Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

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.