Why Christ is neither an elf nor a centaur
both things at once and both things thoroughly, very man and very God
The little word 'very' means true or real here: Christ is truly human and truly God, rather than exceptionally human or intensely divine. The phrase belongs to a precise doctrinal vocabulary. Article II of the Church of England's Articles of Religion describes two complete natures united permanently in one person and calls the result 'very God, and very Man'. The inspected witness is the Church's online text of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, identified in its contents as the Cambridge University Press 2006 edition; its Articles heading dates their agreement to 1562. The verbal correspondence establishes a familiar English ecclesial formulation, not proof that Chesterton copied this particular text. Articles, II.
The older doctrinal comparison is Chalcedon's Definition of Faith (451). In Henry Percival's English translation, published in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 14 (1900), and revised for New Advent, Christ possesses full divinity and full humanity in one person. The definition denies both fusion and separation: the union preserves each nature's properties. Chesterton's centaur illustrates a composite in which humanity supplies only part of the creature; his elf illustrates an alternative species apart from both God and humanity. These are his explanatory pictures, not the council's terminology. They illuminate the positive insistence that neither nature is reduced to make room for the other. Chalcedon, Session V, Definition, concluding doctrinal paragraphs.
This comparison also marks a limit. A doctrine concerning two natures in one person does not by itself prove that stronger contrary emotions produce better conduct. Chesterton carries its pattern into ethics as an analogy: preserve the fullness of each good instead of averaging them into a weaker third thing. The International Theological Commission's Select Questions on Christology (1979), II.B.5–6, offers a later Catholic theological parallel when it explains Chalcedon as excluding an intermediate state and preserving both assertions within carefully drawn limits. It also stresses that the definition does not explain exhaustively how the union is possible. This is a later comparison, not a source for the 1908 book, and a commission document rather than another conciliar definition. Select Questions, II.B.5–6.
Sources
Revision 1 of 1 · 2026-11-07 · Suggest an edit