The Deification of Jesus
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Jack McLean, The Deification of Jesus, bahai-library.com.
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The Deification of Jesus
BY JACK McLEAN

D      espite the growing numbers of encounters in recent years of the world
religions in forums of exchange Christianityl continues to set itself apart
through a firm belief in the uniqueness of its founder, Jesus Christ. While
individual Christians may acknowledge the inspitational nature of the non-
Christian founders of religions, adherents of the major branches of Christianity
are united in the belief that Christ has no equal. This conviction in the
uniqueness of Jesus has become the unassailable fbrtress of Christian belief.
Such a belief is the product of historical and theological developments in
the early church. Through a series of creeds baseli on theological speculation
Jesus the Son was declared to be the very essenc~ of Divinity walking upon
the earth, the Godhead Itself united with a deified Holy Spirit in a trinitarian
theology. These creeds, far from descending upon Ithe church fathers as divine
revelation, underwent a long historical development that was not uncontested.
They were finally elaborated in their present f~rm after four centuries of
acrimonious theological quarreling that necessitate~ four world councils of the
church-those       of Nicaea, Ephesus, Constantin<Dple, and Chalcedon-that
brought in their wake bloody warfare among ChrThtian factions. These chrisro-
logical controversies resulted in the fragmentation of the churches of Asia
Minor from those of Greek Orthodox ConstandlOple, a fragmentation that
has continued to this day.                            I
The writings of the Apostle Paul were a great factor in this deification
of Jesus. Paul's interpretation of the Christ figure ~Iears the unmistakable stamp
of a savior figure of the Greek mystery religions into whose form Jesus was
cast. The statements of Jesus Himself, however, dp not support His exaltation
to the Godhead. As the Son, Christ clearly saw Himself in a role subordinate
to that of the Father.
In this paper I offer a three-dimensional studyl of the historical, doctrinal,
and comparative aspects of the deification of Jesus. I will first examine Paul's
I
interpretation of Jesus to Gentile Christians together with a contrasting inter-
pretation set forth by Christ Himself. I will als6 include the Gnostic Jesus,
which touches indirectly on the christological qubstion. Third, I will review
two major christological controversies: (1) thJ schism of Arius and the
development of the notion of trinity; and (2) t~e God-man debate of Cyril
and Nestorius. These movements spanned a fopr-hundred year period. In
my comparative study I will present a Baha'i perspective on the deification
of Jesus and, where possible, make comparisons with the Baha'I Faith on
relevant issues.                                     I
Baha'i-Chrisrian studies are by no means n9w in the literature of the
BaM'i Faith. They promise, however, to be ofI continuing interest as the
Christian world comes to grips with the serious claims made by Baha'u'Ilah
to the followers of the Gospel.
:1
II   24      WORLD ORDER: SPRING/SUMMER          1980
~l
I

St. Paul and the Deification of Jesus!
IN CHRISTIANITY the writings of Paul have had a determining        role in trans-
mitting a characteristic understanding of Christ. With the gradual demise of
the Jewish wing of ChristianifY Paul's Christology came to the forefront in
the Christian understanding on Jesus. His glorification of Christ's divinity has
played a major role in the deification of Jesus. If Christ taught the kingdom,
it is true to say Paul taught Chrlist.
While generally enjoying +idespread acclaim among Christians, Paul has
not escaped being a subject o~ great controversy, both for his contemporaries
and ours. His missionary journeys to Greece and Asia Minor, coupled with a
sizeable corpus of theologicaf writings, have earned him the adulations of
some Christians as "the second founder of Christianiry.t'f Other more critical
theologians have been less enfuusiastic in their acclamation of Paul. 3 Basing
his view on a study of Paul's Jpistles, one comparative religionist has referred
to him as "The problem figuke of primitive Christianity" who became em-
broiled with the pillars of the Imother church at Jerusalem-Peter, James the
Lord's brother, and John--D"ier the teaching and admission of the Gentile
Christians into the new faith'i The first council of the primitive church, the

1. This section was written before the discussion that has emerged in World Order
on the role of St. Paul in the early church. (See "A Forum: Concerning St. Paul,"
World Order, 13, No.4        [Summer 1979], 5-12; letter from Juan Ricardo Cole,
World Order, 13, No. 2 [Winte~ 1978-79], 7-8; and book review by William S.
Hatchet, "The Quest for the MeAphysical Jesus," Wo"ld Order, 12, No.4 [Summer
1978],35-42.)     I have no purpose in promoting or discouraging the view that Paul
was either a "usurper" or in some sense the breaker of a Christian covenant. My
primary purpose is to elucidate pLl's special brand of Christology, which conrributed
in large measure to the fixation bf I
Christ as God. It does touch incidentally on the
differences that Paul had with the leaders of the Jerusalem church. That these differences
occurred Paul himself admits (Gal. 2); they are also set forth in Acts 15 in a diHering
version. Thus they are a matter df historical record. Aside from that, since both the
New Testament and Baha'i sources are equivocal on the matter, I do not see how
anyone can seriously argue from   J   srrictly partisan point of view.
2. Quoted in John B. Noss, !Man's Religions, 3d ed. (New York: Macmillan,
1963), p. 620. Fully five of thel fourteen epistles are not Paul's according to New
Testament textual exegesis (Ephesians, Hebrews I and II, Timothy, and Tirus ), Colos-
sians is also questioned. Howard iClark Kee, Franklin W. Young, Karlfried Froelich,
Understanding the New Testament,- 2d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
1957),pp.164-66.                   I
3. Udo Schaefer and Huschmand    I
Sabet refer to the following theologians, all of
whom have been critical of Pauli's special brand of Christianity: Albert Schweitzer,
Hans Joachim Schoeps, Karl-Heinz Deschner, Wilhelm Nestle, E. Meyer Schonfield,
Steinheim E. Grimm. These men lare not obscure by any means and have made some
of the most outstanding contributions in the field of theology and comparative religion.
See Udo Schaefer, The Light Shi'neth in Darkness: Five Studies in Revelation after
Christ, rrans. Helene Momtaz N~ri and Oliver Colburn (Oxford: George Ronald,
1977) and Huschmand Saber, 7Jlhe Heavens Are Cleft Asunder (Oxford: George
Ronald, 1975). Christopher Buck notes that the following theologians endorse primi-
tive Ebionite Christianity as opposed to the Gentile Christianity of St. Paul: Harris
Hirschberg, Shlomo Pines, David iFlusser, James Dunn, Cardinal Danielou, and Gilles
Quispel. See "A Forum: Concerning St. Paul," World Order, 13, No.4              (Summer
1979),9.
4. S. G. F. Brandon, "Saint Paul, the Problem Figure of Primitive Christianity," in
Religion in Ancient History: St4dies in Ideas, Men and Events (London: George
THE DEIFICATION OF JESUS           25

In of Jesus!        Jerusalem Council, was _convened in the holy cicy (A.D. 49) to resolve the
ole in trans-       controversy. 5                                      I
II demise of           The writings of the Apostle Paul effected a great transformation of Jesus
forefront in        from the Jesus of the synoptic gospels and of non-Pauline epistles in the
divinity has       New Testament. Paul recast Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish Messiah of Israel,
ae kingdom,        .into a deified Lord bearing all the traces of a savior-god of a Greek mystery
cult. Styling himself Apostle "among the Gentiles" (Gal. 1:16; Acts 9:15),
as, Paul has        Paul determined to adapt his presentation of Jesus to the Greek Gentile
aternporarres       world in which he lived, a radically different religious milieu from the
ipled with a        Jewish one. What is often overlooked, however, in Paul's claim to mission to
dulations of       the Gentiles is that Peter claimed precisely this mission for himself at the
more critical       Jerusalem Council, a mission he states he had "in the early days."6
aul. 3 Basing         For Paul to have preached Christ as the Jewish Messiah to the Greek-
has referred       speaking Gentiles would have been futile. The messiahship was a virtually
became em-         meaningless concept to the Gentile world that Paul determined to evangelize.
-r, James the       To them there was no long-standing tradition of a davidic kingship that
the Gentile       promised an anointed of .God who would rise up and vindicate Israel. Further-
~church, the        more, certain of the Ebionite Christians, who were dominant in the apostolic
church until Romano-Pauline Christianity emerged, reconciled their faith in
World Order       Christ with temple worship as well as with circumcision and dietary and
ing St. Paul,"
purification laws." Accordingly, he preached "another Jesus," one whom those
Ricardo Cole,
Iy W illiarh S.     living in the Greek-Gentile world could understand and to whom they
J. 4 [Summer        could relate. 8
·iew that Paul         The Jesus that Paul preached was a deihed savior, One Who could rescue
covenant. My       a hapless humanity from the power of sin. It was precisely this presentation
ch contributed
of Jesus as redeemer of men's sins and purveyor bf immortality to those who
enrally on the
ese differences
in a differing   Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1969), pp. 310-23.
.ince both the        5. The point at dispute was the observance of Mosaic law by Gentile converts. Acts
not see how     15: 29 states that Paul with his party and the Jerusal~m church agreed on exhorting
Gentile converts to abstain from unchastity, food offerJd to idols, blood, and strangled
c: Macmillan,      animals. In a differing account of the same incident !Paul states that he reached no
.ding to New       compromise with the Jerusalem elders: "to them we did not yield even for a moment"
Titus). Colos-      (Gal. 2: 5 ). Biblical quotations are from the Revised Standard version.
fried Froelich,       6. The complete verse by Peter reads: "Brethren, you know that in the early days
Prentice-Hall,    God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word
of the gospel and believe" (Acts 15: 7). Paul claimed that he was converted to
ogians,   all of   Christianity by a vision of the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus. During this
.rt Schweitzer,    experience, Christ commissioned him to teach the Gentiles. Paul, however, mentions
rer Schonfield,    nowhere in his letters that Peter also made the same claim at the Jerusalem Conference,
ve made some       a conference he attended.
:ative religion.       7. Along with the Nazarenes they are the earliest of Jewish Christian communities.
eoeletion after    The Ebionites were the Jerusalem Christians, brought into the Faith by Christ Himself
eorge Ronald,      and the Apostles. Before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, they emigrated to
cford:   George    the Gentile town of Pella east of the Jordan River, where they survived until the
mdorse primi-      third cenrury (some date their survival to the fifth century). Their Christology, which
Paul: Harris     resembles in some ways Baha'i prophetology, is discussed later in this section.
au, and Gilles         8. The phrase is from Paul himself (2 Cor. 11: 4). In this chapter Paul speaks of
. 4 (Summer        his "divine jealousy" for the Corinthian community) Brandon (Religion in Ancient
History, p. 315) thinks that his warnings to the Corinthians of "another Jesus" and
aristianiry," in   "another gospel" (Gal. 1: 6) are veiled references to the Jerusalem apostles, Peter,
adon : George      James, and John, with whom he had fundamental                differences.
26     WORLD ORDER: SPRING/SUMMER          1980

accepted Him in a personalized      faith that has prevailed in western Christendom
ever smce.
The religious background of the Gentiles explains why Paul's approach
was so successful. The Greek~speaking Gentiles whom Paul addressed held
that the flesh was a degraded fo)m of spirit, a "tomb" as Plato had taught,
from which the spirit longed to escape. Its liberation was only final and
complete with death, and there the prospects of Hades were dark and terrify-
ing.? The Gentiles, then, had blekk prospects for the future life and longed
for deliverance from sinful corporeal existence. In search of solace they had
turned to the Greek mystery cults that promised them a means of escape. The
mystery religions held that by choosing and worshiping a personalized deity,
a savior, a man could escape death and win eternal life. 10 The personalized
worship of a savior was accompa9ied by sacramental rituals that bear striking
resemblances to Christian sacraments. 11 - Through such savior worship and
sacramental observances the devotee could be Lat. renatus 'born again' into
a new spiritual existence. Thus, like the mystery religions, Pauline Christianity
offered itself as a religion of bondage and liberation, through a deified savior.
As such 'it thoroughly satisfied the Gentile penchant for personal religion.
The presentation of Christ to the Gentiles as the redeemer of their sins
and purveyor of immortality was one of Paul's central themes, a theme known
otherwise as "vicarious atonement"     (at-one-ment),  man's reconciliation with
God through the sacrificial death of Jesus: "Since all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God, they are justified by His grace as a gift, through
the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation
by his blood, to be received by faith" (Rom. 3:23-25 ). Paul's writings are
thoroughly imbued with the consciousness of men's sins, a concern that
occupies the opening chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. Although St.
Augustine fully elaborated the doctrine, Paul's understanding of the Genesis
account of the fall of Adam (Gen. 3) qualifies him as the originator of the
doctrine of original sin (Rom. 5: 12-21). Whatever one may think of Paul's
other doctrines, his preoccupation with sin has, in my view, stamped Chris-
tianity with much of the morbidity that is sometimes found in it.

9. During the life of Christ Hellenistic ideas about life after death were in flux.
The common people mostly believed in Hades, although it held little promise for a
better life. Hope for a blessed life after death developed among the religious sect of
Orpheus, who looked for their reward in the Elysian fields of the West. The mysteries
also promised a hereafter.
10. The Hellenistic-Roman period of Christ's lifetime was a period of great spiritual
curiosity very much like that of today. The mysteries had to compete with various
schools of Greek philosophy, Gnosticism, magic, and astrology to quench the people's
spiritual restlessness.
11. The cult of Mithra, the Persian god of light, also mentioned by Shogi Effendi
(The World Order of Bahd'u'lldh: Selected Letters, 2d rev. ed. [Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'I
Publishing Trust, 1974], p. 184), hJd an eucharistic style communal meal. The cult
of Attis had an animal blood baptism and celebrated the god's resurrection on 25
March. The cult of Isis, the Egyptian mother-goddess, used holy water from the Nile
and held processions and litanies. The mysteries also used altar-pieces and cult
images. One statue of Isis depicts her nursing her holy child, not unlike the statues of
the Virgin with the baby Jesus.
-,--

THE DEIFICATION OF JESUS         27

· Christendom                 In a bold departure from Judaism Paul taught that faith in Christ's sacri-
ficial death freed the believer from the constraints lof Jewish law (Rom. 7: 6) .
ul's approach              Paul, however, was inconsistent in his stand on the law. At the request of
ddressed held              James he observed the rites of purification in the temple as a proof of his
) had taught,             Jewish orthodoxy to the Jewish-Christians        of Jerusalem (Acts 21:21-26).
11y final and              The Acts version of the Jerusalem Council alsol states that Paul agreed to
k and terrify-             Jewish dietary laws. However, in a differing account Paul states that he
e and longed               reached a compromise with the Jerusalem elders lonly on the point of main-
lace they had              taining contributions to the mother church in Jerusalem. To a more orthodox
f escape. The              group at Jerusalem, probably the Judaizers, Paul levels the charge of "false
nalized deity,             brethren" and states that "to them we did not yield submission even for a
personalized           moment" (Gal. 2:5) .
bear striking              Paul's teaching of the bodily resurrection of Jesus also paralleled the
worship and              mystery cults. Like the resurrected saviors, Isis, Artis, or Mithra, Paul taught
n again' into            Christ's bodily resurrection mystery as a proof of His deity. Mystical union
= Christianity           with Jesus was offered to the believer through the !ritual of immersion baptism,
leified savior.          from which the neophyte Christian emerged a new spiritual being, as Christ
l religion.              had emerged immortal from the grave (Rom. 6:1-11).                .
of their sins              Paul's interpretation   of Christ to the Gentiles contained another radical
heme known               departure from Israelite religion. This was his presentation of Christ as God.
:iliation with           Paul presents Christ as God through two main modes: by blurring the distinc-
ned and fall             tion between Christ and God, and by conferring upon Jesus attributes normal-
gift, through             ly reserved for God alone.
an expiation                In the Greek version of the Torah, the Septuagint, the most common
writings are            name for God was kyrios 'Lord'. The mystery clrlts also called their saviors
:oncern that             "Lord." Paul, in his epistles, freely applies the term to Jesus. For example,
<\.lthough St.           the promise of the Jewish prophet Joel that "Everyone who calls upon the
the Genesis             name of the Lord will be saved" (2:32) Paul transposes and applies to
inaror of the            Jesus (Rom. 10:9). For Paul Christ's prophetic station not only eclipsed
'nk of Paul's            that of Moses, "Jesus has been counted worthy of as much more glory than
mped Chris-              Moses" (Heb. 3: 3 ), but it took on a cosmological function reserved for God
it.                    alone, that of creation itself. Christ was the one in whom "all things were
created, in heaven and in earth . . . all things were created through and
for him" (Col. 1:16).
were in flux.
promise for a                 Paul more clearly identified Christ with God through his teaching of the
igious sect of             incarnate sons hip, the belief that God the Father became incarnate in Christ
The mysteries              the Son: "For in him the whole fullness of deiryldwells bodily" (Col. 2:9, d.
2 Cor.' 5: 19 and Col. 1: 15). The term "Son of God" was not new to the
great spiritual            Jews. The term had an ancient usage that was abplied to Israel's sacral king,
with various
1 the people's
the Messiah (Ps. 2: 7) .12 In applying it to Christ Paul did not use the
term primarily in its Judaic sense but rather in its mythological hellenistic
Shogi Effendi              sense of the Son of God as an incarnation of the Deity.
e, Ill.: Baha'i                In spite of Paul's preferred usage of the term "Son of God" this was not
leal. The cult
the term with which Christ primarily designated Himself. Christ most often
ection on 25
rom the Nile
ces and cult                 12. Oscar CuUmann gives a complete discussion of this christological title in
the statues of             The Cbristology of the New Testament, trans. Shirley C. Guthrie and Charles A. M.
Hall (London: SCM Press, 1959), pp. 270-305.
28       WORLD ORDER: SPRING/SUMMER    1980

refers to Himself as Heb. bar nasha 'Son of Man', a title that not only
designates Christ's perfect humanity, a standard interpretation, but primarily
the Heavenly Man, a divine adamic prototype, created at the beginning of
time, who would usher in a spiritual rather than a political kingdom.v" Such
a description fits Jesus. Christ rarely refers to Himself as "Son of God," in all
probability because His Jewish opponents interpreted this designation in the
mythological sense that Yahweh had generated offspring. In any case, to them
it signified a blasphemous identification with God worthy of His condemnation
and death (John 5: 18). But of the two terms, "Son of Man" is charged more
fully with potency and significlnce.
What is so extraordinary about the affirmations of Christ's deity made in
the writings of Paul and the creeds is how little account such declarations
take of the pronouncements of Jesus about Himself. A careful examination of
certain passages impels us to make a serious reevaluation of what is stated
in the trinitarian theology of the creeds and the writings of Paul. While cer-
tain statements of Jesus clearly indicate that their author regarded Himself
as a Divine Manifestation revealing the will of the Father (John 10:30; cf..
John 8:19,14:7), taken as a whole, they reveal that Christ clearly sub-
ordinated Himself to the essence of Divinity.
Paul's assertion that "Jesus has been counted worthy of as much more
glory than Moses" (Heb. 3: 3) has led Christians to uphold a radical dis-
continuity between Christ and the Prophets of Israel and Judah. Though
Christians assent to ChrIst's own declaration that He fulfilled the Jewish law
(Matt. 5: 17), they insist that, on the basis of Christ's divinity, He is dis-
qualified even to assume the title of prophet.
Not only did Christ refer to Himself as a "prophet" on occasion, but He
did so in the context of linking His own suffering and rejection with that of
the prophetic figures of Israel and Judah. After His rejection by fellow
Galileans at Nazareth, He remarked that "A' prophet is not without honor,
except in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house"
(Mark 6: 4). Christ further est1blished His prophetic function by linking His
own coming to the prophecy of Moses, the greatest of His Hebrew predeces-
sors, that "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from
among you" (Deut. 18: 15 ). Christ indicated that He was the prophet
promised by Moses (John 5 :45-47).
Christ's identification of Himself as the "Prophet" promised by Moses
was precisely the christological understanding held by the earliest group of
Jewish Christians, the Ebionites. The Ebionite understanding of Jesus as the
"Prophet" or the "True Prophet" is contained in "The Preaching of Peter"
(Kerygmata Petrov ), which forms a part of the uncanonical "Pseudo-Clemen-
tine Novel." True-prophet Christology is also found in the apocryphal "Gospel
of the Hebrews," which was used by the Nazarene Christians. St. Jerome wrote
that they regarded it as the original Aramaic Matthew. The parallels between
the Jewish-Christian belief in Christ as the "True Prophet" Who appeared at
the end of an Adamic cycle df prophetic figures and the Baha'i concept of
progressive revelation show basic similarities. The Jews who awaited the "True

13. Ibid., p, 142.
THE DEIFICATION OF JESUS          29

iat not only          Prophet" believed in a cycle of prophetic figures beginning with Adam Who
Jut primarily         would appear until a period of great decay had set in. At that time the
beginning of          "True Prophet," the great Teacher culminating the cycle would appear and
;dom.13 Such           inaugurate a spiritual kingdom.
God," in all             At the first and second ecumenical councils of the church at Nicaea and
nation in the        . Constantinople, it had been laid down that Christ was of the same essence
case, to them          with the Father and that the Godhead consisted of three divine persons.
:ondemnation           St. Paul, with his doctrine of incarnate sonship, also put forth the notion of the
:harged more           coequality of Christ with the Father. As to the Nicene affirmation of His being
of one essence with the Father, Christ was silent on that particular issue. The
.eity made in          terms "essence" and "substance" were concepts borrowed from Greek philoso-
I declarations         phy and not biblical. Eusebius of Caesarea and other conservatives had op-
:amination of          posed the Nicene creed on that account. As far as trinitarian theology is con-
rhat is stated         cerned, Christ declared to a scribe who had come to question Him that the
1. While cer-          belief in the divine unity was the greatest of the commandments:      "The first is,
:ded Himself           'Hear, 0 Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one'" (Mark 12:29). By His
III   lO:30; d.        affirmation that there was only one Lord-that        is, God-Christ   was lending
clearly   sub-     His approval te the Jewish declaration of faith, the Sbema, the belief that
God is one. Jesus also referred to His Father as "the only true God" (John
much more             17: 3). Jesus indirectly repudiated the incarnation theology that God could
l  radical dis-        take human form by declaring that "God is spirit" (John 4:24) and that
:lah. Though           "His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen" (John 5: 37).
~ Jewish law           Furthermore, Christ's coequality with God, which was also affirmed at Con-
t, He is dis-          stantinople, was something that he had emphatically denied on several oc-
casions in His encounters with the Jews.
sion, but He               In an exchange with the Pharisees in which He established His station
with that of          of Sonship Christ declared that both His mission and genesis were the
n by fellow            Father's doing, not His, thereby clearly dispelling any notion that He was
.thout honor,          equal in power with the Father: "If God were your Father, you would love
own house"           me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord
r linking His          but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say?" (John 8:42-43) .
ew predeces-           He revealed His dependence on the Father in another context. This occurred
ike me from            at a time when Christ's fame as a healer had spread throughout Palestine.
the prophet           Since He had healed on the Sabbath, the Pharisees had accused Him of
breaking Mosaic law. The Jews understood Christ's reference to God as His
d by Moses             Father in a mythological sense that implied identification with The Godhead.
est group of           Such an identification caused the monotheistic Jews to level the charge of
Jesus as the          blasphemy against Christ. His response was: "Truly, truly, I say to you, the
ag of Peter"           Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father
udo-Clemen-            doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise" (John 5: 19). Christ
ohal "Gospel           clarified His dependency on Divine Omnipotence in other passages: "I can
erome wrote           do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is
.lels between           just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me" (John
. appeared at           5:30). Shortly before His arrest, Jesus spoke these words to Judas, the
i concept of           brother of James (not Iscariot), in reference to His return: "Y ou hear me
ed the "True           say to you, 'I go away, and I will come to you: If you loved me, you would
have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than 1"
(John 14:28).
~               ~c:.~:'i'l

30      WORLD ORDER: SPRING/SUMMER          1980

By His own admission, Christ established His relationship to the Father
as that of Servant, a qualification that Baha'u'Ilah also applied on occasion
to His own station: "Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than
his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him" (John
13: 16). Christ even went so far as to eschew Himself as a model of moral
perfection in order to illustrate the sanctified nature of the Divinity: "Why
do you call me good? No one is good but God alone" (Mark 10: 18). Not
only did Christ indicate that the Father was more perfect and more powerful
than He but that the Divinity possessed a knowledge He did not fully share.
This is reflected in one of Christ's statements on the second coming: "But of
that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the
Son, but the Father only" (Matt. 24: 36) .
The Gnostic Jesus
AT THE SAME TIME       that St. Paul was elaborating his exalted and mystical
notions of Jesus, there were other Christians who held obscure beliefs of
Christ and who were finally pronounced unorthodox by the Fathers of the
Church. These were the Gnostics.J" Gnosticism was one of those "popular
cults" and "fashionable and evasive philosophies" mentioned by Shoghi
Effendi as one of a group of hybrid religions and philosophies in the Roman
Empire that threatened to engulf infant Christianiry.I" Entire Christian com-
munities on occasion adopted Gnosticism as their creed.16 The Church
Fathers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and especially Irenaeus, Bishop of
Lyons, arose to combat it fiercely in their writings.!?
Gnostic Christians compromised the unique soteriological role of Jesus
with their indiscriminate belief in a host of savior figures (Gk. Soter 'savior').
Christ was in fact often placed below other saviors and lesser divinities (Gk.
aeons). This was the case for the Gnostic churches of Tarsus, Paul's native
city, which worshiped the supernatural powers of the Greek hero Heracles
in an annual ceremony celebrating his death and resurrection. Gnostic Chris-

14. Gnosticism is strictly speaking a doctrinal, not a christological heresy. Since
the movement is mentioned in BaM.'; literature, and since Gnostics had their own,
11:
albeit imperfect, understanding of Jesus, I have included it as a matter of interest.
15. Shoghi Effendi, "The Unfoldment of World Civilization," World Order of
Bahd'u'lldh, p. 184. Gnosticism was one of the more widely spread syncretistic religions
in the Hellenistic-Roman period. Its complex origins have been traced to Iran (Mani-
chaeism, Mandaeism ) , to Syria and Egypt, and to ancient Greece (Orphism, Platonism).
Gnosticism was a religious philosophy of the nature and destiny of man. As such, it
aimed at explaining the origin of evil in the world and man's deliverance from it.
Its conflicting sects proffered contending mythologies by way of explanation. Gnosti-
cism's conceptual framework paralleled in some ways Judaeo-Christian          thought. It
contained creation myths, an account of the fall of a primal man, and his redemption
through a savior figure. Philosophically, it was markedly dualistic.
16. The churches at Corinth and Collasae had both been rent by Gnostic heresies.
At Corinth a spiritual aristocracy had developed that prided itself on esoteric knowl-
edge. The church at Collasae wanted to amalgamate Christianity with the mystery
cub and heterodox Judaism (Col. 2:8-23 and 1 Cor. 18-31; 1 Cor. 2:6-13).
17. Irenaeus' best work was titled Refutation      and Overthrow of Gnosis Falsely
So-Called, more commonly known as Against Heresies. See Ante-Nicene               Fathers
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, n.d.) , I, 315-58.
THE DEIFICATION OF JESUS             31

• the Father    tians also compromised Christ's soteriology in another way. For those Chris-
on occasion    tians who accepted Christ alone as Lord, salvation was a matter of faith in
greater than     Christ's sacrificial death on the cross. Gnostics held that salvation was won
him" (John       through gnosis (Gk. 'knowledge, insight'), which was viewed to be a higher
lel of moral     state than faith. Their own form of gnosis was esoteric enough, sometimes
inity: "Why      held to be a secret knowledge transmitted by Christ to the Apostles and in
0:18). Not      turn to the leaders of Gnostic culrs.I" Shoghi Effendi's description        of
Ire powerful     Gnosticism as "evasive" indicates that the Gnostic community never held
fully share.   to fixed tenets of belief.!?
ng: "But of          Lacking a widely circulated scripture, the church at Rome formulated the
'en, nor the     first of the creeds, an orthodox doctrinal statement, to combat the Gnostic
heresy (Gk. hairesis 'party, school'). The Apostles' Creed, composed between
nostic Jesus     A.D. 150-75, alluded      to the uniqueness of Jesus as the "only Son, our
Lord," to counteract Gnosticism's submerging of Jesus in a host of other
.nd mystical     deiries.P" To combat further the evasive teaching of esoteric Gnostic leaders,
e beliefs of     the Church Fathers recognized as authoritative teaching only the New Testa-
:hers of the     ment, which had derived directly from apostolic reaching.U
se "popular
by Shoghi                                                    The Christological     Controversies
the Roman       The Schism of Arius and the Development of the Trinity. By the end of the
ristian com-     second century the force of the Gnostic movement with its competing savior
be Church        figures was well-nigh spent. In the second, third, and fourth centuries
, Bishop of      Christology continued to occupy the central place in the writings of the
Fathers. But christological writing at this stage was characterized by greater
le of Jesus      controversy than in earlier generations, controversy that finally escalated into
er 'savior').    open warfare between sectarians.
inities (Gk.        In the second and third centuries the church experienced dissension over the
aul's native     Monarchian controversy. Although this christological controversy provoked
ro Heracles      great debate, it did not seriously disturb Christian unity and died quietly
ostic Chris-     toward the end of the third century.22

ieresy. Since       18. Simon the Magician was one of the Gnostic cult leaders. He received the
I their own,     condemnation of St. Peter by attempting to buy his spirirual powers from the
interest.        Apostles (Acts 8:9-25). The Egyptian Basilides and Valentinus of Rome, although
Id Order    of   closer to orthodox Christianity, founded docetic (Gk. dokesis 'illusion') Gnostic
stic religions   heresies that exalted Christ's spiriruality to the point that they denied His physical
fran (Mani-      reality.
Platonism) .       19. Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahd'u'lldh, p. 184.
As such, it        20. Later tradition attributes this creed to the Apostles. It was composed not only
nee from it.     to combat the Gnostic heresy but was used primarily as a summary statement of
ion. Gnosti-     questions and answers, requisite knowledge of catechumens prior to their being bap-
thought. It     tized. Helmer Ringgren and Ake V. Strom, The Religions of Mankind; Today and
redemption      Yesterday, ed. J. c. G. Greig, trans. Niels L. Jensen (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1967), p. 149.                                          I
stic heresies.      21. The Gnostics put forth their mythologies in literature of their own. "The
teric knowl-     Gospel of Truth" and "Book of Baruch" are among their works.
the mystery         22. Monarchianism was a theological controversy arising out of concern for main-
6-13).           taining the "monarchia" or divine unity. It expressed this concern in two movements
iosis Falsely    that were fundamentally different. "Adoptionism" wished to stress the divine unity
ene Fathers      to the point that it taught that Christ was only an inspired man. Christ was,
so to speak, adopted by God's Spirit. The other movement, "rnodalism," stressed
32     WORLD ORDER: SPRING/SUMMER         1980

The fourth century, however, witnessed a shock wave of major proportions
that was felt throughout Christendom. 'Abdu'l-Baha has referred to its disas-
trous effects on the unity of the Christian faith:
Even after Christ, Arius, the well-known patriarch, was the cause of a
widespread schism in the Cause of God and intense agitation among the
believers. His followers numbered even three million, and he as well
as his successors exerted the utmost effort in order to produce a split and a
widespread commotion in the religion of God.23
Aside from naming Arius as a violator of Christianity, 'Abdu'l-Baha clearly
indicates that Arius essentially used a theological pretext for achieving power,
a connivance common to violators in all dispensations.P"
Arius was a learned priest from Alexandria who quarreled with his bishop,
Alexander. The disputation began with Arius' assertion that the Son, even
as the Logos, the Divine Word, was inferior to the Father. He held that
Christ, like other beings, was created ex nihilo by God and was, therefore, a
created and finite being. He also! argued that Christ had a beginning whereas
the Father was eternal: "We are persecuted because we say the Son has a
beginning whereas God is without beginning."25 Alexander took issue with
Arius, holding to the orthodox belief that the Son as Logos was eternal, un-
created, and of the same essence or substance as God. The most serious offense
of Arius' teaching in orthodox eyes was its debasing subordination of Jesus.
Arius argued that Christ was liable to change in regard to His divine nature
and even to sin. The appellation "Son of God" was for the Arians a courtesy
title rather than an indication of Christ's divine origin.
Alexander summoned a provincial synod and had Arius excommunicated
in A.D. 321. The banished Arius refused to submit and won a large following
in Palestine. His supporters spread the controversy frOID Palestine all over
the eastern Greek episcopates (bishoprics). Constantine, the newly converted
Christian king, anxious to preserve the empire from schism, summoned the
first ecumenical council of the church at Nicaea, across the Bosphorus from
Constanrinople.P" 'Abdu'l-Baha's commentary on Constantine speaks favorably
of his great spirituality and administrative skill: "He spared no efforts, dedi-
cating his life to the promotion of the principles of the Gospel, and he solidly

Christ's divinity to the extent that it did not distinguish Him in any way from
the Godhead.
23. 'Abdu'l-fsaha, "'The Covenant of God shall remain stable and secure': Recent
Tablet to Roy C. Wilhelm," in Star of the West, 10 (5 June 1919),95. In the same
passage 'Abdu'l-Baha assures Mr. Wilhelm that the Baha'i covenant will remain in-
violate.
24. Nicolas Zernov quotes church historian Socrates Scholasticus (d. A.D. 450),
who said that "from love of controversy" Arius opposed his bishop in the discussion.
See Eastern Christendom: A Study of the Origi« and Development of the Eastern
Orthodox Church (New York: Putnam's, 1961), p. 45n.
25. Arius, quoted in J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: Adam &
Charles Black, 1958), p. 228. This passage on Arius' teaching has been gleaned
from pp. 226-31.
26. Constantine was converted to Christianity by a vision of the cross superimposed
on the midday sun. The accompanying message read, "By this sign conquer." Against
all odds and good judgment Constantine made a rapid invasion of Italy and defeated
his rival, Maxentius, at the battle of the Milvian Bridge at Rome (A.D. 312).
THE DEIFICATION      OF JESUS        33

proportions       established the Roman government, which in reality had been nothing but
to its disas-     a system of unrelieved oppression, on moderation and justice."27 'Abdu'l-
Baha's favorable assessment of Constantine is not shared by all historians,
cause of a        some of whom view his intervention in spiritual matters as a means of gain-
among the         ing ascendency over his political opponents. 28
he as well          . The point at issue at Nicaea was whether Christ was simply like the Father,
split and a       much in the same way as an image would resemble its perfect archetype, or
whether He was of the same essence or substance as God, the very matter of
3aM clearly        Divinity. The 220 delegate bishops were separated quite literally by a mere
ving power,        letter of the Greek alphabet (Gk. homoousios 'of the same substance';
bomoiousios 'of like substance'). Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria and his
. his bishop,      party defended Christ's full divinity and coequality with the Father, a position
!  Son, even       deriving from Logos theology. Eusebius of Caeserea, "father of church history,"
e held that        stood by the dictum "Sola Scriptura" and argued for the bomoiousios since
therefore, a       ousia (Gk. 'substance, essence') was not a biblical term at all but one
ing whereas        drawn from Greek philosophy.P" Eusebius argued further that favoring the
Son has a        homoousios would risk compromising the sovereignty of God and his oneness.
: issue with          Constantine took his stand against the Arians at Nicaea and argued force-
eternal, un-       fully in favor of the homoousios. The creed was adopted almost universally
ious offense        (only four bishops refused to sign it) and with great jubilation. The Jesus
III of Jesus.      of Nazareth Who had begun His christological journey in the mind of the
vine nature        early church as the "suffering servant" messiah-figure of Deutero-Isaiah
; a courtesy       emerged from Nicaea as a deified being, consubstantial with God.30
The promulgation of the Nicene Creed, far from bringing the spiritual
nmunicated         peace that Constantine had sought, inaugurated a second stage of vitriolic
e following        struggle between Nicenes and Arians that was to rage for the next half
ae all over        century. !I 1 During this second phase of the contest, the Arian party witnessed
Y' converted       a momentary victory. By a series of skillful diplomatic maneuvers, Arian
unoned the         bishops were able to win the support of Constantius I, Constantine's son and
horus from
:s favorably
fforts, dedi-         27. 'Abdu'l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, trans. Marzieh Gail and
Ali-Kuli Khan, 2d ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1970), p. 85. 'Abdu'l-
I he solidly       Baha's statement is borne out by the full weight of history. Constantine systematically
altered the legislation of the Empire to accord it with Gospel teaching. He punished
Y'    way from     sexual offenders; no longer penalized celibates; tightened divorce laws; facilitated
the liberation of slaves; protected prisoners, widows, and orphans; and gave bishops
ure': Recent       certain magisterial powers.
In the same          28. Among these historians are Gibbon, Burckhardt, Schwartz, and Harnack. See
remain in-       Zernov, Eastern Christendom, p. 39n.
29. John Courtney Murray, S.]., The Problem of God; Yesterday and Today
A.D. 450),     (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1964), p. 47.
e discussion.         30. Oscar Cullmann believes that the most ancient chrisrological title applied to Jesus
the Eastern   was that of the "servant." Acts 3:26 and 4:30 ascribe its usage to St. Peter, who
was greatly impressed by the suffering of his beloved Master. Peter protested when
n: Adam &          warned by Christ of His impending death (Mark 8: 32). Isaiah's prophecy speaks of
een gleaned        the coming servant's suffering as a propitiatory death: "when he makes himself an
offering for sin" (53: 10). Christo logy of the New Testament, p. 74.
zperimposed            31. When the Arian bishop, Macedonius, was returned to office in Constantinople,
er." Against       over three thousand people lost their lives in the fighting. More Christians were slain
md defeated        by fellow Christians in this one contest alone than had died during the last terrible
312 ).             persecution of Roman emperor Diocletian (311).
_L        .__    .__-.__   .__.   _

34     WORLD    ORDER:         SPRING/SUMMER         1980

ruler of the eastern states, who abandoned his father's policy of standing be-
hind the Nicene Creed. At the Synod of Constantinople in A.D. 360, held
during the dedication of the Hagia Sophia, the Nicene Creed was abrogated
and replaced with an Arian creed, declaring the Son to be simply "like the
Father, as the Holy Scriptures call Him and teach."32 It seemed that Christen-
dom had gone Arian.
During this second phase of the Arian controversy a third force along
with the Father and Son was introduced into the debate. This was the Holy
Spirit. The turn of the century was destined to witness not only the destruc-
tion of the Arian party but also the formulation in church council of
Christendom's most central doctrine, the trinity.
The sources for the Christian belief in the Holy Spirit are Judaic. In the
Bible the dynamic spirit of God (Heb. ruach Yahweh) was active especially
at creation (Gen. 2: 7) but was also evident in the mission of the Hebrew
prophets who were sustained through God's spirit and spoke through the
authority of His word: "Thus says the Lord."
In early Christian literature this understanding was reflected in the writ-
ings of the apologist Justin Martyr who referred to the Holy Spirit as the
"prophetic spirit.":13 The Fathers, Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons; Tertullian of
Carthage; and Origen of Alexandria had given place in their writings to the
Holy Spirit in reference to the Godhead. By the fourth century a movement
had been gradually building to deify the Holy Spirit. The writings of Hilary
of Poiriers and especially those of the fourth-century Cappadocian fathers, St.
Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzus, were
instrumental in winning support for the teaching of a deified Holy Spirit.
Augustine, building on a trinitarian tradition four centuries old, gave final
expression to the doctrine by writing, over a twenty-year period, De Trinitate,
a work setting forth arguments and analogies to explain the mystery of the
trinity. 34
Judaism,· however, was rigidly monotheistic. For the triune expression of
the Godhead one must look to ancient Egypt. From the time of the Old King-
dom (2770-2270 B.C.) until Christian times, Osiris, one of the "Ennead"
or Nine of the. Egyptian pantheon of gods, was worshiped alternatively as
three gods and as one. In his triune form, Osiris was worshiped as Serapis;
Isis, the wife of Osiris; and Horus, their son. In a papyrus dating from the
time of Alexander the Great the trinitarian formula, "Thus from one god I
become three gods," is recorded as Horus' self-description.s" Tertullian of
Carthage, also writing from North Africa, produced almost identical wording
in his own formulation of the Christian trinity with his celebrated phras~

32. Quoted in Noss, Man's Religions, p. 637n. This Arian creed is sometimesre-
ferred to as the "Dated Creed."It was later abrogatedat the Council of Constantinople
(A.D. 381) when the churchrerurnedto Nicenetheology.
33. Justin Martyr, quoted in Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 102.
34. St. Augustine, "On Trinity," A Select Library of Nicene and Poss-Nicene
Pasbers, Vol. III (New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1886-90).
35. Francis Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity: From 330 B.C. to
330 A.D. (New York: University Books, 1964), I, 88.
THE DEIFICATION OF JESUS         35

inding be-
"All three are one.":l6 Coincidentally, the strongest supporters of trinitarian
360, held          theology, Athanasius and Cyril, were both bishops of Alexandria, the breeding
abrogated
ground of Egyptian tritheism. It is to this "Alexandrian cult" of the worship
r "like the
of the triune Osiris that Shoghi Effendi refers in his discussion of those move-
t Christen-
ments that threatened the early church. 3 7
That the doctrine of the trinity itself underwent a historical development
irce along
is readily apparent. It was to appear early in the writings of the Church
the Holy
Fathers and apologists, but its exegesis was by no means uniform. It was cau-
re desrruc-
tiously circumscribed in its early stages by a respect for Jewish monotheism
:ouncil of
but witnessed the gradual development        of three divine and consubstantial
persons within the Godhead. Justin Martyr, referred to earlier, formulated a
lie. In the
triad of God, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. He wrote of the Word as being
especially         "another God" beside God. 11 R The Logos (Word)       in time came to be super-
ie Hebrew
seded by the Son.
tough the
A contemporary of Justin, Theophilus of Antioch, was the first to use the
word "triad" in his writings in relationship to the Godhead. Theophilus' triad
the writ-
had a novel twist in that the Holy Spirit was replaced by Wisdom, to consist
irit as the
of Father, Son, and Wisdom.:{!l Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, reaffirmed the tri-
rtullian of
une Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching that the Son (Word)            was in
ngs to the
eternal generation and was, therefore, coexistent with the Father. Since He
movement            shared God's eternity, Irenaeus argued that the Son was also God: "The
of Hilary         Father is God and the Son is God, for whatsoever is begotten by God is
fathers, St.        God."40 Hippolytus of Rome first used the word pet'Jona (Latin for 'mask,'
nzus, were          as used in Greco-Roman theater; hence 'appearance, manifestation, aspect')
oly Spirit.         in relation to the three aspects of the Godhead and taught that, although
gave final          single, God was multiple in respect to His fourfold attributes of Word, Wis-
, Trinitate,
dom, Power, and Counsel. 41 Tertullian of Carthage coined the famous "three
ery of the          in one" formula referred to above and was also the first to use the word
trinitas in his writings, thereby giving impetus to the independent subsistence
.ression of         of the three divine persons." 2
Old King-               The writings of Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian constitute a water-
"Ennead"
shed in the development of the trinity. It is in their writings that the first
iatively as         tensions appear between the unity of the divine monarchia and the independent
is Serapis;         subsistence of the three persons. Overall, however, the ascendancy was given
. from the          to the Divine Unity with the three persons being "manifestations"           (Lat.
one god I           species) or "aspects" (Lat. formae) of the Godhead, a theology called "eco-
rtullian of         nomic trinitarianism," because it wished to stress the paucity of the three per-
II wording          sons compared with the monarchia 'Divine Unity.'43 The major contribution
:ed phrase
36. Henry Chadwick, "The Early Church," in The Pelican History of the Church,
ed. O. Chadwick (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1967), I, 89.
37. Shoghi Effendi, World Order of BahJ'u'llJh, p. 184.
netimes re-
38. Chadwick, "The Early Church," p. 85.
israntinople
39. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 104.
40. Ibid., p. 107. In one analogy of the trinity Irenaeus used a word that is
very familiar to Baha'is. He spoke of the Son and the Spirit as God's "hands," for
Post-Nicene
)0) .
him the vehicles or forms of His self-revelation.
41. Ibid., p. 111.
30      B.C.   to
42. Ibid., p. 113.
43. Ibid., p. 108. The term "economy" or "Divine Economy" is also used by
36     WORLD ORDER: SPRING/SUMMER         1980

of this theology was its vocabulary. The words persona and trinitas became
standard for future discussionsand took on meanings that were not originally
intended by their authors.
This second phase of the Arian crisis, complicated by disputes over emerg-
ing trinitarian theology, necessitated the second ecumenical council of the
church, held at Constantinople in A.D. 381. It was presided over by Emperor
Theodosius I, a solid supporter of the Nicene Creed. At Constantinople trini-
tarian theology was formally canonized. It was laid down that God, Christ,
and the Holy Spirit are all of the same substance but manifest themselves in
three divine persons.t "
Following the Council of Constantinople, the Arian parry, now divided
into contending sects, collapsed with astonishing speed, As for Arius, fate was
to decree that he would not live to see the momentary victory of his party. He
died quite suddenly, in misery and obscurity, in the streets of Constantinople,
possibly a victim of poisoning, having been discarded by his own party who
had gone on to quarrel with the Nicenes:
He had been left out in the cold, almost forgotten. At length, sick and old,
he had pleaded with Constantine to allow him the benefits of the sacraments
before he died, sadly complaining that his powerful friends like Eusebius
of Nicomedia could np longer be bothered to do anything for him." 5
To the circumstances of Arius' unhappy ending an ominous ring is lent by
the following comment of 'Abdu'l-Baha that serves as warning to those who
divide the religion of God for personal gain, regardless of their theologies:
"But eventually the power of Christ exterminated and utterly destroyed them
all to the extent that no trace (of them) has been left."46
The God-Man Debate-Cyril        and Nestorius. like the hydra of Greek myth-
ology that grew a new head for each of its severed ones, the councils of Nicaea
and Constantinople generated rather than silenced further controversy about
the person of Jesus. Scarcelyhad the canonization of trinitarian theology taken
place at the council of Constantinople when a new issue in the christological
debate plunged the church deeper into dissension. This was the relationship
between the divine and human natures of Jesus.
Not only did this new phase of the christological battle prove to be by far
the most bloody, but it also had fatal consequences for the unity of the
Byzantine empire. A new and divisive force was added to the dimensions of
the theological quarreling-the expression of nascent nationalism. The as-
piration toward national autonomy in Syria and Egypt found expression in
theological creeds that were used as a tool to throw off the imperial mantle of

Irenaeus. Shoghi Effendi's use of the same term (World Order of Bahd'u'lldh, pp. 19,
20, 22, 24, 61) would appear to coincide exactly with its early Christian usage.
His usage of "Divine Economy" had nothing to do with Baha'i teachings on economics
but rather indicated the Divine Plan or redemptive World Order, a parallel with early
Christian usage of the term. (See Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 110-11.)
44. It was the Council of Constantinople rather than Nicaea that proclaimed
trinitarian theology. The creed proclaimed in 381 is called the Niceno-Constantinopol-
itan creed since it incorporated elements of the two councils.
45. Chadwick, "The Early Church," p. 136.
46. 'Abdu'l-Baha, .. 'The Covenant of God shall remain stable and secure;" p. 95.
THE DEIFICATION OF JESUS          37

Constantinople.    These potent movements        of religious nationalism     spelled
'Zitas became
permanent schism for the church, and the dislocation of a once proud empire,
lot originally
making it easy for the Muslim conqueror in the seventh century to overrun.
The quasi-miraculous preservation of church unity that had prevailed during
over emerg-
the Arian crisis finally failed under the onslaught of these new separatist
uncil of the
forces.
by Emperor
The quarrel flared up initially between two patriarchs of great rival sees,
tinople trini-
Nestorius of Constantinople and Cyril of Alexandria. Both men had proved
God, Christ,
to be unduly harsh in their treatment of dissident groups, and their confronta-
hemselves in
tion had disastrous effects for the church. 4 7
Nestorius had been called by Theodosius II from his native see of Antioch
now divided
to serve as preacher to the court of Constantinople. Nestorius' Christo logy is
jus, fate was
sometimes referred to as "duophysitism" or two-natured Christology (Gk. physis
his party. He
'nature') since he believed that the divine and human natures of Jesus op-
.nstantinople,
erated in a loosely knit unity or "conjunction," as he wrote.48 But as a learned
n party who
exponent of antiochene theology Nestorius laid emphasis on the humanity of
Jesus, a long-standing tradition reflective of its Judaic origins. For Nestorius
sick and old,
Christ's humanity was crucial to his soteriological role. To win the salvation
.e sacraments
of men Christ had made use of His free will and the power of His rational
ike Eusebius
soul, attributes He shared with other men. His sacrifice was not compelled.
ir him.45
Christ wanted to show the ordinary believer that salvation could be won only
g is lent by
by willingly accepting God's will, as He Himself had willingly accepted the
o those who
cross.
r theologies:
At the heart of the controversy between Cyril and Nestorius was the philo-
itroyed them
sophical problem of reconciling duality with oneness. Any talk of a two-
natured Jesus was unsettling to Cyril and his Alexandrian school. Nestorius'
3-reek myth-
emphasis on the humanity of Jesus led Cyril to charge him with denying the
ils of Nicaea
divinity of Christ. Nesrorius' too careful distinctions between the divinity and
oversy about
manhood of Jesus led Cyril to charge that Nestorius had in a sense mutilated
eology taken
the unity of Christ's person that had been fused through the LogoS.49 Cyril's
:hristological
teaching is usually referred to as "Monophysire" since it stressed one nature
relationship
in Jesus, His divinity. For Cyril there was no such thing as Christ's humanity
in the ordinary sense. All His human attributes were divine, since they served
to be by far
as vehicles for the Logos, Christ's eternal divinity. Cyril carried the implications
miry of the
of his beliefs to the extreme. The baby Jesus was nothing less than God in the
rnensions of
flesh and Mary the Gk. theotokos 'mother of God,' a notion that was for him
sm. The as-
sacrosancr.P" Unlike Nestorius, who argued that the humanity and divinity
xpression in
al mantle of
47. Cyril's intolerance had led to the murder of Hypatia, "a virtuous and clever
woman" who had taught Nee-platonism         at Alexandria (Chadwick, "The Early
l'ildh, pp. 19,   Church," p. 194). Kelly (Early Christian Doctrines, p. 318) justifies Cyril's char-
ristian usage.
acter with the remark that "he was also inspired by motives of a purely theological
on economics
character."
leI with early
48. Ibid., p. 320.
110-11.)
49. These dualistic differences Nestorius would emphasize when he taught, for
.t proclaimed
example, that it was the man Jesus that wept and died but that it was the God Jesus
msrantinopol-
that stilled the storm (Chadwick, "The Early Church," p. 197).
50. Nestorius with his antiochene theology was offended by the term "Mother of
God," which he felt to be degrading. He caused a riot among the monks of Con-
He;" p. 95.
38     WORLD ORDER: SPRING/SUMMER        1980

of Jesus were distinct, Cyril argued that they formed a "hypostatic union," a
God-Man union, not unlike the platonic unity of body and soul, "the single
unique Christ out of two different natures."51 Cyril's teaching contributed
in large measure to the theology of the incarnation.
The distinctions between the two theologies were, indeed, dubious. As often
happens in confrontations, ironically, the disputants seemed to be saying exactly
the same thing, "one out of both," for Cyril, and "twofold in his being God and
man," for Nestorius." 2 It was hair-splitting theology at its worst, suiting per-
fectly Christ's characterization of pharisaic discussions as "straining at a gnat"
and "swallowing a camel" (Matt. 23:24). There were clearly other motives
at work than a sheer concern for theological truth.
The quarrel escalated with an exchange of pastoral letters between the
patriarchs. Having won the support of Pope Celestine and convinced that he
would be vindicated at a general council of the church, Cyril used his influence
on Emperor Theodosius II to summon the third world council of the church
at Ephesus in A.D. 431. 5:{ While inclement weather delayed the arrival of
Nestorius' delegation, Cyril and sixty Alexandrian bishops went ahead and
unilaterally excommunicated Nestorius, "the new Judas."54 A tragicomedy
ensued. Upon arriving four days later Nestorius and his delegation held their
own rival synod and excommunicated Cyril and his ally, Memnon, the Bishop
of Ephesus. The exasperated emperor confirmed the excommunications of the
rival councils and ordered both Cyril and Nestorius out of office.
In a turnabout Neseorius' Oriental bishops withdrew their support after
learning of his excommunication, something he must have felt as a cruel
betrayal. Banished to the Egyptian desert, Nesrorius died a solitary and tragic
figure in A.D. 450. Cyril, through bribery at the court, retained his bishopric
until his death in A.D. 444. It was Cyril's theology that was ultimately declared
canonic at Ephesus.
The successors to both parties persisted in their fanaticism, thus necessitating
a second council at Ephesus in A.D. 449, dubbed "The Robber Synod" by Pope
Leo 1. Here the princes of the Monophysite Egyptian church resorted to mur-
der to vindicate their theology. The Nestorian patriarch of Constantinople,
Flavian, was arbitrarily condemned, dragged from the altar by a group of
Alexandrian monks, and beaten so badly that he died within days. The same
church councils that the fathers had insisted were inspired by the breaths of the
Holy Spirit had now become the arena for the murder of a patriarch. 5 5 His
crime was that he had subscribed to a different theology.

stantinople by daring to suggest that the term be discontinued and replaced with
"Christ bearer."
51. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 322, 320.
52. Ibid., pp, 320,314.
53. Ephesus, on the Asian side of the Aegean sea, is in ruins today. A great
harbor city in irs day, the silting up of its port gradually rendered it useless.
54. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 327.
55. Dioscorus, the Monophysite chairman of this "Robber Synod," railroaded the
proceedings. He gave Flavian no chance of self-defense. At the dose of the council
the Monophysite victors shouted: "Those who contradict Dioscorus blaspheme
against God. God has spoken through our Patriarch; the Holy Spirit has inspired
him. All who keep silence are heretics" (Zernov, Eastern Christendom, p. 62).
THE DEIFICATION OF JESUS         39

atic union," a          The murder of Flavian threatened not only the unity of the church but the
il, "the single     Byzantine empire itself. In a last-ditch attempt to preserve the church-state
g contributed       from schism, the fourth ecumenical council was convened at Chalcedon, near
Constantinople, in A.D. 451. Its aim was to produce a universal christological
ious. As often      statement that would weld together the Egyptian Monophysite and Nestorian
saying exactly    . theologies of the church thereby subduing the flames. of separatism that
eing God and        threatened to disrupt the empire. Subsequent history revealed, however, that
t, suiting per-     the factions were unwilling to compromise.        •
ng at a gnat"           The theological formula produced at Chalcedon was that of divine in-
other motives       carnation. It stated in its basic outline that Christ was both perfect God and
perfect man, made known in two distinct natures in a hypostatic union without
between the       confusion or admixture. Of necessity the Chalcedon formula had to be a com-
inced that he      promise mosaic of the theologies of Antioch and Alexandria. Statements of
. his influence     Roman theology were also written in.
)f the church           As a compromise, however, Chalcedon failed to please the churches
he arrival of       either of Egypt or Syria. Monophysire Egypt rejected Chalcedon. Adopting
It ahead and        "one nature" as her new creed, the church of Egypt, after a series of bloody
tragicomedy      revolts, broke with Constantinople in A.D, 575 and formed a separate church,
on held their       now known as the Coptic church. In Syria imperial forces from Constantinople
[1, the Bishop      restored order only after a bloody battle with armed Monophysite monks.
.ations of the      Jacob Baradaeus founded the Syrian Jacobite church by traveling around the
country disguised as a beggar and ordaining Monophysite bishops. 5 6 The
support after       followers of Nestorius later migrated to Persia, hom where they sent rnis-
t as a cruel        sionaries to India, Ceylon, and even as far as China.
ry and tragic           The alienation had grown so great between Copt and Greek orthodox that
his bishopric       the Christians of Egypt threw open the gates of their cities to the Muslim
.tely declared      invaders in A.D. 641, welcoming them as liberators from the sway of Con- .
stantinople. Like the blowing sands of the Arabian desert from which it was
necessitating      borne, Islam quietly buried the religious war waged between the Greek Ortho-
lad" by Pope        dox and Egyptian Monophysite Christians. 5 7
.rted to rnur-
nstantinop Ie,                                 A BahtfJ(Perspective on the Deification of Jesus
a group of       I DO NOT INTEND that the foregoing should be taken merely as a lesson in
's. The same       the contortions of early Christian theology. Along with the specifics of the deity
reaths of the      of Jesus, about which more shall be said, the christological controversies lead
.iarch." 5 His     us to a greater understanding of the problems of a growing religion.
The early church fell into disharmony and ultimately warfare over the
person of Jesus because of three closely related factors: (1) the lack of a
replaced with      unified system of belief; (2) the lack of a clearly authorized interpretation
of doctrine; and (3) the lack of clearly defined roles in the administration
of the churches. It might prove of interest to compare these Christian devel-
day. A great       opments with parallel elements in the Baha'i Faith.
se1ess.               During the first century, Christians had no canonical scripture. The Old

ailroaded the
f the council         56. It was not only the Syrian Jacobite and Egyptian Monophysite churches that
s blaspheme        broke with Greek Orthodox Constantinople. The Ethiopian and Armenian churcbes
has inspired      also rejected the Chalcedon formula.
p. 62).               57. The analogy is partially borrowed from Zernov, Eastern Christendom, p, 84.
40      WORLD ORDER: SPRING/SUMMER        1980

Testament in the Septuagint version continued to be used as the only au-
thorized Holy Writ. The teachings of Jesus circulated in diverse oral traditions
throughout the communities. The church recognized the necessity of a fixed
New Testament canon to combat the Gnostic heresies, but no order of books
was agreed upon until the end of the second century. 5 8 Even with the tentative
fixing of the canon the Arian crisis raised once more the question of authori-
tative doctrine. Without a clearly designated interpreter of Christ's teachings,
individual bishops put forth their own interpretations    of christological ques-
tions as inspired by the Holy Spirit and made their teachings binding upon the
faithful in their care, bringing about confrontations between bishops. 5 9 An-
other complicating factor was the role of philosophy. By the time of the Arian
schism philosophy was in the mainstream of the intellectual life of the church.
The fathers used philosophical concepts and schemes to elucidate and buttress
theological argument. This naturally involved a great deal of speculation and
individual interpretation that ultimately fostered heresy. The key word in the
Nicene creed homoousios was borrowed from philosophy. How different from
the earlier days of the church when only New Testament teaching had been
the rule, as it was in the struggle with the Gnostics, who had proven them-
selves masters in "esoterica."
The excessive decentralization of the church only exacerbated the fragmen-
tation over doctrinal issues. Until the time that Pope leo I (440-61) as-
serted the primacy of Rome over other sees, bishops were on an equal footing
as sole rulers of their congregations. When Nesrorius and Cyril waged theo-
logical warfare, the whole congregations of Constantinople        and Alexandria
were perforce brought into the fray, and no supreme head was able to compose
differences. The Baha'i Faith, on the contrary, has been fortunate enough, by
. virtue of its written convenants, to have had only one clearly designated
leader at any given time in its history as well as, from the very beginnings of
the Revelation, a written body of scripture that was universally accepted. Its
administrative     order strives to strike the balance between the excesses of
overcentralizarion    and decentralization.P" Generally speaking, in the Baha'i
Faith, institutional expansion has followed in an orderly fashion the transmis-
sion of the Revelarion.v ' In the early Christian church the institutions were
being expanded while doctrinal and scriptural questions were being completed
in the midst of major schism. In the Baha'i Faith "Unity of doctrine" was
maintained from the very beginning by authentic texts of scripture as well
II        as their authorized interpretation by 'Abdu'l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi. "Unity
II        of administration" is assured by the Universal House of Justice.62
,II
i       58. A council in Rome under Pope Damascus drew up the first canonical list of
'IJ       books in A.D. 382.
i       59. This was the claim made for the Monophysite bishop of Alexandria at the
second council of Ephesus in A.D. 449 (see n. 55 ).
60. Shoghi Effendi, Baha'i Administration: Selected Messages 1922-1932, 7th
rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1974), p. 142.
61. Under the leadership of Shoghi Effendi the insrirutions of the Baha'i Adminis-
trative Order were developed from 1922 until 1936. Systematic prosecution of
'Abdu'l-Baha's Divine Plan began with the Seven Year Plan (1937).
62. The Universal House of Justice, Wellspring of Guidance: Messages 1963-
1968, Ist rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1976), p. 53.

-   -~'.-C-   -.--
THE   DEIFICATION   OF   JESUS   41

ie only au-         The christological controversies reveal the tragedy of religious controversy.
al traditions    Contrived beliefs in the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit in church coun-
, of a fixed     cil justified fratricidal warfare waged on fellow Christians because they did
er of books      not share the same theology. One is also struck by the gap between Christian
he tentative     morality and theology, between virtue and learning. How different from
of authori-    Baha'u'llah's teaching in which the teacher's divine wisdom can only be re-
s teachings,     flected to the degree that he practices the spiritual virtues recommended by
ogical ques-     the Manifesrarion.v" Baha'u'llah has warned of the destructive force in re-
Ig upon the      ligious dissension: "Religious fanaticism and hatred are a world-devouring
IOpS.59   An-    fire, whose violence none can quench."64 Even the mighty Constantine could
If the Arian     not still the roaring flames of the Arian schism. The fatal consequences of
the church.     the God-man debate for the Byzantine empire have already been alluded to.
ind buttress     At the same time, Baha'u'llah reminds us of the essential purpose of religion
ulation and      so denatured by religious strife: "Oh people of the world! The religion of
vord in the      God is to create love and unity; do not make it the cause of enmity and
ferent from      discord."65 Further, in "The First Glad Tidings," Baha'u'llah specifically
g had been       abolishes religious warfare, which had been accepted in previous dispensa-
oven them-       tions. 66 In the "Tablet of the Wodd" Baha'u'Ilah abrogates what He calls
the "four words," all of which figured in the christological controversies: (1)
e fragmen-       "Destroying men's lives"; (2) "Burning the Books"; (3) Shunning other
10-61)   as-     nations"; and (4) "Exterminating other communiries.?"?
ual footing         Baha'u'llah's prohibition of religious discord and His exhortations to fel-
raged theo-      lowship are not only for the purposes of maintaining the social peace. They
Alexandria       have a much deeper impact on the epistomological implications of mankind's
to compose       intellectual life. As I see it, harmony and unity in religion are the preconditions
enough, by       that will lead man to the discovery of new spiritual truths. 'Abdu'l-Baha has
designated      written: "The fact that we imagine ourselves to be right and everybody
~innings of      else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards unity, and unity
:cepted. Its     is essential if we would reach Truth, for Truth is one."68 This quotation sug-
excesses of      gests a plurality of meanings in any theological construct or dialogue.
the Baha'i          The other lesson to be gained from the christological controversies is that
e transrnis-     man must recognize the limitations of his own knowledge. Christians allowed
.tions were      themselves to tamper with highly abstract, speculative theological issues that
completed       were clearly beyond their capacity to comprehend. The first four ecumenical
trine" was       councils of the church necessitated by the controversies reveal a deep-seated
re as well       preoccupation with definition and analysis as a solution to doctrinal issues.
idi. "Unity      Where the requisite spiritual attributes are lacking, this approach is clearly

63. Bah3.'u'lLih, in Bah3.'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-'Baha,    "The First Tajalli," Baha'i World
rical list of    Faith: Selected   Writings     of Baha'u'llah   and 'Abdu'l-Baha, rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.:
Baha'i Publishing Trust,     1976), p. 188.
dria at the         64. Baha'u'Ilah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, trans. Shoghi Effendi,
2d rev. ed. (Wilmette,    Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1976), p. 288.
-1932,     7th      65. Baha'u'Ilah, in Baha'u'Ilah    and 'Abdu'l-Baha,  "Kitab-i-'Ahd,"  Baha'i World
Faith, p. 209.
'i Adminis-         66. Ibid., p. 191.
recution    of      67. Ibid., pp. 177-78.
68. 'Abdu'l-fsaha, quoted in J. E. Esslernont, Bahd'u'lldh and the New Era: An
iges 1963-       Introduction to the Baha'i Faith, 4th rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust,
>3.              1980), p, 201.
42       WORLD ORDER:     SPRING/SUMMER     1980

not a means of solution. The leaders of the church passed beyond the bounds
of "intellectual honesty and humility" and put forth doctrines that reflected
their own imperfect understanding         as perfect reflections of the will of the
Holy Spirit."? Baha'is have also been warned about the same dangers: "In
past dispensations many errors arose because the believers in God's revelation
were overanxious to encompass the Divine Message within the framework of
their limited understanding ... to argue that something was true because it
appeared desirable and necessary." 7 0
Christian affirmations about the divinity of Jesus would warrant several
observations. First, it seems clear that the deification of Jesus belies the oft-
repeated Christian affirmation that revelation is static. The deification issue
evolved as a historical process, both biblically and in the creeds. New Testament
exegesis of Christ's earliest christological titles as the "Suffering Servant" and
the "True Prophet" contrasted with later incarnation theology clearly indi-
cates this. The Apostles' Creed, the first of the extrabiblical creeds, devised
by the church of Rome as a reaction to Gnosticism, in no way even hints at
Christ's identification with the Godhead. The deification itself did not occur
until Nicaea in A.D. 325, the doctrine being later ratified as trinitarian theology
at Constantinople in A.D. 381.
Though it would be quite wrong in Baha'i terms to subordinate Christ to
other mythological redeemers as the Gnostic heresy had done, one can still
clearly discern how much of the Gnostic theological substratum Paul used
in his own presentation of Christ. Paul's thematic presentation of the fall of
man and his enslavement to the evil powers, "rulers of this age" (1 Cor. 2: 8) ,
and his victorious redemption by the Christ savior, all reveal features of a
cosmic drama that is quite Gnostic. 71
It was the Arian schism, however, that brought the whole question of
Christ's divinity into the forefront of the debate. It is tempting for Baha'is to
see in Arius an ally of the Baha'i view that basically subordinates the prophetic
figure to God. Upon closer examination,           however, Arius' subordinationist
Christology reveals itself to be at variance with Baha'i teaching. Unlike Arius
who taught that Christ was properly a phenomenon, a created and finite Being,
Baha'I theology teaches that the Divine Manifestations are eternal in their
station of the Logos-that   is, preexistent to their human condition. 7 2 Naturally,
the physical vehicle is phenomenal like that of other men. Baha'i teaching
also holds to the "essential sinless ness" of the Divine Manifestation, whereas
Arius indicated that Christ was liable not to change alone but also to sin." 3
The three major councils of the church-Nicaea,         Constantinople, and Chal-
cedor; -that evolved successively the deification, trinitarian, and incarnation

69. The Universal House of Justice, Wellspring of Guidance, p. 87.
70. Ibid., pp, 87-88.
71. Brandon in "The Gnostic Problem in Early Christianity" states that by the
phrase "rulers of this age" Paul does not intend the temporal authorities but demonic
beings who had control of the lives of men. He also discusses other Gnostic influences
in Paul. Religion in Ancient History, pp. 324-36.
72. 'Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, comp. and trans. Laura Clifford
Barney, rev. ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1964), p. 174. Orthodox
theology of the early church also taught the preexistence of the Logos.
73. Ibid., p. 197.
THE DEIFICATION OF JESUS          43

:l the bounds       aspects of Christian doctrine all have the common and objectionable feature
that reflected      of compromising the Divine Unity. The Divine Unity is one of the "major
will of the       beliefs" of the Baha'i Faith, "the integrity of which," Shoghi Effendi states,
dangers: "In        "no one of its followers should allow to be compromised." 74 All of these
:l's revelation     creeds tampered with the Divine Unity by recasting Christ's relationship to
ramework of         the Father in its pagan mythological meaning, which was that God had
ue because it       generated offspring. The wording of the creeds, as well as Cyril's pantheistic
theotokos (mother of God) clearly indicate this.75 Baha'u'Ilah, however,
rrant several       specifically rejects the belief that the Manifestation of God can somehow
elies the oft-      share in God's essence as the homoousisos of Nicaea held, or coinhabit the
fication issue      Divine essence in a triune Godhead as the Constantinopolitan doctrine of
:w Testament        trinity maintained: "If any be set up by His side as peers, if they be regarded
Servant" and        as identical with His Person, how can it, then, be maintained that the Divine
clearly indi-      Being is One and Incomparable, that His Essence is indivisible and peerless"
eeds, devised        (my emphasis)? 76 As for the incarnation, first outlined in Paul's theology
even hints at       and canonized at Chalcedon, it has been qualified by Shoghi Effendi as a
lid not occur       "crude and fantastic" "theory." 7 7
rian theology           The question then is raised. If Christ is not all these things, what in the
Baha'i understanding is He? Only the briefest outline can be offered here;
ate Christ to       but the answer, I believe, is clearly in complete harmony both with Gospel
one can still       teaching and with much Christian scholarship. Paul's writings do not con-
en Paul used        stitute divine revelation for a Baha'i. This, of course, would meet with major
)f the fall of      objections from Christians who believe that all scripture is divinely inspired
1 Cor. 2:8),        (2 Tim. 3: 16).
features of a           The Baha'i writings indicate that each Divine Manifestation is "known by
a different name" and "fulfills a definite mission."78 Baha'i recognition of
question of       Christ's sonship would apply equally to "Son of Man," the more common of
or Baha'is to       the titles used by Christ, and to the term "Son of God." As I pointed out earlier,
the prophetic        Christ is "Son of God" not in any mythological sense as in a sharing of God's
oordinationist      divine essence but in terms of His messiahship or spiritual kingship. Christians
Unlike Arius         have fastened almost exclusively upon the mythological meaning of the term,
finite Being,      that Christ is God's offspring, and have ignored the counterpart implied in
mal in their         the term, that the "Son" is one who above all shows obedience and humility
72 Naturally,       to the Father-that     is, the "Son" does the Father's will. The term "Son of
ha'I teaching        Man" contains paradoxical assertions that the Christ figure would achieve the
tion, whereas        redemption of mankind by suffering a humiliating death and yet at the same
ilso to sin. 7 3     time indicates a cosmological figure of paramount importance who would
le, and Chal-       usher in a spiritual kingdom promised from the beginning of the world. 7 9
I incarnation       The Baha'i writings are in harmony with these views since they recognize the
sacrificial death of Jesus "as a ransom for the sins and iniquities of all of the

s that by the        74. Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahd'u'lldh, p. 114.
s but demonic        75. The Nicene Creed reads, for example: "begotten from the Father ...        true
istic influences   God from true God ...      from the substance of the father." Kelly, Early Christian
Doctrines, p. 232, passim.
Laura Clifford       76. Baha'u'Ilah, Gleanings, p. 70.
l 74. Orthodox       n. Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Baha'u'ltah, p. 112.
78. Baha'u'Ilah, Gleanings, p. 52.
79. Cullmann, Cbristology of the New Testament, pp. 158, 142.
44     WORLD ORDER: SPRING/SUMMER          1980

peoples of the earth" and His having ushered in a spiritual kingdom. 8 0
The later Christian obsession with Christ as God, due mainly to the theology
of Paul and the councils, is belied by the New Testament itself, which re-
veals a variety of christological titles. The Christ figure of the New Testament,           j
notwithstanding the preeminence of the title of sonship, is depicted as a mosaic            j

of christological images, each with its own history rooted in a different tradi-            1
tion. For early Christians Christ was the True Prophet, the Suffering Servant of
Deutero-Isaiah (Heb. ebed Yahweh 'the Righteous One'). There are also tradi-
tions of Jesus as the High Priest, Jesus as Lord, and so on.S1 Such a mosaic
is consistent with Baha'u'llah's explanation that the prophetic figute reveals
a wide range of spiritual attributes, from the state of servitude at one end of
the scale, "a servitude the like of which no man can possibly attain," and
covering successively the stages of Apostleship, Guardianship, Messengership,
Prophethood, Lordship, reaching ultimately to Divinity, "the Call of God Him-
self."82
In addition to this prophetic mission, Baha'i teaching points to the pre-
existent or' metaphysical reality of Christ. However, rather than restricting
this preexistent reality to Jesus alone, Baha'i scripture attributes it to all of
iri   the Founders of the world's great religions. This is the reality of the Divine
"

Word (Logos) or Divine Manifestation: "Therefore the reality of prophet-
hood, which is the Word of God and the perfect state of manifestation, did not
have any beginning, and will not have any end.... "83 Not only does Baha'I
teaching accord with the preexistence of the Word as stated in the prologue
to St. John's Gospel (John 1), but also Christian scholarship has interpreted
'!H
the passage to mean that the Logos means God's self-revelation, a view that
coincides perfectly with Baha'i teaching. 84
Further, the hellenistic notions of the term, which are implicit in John's
usage, are also pertinent to the comparative aspects of the two religions. For
the pre-Socratics and the Stoics as well as the Jewish philosopher, Philo of
Alexandria, the Logos was an intermediary between God and man. For the
I!~i

80. Baha'u'Ilah, Gleanings, p. 76. In view of this text of Baha'u'Ilah I feel that
it is proper for a Baha'i to speak of the blood sacrifice of Jesus. However, a Baha'i
~Ii   would not link this notion to a belief in original sin as it is in Christian theology.
The church's aggregate condemnation of the whole human race prior to Christ's coming
has been qualified as "superstitious" by 'Abdu'l-Baha (The Reality of Man: Excerpts
from W"itings of Bahd'u'lkih and 'Abdu'l-Bahd, rev. ed. [Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Pub-
lishing Trust, 1962]), p. 47. Baha'u'llah reminds us, though, that there are limits
:li   to the intellectual understanding of the mystery of sacrifice. See Gleanings, p. 76;
cf. Baha'u'Ilah, The Kitdb-i-[qan:    The Book of Certitude, trans. Shoghi Effendi, 3d
ed. (Wilmette, Ill.: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1974), p. 129.
81. See Cullmann, Cbristology of tbe New Testament.
82. Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, p. 55.
83. 'Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 174.
84. Cullmann, Cbristology of the New Testament, pp. 265-66. Because of Baha'u'-
llah's and 'Abdu'l-Baha's endorsement of Logos theology, I cannot concur with those
who look to Ebionite Christology as being closer to the Baha'i concept of the Manifesta-
tion. It is in some ways; however, the Johannine Logos that is endorsed in the
Baha'i Faith and that is also used by Paul was rejected by the Ebionites. Ebionites also
rejected the virgin birth, which is espoused in the Baha'i Faith.
THE DEIFICATION OF JESUS        45

~dom.80              Gnostics the Logos as intermediary was finally personalized in the form of a
the theology        Savior. There are direct parallels here with Baha'i belief, which also points
.f, which re-        to the Divine Word as an intermediary between God and man. However, one
v Testament,         reservation must be stated here. John's Gospel depicts the very act of creation
Ias a mosaic         as being ascribed to the Logos. In Baha'i teaching God is the creator. 85
fferent tradi-
19 Servant of          85. Baha'u'Ilah, Kitdb.i-[qan, p. 103.
.re also tradi-
ich a mosaic
igure reveals
t one end of
attain," and
essengership,
)f God Him-

to the pre-
.n  restricting
it to all of
f the Divine
of prophet-
uion, did not
, does Baha'i
the prologue
.s interpreted
a view that

cit in John's
.eligions. For
rer, Philo of
nan. For the

ah I feel that
ever, a Baha'i
itian theology.
.hrist's coming
Man: Excerpts
.: Baha'I Pub-
iere are limits
mings, p. 76;·
hi Effendi, 3d

ise of Baha'u'>
:ur with those
the Manifesta-
dorsed in the
Ebionites also
-- The Deification of Jesus (Used by permission of the curator)