Incarnational Ontology and Paschal Transformation: Acts 2,36 in Contra Eunomium III 3 Joseph S. O’Leary The tension between an Antiochene homo assumptus model and an Alexandrian logos-sarx model, running through fourth century Christology, reflects the tension between the two sources of Christian theology, with the Antiochenes seen as attempting to cleave to the narrative, historical nature of the biblical record while the Alexandrians are tempted to a metaphysical dehistoricization of Christology. But it also reflects a tension within the New Testament itself between the quasi-adoptionist, two-stage Christology found in the formula in Romans 1,3–4 that contrasts the prepaschal Son of David and the paschal Son of God. Paul enhances this contrast by adding the phrases ‘according to the flesh’ and ‘according to the Spirit of holiness.’1 This progres- sive Christological model is in tension with Paul’s emphasis elsewhere on Christ’s status as pre-existent Son (Gal 4,4, 1 Cor 8,6, Phil 2,6). According to another archaic formula, in Acts 2,36, Jesus is made both Lord and Christ at his resurrection, in seeming contradiction with Luke’s earlier account of an angelic acclamation of the child Jesus as ‘Christ the Lord’ (Lk 2,11).2 Some have suggested that such tensions can be resolved if we treat the pre- existence language as indicating the ontological status of Christ in a synchronic way, rather than as narrating his pre-history, despite its narrative guise.3 Rather than a clash of narratives, we would then have an ontological overview, on the basis of which the progressive narrative of the exaltation of Jesus can be set forth freely. This would still leave tensions between three versions of the latter, for the resurrection, the baptism and the conception are successively viewed as the moment when he became Lord and Christ. Such tensions are common, too, in Jewish apocalyptic schemas, which form the matrix of the earliest Christology, and which pass easily from talk of a coming Son of Man or mes- sianic figure to talk of his pre-existence in God’s counsels from the beginning. Studying Gregory of Nyssa’s handling of Acts 2,36 in Contra Eunomium III 3, I shall argue that despite his sensitivity to the dynamic and soteriological 1 See C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans, Edinburgh 1985, 57. 2 Indeed, some find hints of a pre-existence Christology in Luke; see R. Roukema, Jesus, Gnosis and Dogma, New York 2010. 3 I thank John Muddiman for this suggestion. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004�68�58_��4 614 o’leary thrust of the biblical texts, he casts the paschal mystery in the mould of an ontology of divinization, in a way that lessens the impact of the biblical nar- rative. Heir to the Alexandrian tradition, he builds on Athanasius’s picture of how the Logos dwells within the humanity of Christ, causing it to advance beyond human nature and to be divinized (Contra Arianos III 53). But he offers a dynamic and flexible narrative of this transformation, with constant refer- ence to the soteriological significance of the transformative process.4 There is an Origenian mobility here, which resists fixation on ontological schemas. The end result is to renew and enrich metaphysical Christology, with some stimu- lus from Scripture, but basically at the expense of the biblical narrative, which is brought into view and interpreted too exclusively in light of the ontological vision. Arius and Athanasius Nicene orthodoxy excludes any idea of growth or advance in the being of the eternal Logos. But the Arian controversy also generated nervousness about talking too freely of the growth of the human Jesus. Arius had tried, it seems, to retrieve a narrative of the human Jesus growing toward his status as Christ, and this adoptionist emphasis bolstered his subordinationist account of the being of the Logos. Rudolf Lorenz notes a likeness with Origen’s account of the preexistent soul of Christ, united with the Logos in virtue of its loving fidelity.5 Robert Gregg and Dennis Groh write: ‘The resurrection is the occasion par excellence in which God certifies the quality of the Son’s life and promotes him to that position of glory which he held proleptically until then.’6 This sote- riological vision was not to play a major role in the Arian controversy, which focussed instead on the themes of divine transcendence and the role of the Logos in creation. Nor did Eunomius and the Cappadocians do anything to revive a soteriological, adoptionist image of Arianism. Eunomius affirms divine transcendence first of all, confessing one God according to natural ἔννοια and the teaching of the Fathers, and stressing his ingenerateness (Apol. 7). When 4 ‘The modality of the union is systematically explained by the movement of the incarnation in function of its soteriological goal’ (H. Grelier, “Comment décrire l’humanité du Christ sans introduire une quaternité en Dieu? La controverse de Grégoire de Nysse contre Apolinaire de Laodicée”, in: V. H. Drecoll – M. Berghaus (eds.), Gregory of Nyssa: The Minor Treatises on Trinitarian Theology and Apollinarism, Proceedings of the 11th International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa (Tübingen, 17–20 September 2008), SVigChr 106, Leiden, Boston 2011, 541–556. 5 R. Lorenz, Arius judaizans, Göttingen 1980. 6 R. Gregg – D. Groh, Early Arianism: A View of Salvation, London 1981, 24..