Divinity By Decree: Part One

One of the things that I have encountered from time to time is the claim that Jesus received his divinity by vote at the Council of Nicaea (325 AD).  For many Christians it seems preposterous that anyone could become a god by a decree.  On this, the critics are not completely wrong.  In the Roman Empire, Caesars were sometimes decreed to be gods by their successors or the senate.  So this phenomenon was known at that time and in that culture.  The question is: did Jesus receive his divinity because of the vote of a church council?

The claim that he did receive divinity by decree is based on three assumptions:

1. That the strong monotheism of the Jewish matrix from which Christianity emerged had no room for a divine being beside God.
2. That the New Testament does not teach the divinity of Jesus.
3. That the early church fathers did not believe in the divinity of Jesus.

What I would like to do over the next few weeks is to look at each of these assumptions and then to look at what actually happened at Nicaea.

Let us begin with the Jewish origins of Christianity.  One of the most important parts of Judaism was its strict monotheism as found in the Shema.  “Hear O Israel, the LORD your God is one LORD.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)  Since Jesus affirmed the Shema in Mark 12:29, Jesus seemingly denies that anyone much-less him could stand with God as a divinity.

The problem with this is that there is some room for another divine being, even within Jewish monotheism.  Loren Stuckenbruck and Wendy North edit a book entitled Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism that in its first half demonstrates some of the flexibility within Jewish monotheism.  You can read my review of this book here.

There are other examples.  The apocryphal book Wisdom of Solomon seems to personify wisdom.  In chapter eight we read :

3     She glorifies her noble birth by living with God,
and the Lord of all loves her.
4     For she is an initiate in the knowledge of God,
and an associate in his works.

The feminine language here does not mean that wisdom is a goddess (despite some modern interpretations).  It just refers to the gender of the word as all words in Greek are masculine, feminine or neutral.  What is important here is that Jewish authors had no difficulty putting wisdom in a special status beside God.

The first century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria used something similar with his concept of the logos.  This is taken from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Logos is used here only as a figure of speech designating God’s activity or action. In the so-called Jewish wisdom literature we find the concept of Wisdom (hokhmah and sophia) which could be to some degree interpreted as a separate personification or individualization (hypostatization), but it is contrasted often with human stupidity. In the Hebrew culture it was a part of the metaphorical and poetic language describing divine wisdom as God’s attribute and it clearly refers to a human characteristic in the context of human earthly existence. The Greek, metaphysical concept of the Logos is in sharp contrast to the concept of a personal God described in anthropomorphic terms typical of Hebrew thought. Philo made a synthesis of the two systems and attempted to explain Hebrew thought in terms of Greek philosophy by introducing the Stoic concept of the Logos into Judaism. In the process the Logos became transformed from a metaphysical entity into an extension of a divine and transcendental anthropomorphic being and mediator between God and men.  (http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/philo.htm#H11)

Another example is a bit later than the New Testament but is the result of a trajectory already present during New Testament times.  I am speaking of a being known as Metatron.  Rabbi Elisha b. Abuyah, who eventually left Judaism, claimed he ascended to Paradise and saw Metatron.  Unlike the angels who must stand in God’s presence, Metatron remained seated.  The fact that Elisha b. Abuyah became an apostate means that we should use this carefully, but the importance of Metatron continued in traditional Judaism.  In 3 Enoch (5th-6th century) Metatron plays an important role.

Metatron’s position in the heavenly world is briefly and accurately summed up in the title “The lesser YHWH” (3 En 12:5; 48C:7; 48D:1[90]); he is the highest of the archangels and God’s  vice-regent (3En 10:3-6).  Like the Holy One himself, he has a throne and presides over a celestial law court (3 EN 16:1).(Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, p. 243)

Again it must be stressed that these texts post-date the New Testament.  But it can be argued that this is the result of a trajectory that began much earlier.  It can also be argued that by the time of 3 Enoch, as Judaism was in increasing conflict with Christianity, they had every reason to react against the high Christology of the Christians.  Yet, they describe Metatron in way not much different than the divine Jesus.

Judaism has no doctrine of the Trinity and it is strongly monotheistic.  But even before the time of Jesus there was a flexibility within that monotheism that allowed divine powers beside God.  This became clearer in the later traditions about Metatron.  Jesus did accept the monotheism of Judaism but it was a monotheism that had a flexibility within it.

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