.
3. End
First of all it must be remembered that the supreme end of every created thing is God and His glory; God, however, in His actions ad extra cannot be moved by any good extrinsic to Himself, but only by His goodness, identical with His essence. Nevertheless a subordination can exist among created things, inasmuch as God, independent in Himself, can subordinate to one another the things freely created by Him (the mineral kingdom to the animal kingdom, animals and plants to man, etc.). Furthermore one must bear in mind the finis qui (= the good to which one tends) and the finis cui (= the subject to whom the willed good is ordered); the primary end (which surpasses every other) and the secondary end (which is subordinate to the primary).
The state of the age-old question is this: is the primary end of the Incarnation the redemption of the human race, so that in God's designs, with regard to the actual order of things, Christ exists only insofar as Adam has sinned? Or is the primary end of the Incarnation Christ in Himself, independently of Adam's sin?
An opinion already proposed by Abbot Rupert (d. 1135) was adopted by Alexander of Hales and Albert the Great, and found in Scotus a fervent champion, who developed it in the light of the absolute primacy of Christ over all creation (Reportata Parisiensia in III Sent., d. 7 and d. 10). God, he says, in his infinite wisdom must will the good before the evil, and therefore the Incarnation before the sin of Adam. Not Christ, then, was ordered to sin, but sin to Christ in the divine mind, so that even if Adam had not sinned the Incarnation would have taken place all the same. The sin of Adam has an influence only in the sense that the Word assumes a passible nature in order to expiate it. The other opinion is the one adopted by St. Thomas and by the Thomists of various schools: the Incarnation, according to the actual order of things, is ordered to the redemption of the human race, as is evident from divine Revelation, so that if Adam had not sinned, the Incarnation would not have taken place. Nevertheless, in another order of things the Incarnation could have taken place even without that sin. St. Thomas defends this opinion with great moderation, relying, more than on arguments of reason, on Sacred Scripture: «Unde cum in S. Scriptura ubique Incarnationis ratio ex peccato primi hominis assignetur, convenientius dicitur Incarnationis opus ordinatum esse a Deo in remedium contra peccatum, ita quod, peccato non existente, Incarnatio non fuisset; quamvis potentia Dei ad hoc non limitetur, potuisset enim, etiam peccato non existente, Deus incarnari» (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 1, a. 3). St. Bonaventure (In III Sent., d. 1, a. 2, q. 2) acknowledges that the Thomistic opinion is more consonant with «pietati fidei», while the other is more agreeable to reason. The disciples of St. Thomas and of Scotus, especially the moderns, have sharpened the contrast between the two opinions. In truth the Scotistic opinion is more seductive, but it does not have those firm foundations in the doctrine of the faith that the Thomistic one can boast. In the New Testament the reference to the redemption of man as the end of the Incarnation of the Word is frequent: «Non enim misit Deus filium suum in mundum, ut iudicet mundum, sed ut salvetur mundus per ipsum» (Io. 3, 17: cf. Lc. 19, 10; Mt. 9, 13; Gal. 4, 4; I Tim. 1, 15). Likewise the Fathers: Irenaeus (Adv. haer., V, 14, 1): «Si enim non haberet caro salvari, neququam Verbum Dei caro factum esset». St. Augustine (Serm. 174, 2): «Si homo non perisset, filius hominis non venisset» (see also: Athanasius, Adv. Ariana oratio, 2, 56; St. John Chrysostom, In Ep. ad Hebr. hom., 5, 1; St. Ambrose, De Incarnationis Dominicae sacramento, 6, 56; St. Leo the Great, Sermo, 77, 2). The Church embraces the same idea in the Creed: «Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis et incarnatus est». Since this concerns the free will of God, as St. Thomas warns, one must be wary of arguments of reason and adhere to the testimony of divine Revelation. Some have attempted a reconciliation of the two opinions (cf. F. Suárez, De Incarnatione, disp. 5, sect. 2; recently: I. M. Rocca-G. M. Roschini, De ratione primaria existentiae Christi et Deiparae, Rome 1941).
This is not the place to review all the arguments of the two positions. It is enough to make a few observations. The Thomistic opinion, more deeply rooted in Revelation, deserves greater assent also because it gives prominence to the mystery of the Cross, for which every Christian can and must repeat with St. Paul: «Dilexit me et tradidit semetipsum pro me» (Gal. 2, 20). Redemption does not exclude the other end, the primacy of Christ, if one distinguishes the finis qui (Christ willed for himself) and the finis cui (man to be redeemed). The Scotist opinion exalts the primacy of Christ, but reduces his passion and death to a secondary episode. It is better not to vivisect too much the complex design of God, who willed the world as it is, with Christ at its center, but decisively bound to the wondrous work of human redemption.
4. Efficient causality
The Incarnation as a divine action ad extra, evidently belongs to the three divine Persons in common; but terminatively it is proper to the Word in a personal, exclusive sense: «tres enim Personae fecerunt ut humana natura uniretur uni Personae filii» (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 3 a. 4). Only by appropriation is the Incarnation customarily attributed to the Holy Spirit.
It is debated whether a creature could be assumed as an instrumental cause of the Incarnation. The delicate question arises especially with regard to the Blessed Virgin and her maternal function. In general it is safer to exclude an instrumental causality of the Incarnation. The instrumental agent in this case would have to exercise a dispositive action, which would terminate at the Word, to whom humanity is immediately conjoined, according to the better opinion. Now an action of this kind is repugnant. As for the Blessed Virgin, one must not speak of an instrumental cause (as the ancients did, out of a scant physiological understanding of conception): Mary, like any other mother, contributes to the conception of the Humanity of Christ as a principal cause in her own order, that is, as a concause together with God, insofar as she presented to the divine power, ineffably fecundating, the matter for the formation of the body of Jesus. Since she did not receive, as other mothers do, any extrinsic element in the fecundation, she is the true Mother of the Incarnate Word, more than any other mother is of her own child. However, Mary's maternal function does not have the Word as its object, but his Humanity, which is terminated by the subsistence of the Word (v. MATERNITÀ DIVINA).
IV. TRANSCENDENCE OF THE MYSTERY OF THE INCARNATION
It is a theologically certain doctrine (if not strictly a doctrine of faith) that the I. is a mystery (v.) in the strict sense, and that it therefore transcends the powers of human reason, which can neither intuit it before Revelation nor understand and demonstrate it afterward. St. Paul says that the mystery of Christ was hidden for ages and then revealed to the saints (Col. 1:26; cf. 1 Tim. 3:16). St. Augustine (Ad Volusianum, 2, 8) speaks of the incomprehensibility of the I. and concludes: «In talibus rebus tota ratio facti est potentia facientis». And St. Leo the Great (Serm. in natio. Domini, 9, 1): «Utramque substantiam in unam convenisse personam nisi fides credat, sermo non explicat». St. Thomas (C. Gent., 4, 27): «Quod quidem (mysterium Incarnationis) inter divina opera maxima rationem excedit: nihil enim mirabilibus excogitari potest divinitus factum quam quod verus Deus Dei Filius fieret homo verus». The reason for this mystery lies in the transcendence of the divine action that wrought the I.; on the other hand, the human mind cannot rise to divine things except through creatures, and in the created order there is no effect that leads to the knowledge of a divine Person, because the effects of creation are common without distinction to the three Persons. Therefore, after Revelation, human reason can resolve the objections against the I. and emphasize its fittingness, but it cannot positively demonstrate either its inner constitution or its intrinsic possibility.
Accordingly, the I. has no parallels in other religions. It would be banal to compare the I. to the Greco-Roman myths of the demigods: nor do other comparisons, proposed with casualness in certain manuals of comparative history of religions, deserve much consideration, for in them fantasy often fills the void of documentation and ignorance distorts Christian dogma. E. Schuré's book I grandi iniziati (Italian trans., Bari 1932) is typical. What might have a certain interest in this matter is the Indian myth of Krṣṇa presented as the incarnation of Viṣṇu, indeed of Brahmā himself. But if on the one hand the poetic legend heaps upon this figure the strangest and most grotesque things (his erotic exploits are famous), on the other hand it is difficult to find a clear concept in the tangle of theological lucubrations that developed around him in the first centuries of the Christian era. Any apparent analogy of his myth with the mystery of Christ authorizes, if anything, the inference of a Christian influence on the renewed Indian legend. For this and for other comparisons the reader is referred to specialized authors. The I. is a genuinely Christian mystery, the fruit of divine Revelation, not of human speculations.