# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juni 1859_S176
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

176 Thoughts on Modern Theology.

was united, which was also anointed with the Holy Spirit — even so, in the
agony of soul, neither the united Godhead nor the Spirit who was present
openly freed either the body or the soul of Christ from weakness, but they
left this to the angel who strengthened him.

Gregory of Nazianzus (†390): Just as, when the sun is covered by a
cloud, its brightness is hindered, not darkened, not taken away — so also
that man whom the Son of God took to himself did not have the Godhead
snatched away from within him, but only hidden.

Ambrose (†397): He emptied himself, that is, he withdrew his power
from action, so that in the humiliation, through the resting of his power,
he seemed to become weak.

Athanasius (†373), on Christ's word "My soul is troubled": This came
about in that the Godhead rested while the flesh rose up; for it was
possible for the Godhead to prevent the trouble, but it did not will to, lest
it destroy the likeness it had with us. Just as in a mixed honey-drink now
the water, now the honey is more abundant, so the Godhead sometimes
permits the flesh to be more abundant, but at other times surpasses it, in
order to bring the weakness of the flesh to nothing.

Cyril (†444), on Christ's word "I thirst": It would not have been
difficult for the all-powerful Word to remove this too from his own flesh,
but just as he willingly allowed the flesh to suffer the other things, so also
this.

Leo the Great: The humiliation was a condescension of mercy, not a
diminishing of power.

(Contributed.)
Thoughts on Modern Theology.

Whoever takes even a superficial notice of the achievements of modern
believing theology must very soon become convinced that it suffers from
certain essential, deep-reaching, fundamental flaws. In general these may
perhaps be most aptly described as a weakening of the biblical content of
truth. How this came about historically — how Pietism, Rationalism,
Supranaturalism, and Unionism mutually conditioned and called forth one
another, and now unite in the broad stream of subjectivism, which selects
from the Bible as God's Word only that which appears acceptable as such
to the pious self — this shall only be briefly indicated here. But inasmuch
as half-believing subjectivism raises the self to the supreme principle, the
content of revelation naturally cannot come into its own right. The
biblical doctrines are either denied, or halved, or otherwise so altered that
they lose both the definiteness and integrity that originally belong to them
according to the Word of God, and also the significance which, in the
context of the