Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

The older rationalists openly denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. The moderns, on the other hand — whether they are numbered among the radical, liberal, or conservative Protestants, or finally among the Modernists who apostatized from the Catholic Church — for the most part boast in words of faith in Christ as God, while in reality they attack it with the utmost bitterness. For they contend that this faith arose only gradually, by a process of development, in the post-apostolic age.

Yet, on the contrary, the divinity of Jesus was believed immediately after the Savior's death in the apostolic Church, which had been taught it by Christ himself; indeed, even before the Savior's death it was taught by the very mouth of Christ. We shall therefore treat, in two articles, of the divinity of Jesus manifested before his death, and likewise of the divinity of Jesus manifested after his death. Both manifestations redound to Jesus himself, whether he instructs us immediately through his own utterances or mediately through the utterances of the apostolic Church.

By manifold testimony Jesus declares both that He is God in the absolute sense and that He is the natural Son of God — a twofold assertion which is to be established step by step in what follows.

1. Negative argument: Sayings by which Jesus reveals His human self-consciousness.

The adversaries will not even hear of¹ the positive testimonies by which Jesus discloses His divinity. It suffices for them to have proved merely negatively that Jesus so developed His human self-consciousness as to exclude the divine! But Jesus neither by His general manner of acting nor by any particular deed so exalts His humanity as to deny His divinity.

a) By His general manner of acting our Savior certainly manifests His humanity always and everywhere. In body and soul, in word and work, whether He deals with Himself alone, with God, or with His neighbor, He shows Himself a man. This, however, in no way detracts from His divinity. For because He was not God only, but also man, it behooved Him "to be made like unto his brethren in all things ... tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin.²" Nay, because Jesus Christ, the God-man, had become God made man, He had to show His humanity more than His divinity. For God made man acts, speaks, and suffers only through human organs; even His divinity itself, I say, He can reveal only through His humanity. The humanity is the veil with which the divinity of Jesus Christ is covered and through which it shines through. By His human manner of acting, then, the Savior does not exclude the divine nature. But neither does He [exclude it] by a particular deed:

b) By a particular deed. The adversaries object the sayings by which they think Jesus simply repudiated His divinity: To the young man asking: "Good Master, what good shall I do, that I may have life everlasting?" He answers: "Why askest thou me concerning good? One is good, God.³ With these words Jesus rejects the vain title of good master, with which the Pharisees were honored,⁴ giving all glory to God most good. That He Himself is God, He neither affirms nor denies before the young man. Before His disciples, however, who are capable of grasping the mystery of His divinity, He professes Himself master and Lord,⁵ and that in the best and most perfect sense, comparing Himself with the heavenly Father: "For one is your master, Christ ..., and one is your Father, who is in heaven.⁶"

Of His parousia, that is, of His coming to the last judgment, He says: "But of that day or hour no one knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.⁷" The force of the saying is this: the day of judgment is communicated to no creature, and hence even the Son does not know that day with communicable knowledge. For thus the Savior explains on another occasion: "It is not for you to know the times or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power.⁸"

Dying on the cross Jesus cries out: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?⁹" With these words Jesus does not deny His divinity, but affirms His suffering humanity. His divinity is by no means excluded by the fact that His humanity, undergoing the punishment of death, entreats and invokes God with the most fervent prayers.

By no reasoning, therefore, can it be shown that Jesus, by the sayings in which He reveals His humanity, denies His divinity. The question therefore arises whether He positively professed His divinity or not.

2. Positive argument: Sayings by which Jesus reveals His divine self-consciousness.

The adversaries grant that Jesus revealed a supra-human self-consciousness, but deny that He revealed a divine one.¹⁰ In fact Jesus never simply calls Himself God, since His hearers would have understood either the incarnation of the heavenly Father or a dualistic divinity. This notwithstanding, Jesus manifests the consciousness of His divinity: by comparing Himself with God, by demanding divine homage, and by exercising divine omnipotence.

a) By comparing Himself with God. Although Jesus is the most humble of all, He nevertheless sets Himself above not only all men¹¹ but also the angels in heaven.¹² The angels serve and obey Him as their king and lord.¹³ By this He already implicitly places Himself on a divine level. But He also explicitly appropriates to Himself all those things which in the Old Testament are declared of Jahve alone. As Jahve was the spouse of Israel, so Jesus is the spouse of the souls entrusted to Him.¹⁴ As Jahve wished to gather the children of Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings,¹⁵ so also Christ.¹⁶ With the same absolute power with which Jahve sent the prophets of the Old Testament, Jesus sends His own: "Behold, I send to you prophets.¹⁷" As Jahve promised Moses and his brother: "I will be in thy mouth and in his mouth, and will show you what you are to do,¹⁸" so also Christ [promises] His apostles: "For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist.¹⁹" Christ does not begin His discourse in the manner of the prophets by saying: "Thus saith Jahve," but teaches in His own name "as one having power"²⁰ As Jahve is the Lord of the Old Testament, so also is Christ.²¹ Christ therefore wholly equates Himself with Jahve, the true God, who had made a covenant with the Israelites.

b) By demanding divine homage, namely, absolute faith, supreme love, and religious adoration to be rendered to His person.

Christ not only requires that men believe His word, but He demands absolute faith in His person. Faith in the person of Christ is the condition without which there is no salvation: "That whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.²²" As the disciples believe in God, so they are bound to believe also in Christ: "You believe in God, believe also in me.²³" Faith in God and faith in Christ are convertible: "He that believeth in me, doth not believe in me, but in him that sent me.²⁴" The unbelieving will be condemned first because they did not believe in His person, and only secondarily because they did not believe His doctrine: "For he that shall be ashamed of me and of my words ... of him the Son of man also shall be ashamed, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.²⁵" Christ therefore makes Himself the material object of faith. Hence, if He were not God, He would be an idol.

Together with faith He also seeks supreme love for His person.²⁶ Jesus demands that, setting aside the love of our kindred, nay even setting aside self-love, we devote our love to Him: "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter above me, is not worthy of me.²⁷" "If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.²⁸"

He requires accordingly that toward Him we fulfill no longer the precept of love of neighbor, but the precept of love of God, loving Him with our whole heart, with our whole soul, and with all our strength. Whoever does not have this love of Jesus does not have the love of God: "He that hateth me, hateth my Father also.²⁹"

These two reciprocate: love and hatred of God, love and hatred of Jesus.

Finally, He accepts religious adoration of His person. Frequently in the Gospel we read that certain men, falling on their knees, adored Jesus. Now if this adoration (προσκύνησις) had proceeded from a purely profane motive, it would have been a sign of simple reverence, by which a servant greets his master, a subject his king, according to the custom of the Orientals. But in fact the adoration, or proskynesis, rendered to Jesus Christ for the most part proceeds from a religious motive. Men adore Him when they hope that a divine work will be wrought by Him,³⁰ or when they give thanks for a divine work wrought by Him,³¹ or when, astounded at the miracles wrought, they cry out: "Indeed thou art the Son of God!³²" or when they venerate Him risen and ascending into heaven.³³

But according to the usage of the New Testament, religious proskynesis is rendered to God alone. For with this proskynesis God is adored in the temple of Jerusalem³⁴ and in heaven,³⁵ and of this proskynesis Jesus says: "Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.³⁶ This proskynesis no man or angel dares to accept. Cornelius falling down at the feet of Peter³⁷ and adoring, the prince of the apostles raises, saying: "Arise, I myself also am a man." John adoring at the feet of the angel, the angel forbids: "See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Adore God.³⁸" So too Jesus, zealous for the honor of His Father, would have had to restrain the religious proskynesis offered to Himself, let alone promote it, had He not possessed a wholly divine self-consciousness.

c) By exercising divine omnipotence. Omnipotence is the most eminent and most evident attribute of God. That Jesus was endowed with omnipotence, the Gospels easily prove. For they bear witness that our Savior performed works surpassing all created power at His own pleasure.

And first of all He wrought³⁹ the most stupendous miracles by a power innate and inborn in Him. Although in several places He calls His miracles the works of His Father,⁴⁰ wrought in the power of the Spirit of God,⁴¹ He nevertheless attributes to Himself this power of working miracles. For He can work whatsoever miracles He pleases, when, how, and as often as it pleases Him, without being bound first to beseech God. Miracles spring from the nature of Jesus as from their natural source. Nay, Jesus even transfuses the power of working miracles into others.⁴² He sends His disciples into the world saying: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils.⁴³" And in fact the apostles "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" perform nothing but divine works.⁴⁴

The power of working physical miracles is even surpassed by the power of forgiving sins. Both the Old and the New Testament reserve this power to God alone. With Jesus acquiescing, the Pharisees accuse Him of blasphemy as a man who would assume to himself the power of forgiving sins.⁴⁵ Nevertheless Jesus ascribes this power to Himself and confirms it by a miracle.⁴⁶ Nay, He even hands it over to His disciples, that in His name and by His authority they may forgive sins: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.⁴⁷" "Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.⁴⁸"

Jesus, however, not only forgives sins, but He accomplishes the work of redeeming from sins, that is, of destroying sins, as we have already proved elsewhere.⁴⁹ To His life and death Jesus ascribes the value and power of fully and adequately satisfying for the sins committed by the human race. But no creature can ascribe to itself so great a value. The Savior, who by His person accomplishes the work of redemption promised by God, must Himself be God.

The redemptive work is accompanied by the right to judge the world. The judgment of the world belongs to Jesus alone,⁵⁰ so that not even the heavenly Father intervenes: "For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son, that all men may honor the Son, as they honor the Father.⁵¹"

Since the judge of the world deserves the same honor as God the Father, He must also be marked with the same divinity as the Father. The very manner, too, in which Jesus judges the living and the dead presupposes His divinity. For He will search the reins and hearts⁵² and will award to each man according to his merit or demerit eternal life or eternal punishment, as is fitting.⁵³ Surely only God, all-knowing and all-powerful, can judge the world in this way.

Indeed the whole Old Testament reserves the judgment of the world to Jahve Himself: "The Lord Jahve shall come [to judgment], and all his saints with him;⁵⁴" "The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth;⁵⁵" "Jahve shall judge the just and the wicked.⁵⁶" Hence the day of judgment is called "the great and dreadful day of the Lord.⁵⁷" Therefore Jesus, proclaiming Himself the judge of the world, undoubtedly professes Himself God.

No one is unaware that Jesus called himself the Son of God. The question arises, however, in what sense he called himself the Son of God. Westerners, to be sure, call "son" only him who is begotten by a father and consequently has drawn his nature from the father. Orientals, however, and Sacred Scripture itself, use the word "son" to designate both natural filiation and any kind of kinship, whether physical or ethical. He who is anointed with oil is called "son of oil,¹" he who has merited death, "son of death,²" the disciples of the prophets are "sons of the prophets.³" Perverse men are "sons of Belial" or "sons of perdition,⁴" the damned are "sons of Gehenna.⁵"

The same usage of speech holds with regard to the word "sons of God.⁶" Hence angels, holy men,⁷ Israelites,⁸ as well as the faithful of Jesus⁹ are called sons of God. A fortiori, kings anointed in the name of the Lord¹⁰ are called sons of God. Above all, however, this name was attributed to the messianic king both by the Old Testament¹¹ and by the more recent Judaism.

Now rabbinic Judaism, since it dreamed of a human-political messianism, certainly did not think the Messiah to be the natural Son of God,¹² but only a moral one. On the contrary, in the Old Testament the Son of God is described as natural (physical or metaphysical), not merely moral (ethical).¹³ Since Jesus Christ appropriated the whole messianic concept of the Old Testament to himself, rejecting rabbinic messianism, it must be supposed that he also confessed himself to be the natural Son of God. Against this view the rationalists, both the older and the more recent, set themselves.¹⁴ They presume, namely, that Jesus drew both the messianic concept and in particular the messianic title of Son of God from the more recent Judaism. Hence they maintain that Jesus knew himself to be united to God the Father by love more than other men, and consequently called himself the Son of God in an ethical sense, singular indeed, but by no means in a physical sense. How falsely the unbelievers think in this way is now to be shown from those testimonies by which the Savior confessed his divine filiation.

1. Before his parents in the temple.

The first words of Jesus collected by the evangelists concern his divine filiation. The parents anxiously seek the twelve-year-old boy for three days. When at last he is found "in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions", Mary his mother interposes: "Son, why hast thou done so to us? behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." And he said to them: "How is it that you sought me? did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" "And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them.¹⁵"

Indeed, the boy's word is so alien to human understanding that it rather betrays his divine-natural filiation.

For if the Son of God were only an ethical one, he would have acquired the consciousness of this filiation only in the course of time. Through the progress of inner psychological development and through the acts and experiences of external life, Jesus would gradually have been taught and made certain that he was loved and helped by the heavenly Father in a wholly singular manner, more than all men. This certainty would have reached its peak only at a more advanced age, and especially during his messianic ministry. Since, on the contrary, already the twelve-year-old boy calls God with emphasis his Father, and since he must be only in those things which are his Father's, he is the Son of God by nature, not by psychological development.

Moreover, he clearly indicates that he is the Son of the heavenly Father with the same natural or physical notion by which he was believed by men to be the son of Joseph and Mary. To Mary's words: "Behold thy father and I", he opposes the words: "My Father" in heaven. The tertium comparationis is not ethical, but physical paternity. And in truth, if by nature he were a mere man, the speech would have been harsh and shameless toward his parents: "How is it that you sought me? did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" As a man he certainly had to follow his parents; as the natural Son of God, however, he remains in those things which are the heavenly Father's.

2. Before the disciples in the first period of the public life.

Nicodemus, a secret disciple, meets Jesus on his first journey to Jerusalem after the baptism and acknowledges him as an envoy sent by God: "Rabbi, we know that thou art come a teacher from God; for no man can do these signs which thou dost, unless God be with him." Jesus, however, teaches him that he is by no means a merely human prophet loved and instructed by God, but rather that he knows the divine truths by his own knowledge and has seen them with his own eyes, because he was in heaven, descended from heaven, and is in heaven, as the only-begotten Son of God, whom the Father sent into the world as Savior: "Amen, amen I say to thee, that we speak what we know, and we testify what we have seen ... And no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man, who is [ὁ ὢν] in heaven. For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him. He that believeth in him is not judged; but he that believeth not is already judged, because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God.¹⁶"

With these words Jesus excludes a merely ethical filiation in the most explicit manner.

He bears witness to the same thing a little later when the seventy-two disciples return from their first evangelical mission: "All things are delivered to me by my Father. And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him.¹⁷" With these words Jesus attributes to himself the omnipotence and omniscience of the Father and consequently the divine nature of the Father.

Omnipotence: "All things are delivered to me by my Father." The disciples, namely, had joyfully told how they had wrought any number of miracles in the name of Jesus. Hence Jesus praises the Father, because he has delivered to the Son not only the power of working miracles, but divine power absolutely: "All things are delivered to me by my Father" or, as he later declared: "All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.¹⁸" Together with omnipotence there was also delivered to the Son:

Omniscience: "And no one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him." The knowledge and the whole essence of the Son is so great that the Father alone can comprehend him: "No one knoweth the Son, but the Father." Again, the knowledge of the Son is so perfect that he alone comprehends the knowledge and essence of the Father, and that all the knowledge which creatures have of the Father wells up from the knowledge of the Son as from an infinite source: "Neither doth any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him." In a word: the Son has the divine knowledge of the Father, just as the Father has the divine knowledge of the Son. The knowledge of both, of the Father and of the Son, is convertible.

Jesus is therefore conscious of possessing those two attributes which belong to God alone and which adequately contain the divine nature, operation, and life: the omnipotence of the will and the omniscience of the intellect. It is evident that these divine attributes of the Son presuppose the divinity of the Son. Nor does it stand in the way that Jesus confesses all things to have been delivered to him by the Father. For whoever is a natural son must confess the same: he has all things from the Father, both the filial nature by which he is equal to the Father, and the filial relation by which he is distinguished from the Father as a distinct person.

3. Before the apostles and the people in Galilee.

Toward the end of his stay in Galilee Jesus gave the crowds of the people a certain revelation of his divine filiation. The crowds generally recognized him as a prophet,¹⁹ sometimes even as the messianic prophet.²⁰ Hence Jesus takes occasion to reveal to them the mystery he had already revealed to Nicodemus, namely: that he is the Messiah, the supramundane and preexistent Son of God, who is of infinite worth, so that he is able to save all men — nay, that he himself is the salvation and eternal life of men: "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent ... My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world ... I am the bread of life ... And this is the will of my Father that sent me: that every one who seeth the Son and believeth in him may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day ... Not that any man hath seen the Father, but he who is of God, he hath seen the Father. Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in me hath everlasting life. I am the bread of life ... the bread that cometh down from heaven ... I am the living bread which came down from heaven.²¹"

The people could neither grasp nor bear this most profound doctrine. Nay, this was the reason why even most of the disciples abandoned Jesus,²² only the twelve apostles remaining. When Jesus asked them: "Will you also go away?" Simon Peter answered: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have known that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.²³" When the Master insisted more earnestly: "Whom do you say that I am?" Peter said: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.²⁴" And Jesus makes this testimony his own, praising and rewarding Peter for it.²⁵

There can be no doubt that this testimony refers first to the messiahship, and only afterwards to the divine filiation of Jesus, i. e. Peter wishes to profess Jesus as the Christ (Messiah), with the added messianic title of Son of God.²⁶ The only question is whether in the mouth of Peter the Messiah or Son of God is by origin and nature a mere man most beloved of God, or rather a suprahuman and metaphysical being. The evangelical context solves this doubt.

The Jews had expressly professed Jesus to be the Messiah, to be sure, in a human-earthly way: "This is of a truth the prophet that is to come into the world.²⁷" Moved by this confession, Jesus taught them that he is the Messiah, the heavenly Son of God.²⁸ When the crowds and very many of the disciples were scandalized thereat and abandoned Jesus, Peter affirms: "Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God." In this context of discourse Peter's confession can certainly not be understood of a merely human Messiah or of a merely ethical Son of God, especially since Jesus exalts Peter's messianic faith: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father, who is in heaven.²⁹" Although, therefore, Peter does not yet rightly think concerning the work to be accomplished by Jesus the Messiah,³⁰ nor expressly enunciate the divinity of the Son of God, nevertheless by the confession made at Caesarea Philippi he already, as it were, adumbrates the faith which he afterwards professes in "our God and Savior Jesus Christ.³¹"

4. Before the Pharisees and the people in Judea.

Galilee left behind, Jesus goes with the apostles to Judea and there, especially at Jerusalem and in the temple itself, unfolds and expounds his divine filiation practically, theoretically, and parabolically. And first, indeed, practically, by the miracles wrought, he shows that he equals the heavenly Father in power and operation, and therefore also in nature: "For what things soever he [the Father] doth, these the Son also doth in like manner. For the Father loveth the Son and showeth him all things which himself doth ... For as the Father raiseth up the dead and giveth life, so the Son also giveth life to whom he will ... Amen, amen I say unto you, that the hour cometh when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself, so he hath given to the Son also to have life in himself.³²" Not even the Jews denied that Jesus by these words constituted himself the natural Son of God: "Hereupon therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because ... he also said God was his Father, making himself equal to God.³³"

Advancing gradually, he also teaches his metaphysical filiation theoretically, disputing with the Pharisees. When the Pharisees ask: "Who art thou?" Jesus answers: "The beginning (ἡ ἀρχή), who also speak unto you.³⁴" Previously he had said that he was supramundane in origin and nature: "You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world.³⁵ Now, explaining his origin and nature, he adds: that he is the beginning of all things. The evangelist expressly states that Jesus thereby indicated his divinity, although the Pharisees did not understand him.³⁶

As the beginning of the universe Jesus is eternal: "Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day: he saw it and was glad." The Jews therefore said: "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them: "Amen, amen I say to you, before Abraham was made (πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι), I am (ἐγώ εἰμι).³⁷" Since he does not say that he "was" before Abraham, but simply is (the present of eternity), he ascribes to himself not only preexistence, but absolute eternity, appropriating those words of Iahve: "I am who am." The Jews, understanding this, accuse him of blasphemy and therefore wish to stone him.³⁸

Jesus, however, insisting more on the doctrine proposed, calls himself the light of the world. In almost innumerable places of the Old and New Testament God is called the light of the world. For just as the sun communicates material light to the world, so God bestows on men the spiritual light of truth and salvation. Ascribing this divine quality to himself, Jesus says: "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life.³⁹" "While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may be the children of light ... He that believeth in me doth not believe in me, but in him that sent me. And he that seeth me, seeth him that sent me. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me may not remain in darkness.⁴⁰" The Son, therefore, is divine light, as is the Father; whence he who sees the Son, the light, sees also the Father, the light. As the light of the world the Son is by nature equal to the Father.

Light is life and communicates life according to biblical usage of speech. Wherefore the true God, as opposed to idols, is very often called "life" or "the living God.⁴¹" But Jesus also names his Father "the living Father ... who hath life in himself.⁴²" He says the same, however, of himself: "For as the Father hath life in himself, so he hath given to the Son also to have life in himself.⁴³" Hence the Son also bestows on creatures both temporal life and eternal life.⁴⁴ Nay, he affirms of himself: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.⁴⁵" The Son is the way to God simply (ἡ ὁδός), the truth of God simply (ἡ ἀλήθεια), the divine life simply (ἡ ζωή); therefore he is God.

Wherefore Jesus says explicitly that he is one with the Father: "I and the Father are one (Ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἓν ἐσμεν) ... If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works: that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in the Father.⁴⁶" The Father and the Son are one not by a mere agreement of will and affection of love, or moral unity, as the rationalists will have it, but by unity of nature or substance. For they are one by that essential principle from which the divine operation of the Father equally and of the Son arises, and by which it comes about that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father. With these words Jesus exhibited himself as the natural Son of God so lucidly that the Jews cried out: "We stone thee ... because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.⁴⁷"

The revelation of the filiation set forth practically and theoretically, Jesus finally illustrates parabolically. A few days before the Passion he tells the Jews the parable of the husbandmen, saying: "There was a man, an householder, who planted a vineyard, and made a hedge round about it, and dug in it a press, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a strange country. And when the time of the fruits drew nigh, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits thereof. And the husbandmen laying hands on his servants, beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants more than the former, and they did to them in like manner. And last of all he sent to them his son, saying: They will reverence my son. But the husbandmen seeing the son, said among themselves: This is the heir: come, let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance. And taking him, they cast him forth out of the vineyard and killed him.⁴⁸"

The meaning of the parable is obvious: by the householder is signified God, by the vineyard Israel, by the husbandmen the Jewish people, by the servants the prophets, by the son "his only beloved.⁴⁹" Jesus, therefore, is opposed to the prophets as the only beloved son to servants. Since the prophets, those ethical sons of God, only serve in the vineyard, Jesus with full right takes possession of the inheritance of the Father. Hence it is evident that he is not the adopted or ethical Son of God, but the physical.

5. Before the apostles and the judges in the face of death.

His divine filiation having been revealed before the Pharisees and the people, Jesus, in the intimacy of the last hours, discloses to the apostles his inmost relation to the Father by uttering the supreme discourse and pouring forth the sacerdotal prayer.

In the supreme discourse he professes that he wholly interchanges with the Father as regards the divine nature and its manifestation and operation: "He that seeth me, seeth the Father also ... I am in the Father, and the Father in me ... All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine ... The Father, abiding in me, doth the works ... If I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father ... He that hateth me, hateth my Father also.⁵⁰"

In the sacerdotal prayer he bears witness that from eternity he has the divine glory in common with the Father; that he renounced this glory for a time, in order to redeem his own; that even now he reclaims the glory of the Father, in order to unite and beatify the redeemed with himself and with the Father: "Father, the hour is come: glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee ... I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself, with the glory which I had, before the world was, with thee ... That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us ... Father, I will that whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory which thou hast given me, because thou hast loved me before the constitution of the world.⁵¹"

Scarcely was the instruction of the disciples completed when Jesus is handed over to the judges of the Sanhedrin. The high priest challenges him: "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God." Jesus saith to him: "Thou hast said it. Nevertheless I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God and coming in the clouds of heaven." Then the high priest rent his garments, saying: "He hath blasphemed: what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now you have heard the blasphemy: what think you?" But the judges answered: "He is guilty of death.⁵²"

Since, however, the capital sentence passed by night was juridically invalid, they decide on the following day, at the earliest morning, to confirm it anew. Having therefore assembled the council again, they challenge Jesus: "If thou be the Christ, tell us." Affirming, he said to them: "If I shall tell you, you will not believe me ... But hereafter the Son of man shall be sitting on the right hand of the power of God." And all said: "Art thou then the Son of God?" He said: "You say that I am." Then they said: "What need we any further testimony? for we ourselves have heard it from his own mouth.⁵³" And so they condemn him to death a second time.

But because only the Roman procurator had the right of life and death, they bring Jesus to Pilate, that they may obtain the confirmation of the sentence passed. And indeed, first they pretend that Jesus is guilty of high treason against men, i. e. that he had stirred up sedition against Caesar by saying that he was a king.⁵⁴ When, however, they accomplish nothing, they plead that Jesus has committed the crime of high treason against God (blasphemy) and is therefore, according to the Mosaic law, worthy of being punished with death: "We have a law; and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.⁵⁵"

From the threefold judicial session it is clear that Jesus consistently said that he was the Messiah, the Son of God, and was therefore condemned to death as guilty of blasphemy. But no one will deny that Jesus understood his messiahship and divine filiation in that deepest sense in which he had developed it ever more and more clearly. Even the Pharisaic judges were not ignorant of this force of Jesus' testimony.

The Pharisees hated Jesus because, rejecting rabbinic messianism, he affirmed himself to be the supernatural Messiah and the physical Son of God. "Therefore did the Jews seek the more to kill him, because ... he said God was his Father, making himself equal to God.⁵⁶" In truth, as often as the Savior said that he was the natural Son of God, the Pharisees tried to overwhelm him with stones.⁵⁷ Nay, a few days before the Passion they confess: "We stone thee for blasphemy, because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.⁵⁸" If, therefore, now in the judgment they accuse Jesus, who professes himself the Messiah and the Son of God, of blasphemy and condemn him to death for this cause, the Pharisaic judges themselves cry aloud: our Savior did not wish to be the theocratic king-Messiah and ethical Son of God, but the God-Messiah and physical Son of God, and he sealed this his revelation with his death.

That Jesus taught His divinity is confirmed by the whole apostolic age, from the very day of the resurrection down to the death of the last apostle. The closing chapters of the Gospels bear witness to the faith of the disciples from the resurrection to the ascension of Jesus; the Acts of the Apostles give testimony for the faith of the first Christian generation down to the middle of the first century; St. Paul and the Synoptics proclaim the faith of the second generation down to about the year seventy; finally, St. John reiterates the faith of the closing apostolic age: the whole first century is, as it were, one voice of Christ resounding, proclaiming the true divinity of the Savior.

a) From the day of the resurrection the disciples firmly and unshakably believed in the divinity of Jesus. Only Thomas Didymus, doubting the resurrection itself, remained incredulous: "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." After eight days, when the twelve apostles were gathered together, Jesus appeared again and stood in their midst and said to Thomas: "Put in your finger here, and see my hands, and bring your hand, and put it into my side: and be not incredulous, but faithful." Thomas answered, exclaiming: "My Lord and my God!"¹

It cannot be doubted that the other disciples held the same faith. For it must be presumed that they were in no way inferior in faith to the incredulous Thomas. Moreover, from the day of Pentecost all of them preach the same faith as Thomas.² Therefore this faith of theirs was born earlier, namely, immediately after the resurrection.

Now the words "My Lord and my God", in Hebrew "Adonai Elohim", declare the divinity of Jesus most fully. For by this twofold name the Israelites emphatically invoked the true deity. "Elohim" is the plural of majesty, by which the Hebrews from the very beginning opposed the divinity worshipped by themselves to the gods of the Gentiles.

Likewise "Adonai" is a plural of majesty designating the one God inasmuch as he rules over the whole world. Before the captivity the Israelites used the divine appellation "Adonai" more rarely, preferring the name "Iahve" revealed to them by God. In the course of time, however, they came to think that the name Iahve was the ineffable name. Hence, wherever they found it written in the Hebrew text, they did not read Iahve, but Adonai. The Masoretes added to the tetragrammaton Iahve (יהוה) the vowel points of the word Adonai (אֲדֹנָי), to warn the reader that the ineffable name Iahve was to be pronounced Adonai. And so also in the Greek Septuagint version and in the Latin Vulgate the word Iahve is everywhere rendered "ὁ κύριος" and "Dominus". Therefore, whether the disciples confess the risen Jesus as "Lord God" or even simply as "Lord", they undoubtedly proclaim the divinity of the Savior.

b) This faith Jesus himself earnestly fostered both by his resurrection and by his subsequent revelation.

Jesus had often announced his resurrection as the supreme criterion of his messiahship and divinity. Rising from the dead by his own power, Jesus proved that he was the triumphant Messiah and Lord of the world, eluding all the cunning of men. Hence the apostles say that by the resurrection Jesus was made Messiah and Lord, not because he had not been Messiah and Lord before, but because by his resurrection he evidently attained the glory due to the Messiah and Lord of the world.

After the resurrection Jesus presents himself to the disciples on every occasion as Adonai Elohim, Lord God. Through the message of Mary Magdalene he announces to the apostles that by divine power he is about to ascend to his Father: "I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."³ By divine power he confers on the apostles the power of forgiving sins: "Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you retain, they are retained."⁴ He evokes and approves the faith of Thomas and of the other disciples: "Be not incredulous, but faithful ... My Lord and my God ... Blessed are they who have not seen, and have believed."⁵ With his own authority he sends the Holy Spirit upon the disciples and commands them to work miracles in his name: "I send the promise of my Father upon you."⁶ "In my name they shall cast out demons ..."⁷ Finally, at the hour of the ascension, with the greatest weight and solemnity, he declares that he is the almighty Lord of heaven and earth and, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God in a Trinity of persons: "All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Going therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ... And behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world."⁸ Thus Jesus Christ, before his return to the Father, manifests his divinity most clearly.⁹

The Christology that the apostles preached and practiced immediately after the departure of the Master is set forth by Luke the physician in the Acts of the Apostles. From the catecheses of Peter, Stephen, Philip, and Paul, delivered shortly after the death of Christ and recorded in the first part of the Acts of the Apostles, we learn that the disciples proclaimed to the Jews above all the messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth.¹ In describing the nature of the Messiah Jesus, moreover, they profess him to be the Son of God and Lord.

a) Son of God. On the day of Pentecost Peter dares to say before the people and the rulers: "The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Son Jesus, whom you indeed delivered up and denied before the face of Pilate ... To you first God, raising up his Son, sent him to bless you."² The first believers pray: "For truly there assembled in this city against your holy Servant Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel ... Stretch forth your hand to heal and to work signs and wonders through the name of your holy Son."³ Philip demands of those to be baptized faith in "Jesus Christ, the Son of God".⁴ The same faith is the most essential part of the gospel of Paul, who preaches "in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God"⁵ and affirms that it is written of Jesus in the second psalm: "You are my Son; today I have begotten you."⁶ That the apostles speak of the natural, not the moral, Son of God is evident. For Jesus as Son of God is to them the "author of life",⁷ the source of all salvation; the mediator of the remission of sins; "appointed by God judge of the living and the dead".⁸ All these things can be said of the natural Son of God alone.

b) Lord. Everywhere in the primitive church Jesus is called: "ὁ κύριος, the Lord", "the Lord Jesus Christ",⁹ "our Lord",¹⁰ "our Lord Jesus Christ". "Lord" is the proper name of Jesus. It would be useless to insist on this truth, since it lies open on almost every page of the Acts.

That Jesus, however, is called "Lord" not in a profane sense,¹¹ but in a religious sense, in which "Lord" is the same as Adonai, Yahweh, the true God, is easily proved. For:

1°. The name "Lord" is given indiscriminately to God the Father and to Jesus Christ. The name "Lord" is read a hundred and ten times in the Acts. Of these texts about a third refers to God the Father; a third to Jesus Christ; and the remaining third to either the Father or Jesus Christ: e. g. in Acts 11, 20 sq. the word "Lord" is found three times, and indeed it is applied first to Jesus, then to God simply, and thirdly to God and Jesus together. Therefore Jesus as "Lord" is plainly placed on a level with God.

2°. Divine attributes are predicated of the "Lord" Jesus. The Lord Jesus converts Saul and heals the sick.¹² In the name of the Lord Jesus the disciples work all their miracles and confer baptism for the remission of sins.¹³ Faith in the Lord Jesus and the grace of our Lord Jesus save.¹⁴ For the Lord Jesus the disciples shed their blood;¹⁵ to him Stephen, dying, commends his spirit, just as Jesus had earlier done to the Father.¹⁶ The Lord Jesus is the "author of life" and "Lord of all".¹⁷ Finally, to the Lord Jesus are attributed all those things which are attributed in either the Old or the New Testament to the Lord God, Adonai, Yahweh. Therefore Jesus is the same as Adonai, Yahweh, the true God. This becomes even clearer from the fact that:

3°. "Lord" Jesus is the object of the religious worship of the first Christians. The invocation and adoration of the Lord Jesus were the distinctive worship by which Christians were distinguished from the Jews. Peter, on the very day of Pentecost, applies to the Lord Jesus the words of Joel: "Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord [Yahweh], shall be saved."¹⁸ Stephen prays: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ... Lord, do not hold this sin against them."¹⁹ Saul is baptized "calling upon his name", that of the Lord Jesus.²⁰ In Damascus the faithful are simply called men "who call upon that name" of the Lord Jesus.²¹ From the beginning, therefore, Christians worship Jesus with the same latreutic worship with which in the Old Testament Yahweh alone was worshipped, and for that reason they also transfer to Jesus the name of Yahweh, Adonai, ὁ κύριος, the Lord.

This faith of the primitive church, moreover, takes its origin from Jesus Christ himself. For unless Jesus Christ himself, while living on earth, had revealed himself as Lord God, the disciples would never have devoted to him the supreme worship which they had until then devoted to Yahweh alone, who commanded them:²² "You shall worship the Lord your God [Yahweh ha Elohim] and him only shall you serve."²³

The Acts of the Apostles transmit the sum of Pauline christology, which the epistles of Paul himself treat in greater detail. From these same epistles we learn what faith the whole Church gave to the divinity of Jesus while the apostle of the Gentiles was living and writing. Radical and liberal critics, to be sure, maintain that he does not exhibit Christ as God, but as a mere heavenly man, i.e., a man who pre-existed in heaven before his earthly life and returned to heaven after his earthly life.¹ In reality, however, St. Paul bears witness to the divinity of Jesus both implicitly and explicitly.

1. Implicit confession of the divinity of Jesus.

St. Paul ascribes to Jesus Christ divine operation, divine attributes, divine nature.

a) Divine operation, namely the creation and redemption of the world.

Creation. The Son of the Father's love, says Paul, "is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, because in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominations or powers: all things were created through him and in him: and he is before all, and all things hold together in him."² The Son of God "made the ages ... upholding all things by the word of his power ... for whom are all things and through whom are all things".³ Redemption. "For indeed God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself"⁴ "When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman ... that we might receive the adoption of sons."⁵ "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins."⁶ He himself is the fountain of supernatural grace and eternal glory,⁷ he himself is simply the "author of salvation".⁸

b) Divine attributes, namely omnipotence, omniscience, eternity.

Omnipotence. St. Paul is by no means unaware that the creation and redemption of the world presuppose the omnipotence of the Son. Everywhere, indeed, he reckons creation⁹ and redemption¹⁰ among the works of the omnipotent God.

Omniscience. For he proclaims "Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God".¹¹ "In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."¹² With these words he already implicitly sets forth the Johannine doctrine of the Logos, or the divine Word.

Eternity. For what is declared in the Old Testament¹³ concerning the eternity of Jahve, St. Paul simply applies to Jesus Christ: "In the beginning, O Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They shall perish, but you shall remain, and all of them shall grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you shall change them, and they shall be changed: but you are the same, and your years shall not fail."¹⁴ Nay, just as Jahve defines himself simply as the eternal being, so: "Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, he himself and unto the ages".¹⁵

c) Divine nature. Jesus Christ is not merely in the image of God, like men,¹⁶ but he himself "is the image of God",¹⁷ "the image of the invisible God",¹⁸ "the splendor of his glory and the figure of his substance".¹⁹ "In him dwells all the fullness of the divinity corporally."²⁰ "Who, being in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God."²¹ Since, then, he is the image of God, the fullness of the divinity, equal to God, he is one with God the Father, distinguished from him only in person. "There is no God but one", says Paul, and immediately adds two distinct persons in the one God, namely the Father and Jesus Christ.²²

2. Explicit confession of the divinity of Jesus.

St. Paul calls Jesus Christ the Son of God, God, Lord.

a) The Son of God, not in the ethical or adoptive sense, but physical and natural. For the doctor of the Gentiles writes in Greek and for Greek-Christians. Now it is certain that the Greeks and Westerners generally used the word "son" only in the natural sense, being unacquainted with the metaphorical filiation of the Orientals. Therefore Paul too, whenever he calls Jesus the Son of God, understands him as the natural Son of God. Moreover, almost all the texts already cited, in which Paul implicitly teaches the divinity of Christ, refer to Christ inasmuch as he is the Son of God. Therefore, for the doctor of the Gentiles, the Son of God is God by nature. Moreover, Paul calls the Son of God simply:

b) God. Paul says that it was said of the Son: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever".²³²⁴ He admonishes the faithful "to adorn in all things the doctrine of God our Savior ... waiting for the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ".²⁵ "Christ is above all, God blessed forever."²⁶ For the most part, however, he calls Jesus by another divine name:

c) Lord. We know that the primitive Church attributed to Jesus Christ the name of Lord = Adonai = Jahve. In the same sense Paul too salutes the Savior as "Lord". For he transfers to Christ the "Lord" what is predicated of Adonai, or Jahve, in the Old Testament. Jahve, who led the Israelites out of Egypt, is Christ himself, the "Lord".²⁷ Of Christ the "Lord" it is written in Psalm 101, 26: "In the beginning, O Lord [Adonai = Jahve], you founded the earth,"²⁸ and likewise in the prophecy of Joel 2, 32: "Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord [Adonai = Jahve] shall be saved."²⁹ Jesus obtains that ineffable name of Jahve, to be adored by all creatures, by which God willed to be called in the old covenant:³⁰

"God exalted him [Christ] and gave him the name that is above every name [Jahve = ὁ κύριος = Lord], so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father."³¹

Hence Paul also devotes to Christ the "Lord" the worship due to God alone. He commends himself and his fortunes and deeds to God the Father and to the "Lord" Jesus Christ.³² From God our Father and the "Lord" Jesus Christ he wishes grace, peace and mercy to the churches.³³ Likewise, all Christians in Paul's time everywhere adore and invoke the "Lord" Jesus Christ.³⁴ All live and die to the "Lord" Jesus Christ: "For whether we live, we live to the Lord; whether we die, we die to the Lord. Whether, therefore, we live or die, we are the Lord's."³⁵ By this divine worship shown to God the Father and to the "Lord" Jesus, Christians are united among themselves and distinguished from all other men: "For there are many gods and many lords: yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him."³⁶ When Paul, separating the double name of the divinity (Jahve Elohim, κύριος ὁ θεός, Lord God), calls the Father "God" and Christ "Lord", he professes the divine nature of both and nonetheless removes every dualism from the Godhead.

There is no one who does not see that this Pauline christology is the same as the doctrine of the primitive Church, of the apostles, and of Christ himself. And indeed St. Paul testifies that he received his christology partly from intercourse with and the instruction of Christ's disciples, partly from the revelation of Christ himself: "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you³⁷ ... For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ ... It pleased him [God] ... to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles."³⁸

¹

The testimony of the evangelists to the divinity of the Savior coincides with the testimony that Jesus Christ himself gave to his own divine nature. This holds especially for the Synoptics, who simply report the "gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God"² adding almost nothing of their own. John, too, faithfully narrates the history of Jesus,³ yet with the design of celebrating the divinity of Jesus ex professo. Hence the Johannine christology exhibits a method of its own and a form of its own.

1. The proper method of the Johannine christology.

At the time when the Synoptic evangelists were writing, the divinity of Jesus was believed without doubt by all Christians, as is evident from the letters of St. Paul. There was therefore no need to insist much on this fundamental truth of the Christian religion. But as the first century was drawing to a close and the second beginning, Cerinthus, the Nicolaitans, and other Judeo-Gnostic heretics called the divine nature of Jesus into question. For this reason St. John does not merely touch upon the divine deeds and words of Jesus after the manner of the earlier evangelists, but deliberately defends the thesis of the divinity of the Savior. And indeed:

a) That the Johannine Gospel was written to this end, that by the authentic testimony of the last apostle⁴ the divinity of Jesus Christ might be established against the Judeo-Gnostic heresies, is attested by unanimous tradition.⁵ But the evangelist himself also says that he wrote "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name".⁶ Therefore immediately in the prologue of the Gospel he sets forth the human and at the same time the divine nature of Christ; then he records the testimony of John the Baptist concerning the origin, preexistence, and divine sonship of Christ;⁷ finally, in the course of the narrative, he hands down chiefly those works and words by which Jesus professed his divinity.

b) The Epistle, the companion of the Gospel, insists still more earnestly on the divinity of Jesus Christ. Faith in the divinity of the Son of God and love toward him is a divine commandment: "And this is his [God's] commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ⁸ ... Every one who loves him [the Father] who begot him, loves also the one born of him⁹ ... In this the love of God was made manifest in our regard, that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him¹⁰ ... In this we have come to know the love of God, that he laid down his life for us.¹¹" Faith in the divinity of the Son overcomes the world and gives eternal life: "Who is there that overcomes the world, if not he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God¹² ... And this is the testimony, that God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son has not life. These things I am writing to you, that you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God.¹³" Whoever professes or denies that the Son is God, professes or denies also that the Father is God: "Every one who denies the Son has not the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father also¹⁴? He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony of God in himself. He who does not believe the Son, makes him a liar, because he does not believe the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son¹⁵ ... And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, that we may know the true God and be in his true Son. This is the true God and eternal life.¹⁶"

c) The Apocalypse transfers to the glorious Christ the testimony that elsewhere is ascribed to God the Father:¹⁷ "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end... Behold, I am living for ever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of hell.¹⁸" The prophet John, worshipping before the throne of the Lamb of God,¹⁹ joyfully describes his divine glory thus: "And I saw and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures and the elders: and the number of them was thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and divinity and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And every creature that is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in it, I heard all saying: To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb: blessing and honor and glory and dominion for ever and ever. And they adored him who lives for ever and ever ... And they cried with a loud voice, saying: Salvation to our God, who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb."²⁰

John therefore sets forth the divinity of Jesus Christ by his own proper method — alike in the Gospel, in the first Epistle, and in the Apocalypse. Whereas the other writers of the New Testament, and especially the Synoptic evangelists, proclaim the Savior as true God only on occasion, St. John deliberately enunciates and defends the thesis of the divinity of the Messiah and Son of God.

2. The proper form of the Johannine christology.

The Johannine christology is distinguished also by its proper form. Whereas by the other sacred writers Jesus Christ is never expressly called the Word (ὁ λόγος), St. John binds the whole doctrine of the incarnate Son of God together under the single name of the "Word".

In Asia Minor, namely, where the apostle of love was writing, the Alexandrian-Philonic theory of the Logos or Word was on every tongue.²¹ Philo the Jew, relying on ideas partly Platonic, partly Stoic, taught that God is so exalted that he could have had nothing to do with the material world; that God therefore could not have created the prime matter of the world, but that this rather is uncreated and eternal; and that God could not even have formed matter, but for forming it made use of a certain intermediate being, which they call the Logos or Word. This Word is neither God, nor man, nor any other concrete person, but an abstract idea according to which God had decreed that the world should be formed.

In order to overthrow these errors, St. John, retaining the husk, that is, the Philonic word "Word", and rejecting the kernel, substituted for it a wholly Christian reality. He does call Jesus Christ the Word, but he describes this Word as a concrete, divine, eternal person, who in his own time not only formed the world, but created it, gave it life, enlightened it by revelation, and finally, assuming human nature, redeemed men and, endowing them with grace and supernatural truth, made them adopted sons of God.

This doctrine of the Word of God St. John sets forth at once in fullest form in the prologue of the Gospel: "In the beginning [from eternity, before any thing existed] was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God [θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος]. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him [not only formed, but made, i. e. created], and without him was made nothing that has been made [so that both the eternity of matter and the activity of an intermediate being are excluded]. In him was life, and the life [that] was the light [supernatural] of men; and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness concerning the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but was to bear witness concerning the light. There was the true light, which enlightens every man who comes into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But to as many as received him he gave the power of becoming sons of God; to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,²² and we saw his glory [divine = τὴν δόξαν], glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."²³

The now human-divine life of the Word dwelling among men John narrates in the course of his Gospel. That the whole fourth Gospel is truly the Gospel of the Logos, or Word of God, John affirms at the beginning of his first Epistle.²⁴ To the same doctrine of the Word of God St. John insists again in the context of the same Epistle and of the Apocalypse.²⁵

The christological form of the "Word" is therefore proper and beloved to John. Not that he neglected the other appellations by which Jesus is called in the whole New Testament: Son of David, Son of Man, Messiah, Son of God, Lord, God; nay, these appellations occur in the Johannine writings more frequently than the title of Logos or Word of God. Yet all that is declared of Jesus Christ by those appellations taken together, John comprehends in that one title: Word of God, Word of light, Word of life, Logos. The Johannine title of the Word contains the whole christology, and aptly enunciates above all the metaphysical filiation and the true divinity of Jesus Christ. In this sense and for this reason the name of the Word and the Johannine doctrine of the Word passed over into later theology.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding the new method and form, the Johannine christology in substance coincides with the christology of the earlier sacred writers, with the faith of the primitive Church, and with the testimony of Jesus himself.

This the contemporaries of St. John expressly attest, subscribing the fourth Gospel as follows: "This is that disciple [John] who bears witness concerning these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his witness is true."²⁶ Nothing was more dear to John than that the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it had been preached from the beginning, should be preserved intact and unchanged: "As for you, let that abide in you which you have heard from the beginning", says John. "If that abides in you which you have heard from the beginning, you also shall abide in the Son and in the Father."²⁷ Indeed he insists again that he hands on and teaches only what he has seen and heard from Christ himself: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, of the Word of life — and the life was made manifest, and we have seen and bear witness and announce to you the life eternal, which was with the Father and appeared to us — what we have seen and have heard we announce to you, that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship may be with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.²⁸ "He who saw it has borne witness, and his witness is true. And he [John] knows that he speaks the truth, that you also may believe ... that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."²⁹