The Divinity of Jesus: an Early Christian

The Divinity of Jesus: An Early Christian

Debate

Akeytheological debate in the early Churchconcerned the relationship between Jesus andGod the

Father and Jesus’ divinity.Opinions abounded. Gnostics,aswe haveseen,separated the Creator from the true God andJesus from the Christ who dwelt within him.Christianswho continued in the Jewishtradition usuallysaw Jesus in Old Testamentterms: as a teacher,prophet,or angel but notdivinein the sameway asGod the Father. Other groupssaw Jesus as a human being whom God had“adopted” ashis Son so

that God came to dwell within Jesus inaspecial way. Still others thoughtJesuswas divine, butin his divinityhe was not actuallya separate being from theFather. In theological terms, this discussion concernsChristology,whichsimply meansthe view one takes of Christ and his role.

ManyWestern theologiansofthe third and fourthcenturies believed Christ wasdivinein thesameway as God theFather but also wasdistinctfrom him—not justa name for a different partofthe same thing. They believedJesus’ death played apartin God’splan ofsalvation but working outthedetails was tricky. If Jesus was just another human,there wasno reasontobelieve hisdeath could haveanyeffecton salvation.The samewas true ifJesus wassomekindofangel or wasinhabitedbya divine being—his death wouldnot have anyeffecton humans’ relationshiptoGod.

Inthe East,Origen led the wayin adapting the views ofNeo-Platonism to a Christiancontext.Neo- Platonism, or“new Platonicthought,” began with Plotinusinthe mid-third centuryand quicklybecame the mostimportantschool of philosophical thoughtinthe ancient world.While it derivedfrom Plato’s thought, Plotinusdid notworry aboutsticking too closely to the writings ofPlato.

InPlotinus’sview,three beings are at the heart of the universe:the One, Mind,and Soul. The One is the source ofallbeing and allgood,the essentialelementin the universe.Fromitarises Mind,thebasis ofall rational principles(scientific laws plus philosophical concepts). Working throughMind,the One animates existencethrough the production of Soul,which is the principle ofactivityinall that exists.Toput itsimply, the One is the reasonwhya“hunk ofclay” can exist;Mind givesthe clay form;and throughSoul, the clay is given life and becomeshuman. The One,Mind, and Soul are totallyspirit; thingsthat involvematter,like the world andphysical bodies,arenot thought ofhighly.However, humans area mixture ofmatter and spirit,and if theyfocus more on their spirits and less on their bodies, theycan come closer to Soul,which means coming closer tothe One.

For Origen, God the Fatheris the eternalOne,and Christhis Son is Mind,the beingthat comes forth from the One and acts always in accordancewith it.Origen and other Eastern Christian thinkers talked alot abouthow God becoming human inJesusallowedhumanstocome into unionwith the divine.The reasoning was different from that inthe West,but the problem was the same:Jesus had to bedivine to make thewholescheme work. IfJesus was notGod, then he did notbring humansinto unionwith God, onlywith anothercreated being.

Itis easy tothinkallofthisis simply something beyond human knowledge andimmaterial toeveryday life, but for Christiansitis and has always been vital.From the beginningsof Christianity to today,Christians have prayed to Jesus for salvation,believing his life and death made salvation possible. Nevertheless, philosophy and theology traditionallyagree that onlyGod never changes. IfJesus is notGod,then he can change, and Christians who believein him can losetheir salvation.

The Most Serious Split

All this cametoa head with the ideas ofArius.His thinking aboutChrist was nowhere near the wildest,but its moderation was probably one of the reasons whyitsparked major controversy.

Ariusstartedwith the ideathat God wasGod and everything else waseverythingelse, and he putJesus in the “everything-else” category. Ariusthought that ifGod was the beginning ofall reality,thenthere could not have been anything otherthanGodbeforecreation.Arius did notthink Christwas just anotherhuman, but he did notthinkChristwas the same thing asGod,either. Hesaid that when God decided to make the world,God created the Son outofnothing,sothe Son is greater than and before anything elsein creation—but there was a time before hecame into existence.God’s intentionwas to use the Son to bring salvation to the world, so the Son was born into the bodywe call Jesus.

This wassomething new; Ariusdid not usethe language ofthe OT[OldTestament]totalk about the relationshipbetween God the Father and the Son, and he didnot turn to Neo-Platonic thought.His position came outofhis study of the Scriptures;he started with the accountofcreation inGenesisand then looked atthe gospels tounderstand how Jesuswas the Son.Hewrotea poem called the Thaliaexpressing his understanding and even puttogether asong withthechorus, “There was a timewhen he wasnot,” meaning a time when the Son did not exist,that God had noteternallybeen a father.

Ariuswas a priestin thechurchofAlexandriawhen he started teaching his views about the Son. His bishop, Alexander, becamealarmed when he noticedother clergy memberspicking up on Arius’s views, and in 319,he called a council. One hundred bishops attended,and eightyof them voted to excommunicate Ariusandhis supporters.The Christian churchhad a big controversyon its hands.

Arius took off for Palestine,where hewas warmlywelcomed byBishop EusebiusofCaesarea;he also received supportfrom a number ofother bishops. Some of them held theirown councils in320 and 321 that declaredArius’s viewsacceptable; one council even condemned the viewsofAlexander just as his council had condemned those of Arius. The fightwason.

The EmperorConstantine soughttosquashthe controversy quickly,reasoning that suchdissension weakened the Empire andjeopardized its favor withGod. Constantine wrote letters tobothAlexander and Arius,pointing outthat theyagreed on the most importantthings and declaring that some thingswere just not knowable to humans.Stillthe matter raged,and finallythe Emperor decidedabig gesturewas in order. Hecalled the Council ofNicaea,possiblythe mostimportantcouncil in thehistoryoftheChurch.

The Work ofthe Council ofNicaea

While the relationship of God the Fatherand the Sonwas the mostimportant issuediscussedat Nicaea,it was notthe onlyone. The bishops alsodealt with issues ofchurchdiscipline and administration. They drew up a listof twentycanons, or regulations, that dealtwith (1) thestructure ofchurches; (2) thedignity ofthe clergy;(3) how to bring thelapsi,heretics,and others separated from the Church backinto unity; and (4) liturgy.

After three long months, the Council had finished its work. The State that hadsorecently persecuted the Church was now activelypromoting and strivingtohelp unifyit.The Council ofNicaea was notonly the triumph of whatwould becomethe orthodox interpretation ofChrist as one in being,or ofonesubstance, with the Fatherbutalsoa breathtakingvision of how Church and State couldwork together.Whenthe

bishops headed homewith the big job ofexplaining the Council’s decisions tothe people intheir areas, they tookwith them a deeper understanding ofwhere the Churchnow stood in the Empire thatcovered almosttheir entire known world.

The Father andthe Son: Thinking Through What ItAll

Means

Working through one problem opened the wayfor others. Those who signed theNicene Creed could not agree on whatitmeansto say that Godthe Father and the Son areofthe samesubstance.Somethought “ofthe same substance” meant that God the Father and the Son share an eternal substancedifferent from everything else;otherssaw itas meaning that the three Personsofthe Trinity are without distinction;still others thoughtitwas about the divinityof the Son; and still others were not reallyclear on anyofitbut wanted unityinthe Church.

Let’s takea look athow afew thinkers workedthrough these issues.

Athanasius

The way Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria saw it,humanswere made to be immortal,aperfectreflection of

God.Peopleonlylostimmortalityand became imperfectbecauseofsin.Sinis not somucha mistaketo be corrected or a debtto be paid as itis the wayimperfection and changecame into creation.To overcome this, God had to bring about anew creationbyentering humanity.Athanasiussaid thatChrist “was made [human] that we mightbe made god,” meaningChrist made itpossible for humans toreflect God’s imageperfectlyonce again.For Athanasius,then,itis important that Christ is ofthe verysame substanceasthe Father. His role is not to bridge some gap between humans and God—whywould we needthis sinceGod created us?—but toparticipate inhumanitysothat humans mightparticipate inGod’s divinity.

GregoryofNyssa

Gregoryof Nyssaagreedwith Athanasiusthat the Son was divine,but he tookadifferent tack in proving it. He did notjustwant toknow ifChrist was human or divine; he wanted to truly understand theexistenceof the Holy Trinity.He believed people often got confusedtrying to figure outhowChristians can talk about Father, Son,and HolySpiritand still notworship threeGods. The key,he felt,wasto makealogicaland scripturallysound argumenttoexplain the relationshipamong the membersof theTrinity—ifyou understand how theyrelate to each other,then youwill understand how theyare notthree different Gods.

Anadmirer ofOrigen, Gregoryused philosophytodevelop his theology.Ina workcalled “An Answer to Ablabius,” hedeveloped one of the tightest arguments ever created on the subjectof the Trinity. He said that God exists inthree persons but that all three haveone substanceor nature.Christian Scriptures tellus the Trinityalways actswith one accord,but the conclusion Gregorydraws fromhis argument is that this is the resultof the Three Persons sharingone substance,not the causeofit.

Moving Forward: Constantinople and Chalcedon

Theologianskeptabsorbing the work ofthe Council ofNicaea, but this led them to otherthornyquestions: Did Christ haveonlya divine nature,ordid he have ahuman one as well? And what abouttheHoly Spirit—wherediditfit into thepicture? Over the next125 years,the Church tried to untangle these difficult issues.

Years after Nicaea,people werestill arguing about what itmeant tosaythat the Father and the Son are of the samesubstance.More localcouncilswerecalled and more creedswritten, butthe confusion kept growing. Finally,anothercouncil was called for May of381 in Constantinople.

The Council ofConstantinople isknownasthe second great ecumenicalcouncil ofthe Church,although “ecumenical”is a bitofastretch—all 150 bishops attendingcame from the East.Itwas certainlyeventful, though: The firstpresidingbishop died justasthingsgot going,thenextone had to resign over political issues, and the thirdwasactuallyalayman who wasquicklybaptized and consecrated bishop.As for what the council actually did,itis hard tosaybecause the official recordingsof the proceedingsare lost. Itmay have revisedthe NiceneCreed to the form we usetoday,although there is no mention of this untilthe Council of Chalcedon in 451,or it mayjusthave restated the importance ofthe Creed. Eitherway,it definitelyheld to the Nicene line that the Father and the Son share the same divinityand that thosewho leanedtoward an Arianinterpretation ofthe Creed were wrong.

This wasnotthe end ofArianism, though.Bythe middle ofthe fourthcentury, Arianmissionarieshad alreadycarriedtheir beliefstosome of the Germanic tribesknown inhistory as the barbarians. When these tribesbeganinvasions a fewcenturies later,theybroughttheir ArianChristian faithwiththem.The Vandals in NorthAfrica,the Visigoths in Spain, theLombards inItaly—all establishedkingdoms with Arian Christianityas their faithofchoice.Among the invaders,onlythe Franks held on tothe Nicene faith. However,most of the peoples beingconquered byallthese invading hordeswere orthodoxbelievers.Put this together with the growing power ofthe Nicene-inclined Franks,and youwillseewhyArian Christianity eventuallydied out.

Once theyhad the relationship ofGod the Father and Son suitablyfigured out,theologiansstarted trying to puzzle through what it meantfor Christ to be both divine and human.One ideawas that Christ had within him two natures,one human and one divine.Nestorius,who became patriarch ofConstantinople in428, took this to alogicalextreme.He did notlike peoplecalling Mary thetheotokos,the “bearerofGod”;how could this be,he said,because whatMary gave birth to wasonly the human nature? Itis not like God

came into being when Jesus wasbornofMary. SoMary is the bearer ofJesus but notofGod,and tosay otherwise is to confusethe two natures.Nestorius said that when the two natures come together,each maintains its abilitytoexistwithout the other.

The patriarchof Alexandria,Cyril,thought Nestorius wenttoo far in distinguishing the natures. How can we saythat Goddweltamongusifwe havetofigure outwhether itwas Jesus’ divine or human nature acting everytime hedidsomething? Cyril argued the two naturescannot be separated,but theyexisttogether as a whole.Maryis the theotokosnot because the divinityofChristbeganin herbut becauseshe is motherof the human thatexists inunion with the divine.

Cyril was alsointerested in promotingAlexandria asapatriarchal see of greaterauthority than

Constantinople.He convinced the bishop ofRome to supporthis position,and asynod held inRome in

430 condemned Nestorius.Cyrilsent Nestorius aseriesof twelve condemnations ofhis position and told

himto sign them or be declared heretical.Nestorius,who had gotten the support ofJohn, the patriarchof

Antioch,sentback twelvecondemnations ofCyril.

The Westernbranchof theChurch (the patriarchs ofAlexandria andRome) wassquaring offagainstthe Eastern branch(thepatriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch).Acouncil called in431 atEphesus to straighten thesituation outjustmade thingsworse. Cyrilopened the proceedings before anyofNestorius’s supporters arrived; becausehe would notletNestoriushimselfspeak, the council quickly condemned and deposed Nestorius.WhenJohn of Antioch arrived and saw whathad happened,he called hisowncouncil and deposedCyril.

Emperor Theodosius III, thinkinga crisiswas imminent,had Cyril, Nestorius,and Johnimprisoned.Cyril finallyconvinced the Emperor tobring together a council that couldhammer outa solution.Cyril’sposition was largelyaccepted, and Nestorius was made toleaveConstantinople, eventuallyending up in an Egyptian desertmonastery.

But the problems did notendthere. Manystill supported Nestorius’s ideas, andeven among those who did not, some didnot likeCyril’s ideas either.Finally, theCouncil of Chalcedonwas called in451tohash

thingsout,and this time itworked.Thebishops decided Cyril basicallyhad itright:Christ is notsomekind ofhybrid part God–parthuman;he is bothtrulyand fullyGod and trulyand fullyhuman.

Nestorius’s ideasdid notdie when theywere condemned atthe Council of Chalcedon,however.Someof his followers rejected the council’sdecision andcontinuedto spread his ideas, eventuallyforming a separateChristian bodyknown as the Nestorian Church.This becamethe most importantChristian group in Persia,and from the end of the fifth centuryon, theyconsidered themselvesofficially separatefrom the Church incommunion with Rome.

Nestorian missionaries spread their version of the Christian message as far eastasIndia andChina.Inthe sixteenthcentury,some Nestorian communities in India rejoined the Roman CatholicChurch—theseare usuallycalledChaldeanCatholics and are part of the Uniat Churches,those that maintain their own traditions while being fullyin communionwiththe Roman Catholic Church. Nestorian churchesstill existin Iraq,Iran,parts of India, and even the United States.

After centuries ofseparation,in 1994 theNestorianChurchand theCatholic Churchjointly declared that

theyrecognizedhow the truthofChrist’smission wascontinued inboth of theirtraditions.

(ThisarticleisexcerptedfromTheCatholicChurch:ABriefPopularHistory,byCynthiaStewart[Winona,MN:AnselmAcademic,