Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 4 (Athanasius: Select Works and Letters)

PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER II., § 3 (2).

Matthew 11:27: "No man knoweth who the Son is, save the Father; neither knoweth any man who the Father is, save the Son, and to whomsoever the Son will (βούληται — wills/chooses) reveal Him." Observe the reciprocity of knowledge between the Son and the Father. This claim is a decisive instantia fœderis Latin: "a proof of the covenant." between the Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth Gospel (e.g., John 16:15; 14:9, etc.). Fourthly, we observe the claim made by Him throughout the synoptic record to absolute confidence, absolute faith, obedience, and self-surrender—demands that no frail man is justified in claiming from another. We also note the absence in the mind of the "meek and lowly" one of that consciousness of sin or that need for reconciliation with God, which for us is an indispensable condition of the religious temperament and the starting point of Christian faith (contrast Isaiah 6:5).

We now turn to the Apostles. Here a few brief remarks must suffice (a suggestive summary is found in Sanday’s "What the first Christians thought about Christ," Oxford House Papers, First Series). That St. Paul’s summary of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:3 et seq.) is provided by him as common ground between himself and the older Apostles follows strictly from the fact that the verb used (παρέλαβον — I received) links the facts of Redemption (verses 3–4) with the personal experiences of the original disciples (verse 5 et seq.). In fact, it is not in dispute that the original Jewish nucleus of the Apostolic Church preached Jesus as the Messiah, and His death as the foundation for the forgiveness of sins (Pfleiderer, Urchrist. p. 20; Acts 2:36, 38; 3:26; 4:12, etc.; the "Hebraic coloring" of these early chapters is very characteristic and important). The question, however, is how much this implied regarding the Divine Personality of the Saviour, and how far the belief of the Apostles and their contemporaries was uniform and explicit on this point. Important light is thrown on this question by the controversy that divided St. Paul from the mass of Jewish Christians regarding the observance of the Law. Our primary source of knowledge here is Galatians, chapter 2. We learn there that while St. Paul regarded this question as involving the whole essence of the Gospel—resisting every attempt to impose circumcision on Gentile Christians—the older Apostles conceded the one point regarded as central. While they reserved the obligation of the Law for those born under it (which St. Paul never directly assailed, 1 Corinthians 7:18), they recognized the "Gospel of the uncircumcision" as legitimate. This concession, as events proved, conceded everything: if the "Gospel of the uncircumcision" was sufficient for salvation, then circumcision became a national, not a religious, principle.

Now, this entire question was fundamentally a question about Christ. Men who believed—or were willing to grant—that the Law uttered from Sinai by the awful voice of the Most High Himself was no longer the supreme revelation of God (the one divinely ordained covenant of righteousness), certainly believed that some revelation of God, different in kind, had taken place—a unique revelation of God in man. (No revelation of God to man could surpass the degree of Exodus 33:11). The revelation of God in Christ, not the revelation of God to Moses, was the one true fact in the world’s history; Sinai was dwarfed in comparison to Calvary. But it must be observed that while the older Apostles, by the very recognition of the "Gospel of the uncircumcision," went thus far with St. Paul, St. Paul realized as a central principle what to others lay at the circumference. What was a result of their belief in Christ for them was the starting point for him, from which logical conclusions were drawn and practical applications made in every direction. At the same time, St. Paul taught nothing about Christ that was not implied in the belief of the older Apostles, or that they would not have felt impelled by their own religious position to accept. In fact, it was their fundamental union in the implicit belief of the divinity of the Lord that made any agreement between St. Paul and the Jewish Apostles regarding the "Gospel of the uncircumcision" possible.

The Apostles of the circumcision, however, stood between St. Paul and the zealous mass of Jewish Christians (Acts 21:20), many of whom were far from acquiescing in the recognition of St. Paul’s Gospel. On the same principle we have used to determine the belief of the στῦλοι Greek: "pillars" (of the Church). with regard to Christ, we must recognize that where the "Gospel of the uncircumcision" was still assailed or disparaged, the Divinity of Christ was apprehended faintly, or not at all.

The name of the "Ebionite" sect testifies to its continuity with a section of the Jerusalem Church (see Lightfoot’s Galatians, St. Paul and the Three). It should be observed, however, firstly, that between the clear-sighted Apostle of the Gentiles and the strictest of the zealots, there lay every conceivable gradation of intermediate positions (Loofs, Leitf. § 11. 2, 3); secondly, that while emancipation from legalism in the Apostolic Church implied what has been said above, a belief in the divinity of Jesus was, in itself, compatible with strict Jewish observance.

The divinity of Christ, then, was firmly held by St. Paul (the most remarkable passage is Romans 10:9, 11, 13, where Κύριον Ἰησοῦν [Lord Jesus] = αὐτόν [Him] = Κύριον [Lord] = יהוה [Yahweh] in Joel 2:32). His belief was held in common with the Jewish Apostles, although he possessed a clearer illumination as to its consequences. That this belief was absolutely universal in the Church cannot be maintained—the elimination of Ebionism was only gradual (Justin, Dial. xlviii. ad fin.); but that it—and not Ebionism—represented the common belief of the Apostles and New Testament writers is not to be doubted.

But taking this as proven, we do not find an equally clear answer to the question: In what sense is Christ God? The synoptic record makes no explicit reference to the pre-existence of Christ. However, the witness of John and the descent of the Spirit (Mark 1:7–11) at His baptism, coupled with the Virgin Birth (Matthew, Luke) and the traits of the synoptic portrait of Christ (as collected above), if they do not compel us to assert the doctrine, they certainly forbid us to deny its presence in the minds of the Evangelists. In the Pauline (including Hebrews) and Johannine writings, the doctrine is strongly marked. In the latter (John 1:1, 14, 18, μονογενὴς θεός — "the only-begotten God"), Jesus Christ is expressly identified with the creative Word (more closely related to the Palestinian Memra than to Alexandrian thought or Philo; see also Revelation 19:13), and the Word is identified with God. Moreover, such passages as Philippians 2:6 et seq. and 2 Corinthians 13:14 (the Apostolic benediction) are significant of the impression left upon the mind of the infant Churches as they began their history, no longer under the personal guidance of the Apostles of the Lord.

Jesus Christ was God; He was one with the Father and with the Spirit. That was enough for the faith, the love, and the conduct of the primitive Church. The Church was the last thing to be a society of theologians. As monotheists and worshippers of Christ by the same instinct, analyzing their faith as an intellectual problem was far from their thoughts. God Himself (and there is but one God) had suffered for them (Ignatius, Romans 6; Tatian, Gr. 13; Melito, Fr. 7); God’s sufferings were before their eyes (Clement of Rome I, 2); they desired the "drink of God," even His blood (Ignatius, Romans 7; cf. Acts 20:28). If enthusiastic devotion gave way for a moment to reflection, "we must think of Jesus Christ as of God" (Clement of Rome II, 1).

The "Apostolic Fathers" are not theological in their aim or method. The earliest seat of theological reflection in the primitive Church appears to have been Asia Minor, or rather Western Asia from Antioch to the Ægean. From this region proceed the Ignatian letters, which stand alone among the literature of their day in theological depth and reflection. Their theology is wonderfully mature, despite its apparent immaturity; it is full of reflection, and yet...