Christology
The branch of theology dealing specially with the nature and personality of Jesus Christ, His realization of the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, and His life and teachings as narrated in the Gospels.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Christology
Christology is that part of theology which deals with Our Lord Jesus Christ. In its full extent it comprises the doctrines concerning both the person of Christ and His works; but in the present article we shall limit ourselves to a consideration of the person of Christ. Here again we shall not infringe on the domain of the historian and Old-Testament theologian, who present their respective contributions under the headings JESUS CHRIST, and MESSIAS; hence the theology of the Person of Jesus Christ, considered in the light of the New Testament or from the Christian point of view, is the proper subject of the present article.
The person of Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Son or the Word of the Father, Who “was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man.” These mysteries, though foretold in the Old Testament, were fully revealed in the New, and clearly developed in Christian Tradition and theology. Hence we shall have to study our subject under the triple aspect of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Christian Tradition.
OLD TESTAMENT
From what has been said we understand that the Old Testament is not considered here from the viewpoint of the Jewish scribe, but of the Christian theologian. Jesus Christ Himself was the first to use it in this way by His repeated appeal to the Messianic passages of the prophetic writings. The Apostles saw in these prophecies many arguments in favour of the claims and the teachings of Jesus Christ; the Evangelists, too, are familiar with them, though they appeal less frequently to them than the patristic writers do. Even the Fathers either state the prophetic argument only in general terms or they quote single prophecies; but they thus prepare the way for the deeper insight into the historical perspective of the Messianic predictions which began to prevail in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Leaving the statement of the historical development of the Messianic prophecies to the writer of the article MESSIAS, we shall briefly call attention to the prophetic predictions of the genealogy of Christ, of His birth, His infancy, His names, His offices, His public life, His sufferings, and His glory.
(1) References to the human genealogy of the Messias are quite numerous in the Old Testament: He is represented as the seed of the woman, the son of Sem, the son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the son of David, the prince of pastors, the offspring of the marrow of the high cedar (Genesis 3:1-19; 9:18-27; 12:1-9; 17:1-9; 18:17-19; 22:16-18; 26:1-5; 27:1-15; Numbers 24:15-19; 2 Samuel 7:1-16; 1 Chronicles 17:1-17; Jeremiah 23:1-8; 33:14-26; Ezekiel 17). The Royal Psalmist extols the Divine genealogy of the future Messias in the words: “The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee” (Ps. ii, 7).
(2) The Prophets frequently speak of the birth of the expected Christ. They locate its place in Bethlehem of Juda (Micah 5:2-14), they determine its time by the passing of the sceptre from Juda (Genesis 49:8-12), by the seventy weeks of Daniel (ix, 22-27), and by the “little while” mentioned in the Book of Aggeus (ii, 1-10). The Old-Testament seers know also that the Messias will be born of a Virgin Mother (Isaiah 7:1-17), and that His appearance, at least His public appearance, will be preceded by a precursor (Isaiah 40:1-11; Malachi 4:5-6).
(3) Certain events connected with the infancy of the Messias have been deemed important enough to be the subject of prophetic prediction. Among these are the adoration of the Magi (Ps. lxxxi, 1-17), the slaughter of the innocents (Jeremiah 31:15-26), and the flight into Egypt (Hosea 11:1-7). It is true that in the case of these prophecies, as it happens in the case of many others, their fulfilment is their clearest commentary; but this does not undo the fact that the events were really predicted.
(4) Perhaps there is less need of insisting on the predictions of the better known Messianic names and titles, seeing that they involve less obscurity. Thus in the prophecies of Zacharias the Messias is called the Orient, or, according to the Hebrew text, the “bud” (iii; vi, 9-15), in the Book of Daniel He is the Son of Man (vii), in the Prophecy of Malachias He is the Angel of the Testament (ii, 17; iii, 6), in the writings of Isaias He is the Saviour (li, 1; lii, 12; lxii), the Servant of the Lord (xlix, 1), the Emmanuel (viii, 1-10), the Prince of peace (ix, 1-7).
(5) The Messianic offices are considered in a general way in the latter part of Isaias (lxi); in particular, the Messias is considered as prophet in the Book of Deuteronomy (xviii, 9-22); as king in the Canticle of Anna (1 Samuel 2:1-10) and in the royal song of the Psalmist (xliv); as priest in the sacerdotal type Melchisedech (Genesis 14:14-20) and in the Psalmist’s words ” a priest forever” (cix); as Goel, or Avenger, in the second part of Isaias (lxiii, 1-6); as mediator of the New Testament, under the form of a covenant of the people (Isaiah 42:1; 43:13), and of the light of the Gentiles (Isaiah 49).
(6) As to the public life of the Messias, Isaias gives us a general idea of the fulness of the Spirit investing the Anointed (xi, 1-16), and of the Messianic work (Iv). The Psalmist presents a picture of the Good Shepherd (xxii); Isaias summarizes the Messianic miracles (xxxv); Zacharias exclaims, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion”, thus predicting Christ’s solemn entrance into Jerusalem; the Psalmist refers to this same event when he mentions the praise out of the mouth of infants (viii). To return once more to the Book of Isaias, the prophet foretells the rejection of the Messias through a league with death (xxvii); the Psalmist alludes to the same mystery where he speaks of the stone which the builders rejected (cxvii).
(7) Need we say that the sufferings of the Messias were fully predicted by the prophets of the Old Testament? The general idea of the Messianic victim is presented in the context of the words “sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not” (Ps. xxxix); in the passage beginning with the resolve “Let us put wood on his bread” (Jeremiah 11), and in the sacrifice described by the prophet Malachias (i). Besides, the series of the particular events which constitute the history of Christ’s Passion has been described by the prophets with a remarkable minuteness: the Psalmist refers to His betrayal in the words “the man of my peace . . . supplanted me” (xl), and Zacharias knows of the “thirty pieces of silver” (xi); the Psalmist praying in the anguish of his soul, is a type of Christ in His agony (Ps. liv); His capture is foretold in the words “pursue and take him” and “they will hunt after the soul of the just” (Ps. lxx; xciii); His trial with its false witnesses may be found represented in the words “unjust witnesses have risen up against me, and iniquity hath lied to itself” (Ps. xxvi); His flagellation is portrayed in the description of the man of sorrows (Isaiah 52:13; 53:12) and the words “scourges were gathered together upon me” (Ps. xxxiv); the betrayer’s evil lot is pictured in the imprecations of Psalm cviii; the crucifixion is referred to in the passages “What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands?” (Zechariah 13), “Let us condemn him to a most shameful death” (Wisdom 2), and “They have dug my hands and my feet” (Ps. xxi); the miraculous darkness occurs. in Amos, viii; the gall and vinegar are spoken of in Ps. lxviii; the pierced heart of Christ is foreshadowed in Zach., xii. The sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 21:1-14), the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:1-28), the ashes of purification (Numbers 19:1-10), and the brazen serpent (Numbers 21:4-9) hold a prominent place among the types prefiguring the suffering Messias. The third chapter of Lamentations is justly considered as the dirge of our buried Redeemer.
(8) Finally, the glory of the Messias has been foretold by the Prophets of the Old Testament. The context of such phrases as “I have risen because the Lord hath protected me” (Ps. iii), “My flesh shall rest in hope (Ps. xv), “On the third day he will raise us up” (Hosea 5:15, 6:3), “O death, I will be thy death” (Hosea 13:6-15a), and “I know that my Redeemer liveth” (Job 19:23-27) referred the devout Jewish worshipper to something more than a merely earthly restoration, the fulfilment of which began to be realized in the Resurrection of Christ. This mystery is also implied, at least typically, in the first fruits of the harvest (Leviticus 23:9-14) and the delivery of Jonas from the belly of the fish (Jonah 2). Nor is the Resurrection of the Messias the only element of Christ’s glory predicted by the Prophets. Ps. lxvii refers to the Ascension; Joel, ii, 28-32, to the coming of the Paraclete; Is., Ix, to the call of the Gentiles; Mich., iv, 1-7, to the conversion of the Synagogue; Dan., ii, 27-47, to the kingdom of the Messias as compared with the kingdom of the world. Other characteristics of the Messianic kingdom are typified by the tabernacle (Exodus 25:8-9; 29:43; 40:33-36; Numbers 9:15-23), the mercy-seat (Exodus 25:17-22; Psalm 79:1), Aaron the high priest (Exodus 28:1; 30:1; 10; Numbers 16:39-40), the manna (Exodus 16:1-15; Psalm 77:24-25), and the rock of Horeb (Exodus 17:5-7; Numbers 20:10-11; Psalm 104:41). A Canticle of thanksgiving for the Messianic benefits is found in Is., xii.
The Books of the Old Testament are not the only source from which the Christian theologian may learn the Messianic ideas of pre-Christian Jewry. The Sibylline oracles, the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Psalms of Solomon, the Ascensio Moysis, the Revelation of Baruch, the Fourth Book of Esdras, and several Talmudic and Rabbinic writings are rich depositories of pre-Christian views concerning the expected Messias. Not that all of these works were written before the coming of Christ; but, though partially post-Christian in their authorship, they preserve a picture of the Jewish world of thought, dating back, at least in its outline, centuries before the coming of Christ.
NEW TESTAMENT
Some modern writers tell us that there are two Christs, as it were, the Messias of faith and the Jesus of history. They regard the Lord and Christ, Whom God exalted by raising Him from the dead, as the subject of Christian faith; and Jesus of Nazareth, the preacher and worker of miracles, as the theme of the historian. They assure us that it is quite impossible to persuade even the least experienced critic that Jesus taught, in formal terms and at one and the same time, the Christology of Paul, that of John, and the doctrines of Nicæa, of Ephesus, and of Chalcedon. Otherwise the history of the first Christian centuries appears to these writers to be quite inconceivable. The Fourth Gospel is said to lack the data which underlie the definitions of the first ecumenical councils and to supply testimony that is not a supplement, but a corrective, of the portrait of Jesus drawn by the Synoptics. These two accounts of the Christ are represented as mutually exclusive: if Jesus spoke and acted as He speaks and acts in the Synoptic Gospels, then He cannot have spoken and acted as He is reported by St. John. We shall here briefly review the Christology of St. Paul, of the Catholic Epistles, of the Fourth Gospel, and the Synoptics. Thus we shall give the reader a complete Christology of the New Testament and at the same time the data necessary to control the contentions of the Modernists. The Christology will not, however, be complete in the sense that it extends to all the details concerning Jesus Christ taught in the New Testament, but in the sense that it gives His essential characteristics taught in the whole of the New Testament.
(1) Pauline Christology
St. Paul insists on the truth of Christ’s real humanity and Divinity, in spite of the fact that at first sight the reader is confronted with three objects in the Apostle’s writings: God, the human world, and the Mediator. But then the latter is both Divine and human, both God and man.
(a) Christ’s Humanity in the Pauline Epistles
The expressions “form of a servant”, “in habit found as a man”, “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Philippians 2:7; Romans 8:3) may seem to impair the real humanity of Christ in the Pauline teaching. But in reality they only describe a mode of being or hint at the presence of a higher nature in Christ not seen by the senses, or they contrast Christ’s human nature with the nature of that sinful race to which it belongs. On the other hand the Apostle plainly speaks of Our Lord manifested in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16), as possessing a body of flesh (Colossians 1:22), as being “made of a woman” (Galatians 4:4), as being born of the seed of David according to the flesh (Romans 1:3), as belonging according to the flesh to the race of Israel (Romans 9:5). As a Jew, Jesus Christ was born under the Law (Galatians 4:4). The Apostle dwells with emphasis on Our Lord’s real share in our physical human weakness (2 Corinthians 13:4), on His life of suffering (Hebrews 5:8) reaching its climax in the Passion (ibid., 1:5; Philippians 3:10; Colossians 1:24). Only in two respects did Our Lord’s humanity differ from the rest of men: first in its entire sinlessness (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 2:17; Romans 7:3); secondly, in the fact that Our Lord was the second Adam, representing the whole human race (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49).
(b) Christ’s Divinity in the Pauline Epistles
According to St. Paul, the superiority of the Christian revelation over all other Divine manifestations, and the perfection of the New Covenant with its sacrifice and priesthood, are derived from the fact that Christ is the Son of God (Hebrews 1:1 sq.; 5:5 sq.; 2:5 sq.; Romans 1:3; Galatians 4:4; Ephesians 4:13; Colossians 1:12 sq.; 2:9 sq.; etc.). The Apostle understands by the expression “Son of God” not a merely moral dignity, or a merely external relation to God which began in time, but an eternal and immanent relation of Christ to the Father. He contrasts Christ with, and finds Him superior to, Aaron and his successors, Moses and the Prophets (Hebrews 5:4; 10:11; 7:1-22; 3:1-6; 1:1). He raises Christ above the choirs of angels, and makes Him their Lord and Master (Hebrews 1:3; 14; 2:2-3), and seats Him as heir of all things at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 1:2-3; Galatians 4:14; Ephesians 1:20-21). If St. Paul is obliged to use the terms “form of God”, “image of God”, when he speaks of Christ’s Divinity, in order to show the personal distinction between the Eternal Father and the Divine Son (Philippians 2:6; Colossians 1:15), Christ is not merely the image and glory of God (1 Corinthians 11:7), but also the first-born before any created beings (Colossians 1:15), in Whom, and by Whom, and for Whom all things were made (Colossians 1:16), in Whom the fulness of the Godhead resides with that actual reality which we attach to the presence of the material bodies perceptible and measurable through the organs of our senses (Colossians 2:9), in a word, “who is over all things, God blessed for ever” (Romans 9:5).
(2) Christology of the Catholic Epistles
The Epistles of St. John will be considered together with the other writings of the same Apostle in the next paragraph. Under the present heading we shall briefly indicate the views concerning Christ held by the Apostles St. James, St. Peter, and St. Jude.
(a) The Epistle of St. James
The mainly practical scope of the Epistle of St. James does not lead us to expect that Our Lord’s Divinity would be formally expressed in it as a doctrine of faith. This doctrine is, however, implied in the language of the inspired writer. He professes to stand in the same relation to Jesus Christ as to God, being the servant of both (i, 1): he applies the same term to the God of the Old Testament as to Jesus Christ (passim). Jesus Christ is both the sovereign judge and independent lawgiver, who can save and can destroy (iv, 12); the faith in Jesus Christ is faith in the lord of Glory (ii, 1). The language of St. James would be exaggerated and overstrained on any other supposition than the writer’s firm belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
(b) Belief of St. Peter
St. Peter presents himself as the servant and the apostle of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:1; 2 Peter 1:1), who was predicted by the Prophets of the Old Testament in such a way that the Prophets themselves were Christ’s own servants, heralds, and organs (1 Peter 1:10-11). It is the pre-existent Christ who moulds the utterances of Israel’s Prophets to proclaim their anticipations of His advent. St. Peter had witnessed the glory of Jesus in the Transfiguration (2 Peter 1:16); he appears to take pleasure in multiplying His titles: Jesus Our Lord (2 Peter 1:2), our Lord Jesus Christ (ibid., i, 14, 16), the Lord and Saviour (ibid., iii, 2), our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (ibid., i, 1), Whose power is Divine (ibid., i, 3), through whose promises Christians are made partakers of the nature of God (ibid., i, 4). Throughout his Epistle, therefore, St. Peter feels, as it were, and implies the Divinity of Jesus Christ.
(c) Epistle of St. Jude
St. Jude, too, introduces himself as the servant of Jesus Christ, through union with whom Christians are kept in a life of faith and holiness (1); Christ is our only Lord and Saviour (4), Who punished Israel in the wilderness and the rebel angels (5), Who will come to judgment surrounded by myriads of saints (14), and to Whom Christians look for the mercy which He will show them at His coming (21), the issue of which will be life everlasting. Can a merely human Christ be the subject of this language?
(3) Johannean Christology
If there were nothing else in the New Testament to prove the Divinity of Christ, the first fourteen verses in the Fourth Gospel would suffice to convince a believer in the Bible of that dogma. Now the doctrine of this prologue is the fundamental idea of the whole Johannean theology. The Word made flesh is the same with the Word Who was in the beginning, on the one hand, and with the man Jesus Christ, the subject of the Fourth Gospel on the other. The whole Gospel is a history of the Eternal Word dwelling in human nature among men.
The teaching of the Fourth Gospel is also found in the Johannean Epistles. In his very opening words the writer tells his readers that the Word of life has become manifest and that the Apostles had seen and heard and handled the Word incarnate. The denial of the Son implies the loss of the Father (1 John 2:23), and “whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him and he in God” (ibid., iv, 15). Towards the end of the Epistle the writer is still more emphatic: “And we know that the Son of God is come: and he hath given us understanding that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son. This is the true God and life eternal” (ibid., v, 20).
According to the Apocalypse, Christ is the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, the eternal and the almighty (i, 8; xxi, 6; xxii, 13). He is the king of kings and lord of lords (xix, 16), the lord of the unseen world (xii, 10; xiii, 8), the centre of the court of heaven (v, 6); He receives the adoration of the highest angels (v, 8), and as the object of that uninterrupted worship (v, 12), )He is associated with the Father (v, 13; xvii, 14).
(4) Christology of the Synoptists
There is a real difference between the first three Evangelists and St. John in their respective representations of our Lord. The truth presented by these writers may be the same, but they view it from different standpoints. The three Synoptists set forth the humanity of Christ in its obedience to the law, in its power over nature, and in its tenderness for the weak and afflicted; the fourth Gospel sets forth the life of Christ not in any of the aspects which belong to it as human, but as being the adequate expression of the glory of the Divine Person, manifested to men under a visible form. But in spite of this difference, the Synoptists by their suggestive implication practically anticipate the teaching of the Fourth Gospel. This suggestion is implied, first, in the Synoptic use of the title Son of God as applied to Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son of God, not merely in an ethical or theocratic sense, not merely as one among many sons, but He is the only, the well-beloved Son of the Father, so that His son-ship is unshared by any other, and is absolutely unique (Matthew 3:17, 17:5; 22:41; cf. 4:3, 6; Luke 4:3, 9); it is derived from the fact that the Holy Ghost was to come upon Mary, and the power of the Most High was to overshadow her (Luke 1:35). Again, the Synoptists imply Christ’s Divinity in their history of His nativity and its accompanying circumstances; He is conceived of the Holy Ghost (Luke, 1, 35), and His mother knows that all generations shall call her blessed, because the mighty one had done great things unto her (Luke 1:48). Elisabeth calls Mary blessed among women, blesses the fruit of her womb, and marvels that she herself should be visited by the mother of her Lord (Luke 1:42-43). Gabriel greets Our Lady as full of grace, and blessed among women; her Son will be great, He will be called the Son of the Most High, and of His kingdom there will be no end (Luke 1:28, 32). As new-born infant, Christ is adored by the shepherds and the Magi, representatives of the Jewish and the Gentile world. Simeon sees in the child his Lord’s salvation, the light of the Gentiles, and the pride and glory of his people Israel (Luke 2:30-32). These accounts hardly fit in with the limits of a merely human child, but they become intelligible in the light of the Fourth Gospel.
The Synoptists agree with the teaching of the Fourth Gospel concerning the person of Jesus Christ not merely in their use of the term Son of God and in their accounts of Christ’s birth with its surrounding details, but also in their narratives of Our Lord’s doctrine, life, and work. The very term Son of Man, which they often apply to Christ, is used in such a way that it shows in Jesus Christ a self-consciousness for which the human element is not something primary, but something secondary and superinduced. Often Christ is simply called Son (Matthew 11:27; 28:20), and correspondingly He never calls the Father “our” Father, but “my” Father (Matthew 18:10, 19, 35; 20:23; 26:53). At His baptism and transfiguration He receives witness from heaven to His Divine Son-ship; the Prophets of the Old Testament are not rivals, but servants in comparison with Him (Matthew 21:34); hence the title Son of Man implies a nature to which Christ’s humanity was an accessory. Again, Christ claims the power to forgive sins and supports His claim by miracles (Matthew 9:2-6; Luke 5:20, 24); He insists on faith in Himself (Matthew 16:16, 17), He inserts His name in the baptismal formula between that of the Father and the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19), He alone knows the Father and is known by the Father alone (Matthew 11:27), He institutes the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19), He suffers and dies only to rise again the third day (Matthew 20:19; Mark 10:34; Luke 18:33) He ascends into Heaven, but declares that He will be among us till the end of the world (Matthew 28:20).
Need we add that Christ’s claims to the most exalted dignity of His person are unmistakably clear in the eschatological discourses of the Synoptists? He is the Lord of the material and moral universe; as supreme lawgiver He revises all other legislation; as final judge He determines the fate of all. Blot the Fourth Gospel out of the Canon of the New Testament, and you still have in the Synoptic Gospels the identical doctrine concerning the person of Jesus Christ which we now draw out of the Four Gospels; some points of the doctrine might be less clearly stated than they are now, but they would remain substantially the same.
CHRISTIAN TRADITION
Biblical Christology shows that one and the same Jesus Christ is both God and man. While Christian tradition has always maintained this triple thesis that Jesus Christ is truly man, that He is truly God, and that the Godman, Jesus Christ, is one and the same person the heretical or erroneous tenets of various religious leaders have forced the Church to insist more expressly now on the one, now on another element of her Christology. A classified list of the principal errors and of the subsequent ecclesiastical utterances will show the historical development of the Church’s doctrine with sufficient clearness. The reader will find a more lengthy account of the principal heresies and councils under their respective headings.
(1) Humanity of Christ
The true humanity of Jesus Christ was denied even in the earliest ages of the Church. The Docetist Marcion and the Priscillianists grant to Jesus only an apparent body; the Valentinians, a body brought down from Heaven. The followers of Apollinaris deny either that Jesus had any human soul at all, or that He possessed the higher part of the human soul, they maintain that the Word supplies either the whole soul in Christ, or at least its higher faculties. In more recent times it is not so much Christ’s true humanity as His real manhood that is denied. According to Kant the Christian creed deals with the ideal, not with the historical Jesus; according to Jacobi, it worships Jesus not as an historical person, but as a religious ideal; according to Fichte there exists an absolute unity between God and man, and Jesus was the first to see and teach it; according to Schelling, the incarnation is an eternal fact, which happened to reach in Jesus its highest point, according to Hegel, Christ is not the actual incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth but the symbol of God’s incarnation in humanity at large. Finally, certain recent Catholic writers distinguish between the Christ of history and the Christ of faith, thus destroying in the Christ of faith His historical reality. The New Syllabus (Proposit, 29 sq.) and the Encyclical “Pascendi dominici gregis” may be consulted on these errors.
(2) The Divinity of Christ
Even in Apostolic times the Church regarded a denial of Christ’s Divinity as eminently anti-Christian (1 John 2:22-23; 4:3; 2 John 7). The early martyrs, the most ancient Fathers, and the first ecclesiastical liturgies agree in their profession of Christ’s Divinity. Still, the Ebionites, the Theodotians, the Artemonites, and the Photinians looked upon Christ either as a mere man, though singularly enlightened by Divine wisdom, or as the appearance of an æon emanating from the Divine Being according to the Gnostic theory; or again as a manifestation of the Divine Being such as the Theistic and Pantheistic Sabellians and Patripassians admitted; or, finally, as the incarnate Word indeed, but the Word conceived after the Arian manner as a creature mediating between God and the world, at least not essentially identical with the Father and the Holy Ghost. Though the definitions of Nice and of the subsequent councils, especially of the Fourth Lateran, deal directly with the doctrine concerning the Most Holy Trinity, still they also teach that the Word is consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and thus establish the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the Word incarnate. In more recent times, our earliest Rationalists endeavoured to avoid the problem of Jesus Christ; they had little to say of him, while they made St. Paul the founder of the Church. But the historical Christ was too impressive a figure to be long neglected. It is all the more to be regretted that in recent times a practical denial of Christ’s Divinity is not confined to the Socinians and such writers as Ewald and Schleiermacher. Others who profess to be believing Christians see in Christ the perfect revelation of God, the true head and lord of the human race, but, after all, they end with Pilate’s words, “Behold, the man”.
(3) Hypostatic Union
His human nature and His Divine nature are in Jesus Christ united hypostatically, i.e. united in the hypostasis or the person of the Word. This dogma too has found bitter opponents from the earliest times of the Church. Nestorius and his followers admitted in Christ one moral person, as a human society forms one moral person; but this moral person results from the union of two physical persons, just as there are two natures in Christ. These two persons are united, not physically, but morally, by means of grace. The heresy of Nestorius was condemned by Celestine I in the Roman Synod of A. D. 430 and by the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, the Catholic doctrine was again insisted on in the Council of Chalcedon and the second Council of Constantinople. It follows that the Divine and the human nature are physically united in Christ. The Monophysites, therefore, believed that in this physical union either the human nature was absorbed by the Divine, according to the views of Eutyches; or that the Divine nature was absorbed by the human; or, again, that out of the physical union of the two resulted a third nature by a kind of physical mixture, as it were, or at least by means of their physical composition. The true Catholic doctrine was upheld by Pope Leo the Great, the Council of Chalcedon, and the Fifth Ecumenical Council, A.D. 553. The twelfth canon of the last-named council excludes also the view that Christ’s moral life developed gradually, attaining its completion only after the Resurrection. The Adoptionists renewed Nestorianism in part because they considered the Word as the natural Son of God, and the man Christ as a servant or an adopted son of God, thus granting its own personality to Christ’s human nature. This opinion was rejected by Pope Adrian I, the Synod of Ratisbon, A.D. 782, the Council of Frankfort (794), and by Leo III in the Roman Synod (799). There is no need to point out that the human nature of Christ is not united with the Word, according to the Socinian and rationalistic views. Dorner shows how widespread among Protestants these views are, since there is hardly a Protestant theologian of note who refuses its own personality to the human nature of Christ. Among Catholics, Berruyer and Günther reintroduced a modified Nestorianism; but they were censured by the Congregation of the Index (17 April, 1755) and by Pope Pius IX (15 Jan., 1857). The Monophysite heresy was renewed by the Monothelites, admitting only one will in Christ and thus contradicting the teaching of Popes Martin I and Agatho and of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Both the schismatic Greeks and the Reformers of the sixteenth century wished to retain the traditional doctrine concerning the Word Incarnate; but even the earliest followers of the Reformers fell into errors involving both the Nestorian and the Monophysite heresies. The Ubiquitarians, for example, find the essence of the Incarnation not in the assumption of human nature by the Word, but in the divinization of human nature by sharing the properties of the Divine nature. The subsequent Protestant theologians drifted away farther still from the views of Christian tradition; Christ for them was the sage of Nazareth, perhaps even the greatest of the Prophets, whose Biblical record, half myth and half history, is nothing but the expression of a popular idea of human perfection. The Catholic writers whose views were derogatory either to the historical character of the Biblical account of the life of Christ or to his prerogatives as the God-man have been censured in the new Syllabus and the Encyclical “Pascendi dorninici gregis”.
———————————–
For Christology consult the following:
Patristic Works: ATHANASIUS, GREGORY NAZIANZUS, GREGORY OF NYSSA, BASIL, EPIPHANIUS wrote especially against the followers of Arius and Apollinaris; CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, PROCLUS, LEONTIUS BYZANTINUS, ANASTASIUS SINAITA, EULOGIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, PETER CHRYSOLOGUS, FULGENTIUS, opposing the Nestorians and Monophysites; SOPHRONIUS, MAXIMUS, JOHN DAMASCENE, the Monothelites; PAULINUS OF AQUILEIA, ETHERIUS, ALCUIN, AGOBARDUS, the Adoptionists. See P. G. and P. L.
Scholastic writers: ST. THOMAS, Summa theol., III, QQ. I-lix; IDEM, Summa contra gentes, IV, xxvii-lv; In III Sentent.; De veritate, QQ. xx, xxix; Compend, theol., QQ. cxcix-ccxlii; Opusc., 2; etc.; BONAVENTURE, Breviloquium, 1, 4; In III Sentent.; BELLARMINE, De Christo capite totius ecclesioe controvers., I, col. 1619; SUAREZ, De Incarn., opp. XIV, XV; LUGO, De lncarn., op. III.
Positive Theologians: PETAVIUS, Theol. dogmat., IV, 1-2; THOMASSIN, De Incarn., dogm. theol., III, IV.
Recent Writers: FRANZELIN, De Verbo Incarn. (Rome, 1874); KLEUTGEN, Theologie der Vorzeit, III (Münster, 1873); JUNGMANN, De Verbo incarnato (Ratisbon, 1872); HURTER, Theologia dogmatica, II, tract. vii (Innsbruck, 1882); STENTRUP, Proelectiones dogmaticoe de Verbo incarnato (2 vols., Innsbruck, 1882); LIDDON, The Divinity of Our Lord (London, 1885); MAAS, Christ in Type and Prophecy (2 vols., New York, 1893-96); LEPIN, Jésus Messie et Fils de Dieu (Paris, 1904). See also recent works on the life of Christ, and the principal commentaries on the Biblical passages cited in this article.
For all other parts of dogmatic theology see bibliography at the end of this section (I.).
A.J. MAAS Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIVCopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Christology
a word, of comparatively recent origin in theological science, now used to denote the doctrine of or concerning Christ. Trench (Study of Words) finds it in use in one or two cases among the English divines of the 17th century. Owen gave the title X to his treatise on the Person of Christ (Owen’s Works, Russell’s ed. 1826, vol. 11). Flemning’s Christology (Lond. 1705-8, 3 vols. 8vo), contains (1) general view of Christology; (2) concerning Christ as the Logos; (3) concerning Christ as he is Logos made man. The word has only been common in English theology within the last twenty years; and both the common use of the term and the special treatment of the subject are due to German theologians within the present century.
As to the scope of Christology, and its proper place in systematic theology, some writers include under it all that relates to thee history, the person, and the work of Christ. Hase (Evangel-protest. Dogmatik) makes Christology the second chief division of Dogmatics, and includes under it not only the person and work of Christ as commonly defined, but also Christ in the Church, the sacraments, etc. Coquerel (Christologie, Paris, 1858, 2 vols. 12mo) gives the following definition: “Une Christologie est une tude de la personne ou de la nature de Jesus Christ, de ses rapports avec Dieu et avec l’humanit, ainsi que de son oeuvre en ce monde” (p. 1). Christology and Soteriology are closely related to each other. Some writers (e.g. Pelt) include the former under the latter. Kling includes under Christology both the person and the work of Christ; it is impossible, he says, to separate them, because Christ is the Savior of men in virtue of what he is in his divine human person, and this person is necessary to the accomplishment of the work (Herzog, Real-Encyklopdie, 2:683). The latest tendency appears to be to confine the word Christology more strictly to the doctrine of the person of Christ, leaving his work to be treated separately, though in close and vital connection with his person. (So Hagenbach, History of Doctrines; Shedd, History of Doctrines; Beck, Dogmengeschichte, etc.) In this article we confine ourselves to this narrower use of the term. The work of Christ (, Joh 4:34; Joh 17:4, rendered in the Latin Church munus, officium) is treated under the heads SEE CHRIST, OFFICES OF; ATONEMENT; SEE INTERCESSION; SEE JUSTIFICATION; SEE REDEMPTION; SEE SAVIOR.
The doctrine of the person of Christ is the central doctrine of Christianity. Our view of the whole character and issues of his redemption, and consequently our whole system of thought, both theological and ethical, depends upon our view of the person of Christ. The Church has always, with a sure instinct, understood the fundamental importance of this doctrine; but after the settlement of the early disputes by the Council of Chalcedon (see below), the discussion of other topics (e.g. sin, grace, and predestination), especially in the Western Church, became necessary, and Christology was apparently thrown into the background. So, at a later period, the discussions concerning the atoning work of Christ, and of the merits of his death, took precedence of that of his person. But all classes of orthodox theologians, in all communions, have held to the fundamental importance of Christology; and with the subsidence of what may be called minor discussions, Christology has of late assumed new prominence. The Puritan theology, no less than the so-called sacramental theology, holds that Christ is the center of the Christian system. So Flavel: “The knowledge of Christ is the very marrow and kernel of all the Scriptures, the scope and center of all divine revelations; both Testaments meet in Christ. The right knowledge of Christ, like a clew, leads you through the whole labyrinth of the Scriptures” (Fountain, of Life opened up, Serm. 1). Liebner, a modern German divine, expresses the same thought in more scientific form (Christologie, Gttingen, 1849): “The question, What do. you think of Christ: whose son is he? has become again, in its full force, the cardinal question of theology; theologians become pre-eminently Christologians; the stone which the (theological) builders had rejected has again, in reality, become the corner.
And there arises again for our age, with peculiar adaptedness for apologetical purposes, that grand and majestic train of Christological truths, from the center of which all is seen in true evangelical fullness, and in the proper evangelical order, up to the doctrine concerning the Triune and only true God, and down to every question connected with Christian ethics. And what here comes to light is, to say it in a few words, the system of all systems. The ancient Church has in sanctified and gigantic speculations laid the foundation; the Church of every succeeding period, when alive to her calling, has continued her efforts in the same direction, and its completion will require the efforts of the Church to the end of days. It is the system of the eternal divine thoughts that are laid down in the facts of revelation, and have been actualized most distinctly in Christ, the only- begotten Son, and which are reproduced by the believer, who by a living faith has received these facts within himself. We shall grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the truth, in whom all riches of wisdom and knowledge are hid, and shall learn to understand and show more clearly that only those views of God, of creation, of the world, of men, of sin and grace, that have their root in the Christological truths, are tenable and victorious; in short, that Christianity embodies all true philosophy as well as all spiritual life.” So, with reference to the theological conflicts of the age, especially in Germany, Dorner remarks: “It is gratifying to see how, in the long conflict between Christianity and reason, the point, on the handling of which the decision of the controversy turns, has become ever more and more distinct to the consciousness.
The energies of all parties engaged in this conflict are gathered ever more and more around the person of Christ, as the central point at which the matter must be determined. The advantage of this is obvious as respects the settlement of this great strife; as in other things, so here, with the right statement of the question, the answer is already half found. It is easy also to see that, in point of fact, all lies in the question whether such a Christ as dwells, if not always in the words, yet ever in the mind of the Church one in whom the perfect personal union of the divine and human appeared historically be necessary and actual. For let us suppose that philosophy could incontrovertibly establish and carry to the conviction of all thoughtful men that the person of a Christ in the sense above set forth is a self- contradiction, and therefore an impossibility, there would be no longer any conflict between Christian theology and philosophy, because with the person of Christ would be abolished the Christian theology, as well as the Christian Church altogether. And, conversely, were it brought under the recognition of philosophy that the idea of an historical as well as an ideal Christ is necessary, and were a speculative construction of the person of Christ once reached, it is clear that philosophy and theology, essentially and intrinsically reconciled, would thenceforward have a common work, or, rather, properly speaking, would have become one, and philosophy would consequently not have relinquished her existence, but confirmed it.” Care is to be taken, however, not to run into the Romanist error of substituting the incarnation for the death of Christ, and of putting aside the work of the Holy Spirit, which is the special life of the present dispensation of grace. The “sacramental” system tends to this by its theory that Christ is present in “the body” in his Church, instead of in his Holy Spirit. SEE HOLY SPIRIT.
The Christology of the Old Testament will be treated under the article MESSIAH. See also the article SEE CHRIST. We here discuss, briefly,
I. The Christology of the N.T.;
II. The Christology of the Church;
III. The principal Christological heresies.
I. CHRISTOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. The older divines generally adduce the passages of the N.T. which treat of the person of Christ under the heads of (1) the Divinity of Christ; (2) the Humanity of Christ. The first class, of passages adduced generally includes those which assert the pre-existence of Christ; then follow passages which ascribe divine functions and attributes to Christ; and, thirdly, those which give him divine titles (comp. Watson, Theol. Institutes, I, ch. 25-32; Hill, Divinity, book 3). The recent discussions as to the origin of the Gospels, and as to the so-called development of doctrine in the N.T., have made it more convenient to state the Christology of the N.T. under the following heads: (1) Christ’s own testimony as to his person, with the doctrine taught by his acts, as recorded in the Gospels, (a) the Synoptists; (b) John; (2) The Christology of the apostles. Pye Smith (Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, books 3, 4) makes the two heads following: 1. The Person of Christ, as taught in the Gospels and in our Lord’s assertions and intimations; 2. The Person of Christ, as taught by the Apostles.
1. The Synoptical Gospels, with the Testimony of Christ as to His Person (see Dorner, Person of Christ, vol. 1, p. 52 sq.; and Schaff, Person of Christ the Miracle of History, p. 115 sq.; both of whom are used in what follows).
(1.) Christ calls himself , Son of God, and this in the highest sense, as implying the divinity of his own person (Mat 26:63; Mat 16:16-17). He is not merely a son of God (as David, the kings of Israel, or the prophets were so styled); not merely one of the sons of God, but The Son, the only, the well-beloved (Mat 3:17; Mat 17:5; Mat 22:42-45). David’s son is David’s Lord. The phrase “Son of God” has three meanings in the synoptical Gospels: (1) What may be called the physical meaning (Mat 1:23; Luk 1:35), because he has this name by nature, and on account of the mode of his birth. Of John it is said, “He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb” (Luk 1:15), where the existence of the person of John precedes the filling with the Holy Ghost. But of Jesus it is said that, because he comes into being through the power of the Holy Ghost (Luk 1:35), because he is conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost (Mat 1:20), and so is from a divine essence, he has the name Son of God (Luk 1:35; Luk 1:32); God with us (Mat 1:23); God has in him redeemed his people (Luk 12:11), yea, all mankind (Luk 2:14; Luk 2:31). And it is not one of the natures that has this name, but the entire person.
But what this is by nature and in itself, that must it become through a truly human development. So far as he verifies and morally realizes this natural divine Sonship, we have (2) the second meaning of the phrase “Son of God,” viz. the ethical sonship (Luk 2:49; Luk 2:52; Luk 4:3; Luk 4:9). That he also, in this sense, perfectly represented the Sonship of God was, for the time preceding this public manifestation, attested by the utterance at his baptism (Mat 3:17). Without the physical sonship as a presupposition, the ethical would be impossible, whereby he is the Holy One of God, the sinless man, come to bring, personally in himself, the divine law into actual manifestation (Mat 5:17); but even on that account, in a perfectly human way, in a progressive manifestation, advancing through conflict (Mat 19:16-17; Mar 10:18; Luk 4:13; Luke 13:49, 50). So (3) without both the physical and the ethical, the official sonship would be impossible; which, conversely, is as naturally and necessarily the end of both the others as the ethical is of the physical. This third meaning of the phrase is, indeed, that commonly attributed to it, as a designation of the Messiah, by his contemporaries; but this will not justify us in reducing the Christian idea of the divine Sonship within the meager limits of the Jewish ideas of the Messiah” (Dorner, vol. 1:52 sq.). SEE MESSIAH;SEE SON OF GOD.
(2.) Christ calls himself also, and most commonly, , Son of Man (about eighty times in all the Gospels. See Englishman’s Greek Concordance, s.v.). The use of this phrase clearly denotes his true and perfect manhood. “But why should Christ use it? Why call himself ‘a man ?’ Is it not because, in the mind of Christ, the sense of human sonship was secondary to that of the divine? But why call himself, not simply man, or the son of a man, but ‘the Son of Man ?’ Is it not because he, being divine, could not be simply a man, like others, imperfect, or even sinful? Does not the phrase, as thus used by Christ, indicate, not simply that there lies in him, of necessity, a perfect equality with others in what is essential to humanity, but also that, at the same time, he corresponds to the ideal conception of man?” (Dorner,. 1. c.). The expression, the Son of Man, while it places Christ, “in one view, on common ground with us, as flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, already indicates, at the same time, that he is more than an ordinary individual; not merely a son of man, like all other descendants of Adam, but the Son of Man; the Man, in the highest sense; the ideal, the universal, the absolute Man; the second Adam, descended from heaven; the Head of a new and superior order of the race, the King of Israel, the Messiah” (Schaff, 1. c.). So also Trench: “He was ‘Son of Man,’ as alone realizing all which in the idea of man was contained, as the second Adam, the head and representative of the race the one true and perfect flower, which ever unfolded itself, of the root and stock of humanity. Claiming this title as his own, he witnessed against opposite poles of error concerning his person the Ebionite, to which the exclusive use of the title, ‘Son of David,’ might have led, and the Gnostic, which denied the reality of the human nature that bore it.” Notes on the Parables, 9th Lond. ed. p. 84. (Mat 9:27; Mat 15:22; Mat 12:23; Mat 22:41 sq., etc.)
“The appellation the Son of Man does not express, then, as many suppose, the humiliation and condescension of Christ simply, but his elevation rather above the ordinary level, and the actualization, in him and through him, of the ideal standard of human nature under its moral and religious aspect, or in its relation to God. This interpretation is suggested grammatically by the use of the definite article, and historically by the origin of the term in Dan 7:13, where it signifies the Messiah, as the head of a universal and eternal kingdom. It commends itself, moreover, at once, as the most natural and significant, in such passages as, ‘The Son of Man hath power to forgive sins’ (Mat 9:6; Mar 2:10); ‘The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath day’ (Mat 12:8; Mar 2:28); ‘The Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father;’ ‘The Son of Man is come to save’ (Mat 18:11; comp. Luk 19:10). Even those passages which are quoted for the opposite view receive, in our interpretation, a greater force and beauty from the sublime contrast which places the voluntary condescension and humility of Christ in the most striking light, as when he says, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head’ (Luk 9:58); or, ‘Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant; even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many’ (Mat 20:27-28).
Thus the manhood of Christ, rising far above all ordinary manhood, though freely coming down to its lowest ranks with the view to their elevation and redemption, is already the portal of his Godhead.” (Schaff, Person of Christ, 113 sq.). Christ also, in many passages, calls himself simply “The Son,” who stands to the Father in relations so peculiar that he never calls God “Our Father,” as he directs his followers to do, but “My Father,” from whom he received witness at the Transfiguration as the only and well-beloved Son. Among the acts ascribed to Christ in the synoptical Gospels (leaving out his miracles), one of the most significant is the forgiveness of sins, which he claims as his attribute as the “Son of Man” (Mat 9:2; Mat 9:6; Luk 5:20; Luk 5:24); and which the Pharisees considered blasphemous, as well they might, if Christ had been simply man. In instituting the rite of baptism, he puts his own title, “Son,” along with that of the Father and of the Holy Ghost. Further, he ascribes to himself a power infinitely beyond the human, and in this respect puts himself on an equality with God (Luk 10:22; Mat 28:18) (Dorner, 1. c.). SEE SON OF MAN.
2. John’s Gospel. Here it is not necessary to dilate as with regard to the Synoptical Gospels, inasmuch as in St. John the Christological doctrine takes a more definite, if not more scientific form, and its teaching is not matter of dispute, at least to the same extent. John’s Gospel teaches the pre-existence of Christ. “It ascribes to the Son not merely a moral, but an essential divinity; a not merely economical, but an ontological or metaphysical relation to the Father. It also teaches the true manhood of Christ, and its perfect historical reality; and, finally, that the Son, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, complete the end of creation in the reconciliation of man with God (Joh 1:1-2; Joh 1:14; Joh 1:18 [comp. Joh 17:2]; Joh 1:32; Joh 1:34; Joh 1:51; Joh 4:6; Joh 5:26-27; Joh 6:53; Joh 8:16; Joh 10:15; Joh 10:33; Joh 12:34; Joh 14:23; Joh 19:26; Joh 19:30; Joh 20:17)” (Dorner, 1. c.; Bloomfield, Five Lectures on the Gospel of St. John [1823, 12mo]; Sadler, Emmanuel, ch. 1, 3 [Lond. 1867, 8vo]).
3. The Apostles.
(1) St. Paul gives his testimony both as to the divinity and the humanity of Christ, his sonship and his Messianic work, as fully as St. John, especially setting forth the purely Christian idea of the Messiah (Rom 1:3; Rom 5:6-10; Rom 6:3-10; Rom 9:5; Rom 8:3; 1Co 2:7; 1Co 8:6; 1Co 10:16; 1Co 15:3-8 [comp. Act 22:8-10]; 1Co 15:47 [1Co 3:13-18; 2Co 5:16-19]; Gal 4:4-5; Eph 1:20-23; Php 2:6-10; Col 1:15-17, etc.; comp. Heb 1:6; Heb 1:10-12). The testimony of Paul is well stated by Sadler, Emmanuel, ch. 1, 2. See also Dorner, 1:51.
(2) The Epistle of James has been called an Ebionitish Gospel, as if its Christology were of a lower type. But James evidently presupposes the faith, as the groundwork of the ethical teaching which is the main object of his epistle. He calls Christ “our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory” (Jam 2:1), in which passage the royal function of Christ is expressly set forth, as also in his second coming to judgment (Jam 5:7-9; comp. Jam 4:12).
(3) “The discourses of Peter in the Acts, having for their object the establishment of the faith among unbelievers, all present the Christology as their centerpoint, yet rather in the Old Testament form. For instance, the appellation ‘Servant of God, , is taken from the prophets, and also the assertion of the anointing with the Holy Ghost. As respects particulars, the fortunes of Christ are, according to Peter, predicted by the prophets (Act 1:16; Act 2:16; Act 2:34; Act 3:18; Act 3:22-26; Act 10:34; 1Pe 2:7; 1Pe 2:22-25; 1Pe 1:10), as well as the outpouring of the Holy Ghost (Act 2:16; Act 2:23; Act 2:31; Act 1:16). Christ himself is anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power (Act 10:38); by God is made both Lord and Christ (Act 2:36), as God hath glorified him (Act 3:13), appointed him to be Prince and Savior, the Judge of the living and the dead. Here everything, in accordance with the historical starting-point, proceeds from the humiliation of Christ; but the end at which this representation aims from the first is, that He is the Prince of Life (Act 3:15), whom the bonds of death could not hold; who has gone up into heaven (Act 2:33), and is now Lord of all (Act 10:38-42).” In the epistles of Peter it is not only the case, as in the Acts, that the life and death of Christ are spoken of as fulfilling the O.T., but the O.T. dispensation is made to look to and depend on Christianity (1Pe 1:10-11). “In the prophets the was operative; it wrought in them its own preparation, foretelling the grace in Christ, his sufferings, and the glory that should follow. In Christ are we chosen from eternity (1Pe 1:2); we are eternally contemplated by the Father as standing in the sanctification of the spirit; as destined for obedience and for purifying, through the blood of Jesus Christ (1Pe 1:20). As respects the historical appearance of Christ, there is ascribed to him true manhood (1Pe 3:18; 1Pe 4:1). Thus the epistle is as far from Docetism as from Ebionitism.
Jude places Christ along with the Father in the formula of salutation (Jud 1:2) and in the doxology (Jud 1:24-25); the being kept in the true and most holy faith (Jud 1:20) is a being preserved in Christ Jesus (Jud 1:1; Jud 1:3) and in the Holy Ghost (Jud 1:20). The persons whom Jude opposes are not merely such as have practically swerved from the right way (Jud 1:8; Jud 1:15); they are also teachers of error, because they deny the only God and our Lord Jesus Christ (Jud 1:4).
The Second Epistle of Peter has more definitely to do with errorists, especially the “heretics” who “deny the Lord that bought them” (2Pe 2:1). To Christ belong (2Pe 1:16), (2Pe 1:3); he is the beloved Son of God, in whom he is well pleased (2Pe 1:17); he is our (2Pe 1:1; 2Pe 1:11, etc.), our Lord (2Pe 1:2; 2Pe 1:8, etc.), who hath an everlasting kingdom (2Pe 1:2), and whose exaltation is not taught in cunningly devised myths, but is attested by the prophets and eye-witnesses (2Pe 1:16; 2Pe 1:18; 2Pe 3:2) (Dorner, 1:72).
On the Christology of the N.T., see, besides the works already cited, Gess, Lehre von der Person Christi (Basel, 1856, 8vo); Sadler, Emmanuel (Lond. 1867, 8vo, especially ch. 1); Schaff, Apostolic Church, 148; Goodwin, Christ the Mediator (Plymouth, 1819, 8vo); Hooker, Ecclesiastes Polity, bk. 5:51; Waterland’s Works (12 vols.), vol. 4, Pye Smith, First Lines of Theology, bk. 2, chap. 4; Gurney, Biblical Notes to Confirm the Deity of Christ (Lond. 1830, 8vo), and the writers generally on the Trinity, on the Divinity of Christ, and the Life of Christ. Prof. Beyschlag, of Halle, in his Christologie des N.T. (Berlin, 1866, 8vo), attempts to show that the N.T. represents Christ as divine, but not as pre- existent, or equal with the Father.
II. CHRISTOLOGY OF THE CHURCH. The doctrine of the person and work of Christ formed the main topic of theological speculation and controversy in the early Church, and is again the most prominent religious problem of modern times. The peculiarity of his Person consists in the perfect union of the divine and human which constitutes him the Mediator between God and man, and the Savior of the fallen race. This has always been the faith of the Christian Church, but in every age it has had to encounter a new enemy, or the old enemy in ever-varying phases, and to achieve new triumphs in the refutation of error and the vindication of truth. The orthodox Christology is derived from the New Testament, especially from St. Paul and St. John (see above), and has gradually been unfolded in sharp conflict with a large number of Christological heresies, each serving to elicit a clearer view of some particular aspect either of the divinity or of the humanity of Christ, or of the union of the two natures. “The person of Jesus Christ in the fullness of its theanthropic life cannot be exhaustively set forth by any formulas of human logic. Even the imperfect, finite personality of man has a mysterious background that escapes the speculative comprehension; how much more, then, the perfect personality of Christ, in which the tremendous antithesis of Creator and creature, infinite and finite, immutable, eternal Being and changing temporal becoming, are harmoniously conjoined! The formulas of orthodoxy can neither beget the faith nor nourish it; they are not the bread and the water of life, but a standard for theological investigation and a rule of public teaching” (Schaff).
The Orthodox Christology is essentially the same in the Greek, Latin, and evangelical Protestant churches. It forms (like the doctrine of the Trinity, so closely connected with it) one of the fundamental bonds of union between the great divisions of Christendom. Yet there have been some new features brought out since the Reformation. We subdivide it into oecumenical, scholastic, and evangelical.
1. The OECUMENICAL or CATHOLIC Christology was prepared in the ante-Nicene age (see Bull’s Defensio fidei Nicaenae), and fully matured in the Nicene and post-Nicene age. The doctrine of the person of Christ, in inseparable connection with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, was the chief problem of theological speculation from the third to the middle of the fifth century, and was settled by the four great ecumenical councils of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451). The first two were mainly concerned with the assertion of the strict divinity of Christ against its partial denial by Arianism and SemiAArianism. The last two set forth the relation of the divine and the human nature of the one person against the opposite extremes of Nestorianism and Eutychianism. The decree of the Council of Ephesus was more negative, a condemnation of Nestorius. But the Council of Chalcedon gave a clear and full statement of the positive doctrine of Christ’s person, and summed up the final result of those deep, earnest, and violent Trinitarian and Christological controversies which had agitated the Church so long.
The Christological symbol of the Chalcedonian or fourth oecumenical Synod of 451 ranks next in authority to the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, and has not been superseded to this day. “It does not aspire to comprehend the Christological mystery, but contents itself with setting forth the facts and establishing the boundaries of orthodox doctrine. It does not mean to preclude further theological discussion, but to guard against such erroneous conceptions as would mutilate either the divine or the human in Christ, or would place the two in a false relation. It is a lighthouse to point out to the ship of Christological speculation the channel between Scylla and Charybdis, and to save it from stranding upon the reefs of Nestorian Dyophysitism, or of Eutychian Monophysitism. As the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity stands midway between Tritheism and Sabellianism, so the Chalcedonian formula strikes the true mean between Nestorianism and Eutychianism. But it contents itself with setting forth, in clear outlines, the final result of the theanthropic process of incarnation, leaving the study of the process itself to scientific theology” (Schaff).
The Chalcedonian symbol is as follows:
“Following the holy fathers, we unanimously teach one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, complete as to his Godhead and complete as to his manhood, truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting: consubstantial with the Father as to his Godhead, and consubstantial also with us as to his manhood; like unto us in all things, yet without sin; as to his Godhead begotten of the Father before all worlds, but as to his manhood, in these last days born, for us men and for our salvation, of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God; one and the same Christ; Son, Lord, Only-begotten, known in (of) two natures [ , in duabus naturis, or, with the present Greek text, , of two natures, which signifies essentially the same thing], without confusion (), without conversion (), without severance (), and without division (); the distinction of the natures being in no wise abolished by their union, but the peculiarity of each nature being maintained, and both concurring in one person and hypostasis. We confess not a Son divided and sundered into two persons, but one and the same Son, and Only begotten, and God- Logos, our Lord Jesus Christ, even as the prophets had before proclaimed concerning him, and he himself hath taught us, and the symbol of the fathers hath handed down to us.” SEE CHALCEDON.
The same doctrine is set forth in a more condensed form in the second part of the so-called Athanasian Creed, which originated probably in the school of Augustine during the fifth century, and is the third of the oecumenical symbols:
“Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that we believe also rightly in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the right faith is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man of God, of the substance of the lather, begotten before the worlds; and man, of the substance of his mother, born in the world. Perfect God; perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead; inferior to the Father as touching his manhood. And although he is God and man, yet he is not two, but one Christ One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by assumption of the manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For as the ransomable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation,” etc.
(For an analysis and criticism of this oecumenical or Catholic Christology, see Shedd’s History of Christian Doctrine, 1:399 sq.; Schaff’s Church History, in, 747762, and the respective sections of the works of Baur, Dorner, and others quoted below.) mainly by Anselm (the author of Cur Deus homo, with his epoch-making theory of the atonement; SEE ANSELM), Peter the Lombard, and Thomas Aquinas. It confined itself, as regards the person of Christ, to a dialectical analysis and defense of the old Catholic dogma, with some unfruitful speculations on minor points, especially on the abstract question whether Christ would have become incarnate if the Fall had not taken place. Thomas Aquinas decided for the former, as the safer formula (si homo non peccasset, Deus incarnatus non fuisset); Ruprecht of Deutz, Duns Scotus, and Alexander Hales for the other view. This question has recently been taken up again and ably discussed by J. Mller against, Doner and Liebner for, the doctrine of Incarnation without a Fall. See Brit. and For. Evang. Review, Jan. 1861, art. 4.
3. The PROTESTANT or EVANGELICAL Christology. The churches of the Reformation, both Lutheran and Reformed or Calvinistic, adopted in their confessions of faith, either in form or in substance, the three oecumenical Creeds (the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian), and with them the ancient Catholic doctrine of the Trinity and Christ’s divine- human character and work, which doctrine is, in fact, the sum and substance of those symbols. We quote from the principal Protestant confessions:
The Augsburg Confession of the Lutheran Church, Art. III. De Filio Dei:
“Item docent, quod Verbutem, hoc est, Filius Dei, assumpserit humanam naturam in utero beatae Mariae virginis, ut sint duos naturae, divina et humana, in unitate personae inseparabiliter conjunctae, unus Christus, vere Deus, et vere homo, natus ex Virgine Maria, vere passus, crucifixus, mortuus et sepultus, ut reconciliaret nobis Patrem, et hostia esset non tantum pro culpa originis, sed etiam pro omnibus actualibus hominum peccatis.”
The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, Art. II. Of the Word or Son of God, which was made very man:
“The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and manhood, were joined very God and very man; who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.”
The Westminster Confession, which gives the clearest and strongest expression to the faith of the strictly Reformed or Calvinistic churches, thus states the doctrine of Christ’s person in ch. 8, 2:
“The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin, being conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance: so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.”
The 2d Article of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the same as that of the Church of England, except that the words “begotten from everlasting of the Father,” and “of her substance,” are omitted (probably by typographical error).
On this general basis of the Chalcedonian Christology, and following the indications of the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, the Lutheran and Reformed churches have built some additional views or developed new aspects of Christ’s person. Protestantism cannot consistently adopt any doctrinal or disciplinary decisions of the Church as strictly infallible and as an absolute finale, but simply with the reservation of the right of further research, and with the understanding of a constant progress in theology not, indeed, of a progress beyond Christ and the Bible, but in the everdeepening apprehension and subjective appropriation of Christ and his infallible word. There is a characteristic difference between the Christology of the Lutheran and that of the Reformed Confessions which affects the whole system. Upon the whole, we may say that the former has a leaning towards the Eutychian confusion of the divine and human nature, the latter to the Nestorian separation; yet both distinctly disown the Eutychian and Nestorian heresies. (On the difference between the Lutheran and Reformed Christology, compare especially the very able and acute treatise of Schneckenburger, Die orthodoxe Lehre vom doppelten Stande Christi nach lutherischer und reformirter Fassung [Pforzheim, 2d ed. 1861]; also his Vergleichende Darstellung d. lutherischen u. reformirten Lehrbegriffs, edited by Gder [Stuttgart, 1855].) The progress made in Christology since the Reformation within the limits of the Chalcedonian orthodoxy, or, at all events, not in conflict with it, relates to the communion of the two natures, and to the states and the offices of Christ.
(a) The doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum, the communication of attributes or properties of one nature to the other or to the whole person. The beginning of it may be found in Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus; but it has been much more fully developed by the Lutheran Church in the interest of her peculiar tenet of the ubiquity of Christ’s body, in order to support Luther’s eucharistic theory of consubstantiation so called. It was embodied in the Formula Concordiae, but has never been adopted in the Reformed or Calvinistic churches. The Lutheran divines distinguish three kinds of the communicatio idiomatum which is derived from the communio naturarum:
(1) genus idiomaticum (or ), whereby the properties of one nature are transferred and applied to the whole person (Rom 1:3; 1Pe 3:18; 1Pe 4:1);
(2) genus apotelesmaticum (), whereby the , i.e. the redemptory functions and actions which belong to the whole person are predicated only of one or the other nature (1Ti 2:5 sq.; Heb 1:2 sq.);
(3) genus auchematicum () or majestaticunm, whereby the human nature is clothed and magnified by the attributes of the divine nature (Joh 3:13; Joh 5:27; Mat 28:18; Mat 28:20; Rom 9:5; Php 2:10).
Under this head the Lutheran Church claims a certain ubiquity or omnipresence for the body of Christ, on the ground of its personal union with the divine nature; yet she makes this ubiquity dependent on the will of Christ, who can be present with his whole person wherever he pleases to be or has promised to be. But for this very reason the Reformed divines reject the whole doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum, and pronounce the propositiones idiomaticae to be mere figures of speech (, a rhetorical exchange of one part for another). SEE COMMUNICATIO IDIOMATUM.
(b) The doctrine of a twofold state of Christ the state of humiliation and the state of exaltation. This is based upon Php 2:5-9, and is no doubt substantially true. The status exinanitionis (humiliationis) embraces the supernatural conception, birth, circumcision, education, earthly life, passion, death, and burial of Christ; the status exaltationis includes the resurrection, ascension, and the sitting at the right hand of God. As to the descent into hell, or Hades rather, the Lutheran and the Reformed churches differ according to their different conceptions of this difficult article in the Apostles’ Creed. The Lutheran Confessions, regarding it as a triumph over hell, make the descensus ad inferos the first stage of the status exaltationis, while the Reformed Confessions view it as the last stage of the status exaltationis. It is properly the turningpoint from the one state to the other, and thus belongs to both. The Lutheran Creed, moreover, refers the two states only to the human nature of Christ, regarding the divine as not susceptible of any humiliation or exaltation. The Reformed symbols refer them to both natures, so that Christ’s human nature was in a state of humiliation as compared with its future exaltation, and his divine nature was in the state of humiliation as to its external manifestation (ratione occultationis). With them the incarnation itself is the beginning of the state of humiliation, while the Lutheran Symbols exclude the incarnation from the humiliation. Between the Lutheran divines of Tiubingen and Giessen there was a controversy in the 17th century about the question whether Christ in the state of humiliation entirely abstained from the use of his divine attributes (), or whether he used them secretly (). The divines of Giessen defended the former, those of Tbingen the latter view. Both schools were agreed as to the possession (), and differed only as to the use (), of the divine attributes. This controversy has been renewed, in a modified form, among recent German divines. SEE KENOSIS.
(c) The threefold office of Christ.
(1) The prophetical office (munus, or officium propheticum) includes teaching and the miracles of Christ.
(2) The priestly office (munus sacerdotale) consists in the satisfaction made for the sins of the world by the death on the cross, and in the continued intercession of the exalted Savior for his people (redemptio et intercessio sacerdotalis).
(3) The kingly office (munus regium), whereby Christ founded his kingdom, defends his Church against all enemies, and rules all things in heaven and on earth. The old divines distinguish between the reign of nature (regnum naturae sive potentiae), which embraces all things; the reign of grace (regnum gratiae), which relates to the church militant on earth; and the reign of glory (regnum gloria), which belongs to the church triumphant in heaven.
4. Modern Christological speculations. Upon the whole, the orthodox doctrine has laid the main stress upon the divine element in Christ, and left the human element more or less out of sight, without ever denying it. Rationalism, on the contrary, developed the human element to the exclusion and denial of the divine. When evangelical theology revived after the reign of Rationalism in Germany; it endeavored to do justice to both elements, and so to reconstruct the old Christology as to set forth the sinless, yet truly human character of Christ from his inifncy to full maturity, without prejudice to his deity. Schleiermacher opened a new era of Christological speculation, but, forsaking the Chalcedonian basis of two natures in one person, he discarded the proper idea of the incarnation as the union of the eternal personal Logos with human nature, and, after all, presented Christ merely as a perfect model man without sin, in whom God dwelt in a peculiar manner, as he did in no other man before or since. This indwelling of God is with him only a principle, a power of life, and not the second person of the Holy Trinity.
Schleiermacher’s view of the Trinity is essentially Sabellian. From him and from Hegel’s philosophy proceeded two opposite currents of Christological speculation a humanitarian, negative and infidel, culminating in Strauss and Renan (see below, under the second division, No. 15), and an evangelical, positive and in the main orthodox, which labors to reconcile the old faith of the Church in the God- Man with the demands and forms of modern thought. The principal evangelical writers on the .Christological problem, under its latest phases, are Dorner, Lange, Goeschel, Liebner, Martensen, Thomasius, Gess, Kahnis, Ebrard. Some of these, especially Thomasius, Gess, and Godet (Commentary on John), have strained the Pauline idea of the kenosis, the self-limitation, self-renunciation of the Logos, far beyond former conceptions, even to a partial or entire selfemptying of the divine essence and suspension of the inner Trinitarian process during the earthly life of Christ, while others restrict the kenosis to the laying aside of the divine form of existence or divine dignity and glory. Dorner opposes these modern Kenotics or Kenosists (Kenotiker) as a new sect of Theopaschites and Patripassians, and he assumes a gradual ethical and vital unification of the pre-existent Logos and the human nature, by a condescension of the former and an elevation of the latter. This view leaves room for the growth of the Messianic consciousness, but makes the incarnation itself a process of growth which was not completed till the resurrection, or at least till the baptism of Christ.
These modern inquiries, however, earnest, profound, and valuable as they are, have not yet led to definite and generally-accepted results. English and American theology have not been affected by them to any considerable extent; Dr. Shedd, in his able though incomplete History of Christian Doctrine, even ignores them altogether, and pronounces the Chalcedonian symbols the ne plus ultra of Christological knowledge, “beyond which it is probable the human mind is unable to go in the, endeavor to unfold the mystery of Christ’s complete person” (1:403). But there certainly have been very important advances made within the last thirty years in the critical history of the life of Christ, and in the manifold exhibition of his perfect humanity, which itself is an overwhelming proof of his divinity. (For a review of the recent Christological speculations, see Dorner, in his large work on the history of Christology, 2:1260 sq., Engl. trans., div. 2d, in, 100 sq., and in several dissertations upon the immutability of God in the Jahrbcher fr Deutsche Theologie, 1856 and 1858; also Woldemar Schmidt, Das Dogma vom Gottmenschen, mit Beziehung auf die neuesten Lsungsversuche der Gegenstze [Leipzig, 1865].)
III. CHRISTOLOGICAL HERESIES. The numerous Christological errors may be divided into three classes, according as they relate either to the divine or to the human nature of Christ, or to the union of the two. Ebionism, Socinianism, and Rationalism, in its various shapes, deny, either in whole or in part, the divinity of Christ; Gnosticism, Manicheism, Apollinarianism, deny, more or less, his real humanity; while Nestorianism, Eutychianism, Monophysitism, and Monotheletism admit the Godhead and manhood of Christ, but place them in a false relation to each other. We present them here in chronological order.
1. EBIONISM (see that article), the earliest Christian heresy, was essentially Jewish, and looked upon Christianity merely as a perfected Judaism, upon the Gospel as a new law, and upon Christ as a second Moses. Origen derived the name of the sect from the poverty of their doctrine of Christ (, poor); but they regarded themselves as the genuine followers of the poor Christ. They held that Jesus was, indeed, the promised Messiah, the Son of David, and the supreme lawgiver of the Church; yet a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and that his death had no atoning efficacy. With this were closely connected other heresies. The pseudo-Clementine Homilies, SEE CLEMENTINES, differ from the ordinary Ebionism by peculiar speculative and semi-Gnostic ideas, and teach that Christ was the last and highest representative of the primitive religion which appeared in the seven pillars of the world, Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Christ. These are, in reality, only different incarnations of the same Adam, or primitive man, the true prophet of God. Christianity and Mosaism are identical, and both coincide with the religion of Adam. Whether a man believe in Moses or Christ is all the same, provided he blaspheme neither. Christianity is an advance only in extending this primitive religion to the Gentiles (comp. Schliemann, Die Clementinen und der Ebionitismus, 1844, p. 362-552).
2. GNOSTICISM, which flourished in the second century (see article), varied in its Christology according to its numerous schools of Cerinthus, Basilides, Valentine, Marcion, etc., and generally dealt more in vague notions and speculative fancies than in solid, clearly-defined doctrines and arguments. But its Christology was a radical denial of the mystery of the incarnation, and therefore anti-Christian, according to the criterion of John (1Jn 4:3), although from a view the very opposite of Ebionism. While the latter denied the divinity of Christ, Gnosticism was docetistic (hence Docetism), i.e. it denied the realness of Christ’s human nature, and resolved it into an empty show and deceptive appearance (, ), or a transient vision, after the manner of the Indian Mythology. The real Christ, or Savior, is one of the aeons or divine powers, which either assumed this spectral form of humanity, or united himself temporarily, at the baptism in Jordan, with the man Jesus of Nazareth, to forsake him again at the passion. But he entered into no real contact with a human body which, as a part of matter (), was retarded as essentially evil and antagonistic to God; he was not actually born, he did not suffer and die, nor rise again. He appeared like a meteor from the sky, to disappear again. Reduced to a modern philosophical conception, the Gnostic Christ is, in the end, nothing more than the ideal spirit of man himself, the Christ of Strauss and modern pantheism. Valentinus, the most ingenious among the Gnostics, distinguished the , or heavenly Christ; the , or Jesus; and the , the Jewish Messiah, who passed through the body of Mary as water through a pipe, and was crucified by the Jews, although, having no material body, he did not actually suffer. With him Soter, the proper redeemer, united himself at the baptism in Jordan, to announce his divine gnosis on earth, and lead spiritual persons to perfection.
3. The MANICHEAN system, which we know best from the writings of St. Augustine (who himself belonged to the sect for nine years, and was thereby better able to refute it), was essentially Gnostic and Docetistic, and by its perverted view of body and matter as essentially evil, wholly excluded the idea of an incarnation of God. The Manichaeans held that the apostles corrupted and falsified the real teachings of Christ, but that Mani, the promised Paraclete, has restored them. Traces of the Manichsan heresy run through a number of sects of the Middle Ages.
4. Ante-Nicene UNITARIANISM, or MONARCHIANISM. The Antitrinitarians of the third century must be divided into two distinct classes:
(a) The rationalistic or dynamic Monarchians denied the divinity of Christ, or explained it as a mere power (), although they generally admitted his supernatural generation by the Holy Spirit. To these belong the ALOGIANS, THEODOTUS and the THEODOTIANS, ARTEMON and the ARTEMONITES, and PAUL OF SAMOSATA. (See the several articles.)
(b) The Patripassians (so called first by Tertullian) held, in connection with their idea of the divine unity or monarchy, the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, but they sacrificed his independent personality to the divinity, and merged it into the essence of the Father, so that the Father was asserted to have suffered and died on the cross, which is absurd. This school was represented by PRAXEAS, NOIETS, CALLISTUS (Pope Callixtus I), BERYLLUS of Bostra, and, in connection with a very original and ingenious doctrine of the Trinity, by SABELLIUS, all of the third century. (See the separate articles on these heretics, and the relevant sections of the Doctrine histories of Minscher, Hagenbach, Neander, Baur, Beck, etc.)
5. ARIANISM, so called after Arius, presbyter of Alexandria ( 336), shook the Church to its very base during the greater part of the fourth century, and called forth the first two oecumenical councils, viz. Nicea, 325, and Constantinople, 381. Its doctrine was, that Christ is a middle being between God and man, a sort of demi-god, who pre-existed before this world, and who created this world, yet was himself created out of nothing, the first creature of God, and consequently of a different essence (-), and not eternal ( , ). Against this view the Nicene Creed asserts that Christ is “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (-) with the Father.” (On the history of ancient and modern Arianism and its literature, comp. the articles ARIANISM in vol. 1, p. 388-393; ATHANASIUS, 1:505-508; also Schaff’s History of the Christian Church, 3:616-670.)
6. SEMI-ARIANISM is an inconsistent middle doctrine between the Arian heresy and the Athanasian or Nicene orthodoxy. It asserts the similarity of Christ to the Father (- a very elastic term), in opposition to the Nicene co-equality (-) and the Arian difference of substance (-). It was a strong political church party, under the emperor Constantius (f 361), and was led by Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, but it disappeared before the second oecumenical council in 381, which marked the final downfall of Arianism within the limits of the Roman empire, while it continued to linger, without vitality, among the barbarians till the seventh century.
7. APOLLINARIANISM is a partial denial of the humanity, as Arianism of the divinity of Christ. Apollinaris the younger, bishop of Laodicea (died about 390), otherwise orthodox, and highly esteemed for his learning and piety, ascribed to Christ a human body () and a human (animal) soul ( ), but not a human spirit or reason ( , anima rationalis, , ); putting the divine Logos in the place of the human reason. He wished to secure a true incarnation and vital unity of the eternal Word with the human nature, but at the expense of the most important constituent in man, and thus he reached, instead of the idea of the God-man, , only the idea of a (the very opposite of the Nestorian ). This heresy was condemned by a council at Alexandria in 362. (For particulars, see art. APOLLINARIS, vol. 1, p. 296, 297; and Schaff, Church History, vol. 3, p. 708-714.) 8. NESTORIANISM, from Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, who died in exile about A.D. 440, had its roots in the Antiochian school of theology, of which Nestorius was a pupil, and agitated the Church with great violence from 428-451. Nestorius believed that Christ was fully God and fully man, but he put the two natures only into an external mechanical relation to each other (, affinity, intercourse, attachment, as distinct from , true interior union). He pressed the distinction of the two natures at the expense of the unity of the person. Hence he took great offense at the term Mother of God (, Deipara, Mater Dei), which then began to be applied to the Virgin Mary, and has since passed into the devotional and theological vocabulary of the Greek and Latin Church. He denounced the term as heathenish, absurd, and blasphemous, since the eternal Godhead could not be born in any sense whatever. This gave rise to the Nestorian controversy, in which the violent Cyril of Alexandria took the most prominent part, as the champion of the honor of the Holy Virgin and the doctrine of a real incarnation, although with a decided leaning to the opposite extreme of Monophysitism. SEE ART. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Nestorius was condemned by the third oecumenical council, held at Ephesus in 431, and deposed from the sacerdotal office; but his name and doctrine are perpetuated to this day in the sect of the Nestorians. ( SEE NESTORIUS and SEE NESTORIANS, and the literature below.)
9. EUTYCHIANISM, so called from Eutyches (q.v.), an aged presbyter and archimandrite of Constantinople (died soon after 451), is the exact counterpart of Nestorianism, and presents the consistent development of the Alexandrian school of theology as opposed to the Antiochian. Eutyches likewise held Christ to be the God-man as well as Nestorius, but he pressed the unity of person to the exclusion of the distinction of the two natures. He denied that two natures could be spoken of after the incarnation. The human nature was absorbed in the divine by that act, or deified by the personal Logos, so that even his body was unlike ours, of a heavenly character and substance (a , but not a ). Hence it was proper to say, God is born, God suffered, God was crucified and died. The strongest opponent of this view was Theodoret, the well-known Church historian, a friend of Nestorius. At first Eutychianism triumphed at the Robber Synod, so called, which was held at Ephesus A.D. 449, under the lead of the violent patriarch Dioscurus of Alexandria, who inherited all the bad and none of the good qualities of his predecessor Cyril. But the fourth oecumenical council, held at Chalcedon (near Constantinople) A.D. 451, reversed this decision, condemned the Eutychian doctrine as heresy, and set forth in clear and precise terms the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ, maintaining with equal decision the distinction of natures against Eutyches, and the unity of person against Nestorius. (See sub. I, 1. above.) In this triumph of the orthodox faith, Leo I, bishop of Rome, had an important share, and his dogmatic letter to Flavian of Constantinople was made the basis of the synodical decision.
10. MONOPHYSITISM is only a modification and continuation of Eutychianism. As the term indicates, the Monophysites, although they rejected the Eutychian notion of an absorption of the human nature into the divine, nevertheless held firmly to the doctrine of but one nature in Christ. They conceded, indeed, a composite nature ( or ), but not two natures. They assumed a diversity of qualities without corresponding substances, and made the humanity of Christ a mere accident of the immutable divine substance. Their liturgical shibboleth was, God has been crucified, which they introduced into the trisagion. ( , , , , an extension of the seraphic ascription, Isa 6:3). Hence they were also called THEOPASCHITES (). The Monophysite controversies commenced soon after the Council of Chalcedon, which failed to pacify the Church, and convulsed the East, from patriarchs and emperors down to monks and peasants, for more than a hundred years. The detailed history will be presented in a special article. The fifth oecumenical council, held at Constantinople A.D. 553, which was to end these violent strifes, resulted in the condemnation of the Antiochian (Nestorian and semi-Nestorian) theology, and a partial victory of the Alexandrian Monophysitism, as far as it could be reconciled with the symbol of Chalcedon. Notwithstanding this concession, the Monophysites, like their antipodes, the Nestorians, continued as separate sects in hostile opposition to the orthodox Greek Church. They are divided into separate branches, the Jacobites in Syria, the Copts in Egypt, the Abyssinians, the Armenians, and the Maronites. (See the respective articles.)
11. The MONOTHELITE controversy is a continuation of the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies, and relates to the question whether Christ had but one will () or two, a divine and a human. Nestorianism, of course, required two wills as a complement of two natures, while the Monophysites taught but one will. The emperor Heraclius proposed a compromise formula one divine human energy ( ), but it was opposed in the West. The sixth eecumenical council in Constantinople, A.D. 680, settled the dispute by teaching the doctrine of two wills harmoniously co-operating, the human will following the divine ( , , ). Thus Monotheletism was condemned, but was adhered to by the Maronites on Mount Lebanon till the time of the Crusades. The Monophysites (q.v.) are all Monothelites (q.v.).
12. The ADOPTIAN controversy arose in Spain toward the close of the eighth century, and turned upon the question whether Christ, according to his human nature, was the Son of God by nature (naturaliter), or only by adoption (nuncupative). The latter doctrine was condemned as heretical in a synod at Frankfort on the Maine, 794. ( SEE ADOPTIANISTS, vol. 1:76, and ELIPANDUS of Toledo and FELIX of Urgel.)
13. SOCINIANISM, a system of ultra and pseudo Protestantism, founded by Llius Socinus (died 1562) and his nephew Faustus Socinus (died 1604), returned almost to the poor and meager Christology of the Ebionites and Nazarenes, and added to it the heathenish notion of an apotheosis of Christ after his death. It teaches that Jesus of Nazareth, though supernaturally conceived, was a mere man, but favored by God with extraordinary revelations, elevated to heaven, deified in reward of his holy life, and entrusted with the government of the Church which he founded. It substitutes for an incarnate divinity a created and delegated divinity. Invocation of Christ is allowed, but not enjoined; it is an adiaphoron. SEE SOCINIANS; SEE SOCINUS.
14. Modern UNITARIANISM in England and America has no uniform and settled belief concerning the person of Christ, and branches out into two very different tendencies, the conservative, represented by Channing, which in its approach towards orthodoxy rises to a sort of high Arianism, and the radical, represented.by the erratic Theodore Parker, which sinks almost to the mythical Christ of Strauss, and sacrifices his sinless perfection, although Parker has some eloquent passages on the superiority of Christ over all other sages. The more serious class of Unitarians make great account of the perfect example of Christ, and Channing’s sermon on the “Character of Christ” (Works, vol. 4, p. 1-29), is one of the noblest tributes to the moral perfection of Jesus of Nazareth. SEE UNITARIANISM.
15. RATIONALISM has assumed different phases, and resorted to various theories concerning the person of Christ, which agree only in the denial of his divinity, and of all the supernatural or miraculous events in his history.
The Wolfenbuittel Fragmentist (Reimarus) represents the hypothesis of willful imposture; Paulus of Heidelberg the hypothesis of innocent delusion, which mistook extraordinary medical cures for supernatural miracles, and an extraordinary man for a divine being; Strauss and Renan, the theory of poetical fiction, the one in its mythical, the other in its legendary form. (Comp. on these different Christological hypotheses, Schaff, The Person of Christ; the Miracle of History, with a Reply to Strauss and Renan, and a Collection of Testimonies of Unbelievers, 1865.) But all these rationalistic attempts, instead of explaining the mystery of Christ’s life, only substitute an unnatural prodigy for a supernatural miracle. They have been tried and found wanting; one has in turn superseded the other, even during the lifetime of their champions. Paulus rejects the hypothesis of Reimarus; Strauss most acutely refutes Paulus; Renan, in part at least, dissents from Strauss; the unprincipled Schenkel makes a half-way approach to both in his insignificant Characterbild Jesu, and is in turn treated with contemptuous scorn and the keenest sarcasm by Strauss. (See Die Halben und die Ganzen, 1865.) The old and ever young faith in the divine-human Redeemer has outlived all these attacks, and is now stronger than ever, the only refuge and comfort of a sinful world. It is in conflict with these latest forms of unbelief that the evangelical theology of Germany has achieved its greatest triumphs and most lasting merits.. France, England, and America have engaged in the battle, and contributed their share towards the defeat of the modern anti-Christ, and the defense of the true Christ of the Gospels and of the Church, on whom the salvation of the world depends.
Literature. Besides the works on special topics already quoted, we mention on the general subject Dionysius Petavius (Jesuit, died 1652), De theologicis dogmatibus (Paris, 1644-50, and other editions), tom. 4 and 5, de incarnatione Verbi (the most profoundly learned Roman Catholic work on doctrinal history); George Bull, Defensio fidei Nicaenae (Oxford, 1685, and often since; a standard work in defense of the essential identity of the Trinitarian and Christological faith of the first four centuries, though defective in not admitting a gradual development of doctrine and logical statement, which is entirely compatible with the essential identity of religious faith); Daniel Waterland, Vindication of Christ’s Divinity (Oxf. 1719; a very able defense of the orthodox faith against the high Arian. ism of Dr. Sam. Clarke and Dr. Whitby); Chr. W. F. Walch, Vollstndige Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie (Lpz. 1762 sq. vols. 2-9; exceedingly learned and minute, but dry and tedious); Edw. Burton, Testimonies of the Ante- Nicene Fathers to the Divinity of Christ (2d ed. Oxford, 1829); F. Chr. Baur, Die christliche Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit und Menschwerdung in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung (Tbingen, 1841-43, 3 vols.; very learned, able, and critical, but skeptical); J. A. Dorner, Entwickelungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi (1836, 2d ed.; Stuttgart, 1845-53, in 2 vols.; the most learned and complete history of Christology; Eng. transl. by Alexander and Simon in Clark’s Foreign Theol. Library, Edinb. 1861, 5 vols.); R. Wilberforce, The Doctrine of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ (4th ed. London, 1852); M. F. Sadler, Emmanuel; or, the Incarnation of the Son of God the Foundation of immutable Truth (Lond. 1867); Schaff, History of the Christian Church (N. York, 1867, vol. 3, p. 705-783). Among the Lives of Christ which have to do mainly with his history and character as a man on earth we mention those of J. J. Hess (1781), K. Hase (1829; 5th ed. 1865), Neander (1837; 6th ed. 1863; Eng. transl. by M’Clintock and Blumenthal, N.Y. 1848), Sepp (1843; new ed. 1862, in 6 vols.), Lange (1847, 3 vols. Engl. transl.; Edinb. 1865, in 6 vols.), Ewald (1854) and J. J. van Osterzee (1853, 3 vols.), Riggenbach (1858), C. J. Ellicott (1861), S. J. Andrews (N.Y. 1862), Pressense (Paris, 1865; Eng. transl. Lond. 1866, 8vo). To these must be added a number of smaller works on the moral character of Christ and his sinless perfection as an argument for his divinity, viz. Ullmann, Die Sndlosigkeit Jesu (Hamburg, 7th ed. 1864); J. Young, The Christ of History (London and N. Y. 1855); Horace Bushnell, The Character of Jesus, forbidding his Classification with Men (N. York, 1861, ch. 10 of his work on Nature and the Supernatural, and also separately printed); Philippians Schaff, The Person of Christ, the Miracle of History, etc. (Boston, 1865; the same in German, Dutch, and French transl.); Ecce Homo (Lond. and N.Y. 1866, a theological sensation-book by an anonymous author), and its counterparts, Ecce Deus (Edinb. 1867; likewise anonymous) and Deus Homo: God-man (by Prof. Theoph. Parsons, a Swedenborgian, Chicago, 1867).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Christology
CHRISTOLOGY.See Person of Christ.
Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels
Christology
CHRISTOLOGY.See Person of Christ.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Christology
kris-tolo-ji. See PERSON OF CHRIST.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Christology
The totality of doctrines constituting that part of theology which treats of the nature and personality of Christ. First of all Christology must concern itself with the promise of a Saviour and Redeemer of the human race. It includes the study of the prophecies foretelling the Messiah, as well as their fulfillment. Further it must inquire into the mystery of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh, and examine all the circumstances of the birth, passion, and resurrection of Christ. Since He acknowledged that He was God, the Son of God, one with the Father, it becomes necessary to examine His credentials, His own prophecies, miracles, and saintly life, which were to serve as evidence that He was sent by God and really possessed all power in heaven and on earth. Christology must deal with the human and Divine nature, their relation to each other, and the hypostatic union of both in one Divine Person, as well as the relation of that Person to the Father and the Holy Ghost. Moreover, the authentic decisions of the Councils of the Church form an exceedingly important portion of all christological theories and doctrines, and also the interpretations of those decisions by theologians. — J.J.R.