SUBJECT: RECM 402 – Christology and Mariology

INSTRUCTOR: Sr. Lorna S. Fabillar, OP - MAED Math

Email Add: oplorna@gmail.com
Handouts #4

2.2. Development of "low Christology" and "high Christology"

High Christology vs Low Christology

In the earliest days, Christianity was entirely Jewish, yet by the end of the first century the
majority of the church was Gentile, and by the end of the second century only a minority of
Christians were converts from Judaism. There is little doubt a book like Hebrews is Jewish
Christian based on its focus on the Law and use of the Old Testament. On the other hand, the
writings of the second century apologists are almost entirely Gentile because of their use of
philosophical categories to argue for the truth of Christianity.

It is often assumed “high Christology” means a book is “less Jewish” and ought to be dated as
late as possible. High Christology refers to the belief that Jesus was in some sense divine. Low
Christology is the belief that Jesus was only a human, or was human specially appointed by
God. The general assumption is the belief Jesus is God and part of the Trinity developed over
several hundred years, not finally taking shape until the fourth century. There is some truth to
this since the claims the gospels make about Jesus could be read either way: Jesus is a human,
but he also seems to claim some divine prerogatives which imply he was “more than just a
human.”

This “low develops into the high” Christology can be seen in the New Testament. For
example, Mark’s Gospel is the earliest of the four and does not contain any birth narrative.
Jesus is the suffering servant who tries to keep messianic expectations to a minimum. Matthew
and Luke include birth stories which expand Jesus’ origins to include a divine miracle (the
virgin birth) and the fulfillment of prophecy. John’s Gospel was the last written and describes
Jesus as the Word of God who was with God at creation, and is in fact God (John 1:1-3).

The main reason a low Christology is assumed to be “more Jewish” is the importance of
monotheism in Second Temple period Judaism. If a Jewish teacher like Jesus announced he
was The God of the Hebrew Bible in the flesh, he would have likely been immediately stoned
for blasphemy. In Mark 2 Jesus claims to be able to forgive sin and he is accused (at least in
thought) of blasphemy.
 Examples of both for those who do not know.

High Christology:
Virgin Birth
Miracles
Resurrection
Ascension
Water into wine
Walking on water
Conjured up food enough to feed 5,000

Low Christology:
Born
Human
Died by crucifixion
Eleven Points Shared by the Infancy Narratives of Matthew and Luke (from Raymond Brown, The Birth
of the Messiah, pg. 34):
1. The parents are to be Mary and Joseph who are "betrothed" (legally bound to be married), but
have not yet come to live together or have sexual relations (Matt 1:18; Luke 1:27,34).
2. Joseph is of Davidic descent (Matt 1:16, 20; Luke 1:27,32; 2:4).
3. There is an angelic announcement of the forthcoming birth of the child (Matt 1:20-23; Luke 1:30-
35).
4. The conception of the child by Mary is not through intercourse with her husband (Matt
1:20,23,25; Luke 1:34).
5. The conception is through the Holy Spirit (Matt 1:18,20; Luke 1:35).
6. There is a directive from the angel that the child is to be named Jesus (Matt 1:21; Luke 1:31).
7. An angel states that Jesus is to be Savior (Matt 1:21; Luke 2:11).
8. The birth of the child takes place after the parents have come to live together (Matt 1:24-25; Luke
2:5-6).
9. The birth takes place at Bethlehem (Matt 2:1; Luke 2:4-6).
10. The birth is chronologically related to the reign (days) of King Herod the Great (Matt 2:1; Luke
1:5).
11. The child is reared at Nazareth (Matt 2:23; Luke 2:39).

2.3. New Testamentical writings

The Bible (from biblos, Greek for 'book') is the basis of two great religions, Judaism in the Old
Testament and Christianity in the New Testament. In each case it brings together a group of
documents to tell the story of the founders and early followers of the religion. In doing so it
also explains their beliefs.

The conventional sources of historical evidence (archaeological remains, written documents)

provide few traces of the Old Testament story and none at all of the events described in the
New Testament. Yet in the Bible the early Jews and Christians provide an account of
themselves which is unparalleled, among religious groups of those times, in its wealth of
detail.

Epistles and Acts: AD 50-90

The holy book used by the early Christians is the Jewish Bible, known to Christians now as
the Old Testament ('testament' meaning in this context a covenant between God and man). But
from the middle of the 1st century AD texts begin to be written which will later be gathered
into a New Testament, representing the updated covenant revealed by Christ.

Next in chronological sequence comes the Acts of the Apostles, a description of the
missionary efforts of Peter and others in Jerusalem and of Paul on his journeys.

This account is believed to be the work of Luke, who probably writes it between about AD 75
and 90. He has accompanied Paul on some of his travels, including his last journey to Rome.
Much of Acts, therefore, is first-hand contemporary evidence of the events described.

The Gospels in written form are slightly later than the Epistles and Acts, but they contain oral
texts from earlier times.

The first Christians, gathering for worship, repeat together their beliefs about the life, death
and promises of Jesus Christ. These truths are what they have been told and taught; they are
what they teach to new converts and to their own children. They are the joyful tidings of a
better world which only Christians share. 'Good news' is what the word gospel means.

As the years pass, it makes sense to write down the sayings of Jesus and the stories about him
which many Christians (but not all) know so well by heart. This is done in several places and
in differing versions.

The earliest version to survive in the Bible is Mark's Gospel. It was probably written between
AD 75 and 85, and it was used - together with other sources - as the basis for the Gospels of
both Matthew and Luke, each written a few years later. The Gospel of John is later again
(perhaps around AD 100) and differs from the other three in concentrating on spiritual issues
more than biography. It is not until well into the 2nd century that the four Gospels are given
their names.

Establishing the canon: 2nd - 4th century AD

By the middle of the 2nd century it becomes evident that a great many different and often
contradictory passages of Holy Scripture are circulating among the various Christian churches,
each claiming to offer the truth. (There is even a Gospel according to Judas Iscariot.) Which of
these shall be accepted as the official canon? This becomes a subject of urgent debate among
church leaders.

By the end of the century it is widely agreed that four Gospels, the Epistles of Paul and the
Acts of the Apostles are authentic. But it is not until 367 that a list is circulated by Athanasius,
bishop of Alexandria, which finally establishes the content of the New Testament.
Meanwhile the texts are being ceaselessly copied and recopied on papyrus and later on
parchment. A few fragments survive from the 2nd century, but the earliest complete New
Testament (the Codex Sinaiticus, in Greek, written probably in Egypt, now in the British
Library) dates from the late 4th century.

By this time Jerome is working in Bethlehem on his Latin version of the Bible. The story of
the New Testament evolves into the story of its translations.

The Manuscripts of the New Testament

As in the case of all literature of Antiquity, the books of the New Testament were preserved
until the invention of
printing as handwritten copies.

Compared with other contemporary writings an exceptionally large number of manuscript

copies of the books of the New Testament have survived. While only a few late copies have
survived of even the most important works of Antiquity, more than 5,000 manuscripts or
manuscript copies of New Testament books are known.

The oldest manuscripts containing the whole New Testament are from the 4th century. The
oldest known fragment of the New Testament is from the first half of the 2nd century, a copy
of a passage from John's Gospel.

New Testament manuscripts can be roughly dated on the basis of (1) the writing material and
(2) the style of writing.

The material of most manuscripts is parchment stretched and smoothed from leather. The
oldest parchment manuscripts are written on large-size in majuscule or uncial letters. Later
smaller and more delicate cursive script was used, minuscule letters.

The most important manuscripts of the whole New Testament are parchments written in
majuscules. From a still earlier phase come a number of papyrus manuscripts. This writing
material was prepared from the reed plant of the same name, and its most important producing
country was Egypt.

The branch of study which attempts to ascertain the most original textual form of the biblical
writings by comparing different manuscripts, is called textual criticism.

The Origins of the New Testament

The holy book of the first Christians was the collection of Jewish writings that Christians call
the Old Testament. In particular the Greek translation of the Old Testament - the Septuagint -
achieved a strong position among Christians.

Besides the Old Testament writings the early Christians valued oral tradition, which was of
several types:
Jesus traditions were tradition as to what Jesus said and did while he was alive.
The content of the apostolic preaching was the message of the resurrection of Jesus. An
apostle was a person whom the risen Jesus had authorized by revelation to be a bearer of the
message. The resurrection was regarded as a sign of the imminent coming of the Kingdom of
God.
While the apostles preached the message about Jesus, others of Jesus' disciples continued
preaching the message of Jesus. Scholars call these followers of Jesus the Palestinian or Syrian
Jesus movement. In the preaching of this movement, too, the coming of the Kingdom of God
and the associated exhortation to repentance occupied a central place. Apparently, however,
the resurrection faith was not of as great significance to the Jesus movement.
Early Christian prophets received revelations in which the risen Jesus communicated to them
knowledge of the will of God. Some of the words of Jesus in the New Testament go back to
the teaching of the historical Jesus, while others derive from the preaching of the early
Christian prophets. Both sources of knowledge were at that time regarded as possessing equal
authority.
Research which is concerned with the types, form and development of early Christian tradition
is called form criticism.

Later there appeared alongside oral tradition writings and collections of writings:

Early Christian letters and epistles

Gospel literature
The Acts of the Apostles and other early Christian Acts
Apocalyptic literature

At the end of the second century it began to be evident which of these writings would be
accepted as part of the New Testament and which would remain outside it. There was still
some controversy in the West over the status of the Letter to the Hebrews and in the East over
the status of the Revelation of John. In addition, the fate of the so-called Catholic Epistles, that
is, the letters of Peter, John, James and Jude, was thoroughly considered in the 3rd and 4th
centuries. It was finally decided to include them.

Outside the New Testament remained a number of writings which had attained an authoritative
position among some Christians. These writings were not actually rejected, but they were not
deemed to represent teaching derived directly from the apostles. In the 17th century a
collection of these writings was edited and designated as the writings of the 'Apostolic
Fathers'.

On the other hand, in Christian circles and on the fringes of the church there were
interpretations of Christianity which the mainline church completely rejected. It also rejected
the literature that promoted such ideas. One such tendency was Gnosticism.

In the study of early Christian literature outside the New Testament the term 'New Testament
Apocrypha' is used. This means a mixed group of writings which have survived in a variety of
ways and which only modern scholarship has attempted to include under a common heading.
Some of the New Testament Apocrypha were read until the Middle Ages and published during
the Renaissance. Some of them we know from references and quotations in the Church
Fathers. The majority, however, consist of manuscript finds made during the course of the past
century. Often it is a question of texts originally written in Greek which have survived in
translation - in Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian or Arabic. It is usually very difficult
to ascertain the age and origin of these texts. Some of them may, however, derive from the end
of the first century and a great number from the second century.

Early Christianity was a diverse phenomenon. This diversity also appears within the New
Testament. Not all the New Testament writers would necessarily have been able to eat around
the same table - and this can be taken quite literally. One of the first great controversies of the
early Church was the so-called 'Antioch conflict' concerning Jews and non-Jews eating
together. Because the Apostle Peter did not wish to offend Jewish Christians who were strict
about the purity code he refrained from eating meals with non-Jewish Christians at the same
table. In doing so he succeeded in offending the Apostle Paul, who was the host at table. Paul
tells what happened in the second chapter of Galatians.

In controversies such as the Antioch conflict it was a question of seeking one's identity.
Christianity was born within Judaism. When it separated from Judaism, division began:
different Christians understood what it meant to be a Christian in different ways. Different
customs, ideas and symbols were adopted, and old customs, ideas and symbols were
interpreted in new, different ways. As a result the New Testament writers, too, are different,
and sometimes separatistic as well.
A classical example is the difference of opinion between Paul and the writer of the Letter of
James over what makes a person acceptable to God: faith or works. Although Paul and the
writer of the Letter of James had completely different views on the subject, they both appealed
to Abraham to support their opinions. In the Old Testament (and later in the Quran) Abraham
is presented as a model of a functioning relationship with God. (See Rom. 4:1, 13; 3:28; James
2:14, 20-24.)

There is tension within the New Testament. Therefore the question, which books of the New
Testament are more authoritative than others, pops up in Christian circles again and again.

Early Christian Letters and Epistles

The oldest early Christian literary documents are Paul's letters dating from the 50s A.D. By
writing letters the apostle directed the life of the churches he had founded. They were read in
the churches when the apostle himself was not present giving teaching.

Paul's letters were gathered into a single collection. Later his disciples adopted the epistolary
form as an instrument of teaching. In this way there came about the so-called 'Deutero-Pauline'
letters, which were written in the style of Paul and in Paul's name.

The fact that disciples attached their teacher's name to their writings was a custom of the time.

Many other early Christian writers wrote letters, either under their own names or in the name
of an apostle. In addition they wrote dissertations in letter form, known as epistles. Epistles
were not addressed to anyone in particular. The epistolary form acted merely as the literary
framework.

Gospel Literature

In Greek the word euangelion originally meant the fee paid to the bearer of good news, later
also the good news itself.

In the New Testament the word 'gospel' always means the oral preaching of the Christian
message of salvation (never its literary presentation). What is the content of this gospel is
expressed sometimes more clearly and sometimes less clearly; see e.g. 1 Cor. 15:1-5 and Mark
1:14-15.

The Gospel writers themselves did not call their books 'gospels'. The designation arose only
later, probably at some time in the first half of the second century.

The Gospels are collections of tradition concerning Jesus. They are of two main types:

Spoken material was gathered into collections of words of Jesus. One model for these
collections was evidently Jewish aphoristic and Wisdom literature. The best-known collections
of words of Jesus are the so-called 'Q' or Logia source and the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas.

Narrative Gospels are thematic descriptions of the life and work of Jesus. They come to a
climax in the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. They are not impartial historical
writings but expressions of the faith of the early Christians. Each Gospel writer adapted the
content and message of the story of Jesus to the situation and way of thinking of his
community. The narrative-type Gospel is represented by all four New Testament Gospels and
by many later apocryphal gospels.

The Q Collection of Words of Jesus

Q comes from the German word Quelle meaning 'source'. Q is a scholarly reconstruction of
the collection of sayings of Jesus which the evangelists Matthew and Luke used as their
source. The assumption that Q existed is based on the so-called 'two source theory'.

The Two Source Theory of the Gospels

Of the four New Testament Gospels three - Matthew, Mark and Luke - contain a lot of the
same material, often in the same order. Therefore they are called 'synoptic' ('looking together')
Gospels. The so-called 'two source theory' is the explanation offered by most scholars for this
similarity (which scholars call the 'Synoptic Problem'). According to the two source theory,

Mark is the oldest Gospel, Matthew and Luke both used Mark as their source, in addition to
Mark, Matthew and Luke had at their disposal another literary source, Q, which contained
mainly sayings of Jesus, besides Mark and Q Matthew and Luke both used their own (oral)
special source material.
 The Acts of the Apostles and Other Early Christian Acts

Early Christian literature was influenced to some extent by contemporary historiography and
popular literature. This is observable in the Acts of the Apostles, which tells the story of the
first Christians, and in the later apocryphal acts which imitate it. The Acts of the Apostles
written by the evangelist Luke is closer to the ideals of historiography in Antiquity than to
romantic popular prose. In the case of the apocryphal acts the situation is quite the opposite.

Apocalyptic Literature

Apocalyptic literature appears in both early Judaism and early Christianity. It was one
manifestation of the typical eschatological trends of the time and the expectation of a crisis in
world history.

Apocalyptic literature depicts heavenly visions in which the seer receives hidden divine
knowledge. Usually this knowledge concerns the imminent crisis in world history and the
preceding struggle between good and evil, and often it was presented veiled in the form of
various metaphors and symbols. The best-known early Christian apocalypse is the Revelation
of John.

Many apocalypses were written in the name of and from the perspective of a major religious
figure of the past: Moses, Elijah, Enoch or some other figure "foresees" in the fictitious time
of composition the events of the real time of writing.

My dear Students God bless you for reading comprehensively the given materials and for
answering/working the following study guide questions/activities diligently:

1. Discuss. Is it entirely possible that a man named Jesus Christ was really more of a "low
Christology" person, but then over time he turned into a "high Christology" person? Have you
ever talked with someone about an event and you stretched the truth a little bit, kind of like how
rumors start?

2. Discuss the significant differences between Matthew’s and Luke’s narratives of Jesus’s infancy?

3. Discuss. Why did Jesus heal on the Sabbath?

N.B. Submit/Encode directly your work/s to oplorna@gmail.com wall for your

Class Standing records (60%). God bless you for following instructions very
strictly in submitting/sending your activity/ies.

God bless you all!!!