Where Did the Concept of Jesus As God Come From?

Chapter 4 Where Did the Concept of Jesus As God Come From?

The source of your unity and election is genuine suffering which you undergo by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ, our God. Hence you deserve to be considered happy. . . . you are imi- tators of God; and it was God’s blood that stirred you up once more to do the sort of thing you do naturally and have now done to perfection.

—Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch

Research has shown that by around a hundred years or less after his death the understanding of Jesus as God was already well established, as the quote above demonstrates. Bishop Ignatius was the second bishop of Antioch. He was killed around 100 A.D. The above excerpt is from his letter to the Ephesians (Early Christian Fathers, C. C. Richardson, ed., Macmillan, 1970, pp. 87-88).

What do we know about how and why the concept of Jesus as God developed and became accepted? This chapter will give you some historical and theological perspective on the development of the doctrine of the incarnation. The concept developed very early, but it was not universally accepted among the vanguard of Christianity.

There was perhaps even greater diversity of understandings among early Christians than among current Christians, both in general and in relation to the identity of Jesus.

EARLY DIVERSITY

Even in the newborn church, immediately after Jesus’ death, there were major differences among the Jewish Chris- tians and the Gentile Christians. These are indicated in the

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New Testament book of Acts. During his journeys, Paul went to Jerusalem, where he met with James and the elders of the early church. In the next verses they are addressing him: ‘You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law. They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. So do what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law. But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgement that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.’ Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself, he entered the temple with them, making public the completion of the days of purification when the sacrifice would be made for each of them. [Acts 21:20-26] – New Revised Standard Version

This passage shows that the early Jewish Christians continued to follow Jewish Law, circumcising their sons and keeping the traditions of their fathers. Some of them continued to take the Nazarite Vow, as the four men whose heads were being shaved here. This Mosaic practice was one of dedicating one- Where Did the Concept Come From? | 67 self to God and following strict rules of purity and sacrifice for a specified length of time. (See Numbers 6:1-21.)

Gentile converts, on the other hand, often did not follow the same set of rules. It is apparent from the above verses that in the Jerusalem church they only had to abstain from forbidden meats and adultery.

Besides differing practices, there were also many different understandings within the early church concerning the true identity of Jesus. In fact, these differences were very marked, and are eloquently expressed by Robert L. Wilken in The Myth of Christian Beginnings (Doubleday, 1971, pp. 165-166):

There were no set beliefs agreed on by all; nor were there any ground rules on how to determine what to say or think or do; nor was there any acknowledged authority for deciding such question (sic). Let us suppose that in the year A.D. 35 two men, Michael and Ephraim, became Christians in Jerusalem; Michael went to the town of Edessa in Syria to live, and Ephraim went to Alexandria in Egypt. On arrival in their respective cities, each told others about the remarkable man Jesus. After telling their friends about Jesus, let us say Michael and Ephraim organized Christian congregations. Almost immediately, problems would arise. What should we do about the Jewish law? What should we do when we gather for worship? . . . The questions were endless, and the Chris- tians in Edessa and the Christians in Alexandria would not answer all in the same way—the traditions Michael and Ephraim brought with them were too embryonic, too undefined, to answer every new question or settle every dispute. They had to make up their own minds as they understood their own situation and the memories they brought with them. Now let us change the scene to A.D. 75. Forty years have passed. In the meantime the Jews have been defeated by the Romans, and Jerusalem has been destroyed. Also, the Christian movement has spread widely and solidified its traditions. Let us now suppose that someone from Edessa travels to Alexandria and learns that there is a Christian community there. . . . To his surprise, he learns that they have little in common except a common loyalty to Jesus, and the fragments of his words that have been handed on orally. And even the fragments of his sayings are not in quite the form 68 | Development of the Christian Doctrine

they are in Edessa. The visitor from Edessa discovers that the Christians in Alexandria do not keep the Jewish law, whereas his congregation keeps it exactly, admitting no one to the Christian community without circumcision. The Alexandrians pray to Jesus, whereas in Edessa all prayers are addressed solely to God the Father. . . . Both are shocked at the practices and beliefs of the others.

Given this great diversity among early Christians, at what point did the doctrine of Jesus’ divinity actually develop? And what were the factors contributing to the spread and eventual formalization of this doctrine?

Searching for the answers to these questions is especially difficult because there are no known surviving documents from the ‘Mother Church,’ the original Christian community in Jerusalem. For an extensive discussion of this point, see S. G. F. Brandon’s book Jesus and the Zealots (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967, pp. 148-159). We will review his arguments in a few pages.

There may possibly be an exception in the Epistle of James. Scholars seem to have varying views as to whether or not this epistle was actually written by James—the half-brother of Jesus—or a contemporary of his, or by someone else at a later time in early Christian history. If James or a contemporary wrote it, then it gives us a small taste of the teachings of the Jerusalem church. In any case, it does appear to have been written by an early Jewish-Christian as indicated by the first verse: James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion, greetings. [James 1:1] – New American Bible

Here James addresses “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion.” We see James as a servant of both God and Jesus Christ, whom he calls “Lord.” The verses of James 4:8-10 show that he also calls God “Lord.” Where Did the Concept Come From? | 69

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you of two minds. Begin to lament, to mourn, to weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. [James 4:8-10] – New American Bible

Recalling again from our first chapter that the original Greek manuscripts contained no capitalization, it is impossible to know exactly what the title “lord/Lord” entailed. In current English the lord of the manor is very different from the Lord of the heavens and the earth, and yet both can be referred to with the same word with different capitalization. However, the translators of the Greek manuscripts assigned all capitalization in James and other books of the New Testament, so it reflects their understanding rather than necessarily that of the original manuscripts.

It may also be useful at this point to note that the word ‘rabbi’ derives from the Hebrew word meaning “my master.” Jesus was clearly accepted as a rabbi. In earlier times one’s master might also be refered to as one’s lord. This may have added to confusion regarding the crucial title of “lord/Lord.”

James exhorts his “beloved brothers” to steadfastness, hum- bleness, faithfulness, treating everyone well, keeping the law (which would have been Mosaic Law) and good works, among other things. He stresses good works in a very Jewish manner: You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith without works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, 70 | Development of the Christian Doctrine

and faith was brought to completion by the works. . . . You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. . . . For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead. [James 2:19-26] – New Revised Standard Version

In The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament’s Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book, (HarperSanFancisco, 2006, p. 244), Julie Galambush, a former Baptist minister who convert- ed to Judaism, provides an interesting comment on James:

A very Jewish book, James is practical in its moral instruction and attuned to what we would now call tikkun olam, the mending of a broken world . . . Martin Luther was correct that James does not “show thee Christ” in the same sense that Paul’s letters do. Instead, it provides guidance for a community shaped by God’s gifts of humility and mutual care. . . . James unambiguously sub- stantiates the claim that not only Jesus himself but also his followers were and continued to be Jews.

Having had this glimpse of what might possibly be some of the teachings of the Jerusalem church, let us look more closely at the differences that Paul had with other followers of Jesus. Remember that Paul never met Jesus, nor did he study with the original apostles. His knowledge of Jesus and his teachings came mostly through personal inspiration. Hyam Maccoby states (The Mythmaker. Harper and Row, 1987, pp. 3-4):

Paul claimed that his interpretations were not just his own inven- tion, but had come to him by personal inspiration; he claimed that he had personal acquaintance with the resurrected Jesus, even though he had never met him during his lifetime. Such acquaintance, he claimed, gained through visions and transports, was actually superior to acquaintance with Jesus during his lifetime, when Jesus was much more reticent about his purposes.

Paul, however good his motivations, could not pass on to us the exact words or actions of Jesus during the years he taught Where Did the Concept Come From? | 71 on earth. He had no way of knowing exactly what they were. It is inevitable that he would be in some conflict with those who were actually with Jesus during those years. Their experiences and their memories of a flesh and blood man would necessarily be different from the Jesus Paul knew only from his visions.

PAUL vs. THE SUPER-APOSTLES

There are several indications in Paul’s letters that there were powerful and authoritative opponents to his teachings. Paul wrote that these opponents were teaching a “gospel other than the gospel you accepted” and preaching about “another Jesus:” I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough. I think that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. [2 Corinthians 11:3-5] – New Revised Standard Version

As Paul continues, it is clear that those whom he refers to above as the “super-apostles” are Hebrews whose authority he does not question, but he tries to match their qualifications with his own: “since many boast according to human stan- dards, I will also boast.” (2 Corinthians 11:18).

Brandon argues that Paul’s “super-apostles” are indeed the original apostles of Jesus (Ibid., pp. 152-153):

Paul, curiously, despite his exceeding agitation over their activity, never names them. Whoever they were, they were obviously Christians of great authority or representative of leaders of great 72 | Development of the Christian Doctrine

authority; for they were able to go among Paul’s own converts and successfully present a rival interpretation of the faith. More- over, although he is so profoundly disturbed by their action, Paul never questions their authority as they did his. These facts, taken together with Paul’s very evident embarrassment about his rela- tions with the leading Apostles at Jerusalem, point irresistibly to one conclusion only: that the ‘other gospel’, which opposes Paul’s own, was the interpretation of the nature and mission of Jesus propounded by the Jerusalem Church, which comprised the original Apostles of Jesus and eyewitnesses of his life.

Not all Biblical scholars agree that the “super-apostles” were the original apostles, and that the “different gospel” was that of the Jerusalem Church, but for some there is a very good case for their being so. In fact, the very name “super-apostles” seems to be evidence. Who else would fit such a name?

The passage we quoted earlier from Acts 21:20-26 demonstrates that the original apostles had differing views from Paul, and they had the authority to enforce those views, at least by writing to the Gentile converts to “abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.”

This is important because, as stated before, Paul never met Jesus; he had no first-hand knowledge of Christ’s teachings. Yet most of what we know about the very early years of Chris- tianity comes from Paul’s letters. And the gospel of Christ that has survived has come through the Pauline tradition. All this means that we do not know for certain what the original followers of Jesus taught. And more importantly, we do not know how much of Jesus’ own teaching has reached us unfla- vored by Paul’s understanding and that of his tradition.

One thing we do know is that the differences among the early members of the church were deep and divisive. Paul’s letter to the Galatians makes that clear. Scathingly, Paul exhorts his readers to stick to the gospel he had delivered to them: Where Did the Concept Come From? | 73

I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by (the) grace (of Christ) for a different gospel. . . . But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach (to you) a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed! [Galatians 1:6-8] – New American Bible

Whoever Paul’s opponents were, they had authority that Paul felt he needed to counteract. This is shown by the fact that he goes on by defending his own authority, and then attacking those who apparently were preaching a return to Mosaic Law: For all who depend on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not persevere in doing all the things written in the book of the law.” And that no one is justified before God by the law is clear, for “the one who is righteous by faith will live.” [Galatians 3:10-11] – New American Bible

In fact, the above verse shows that Paul actively fought against those who observed Mosaic Law. This is reinforced by the following verses: Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. [Galatians 5:3-4] – New Revised Standard Version

One of the strongest pieces of evidence that Paul’s opponents were the original apostles comes in Galatians 2:6-14: And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders 74 | Development of the Christian Doctrine

(what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)— those leaders contributed nothing to me. On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. . . . But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?’ [Galatians 2:6-14] – New Revised Standard Version

We see here that initially it was James, Cephas and John who recognized Paul’s authority. What about the other Jerusalem apostles? Were they the important and prominent ones who wanted Paul to add to his teachings? If not, why were they not mentioned? And what was he supposed to add? It seems logical that these opponents were original apostles, and that they wanted him to preach the following of Mosaic Law.

The above quote shows that later, in Antioch, even Cephas had a run-in with Paul over the practice of Mosaic Law. Paul Where Did the Concept Come From? | 75 accuses him and the other Jews of dissembling, and not being straightforward about the truth of the gospel and of wanting to force the Gentiles to accept Mosaic Law. If Paul attacked even his own supporters among the Jerusalem apostles, it seems inevitable that he was at odds with them as a group.

Given the extremely strong prohibition of idol worship in any form, which is at the core of Mosaic Law, it is almost certain that any tendency to deify Jesus would have been strongly resisted by the Jerusalem apostles. This could well have been the basic cause of the rift between Paul and the original apostles. Brandon argues (Ibid., p. 154):

According to Paul’s own testimony, his ‘gospel’ was repudiated and his authority as apostle was rejected by his opponents. This the leaders of the Jerusalem Church could effectively do, because Paul had never been an original disciple of Jesus, nor had he learned the faith from them. However, the irony of the situation, from our point of view, is that it is Paul’s ‘gospel’ that has survived and is known to us from his own writings, whereas the ‘gospel’ of the Jerusalem Christians can only be reconstructed from what may be inferred from Paul’s references to it and what may be culled, also by inference from the Gospels and Acts. This apparent triumph of Paul’s version of the faith is surely to be traced to the Jewish overthrow in A.D. 70. . . .

That final sentence is important. Brandon draws a parallel between the esoteric Jewish community at Qumran whose books were hidden before the community was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 68. Those documents are now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the community that authored them is known almost solely through them. Fairly recently those very scrolls have been made available to scholars at large, stirring great hopes for a breakthrough in our understanding of Judaism at the time of Christ and thus, early Christian development.

Brandon proposes that the Romans also wiped out the Christian community in Jerusalem, which strongly maintained its ties to Judaism, in A.D. 70. Thus its documents were lost as a consequence of the Jewish uprising there. 76 | Development of the Christian Doctrine

The annihilation of the Mother Church of Jerusalem meant that the original leaders of Jewish-Christianity were killed or dispersed. Also, there must have been a strong political force encouraging the moving away from Judaism and any traditions that identified a community as being tied to Judaism. These factors would have greatly aided in the strengthening and spread of non-Jewish concepts among early Christians. They would have almost certainly helped the spread of the concept of Jesus’ deification, especially given the Roman custom of deifying their own leaders.

POSSIBLE AFFECT OF PAUL’S BACKGROUND

We can only surmise how much of an effect Paul’s background had on the development of the Christian doctrine of Jesus as God incarnate. A. N. Wilson in his book Paul: Mind of the Apostle (W. W. Norton, 1998, p. 26), offers some interesting thoughts on the matter. Paul was born in Tarsus and is often referred to as Paul of Tarsus. Every year Herakles, a Greek divine hero, was honored in Tarsus by great religious cere- monies:

Every autumn in Tarsus the boy Paul would have seen the great funeral pyre at which the god was ritually burnt. The central mys- tery of the ritual was that the withering that of the summer sun had brought the god to his death but that he would rise to life again in the spring, at about the time when the Jews were cele- brating the Passover. From inscriptions in Tarsus we know that Herakles, in his dying and descent into Hades, was regarded as a divine savior.

Thus, Herakles, who had one divine parent and one human one, might possibly have served as a model for Paul in his interpretation of Jesus and his life and death. If this was the case Paul may not even have been conscious of it.

It is also possible that Wilson puts too much stress on Paul’s birth place, as in Acts 22:3 Paul indicates that he was brought up in Jerusalem: Where Did the Concept Come From? | 77

‘I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today.’ [Acts 22:3] - New Revised Standard Version

However, the parallels between the Pauline image of Jesus as a divine son of God, who was savior to mankind, and Her- akles may be worth noting. Wilson also mentions that Tarsus was a center of Mithraic worship where initiates drank the blood of a sacrificial bull or a chalice of wine symbolizing it (Ibid., p. 25). This seems reminiscent of the wine of the Eucharist.

PRIOR TO THE NICENE COUNCILS

For over the first three hundred years after the crucifixion, the nature of Jesus and his relationship to God the Father was understood in a variety of manners by different segments of the early church.

There were those who believed that Jesus was just a mortal man who had a very special relationship with God. Then there were those who agreed with Theodotus of Byzantium that Jesus was born a mere man and attained the ability to work miracles at the time of his baptism. Some of Theodotus’ stu- dents later believed that Jesus became God after his resurrec- tion. And then there were those known as Monarchians who believed that God and Jesus were one and the same from the beginning of time. Some believed that Jesus was created and some of those believed that he was fully human but shared his body with the Son of God. Others who believed Jesus to be human believed he was “adopted” by God.

Those whose understanding eventually won out believed that Jesus was fully human and fully God at the same time, as 78 | Development of the Christian Doctrine exemplified by the traditional doctrine of the Incarnation, as briefly discussed next.

DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION

The doctrine that was codified and eventually accepted in 325 by the First Council of Nicaea is basically that Jesus Christ was the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, and was truly God and truly a man at the same time. All other understandings were decreed to be heretical by the Conference.

We will examine the doctrine of the Trinity in a later chapter. Here we will look just a bit more closely at just a few other views as illustrations of the diversity in early Christian thought.

Peter Kirby’s excellent website at: http://www.earlychris- tianwritings.com provides much of the following information and quotes on the Docetists and Nestorianism (last accessed December of 2014.)

DOCETISTS

Docetism was the view that Jesus was divine and only appeared to be human, and his physical body did not actually exist but was an illusion. In his An Introduction to the New Tes- tament (University of Chicago Press, 1937, p. 318) Rev. Edgar J. Goodspeed writes of the Docetists:

They held that his sufferings were only seeming and not real, and hence were known as Docetists or “Seemists.” Their views found expression some years later in the Gospel of Peter, A.D. 125-50, and in the Acts of John, ca. A.D. 160. In the Gospel of Peter, Jesus on the cross “held his peace, as though he felt no pain.” His last cry was, “My power, my Power, you have forsaken me!” In the Acts of John, John says: “Sometimes when I would lay hold of him, I met with a material and solid body, and at other times again when I felt him, the substance was immaterial and as if it existed not at all.” His feet left no footprints on the ground, chapter 93. He seemed sometimes tall, sometimes short. His breast was Where Did the Concept Come From? | 79

sometimes hard, sometimes tender, chapter 89. While he was apparently being crucified down in Jerusalem, John saw him and talked with him in a cave high above the city, and Jesus said to him, “John, unto the multitude down below in Jerusalem I am being crucified, and pierced with lances and reeds, and gall and vinegar are given to me to drink. But I am speaking to you, and listen to what I say,” chapter 97. “Nothing therefore of the things they will say of me have I suffered,” chapter 101.

F. F. Bruce writes (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974, p. 93):

The docetic note in this narrative appears in the statement that Jesus, while being crucified, ‘remained silent, as though he felt no pain’, and in the account of his death. It carefully avoids saying that he died, preferring to say that he ‘was taken up’, as though he — or at least his soul or spiritual self — was ‘assumed’ direct from the cross to the presence of God. (We shall see an echo of this idea in the Qur’an.) Then the cry of dereliction is reproduced in a form which suggests that, at that moment, his divine power left the bodily shell in which it had taken up temporary residence.

In our Chapter 9 on the Crucifixion, we will find a somewhat similar understanding in the Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter.

ARIANISM

Arius (ca. 250-336 AD) was a presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt who disagreed with his bishop Alexander. This ongoing dispute appears to have been the main issue that triggered the initial calling of the Nicene Councils.

Arius believed that Jesus did not always exist, but was created and is thus distinct from God, and subordinate to Him. Wikipedia’s article Arius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arius, accessed December 2, 2014) quotes a report of his arguing that:

[I]f the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence: and from this it is evident, that there was a time when the Son was not. It therefore necessarily follows, that he [the Son] had his substance from nothing. 80 | Development of the Christian Doctrine

It appears that for him this was demonstrated in John 14:28, quoted in the last chapter and again here: If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. [John 14:28] – New Revised Standard Version

The First Council of Nicaea, declared this belief heretical. Arius was exonerated 10 years later by the regional synod of Tyre, only to be declared again to be a heretic almost fifty years after his death.

The term Arianism has come to mean those of his teachings that go against the doctrine of the Trinity as determined by the First Council of Nicaea (325) and the Second Council of Nicaea (787).

NESTORIANISM

Nestorius was a Patriarch of Constantinople from 428-431. Rev. George A. Jackson in his The Post-Nicene Greek Fathers (D. Appleton and Company, 1883) tells us that from the few letters and fragments of his writings quoted by others he would seem “to have been a thoroughly orthodox believer” yet:

By publicly rejecting the use of the phrase “Mother of God,” as applied to the Virgin Mary, he drew upon himself the hatred and anathemas of Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, who believed in one only nature in Christ, and who now made himself the champion of the rejected phrase. To his anathemas, Nestorius rejoined with counter-anathemas. Out of the controversy came the Council of Ephesus, by which Nestorius was condemned and deposed as a heretic. He at once retired to his old monastery near Antioch. The doctrine which he had supported and on account of which he was condemned — viz., that the Word was united to a human nature in Christ, and that these two natures, being united together, make but one Christ, one Son only, and likewise one Person only, made up of two natures . . . his condemnation was against the will of the Eastern bishops. Nevertheless, to effect a peace in the Church, a Where Did the Concept Come From? | 81

compromise was at last arranged between John of Antioch and Cyril, the terms of which were that Cyril subscribed a creed written by John, and that John, on behalf of the Eastern bishops, subscribed the condemnation of Nestorius. This abandonment of Nestorius, simply because it seemed politic, was deemed a cruel treachery by some of the bishops, who, rather than approve of it, submitted to be banished. Nestorius himself, in 435, was by imperial command banished to the Greater Oasis in Upper Egypt, in which exile, after various sufferings, he died. By an imperial edict, his books were condemned to be burned, and all persons were forbidden to read them.

Churches following his views broke away from the rest of the Christian Church in what has come to be known as the Nestorian Schism. Many of his supporters immigrated to Persia. Over the centuries only small groups in India have survived. That is all looking at the issue from the Western point of view.

However in actuality, Philip Jenkins in his The Lost Histo- ry of Christianity: The Thousand Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa and Asia – and How It Died (HarperOne, 2009, p. 3) writes:

For most of its history, Christianity was a tricontinental religion, with powerful representation in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and this was true into the fourteenth century. Christianity became pre- dominantly European not because this continent had any obvious affinity for that faith, but by default: Europe was the continent where it was not destroyed.

Jenkins then discusses Timothy, who became the Nestorian patriarch, or Catholoicos, of the Church of the East around 780 (Ibid., p. 6):

Timothy was arguably the most significant Christian spiritual leader of his day, much more influential than the Western pope, in Rome, and on a par with the Orthodox patriarch in Constan- tinople. Perhaps a quarter of the world’s Christians looked to Timothy as both spiritual and political head. At least as much as the Western pope, he could claim to head the successor the ancient apostolic church. 82 | Development of the Christian Doctrine

Clearly those who followed the tradition of Nestorius were not by any means a small, unimportant community, as it might appear looking at things from just the Western point of view. So exactly what was Nestorius’ understanding?

Philip Schaff gives us a useful first hand report in his Histo- ry of the Christian Church, Vol.3 Nicene and Post-Nicene Christi- anity, AD 311-600 which I accessed on December 3, 2014 at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc3.iii.xii.xxi.html. There he quotes Nestorius, citing multiple sources:

“You ask,” says he in his first sermon, “whether Mary may be called mother of God. Has God then a mother? If so, heathenism itself is excusable in assigning mothers to its gods; but then Paul is a liar, for he said of the deity of Christ that it was without father, without mother, and without descent. No, my dear sir, Mary did not bear God; . . . the creature bore not the uncreated Creator, but the man who is the instrument of the Godhead; the Holy Ghost conceived not the Logos, but formed for him, out of the virgin, a temple which he might inhabit (John ii. 21). The incarnate God did not die, but quickened him in whom he was made flesh. . . . This garment, which he used, I honor on account of the God which was covered therein and inseparable therefrom; . . . I separate the natures, but I unite the worship. Consider what this must mean. He who was formed in the womb of Mary, was not himself God, but God assumed him [assumsit, i.e., clothed himself with humanity], and on account of Him who assumed, he who was assumed is also called God.”

Schaff gives the translation of John 2:21 from the New Revised Standard Version repeated here with context: Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. [John 2:19-21] - New Revised Standard Version Where Did the Concept Come From? | 83

Nestorius’ understanding seems to be somewhat akin to what Bart Ehrman terms “Separationist” (Ibid., pp. 170-171). He describes this as the human Jesus being held to be distinct from the divine Christ who temporarily dwelt in him and enabled him to work miracles, abandoning him to face the crucifixion alone. More than one group held this understanding, or something somewhat similar, including the Gnostics.

Just this brief review makes it clear that the concept of Jesus as God was not universally accepted in the early church and there was a variety of interpretations in circulation then. Cer- tainly if the Council of Nicaea of 325 codified the Doctrine of the Incarnation and declared other understandings heretical, there were other understandings with enough followers to precipitate such an action.

THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE: THEOLOGICAL EXAMINATION

In addition to the historical aspects of the divinity of Jesus, there are the theological implications. The whole doctrine of Jesus’ divinity has been thoroughly examined in The Myth of God Incarnate (Ed. J. Hick, Westminster Press, 1977). This important book is not readily available now. Therefore, I have quoted a bit more extensively from it.

One look at the list of Christian scholars who contributed to this collection shows that it is not a radical fringe among modern theologians who reject this doctrine of incarnation. This book was authored by a number of careful and highly qualified theologians, listed here with the credentials they held when the book was first published:

Don Cupitt: University Lecturer in Divinity and Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (UK).

Michael Goulder: Staff Tutor in Theology in the Department of Extramural Studies at Birmingham University. 84 | Development of the Christian Doctrine

John Hick: H. G. Wood Professor of Theology at Birming- ham University.

Leslie Houlden: Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon. Dennis Nineham: Warden of Keble College, Oxford.

Maurice Wiles: Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church of England’ s Doctrine Commission.

Frances Young: Lecturer in New Testament Studies at Birm- ingham University.

From the Preface of The Myth of God Incarnate (Ibid., p. ix):

The writers of this book are convinced that another major theological development is called for in this last part of the twentieth century. The need arises from growing knowledge of Christian origins, and involves a recognition that Jesus was (as he is pre- sented in Acts 2.21) ‘a man approved by God’ for a special role within the divine purpose, and that the later conception of him as God incarnate, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity living a human life, is a mythological or poetic way of expressing his sig- nificance for us. This recognition is called for in the interests of truth. . . . For Christianity can only remain honestly believable by being continuously open to the truth.

In the same book (Ibid., p. 4), Maurice Wiles writes:

Negative generalizations are notoriously dangerous claims to make. Nevertheless, it seems to me that throughout the long history of attempts to present a reasoned account of Christ as both fully human and fully divine, the church has never succeeded in offering a consistent or convincing picture.

Mr. Wiles, who was at the time canon of Christ Church, goes on to urge that “Christianity without incarnation” should be regarded as a positive and constructive idea, rather than negative and destructive. He points out that the worship of Christ, “traditional throughout the whole of Christian history,” is “idolatrous in character.” Where Did the Concept Come From? | 85

Some three centuries after Jesus’ death, culminating with the Council of Nicaea of 325 A.D., a politically motivated church solidified the doctrine of ‘God Incarnate.’

In The Myth of God Incarnate (Ibid., p. 17), Frances Young makes an interesting and critical observation, pointing out that the focus of the Gospels is quite different from that of Jesus’ own teachings:

The epistles of Paul— and indeed the speeches of Acts— reveal that the early Christian gospel was about Jesus Christ. This makes it the more likely that the gospels correctly report that the message of Jesus was different — it was about the kingdom of God. . . . There are difficulties in tracing explicit Messianic claims back to Jesus himself. Apart from John where interpretative material is clearly placed upon the lips of Jesus, the gospels invariably portray not Jesus but others as using phrases like the ‘Holy One of God’, or ‘Son of David’, or ‘Son of God’.. . . Furthermore, Mark’s gospel con- veys the impression that Jesus attempted to keep his identity as Messiah a secret divulged only to his inner circle. This ‘Messianic secret’ motif in Mark remains an unsolved problem, especially since it appears sometimes to be introduced rather artificially; yet it adds to the impression that Jesus may well have preferred to remain enigmatic, in the interests of directing his hearers away from false enthusiasm for himself, to the consequences of the coming of God’s kingdom for their lives here and now.

Young goes farther, arguing that Paul never claimed Jesus was God (Ibid., pp. 20-22). Whether Paul himself believed Jesus to be God, or not, it was the Pauline tradition which eventually developed the doctrine of God incarnate, culminating with its formal doctrinal statement in the Nicene Creed.

In The Myth of God Incarnate Michael Goulder and Frances Young present a number of plausible theories dealing with the development of incarnational belief in the early church. They both agree that the roots of incarnation and of the divinity of men extend to the pre-Christian and pagan cultures. 86 | Development of the Christian Doctrine

We know that the concept of ‘Son of God’ was quite different for Jews following Mosaic Law and Romans whose religious mythology specifically referred to divine children of the gods. Young points out that both Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions have the idea of the ascent of exceptional men into heaven, and of heavenly beings—either angels or gods—coming to earth to help men. It is not an impossible step from those traditions to the belief that God Himself had to come to earth to save mankind.

Don Cupitt, former Dean of Emmanuel College at Cam- bridge concluded that the incarnational doctrine no longer belongs to the essence of Christianity, “but only to a certain period of church history, now ended” (Ibid., p. 134).

Cupitt also narrates that the Eastern theologian John of Damascus (about A.D. 675-749), in defending iconolatry, admitted the fact that neither the Trinity nor the homoousion (identifying Jesus as God) nor the two natures of Christ can be found in the scriptures. John of Damascus then continued, “but we know those doctrines are true.”

After he acknowledged that icons, the Trinity and the incarnation are innovations, John of Damascus went on to urge his readers to hold fast to them “as venerable traditions delivered to us by the fathers.” Thus, at least 14 centuries ago, he recognized that the incarnation doctrine is not a divinely revealed doctrine, delivered to us by Jesus, but an idea passed down to us “by the fathers.”

Don Cupitt adds that John of Damascus was not the only theologian to use this argument. Theodore the Studite (about A.D. 795-826) also used it. Cupitt then states that this “brings out an odd feature of Christianity, its mutability and the speed with which innovations [such as the incarnational doctrine] come to be vested with religious solemnity to such an extent that anyone who questions them finds himself regarded as the dangerous innovator and heretic.” Where Did the Concept Come From? | 87

Cupitt emphasizes his understanding that the idea of God incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ is in direct contradiction with the teachings of Jesus. He points out (Ibid., p. 138):

The Bible contains (Ex. 20.4) a categorical prohibition, not merely of any kind of image of God, but of any naturalistic or represen- tational art, a prohibition which has influenced Jews and Muslims to this day. Nothing other than God can be an adequate image of God, and God himself, being transcendent, cannot be delineated. Early Christianity inherited and followed this rule. Old Testament arguments against idolatry, pagan arguments and early Christian arguments ran closely parallel.

Cupitt’s conclusion is that the doctrine of God incarnate causes a distortion of Jesus’ teachings (Ibid., p. 140):

The assertion that deity itself and humanity are permanently united in the one person of the incarnate Lord suggests an ultimate synthesis, a conjunction and continuity between things divine and things of this world. . . . This idea distorts Jesus’ ironical perception of disjunction between the things of God and the things of men, a disjunction particularly enforced in the parables. . . . Whether he is seen as an apocalyptic prophet or as a witty rabbi (or, as I think, both), what matters in Jesus’ message is his sense of the abrupt juxtaposition of two opposed orders of things. . . . But the doctrine of the incarnation unified things which Jesus had kept in ironic contrast with each other, and so weakened the ability to appreci- ate his way of speaking, and the distinctive values he stood for.

John Hick, H. G. Wood Professor of Theology at Birming- ham University when the book was published, compares the exaltation of Jesus to the status of God with the deification of Buddha in Buddhism. He sees the innovation of the incarnation doctrine as a human tendency to elevate the founder of any given religion. He states (Ibid., p.170):

Buddhology and christology developed in comparable ways. The human Gautama came to be thought of as the incarnation of a transcendent, pre-existent Buddha as the human Jesus came to be thought of as the incarnation of the pre-existent Logos or divine Son. And in the Mahayana the transcendent Buddha is one with the Absolute as in Christianity the eternal Son is one with God the 88 | Development of the Christian Doctrine

Father. . . . We are seeing at work a tendency of the religious mind which is also to be seen within the history of Christianity. The exaltation of the founder has of course taken characteristically different forms in the two religions. But in each case it led the devel- oping traditions to speak of him in terms which he himself did not use, and to understand him by means of a complex of beliefs which was only gradually formed by later generations of his followers.

Each essay in The Myth of God Incarnate shows careful schol- arship and soul-searching commentary. Such work requires the moral courage to step out of one’s upbringing, indeed, out of one’s culture, and allow the objective examination of one’s own faith. The unanimous conclusion of these courageous theologians is that the concept of God incarnate is indeed innovation and not part of the teachings of Jesus Christ. The results of this innovation are clearly and eloquently summarized by Don Cupitt (Ibid,. pp. 142, 143, 145):

If in Jesus the fullness of God himself is permanently incarnate, Jesus can be directly worshipped as God without risk of error or blasphemy. A cult of Christ as distinct from a cult of God then becomes defensible, and did in fact develop. The practice of praying direct to Christ in the Liturgy, as distinct from praying to God through Christ. . . slowly spread, against a good deal of opposition, eventually to produce Christocentric piety and theology. An example of the consequent paganization of Christianity was the agreement to constitute the World Council of Churches upon the doctrinal basis of ‘acknowledgement of our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour’— and nothing else. Perhaps it was only when Christocentric religion finally toppled over into the absurdity of ‘Christian Atheism’ that some Christians began to realize that Feuerbach might have been right after all; a Chalcedonian christology could be a remote ancestor of modern unbelief, by beginning the process of shifting the focus of devotion from God to man.. . . Similarly, it could not resist the giving of the title Theotokos, Mother of God, to Mary. The phrase ‘Mother of God’ is prima facie blasphemous, but it has had a very long run, and the orthodox have actively promoted its use, fatally attracted by its very provocativeness. . . . Where Did the Concept Come From? | 89

It is my contention that the doctrine of Christ as God’s divine son has here humanized deity to an intolerable degree. The strange- ness of it is seldom noticed even to this day. A sensitive theologian like Austin Farrer can dwell eloquently upon a medieval icon of the Trinity, and a philosopher as gifted as Wittgensten can dis- cuss Michelangelo’s painting of God in the Sistine Chapel, and in neither case is it noticed that there could be people to whom such pagan anthropomorphism is abhorrent, because it signifies a ‘decline of religion’ in the only sense that really matters, namely, a serious corruption of faith in God.

CONCLUSIONS

There are several things that are clear from this discussion: There was great diversity in the beliefs of early Christians. The understanding that Jesus was God comes down through time from one line of those early believers, those who followed Paul. Paul himself never met Jesus, and his views differed rad- ically from the original apostles who did know Jesus and followed his example directly. The destruction of the original Christian community in Jerusalem allowed Paul’s understanding to overshadow that of the original followers of Jesus.

The diversity of understanding that marked the inception of Christianity did not diminish in its early years. There has always been a great deal of variety in relation to the doctrine of the Incarnation.

From a theological point of view there were many possible factors contributing to the development of the doctrine of God incarnate. The influence of pagan belief undoubtedly played a part, as did the natural human tendency to exalt the founder of any religion. We also see that there are highly qualified Chris- tian scholars who reject the concept outright, and offer very convincing arguments for doing so. 90 | Development of the Christian Doctrine