The Mediator 18
The Mediator 1. The ancient fathers do teach Christ to be the Mediator (as He is
God and man) by a different act and operation, but in one and the same perfection, proceeding from both the natures of Christ. For in His human nature He wrought our salvation by suffering, dying, satisfying, and in His divine nature, by giving strength unto His humanity to endure the death of the cross, and perfect His satisfaction. "The divine humanity," says Augustine (hom. de onibus, c. 12), "and the human divinity is our Mediator." And in another place (de consensus Evang., lib. 1, c. 35), "Therefore is Christ called the Mediator of God and man, between immortal God and mortal man; God and man reconciling man unto God, remaining that which He was, and made that which He was not."
"Christ's death," says Cyril (l. 1, de fide, ad Reginas), "is confessed to be profitable unto us, but if He were not God, how could He, and He alone suffice for the price of all our redemption? But He only in His death satisfied for all, because He is above all." "Neither could we be freed," says Augustine again (Enchirid., cap. 108), "by that one
Mediator of God and man, the man Christ, unless He were God."
2. Whereas the ancient fathers sometimes affirm that Christ is Mediator only as He is man, and Mediator by that by which He is man, and Mediator in His human nature, and Mediator according to His manhood, they do not speak of the manhood only and exclusively, but of the whole person, so considered as He has assumed man's nature and flesh upon Him.
3. Whereas they deny Christ to be Mediator as God, they speak of the godhead or of the Son of God absolutely considered, not of God as incarnate. That is, they speak of the bare deity, or of Christ as He is