GREENWICH, APRIL 10TH, 1891

^[p. 53] GREENWICH, APRIL 10TH, 1891

Mr. J. Edmondson.

My Dear Brother, — I am sorry that yours of the 3rd should remain unanswered so long, but I have been away in the Isle of Wight.

I cannot very well answer the points raised in your note without looking carefully into them, and comparison of the use of words in the Old and New Testament always presents some difficulty, the language and conceptions are so different.

‘God in flesh’ is an expression that I do not at all like. The Son of God, the Word, became flesh, and His body is the temple of God, and God has been manifested in the flesh, but none of these seem to me to warrant the expression ‘God in flesh’. If it were simply a thought as to what was there morally I should not object, but as to actuality the flesh was the veil which hid the glory of God. It remains true of God “Whom no man has seen nor can see”, Deity and humanity were and are united in the Person of Christ, the union of the two is of course inscrutable, but I do not believe it lay ‘in flesh’, so that we could say ‘God in flesh’.

As regards the pneuma it is evident that in Scripture it stands distinct from psuche (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23). I could not connect pneuma with the beast. It is true in God as well as in man; 1 Corinthians 2:11. Such appears to me from 1 Corinthians 15:45, 46, to be the natural, earthy, or animal condition, so to say, and is common to man and beast, only that in the case of man it was ‘living’ as breathed in of God. It seems to me that psuche may in its use sometimes cover pneuma, but if the latter is distinguished it is since consciousness in man in which he can withdraw from the outward and can have to say to God; 1 Peter 4:6; Romans 8:16. But these things all require looking into patiently.

^[p. 54] Thank you for the extract you sent me. I have seen the manifesto of those who went out at Rathmines. It is a poor affair.

Your affectionate brother,
F. E. Raven.