Session 4 - Christology PDF

Session 4 Transcript: Christology One of the most significant scenes in the first 3 gospels happens when Jesus turns to his disciples and asks them the question 'who do people say that I am?'. In other words, after all that people have seen and heard, what do people...

Session 4 Transcript: Christology One of the most significant scenes in the first 3 gospels happens when Jesus turns to his disciples and asks them the question 'who do people say that I am?'. In other words, after all that people have seen and heard, what do people make of it? Who do people think that I am? And the disciples report to him that people are suggesting that he might be one of the prophets. But then Jesus goes further and insists to his disciples 'now come on, who do you say that I am?' and Simon Peter comes out with his famous declaration, in the words of Matthew's gospel, 'you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.' (Matthew 16:16). Over the many centuries of Church history this passage has been interpreted in a diversity of ways but by focusing on just two contrasting interpretations I think we can see the main difference between what might be called a classical Christology and a modern Christology. Christology from Above You see, for most of church history right up until the 18th century, when Peter answers Jesus by saying 'you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God', Peter is seen as proclaiming Jesus' divinity, and 'Son of God' meaning, literally, the offspring of God. And then, on the basis of such an amazing revelation of Jesus' divine nature the Church, with no fuss at all, can then proclaim in its creeds that Jesus is the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, for example 6th Century commentator on this text can say, 'by questioning, Jesus bought forth the conviction of the apostle Peter and left us in the future with a strong affirmation of faith: he is God, both God and man … If Christ is the son of God by all means he is also God. If he is not God he is not the son of God.' (Epiphanuis the Latin). You could hardly wish for higher Christology than that. According to this commentator, in one divinely inspired leap, Peter came to the conclusion that standing before him is both God and man and incarnation only a hair's breadth from the most elevated creeds concerning Jesus' divine nature. So for much of church history having, with Peter, reached this conclusion, all the theologian has to do is work out how does the son of God become man? Now an approach that starts with this conviction that Jesus the incarnation of a divine being has become known as a Christology from above. We start way up high in heaven with the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, and then have to work our way down to earth from there, from above. We start from his divine nature and then ask what sense can be made of his human nature. We start with God having a son, something that has happened one imagines in the heavenly realm before the man Jesus ever appears - before creation even - and then we ask how that divine being entered history, appeared in human flesh. 1 Christology from Below (point in video 3.05) But there is another way of approaching this passage which has become predominant in modern theology, an approach we might say from below which asks the question. 'if a first century Jew said what Peter said to Jesus, what they have meant?' This means putting all the Peter said in its all too human historical context and when we enter into this historical exploration we are likely to be struck by the fact that in the Old Testament the all too human kings of Israel are referred to as 'sons of God'. The classic text is Psalm 2:7 where the king says at his coronation 'I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you”' Even though the divine decree here says that the king is God's son, no biblical commentator believes that at that point the king became a deity. so is the Messiah's royal identity through Davidic ancestry and carries no implications of diety? As one Old Testament scholar explains, 'by themselves the phrases “you are my son” and “today I have begotten you might imply a kind of genetic relationship between the Israelite king and God, especially in the Ancient Near East, with the horizon of the Old Testament however, this language points to legal adoption … the King certainly enjoyed a privileged position with Yahweh but he is not deified' (Craig Broyles). Or again 'Divine sonship in the OT is understood metaphorically and … was not perceived in any way as either divine or a literal son of God.' (Craig Broyles). So because of these Old Testament examples it has become common to see this non-literal meaning, this metaphorical use of divine sonship as the background to understanding what Peter says to Jesus, 'Divine sonship therefore emphasises the Messiah's royal identity through David ancestry and carries no implication of deity.' (Craig Broyles). As one New Testament specialist concludes, 'we should simply note that initially to call Jesus God's son was a far cry from subsequent Christian usage.” (James Dunn). So here we started from below with the human historical context of the time and this great declaration of Peter is now, as the quote has just put it, a far cry from Jesus being the incarnation of the pre existent second person of the Trinity. So as even a conservative publication puts it, 'contemporary scholarship has largely concluded none of the synoptic gospels present Jesus as a pre-existent being'. (Joel Green, Jeannine Brown, Nicholas Perrin). Now this is just a small window into a problem that faces modern Christology, how to square the high Christology that the classical creeds had wanted to affirm with what the historical investigation of the first century has been able to establish. How can we affirm Christ's divinity as the Church down the ages has done in the light of the findings of historical scholarship? We began with the most promising of texts, Jesus being declared the son of the living God, but found that once put in historical context it didn't get us very far. It is worth noting that the first scholar (Hermann Samuel Riemarus) to suggest on the basis of Old Testament evidence that Peter was speaking metaphorically and not literally was unable to have his work published; his work was eventually published posthumously and anonymously. One writer sums up well, in more general terms, 'the problems in modern Christological debates sometimes seem to reveal a deep chasm between the 2 universe of discourse in which some New Testament specialists operate and that of many systematic theologians. Part of the difference of approach may relate to the difference between Christologies 'from below' in which many New Testament specialists look to historical reconstructions to trace the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth and Christologies 'from above' in which formulations of doctrine may begin with the mission and person of Christ in Trinitarian terms in which the incarnation intervenes between the state of pre-existence and restored glory.' (Thiselton). Two Approaches (Point in video 7.24) So how has modern Christology coped with this contrast, the contrast between what could be established historically from below in comparison to what the high Christologies that the classical creeds have wanted to affirm? Now there are at least two ways this challenge could be faced; one option is to affirm what we've seen classical Christology doing, start with the above, start, in other words, with faith in Jesus Christ incarnate not from below with historical reconstruction. This approach has been associated with the most famous theologian of the 20th century (Karl Barth 1886 – 1968). As one contemporary interpreter of Barth puts it, 'Christology must begin again and again with Jesus Christ who was and is the Word of God Incarnate. This is the direction towards which we are pointed by the Holy Spirit and not the idea that we might begin Christology from below with the notion that the incarnation was the conclusion and not the starting point of Christology. A Christology that genuinely begins and ends with Jesus Christ himself as attested in the New Testament could never begin “from below” because it is the incarnate Word who meets us as the risen and ascended Lord by the power of his Holy Spirit. A recognition of his divinity can take place only in faith through the Holy Spirit himself. What is needed is a return to faith which is itself enabled by the Holy Spirit uniting us to Christ and through him to the Father.' (Paul Molner) But of course, the other option is to bite the bullet and see where working “from below” might get us, to see what we could affirm through historical analysis, to see how far we could get in working with the historical data. Probably the most famous example in modern theology that takes this approach can be found in the work of the theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928 - 2014). One of the reasons Pannenberg gives for starting from below and not from above is that starting from above seems to presuppose what needs to be established in the first place, 'it is characteristic of all attempts to build a Christology from above that the doctrine of the Trinity is presupposed and the question posed is “how has the second person of the Trinity, the Logos, assumed a human nature?” This method is not feasible for us because a Christology from above presupposes the divinity of Jesus. the most important task of Christology is, however, precisely to present the reasons for the confession of Jesus' divinity. Instead of presupposing it, we must first inquire how Jesus' appearance in history led to the recognition of his divinity... Christology is concerned therefore not with unfolding the Christian communities' confession of Christ, but above all we grounding it in the activity and fate of Jesus in the past. The confession of Christ cannot be presupposed already 3 and simply interpreted; Christology cannot take its point of departure from the Christological formula of the Council of the Church nor can it simply develop the oldest primitive Christian confessions. (Pannenberg). As the last quote suggests, Christology from below not only refuses to start with the classical creeds but argues that we even have to ask about the legitimacy of what is said about the person of Christ at the pages of the New Testament itself; we need to assess how sound was the reasoning that led to that initial faith that's seen in the New Testament: 'for this purpose dogmatic Christology must go behind the New Testament to the base to which it points and which supports faith in Jesus, that is to the history of Jesus. Christology has to ask, and show, the extent to which this history substantiates faith in Jesus.' (Althaus in Pannenberg). Context (point in video 11:12) But how might that be achieved? Well key to understanding Pannenberg's Christology from below is the crucial issue of context - he wants us to enter into the context of expectation and hope that he believes Jesus' ministry was directly addressing. Pannenberg naturally sees this sense of expectation as rooted in the Old Testament prophets particularly the prophets that spoke to the nation in its time of exile in Babylon, their faith in Jahweh as Lord and deliverer was on the line; they looked for that faith to be vindicated in a promised deliverance which would demonstrate to all people that their faith had been justified. 'In this critical situation in exile in Babylon the deity of Yahweh as the God of Israel depends on the future action which he declares and which will shows all people that he is the one true God, the Creator of the world... 'the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together'. The future action will show even other peoples that the God of Israel is the one true God, the Creator of the world ….' (Pannenberg). In their time of exile, in such an unpromising situation this conviction that God will save his people and vindicate their faith in him as Lord of all is little more than a hope in need a fulfilment, a hypothesis in need of confirmation, 'the deity of the God of promise is shown only by the mighty fulfilment of the promise. Just as conversely the promise is a condition of the making known of this God in the fulfilment.' (Pannenberg) Though at this point history did not directly confirm these prophetic promises, this sense of hopeful expectation did not disappear but was developed in various ways. 'The prophets of the exilic period described the future work of deliverance …. Later generation certainly lived through the return from exile but did not experience the all- surpassing age of salvation that the prophets had promised. Instead, under the experience of successive empires there developed the eschatological expectation of a final actualising of the Kingdom of God at the end which would be a self demonstration of the power and deity of God. Therefore, the universal recognition of the sole deity of Yahweh by the nations, without which Israel's faith in Yahweh as the one and only God was always over to challenge, was seen as something that would happen only in a distant eschatological future.' (Pannenberg) This would involve a whole package of what might be described as eschatological or apocalyptic events, 'the future consummation of world 4 history which is connected with the coming of God's Kingdom that will end all human rule, with the judgement all human injustice, with the transformation of the present creation, and with the resurrection of the dead, will finally make God's deity and divine glory manifest to all flesh.' (Pannenberg). Pannenberg sees this eschatological hope as central to Jesus' ministry, particularly in all Jesus says about the dawning of the Kingdom of God. But as with the Old Testament prophetic hope, Jesus' eschatalogical announcements of this Kingdom of God was still in need of vindication and this fulfilment will naturally be a vindication of Jesus' authority. 'Thus the whole of Jesus' work remained aimed at a future verification... the question about such a future confirmation is held open by the temporary difference between the beginning of God's rule, which was already present in Jesus' activity, and its future fulfilment … Even the disciples of the pre-Easter Jesus could only follow his claim to authority in trust in its future confirmation by God himself.' (Pannenberg) It is this insistence that Jesus' message is crying out for a decisive eschatological vindication that perhaps distinguishes Pannenberg most clearly from others who pursue a Christology from below. Now Pannenberg believes that this verification was largely fulfilled in Jesus' dramatic resurrection. 'Today when Christology is pursued from below, from the investigation of the historical Jesus.' Yet Pannenberg insists, 'Jesus' unity with God qwas not yet established by the claim to authority in his pre-Easter work, but only by his resurrection from the dead.' (Pannenberg). Where Have We Got To? (point in video 15:42) So let's recap for a moment: Pannenberg sees Jesus' ministry as taking up a hope that had already developed in Israel, a hope that God will come and make clear to all people in sovereignty, and one of the things this will involve is the vindication of the righteous in the resurrection of the dead. Jesus claimed that in his ministry the end time demonstration of the sovereignty of God was dawning announcing as he did that the time of fulfilment had come, that the Kingdom of God was at hand and in this why his ministry and God's sovereignty had come together; the fulfilment of his ministry will be the fulfilment of God's sovereignty. That coming of God's Kingdom in Jesus' ministry was still open to question especially when Jesus was crucified as a common criminal but then the disciples witness an end time event, one of the events that they believe demonstrates God's offering to all, a resurrection from the dead. that the hope that the people of Israel had had in God was being fulfilled in Jesus. God's sovereignty and Jesus' ministry were synonymous, he had been speaking and acting with the authority of God. So, as Pannenberg explains, 'if Jesus has been raised, this for a Jew can only mean that God himself has confirmed the pre-Easter activity of Jesus. Jesus' claim to authority through which he puts himself in God's place was unambiguously confirmed by the God of Israel.' (Pannenberg). In fact Pannenberg argues that in Jesus' resurrection from the dead, something of the end has appeared, that we see in his resurrection the beginning of the eschatological triumph of God, the ultimate fulfilment of his promises in which Israel had put their hopes. 'If Jesus has been raised then the end of the world has begun. The 5 universal resurrection of the dead and the judgement are imminent. This comes to expression Paul's expectation that the resurrection of other men, especially believers, will imminently follow that of Jesus: 'Christ is raised as the first-fruits of those who fall asleep' (1 Cor 15:20). Correspondingly in Colossians 1:18 Jesus is called the first born of the dead.' Pannenberg the makes what I think this his most revealing claim and decisive move in concluding this lengthy line of argument: 'if Jesus, having been raised from the dead, is ascended to God and if thereby the end of the world has begun, then God is ultimately revealed in Jesus … only at the end of all events can God be revealed in his divinity, that is, as the one who works all things, who has power over everything. Only because in Jesus' resurrection the end of all things, which for us is not yet happened, has already occurred, can it be said of Jesus that the ultimate already is present in him and so also that God himself his glory has made an appearance in Jesus in a way that cannot be surpassed' (Pannenberg). Now Pannenberg thinks that all we have to do is translate all this rather eschatological apocalyptic language about God's sovereignty being revealed in Jesus into something more familiar that the early church used - Hellenistic terminology - then we get to the idea of Jesus being a divine incarnation. He does this in what seems to be some pretty convoluted English but perhaps it's far better in the German, 'The translation of the apocalyptic understanding of Jesus as the one in whom the glory of God is ultimately revealed, because in him the end event has already occurred in advance, into the Hellenistic concept of revelation may also have been the path that led to the thesis of the true divinity of Jesus. Jesus' divinity is already implied in some way in the conception of God's appearance in him even though not with the latter's orthodox precision' (Pannenberg). After Pannenberg's key book advocating Christology from below there was a good deal of debate about how successful he was in reaching an orthodox incarnational theology, but there is no doubt that his is one of the most sustained and famous attempts to try this in modern scholarship. Ontology, Epistemology & Adoptionist Christology (point in video 19.50) We started by contrasting modern and classical Christology and suggested that classical Christology starts from above and the majority of modern Christology starts from below. This above and below language can be applied in another related area - to put it in more technical language it can have ontological application as well as epistemological meaning. Epistemological meaning concerns how we can establish belief in Jesus' divine status - how we can know what we know about Jesus. Do we start from above with faith in his divinity or below with historical reconstruction, which is what we've been reviewing. There is another sense in which the above and below categories can be applied, it can be applied, as I said, ontologically as well as epistemologically, in other words, when we think about Christology do we start with a divine being and ask how this divine being can take on flesh and become human, or do we start with a human being and ask how can this human being be seen as divine? Do we start by asking how does divinity take on humanity or do we start by asking how does humanity take on divinity? This is to do with 6 the nature of his being, 'ontology' rather than 'epistemology' which is how we know what we know. This contrast, it can be argued, is not necessarily associated with a classical or modern approach but can be traced right back to the earliest developments of Christology. In the first few centuries of the early church we come across the opposite extreme to this approach, one of these starts from below with Jesus' humanity but doesn't get much further than that, and the other one starts from above with his divinity then had problems taking his humanity seriously. We come across this first tendency in the 2nd century it's a form of Christianity that's not that far from Judaism. This distinctive group becomes known as the Ebionites from the Hebrew word for the poor. Jesus, for them, was the promised Messiah but was still very much a human figure. We also hear another Christology from below that starts very much with Jesus' humanity before seeing him receiving God's spirit of Sonship. This becomes known as an Adoptionist Christology. This became associated with the 3rd Century figure known as Paul of Samosata (200 – 275). A letter condemning him has been quoted by the early church historian Eusebius (260 – 340). It is alleged that 'he refused to acknowledge that the Son of God came down from heaven, saying that Jesus Christ was from below.' (Eusebius). The name 'Adoptionist' obviously comes from the fact that this approach sees Jesus is being adopted as God's son by the anointing of the spirit at a significant point of his life. The most obvious point in Jesus' ministry where it is claimed that Jesus had been adopted, and this is demonstrated by the anointing of the Spirit, is at Jesus' baptism. Just as Jesus was coming out of the water he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove and a voice came down from heaven 'you are my son whom I love with you I am well pleased'. Here we have all the elements associated with Adoptionism, the descent of the Spirit on Jesus, the declaration that Jesus is God's son. This, as one can see, is a classic Christology from below, starting with Jesus as a human figure whose life is taken up and indwelt by the Spirit in a special way; it is not the incarnation of some pre- existent being from above. These tendencies also seem to connect with a particular model of salvation. 'on the Adoptionist model Jesus became divine from below by the indwelling the spirit and by his growth in Godlike holiness. Adoptionist Christology could not accept a real incarnation of God, a movement of the divine descending deep into the human. The movement went in the opposite direction, the human ascending by spiritual and moral development to the level of godlikeness' (Braaten). Docetism & Gnosticism (point in video 23:58) But an opposite approach is also developing that starts with the pre-existent divine being descending from above and in contrast to Adoptionism finds it difficult to affirm Jesus' human nature rather than his divinity. So in 2 John we have the statement 'there are many deceivers at large in the world refusing to acknowledge Jesus Christ coming in human nature' (2 John 7). And in 1 John chapter 4 verse two it says 'any spirit which acknowledges Jesus Christ came in human nature is from God'. That seems to suggest that there were people denying this. This denial became known as 'Docetism', from a Greek term which meant 'to seem' suggesting that Jesus only seemed to be human, only seemed to experience what we experienced in terms of suffering and mortality. This approach might seem very odd to us today - how could anyone question Jesus' human 7 nature? But at the time when the early church was formulating its thinking about Christ's human and divine natures, philosophies predominated that had concerns about the material world and questioned whether the divine could have anything directly to do with the material. They also questioned whether such a radical transformation that is implied in the incarnation is applicable to what is divine in origin. Philosophers at the time influenced by Platonism (432 – 347 BCE) were drawn to what was permanent beyond time and change and looked at the material world as fleeting shadows in comparison. What was divine was clearly associated with what could not change and was eternal in nature so for God to become Incarnate was fundamentally at odds with this outlook for it involved God becoming part of the material realm, not only was that the realm of change and decay, to become Incarnate involved a transformation of what by nature was fundamentally unchanging and eternal. 'The Docetists were bound to a Hellenistic concept of God as a timeless absolute who could not really change. Therefore, God's involvement in history, the realm of flux, could only be apparent. Because God is God, God is immutable thus there could be no real incarnation, no real change in an ontological sense, only an apparent one. The God of Greek metaphysics was completely in charge of the Docetic Christology.' But the problem goes further than that as some of those who advocated a Docetic approach may have had Gnostic tendencies, seeing materiality as not just lesser in nature to a non material realm of changeless perfection, but saw material reality as an evil that we need to be freed from. Consequently why would what is divine want to take on the material form? We hear complaints voiced about such Docetic tendencies in the work of a number of theologians of the early church: Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus and Tertullian, 'a whole chain of patristic commentators attacked the Docetic thinkers as undermining the whole principle of the redemption of flesh and blood in the person and work of the Incarnate Lord.' (John McGuckin). There was also much disapproval expressed against one of the main Docetic ideas 'that the spiritual Lord could not possibly suffer in the flesh' (John McGuckin). Docetism and Adoptionism are in a sense never left behind because they received so much in the way of condemnation by such significant figures they became useful terms when condemning one's theological opponents. If you're wanting to warn your congregation not to go near a theology that is starting from above and might not be taking Christ's humanity seriously enough, there is nothing that will do the job better and accusing it of Docetism. And likewise, if you wanted to scare people away from a Christology that starts from below with Christ's humanity, there is no better way than accusing it of Adoptionism, or worse still or being Ebionite in its tendencies. This is what we see when the debate about Christ's human and divine nature reaches its zenith leading up to the Council of Chalcedon. The Road to Chalcedon (point in video 28:06) Historians of this period have associated the participants in this debate with two great cities in the ancient world, one with Alexandria in Egypt and the other Antioch in Syria. Now most useful historical generalisations need a fair amount of qualification but 8 nonetheless can be helpful in terms of introductory orientation, and when comparing the theology of these two centres of Christian theology in antiquity this is very much the case. So when generalising about the theological trajectory associated with Alexandria in Egypt his tendency is to work from above, to start from above with the word or the Logos and work our way down from that as is described in the first chapter of John, 'The word became flesh and lived among us' (John 1:14). the second person of the Trinity does not take on the human nature of a particular person but humanity generally; it does not adopt a particular man, but rather itself takes on flesh. The implications of this can be seen in the answer that this approach might give to a number of fundamental questions. One basic question is this 'does the Incarnate Jesus possess a human soul?' Now for the theologians associated with Alexandria, the tendency would be to answer 'no, the incarnate Christ does not have a human soul'. You see on this model it is common for the divine Logos to replace the human soul because it is the incarnation of the Logos, so here the Logos is not being united to a human individual with a human soul, the divine Logos is taking on flesh and acting as the soul. 'Making no allowance for a human soul in Christ, this viewed the incarnation as the union of the Word with human flesh.' (Kelly). One theologian has likened this to putting on a space suit - the second person of the Trinity puts on, as it were, a suit of human flesh but remains the active principle, or subject, within that veil of humanity. So the theologians associated with Alexandra pictured Christ as 'unworldly, representing him as God to the word owning, transforming and irradiating human flesh to such an extent that Jesus could no longer be called a human being on his own but formed one nature, one living organism with the Word who was the source and master of all his human acts.' (Daley). Another revealing question is to ask 'who was experiencing what happened to the Incarnate Jesus Christ?' For the theologians associated with Alexandria it is the second person of the Trinity, the divine word that is experiencing all that happens to the incarnate Jesus Christ; there is no human element that could be the subject of experience. 'For the Alexandrians the subject remained the Word who though transcendent accommodated himself to the conditions of human nature.' (Frances Young). So when our astronaut puts on a space suit, whatever happens to the spacesuit is experienced by the astronaut; the suit has no faculty of experience. When putting on a space suit you're not piggybacking on another person, you are still the active individual. So for this tradition, when putting on human nature the active experiencing individual remains the divine Logos. Apollinaris (point in video 31:44) This Alexandrian theological trajectory is simplified in the work for number significant theologians but we will look the Christology associated with the most famous of them, Apollinaris (Bishop of Laodicea in Syria). He was following an approach that had long been accepted by those associated with Alexandria. He was a friend of Athanasius; there was a good deal of correspondence between the two of them and he saw his theology as continuous with the Fathers of that Church that preceded him. Apollinaris' theology starts from above, with the Word taking on flesh as we've said playing the part of the human soul. According to Apollinaris' anthropology, man was spirit united with flesh so in the God-man as he expressed it, the divine energy fulfils the role of the animating spirit and 9 of the human mind. 'What is important is that on his interpretation the Word was both the directive, intelligent principle in Jesus Christ, and also the vivifying principle of His flesh. But further, having the divine life pulsing through him, the Incarnate was made immune from psychic and fleshly passions, and became not only Himself invincible to death, but also able to destroy death. It was because the Word was biologically and physically the vital force energy in him that He was able to raise the dead and bestow life.' (Kelly) For Apollinaris, other Christologies had the tendency to lead to unresolved dualisms. 'Apollinaris furthermore argues that there are good reasons for such a picture of Jesus. The doctrine that Jesus lacked a human intellect or rational soul seems to him a matter of natural logical necessity. If the Logs had 'put on' a rational soul as well as flesh the result would, he thought, have been conflict: either the Logos would simply dominate the human soul and thus destroy the freedom by which it is human, or the human soul would be an independent centre of initiative and Jesus would be, in effect schizophrenic. Much better to understand that the 'human' intellect of Jesus was the Logos.' (Norris). He consequently insists that there was 'one Incarnate nature of the divine Word' (Apollinaris). 'The description of Him as the 'one Incarnate nature' connotes the organic unity on the biological, physical and spiritual levels constituted by the fusion of the divine and human in him.' (Kelly). He clearly states this position when he writes 'the body is not of itself a nature because it is neither vivifying in itself nor capable of being singled out from that which vivifies it … nor is the Word, on the other hand, to be distinguished as a separate nature apart from His incarnate state, since it was in the flesh, and not apart from the flesh, that the Lord dwelt on earth.' (Apollinaris). Being one in nature meant that the attributes of his divine nature can be applied to all aspects of his humanity so he could talk about sharing in Christ holy flesh at the Eucharist, 'the human characteristics of Christ belong to the Logos and the divine life is conferred on the body. There is, to use a later phrase, an exchange or sharing the properties. Apollinaris makes a great deal of this idea because it states the truth to which his Christological outlook wants to point: that Christ simply is the divine Logos himself but enfleshed' (Norris). Now a number of themes come to the fore in those who object to Apollinaris' Christology. The first of these we've already anticipated: the accusation that he is falling into Docetic errors. 'One of the most damaging and lasting objections was based on the divinization of Christ's flesh was that it was virtually Docetic, implying that the Saviour was not a real man but only “appeared as a man”' (Kelly). Also 'Apollinaris moved in the direction of Docetism when he taught that the humanity of Christ assumed in the incarnation was incomplete' (Battern). But the most common complaint was that Apollinaris' theology failed to live up to the essential requirements of redemption. 'The operative principle was this: what was not assumed cannot be saved. If Christ was not fully human then the whole human person cannot be saved. If the human spirit is displaced by the divine Logos, the deepest spiritual dimension of the human beings, enslaved by Satan, corrupted by sin, and condemned to death, lies beyond the scope of salvation.' (Bratten). Gregory of Nazianzus (329 - 390) points out that if the Logos only takes on human flesh and not soul or mind, where sin often originates, it's like when noticing someones eyes hurt 'you were to tend to the foot and leave the eye uncared for' (Gregory of Nazianzus). 'It was man's rational soul, with its 1 power of choice which was the seat of sin; and if the Word did you not unite such a soul with Himself, the salvation of mankind could not be achieved' (Kelly). In a famous phrase by Gregory of Nyssa 'what has not been assumed cannot be restored, it is what is united to God that is saved.' It also does not fit the gospel's picture of Jesus who shows signs of ignorance and suffering and all kinds of human experience. Finally, not having a human soul meant he was not really a man by any common definition, he was some kind of freak. Antioch in Syria (point in video 36:51) If those associated with Alexander and Egypt have been seen as generally favouring Christology from above, it has been argued that those associated with Antioch in Syria have a tendency to start from below. This has been designated by some as a Word/Man Christology, rather than a Word/Flesh Christology. It starts not with the generic human flesh that the Logos takes up, but with a particular individual, Jesus of Nazareth 'God's divine Logos who shares fully the divine substance, has 'taken up' a full human being... and bestows his favour on this human being to such a unique degree that the man represents him in the world, reveals that face of the Word as his own, shares even in divine honour and status. Yet this indwelling of the Word in the man does not reduce or substantially alter the full operation of the man's human faculties, and never blurs that natural boundary between the creator and creature, God and the human' (Daley). And of course we can predict how this approach might answer our simple questions, for example does the incarnate Christ have a human soul? 'The Word/Man type of Christology is based on the idea that the Word united Himself with a complete humanity, including a soul as well as a body. It involves a thoroughly realistic acknowledgement of the human life and experience of the Incarnate and of the theological significance of His human soul' (Kelly). As we have seen, this approach wants to keep a safe distance between the human nature and the divine nature so when one asks 'who was it that experienced Incarnate life?', for the Alexandrians it was the divine Logos but for those associated with Antioch 'the Word could not possibly be regarded as the immediate subject of the incarnate experiences without a blasphemous denigration of his essential divinity; those associated with Antioch were concerned to emphasise God's otherness with regard to creation, God's freedom from all the limitations and vulnerabilities that classical philosophy saw as part of the contingent existence; they feared Christology that one-sidedly emphasised that single subject of Christ's person and acts might lead to the 'confusion' of God and a creature, might lose its sense of God's transcendence … their Christology made room for a created order that posses real autonomy … real independence of human action. An accurate theology, faithful to the Christian tradition, must distinguish between the human Jesus, who underwent change and suffering, and the divine Word who made the human Jesus his own …. but it was the man and not 'the divine nature; who suffered on the Cross' (Daley). Consequently they had problems with the idea of a complete union of natures in Christ as this would lead to a confusion between human and divine. There were two distinct natures in Christ that needed to be kept apart. 1 Nestorius (386-450) (point in video 39:53) The difference between these two perspectives would come to a head during the second quarter of the 5th century leading up to the Council of Chalcedon in 451. It took the form of a collision between the Bishop of Constantinople and the Bishop of Alexandria. The debate is said to have been ignited by a monk called Nestorius, not long after being appointed Bishop of Constantinople in 428. Part of the problem might have actually been his contentious spirit. This came about through preaching a sermon in opposition to those who, without qualification, called the Virgin Mary the mother of God: 'In effect the question was whether it is proper to say that the divine Logos was born of a human mother – whether, in short, the Logos is the ultimate subject of the human attributes of Jesus. Nestorius's answer was 'no'. It was, in his view, the human being Jesus who was in the proper sense born of marry just as it was the human being Jesus who suffered, died and was raised' (Norris). This was an outright challenge to the Christological position that we've seen developing around Alexandria and a defence of that associated with Antioch. 'Nestorius insisted that the two natures of the Incarnate Christ remain unaltered and distinct in union: 'I hold the two natures apart but unite the worship' was his watchword... he was much concerned to maintain that the Incarnation cannot have involved the impassable Word in any change or suffering... so he objected to the Alexandrian habit of speaking of God being born and dying. It was all important his eyes that the impassiblity of 'the God' should be preserved and that 'the man' for his part should retain his spontaneity and freedom of action' (Kelly). He objected to the idea that in the incarnation there was a union of substance, that the divine and human became one nature - this might suggest a confusion of natures which was what those associated with Antioch wanted to avoid. He suggested the union of a different kind, 'the union of God the Word with them (ie the body and the human soul), he wrote, is neither hypostatic nor natural but voluntary' (Kelly). The objections to what Nestorius stood for were largely the objections to any Christology from the tradition associated with Antioch. For example, if you keep Christ's full humanity and full divinity apart without any intrinsic union of natures might you not get the impression that we are talking about two persons loosely working together which is hardly incarnation. 'It could be argued that when taken to extremes the two natures seem so separate that they lose unity of agency which is one of the most obvious characteristics of the gospels where we never sense that Jesus is some sort of two member committee' (Placher). As one historian puts it, 'it's as if the Nestorians thought of the human and divine as two people in some sort of business partnership. The essential problem with Nestorianism is simple: it could not affirm the real incarnation. Its scheme was dualistic, stressing the divine and the human in their complete difference, thus failing to achieve a real incarnational unity in the one person of Jesus Christ' (Braaten). Also, if the divine nature does not enter into the suffering this world is it just Jesus' human nature that is saving us? 'If Nestorius and others assigned things like the suffering on the cross to the human nature, then it seems as if the human nature did the heavy lifting while the divine nature looked on' (Placher). As we have seen, the Alexandrian tradition at its extreme can be accused of Docetic tendencies where the tradition associated with Antioch can get accused at its worst at being Adoptionist, but we need to ask the strange questions 'was Nestorius a Nestorian? Was he really guilty of all these theological misdemeanours? Most historians doubt that he was, but rather see 1 that this is the picture his enemies painted of him. But it's a useful picture in the sense that illustrates the consequences of where a Word/Man Christology might end up when pushed to an extreme. After much wrangling between the Bishops of Alexandria, Constantinople and Rome, a Council was convened in Chalcedon, a suburb of Constantinople with more than 500 bishops taking part in proceedings. It was clear that the emperor wanted a statement to be produced that could bring some kind of peace between the opposing parties; it had all the enforced clarity of a committee statement intended to bring an end to discussion. It succeeded in the same in the West - in East matters simmered on. It included all the crucial clauses 'We all with one voice confessed our Lord Jesus Christ truly God and truly human, the same consisting of a reasonable soul and a body, of one substance with the Father as touching the Godhead, as one substance with us as touching humanity... to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion. without change, without division, without separation' (Council of Chalcedon). Against much Alexandrian Christology, Christ here is declared to have a human soul as well as a human body; against those associated with Antioch, Christ's two natures were joined without separation or division. It was not spelling out the mechanics of incarnation, rather it was drawing the lines in which one might remain orthodox - to remain orthodox you work within this space, demarcated along these lines. So, 'orthodoxy consists in the acknowledgement that Jesus is one subject who is properly spoken of both as God-the- divine-Logos and as a human being. To give an account of Jesus then, one must talk in two ways simultaneously, one must account for all that he is and does by reference to the Logos of God, that is one must identify him as God acting in our midst. At the same time however, one must account for him as a human being in the ordinary sense of that term. Both accounts are necessary' (Norris). 1