Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 2.djvu/78

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THE NESTORIANS AND THEIR RITUALS.

[i.e., eternally] or separation, or diminution. They apply to the Living the name of Holy Ghost, because He is the Living, the Eternal, the very Spirit, the Holy. And this is what they mean by the declaration, that God is Three Persons, One Essence, One God. Unity is ascribed to Him becau se of the Unity of His Essence, and Trinity because of His essential proprieties. And they believe of Christ that the eternal Word, Who is the Wisdom of the exalted Creator and called the Son, and Who is one of the Three Persons, as we have stated, dwelt in the human nature taken from the Virgin Mary, and united therewith. Hence the name of Christ has a double meaning with them, the Divinity and the Humanity, and hence they say that Christ is perfect God and perfect Man, One Lord.

"Now union implies two or more things becoming one thing: either by mixture and confusion as the union of water with wine15 by mingling, or of honey with vinegar in [the drink called] sekinjebeen; or by construction, as the union of wood with iron in the manufacture of a door or a bed; or [a union] of the will and affections, as saith the Scripture, 'the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul;' or of parsopeita as the union of a sovereign with his lieutenant in what is commanded and in what is forbidden [i.e., the order of the one is equivalent to the order of the other]; or of connexion, as saith the Scripture, 'a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh;' or of attachment and regard, as the union between the word of God and the written word [i.e., he who reveres the one reveres the other].

"Christians hold the doctrine of The Union in three different ways. The Jacobites believe that the union was of the Person and the Nature by mixture and confusion; so that the Eternal Word and the human nature taken from Mary became One Nature and one Person. The Melchites believe that the union was of the Person and not of the Nature,—a union of construction and fabrication,—so that God the Word and the Man taken from Mary became two Natures and One Person. The Nestorians believe that the union was of anointment [the becoming Christ] and filiation, of dominion and power,—a union of will, design, affection, honour, and parsopeita,—so that the Eternal