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I'm not familiar with that, and it sounds like Nestorianism to me. I have never heard hyperdulia applied to anything but the Mother of God.
Looking into the matter, I found Thomas Aquinas arguing the opposite, that Christ's flesh is offered latria on account of its unity with the Word, but also that it receives dulia on account of Christ's human perfection:
He also adds, "So that one and the same Person of Christ is adored with "latria" on account of His Divinity, and with "dulia" on account of His perfect humanity," which sounds misleading, but is really saying that Christ the Hypostatic Union is worshipped on account of his divinity and venerated on account of his perfect humanity, in an additive and not mutually exclusive sense.
I'd argue that if you're not doing systematic theology like St. Thomas, talking about separate worship for the humanity and divinity of Christ has already taken you far afield of Nicene Christianity. Later on, Chalcedon would seem to argue with any other interpretation:
And of course the Miaphysites, who disagreed with that definition, did so because they believed it wasn't insistant enough on the inseparability of the divine and human! In recent times, they insist on the formula that the humanity and divinity are inseparable "except in thought," i.e. when you're doing a Summa and not in actual worship. Chalcedonians, including Catholic theologians, agree with that stipulation.
Except in the tomb, Catholicism doesn't really like talking about Christ's body apart from his human soul and divine person. It's for that reason, when affirming the Eucharist to be the real body of Christ, they're quick to add the gloss, "blood, soul, and divinity," because separating these things just isn't something they do. The tomb is a weird case -- maybe that's where your quotation was from? I'd be inclined to offer the crucified Lord latria in any case. The body is not separate from the soul, that it ever is is an abberation due to sin, which God will correct on the last day.
An excerpt from Quenstedt, a Lutheran scholastic (translation, my own):
(in the context of him listing those who disagree with the Lutheran stance)
"Of the papists, who, distinguishing between latreia, duleia, and hyperduleia, to God alone attribute latreia, to angels and men, douleia, and to the humanity of Christ and the blessed virgin, the devotion [cultus] of douleia. So Thomas, in book III, upon [Lombard's] Sentences, distinction 9. [I looked there, and though things seemed relevant, didn't quite find usage of the word hyperdulia in a way relavent to what I am attempting to demonstrate] Thus also, Alexander of Hales: "To God", he says, "we owe latria, to Christ, by reason of his human nature, hyperdulia, to the saints, only dulia." [Adam] Tanner, in book 4, Theologia Scholastica, disputation 1, question 7, dubia 7, declares his opinion in two assertions, of which the first is, "The humanity of Christ united to the Word, in the same supreme adoration of latria, by which the incarnate word is adored, rightly at the same time is worshiped [colitur] and adored, but by diverse reason," which then he explains thus, as he asserts, "the word is the per se, primary, and absolute object of adoration or latria, even the formal object itself, but the humanity is only the material object of the same adoration, and indeed secondary only, and concomitant and respective," etc. His other assertion is this: "Christ, as man, and therefore also his humanity, speaking per se, rightly is able to be worshiped by an inferior worship, namely, if the reason of worshiping is the dignity and created excellence which his humanity has either from habitual [different sense of habitual] grace and created holiness, by the spirit inhering, also by abstracting from the Word, or by the grace of union." This opinion of Thomas and his followers, Robert Bellarmine and Denis Patau not obscurely oppose. For [Bellarmine], in book 2, on images, chapter 24, denies, "by the worship of latria something is able to be adored, in such a way, however, that it is not affected by this worship on account of itself," which is the manifest opinion of Thomas, Gregory de Valencia, Tanner, etc. But Petavius, Th. Dogm. tom. IV lib. XV. cap. XV. num. 5, after he gives the opinions of the fathers and councils, at length, concludes, "in all which, considering, latria, or latreutic proskynesis, to be opposed to schetic [habitual, in the unusual sense above, I think: something one has, roughly], nor is any schetic latreia recognized by those fathers;" etc. In a few, "the papists do not concede Christ according to his human nature, properly, per se, by the same highest worship of adoration, by the force of personal union and of the communicated immense majesty, to be pursued." See Thomas part 3, question 25, article 2, Bellarmine, book 1 on the adoration of saints, chapter 12, article 2, Tannerus, loc. cit. Compare Dorscheus loc. cit. page 1001 and following."
Which I realized as I was translating had few dispositive proofs in the passage itself of the word hyperdulia.
Oh, wait, Aquinas does use "hyperdulia" at the end of reply to objection 1 in the Summa, in the passage you read. The Bellarmine passage cited there also refers hyperdulia to the humanity of Christ and his mother, as Bellarmine is listing the kinds of worship. And I decided that's enough, I'm not going to check the Tanner or Dorscheus. So I guess there was more proof from those, beyond the Alexander of Hales quote.
Anyway, so yeah, hyperdulia is applied to the humanity of Christ, although it does look like it's usual also to say that Christ's humanity is worshipped with latria on account of the hypostatic union, as you rightly pointed out.
And of course, you're right that worship wouldn't be separated, so it doesn't actually matter.
I'm trying to parse that translation you offered, but it's very dense and I'm having trouble making sense of it. Could you summarize the point of view Quenstedt is offering here? My guess is he's saying Christ's humanity deserves latria ipso facto, which would be fair, I get that, I'm actually rather uncomfortable with the whole presupposition here that we can separate our worship of Christ's humanity from that of his divinity, even in thought, I'd rather not even conceive of categories here, let's just worship Christ the Incarnate Son of God.
That being said, while there's clearly a strain of theological opinion here, I don't actually think there's a dogmatic definition on the matter even in Catholicism. I know of no teaching authority in the Catholic Church that focuses on this issue, though maybe one exists. More solemnly, Church councils have resisted talking about Christ's humanity and divinity separately, probably because talking about offering different worship to each hypostasis is incredibly misleading and dangerous.
I think it's enough to say that Christ deserves to be worshipped as God because he is God, and also to be devoutly honored as the greatest among men because he is the greatest possible man. Delving too deep into where both things come from and how that relates to the hypostatic union and such strikes me as perhaps scholasticism delving a bit too deep into the mystery of the Incarnation in a way that could easily lead someone who's not incredibly careful into serious error. This seems like something where a non-Chalcedonian could easily say, "see, look how Chalcedon is misleading!" Let's just agree not to send this to the Oriental Orthodox, hm?
I was on mobile when I typed my comment so I didn't see the hyperdulia reference in the Summa. Good catch! This is something that's never talked about in lay theology, I have never seen hyperdulia in reference to anyone but the Virgin Mary. It's generally treated as a gerrymandered category for her alone. But saying that Christ deserves hyperdulia with respect to his humanity makes a lot of sense, it puts it as essentially "dulia intimately connected with the incarnation of the Word."
What Quenstedt is doing there is summarizing the views of Roman Catholics, on the question of what worship is due to the human nature of Christ. This is in the midst of a list of groups that he presents as disagreeing with his (the Lutheran) position on it. As to what's happening in the paragraph: he cites Thomas, Alexander of Hales, and Tanner as what seems essentially your view: Christ's human nature can be worshiped with latria, but per se, only hyperdulia. He then says that Bellarmine and Petavius disagree, in that they would not think that latria can be ascribed to Christ's human body, because latria can only be applied to things per se, not by a habitus. (At least, that's how I read it.) Then, he finishes by citing places for further reading.
I think Lutherans would reject the latria/dulia distinction outright, but I could be misremembering. If you want to read it for yourself, and know Latin, here it is. Pages 200-201 are what I quoted, in the midst of a larger passage. He does a nice job formatting, so it should be fairly organized. But yes, he would just say that it deserves latria. Lutherans have a more thoroughgoing view of the effects of the hypostatic union and the communicatio idiomatum, hence why they sometimes do things like ascribe ubiquity to the human nature of Christ.
I read a bunch of authors on this topic across denominations in the 17th century not too long ago, and it was funny how they were all saying that one of the problems with the positions of the other people was that they were too much like that of the Catholics, since their positions would imply something too similar to a dulia/latria distinction.
This seems correct.
Seems reasonable.
Yup, this was essentially all that I was trying to get at with my original comment.
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