incarnation

incarnation
incarnational, adj.
/in'kahr nay"sheuhn/, n.
1. an incarnate being or form.
2. a living being embodying a deity or spirit.
3. assumption of human form or nature.
4. the Incarnation, (sometimes l.c.) Theol. the doctrine that the second person of the Trinity assumed human form in the person of Jesus Christ and is completely both God and man.
5. a person or thing regarded as embodying or exhibiting some quality, idea, or the like: The leading dancer is the incarnation of grace.
6. the act of incarnating.
7. state of being incarnated.
[1250-1300; ME incarnacion < LL incarnation- (s. of incarnatio) equiv. to incarnat(us) INCARNATE + -ion- -ION]

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Central Christian doctrine that God became man in the form of Jesus, the son of God and the second person of the Holy Trinity.

In Jesus the divine and human nature are joined but neither is changed or diminished. This difficult doctrine gave rise to a variety of heresies, some denying Jesus's divine nature, others his human nature. For orthodox believers the conflict was settled at the Councils of Nicaea (AD 325) and Chalcedon (AD 451).

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      central Christian doctrine that God became flesh, that God assumed a human nature and became a man in the form of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the second Person of the Trinity. Christ was truly God and truly man. The doctrine maintains that the divine and human natures of Jesus do not exist beside one another in an unconnected way but rather are joined in him in a personal unity that has traditionally been referred to as the hypostatic union. The union of the two natures has not resulted in their diminution or mixture; rather, the identity of each is believed to have been preserved.

      The word Incarnation (from the Latin caro, “flesh”) may refer to the moment when this union of the divine nature of the second Person of the Trinity with the human nature became operative in the womb of the Virgin Mary or to the permanent reality of that union in the person of Jesus. The term may be most closely related to the claim in the prologue of the Gospel According to John (John, Gospel According to) that the Word became flesh, that is, assumed human nature. (See logos.) The essence of the doctrine of the Incarnation is that the preexistent Word has been embodied in the man Jesus of Nazareth, who is presented in the Gospel According to John as being in close personal union with the Father, whose words Jesus is speaking when he preaches the gospel.

      Belief in the preexistence of Christ is indicated in various letters of the New Testament but particularly in the Letter of Paul to the Philippians (Philippians, Letter of Paul to the) in which the Incarnation is presented as the emptying of Christ Jesus, who was by nature God and equal to God (i.e., the Father) but who took on the nature of a slave and was later glorified by God.

      The development of a more refined theology of the Incarnation resulted from the response of the early church to various misinterpretations concerning the question of the divinity of Jesus and the relationship of the divine and human natures of Jesus. The Council of Nicaea (Nicaea, Council of) (AD 325) determined that Christ was “begotten, not made” and that he was therefore not creature but Creator. The basis for this claim was the doctrine that he was “of the same substance as the Father.” The doctrine was further defined by the Council of Chalcedon (Chalcedon, Council of) (AD 451), at which it was declared that Jesus was perfect in deity and in humanity and that the identity of each nature was preserved in the person of Jesus Christ. The affirmation of the oneness of Christ with God and with humanity was made while maintaining the oneness of his person.

      Subsequent theology has worked out the implications of this definition, although there have been various tendencies emphasizing either the divinity or the humanity of Jesus throughout the history of Christian thought, at times within the parameters set by Nicaea and Chalcedon, at times not. It has commonly been accepted that the union of the human nature of Christ with his divine nature had significant consequences for his human nature—for example, the grace of great sanctity. The union of the two natures has been viewed by theologians as a gift for other humans, both in terms of its benefit for their redemption from sin and in terms of the appreciation of the potential goodness inherent in human activity that can be derived from the doctrine of the Incarnation.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • incarnation — [ ɛ̃karnasjɔ̃ ] n. f. • 1113; lat. incarnatio 1 ♦ Action par laquelle une divinité s incarne dans le corps d un homme ou d un animal. Les incarnations de Jupiter (⇒ métamorphose ) , de Vishnu (⇒ avatar) . ♢ Dans la religion chrétienne, Union… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Incarnation — which literally means embodied in flesh , refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature (generally a human) who is the material manifestation of an entity or force whose original nature is immaterial.In its religious context the word… …   Wikipedia

  • Incarnation — (christianisme) Pour les articles homonymes, voir Incarnation (homonymie). Nativité de Georges de La Tour (1644) …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Incarnation — In car*na tion, n. [F. incarnation, LL. incarnatio.] [1913 Webster] 1. The act of clothing with flesh, or the state of being so clothed; the act of taking, or being manifested in, a human body and nature. [1913 Webster] 2. (Theol.) The union of… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • incarnation — [in΄kär nā′shən] n. [ME incarnacion < OFr incarnatiun < LL(Ec) incarnatio < pp. of incarnari: see INCARNATE] 1. endowment with a human body; appearance in human form 2. any person or animal serving as the embodiment of a god or spirit 3 …   English World dictionary

  • incarnation — Incarnation. s. f. v. Mystere par lequel le Fils de Dieu, le Verbe eternel s est fait homme. Le mystere de l Incarnation …   Dictionnaire de l'Académie française

  • incarnation — ► NOUN 1) a living embodiment of a deity, spirit, or abstract quality. 2) (the Incarnation) (in Christian theology) the embodiment of God the Son in human flesh as Jesus Christ. 3) (with reference to reincarnation) each of a series of earthly… …   English terms dictionary

  • incarnation — index embodiment Burton s Legal Thesaurus. William C. Burton. 2006 …   Law dictionary

  • incarnation — (n.) c.1300, embodiment of God in the person of Christ, from O.Fr. incarnacion (12c.), from L.L. incarnationem (nom. incarnatio), act of being made flesh (used by Church writers especially of God in Christ), noun of action from pp. stem of L.… …   Etymology dictionary

  • incarnation — (in kar na sion ; en vers, de cinq syllabes) s. f. 1°   Acte par lequel ce qui n était pas chair devient chair, ou ce qui était pur esprit prend un corps.    Par excellence, action de la Divinité qui s incarne ; résultat de cette action. •   L… …   Dictionnaire de la Langue Française d'Émile Littré

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