Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

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