Was God the Son separated from God the Father are Calvary?

Recently, a few people has told me and others on Paltalk that during the Cross Christ was "separated from the Father."  One person that said this was an antiCatholic who is a Calvinist, another was a young man that left the Church believing himself to be more Catholic than the pope (he stated Christ's separation was purely in His humanity, not Divinity), another was an anti/ex-Catholic who received education at a Protestant 'bible college.'.

People that promote this theory use many scriptures as proof texts.  They include the Scripture at Calvary where Christ says "why have you forsaken me," the passage in 1st Corinthians where St Paul declares Christ became sin for us, and other passages which state Christ "bore" our sins, and the verse in Isaiah 53 where it speaks of the suffering Servant as being "cut off"

As a note the verse about being forsaken is a quotation of Psalm 22 and Christ is expressing the words of sinners, perhaps the best explanation for this is found by St Augustine of Hippo:

"...the first verse of which the Lord Himself uttered on the Cross: "My God, My God, look upon Me; why have You forsaken Me?" For "transferring us in a figure" [1 Corinthians 4:6] to what He was saying, and to His own Body (for we are also "His Body," and He is our "Head"), He uttered from the Cross not His own cry, but ours. For God never "forsook" Him: nor did He Himself ever depart from the Father; but it was in behalf of us that He spoke this: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" For there follows, "Far from My health are the words of My offences:" and it shows in whose person He said this; for sin could not be found in Him.…"--Exposition on Psalm 44

I will deal with the other Scripture verses at a later time.

The main reason the view Christ was separated from the Father is not a viable view if for it's incompatiblity with Trinity theology and the hypostatic union.

For Christ to be separated from the Father would require either Arianism (even temporary) or some form of temporary polytheism.  For Christ being God to be separated from God the Father would mean there was some form of fracture in the Trinity.  The Trinity is a profession that God is one substance in the Persons that are united.  Many Protestants like to assert that Deuteronomy 6:4 (Hear of Israel....the Lord is One) word echad (one) refers to a compound unity.  Now if God is a compound unity, then how can God the Son be separated from God the Father and still be One God, that is a compound unity?  The answer is plain, it cannot be the case. God cannot be separated from Himself, it would be illogical in anyway.  One of the individuals told me it only seems illogical, like when God became a man.  However, God becoming a man is not illogical because God the Son did not lose His form as God by assuming a human nature, John 3:13 tells us He was in Heaven while being on Earth.  While the theory Christ was separted from the Father is absolutely illogical since it violates the profession of God being One, a 'compound unity.' 

Now for the belief that Jesus Christ was only separated from the Father in His human nature alone.  This view is less illogical and less blasphemous at the first, but it is still a great error to claim since it would split the Person of Christ into two and undue the incarnation.  If He is fully God and man united in one person, Jesus Christ, that is the hypostatic union, then the Atonement would require Him to be separated from Himself, requiring Him possibly to be present solely in His Human nature at the Cross. This person that pushed this theory (the sedevacantist) eventually seemed to admit he did not know much theology (which begs then "how are you a sedevacantist if you don't know much theology" since sedevacantists insist the Church has fallen into heresy, but perhaps he IS a sedevacantist BECAUSE he does not know much theology, but this is the subject of another article.)

In experience I have only met one person (a Protestant) that acknowledged the difficulty in believing Jesus was separated from God the Father at the Cross who accepted it. He said told me in rougly these words "Yes the Trinity was broken up at the Cross!"

To be Continued....

Christ was born December 25

In recent times liberals, atheists, anti christians, and Christians of anticatholic persuasion have sought to attack Christmas by asserting it is nothing more than a pagan holiday of a pagan deity's birth that the Catholic Church simply converted into Christ's birthday. Whether or not pagan deity was said to have been born December 25 is irrelevant, in fact most of the datings of the 25th seems to have existed after Christians first appeared.


The dating of Christmas is not pagan or arbitrary. The early church father St Ephraim the Syrian, writing in the mid 4th century, states in his Rythm the 4th concerning Christ's conception:

"Moses shut up a lamb in the month Nisan on the tenth day; a type this of the Son that came into the womb and shut Himself"--St Ephraim the Syrian, Rhythm the fourth (p.27)

The significance of this is that the 10th of Nisan can fall in either early April or late March. The 10th according to the torah in Exodus 12 was the day the passover lamb was to be selected.

"That
 "This month shall be to you the beginning of months: it shall be the first in the months of the year.  Speak ye to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them: On the tenth day of this month let every man take a lamb by their families and houses."

Now this year, 2010, the 10th of Nisan fell on the 25th of March, (Here is a link to the Hebrew-Gregorian Calendar converter, a Jewish website.) this is the feast of the Annunciation on the Church Calendar. The Feast of the Annunciation is the celebration of the Incarnation, when Christ was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
 
Now assuming Christ went thru the standard gestation period of almost nine months, as most humans do, then he would have been born on or around December 25, if we are to use our modern calendar his gestation would be about 275 days, which is only 9 days longer than average, but still within a reasonable time frame for birth.

Now some believe that since there were shepherds in the fields when Christ was born that therefore He was not born in December, reasoning it would be foolish to keep a flock out in the winter. However, according to the 19th century convert from Judaism, Alfred Edersheim in his book "The life and times of Jesus the Messiah, Volume 1" pages 186-7 he states:

the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, was a settled conviction. Equally so was the belief, that He was to be revealed from Migdal Eder, ' the tower of the flock.'a This Migdal Eder was not the watch-tower for the ordinary flocks which pastured on the barren sheep-ground beyond Bethlehem, but lay close to the town, on the road to Jerusalem.A passage in the Mishnah leads to the conclusion, that the flocks, which pastured there, were destined for Templesacrifices, and, accordingly, that the shepherds, who watched over them, were not ordinary shepherds. The latter were under the ban of Rabbinism,' on account of their necessary isolation from religious ordinances, and their manner of life, which rendered strict legal observance unlikely, if not absolutely impossible. The same Mishnic passage also leads us to infer, that these flocks lay out all the year round, since they are spoken of as in the fields thirty days before the Passover—that is, in the month of February, when in Palestine the average rainfall is nearly greatest. Thus, Jewish tradition in some dim manner apprehended the first revelation of the Messiah from that Migdal Eder, where shepherds watched the Temple-flocks all the year round. Of the deep symbolic significance of such a coincidence, it is needless to speak. It was, then, on that 'wintry night' of the 25th of December, that shepherds watched the flocks destined for sacrificial services, in the very place consecrated by tradition as that where the Messiah was to be first revealed."

 
He further notes that:
 

 "There is no adequate reason for questioning the historical accuracy of this date. The objections generally made rest on grounds, which seem to me historically untenable. The subject has been fully discussed in an article by Cassel in Herzog's Real. Ency. xvii. pp. 588-594. But a curious piece of evidence comes to us from a Jewish source. In the addition to the Megillath Taanith (ed. Warsh. p. 20 a), the 9th Tebet is marked as a fast day, and it is added, that the reason for this is not stated. Now, Jewish chronologists have fixed on that day as that of Christ's birth, and it is remarkable that, between the years 500 and 816 A.d. the 25th of December fell no less than twelve times on the 9th Tebet. If the 9th Tebet, or 25th December, was regarded as the birthday of Christ, we can understand the concealment about it. Comp. Zunz, Ritus d. Synag. Gottesd. p. 126."