Christology

Sixth-century icon of Christ Pantocrator at Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai

Christology is the Church's reflection on Jesus Christ, one divine person who is truly God and truly human.

Authority level: Dogma

Overview

Christology is a branch of Christian theology that concerns the nature of Jesus, which has been the topic of much debate over the centuries that culminated in the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE, issuing a formulation of the hypostatic union between a human and divine nature of Jesus, "united with neither confusion nor division."

Different denominations have different, sometimes mutually exclusive, beliefs on this matter, such as whether Jesus was divine in nature, human in nature, both, or neither. Jesus's mission as the Jewish messiah is also a related concern: whether he came specifically to free the Jewish people from foreign rulers, something else in addition to that, or something else entirely, and what his role is in salvation and the coming of the kingdom of heaven.

Christian writings address Jesus by numerous titles, such as Son of Man, Son of God, Christ (Messiah), and Kyrios. These terms centered around certain themes, namely "Jesus as a preexistent figure who becomes human and then returns to God" as opposed to adoptionism, the notion that Jesus was a human who was adopted by God at some point, typically when he is baptised, crucified, or resurrected.

Contemporary scholarship generally acknowledges the advent of high Christology as a monotheistic phenomenon within early Jewish Christianity, though older evolutionary models viewed it as a later gentile concept. Most scholars argue that high Christology precedes Paul. Many scholars today concede the synoptic gospels and other New Testament texts portray Jesus as divine.

The incarnate Son

Catholic Christology begins from the apostolic proclamation that Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal Son and Word of God made flesh. The incarnation does not turn God into a human being or absorb humanity into divinity. The one person of the Son possesses a complete divine nature and a complete human nature.

The Council of Chalcedon in 451 confessed Christ in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation. This formula safeguards both the unity of his person and the integrity of everything he shares with humanity except sin.

Saving significance

Because the acting subject in Jesus' human life is the divine Son, his words and deeds are genuinely human acts of the Word made flesh. His obedience, death, resurrection, and glorified humanity reconcile humanity to the Father and open human life to communion with God.

The New Testament confession of Jesus

Christology begins from the identity and mission of Jesus witnessed in the apostolic writings. The Gospels proclaim the Jewish Messiah who announces God's kingdom, forgives sins, gathers disciples, fulfills Israel's Scriptures, accepts a singular filial relation to the Father, dies under Pontius Pilate, and rises bodily. Titles such as Messiah, Son of Man, Lord, Son of God, Word, servant, high priest, and last Adam illuminate one subject from different angles. None may be isolated into a complete portrait that cancels the others.

The earliest Christian proclamation already joins exalted claims about Jesus with the scandal of crucifixion. He is not gradually promoted from mere teacher to divinity by a late philosophical church. Pauline hymns, baptismal formulas, invocation of his name, the Eucharistic tradition, and the Gospel of John place him within the divine identity while preserving his relation to the Father. At the same time, the writings insist on his birth, growth, hunger, grief, temptation, suffering, death, and risen wounds. Conciliar doctrine gives disciplined language to this scriptural conjunction.

The resurrection is both an event in Jesus's human history and the decisive disclosure of who he is. The one raised is the one crucified; glorification does not discard his humanity. Easter faith therefore does not replace interest in the earthly Jesus with a timeless myth. It recognizes that his pre-Easter words and deeds receive their full meaning from God's vindication and that the risen Lord remains Jesus of Nazareth. Historical inquiry can study testimony and context, while faith confesses the divine act to which the witnesses point.

The conciliar grammar of the Incarnation

Nicaea confessed the Son as begotten, not made, and consubstantial with the Father. The council's term protected worship and salvation: a creature, however exalted, could not reveal the Father perfectly or unite humanity to divine life. Constantinople reaffirmed this confession within the Church's Trinitarian faith. The Son who becomes human is eternally God from God, not a secondary deity or the highest member of creation. His mission in time expresses his eternal relation without making the Father more divine than the Son.

Ephesus defended the unity of Christ's person and therefore the title Theotokos, Mother of God, for Mary. The title does not claim that Mary originates the divine nature. It confesses that the one conceived and born from her according to his humanity is none other than the eternal Son. Speaking as though the human Jesus were a separate personal subject joined morally to the Word would divide the Gospel's actor: the same Lord is born, teaches, suffers in the flesh, dies, and rises.

Chalcedon confessed one and the same Son acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, change, division, or separation. The divine and human natures retain their properties while concurring in one person and hypostasis. Without confusion and change rejects mixtures in which humanity is absorbed or divinity diminished; without division and separation rejects two acting persons allied externally. The formula is a boundary for faithful speech, not an attempt to explain away the mystery by imagining natures as physical components.

Will, action, and the Third Council of Constantinople

Because Christ possesses a complete human nature, he has a created human intellect and will as well as the divine will common to Father, Son, and Spirit. The Third Council of Constantinople confessed two natural wills and operations in the one person. Christ's human will is not a rival center of sin; it freely follows and is moved by the divine will. Gethsemane reveals real human dread and obedient consent, not playacting. Denying the human will would remove the very obedience through which humanity is healed.

The one divine person is the subject of actions performed through either nature. Thus Christians can say that God the Son was born and suffered in the flesh, while refusing to say that the divine nature as such began or was passible. This communication of idioms grounds the unity of Gospel language. It requires attention to what is predicated of the person and according to which nature, preventing both a divided Christ and a confused account of divinity.

A complete and concrete human life

The Son assumed a rational soul and body, a human intellect, memory, imagination, affections, and freedom. He belongs to Israel, speaks human languages, learns within a family and culture, works, forms friendships, experiences fatigue, and suffers. His humanity is individual and historically concrete rather than humanity in general. Affirming this realism protects salvation: what is not assumed is not healed, while what the Son truly assumes can become the instrument of divine life.

Christ's human knowledge is genuine created knowledge. The Gospels can truthfully describe growth in wisdom, questions, surprise, and knowledge related to his mission. Catholic teaching also confesses a unique filial knowledge and the consciousness needed to accomplish his saving work. Theology must hold both without simply transferring divine omniscience univocally into the human mind or reducing Jesus to a merely human prophet who gradually guesses his identity. The hypostatic union perfects rather than abolishes the human mode of knowing.

Jesus is like humanity in all things but sin. Freedom from sin does not make his temptations unreal. Temptation can present suffering, fear, hunger, power, or an apparent good without an interior disordered desire. His obedience is fully human and costly, reaching its summit in the Passion. Because holiness is the perfection of freedom rather than its limitation, Christ's inability to defect from his filial mission does not make him less free; it reveals human freedom entirely ordered to the good.

The hypostatic union and the saving work

Christology and soteriology cannot be separated. The acts of Jesus save because the acting subject is the divine Son working through a true humanity. His human obedience, prayer, suffering, and death possess saving efficacy not as isolated achievements of a heroic individual but as the incarnate Son's self-offering. Divinity does not substitute for human action; humanity becomes the personal instrument through which the Son loves the Father and human family to the end.

The New Testament uses sacrifice, ransom, justification, victory, reconciliation, covenant, adoption, recapitulation, and healing to describe the cross and resurrection. Catholic doctrine receives this plurality as complementary. Penal language must not portray the Father as hating an innocent third party, and exemplary language must not make the cross only a moral lesson. Father and Son act in the unity of divine love; the Son freely offers himself in his humanity, bears the consequences of sin, defeats death, and communicates filial life.

The whole life of Christ is redemptive. His hidden years sanctify ordinary human growth and labor; his baptism manifests the anointed mission; teaching and healings announce the kingdom; meals gather sinners; transfiguration anticipates glory; the Passion enacts obedience; resurrection inaugurates new creation; ascension establishes his heavenly lordship; and the sending of the Spirit incorporates believers into his mystery. Concentrating on one saving moment should not detach it from this unified economy.

The one mediator

There is one mediator between God and humanity because the one person of Christ is true God and true man. His mediation is universal and unsurpassable. The intercession of Mary and the saints, ordained ministry, missionary witness, and every act by which one Christian serves another participate in his mediation; they do not supplement a deficiency in it. Likewise, whatever grace reaches persons outside visible Christian communion comes through the Paschal mystery of Christ and the Spirit, not through an independent saving economy detached from the incarnate Word.

Christ in the sacraments and discipleship

The sacraments extend neither a memory of an absent founder nor a new incarnation. The risen Christ acts through the Holy Spirit in signs entrusted to the Church. Baptism joins a person to his death and resurrection; confirmation strengthens participation in his anointing; the Eucharist gives his body and blood and sacramentally makes present his sacrifice; penance exercises his forgiving mercy; anointing conforms suffering to his Passion; Orders configures ministers to his service; marriage becomes a sign of his covenant love for the Church.

Discipleship is Christological before it is a general program of virtue. The believer receives a new relation to the Father in the Son, learns Christ's mind, shares his prayer, bears the cross, serves his members, and hopes to be conformed to his risen body. Moral teaching follows the identity of the Lord: enemy-love, chastity, truthfulness, mercy, justice, and care for the least are responses to his person and kingdom. A Christ reduced to an inspiring symbol cannot command this total allegiance or communicate the grace it requires.

Every liturgical year unfolds the one mystery from expectation and Nativity through public ministry, Pasch, Ascension, and the gift of the Spirit. Icons, creeds, hymns, and councils protect contemplation by keeping together realities piety can separate: infant and eternal Word, crucified weakness and divine glory, historical flesh and present lordship. Sound Christology is therefore not specialist ornament. It governs whom Christians worship, how they understand salvation, and what kind of humanity they expect grace to restore.

Errors, partial portraits, and continuing questions

Classical heresies remain useful names for recurring distortions. Arian patterns make the Son a creature; Docetic patterns make humanity an appearance; Nestorian patterns divide the acting subject; Monophysite caricatures confuse or absorb the humanity; Monothelite patterns deny its complete willing. Historical persons and churches should not be labeled casually, because ancient controversies involved language, politics, and divergent terminology as well as doctrine. Modern ecumenical agreements have shown that some inherited accusations did not accurately express what communities intended to confess.

Modern portraits can repeat old errors without old vocabulary. Treating Jesus only as a teacher of inclusion, political revolutionary, private mystic, moral exemplar, or apocalyptic failure selects real or alleged features while excluding the apostolic whole. At the opposite extreme, piety can speak as if his humanity were overwhelmed by divine foreknowledge and power. Catholic Christology welcomes historical research and cultural representation while judging every reconstruction by the canonical witness and conciliar confession.

The Church's claim is finally doxological: Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, in the Holy Spirit. Definitions protect the identity of the one encountered in prayer and sacrament. They do not exhaust him. Because the person is the eternal Son living a truly human history, believers may know him truthfully without comprehending the divine mystery. Christology therefore proceeds through exegesis, dogma, metaphysical reflection, liturgy, spirituality, and discipleship, each accountable to the same incarnate Lord.

Definition and approaches

Christology (from the Greek χριστός, khristós, 'anointed one' and -λογία, -logia), literally 'the understanding of Christ', is the study of the nature (person) and work (role in salvation) of Jesus Christ.

It studies Jesus Christ's humanity and divinity, and the relationship between these two aspects; as well as the role he plays in salvation.

Ontological Christology analyzes the nature or being of Jesus Christ. Functional Christology analyzes the works of Jesus Christ, while soteriological Christology analyzes the "salvific" standpoints of Christology.

Theologians may take several different approaches to Christology. For example:

• Christology from above or high Christology emphasizes approaches that include aspects of divinity (such as titles like "Lord" and "Son of God") and the idea of the pre-existence of Christ as the Logos ('the Word'), (as expressed in the prologue to the Gospel of John.) These approaches interpret the works of Christ in terms of his divinity. According to Pannenberg, Christology from above "was far more common in the ancient Church, beginning with Ignatius of Antioch and the second century Apologists".
• Christology from below or low Christology takes as its starting point the human aspects and the ministry of Jesus (including the miracles, parables, etc.) and moves towards his divinity and the mystery of incarnation.

Person of Christ

A standard Christological teaching describes Jesus as possessing two natures: one human, one divine. Many scholars today concede this. Some issues have arisen regarding the exact kind of union these two are in. According to post-Chalcedonian definitions, Jesus's two natures form a duality, coexisting within one hypostatic union. However, in the Oriental Orthodox paradigm, the union of these two natures is a composite nature that is both fully human and fully divine. There are no direct discussions in the New Testament regarding a dual nature of Jesus; theologians have debated various approaches since the early days of Christianity.

From the earliest sources, Paul's letters, Jesus is understood to receive prayer (1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 12:8–9), the presence of Jesus is confessionally invoked by believers (1 Corinthians 16:22; Romans 10:9–13; Philippians 2:10–11), people are baptized in Jesus' name (1 Corinthians 6:11; Romans 6:3), Jesus is the reference in Christian fellowship for a religious ritual meal (the Lord's Supper; 1 Corinthians 11:17–34). Jesus is described as "existing in the very form of God" (Philippians 2:6), and having the "fullness of the Deity [living] in bodily form" (Colossians 2:9). Jesus is also in some verses directly called God (Romans 9:5, Titus 2:13, 2 Peter 1:1).

The standard evidences for the divinity of Jesus fall under five themes that are shared by God: his honors, attributes, names, deeds, and shares the seat of God's throne.

There are some Christological doctrines that have acquired broad support:

• Monophysitism (Monophysite controversy, 3rd–8th centuries): After the union of the divine and the human in the historical incarnation, Jesus Christ had only a single nature. The Council of Chalcedon and Third Council of Ephesus condemned Monophysitism as heretical in 451 AD and 475 AD, respectively.
• Miaphysitism (Oriental Orthodox churches): In the person of Jesus Christ, divine nature and human nature are united in a compound nature ('physis').
• Dyophysitism (Eastern Orthodox Church, Catholic Church, Church of the East, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and the Reformed Churches): Christ maintained two natures, one divine and one human, after the Incarnation; articulated by the Chalcedonian Definition.
• Monarchianism (including Adoptionism and Modalism): God as one, in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity. Condemned as heretical in the Patristic era but followed today by certain groups of Nontrinitarians.

Influential Christologies broadly condemned as heretical include:

• Docetism (3rd–4th centuries) claimed the human form of Jesus was mere semblance without any true reality.
• Arianism (4th century) viewed the divine nature of Jesus, the Son of God, as distinct and inferior to God the Father, e.g., by having a beginning in time.
• Nestorianism (5th century) considers the two natures (human and divine) of Jesus Christ to subsist separately.
• Monothelitism (7th century), considered Christ to have only one will.

As councils were convened, some theological positions were rejected as heresies, yet the acceptance of these councils remains partial. Notably, certain Christological views reemerged in later centuries, such as the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses, which reflect elements of Arianism.

Salvation

In Christian theology, atonement is the forgiving of sin and the method by which human beings can be reconciled to God, both through faith in Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection. Due to the influence of Gustaf Aulén (1879–1978), whose book Christus Victor came out in English translation in 1931, the various theories or paradigmata of atonement are often grouped under the headings of the "classical paradigm," "objective paradigm," and "subjective paradigm."

• Classical paradigm:
  • Ransom theory of atonement, which teaches that Jesus's death was a ransom sacrifice, usually said to have been paid to Satan or to death itself, in some views paid to God the Father, in satisfaction for the bondage and debt on the souls of humanity as a result of inherited sin. Gustaf Aulén reinterpreted the ransom theory, calling it the Christus Victor doctrine, arguing that Christ's death was not a payment to the Devil, but defeated the powers of evil, which had held humankind in their dominion.
  • Recapitulation theory, which says that Jesus succeeded where Adam failed. Theosis ('divinization') is a "corollary" of the recapitulation.
• Objective paradigm:
  • Satisfaction theory of atonement, developed by Anselm of Canterbury (1033/4–1109), which teaches that Jesus Christ suffered crucifixion as a substitute for human sin, satisfying God's just wrath against humankind's transgression due to Christ's infinite merit.
  • Penal substitution, also called "forensic theory" and "vicarious punishment," which was a development by the Reformers of Anselm's satisfaction theory. Instead of considering sin as an affront to God's honour, it sees sin as the breaking of God's moral law. Penal substitution sees sinful man as being subject to God's wrath, with the essence of Jesus' saving work being his substitution in the sinner's place, bearing the curse in the place of man.
  • Governmental theory of atonement, "which views God as both the loving creator and moral Governor of the universe."
• Subjective paradigm:
  • Moral influence theory of atonement, developed, or most notably propagated, by Abelard (1079–1142), who argued that "Jesus died as the demonstration of God's love," a demonstration which can change the hearts and minds of the sinners, turning back to God.
  • Moral example theory, developed by Faustus Socinus (1539–1604) in his work De Jesu Christo servatore (1578), who rejected the idea of "vicarious satisfaction." According to Socinus, Jesus' death offers humanity a perfect example of self-sacrificial dedication to God.

Other theories are the "embracement theory" and the "shared atonement" theory.

Early Christologies (1st century)

The earliest Christological reflections were shaped by both the Jewish background of the earliest Christians, and by the Greek world of the eastern Mediterranean in which they operated.

According to Matthew Novenson:

... whereas for much of the twentieth century high Christology was widely thought to be late, Gentile, and polytheist, over the last thirty years it has taken its place as early, Jewish, and monotheist.

Historically, in the Alexandrian school of thought (fashioned on the Gospel of John), Jesus is the eternal Logos who already possesses unity with the Father before the act of Incarnation. In contrast, the Antiochian school viewed Christ as a single, unified human person apart from his relationship to the divine.

Development of Christology

Two fundamentally different Christologies developed in the early Church, namely a "low" or adoptionist Christology, and a "high" or "incarnation" Christology. The chronology of the development of these early Christologies is a matter of debate within contemporary scholarship. There is no consensus on the continuity or discontinuity of earthly Jesus and post-Easter christology.

The "low Christology" or "adoptionist Christology" is the belief "that God exalted Jesus to be his Son by raising him from the dead", thereby raising him to "divine status". According to the "evolutionary model" or evolutionary theories, the Christological understanding of Jesus developed over time, as witnessed in the Gospels, with the earliest Christians believing that Jesus was a human who was exalted, or else adopted as God's Son, when he was resurrected. Later beliefs shifted the exaltation to his baptism, to his birth, and subsequently to the idea of his pre-existence, as witnessed in the Gospel of John. This "evolutionary model" was proposed by proponents of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, especially Wilhelm Bousset's influential Kyrios Christos (1913). This evolutionary model was very influential, and the "low Christology" has long been regarded as the oldest Christology.

The other early Christology is "high Christology", which is "the view that Jesus was a pre-existent divine being who became a human, did the Father's will on earth, and then was taken back up into heaven whence he had originally come", and from where he appeared on earth. According to Bousset, this "high Christology" developed at the time of Paul's writing, under the influence of Gentile Christians, who brought their pagan Hellenistic traditions to the early Christian communities, introducing divine honours to Jesus. According to Casey and Dunn, this "high Christology" developed after the time of Paul, at the end of the first century CE when the Gospel of John was written.

Since the 1970s, these late datings for the development of a "high Christology" have been contested, and a majority of scholars argue that this "high Christology" existed already before the writings of Paul. According to the "New Religionsgeschichtliche Schule", or the Early High Christology Club, which includes Martin Hengel, Larry Hurtado, N. T. Wright, and Richard Bauckham, this "incarnation Christology" or "high Christology" did not evolve over a longer time, but was a "big bang" of ideas which were already present at the start of Christianity, and took further shape in the first few decades of the church, as witnessed in the writings of Paul.

New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado supports this early high Christology position, emphasizing that devotional practices directed toward Jesus, such as prayer, hymns, invocation of his name, and the Aramaic liturgical expression Maranatha emerged remarkably early, likely within the first months or years following Jesus’ crucifixion. Hurtado argues that this reverence arose initially within Jewish-Christian communities in Roman Judea and involved assigning to Jesus divine prerogatives previously reserved for God alone, such as participation in worship and the divine throne. He views this as a historically unprecedented development in Jewish monotheistic devotion.

There is a controversy regarding whether Jesus himself claimed to be divine. In Honest to God (1963), then-Bishop of Woolwich, John A. T. Robinson, questioned the idea. John Hick, writing in 1993, and separately Gerd Ludemann, cited "broad agreement" that scholars do not today support the view that Jesus claimed to be God and that the proclamation of the divinity of Jesus was a development within the earliest Christian communities. Larry Hurtado, who argues that the followers of Jesus within a very short period developed an exceedingly high level of devotional reverence to Jesus. N. T. Wright points out that arguments over the claims of Jesus regarding divinity have been passed over by more recent scholarship, which sees a more complex understanding of the idea of God in first century Judaism. Andrew Loke has argued that this "high Christology" may go back to Jesus himself.

Loke argues that if Jesus did not claim and show himself to be truly divine and risen from the dead, the earliest Christian leaders who were devout ancient monotheistic Jews would have regarded Jesus as merely a teacher or a prophet; they would not have come to the widespread agreement that he was truly divine, which they did; on which Larry Hurtado commented "I don't find Loke's case persuasive." Brant Pitre also argues that the Historical Jesus claimed to be divine and was the origin of high Christology. According to Dale Allison, writing for The New Cambridge Companion to Jesus, the historical Jesus held an exalted self-conception comparable to divine agents in other Second Temple Jewish texts, such as the Son of man.

New Testament writings

The study of the various Christologies of the Apostolic Age is based on early Christian documents.

Paul

The oldest Christian sources are the writings of Paul. According to most scholars, the central Christology of Paul conveys the notion of Christ's pre-existence. Although this is disputed by a minority of scholars. and the identification of Christ as Kyrios. Both notions likely existed before him in the early Christian communities, and Paul deepened them and used them for preaching in the Hellenistic communities.

What exactly Paul believed about the nature of Jesus cannot be determined decisively. In Philippians 2, Paul possibly implies that Jesus was preexistent and came to Earth "by taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness". This sounds like an incarnation Christology according to the view of most scholars. Although this interpretation has been disputed by a few scholars. In Romans 1:4, however, Paul states that Jesus "was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead", which sounds like an adoptionistic Christology, where Jesus was a human being who was "adopted" after his death. Different views would be debated for centuries by Christians and finally settled on the idea that he was both fully human and fully divine by the middle of the 5th century in the Council of Ephesus. Paul's thoughts on Jesus' teachings, versus his nature and being, are more defined, in that Paul believed Jesus was sent as an atonement for the sins of everyone.

The Pauline epistles use Kyrios to identify Jesus almost 230 times, and express the theme that the true mark of a Christian is the confession of Jesus as the true Lord. Paul viewed the superiority of the Christian revelation over all other divine manifestations as a consequence of the fact that Christ is the Son of God.

The Pauline epistles also advanced the "cosmic Christology" later developed in the Gospel of John, elaborating the cosmic implications of Jesus' existence as the Son of God: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." In the Epistle to the Colossians, which purports to be written by Paul (though this is disputed), relevant claims are made: "Through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven"; "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation".

The Gospels

The synoptic Gospels date from after the writings of Paul. They provide episodes from the life of Jesus and some of his works, but the authors of the New Testament show little interest in an absolute chronology of Jesus or in synchronizing the episodes of his life, and as in John 21:25, the Gospels do not claim to be an exhaustive list of his works.

Many scholars today concede the synoptic gospels and other New Testament texts portray Jesus as divine. Christologies that can be gleaned from the three synoptic Gospels generally emphasize the humanity of Jesus, his sayings, his parables, and his miracles. The Gospel of John provides a different perspective that focuses on his divinity. The first 14 verses of the Gospel of John are devoted to the divinity of Jesus as the Logos, usually translated as "Word", along with his pre-existence, and they emphasize the cosmic significance of Christ, e.g.: "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." In the context of these verses, the Word made flesh is identical with the Word who was in the beginning with God, being exegetically equated with Jesus.

Pre-existence

The notion of pre-existence is deeply rooted in Jewish thought, and can be found in apocalyptic thought and among the rabbis of Paul's time, but Paul was most influenced by Jewish-Hellenistic wisdom literature, where "'Wisdom' is extolled as something existing before the world and already working in creation. According to Witherington, Paul "subscribed to the christological notion that Christ existed prior to taking on human flesh[,] founding the story of Christ [...] on the story of divine Wisdom".

Kyrios

The title Kyrios for Jesus is central to the development of New Testament Christology. In the Septuagint it translates the Tetragrammaton, the name of the God of Moses. As such, it closely links Jesus with God, as in, "... in the name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...".

According to Dan McClellan, as a result of scribes adding mal'ak (Heb. messenger) wherever a physical manifestation of God was "theologically undesirable," a view developed where the name of God could function as a "transferable vehicle," whereby the recipient is permitted to do what only God can do, acting as the physical manifestation of God's presence.

Kyrios is also conjectured to be the Greek translation of Aramaic Mari, which in everyday Aramaic usage was a very respectful form of polite address, which means more than just 'teacher' and was somewhat similar to 'rabbi'. While the term Mari expressed the relationship between Jesus and his disciples during his life, the Greek Kyrios came to represent his lordship over the world.

The early Christians placed Kyrios at the center of their understanding, and from that center attempted to understand the other issues related to the Christian mysteries. The question of the deity of Christ in the New Testament is inherently related to the Kyrios title of Jesus used in the early Christian writings and its implications for the absolute lordship of Jesus. In early Christian belief, the concept of Kyrios included the pre-existence of Christ, for they believed if Christ is one with God, he must have been united with God from the very beginning.

Controversies and ecumenical councils (2nd–8th century)

Post-Apostolic controversies

Following the Apostolic Age, from the second century onwards, a number of controversies developed about how the human and divine are related within the person of Jesus. As of the second century, a number of different and opposing approaches developed among various groups. In contrast to prevailing monoprosopic views on the Person of Christ, alternative dyoprosopic notions were also promoted by some theologians, but such views were rejected by the ecumenical councils. For example, Arianism did not endorse divinity, Ebionism argued Jesus was an ordinary mortal, while Gnosticism held docetic views which argued Christ was a spiritual being who only appeared to have a physical body. The resulting tensions led to schisms within the church in the second and third centuries, and ecumenical councils were convened in the fourth and fifth centuries to deal with the issues.

Although some of the debates may seem to various modern students to be over a theological iota, they took place in controversial political circumstances, reflecting the relations of temporal powers and divine authority, and certainly resulted in schisms, among others that separated the Church of the East from the Church of the Roman Empire.

First Council of Nicaea (325) and First Council of Constantinople (381)

In 325, the First Council of Nicaea defined the persons of the Godhead and their relationship with one another, decisions which were ratified at the First Council of Constantinople in 381. The language used was that the one God exists in three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit); in particular, it was affirmed that the Son was homoousios (of the same being) as the Father. The Nicene Creed declared the full divinity and full humanity of Jesus. After the First Council of Nicaea in 325 the Logos and the second Person of the Trinity were being used interchangeably.

First Council of Ephesus (431)

In 431, the First Council of Ephesus was initially called to address the views of Nestorius on Mariology, but the problems soon extended to Christology, and schisms followed. The 431 council was called because in defense of his loyal priest Anastasius, Nestorius had preferred that the title Christokos (Christ-bearer) be used over Theotokos (God-bearer) for Mary and later contradicted Proclus during a sermon in Constantinople. Pope Celestine I (who was already upset with Nestorius due to other matters) wrote about this to Cyril of Alexandria, who orchestrated the council. During the council, Nestorius defended his position by arguing that there are two distinct and separate natures of Christ, one human and the other divine, hence Mary gave birth only to the human nature, suggesting that the title Theotokos (God-bearer) is insufficient to fully describe the Incarnation, as it does not encompass Christ's humanity. The debate about the single or dual nature of Christ ensued in Ephesus.

The First Council of Ephesus debated miaphysitism (two natures united as one after the hypostatic union) versus dyophysitism (coexisting natures after the hypostatic union) versus monophysitism (only one nature) versus Nestorianism (two hypostases). From the Christological viewpoint, the council adopted Mia Physis ('but being made one', κατὰ φύσιν) – Council of Ephesus, Epistle of Cyril to Nestorius, i.e. 'one nature of the Word of God incarnate' (μία φύσις τοῦ θεοῦ λόγου σεσαρκωμένη, mía phýsis toû theoû lógou sesarkōménē). In 451, the Council of Chalcedon affirmed dyophysitism. The Oriental Orthodox rejected this and subsequent councils and continued to consider themselves as miaphysite according to the faith put forth at the Councils of Nicaea and Ephesus. The council also confirmed the Theotokos title and excommunicated Nestorius.

Council of Chalcedon (451)

The 451 Council of Chalcedon was highly influential, and marked a key turning point in the christological debates. It is the last council which many Lutherans, Anglicans and other Protestants consider ecumenical.

The Council of Chalcedon fully promulgated the Western dyophysite understanding put forth by Pope Leo I of Rome of the hypostatic union, the proposition that Christ has one human nature (physis) and one divine nature (physis), each distinct and complete, and united with neither confusion nor division. Most of the major branches of Western Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Reformed), Church of the East, Eastern Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy subscribe to the Chalcedonian Christological formulation, while Oriental Orthodoxy (in Antioch, Alexandria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Armenia) reject it.

Although the Chalcedonian Creed did not put an end to all christological debate, it did clarify the terms used and became a point of reference for many future Christologies. But it also broke apart the church of the Eastern Roman Empire in the fifth century, and unquestionably established the primacy of Rome in the East over those who accepted the Council of Chalcedon. This was reaffirmed in 519, when the Eastern Chalcedonians accepted the Formula of Hormisdas, anathematizing all of their own Eastern Chalcedonian hierarchy, who died out of communion with Rome from 482 to 519.

Fifth–Seventh Ecumenical Council (553, 681, 787)

The Second Council of Constantinople in 553 interpreted the decrees of Chalcedon, and further explained the relationship of the two natures of Jesus. It also condemned the alleged teachings of Origen on the pre-existence of the soul, and other topics.

The Third Council of Constantinople in 681 declared that Christ has two wills of his two natures, human and divine, contrary to the teachings of the Monothelites, with the divine will having precedence, leading and guiding the human will.

The Second Council of Nicaea was called under the Empress Regent Irene of Athens in 787. It affirmed the veneration of icons while forbidding their worship. It is often referred to as "The Triumph of Orthodoxy".

Western medieval Christology

The Franciscan piety of the 12th and 13th centuries led to "popular Christology". Systematic approaches by theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, are called "scholastic Christology".

In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas provided the first systematic Christology that consistently resolved a number of the existing issues. In his Christology from above, Aquinas also championed the principle of perfection of Christ's human attributes.

The Middle Ages also witnessed the emergence of the "tender image of Jesus" as a friend and a living source of love and comfort, rather than just the Kyrios image.

Reformation

Article 10 of the Belgic Confession, a confessional standard of the Reformed faith, subscribes to Nicene orthodoxy regarding the deity of Christ. The article places emphasis on the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal divine nature of Christ as Creator.

We believe that Jesus Christ, according to his divine nature, is the only begotten Son of God, begotten from eternity, not made nor created (for then He should be a creature), but co-essential and co-eternal with the Father, "the express image of His person, and the brightness of His glory" (Hebrews 1:3), equal unto him in all things. He is the Son of God, not only from the time that He assumed our nature, but from all eternity, as these testimonies, when compared together, teach us. Moses says that God created the world; and John saith that "all things were made by that Word" (John 1:3), which he calls God. And the apostle says that God made the worlds by His Son (Hebrews 1:2); likewise, that "God created all things by Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 3:9). Therefore, it must needs follow, that he who is called God, the Word, the Son, and Jesus Christ did exist at that time, when all things were created by him. Therefore, the prophet Micah says, "His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting" (Micah 5:2). And the apostle: "He has neither beginning of days, nor end of life" (Hebrews 7:3). He therefore is that true, eternal, and almighty God, whom we invoke, worship and serve.

John Calvin maintained there was no human element in the Person of Christ which could be separated from the Person of the Word. Calvin also emphasized the importance of the "Work of Christ" in any attempt at understanding the Person of Christ and cautioned against ignoring the works of Jesus during his ministry.

Modern developments

Liberal Protestant theology

The 19th century saw the rise of Liberal Protestant theology, which questioned the dogmatic foundations of Christianity, and approached the Bible with critical-historical tools. The divinity of Jesus became of less emphasis or importance, and was replaced with a focus on the ethical aspects of his teachings.

Roman Catholicism

Catholic theologian Karl Rahner sees the purpose of modern Christology as to formulate the Christian belief that "God became man and that God-made-man is the individual Jesus Christ" in a manner that this statement can be understood consistently, without the confusions of past debates and mythologies. Rahner pointed out the coincidence between the Person of Christ and the Word of God, referring to Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:26 which state whoever is ashamed of the words of Jesus is ashamed of the Lord himself.

Hans von Balthasar argued the union of the human and divine natures of Christ was achieved not by the "absorption" of human attributes, but by their "assumption". Thus, in his view, the divine nature of Christ was not affected by the human attributes and remained forever divine. The same distinction is recorded in the Second Vatican Council's pastoral constitution, Gaudium et spes: "in Him, human nature was assumed, not absorbed".

Pope Francis, in his 2024 encyclical letter Dilexit nos, refers to the "divinity and plenary humanity" of Jesus.

Topics

Nativity and the Holy Name

The Nativity of Jesus impacted the Christological issues about his person from the earliest days of Christianity. Luke's Christology centers on the dialectics of the dual natures of the earthly and heavenly manifestations of existence of the Christ, while Matthew's Christology focuses on the mission of Jesus and his role as the savior. The salvific emphasis of Matthew 1:21 later impacted the theological issues and the devotions to the Holy Name of Jesus.

Matthew 1:23 provides a key to the "Emmanuel Christology" of Matthew. Beginning with 1:23, the Gospel of Matthew shows a clear interest in identifying Jesus as "God with us" and in later developing the Emmanuel characterization of Jesus at key points throughout the rest of the Gospel. The name 'Emmanuel' does not appear elsewhere in the New Testament, but Matthew builds on it in Matthew 28:20 ("I am with you always, even unto the end of the world") to indicate Jesus will be with the faithful to the end of the age. According to Ulrich Luz, the Emmanuel motif brackets the entire Gospel of Matthew between 1:23 and 28:20, appearing explicitly and implicitly in several other passages.

Crucifixion and resurrection

The accounts of the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection of Jesus provides a rich background for christological analysis, from the canonical Gospels to the Pauline Epistles.

A central element in the christology presented in the Acts of the Apostles is the affirmation of the belief that the death of Jesus by crucifixion happened "with the foreknowledge of God, according to a definite plan". In this view, as in Acts 2:23, the cross is not viewed as a scandal, for the crucifixion of Jesus "at the hands of the lawless" is viewed as the fulfilment of the plan of God.

Paul's Christology has a specific focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus. For Paul, the crucifixion of Jesus is directly related to his resurrection and the term "the cross of Christ" used in Galatians 6:12 may be viewed as his abbreviation of the message of the Gospels. For Paul, the crucifixion of Jesus was not an isolated event in history, but a cosmic event with significant eschatological consequences, as in 1 Corinthians 2:8. In the Pauline view, Jesus, obedient to the point of death (Philippians 2:8), died "at the right time" (Romans 5:6) based on the plan of God. For Paul, the "power of the cross" is not separable from the resurrection of Jesus.

Threefold office

The threefold office (Latin munus triplex) of Jesus Christ is a Christian doctrine based upon the teachings of the Old Testament. It was described by Eusebius and more fully developed by John Calvin. It states that Jesus Christ performed three functions (or "offices") in his earthly ministry – those of prophet, priest, and king. In the Old Testament, the appointment of someone to any of these three positions could be indicated by anointing him or her by pouring oil over the head. Thus, the term messiah, meaning "anointed one", is associated with the concept of the threefold office. While the office of king is that most frequently associated with the Messiah, the role of Jesus as priest is also prominent in the New Testament, being most fully explained in chapters 7 to 10 of the Book of Hebrews.

Mariology

Some Christians, notably Roman Catholics, view Mariology as a key component of Christology. In this view, not only is Mariology a logical and necessary consequence of Christology, but without it, Christology is incomplete, since the figure of Mary contributes to a fuller understanding of who Christ is and what he did.

Protestants have criticized Mariology because many of its assertions lack any Biblical foundation. Strong Protestant reaction against Roman Catholic Marian devotion and teaching has been a significant issue for ecumenical dialogue.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) expressed this sentiment about Roman Catholic Mariology when in two separate occasions he stated, "The appearance of a truly Marian awareness serves as the touchstone indicating whether or not the christological substance is fully present" and "It is necessary to go back to Mary, if we want to return to the truth about Jesus Christ."

See also

• Catholic spirituality
• Christian messianic prophecies
• Christian views of Jesus
• Christological argument
• Crucifixion of Jesus
• Doubting Thomas
• Eucharist
• Eutychianism
• Five Holy Wounds
• Genealogy of Jesus
• Great Church
• Great Tribulation
• Harrowing of Hell
• Kingship and Kingdom of God
• Last Judgement
• Life of Jesus in the New Testament
• Miracles of Jesus
• Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament
• Religious perspectives on Jesus
• Paterology
• Pneumatology
• Rapture
• Scholastic Lutheran Christology
• Second Coming of Christ
• Transfiguration of Jesus
• Universal resurrection

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

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 (Gen., iii, 1-19; ix, 18-27; xii, 1-9; xvii, 1-9; xviii, 17-19; xxii, 16-18; xxvi, 1-5; xxvii, 1-15; Num., xxiv, 15-19; II Kings, vii, 1-16; 1 Par., xvii, 1-17; Jer., xxiii, 1-8; xxxiii, 14-26; Ezech., xvii). 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 (Mich., V, 2-14), they determine its time by the passing of the sceptre from Juda (Gen., xlix, 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 (Is., vii, 1-17), and that His appearance, at least His public appearance, will be preceded by a precursor (Is., xl, 1-11; Mal., iv, 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 (Jer., xxxi, 15-26), and the flight into Egypt (Osee, xi, 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 (I Kings, ii, 1-10) and in the royal song of the Psalmist (xliv); as priest in the sacerdotal type Melchisedech (Gen., xiv, 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 (Is., xlii, 1; xliii, 13), and of the light of the Gentiles (Is., xlix).

(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" (Jer., xi), 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 (Is., lii, 13; liii, 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?" (Zach., xiii), "Let us condemn him to a most shameful death" (Wisd., ii), 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 (Gen., xxi, 1-14), the scapegoat (Lev., xvi, 1-28), the ashes of purification (Num., xix, 1-10), and the brazen serpent (Num., xxi, 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" (Osee, v, 15, vi, 3), "O death, I will be thy death" (Osee, xiii, 6-15a), and "I know that my Redeemer liveth" (Job, xix, 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 (Lev., xxiii, 9-14) and the delivery of Jonas from the belly of the fish (Jon., ii). 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 (Ex., xxv, 8-9; xxix, 43; xl, 33-36; Num., ix, 15-23), the mercy-seat (Ex., xxv, 17-22; Ps. lxxix, 1), Aaron the high priest (Ex., xxviii, 1; xxx, 1; 10; Num., xvi, 39-40), the manna (Ex., xvi, 1-15; Ps. lxxvii, 24-25), and the rock of Horeb (Ex., xvii, 5-7; Num., xx, 10-11; Ps. civ, 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 oecumenical 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" (Phil., ii, 7; Rom., viii, 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 (I Tim., iii, 16), as possessing a body of flesh (Col., i, 22), as being "made of a woman" (Gal., iv, 4), as being born of the seed of David according to the flesh (Rom., i, 3), as belonging according to the flesh to the race of Israel (Rom., ix, 5). As a Jew, Jesus Christ was born under the Law (Gal., iv, 4). The Apostle dwells with emphasis on Our Lord's real share in our physical human weakness (II Cor., xiii, 4), on His life of suffering (Heb., v, 8) reaching its climax in the Passion (ibid., i, 5; Phil., iii, 10; Col., i, 24). Only in two respects did Our Lord's humanity differ from the rest of men: first in its entire sinlessness (II Cor., v, 21; Gal., ii, 17; Rom., vii, 3); secondly, in the fact that Our Lord was the second Adam, representing the whole human race (Rom., v, 12-21; I Cor., xv, 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 (Heb., i, 1 sq.; v, 5 sq.; ii, 5 sq.; Rom., i, 3; Gal., iv, 4; Eph., iv, 13; Col., i, 12 sq.; ii, 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 (Heb., v, 4; x, 11; vii, 1-22; iii, 1-6; i, 1). He raises Christ above the choirs of angels, and makes Him their Lord and Master (Heb., i, 3; 14; ii, 2-3), and seats Him as heir of all things at the right hand of the Father (Heb., i, 2-3; Gal., iv, 14; Eph., i, 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 (Phil., ii, 6; Col., i, 15), Christ is not merely the image and glory of God (I Cor., xi, 7), but also the first-born before any created beings (Col., i, 15), in Whom, and by Whom, and for Whom all things were made (Col., i, 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 (Col., ii, 9), in a word, "who is over all things, God blessed for ever" (Rom., ix, 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 (I Pet., i, 1; II Pet., i, 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 (I Pet., i, 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 (II Pet., i, 16); he appears to take pleasure in multiplying His titles: Jesus Our Lord (II Pet., i, 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 (I John, ii, 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 (Matt., iii, 17, xvii, 5; xxii, 41; cf. iv, 3, 6; Luke, iv, 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, i, 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, i, 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, i, 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, i, 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, ii, 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 (Matt., xi, 27; xxviii, 20), and correspondingly He never calls the Father "our" Father, but "my" Father (Matt., xviii, 10, 19, 35; xx, 23; xxvi, 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 (Matt., xxi, 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 (Matt., ix, 2-6; Luke, v, 20, 24); He insists on faith in Himself (Matt., xvi, 16, 17), He inserts His name in the baptismal formula between that of the Father and the Holy Ghost (Matt., xxviii, 19), He alone knows the Father and is known by the Father alone (Matt., xi, 27), He institutes the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (Matt., xxvi, 26; Mark, xiv, 22; Luke, xxii 19), He suffers and dies only to rise again the third day (Matt., xx, 19; Mark x, 34; Luke, xviii, 33) He ascends into Heaven, but declares that He will be among us till the end of the world (Matt., xxviii, 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 (I John, ii, 22-23; iv, 3; II 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.).

External links

• Encyclopædia Britannica, Christology – full access article

Further reading

Overview

• D. Glenn Butner, Jr. Christological Dogmatics: A Theological Witness to the Person and Work of Christ. Baker Academic, 2026.
• Kereszty, Roch A. Jesus Christ: Fundamentals of Christology, 3rd edn. Alba House, 2022.
• Murphy, Francesca Aran, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Christology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
• Pawl, Timothy J. & Michael L. Peterson, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Christology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025.
• Reeves, Michael (2015). Rejoicing in Christ. IVP. ISBN 978-0830840229.

Early high Christology

• Moehlman, Conrad Henry (1960), How Jesus Became God: An Historical Study of the Life of Jesus to the Age of Constantine, Philosophical Library
• Bird, Michael F. (2017), Jesus the Eternal Son: Answering Adoptionist Christology, Wim. B. Eerdmans Publishing, ISBN 978-0-8028-7506-8
• Hurtado, Larry W. (2003), Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0802860705, OCLC 51623141
• Hurtado, Larry W. (2005), How on Earth did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0802828613, OCLC 61461917
• Bauckham, Richard (2008), Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament's Christology of Divine Identity, Eerdmans, ISBN 978-0-8028-4559-7
• Ehrman, Bart D. (2014), How Jesus became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, Harper Collins
• Bird, Michael F; Evans, Craig A; Gathercole, Simon; Hill, Charles E; Tilling, Chris (2014), How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus' Divine Nature – A Response to Bart Ehrman, Zondervan, ISBN 978-0-310-51961-4
• Loke, Andrew Ter Ern (2017), The Origin of Divine Christology, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1107199262
• Fletcher-Louis, Crispin (2015), Jesus Monotheism: Volume 1: Christological Origins: The Emerging Consensus and Beyond, Wipf and Stock Publishers, ISBN 978-1-7252-5622-4

Atonement

• Pugh, Ben (2015), Atonement Theories: A Way through the Maze, James Clarke & Co

Bibliography

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