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Brief history of Christology

. A brief journey through history will highlight what our
ancestors in the faith have left us with their answers to the Christological question,
and will highlight those factors that, in the world, have given a new impetus to
continuous process of searching for an answer.

I. Biblical Christology (1st century A.D.)

. It begins with the meeting with Yeshua (or Yahushua) bar Yosef.
. Jewish itinerant preacher and miracle worker.
. Oral parables and lived parables.
. Rejected by leaders of his own religion, he was arrested, tortured, and executed.
by the Roman Empire.
. His disciples (both male and female) proclaim his resurrection and establish a
movement (sect) within Judaism.
. After several years (year 40 / 50) there are already separate Christian communities and in
confrontation with Judaism.
. Communities of believers that reflected different characteristics, coherent
with its various cultural and sociological contexts (Jews or Gentiles, persecuted
or in peace, from provinces or cosmopolitans).
. These communities tell oral stories of Master Jesus Christ passed down from
generation to generation.
. Then this set of oral stories is put in writing along with the own
interpretation (author or communities?) of how they understood Jesus.
. Interpretations configured by preaching and other experiences of their
Local churches.
. Gospels and epistles as Christologies
Pablo: Jesus is the crucified and resurrected Christ.
Jesus is the suffering Messiah.
Mateo: Jesus is the new Moses, teacher of the new law.
Luke: Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, is the Savior of all.
John: Jesus is the Word of God made flesh.
. These writers - different in terms of culture, place, and time in
that live, and also because of the themes they insist on - they make it clear that
From the beginning, there was more than one Christology in the Christian community.
. They all professed the same faith, but each of them expressed it in a different way.
different.
. The Sacred Scripture as Christology and the foundation of Christology.

II. Conciliar Christology (2nd to 7th centuries A.D.)

. The church spreads throughout the Hellenistic world.
. Employs, both in preaching and in thought, philosophical categories
characteristic of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean culture.
. The first Christian communities had focused on what God had
made by them through Jesus and, consequently, in who Jesus was from a
functional perspective.
. The later Hellenistic communities, mostly composed of and almost
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exclusively for the kind, they began to ask about Jesus from a
ontological perspective.
. Greek philosophy was based on the knowledge of the way of acting or functioning.
of the things to raise the question of what things are in themselves,
framing it in terms like "nature", "subsistence" and others.
. In other words: from the proclamation of his activity – Jesus saves – they moved to
asking questions about the order of being
who is he in himself, and how does it allow him to act as our
Salvador? They knew he came from God, but their reflection led them to wonder
What was his relationship with the one and only God, called Father.
Are there two Gods? Unthinkable.
Is Jesus a lesser god? It's possible; but then how could he really
save?
How could Jesus Christ be God, and God the Father be God, and yet,
Would there only be one God?
. In addition, the issues regarding their relationship with the human race were exacerbated.
If it truly comes from God, is he a true man? Is his body
really made of flesh and bone? Does it have a human soul, with an authentic
human psychology?
If not, is the incarnation only apparent?
But if so, are there really two persons in him, one human and one divine?
If it is truly human, how can we consider it at the same time
truly divine and yet a person?
. All these questions were formulated in the language of that time and,
consequently, Christians became involved in the controversies about identity
(being of Jesus).

Christological controversies

Arianism
. Jesus is undoubtedly a superior being, but God cannot share his
to be with nothing finite or limited.
. Calling "God" to Jesus would be to dishonor God, by mixing the divine with the
limitations of meat.
. "God" is applied to Jesus only as a courtesy title.

Council of Nicaea
. Against Arianism, the Council of Nicaea is organized - year 325 AD.
. Nicene Creed
. Jesus is "God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten,
not created; of the same nature as the Father.
. If this were not true, the Council said, Jesus would not save us, because sin is
so strong that no creature can defeat it: 'only God saves.'

Council of Constantinople and Chalcedon

. Constantinople, held in the year 381 to counter the trend of making
too much emphasis on the divinity of Jesus to the point of losing his real humanity.
. The bishops of the East argued that God saves us by assuming everything that
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belongs to human nature; that which is not assumed in the incarnation does not
is redeemed. In this way, the authentic and integral humanity of Jesus is
turn it into a saving truth.
. Between these two extreme trends, the Church struggled to maintain a
full recognition of Jesus' identification both with God and with the
human beings.
. Finally, in the year 451, after years of debates, the Council of Chalcedon affirmed
this truth of faith, in Hellenistic terms, that Jesus Christ is "consubstantial with
the Father according to divinity, and consubstantial with us according to humanity.
truly God and truly man [composed] of rational soul and
body", one and the same Christ manifested in two natures that converge in
one single person.

III. Medieval Christology (11th-16th centuries)

. There were no major christological controversies, only minor debates.
. Introduction of the new process of reasoning and synthesis characteristic of scholasticism.
. Anselm of Canterbury investigated why God became man and had to die
to save us, which gave rise to the theory of atonement as satisfaction.
. In the universities, a new scenario of theology, the teachers explained the
schema of the two-natures-in-one-person with the help of philosophy
by Aristotle, recently rediscovered.
. At the end of this period, the Protestant reformers asked that it
they abandoned the scholastic metaphysical speculations about the constitution
internal of Christ, with the aim of returning to a more existential confession of Jesus Christ
and based on the Bible.
. Luther argued that to know Christ is to know his benefits, not the
speculations of the dogma.

IV. Modern and Contemporary Christology (17th Century onwards)

First search for the historical Jesus

. Study of Christ primarily in a historical rather than a metaphysical way.
. Suspicion that the Christ of theological tradition is different from the real Jesus that
He walked the paths of Palestine.
. Search to discover what Jesus was really like and what he did - 'search for the
Historical Jesus.
. Beneath this search lies the hope that the real Jesus will prove to be
different even from the Christ that appears in the Scriptures and that is in a certain sense
the product of the theologization of Paul and others.
. Among the most famous early "lives of Jesus" are those crafted by David.
Strauss (A New Life of Jesus) by Ernest Renan (Life of Jesus).
. Increasingly, the earthly Jesus was described as a basically good man,
a master of great spiritual truths, but not the preexisting second one
person of the Trinity who performed miracles.
. Perhaps the most well-known and influential image of Jesus is that of Adolf von Harnack,
which in many aspects represents the summit and the end of the (first) search
of Jesus.
. He points out that the Gospels do not provide us with the means to construct a biography.
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complete of Jesus, because they tell us little about the early years of his life. Without
embargo, they provide us with essential facts.
. Harnack's evaluation of Jesus' message has been considered the
classical declaration of the liberal theological position. It indicates that the message of Jesus
it was mainly not about himself, but about the Father and the kingdom:
. However, if we take a general look at the teachings of Jesus, we will see
which can be grouped into three categories. Each of them of such nature that
they contain the whole, and therefore they can be displayed in their entirety under all of them.
First, the Kingdom of God and its coming. Second, God the Father and the infinite value of
human soul. Third, the superior righteousness and the commandment of love." (Adolf von
Harnack, What is Christianity? New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957. p. 55.
. As the search for the historical Jesus continued, the discontent grew that the
Jesus, who is found in the accounts of the Gospels, was fabricated in such a way
unconscious those who sought him, and he looked surprisingly like the
search engines.
. The first liberal search for the historical Jesus ends with:
The Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer.
. Schweitzer shared the basic historical method and the objectives of the
liberal searchers but differed with their conclusions, questioning
seriously its objectivity.
. He believed they focused the study of Jesus' life with their own
prior conceptions and then proceeded to accept or reject the
material according to whether it fit these prior conceptions or not.
. When Schweitzer examined the Gospels, he did not find the reflection of
a typical liberal of the nineteenth century. Rather what he found in Jesus
he was a completely eschatological figure who believed and taught that
the end of the world was going to arrive soon, and that his own second coming
it would take place in connection with that ending. However, Jesus was
wrong, according to Schweitzer.
. The main point for our purposes here is the idea of
Schweitzer says that as an eschatological figure, Jesus should not be regarded as
redo in the form of a totally modern person.
So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ by Martin Kähler
. The search for the historical Jesus is actually counterproductive, we
hide the living Christ.
. No better than the famous dogmatic Christ of Byzantine Christology.
. Kähler proposed a main distinction. He pointed out that the Jesus of the
History, the Jesus behind the Gospels, had relatively little
influence. He was only able to gather a few disciples and with
a somewhat insecure faith.
. However, the Christ of faith has exerted a very strong influence
significant. This is the resurrected Christ, the Christ that they believed in.
apostles and the one they preached. This historical Christ and not the Jesus of the
history is the foundation of our faith and our life today.
. In the narratives of the Gospels, we must never remain in the
History, in objective events, what really happened. We must
build our beliefs about history
significant, which pertains to the impact that Jesus had on his
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disciples.

Neo-orthodox Christology
. This distinction between Historie and Geschichte was in many ways the influence
larger than that which Christology had during the first half of the twentieth century.
. More and more, the study was focusing not on the actual events of Jesus' life.
of history, but in the faith of the church.
. This change is clearer and fully seen in the demythologization of Rudolf.
Bultmann, but it is also appreciated in the Christologies written by Karl Barth and Emil.
Brunner.
. Emil Brunner in The Mediator presents some main characteristics of this
Christology:
The basis for understanding Christ is not the historical Jesus, but the
kerygma, the proclamation of the church about Christ. Brunner states:
We are obligated to oppose the idea that Christian faith arises
from the historical observation, from the historical image of Jesus of Nazareth.
Christianity itself has always known the opposite. The Christian faith
it only arises from the testimony about Christ that is in the preached message
and in the written word of the Scriptures. The historical image certainly
is included in this last one...; but this image itself is not the
knowledge base" (Emil Brunner, The Mediator. London:
Lutterworth, 1934. p. 158.
In Christology, there is a notable preference for the writings of Paul.
and the fourth Gospel in contrast to the synoptic Gospels. The former
contain more explicit theological interpretations, while
that the synoptics are basically narrating in a prosaic manner
actions and teachings of Jesus. This principle is very much related to
first: "If once you reach the conviction that the Christian faith
it does not arise from the image of the historical Jesus, but from the testimony about
Christ as such - this includes the testimony of the prophets and also
of the apostles - and that is based on this testimony, then
inevitably the preference for the Synoptic Gospels and for the
true words of Jesus, which was the normal position of the last
generation will pass away." (Emil Brunner, The Mediator. p. 172.)
Faith in Christ is not based on rational evidence nor is it legitimized.
for them. It cannot be scientifically proven. The content in which
it is believed to be outside the sphere of natural reason and investigation
historical and consequently cannot be conclusively proven.
Although historical research can serve to remove obstacles
to various beliefs (for example, believing in the deity of Jesus Christ), not
can serve to establish these beliefs. "Jesus taught a group
from disciples by the sea" is a phrase open to research
historical; "Jesus is the second person of the Trinity" no. We accept
historical phrases when we are rationally persuaded.
We accept the proclamation by faith.
. Brunner made a distinction that clarifies the sense in which, for him, Christology is
historical and in what sense it is not.
. This distinction is that of 'Christ in the flesh' and 'Christ according to the flesh.'
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. By 'Christ in the flesh' Brunner understands that God became incarnate, the Word became
flesh and entered into history. The "Christ according to the flesh" is the Christ known by the
historians, the chroniclers, with their research methods.
. To know the 'Christ in the flesh' is to know something more than the 'Christ according to the flesh.'
The believer knows Christ as the one who has come in the flesh, as the one of
who the chroniclers and humanist historians must have something to say. But
he knows this 'Christ in the flesh' in a way that they cannot
know nothing; he knows him therefore as someone quite different, and that is
what matters. Because the knowledge of others – of the chronicler and the historian
humanist - it is still not the knowledge of Christ, of the 'Word made flesh,'
but it is knowledge 'according to the flesh.'
. Brunner emphasizes the Christ in the flesh, but does not ignore the Christ according to the flesh.
Because although faith never arises from the observation of facts, but from the
testimony of the church and of the Word of God, the fact that God has "become
meat" means that faith is somehow connected with observation. The
The testimony of the church and the Scriptures always includes the image of Jesus.

The new search for the historical Jesus

. With the publication of "Jesus and the Word" by Bultmann, neo-orthodox Christology
reached its peak.
. Here indeed was a declaration that faith in the kerygmatic Christ does not
you can connect with certainty to the true earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth.
But from Bultmann's point of view, this actually doesn't matter.
. The negative reaction that arose against Bultmann's idea was
the new search for Jesus
historical.
. The most significant reaction was that of Ernst Käsemann with 'The problem of Jesus'
"historical," a work originally published in 1954 of some lectures he gave in
1953.
. Käsemann concedes that the synoptic gospels are primarily documents
theological and that their theological assertions are usually expressed in form
historical. Thus it grants and recapitulates the main axioms of theology of
Bultmann, however, despite this, claims that the evangelists believed that
they had access to historical information concerning Jesus of Nazareth, and that this
information was expressed and embodied in the gospels.
. For Käsemann, the gospels include both the kerygma and the narrative.
historical.

. Käsemann points to the need to explore the continuity between preaching

Jesus and the preaching about Jesus.
. There is an obvious discontinuity between the earthly Jesus and the proclaimed Christ.
exalted, however, the proclaimed Christ is already present, in a certain sense, in
the historical Jesus.
. Käsemann is not suggesting a new investigation of the historical Jesus for
provide a historical legitimization for the kerygma, nor is it suggesting
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that the discontinuity between the historical Jesus and the proclaimed Christ needs the
deconstruction of the last to the first.
. Käsemann points to the theological assertion that the identity of the earthly Jesus and
the exalted Christ is historically founded on the actions and preaching of
Jesus of Nazareth.
. The above depends on the historical demonstration of the kerygma concerning
Jesus is already contained in an incipient form in the ministry of Jesus.
. This 'new search' is qualitatively different from the previous one (19th century). The
the argument rests on the acknowledgment that the discontinuity between Jesus
the history and the Christ of faith does not imply that they are not related, with the
second not having a basis in the first. Rather, the kerygma can be
discerned in the actions and in the preaching of Jesus, therefore there is a
continuity between the preaching of Jesus and the preaching about Jesus.
. Where the ancient quest has assumed the discontinuity between the historical Jesus and
the Christ of faith, where this was a fiction that needed to be reconstructed to the
In the light of objective historical research, Käsemann argues that this
reconstruction is neither necessary nor possible.

Important theologians

. Joachim Jeremias represents an extreme element in this debate as he suggests

that the basis of the Christian faith lies in what Jesus really said and did, although
hello cannot be established by the theological academy. The first part of its
Theology of the New Testament (1971) was centered on the 'proclamation of
"Jesus" as the central element of New Testament theology.
. Ernst Käsemann. Identify the continuity between the historical Jesus and the Christ of
kerygma in its declaration of the eschatological dawn of the Kingdom of God. Both in
the preaching of Jesus as in the early Christian kerygma, the theme of the
The coming of the Kingdom is of greater importance.
. Gerhard Ebeling. He places continuity in the notion of the 'faith of Jesus', which
understands in a similar way to the 'faith of Abraham' (described in Romans 4) - a
the prototypical faith, historically exemplified and embodied in Jesus of Nazareth, and
proclaimed as a contemporary possibility for its believers.
. Günter Bornkamm. Emphasizes the authority that Jesus presents in his ministry. In
Jesus, the present reality of God confronts humanity and calls it to a decision.
radical. Where Bultmann located the essence of Jesus' preaching in the
future arrival of the Kingdom of God, Bornkamm shifted the emphasis from the future to the
present confrontation of individuals with God through the person of Jesus.
This theme of 'confrontation with God' is evident both in the ministry of
Jesus as the proclamation about Jesus, this serves as a link between the two.
moments.

The third quest for the historical Jesus

. Since the collapse of the 'new search' during the '60s, a series of new
Works have appeared offering a re-evaluation of the historical Jesus.
. The term 'third search' has been applied to this group of works, although
is questioned because the work that is grouped under this term does not
they have so much in common to categorize them together.
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. Despite this reservation, the term enjoys popularity since, even in its
Differences, the jobs have common elements, particularly their emphasis.
in the Judaism of Jesus and the need to understand it in the context of
Judaism of the first century, against the backdrop of the social world of Palestine
from the first century.
. The 'original search' (first search) approached the accounts of Jesus to
the light of a series of rationalist presuppositions, inherited from the Enlightenment,
filtering the miraculous aspects of the gospels. The 'new quest' is
focused on the words of Jesus, highlighting the continuity between the
the preaching of Jesus himself and the preaching of the New Testament about
Jesus. The 'third search' focuses on the relationship of Jesus with his context
Jewish as a sign of the distinctive character of his mission and his own objectives.
. Among the important theologians of this third search are:
John Dominic Crossan (1934). He claims that Jesus was essentially a
poor Jewish peasant with the particular interest of challenging the structures
of the power of his society. In The Historical Jesus (1991) and in Jesus: a
In Revolutionary Biography (1994), Crossan claims that Jesus broke the
social conventions, especially through camaraderie of
table with sinners and social outcasts.
oMarcus L. Borg (1942). In books like Jesus: A New Vision (1988) and
Knowing Jesus Again for the First Time (1994), Borg suggests that
Jesus was a subversive wise man who was interested in renewing Judaism.
a challenging way for the elite that governed the temple.
Burton L. Mack. In The Myth of Innocence (1988) and The Lost Gospel
(1993) asserts that Jesus was a wise individualist in the line of a
cynical philosophy. As a cynical sage, Jesus had little interest in matters
specifically Jews, such as the place of the Temple or the role of the Law; to
On the contrary, he was concerned about identifying and denigrating the conventions.
of their society.
oE.P.Sanders (1937). Emphasizes that Jesus must be understood as a
prophetic figure who was concerned about the restoration of the temple
Jewish. In works like Jesus and Judaism (1985) and The Historical Figure of
Jesus (1993), Sanders suggests that Jesus anticipated the restoration.
eschatological of Israel. God will bring the present era to an end and inaugurate
a new order centered on the new temple, with itself as
representative of God.
N.T. Wright (1948). In his series of works (Christian Origins, Question of
God offers a critical reappropriation of Sanders' approaches,
while maintaining the idea that the coming of Jesus introduces something
radically new, especially in relation to identity of
people of God. The first two volumes of this series –The new
The Testament and the People of God (1992) and Jesus and the Victory of God (1996)
are widely regarded as the most recent writings
significant in the field of New Testament studies.
. In this brief analysis of the theologians representing this 'third search'
it can be observed that it lacks a coherent historical or theological core. There is
disagreement about whether Jesus should be seen from the Jewish background or
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Hellenistic; regarding its attitude towards Jewish law and its religious institutions;
in his view of the future of Israel; and in the significance of the person of Jesus in
relation to that future. However, the term "third search" has been, to some extent,
accepted sense, despite its clear weaknesses, and it is likely to be a
an integral part of the academic discussion in Christology.