“ALEXAMENOS WORSHIPS HIS GOD”? AN ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND BRAM VAN DE BEEK’S CHRISTOLOGY AS THE HEART OF HIS THEOLOGY

Dirkie Smit

Jesus Kyrios?

For as long as anyone can remember, an image of the grafffijito “Alexam- enos worships his god” has been hanging in the dean’s offfijice of the Theol- ogy Faculty in Stellenbosch, a gift from an alumnus already in April 1901.1 Presumably a mocking depiction of a Christian, this rough and child-like inscription, carved into a wall on the Palatine Hill in Rome, portrays Jesus as crucifijied, with the head of a donkey, and a young man seemingly stand- ing in worship before the fijigure on the cross.2 Here Bram van de Beek wrote most of Jezus Kurios. De Christologie als Hart van de Theologie, even- tually dedicating it to the Faculty, with a picture of the grafffijito on the front cover.3 The choice of the title was deliberate, he explains. An early Christian hymn dares to apply this very Name “Lord,” “Kyrios” to Jesus, he says— “the Holy NAME by which God in an unspeakable way was made known to Israel.” This is how intends to use it too. He therefore did not choose the more common “Kyrios Christos”—“for that combination somewhat shelters the afffront of the confession” that Jesus is the Lord, since “Christ may refer to the highest ideal of humanity as well as the risen and glori- fijied Lord,” which would obscure his own deepest intentions. He did not choose “Jesus Christ” either—“for that would invite too easily the self- evident Lordship of so many ecclesial pronouncements,” which would again contradict his own emphases. Rather, “my concern is the earthly human Jesus, with his human—all too human—history. This human from

1 The hand-written inscription on the copy reads MUSEO KIRCHIRIANO ROME, Rome April 1901 A.D. Lückhofff. 2 Information concerning the grafffijito is scarce, unclear and controversial. A rough Greek inscription on the picture refers to Alexamenos, and although the translation is debated, many scholars presume that it refers to an Alexamenos who is worshipping (his) god. 3 The picture appears only on the Dutch original, Jezus Kurios. De Christologie als Hart van de Theologie (Kampen: Kok, 1998). In this paper, references are from the English trans- lation, Jesus Kyrios. Christology as Heart of Theology (Zoetermeer: Meinema, 2002). 38 dirkie smit fijirst century Palestine is the one true God.” For this reason, he chose this particular title.4 Perhaps one could claim that these words already contain Van de Beek’s whole Christology, and since Christology is for him the heart of theology, his whole theology.5 His concern is with the earthly, human Jesus with his all too human history, since for him this human from the fijirst century Palestine is the one true God. He seems to have been intellectually occupied with the claims and questions embedded in this concern right through his academic career, since his doctoral dissertation on De Menselijke Persoon van Christus.6 These claims and concerns also determine the structure of Jesus Kyrios, in which the fijirst part deals extensively with the Christological debates of the fijifth century and with the question whether and how Christ is God, before he uses this in the second part as hermeneutical background when he returns to the New Testament and the credo, and later proceeds in the third and fourth parts to Jesus and other cultures and religions. There can be no doubt that when he speaks of “the earthly, human Jesus” he is also referring to the body, the flesh, the materiality, the human-ness, the human nature of Jesus, as “living human being.”7 For him, the body is of utmost importance, Jesus’ body as well as our bodies. After all, “flesh is the spindle of salvation.”8 Again and again this conviction comes to the fore.9 His theological project could be seen as an ongoing conflict with

4 From the explanation in front, Abraham van die Beek, Jesus Kyrios, 2. 5 “Ook voor mij gaat het niet om de christologie, maar om de theologie. Maar juist de christologie is expressie van de theologie. Die is er zoals reeds gezegd het hart van. Ik kan ook zeggen: Jezus is het gelaat van God. God gaat niet in zijn gelaat op—en toch is Hij zijn gelaat zelf,” “De verre of de nabije God,” Jezus: bij hoog en bij laag [The far or near God, Jesus: on high and lowly], (Kok: Kampen, 1999, 13–24), 23. 6 Abraham van de Beek, De Menselijke Persoon van Christus: Een Onderzoek aangaande de Gedachte van de Anhypostasie van de Menselijke Natuur van Christus [The Human Per- son of Christ: An investigation about the Notion of the Anhypostasis of the Human Nature of Christ], (Leiden: Universiteit Leiden, 1980). 7 See for example Menselijke Persoon; Jesus Kyrios, esp. 113–114 [English translation: II I.1.3.c, 121–123]. He sometimes explains that the early debates concentrated on the question whether Jesus was “being human” or a “human being” and he strongly afffijirms the latter. 8 “Het vlees is de spil van de redding” is the theme of the key second chapter in his eschatology, where he begins to develop his answer to the both cynical and deeply per- sonal questions raised in chapter one, Abraham van de Beek’, God doet recht. Eschatologie als christologie [God does right. Eschatology as christology], (Zoetermeer: Meinema, 2008), 37–82. 9 “Men kan zelfs stellen dat de lijnen van orthodoxie of ketterij in de vroege kerk door het lichaam bepaald werden,” [‘One could posit that the tracing of orthodoxy or heresy in the early church were determined by the body’], Recht, 53. His discussion of several