EARLY
CHRISTOLOGICAL DISPUTES
What
was at stake in the Historical disputes?
People
often questions why the church entered into disputes in different aspects,
especially the conceptual distinction between Christ’s divinity and his
humanity. Christian began to as doctrinal questions: Who Jesus was? What is the
nature of Salvation and many others. The development of classical
Christological dogma and its expression began to be assessed. Adolf van Harnack
reiterated “the development of dogma as a deterioration and a deviation from
the simple message of Jesus of Nazareth. Accordingly, the development of
Christological dogma moved from functional Christology of the New Testament to
the more ontological thought. Yet another position judges the early council’s
doctrine to be a true expression of the reality of Christ but nonetheless finds
the development of dogma marked by a gradual narrowing of the questions even
till today. These early Christological disputes were in themselves contextual
responses to the culture of the day, the Greek/Hellenistic culture, which was
philosophically and conceptually oriented in contrast to the Hebrew/Judaic
culture which was less philosophical and more holistic in its approach to
divine things.
Was
Jesus a Real Human Being?
In
the second century, the Christological debate centered on the question of the
divinity of Christ most early church fathers took it granted that Christ was
human. In this discussion, the Johannine concept of Logos was introduced and
its implication for a more developed Christology were considered.
Two
heretical views concerning the nature of Christ’s humanity were rejected. They
were Ebionitism and Docetism which were attempts to define Jesus’ Humanity in a
way that did not compromise his divinity.
Ebionitism
Ebionites
(from Hebrew term that means “the poor ones”) were primarily a Jewish sect
during the first centuries that regarded Jesus as an ordinary human being, the
son of Mary and Joseph. Theses Jewish believers, to whom the monotheism of the
Old Testament was the dearest heritage, could not begin to imagine that there
was god besides the God of Israel. Such belief would naturally lead to
Polytheism. Most Ebionites saw Jesus as one who surpassed others in wisdom and
righteousness but was still more a human being than a god.
According
to the early church historian Eusebius from the third century, there were
actually two classes of Ebionites. Both groups insisted on the observance of
the Mosaic Law. The first group held to a natural birth of Jesus, who was
characterized by an usual moral character. The other group accepted virgin
birth but rejected the idea of Jesus’ preexistence as the Son of God.
Docetism
The
term docetism comes from the Greek word ‘dokeo’,
“to seem” or “to appear” According to this understanding, Christ was completely
divine, but his humanity was merely an appearance. Christ was not real human
being. Consequently, Christ suffering was not real.
Docetism
was related to a cluster of other philosophical and religious idea that are
oftenly put under the umbrella of Gnosticism. (from Greek term, gnosis. “knowledge”).
The most important contribution Gnosticism made with regard to Docetism was the
idea of dualism between matter and spirit. It regarded spirit as the higher and
purer part of creation, whereas matter represented frailty and even sinfulness.
Christian
theology denied both Docetism and Ebionitism. Docetism had a divine Savior who
had no real connection with humanity. Ebionitism had only a human, a moral
example.
The
New testament’s dual emphasis on Christ as both a human being and a divine
figure came to be known as Logos Christology, for the simple reason that these
early fathers adopted the Johannine concept of Logos.
Early Logos
Christologies
Justin
Martyr, one of the most important second-century apologists sought to establish
a correlation between Greek philosophy, divine insight and so on, while
originating in Greek culture, was not foreign to Jews. Philo, a contemporary of
Jesus who lived in Alexandria in Egypt and was an influential thinker and
historian, wrote about Jewish writers who had made a connection between the
logos and the Old Testament word or wisdom of God. Such a connection is
understandable given the important role the word of God plays in the Old
Testament.
According
to Justin, philosophers taught that the reason in every human being
participates in the universal logos. The Gospel of john teaches that in Jesus
Christ the logos became flesh. Therefore, whenever people use their reason,
Christ, the Logos, is already at work. In jesus, Christian have full access to
the meaning of the logos, while pagans have only partial access to it.
According to the early apologists, the divine Logos sowed seeds throughout
human history: therefore, Christ is known to some extent by non-Christians.
This concept was known as logos
spermatokos (‘seeds of Logos sown’ in the world).
The
apologist also found in the Old Testament indications of the existence of the
Logos in human form; an example of this kind of “theophany” (from the Greek terms theos, “God,” and phaneo,
“appearance,” “manifestation”) is the mysterious angel of Yahweh in Genesis 18
who appeared to Abraham and his wife, Sarah.
Origen,
a church father from the Eastern Christian church, brought Logos Christology to
its fullest development. According to his thinking, in the incarnation, the
human soul of Christ was united with the Logos. On account of the closeness of
this union, Christ’s human soul shared in the properties of the Logos. Origen,
reminded his followers of the principle of autotheo,
which simply means that, strictly speaking, God only and alone is God. Origen
did so not to lessen the divinity of Christ but to secure the priority of the
Father. Origen believed that the Father had begotten the Son by an eternal act;
therefore, Christ existed from eternity. In fact, there were two begetting of
the Son: one in time (the virgin birth) and one eternity by the Father
(appealed to John). Logos Christology has been a dominant way of interpreting
Christ’s incarnation, and it has taken various forms throughout history.
The Unique Status of
the Father in Relation to the Son
Monarchianism
is the term coined to explained the relationship among the members of the
Trinity that assured the supremacy of God the Father. The term is monarchianism, which means “sole
sovereignty”. There are two subcategories of this view, “dynamic” and
“modalist” monarchianism. Both emerged in the late second and early third
centuries and stressed the uniqueness and unity of God in light of the
Christian confession that Jesus is God.
The
concern for the uniqueness of God the Father is understandable given that
Christian theology grew out of Jewish soil.
Dynamic Monarchianism
The
etymology of dynamic monarchianism explains its meaning: the sole sovereignty
of the Father was preserves by the idea that God was dynamically present in
Jesus, thus making him higher than any other human being nut not yet a God. In
other words, God’s power (Greek, dynamis) made Jesus almost God; as a
consequence, the Father’s uniqueness was secured).
Theodotus,a Byzantine leather merchant, came to Rome, the
leading city of Christianity, at the end of the Second century. He taught that
prior to baptism Jesus was an ordinary man, although a completely virtous one;
at his baptism, the Spirit, or Christ, descended upon him and gave him the
ability to perform miracles. Jesus was still an ordinary man, but he was
inspired by the Spirit. Some of Theodotus’s followers went farther and claimed
that Jesus actually became divine at his baptism or after his resurrection, but
Theodotus himself did not concur.
In
the second half of the third century, Paul of samosata further developed the
idea of dynamic monarchianism by contending that the Word (Logos) does not
refer to a personal, self-subsistent entity but simply to God’s commandment and
ordinance: God ordered and accomplished what he willed through the man Jesus.
Paul of Samosara did not admit that Jesus’ life that made God dynamically
present in Jesus. This view was condemned by the Synod of Antioch in 268.
Modalist Monarchianism
According
to modalist monarchianism, the three Persons of the trinity are not
self-subsistent “person” but “modes” or “modes” or “names” of the same God.
They are like three “faces” of God, with a different one presented depending on
the occasion. Whereas dynamic monarchianism seemed to deny the Trinity,
indicating that Jesus is less than God, modalistic monarchianism appeared to
affirmed the Trinity. Both, however, tried to preserve the oneness of God the
Father, thought in different ways.
Early
third-century thinkers such as Noetus of Smyrna, Praxeas (meaning “busybody”),
and Sabellius contended there is one Godhead that can be designated as Father,
Son or Spirit. The names do not stand for real distinctions but are merely
names that are appropriate and applicable at different times. In other words,
Father, Son and Spirit are identical, successive revelations of the same
person. This view is sometimes called Sabellianism after one of its early
proponents.
Another
idea follows: The Father suffered along with Christ because he was actually present
in and personally identical with the Son. This view is known as patripassianism (from two Latin terms
meaning ‘father” and “passion”)
Modalist
Moanrchianism was considered heretical by the church, even though its basic
motivation, to preserve the unity of God the Father, was valid.
As
soon as Christian theology had combated these two versions of monarchianism, it
faced an even more challenging problem named Arianism, after Arius, a priest of
Alexander. In many ways, monarchianism and Arianism approach the same problem
and have as their background the same kind of concerns. The issue raised by
Arianism was tentatively dealt with at the Council of Nicaea in 325, but as
with any doctrinal formulation, Nicaea also raised new issues and questions.
How to define Christ’s
Deity
According
to Arius opponent, the basic premise of Arius’s thinking was that God the
Father is absolutely unique and transcendent, and God’s essence (the Greek term
ousia means both “essence” and
‘substance”) cannot be shared by another or transferred to another, not even
the Son. Consequently, for Arius, the distinction between Father and Son was
one of the substance (ousia); if they
were of the same “essence” with the Father and Son is the first and unique
creation of God. A saying attributed to Arius emphasizes his main thesis about
the origin of Christ: “There was (a time) when he was not.” This view was
problematic because it meant that Christ was begotten of God in time, not from
all eternity. Christ, therefore was a part of creation and inferior to God even
though greater than other creatures. Arius attempted to secure the divinity but
it did not make Jesus equal to the Father. In a sense, Jesus stood in the
middle.
The
ablest defender of the full deity of Christ was the Eastern father Athanasius.
He argued in response to Arius that the view that the Son was a creature,
albeit at a higher level. First, only God can save whereas a creature is in
need of being saved. Thus, if Jesus was not God incarnate, he was not able to
save us. But both the New Testament and the church liturgy call Jesus Savior,
indicating that he is God. Worship of Prayer to Jesus who is less than God
would also make Christian guilty of blasphemy. The sotoriological concern, the
question of salvation, was the driving force behind theological development.
In
response to Arius, the Council of Nicea 325 defined Christ’s deity in a way
that made Christ equal to God the Father.
The
creed said that Christ was not created but was ‘begotten of the substance of
Father.” The key word was the Greek homoousios
which created great debate. It means literally “of the same substance” or “of
the same essence” indicating that Christ was equal in divinity to the Father.
Not all theologians were happy with that definition. Especially theologians
from the Eastern wing of the Church, the Greek church, would have preferred the
Greek term homoiousia. The difference
is I, which makes a difference in meaning: homoi
means ‘similar to” whereas homo means
‘the same.” In other word this formulation would not make Christ identical with
the Father but similar to the father. Greek theologians had concerns about the
stricter formulation because they believed it was not biblical and could lead
to modalism. For Eastern theology, the distinctive ‘personhood” of the Father
and the Son was important in addition to securing the privileged status to the
Father. Western theologians objected to the “similar” to interpretation,
believing it could be interpreted in a subordinationist way, meaning that the
Son is 9in this case, slightly) different from the father and therefore less
than the Father.
This
difference of opinion between the Eastern and Western wings of the church did
not lead to a division or a permanent labeling of either side as heretical; but
it did highlights a growing gulf between the Christian East and the West. They
began to developed their own distinctive approaches to Christ, namely, the Antiochian
and Alexandrian Schools. Each school produced a distinctive Christology, which
in turn gave rise to distinctive Christological heresies.
.jpg)
.jpg)
