Son of god

Une of the title ' Son of God' In— L OT iND JBWISU WeITINOS. \. OT. — Title applied to : (o) angels ; (6) judges or rulere ; (c) the theocratic king ; (d) the theocratic people ; (e) the Messiah— Ps 89 and PI 1. 8. Jewish Writings :— . ^ (i.) Apocr\-plia and Pseudepigraph*. (u.) The Tahnud. n. NT. 1. Tlie Gospels. „ j , (a) Use of the term ' Son ol God." (i.) Incidental uses, (li.) St. Peter's confession, (iii.)

The voice from heaven at the Eapuum and at the Transfiguration : (a) The textual question. (^) Nature of the manifestation. (6) The correlative terms ' Father' and ' Son.' t. Rest of NT. „ _. , (11) The title ' Son of God. ((/) The titles ' Father ' and ' Bon. Note on the use of t«7[ Oisi. 8. The significance of tlicse titles— , _, u (a) For contemporaries, Jewish and non-Jewun- (i.) The populace, (li.) The centurion, (lii.) The ruling classes, (iv.) The disciples. (6) For Jesus Himself— (i.)

The filial consciousneM of Jesua. (ii.) The testimony of the Father. (iii.) Mcssiahship and DivinltJ. (iv.) Pre-existence. (e) For the j^postles— Hel'-3. Col 1I'S|.15. Note on "the' origin of the CSirtatUui tue of the tlUe ' Son of God.' m. TnE Earlv CmKcii. 1. The sub- Apostolic Fathers. , ^^ . , _, ~ . Note on the meaning of ' SOD ' In the ApoeUef" Creed. 2. Marcellus of Ancyra. Conclusion. Literature. I The Old Testament and Jewish WRmNos.

-"The history of the term * Son of God ' in the pre- Christian period is the historj- of a gradual height- ening' and concentration of meaning in connexion with" the culminating point of biblical revel.ation. The use of the term is at first rather poetic or rhetorical than in the strict sense theological.

It is iipplied to a number of objects m such a way aa to invest them with a special dignity and value, or to liint at a special relation of nearness and appre- ciation on the part of God ; but it did not denote any essential partaking in the Divine nature. Unly in Christian times does this latter sense come to attach to it. 1 OLD TESTAMENT. — In OT the phrase, or something like it, is used of angels, of human iud"es of the theocratic king, of th^ theocratic people, and of the Messiah.

It is this last use which is taken up and further developed in Chris- tianity. , , r- r" 4 (f() In the first passage that meets us, Gn b- (ascribed to the 9tli cent, document J), the terin is applied to the race of demigods or angels beings which is conceived as existing before the Flood. This passaste proved rather a stumbling-block to the later Jewish efe^sis, and was variously explained. The mambody of Septuagint MSS (K B are not extant) tr. hterally « "- ■"<> e,.Z (so also Theodotion).

A group, in=""l"'g.,t',''"f,'M''^^ this (in v.2 but not in v.-i) as ..' aw'.x. Aquila tr. si 1 more literaUy .; .^i -rS. e^S., leaving an opening, as .t wouKi seem. or some such sense Ls that riven in_ the next P^^ragraph^ S^TTirn intenirets less equivocally «' M ■"" Ji-votc-riw.™., aa fCugh Ihe rTferenie wasV the profligate sons of the upper or ™Sn| classes. Some modem Jewish c°n"!«"'^°„7'^'j.'^-''?he Dr Field (Hexapla, i.

22), make the 'sons of God -the descendants of Seth, and the ' daughters of men ' = the descend- ams of Cain But there can be Uttle doubt that the sense is aa in Job 1» 21 387, Ps 291 etc. (6) In one remarkable verse the title seems to be applied to judges or rulers (Ps 82«) ' I said, \e are gods ; and all of you sons of the Most High (cf v 1 ■ klso Jn lO**).

And in a number of places ' judges' are in some way or "ther equated wth 'gods' (Ex 21« RVm and AV, 22«-» RVm and AV, IS 2'^ RVm and AV ; in all these places God in RV is lit. ' gods,' •elOhim, according to the familiar idiom). The origin of this latter usage is not quite clear. It appeare to be coSfe^ted with the fact that J^" Vrln^ot'li^i^t ft decisions were given in early tunes in the form of oracia at some sacred place and in the name of the dei^.

It is a further quest on whether or how tar M »i° wae sutirested bv this usage. That it was so suggested was the oS Wew: and Duhm (e.g.) still explains of the Hasmon^a^ nrinces Baethgen, of heathen rulers. But some recent wntere, princes , caeuifeeii.u ...i;., davs of criticism, take T/iwi"p""394fl!)orthe g;>dk"oTthese'i.ations. Most commea tators comparers 58, reading 'O ye gods m v.i.

(c) Of more importance, and indeed on the direct line of Messianic promises, is the designation as applied to the theocratic king, ^o^t^.s the lead- inci passage is the assurance given by Nathan to Davl^d, ' I will be his father, and he shall be ray «nn ' C S V). Many other places point bacK w this, esp. Ps 89-«- ". 'But these wUl meet us again ""(^Tciosely associated with the application to the theocratic king is that to the iAc«cm<^.

people For this we go back primarily to Ex 4*' Ihou Shalt say \^U> Pharaih, Thus saith the LOKD Israel is my son, my firstbom,'-an announcement thit soems"^to have been present to the mind of the p ophet Hoseawhen he wrote ' \Vhen Israel was a ctiild, then I loved him, and called my son out °'(?)^[rt'hl"tHl"''L' is given both to the theo- cratic kin.'

and to the theocratic people where the^ ar^^clearly distinguished from each other tU more inevitable wi^s it that the Bame title would belong to them when the two ideas coalesce into one, as they do in the passages that may be caUed m^e directhj Messianic. Conspicuous among these are Pss 89 and "J. S0^" OF GOD SOX OF GOD 571 Ps 89. — This j)salnj is based uiion the promises of 2 S 7, but also in v." clearly takes up Ex 4, .

Hence, while it is agreed that both King and p»'>[)le are in view, oiiinions dilier somewhat as to the <legrce of jjrominence to be assigned to each. Cheyne (Conini. on v.^") has 'no doubt that the Davidic king (or rather 'the Davidic royalty') is meant.' IJut 'the Davidic house has long been overthrown, and the fate of the nation has a more practical interest for the writer, whose description partly lits the king, partly the people, now become the heir of the old Davidic promises.' In OP p.

118 he pronounces more decidedly for the 'post- exile Jewish Church' in the Persian period (Arla- xerxes II. and III.) Strack points out a close resemblance to the state of things under Josiah ; Duhm, to that under Alexander Jannffius(c. 88 B.C.) Wellhausen, like Cheyne, explains of the com- munity, which ' in the history of the theocracy BQcceeded to the place formerly occupied by the kings.' Ps 2. — Even more central in its bearing upon the history of Christian thought is Ps 2, esp. v.'

^ Opinion is leaning r.ither more than it did to the view expressed by Cheyne, tliat this psalm has not • a contemporary historical reference ' (though Duhm believes it to have been composed at the accession of Aristobulus I. or Alexander Jannseus ; Cheyne liinmelf thinks that the writer ' throws himself back' into the age of David or Solomon, to which, according to Strack, he belongs). What might be called the most modem view is concisely stated by Wellhausen (PB, 'Psalms,' ad lor..)

: 'The Messiah is the speaker, and tlie whole psalm is composed in His name. It is not merely the hopes concerning the future to which he gives expression ; it is the claims to world-wide dominion nlready cherished by the Jewish Theocracy. All the heathen are destined to obey the Jews; if they fail to do so, they are rebels. The Messiah is the incarnation of Israel's universal rule. He and Israel are almost identical, and it matters little whether we say that Israel has or is the Mes.siah. .

On the day when Jlivn founded the Theocracy, He gave it the right to unlimited earthly dominion. This right is involved in the very idea of the Theocracy. Zion, as being the seat of the Divine rule, ia, ipso facto, the seat of universal rule.' It V ill be seen how the most advanced science of our time is by degrees giving back a full equiva- lent for the old naive conception that would make the passages above quoted direct unmediated pre- dictions of the persjonal Messiah.

As ajiplica to the Messiah the.se prophecies are not unimili.ited. The steps are one thing, the shrine to which iliey lead is another. The Scriptures of which we have been speaking mark so many separate contri- butions to the total result ; but the result, when it is attained, has the completeuess of an organic whole. A Figure was created — projected as it were upon the clouds — which was invested with all the attributes of a per.son.

And the minds of men were turned towards it in an attitude of ex- pectation. It makes no matter that the lines of I Ills I'igure are drawn from dill'erent originals. They meet at last in a single portraiture. And we should never have kiiuwii bow perfectly they meet if we had not had the NT picture to coiiii)are with that of OT. The most literal fullilmeiit of pre- diction would not be more conclusive prool that all the course of the world and all the threads of history are in one guiding Hand.

2. JEWISH WJUTjyGS.—l'a 2, as it has been rightly observed, stands at the head of a long lino ol subsequent development. The conception of the Messiah as also ' Son ' became a fixed part of the tradition, not perhaps quite so widely extended as might have been expected, — it does not figure at all largely in the Tuliaud, — and yet sulUeiently attested in those forms of Judaism which present the nearest alliiiities to Christianity. (i.) The Ajjocrijpha and Pseudepif/rapha.

— The title 'Son' as aiiplied to the Messiah occurs only once in the Book of Enoch (105-') in a passage the origin and date of which are uncertain. It does not occur at all in Ajioc. of Barucli. But in 4 Ezra (2 Esdras) it seems to be fairly well established. This book is lost in the original (Gr. or Heb. '!), but ispreserved in no fewer than live versions, Lat., Syr., Atli., Arab, (two forms), Arm.

, which are com- monly supposed to rank in this order, though the subject has not yet been thoroughly investigated. The text printed in our Bibles is from the Latin. In 7®- 29 this version has e\idently passed through Christian han<ls ; Syr. has twice and Arab, once ' my Son Messiah," .'Eth. once ' my St-n-ant Messiah' (perhaps = ffa7f), and Arm. once 'the Messiah of God.' From this rough statement, wlxioh can hardly he pursued into close detail, it will he seen that there is some douhc.

In 133- and 87 Lat. Syr. Arab., and in lo-'~ i-at. Syr. identically, and .^th. Arab, approximate]}-, all have ' Son," which, however, does not appear in the Armenian. A like relation is found in 14^, where Lat. Syr. d£th. Codd. Arab, have ' Son " ; jV.lh. Co<ld. ' sons," while Arm. drops and paraphrases. The edd., including Hilgenfeld and Gunkel in Ivautzsch, ApokT. u. I'seudepig. d. A T, read * Son 'in all these places ; hut the reading cannot be regarded as quite secure (cf.

Drummond, JewuJi jyt-ftft'ia/i, pp. 2^.'-'ifti>). The strongly Messianic passage in Ps-Sol 1723-51 has not the title ' Son," but clearly borrows from Ps 2 in v.'-W. (ii). I'he Talmud. — Apart from the above instances there is not much evidence for the Messianic inter- pretation of Ps 2 in the Rabljinic literature. Dal- inan (Wurtc Jcsu, p. 222) gives three examples of this, one dating c. 2i0 and another c. 350 a.l>. Two other connnenta quoted by him are of some interest.

The Midrash on Ps '2^2 concludes thus: * To whom is this like? To a king who is %vroth with his subjects, and the subjects go and make their peace with the king's son, that he may make jieace for them. Then when the subjects go to give thanks to the king, he saith to them : Would .\'e give thanks to meV Go and give them to my son ; smce, but for him, I shoidd long ago have blotted out the people. So saith God to the nations of the world when they wouhl give thanks to him.

Go thank the cliiUlrun of Israel, for without them ye would not have continued for a single hour.' A late comment in Midr. Tchill. ii. 7 is e.vpressly directed against the Christian interpretation : ' From this pa.

-^sage (Ps '27) an answer may be given to the Minim (Christians) who say the Holy One — blessed be He — has a Son, and thou canst reply to them ; it does not mean ' A Son art Thou to Me," but " Thou art My Son"; like a servant whom his master encourages by saying to him, "I love thee as my son 1 " ' Although this is set down as ' very late," it is just the interpretation that would be natural to a Jew. II. The New Testament.— In passing over to NT it is important to observe th.

at we should not form an adequate conception of the significance of the title 'Son of God' if we were to confine our- selves to the use of that title alone. It is true that it occurs in some central passages, and true that in these pas.'<ages the phrase is invested with great depth of meaning. But we should not adequately apjiieciate this depth, and still less should we under.

stand the mass and volume of NT teaching on this head, if we did not directly connect w ith the explicit lelerciices to the 'Son of God' that other long series of references to God as pre-eminently ' the Father,' and to Christ as pre-eminently ' the Son.' These two lines of usage are really conver- gent. And we must first consider them separately before we bring them together. It has seemed best first to collect and sift the evidence before seeking to penetrate further into its meaning. 1.

Tllli GOSPELS.— {a) Use of the term ' iion of God.' — The use of this term is perhaps more sixiring than we might suppose. And the number of in- stances on which we can really lay stress will be found to shrink .sotnewhat on exannnation. (i.) Incidental k.vc.s. — Only in the Fourth Gospel (6«» Q" [var. Icct.] 10*« 11') is the title ' Son of God ' used by our Lord expressly of Himself.

And although three at least of tne places in which it 572 SOX OF GOD SON OF GOD is described as used of Ilim are of salient import- ance, tills is not the case willi others. Instances like Mk 1' (where the readin" is also not quite certain), Jn 3'* 20'" belong to the evangelists, and are therefore evidence lor a later stage of lielief than that of the narrative. And we must allow for the possibility that lo this later .

stage are really to be assigned words sueh as those Jiscribed to the Baptist in Jn !• and to Nathanael in Jn 1<. Nor can we be too conlident as to the exact wording of the discourses or sayings in Jn 3" 5^ JP [v.l.'] 10-" 11'. St. John, even more than the other evange- lists, was so intensely absorbed in his own belief in the Godhead of Christ that it was natural to him to antedate expressions which really would be ex- ceptional at the time to which they are referred.

Even in the First Gospel (Mt 14^ 26"^) the absence of the phrase from the Synoptic parallels must cast some doubt upon its originality. On the other hand, in the cases of the demoniacs (Mk 3" II 5' il) and of the centurion at the Cross (.Mk 15™ II) the attestation indeed is excellent, but Ave cannot deduce anything very tangible (see below, 3 {n)). (ii.) St. Peter's Confession. — We cannot be sur- prised if by an application of similar critical methods some scholars {e.c/.

Dalman, ]i'orie Jesu, p. 224) should also cancel the phrase in the more important connexion of Mt 16'*. Here, in the version of Matthew, Peter's confession runs: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God ' ; wliere Mark has only, ' Thou art the Christ,' and Luke 'The ChrLst of God.' And no doubt it follows from this that the Marcan document had no more than our present Gospel. Still this passage is not really on all fours with the others that have come before us.

For the context clearly proves that Matthew had before him some further tradition, possibly that of the Lonia, but in anj^ case a tradition that has the look of being original. Whether this originality extends to the whole phrase may be more than we could assert posi- tively, but to the present writer it appears to be probable that it does.

We should more easily understand the apostolic use of the title 'Son of God ' if there had been precedents for it on im- portant occasions like this, when it is represented as receiving the sanction of Christ Himself. The whole phrase as it stands, including the epithet ' living God,' calls up such a host of OT associa- tions, and at one step sets the confession so conspicuously in its place amid the whole series of biblical revelations, that we may be loth to let it go. (iii.)

The voice from heaven at the Baptism and Transfiguration. — The next two places that we have to deal with are encircled, like the last, with critical considerations. It may be well first to state the textual facts, so that the reader may have the evidence fully before him. a. The textual question. — Thi Baptism :— Mt 3'7 z^'i ;2oy taiti; ix raiw avfietfSi \iytvrx' OZrit im» i tilie U.6V 0 0tyatTyiT6! i M liiexr.fx. Mk f lULi ^>i vt rit tipx*Mf' Su |7 « Mfr. fiau i iyttrttric , i> Lk 3-'' . .

futi Cftivr* i£ ovfxftu ylyifffjtu' Sv |7 4 viil fi4u i 2w ir, «.T.x. codd. (ircEC. et vera. (inc. Sjt. Bin.)/ere omn. Tit; fjt«ij it cOi.-^' otyctMrtToi, Clem. Alex.), iyii ri,pup9^ yly\fty\tti. n, Dabcff2» 1 r. Banc lectionem t^iuui evangelicam agnoscunt (nisi pgalmum aticuiii respiciani). Just. Mart., Clem. Alex., Method., Juvenc, TycOD., Aug. Babet etiatn, Ev. Gbioait. ap. Epiph. 1/2.

The Transfioukation : — Mt 17^ Juci i'34v $«rti f« f^ tlfl'Xqr Xiytvrtt' Ouref irrjr i uiit Mk 0^ JMci iyt%r ^tv •« rijt n^iX%t' OZrit ifrif i yiit ftau i Lk 9^ xvi ^tntj iyivSTO ix r-^; vifiXtiC kiyavr:^' OZrif im < vUt fjuu 6 xxklXlyfiiyotf etCrau etxo'Jtrl. We may also compare Ac 133^ . . itta.ffrr.rat 'ItiVoZt^ ie xttiu xu ^J'aAUA« yiyfe^TTau VM ilvTipw {v.i. I* Tw vpaiToi ■^ctXu.Z yiyp.)' Tiot /^u ii rC, lyot ffr.u.ifiot ytyiiifiX^ n. Cf. He 1^ 5^.

The main question here is as to the reading of Lk 3— ; iyM ffy.utpor ytyiKfr.xa tri is clearly Wtslern, with strong Latin sup. port, though even here the whole family is not included, e I poin;; the other way ; the absence of Syriac evidence is also unportant. The natural inference would be that the reading, although, no doubt, very ancient, was not really primitive.

And when we think how strong the temptation would be to assimi- late the text of the Gospel to that of the psalm, and how readily this latter text would fall in with ideas that are known to have been current in the 2nd cent., the presumption against ita originality is increased. In any case Luke is the only Gospel affected. The agreement of Matthew and Mark is sutticient guarantee that the reading found in them was found also in the common S^Tiop. document.

Luke can at most represent only a separate tradition, which hardly in this instance carries with it so much weight as the others. If the common reading is to be preferred, then the first hall of the words presents a coincidence with Ps 'T', the second half with Is 421. The words heard at the Transfiguration also pre- sent a general resemblance to Ps 2. That psalm ia directly quoted in Acts and Hebrews. /S. The nature of the Manifestai ion.

— It is char- acteristic of the OT prophets that the revelations made to them sometimes took the form of remark- able sights and sometimes of remarkable sounds. At least these are the terms in which they are described to us ; what exactly were the ps3'cho- logical phenomen.a corresponding it is beyond our power to say. They belong to the peculiar experi- ence of the Hebrew prophets. The Jewish notions about tlie Bath Kol are an extensijn of the same idea (Weber, JUd. Theol? p. 194 f.)

It is natural to suppose that the manifestations at the Baptism and at the Traiisliguralion were similar in kind. It is possible that tlicy were known only to Jesus Himself, perhaps in the one case also to the Baptist, and in the other to one or more of the apostles who possessed the prophetic endowment. Through such a channel as this the Divine ap- proval of the Son was in all probability communi- cated to men. The significance of this Divine testimony will come before us later.

(6) The correlative terms ' Father' and ' Son.' — We are told (Dalman, Worte Jcsu, p. 156) that it is contraiy to Jewish usage to speak of God as ' the Father simply without some such addition as ' who is in heaven.' The only exceptions occur in prayers. It also appears that great care and reserve were used in the application of this title generally. The Targunis, where they have occa- sion to refer to it, adopt a parajdirase. In this respect the Gospels show a marked con- trast.

Our Lord does, indeed, make use of the Je\rish form (which is found most frequently in Matthew, but cf. also Mk 11-", Lk 11") ; and it i8 probable enough that the real instances of this use may have been more numerous than would appear from our Gospels. At the same time the Christian use goes far beyond the Jewish limitations. And besides the general use as applied to the disciples, there is a special use in wliich our Lord reserves it in a peculiar manner to Himself.

He nowhere speaks of ' our Father,' numbering Himself with His fol- lowers. The Lord's Prajer is not an exception, because it is a form prescribed to the disciples, and constructed entirely for them. The prayers of the Son to the Father are diUerent. On the other hand, our Lord constantly speaks of ' my Father,' whether with (Mt 7-' ItP^ 15'» 16" Igiu. i». S5) Qr without addition. And this use ap- parently goes back even to His childhood (Lk 2").

The use in question is illustrated in a number of ways. So in the parable of the Wicked Hus- bandmen, where the ' beloved son ' (Alk 12*), who is also ' heir,' is distinguished from aJl other mes- sengers.

So again in the parable of the Marriage Feast, which the king makes for liis son (Mt 22'') ( SON OF GOD SON OF GOD 572 where, thonj,'Ii the parallel in Lk 14'" may point to this descri])tion as acKled later, the instant-o just given wouki at least show that it lay near at hand ; and some further support is given to it bv the part plaj'ed by the ' bridegroom ' in the parable of the Ten Virgins. in any ease the whole argument of Mt 17™ turns ou the distinction between 'son' and 'stranger.'

And the point of the discussion about Ps 110' (Mk 12"'") is just to prove that tlie Mcssiali is not ' son of David ' in tlie same sense in which otlier members of his lineage are spoken of as sons. We shall have occasion to come back to some of these passages presently. We observe in our Lord's use of the titles 'Father' and 'Son' in connexion with Himself an ascending scale.

First, there are the i)lace3 where Ho speaks of God as His heavenly Father, or Father in heaven, after ordinary Jewish usage (Mt "-' etc., see above). Then tliere are the places where He speaks of God as 'my Father' witliout addition, which are too numerous to need specifica- tion. Then we come to a smaller numlier of pas- sages in which ' the Son ' and ' the Father ' are at once opposed and associated. And lastly, there are the ea.

ses in which mention is made of ' the Father' and 'the Son,' where the correlation is not expressed but implied. The last two classes of passages alone will re^juire some discussion. The ila.ssical jiussage in tlie Synoptic Gospels for the correlative use of ' tlie Father' and ' tlie Son ' is, of course, Mt 1 1-'' II. By the side of this we have Mk 13^^11 [«./.] and the important and much de- bated verse Mt 28'". Dalraan (see pp.

231-235) allows the first of these passages to stand, explaining it as a figurative application of the relation of ' father and son.' The relation of Jesus to Him whom we call 'the Father' is such a relation, and therefore implies mutual knowledge. But the other places, lie thinks, bear too close a resemblance to the theo- logical language of the Early Church ; and he would set them down, in their present form, to the reflex influence of that l.-inguage.

lie ques- tions the use by our Lord Himself of either phrase as a theological term. And this kind of view is, no iloubt, widely spread in critical circles. Now, in the lirst place, we note that the passages just referred to are not the only evidence for winging the use in question within the cycle of Synoptic language.

We may fairly add to these for this purpose Ac l*- ' 2-" ; for not only is the author of Acts the author also of one of our Synoptic Gospels, but it is probable that these early chapters are based upon a document that is very mucli upon the same level with the sources used in the Synoptics.

Next, we o^iserve that if the use of ' the Father ' and • ihe Son ' as theological terms belongs to the Karly Church, it at least goes back to the very lirst moment at which we possess contemijorary evidence for the vocabulary of tliat Churcli, and indeed to a date which is not more than 23 years from the Ascension (see 1 Th 1').

And at the time when we thus first meet with it the use is no novelty, but already firmly and deeply rooted, a tiling generally understood in all the I'auline Churches, and, so far as we can see, without any hint of question or ilispute beyond their borders. As we shall have to illustrate this more at length in the next section, we need not pursue the point further. These facts demanil an explanation. How are we to account for the rapid growth within some 23 to 2fi years of a u.

sage already so lixcd and Htcieotyped ? Where is the workshop in which it was fashioned, if it did not descend trom Christ Himself'; When we think of the way in which the best authenticated records of His teachin" lead us up to the very verge of the challenged expressions, it seems altogether an easier step to regard them as the natural continuation of that teaching than to seek their origin wholly outside it.

Of the two alternatives the former seems not onlv in other ways the more satisfactory, but really the easier and the more critical. 2. 'Tllli liKST OP TUB New TlisTAMi:XT.—1\\e same two convergent lines of doctrine may be traced in the rest of the NT as in the Gospels. Here again we have two groups of passages, the one introducing the title ' Son of God,' and the other speaking rather of 'the Father' and 'the Son.' And here again we find the two groups approach and mutually support each other.

The main ditlerence between the Gospels and the rest of the literature is that, whereas we have seen that in the Gospels there is an ascendin" scale of expression, corresponding to the gradual unfolding of the new conception in the course of the history, in the Epistolary and other books (which though, as writings, for the most part earlier than the Gospels in point of composition, are later than them in the stage of development to which they have reference), — in these books the process retiected in the Gospels is seen as complete.

Both titles, or sets of titles, ' Son of God and ' Father and Son,' have come to represent definite thcdlugumena. 'I'licir content is lixed, and carries with it a distinct doctrinal meaning. The clunax to which we have been advancing h.is been reached, and now simply perpetuates itself. The point gained is not lost again. (n) The title ' Son of God.'

— We open the Epistle which stands at the head of the collection in our Bibles, and the state of belief implied in it is revealed to us in the very lirst verses (Ko I''*). We read there that the main subject of the Gospel, or new announcement to mankind, is just tliis, ' the Son of CJod.'

And the nature of the announce- ment respecting Hiui is, that while on one side of His Being He satisfies the conditions exjiected in the Jewish Messiah by His descent from David, on another side of ilis Being He is delined or marked out as attaining to a higher designation still. He is nothing less than ' Son of God.' And the incontrovertible proof of His higher nature is to be seen in His victory over death by the Re- surrection .

The term 'Son of God' is evidently by this time chosen and established as the standing formula to express what we m(;an by the Divinity oj CJirist. If in the OT the term did not necessarily imidy Divine origin in the strict sense at all, that state of things has once for all been left beliind ; and this particular formula has been fixed upon by the Christian consciousness as the shortest and most decisive expression for the proposition in wliich its whole laitli centres.

The inference which we thus draw from the opening verses of F,p. to Romans is confirmed on all hands, and shown to hold good for every branch of the Church. Wo need not stay to illus- trate it further from such passages as {!al 2-'", Eph 4" for the Ejip. of St. Paul. But Ac 9=" shows that to pre.ich 'that Jesus is the Son of God' was a current way of describing the gospel.

A like result follows from 1 Jn 3" (where ' the Son ol (iod was manifested is a name for what was after- wards called 'the Incarnation '), and 1 .In4"'5''- '"■ " prove cleaily that the confession of .lesus as the Son of Go<l was the cardinal point in the Chris- tian faith. Somewhat more indirectly the same conclusion follows from He 4' lU-"' and Rev 2' (taking up the description of 1"""). The (Jospel of St. tlohn (1"-") identities the Only-begotten with the Logos of God.

674 SON OF GOD SUN OF GOD (6) The titles 'Father' and '5.-n.'— In the Pro- logue to the Fourth Gospel we are in tlie region of Iiigli theology. Uut the fundamental assumptions of the Epistles (Pauline, Petrine, Johannean, Hebrews) are on the same plane. From the first we have in the greetings of such as begin with greetings frenuent reference to the staniliiig cor- relatives ' the Father' and ' the Son.'

There never was a time within the range of this literature when the two correlative terms were not under- stood and accepted as part of the essential voca- bulary of Christianity. When, therefore, we read in Mt 28" the com- mand to baptize in the name of the Father and the Son, this combination is one proved to have been in common use less than 25 years after the command is said to have been given ; and the complete triad is proved to have been recognized very little later.

We repeat that the matured form in which these conceptions are found in tlie earliest Epistles seems to us abundantly to justify not only the few places in which they enter into the Synoptic Gos])els, but, in principle at least, the more numerous [ilaces in which they occur in the Gospel that bears the name of St. John (see below, 3 6 i). Sole on the u3e of -raif $iou. — We must reckon with the possi- bility that rrix7i (fli&y) in Ac 313- 26 4'i7.

30 was intended to be taken in tlie sense of Son.' It certainly has this sense in a number of places in the Apostolic Fathere (see below, III. 1). It is, however, more probable that (as in Sit 12t*) the earlier writers distinctly have in view the 'Servant of Jehovah' of Is 421 etc. Only when the preaching of the gospel left Jewish ground and began to spread! amon'jr peoples ignorant of Heb. were the two senses wholly confaseii.

This process, indeed, was rapid ; and the effect was so far good that it blended with the conception of Christ as 'Son' a quantity of valuable teaching relating to the ' Servant ' which was moj^t truly applicable to Him (tiiough under another name), and which, but for this, might have met with less attention. On the passages iu Acts see esp. an excellent note by Knowling on Ac 31^ ; cf. also what ifl said by the same writer on ' St. Peter's Discourses,' p. 119 ff. 3.

TBE SIGXIFICANCE OF THESE TITLES.— We have now collected most of the data bearing upon our subject. The next step must be to con- sider their significance under the difierent condi- tions in which wc have found the titles used. In other words, we shall have to ask what the}' really meant, in the fulness of their meaning, (<t) for the contemporaries of Jesus, both Jewish and non- Jewish ; (6) for Je.sus Himself ; (c) for the apostles, looking back upon and interpreting them.

(«) For contemporaries, Jewish and non-Jetmsh. — (i.) The populace. — Not much can be extracted from the witness of the demoniacs (Mk 3" || 5' II). If we read into it a higher me.aning than the words conveyed to the mind of the sjiuaker, it could only be by assuming a providenti.-il action outside the working of ordinary laws. TheprophecvofCaiaph.as (Jn 1 !

■'"■'-') is perhaijs sutriciently parallel to justify us in introducing ttiis ; and it is a common belief that, where the human will is most dormant, Divine intluences are felt most readily. But, looked at p.^j'chologic.ally, the confessions of the demoniacs could not mean more than that they believed themselves to be in the presence of the expected Messiah. (ii.) The centurion.

— In spite of the divergent report of the words of the centurion at the cross iu Lk '23", there can be little doubt that the common source of theSj-noptic narrative is rightly reproduced by Mark and Matthew, * Truly this was the Son of God.' As, however, there is no obvious reason why Luke should have altered this, and as there are other details in the historj' of the P.assion for which he appears to have inde- pendent authority, it is po.

ssible that another version of the words may have reached him ; and that version may have as good a chance of being true as that which competes with it. If the words 'Son of God' were really used, the sense attaching to them would depend to some extent on the nationality of the centurion, in regard to which we are in the dark. Probably what was in his luiiid would be an undefined feel- ing of awe, and a consciousness that events were happening that transcended his experience and apprehension.

(iii. ) The rulinfj cla.sses. — The question was directly put to our Lord by the high priest, ' Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed ? ' (Mk W^). And the assenting answer was treated as bias- pliemy. Still, it would not follow that this was taken as an assertion of full Divinity. It prob- ably was taken as a claim to be the Messiah.

But if the Jews in general thought of the Messiah as superhuman indeed, but not strictly Divine, the high priest (unless it were by such an overruling as we have considered above) is not likely to have meant more than this. The claim might well seem so audacious as to amount to blasphemy even without this aggravation (cf. Holtzmann, Neutest. Thcol. 1. 266), more esi)ecially as it in- cludes the prophecy of a second coming as Judge. (iv.) The dijciples.

— The highest point of recog- nition of our Lord's true nature was no doubt reached in St. Peter's confession. We have seen that there is some presumption (the extent of which we would not exaggerate, though it seems to us real) that St. Peter liid actually use the words attributed to him by Matthew. If so, 'the Son of the living God ' would be stronger still than the more common phrase without the epithet.

Not only (as we have suggested) does this at once bring before the mind a whole ma^s of most central OT teaching, but by the very fact of varying from and adding to the current phrase it prepares us for a variation from and addition to the meaning. ' The Son ' is emphatically taken out of the common category of all others who may be described as 'sons.' And, 'the Son of the living God' is as much as to s.ay 'the Son of Jehovah Himself,' the God of Kevelation and Redemption, .

and the expression of His Personal Being. We are on the way to\\ards the iLravyaana TTjs oo^Tjs Kal xapa/CTTjp Tijs uiroaTaffiuis of He 1*. (b) For Je.iiis Himself. — But the question that concerns us most is, of course, What sense did the title and its equivalents bear for Jesus Himself? And here again we shall have to regard the ques- tion from several distinct points of view. We shall do well to look at it, (i.) in the light of our Lord's own filial consciousness; (ii.)

in the light of the external testimony borne to Him by the Father; (iii.) with reference to the two distinct things, Messiahship and Divinity; (iv.) and lastly, with reference to the extent to which the Divine Son- ship is to be carried back behind the Incarnation. (1.) The Jilial con.iriousness of Jexu-t. — We have expressed our reluctance to sjieak too freely of the human consciousness of our Lord (art. JESUS Christ, ii. 603).

But there can be no question that the central constituent in that consciousness was the complete and unclouded sense of the filial relation, evidenced at once by perfect mutu- ality of knowledge between the Son and the Father, and perfect submission and response on the iiart of the Son to the Father's will. On this head it may bo said that critics of all shades are agreed (.see, e.r/., Holtzmann, Neutest. Theol. i. 2SIf., with numerous authorities quoted on p.

282 ; also Harnack, li'hnt is Christianity i p. 127 fl'. ) But, that being so, it is r.ather strange that tht references to this filial relation in the Synoptic Gospels should be so conijiaratively few. It is indeed implied in the many places in which (as we have seen) Jesus speaks of ' My Father ' in a sense peculiar to Himself. But, apart from these, there are but two conspicuous passages in which SON OF GOD SON OF GOD the relation in question is described On tl.

e sule wlrd converse thiwit'l'""* ^"= 1 '^s^"?" ''''' ,■" ■ ^"'"' And on U. de of . J^r^^^i^'^ol^ ^^J:!^ t Zl ^Zr tErSher^nVither aoti. any know : l"tl,". save the Son and he to ^<^^^_ Fatlier who sent Him (Mlv 9^11). In the Synoptic Gospels, with these tew excep tions the filiaf relation is rather felt as an under- gng presupposition of the narrative than direct exnressed in it. But when we turn to the l'"""'. GospeT wl at has been hitherto of the nature o in" de tal con.ment or in.

pHcation ^ecoiue. nut lan^ l"ss than a standing theme, worked out in gicat variety of detail. The Son U come forth from Ood, from th^^Jj?' l^i-lf l,^-; li) ; He is not come of U.msel . t>"t'THe returns to God ind as lie comes '""^ '^X. Fathl?s L^me (6«)Tnot W fia:>180. lie 3 come m the r«»<''^* "„. L.ii,'A8 ,481 17161- fltso\^lin. hut the will of "■"- '^at sent llm, n^ 63J H 1 ) , to.ao that will is t''J..^"l'>~5^;„l»S the "on does not seek H,s whole hcng (i-^)- 'ii°''.

°77i5^so 174); and, as the con- roeak Iron, himself hut "'h-'' '™ "''^„^' "he lif e and cliur- tLse shall he ^1'<, ^J /Ifg' ='-tit1,''a« a «Lle, i^^^^^^^ » i':;rwtt"e« L'l.im (U. 8.S lt't'h":"sorhy 'the^Kat-her iS the »"'U-''~„''^„.'', „,".'•. ,,,„ ,',„„„, „( both DosseasinK and most critical of critics they supplied the real key- note to the whole history. A scient.hc exaiiuna- Uon ol the Gospels, whatever else U brings out, brin.'

sou this, 'that the root-element in the con- sdou^ne-ss of Jesus was a sense of Sonship to the D vinri'-ather, deeper, clearer, more intiniat* more all embracing [ind all-absorbing, than ever was vouchsafed to a child of man (ii.) The tctimomi of </"; ,''' «""^'^; ,-, V,f„ ''"j^ spoken so far of what might be called the sub- ject ve consciousness of Jesus. As nmch at least ^.

^ hts not only follows f™m the logic ot le history but is distinctly revealed to us— in the Svnoptc Gospels sulliciently, in tlie Fourth Gospel aOantlv. But to this sub ective conviction on His part tie narratives tell us that t^iere was also added an objective eonlirination. The conl.rn.a- tion w^s civen in the two voices at the Baptism and Tthe Transfiguration (Mk I" II 9' ID, and also i we take in St? John-by the voice heard at Uie^^t of the Greeks (Jn 1%-).

How are we to pxnlain these utterances? If the narratives are well founded, we are not limite in our explanation by any inquiry as to the current contemporary interpretation of such texts a" Ps 2^ Is 4-i', Dt 18'», however much the v'rds said to 'have been spoken contain rem.nis^ cences of or allusions to t-l><'f,,^^ext3. 1 or Uie hearin" of the voices was what might be caiieu a i^oDlJlic hearing. The probability is, as we h.ave E'dTbive (p.: 572'.), t lat .

J-^, -, third occasion whUe the crowd said, It thundcrea, or 'in angd spake to him,' either in the '>rs ins ance the Baptist, or in the second instance the three apostlefor' perhaps in all tbrce. Jesus Cbnst riimself alone was aware of ^''""^''liing that con veyed a more articulate sense than this. Hut in Iny ca^e the sense thus conveyed -as conveyed to the spiritual ear by a method analogous to that of prophetic inspiration.

Cnirit of And if, on the occasions in question, the Spirit ot God did intimate prophetically t"«l'f f 'X"^-'^ ; more or fewer, a revelation couched partly in the anAa-e of the ancient Scriptures it would by no S^follow that the meaning of the revelation was" mUed to the meaning of those older bcrip- Tures On the contrary, it would be likely enough that the old words would be charged with new eanin^-that, indeed, the revelation contained in them, though linking on to some message of the I ast would yet be in substance a new revelation, 'we have seen that the ancient Scriptures of We have seen tiwi-t li^; u-..

v,.w.v ^-.-i- j.d-rm-ntj. H^J^Yia. 19 171; cf.lJ); or that the Son IS top . j^, j^, appreliending eye and niiml, \:C::^i;f^^fJaf;Pr.-nm..^^ -^;,\,„ JiLginations of , the contem- manl<..,d are invted to comt to the son ^^^^^^ hiih^ri.nJ^m^n^Jc^^^'i^).'^-^^ w^, "-o ^'"'" (fli?. u. a 146). It is open to us, if we will, to think tl.at «i this collection of sayings there is an ^l^"'*:;;^ ~^^ a somewhat considerable «'e"»^nt-that reprtscnls not so nmch what was actually spoken a-s enlargt n.

ent or comment embodying the experience and rcHexion of the growing l-'''"^'^''- ^^ '^"';'^^'t "^1 if we will, to think that the part played by such I, «i,i>iii, ly ,„,.,„,rt nnntidy frcatcr re exion ol ine grown.;; v.i....v... • ,-v-'| , , if ,„i„l,t well content us lo pu.- ."1.^ ^, ^ ••- if we will, to think that the part played by such U lui. ^^^^ .^ ^^ ^,^,^^,1^, ,,„,, ,,« Hayings in the Gospel is l>r';l'"^t'""^.'

;^'y f^m^e ^ JuBti''"' '" supposing-not by way of thkn they wouldhave seemed tobeartoa^nyaveia,^^ ^ a scrtion, but by way of pious belief- n pora iJ oF Ji.;..;. To Jesus Himself it reached [he fnllest dimensions of which it was capable. And we may assume that to His mind the an- nounccni'nt 'Thou art my Son' meant not only aU that'it had ever meant to the "-^t enlightened l;sl:ftl^i;:^'.^ia"i, -^-^- ^/i-Jil^atueontentus^toputintoUie^ords f si,K,;r=-^»f.w t..

/KCT s«fSiFi;iS^iiH:'=i:5'd: be so would be I'erfcctlyconsistent with heGospU ^^ov o ^,,^^^ 4,,^ ,,,„,,,, ,vere intended duction of the events as to fill up gaps and del i- encies in the records of preceding e7"!|« 'f l^.,,/'^,^; when every deduction ,s ma,le he fact rm^^ t:C" "rn^^^uU; norhitherto made known. rVat the Son was Son not on y in the sens VIZ. that tno aou >;«•» ^"" ■ :• .■ , ,,„„,.„ i,„t nf the Messianic King, or of an I.leal 1 eoT le, but ?iat Uieideaof Sonship was f.ilfiUed m l(.

m in a way vet more mysteriolis and yet more essential ; in other words, that He was Son, not merely in when every ucuuctiou .s "'•"';,•■"■'";•,- ertainly propheliccontemplation but in .-.ctual r.^nscenacm 'J:;eraTd^r/on.rsl;:b:tr Ur;r:'inrorthl l U before the foundation of the worlds. 576 SOX OF GOD SON OF GOD (iii.) Are.ixiahjhip rind diviniti/.

—Thifilant possi- bility Urine's ua to the question, •\vhii-li in any case we shall have to face: What exactl)- is the mean- ing of the title ' Sun of (loil ' ? There is no (loul)t that it means the expected Messiah, — that at least. But how much more does it mean than tliat? In particular, does it mean the .Son as incarnate, or does it go behind and beyond the Incarnation ? We reserve the last part of this question for a moment.

In the meantime we must attempt to define rather more exactl}' the relation of the title ' Son of God ' to the conception of the Messiah. In the po]iular mind, at the period with which we are conceini'd, the two things would he simply iden- tical. IJnt, as we so constantly see, our Lord was not content merely to take a popular idea with the conventional stamp upon it.

In His hands the popular idea is nearly always remoulded, renewed, brought into harmony with some fresh ami jiower- ful reality, and reissued with the signature of that reality. He' had done this with the title SON OF Man. For the author of the Similitudes in the Book of Enoch and for those who inherited his tradition, the Son of Man w.as just the Messiah as Judge.

But our Lord went back to the original sources of the title, Dn 7" and Ps S^ ; and He thus brought it into living contact with the conception of Man as Man. In His lips it was the Messiah »s Man, the perfect Man, in tliu sense of being more man — more completely embodying in Himself the essence of all that went to make man, more utterly in touch with everything in man — than any who had ever borne the name of man before. So, too, with the title ' Son of God.'

Its meaning was very far from being exhausted by the holding of a certain office or function, such as that of the Messiah. For Jesus the phrase means the absolute fulness of all that it ouglit to mean — the perfection of Sonship in relation to God ; in a word, just all that sum of relations and habitudes of feeling and thought and action that we have seen so amply set before us in the Gospel of St. John.

It is the pic- ture of a mind lying ojien without flaw or impedi- ment to the stream of Divine love pouring in upon it, and responding to that love at once with exquisite sensitiveness and with entire com|)leteness. It is indeed the very perfection of what we mean by religion and the religious attitude of the soul to God. It thus appears that in the mind of Christ the .Jewish conception of the Messiah parted in two directions — one covering all the relationships of man to m.

an, and the other in like manner covering all the relationships of the perfect Man to (Jod. It parted in these directions, and it was resolvable into the two complementary ideals to which they led. \nd as a matter of fact the life of Christ on earth was the consummate realization of those ideals. [Compare with the above an admirable paragraph in Holtzmann, JVeute.it. Theol. i. 281 f.]

The Jewish title ' Messiah ' had upon it the stamp of something local and temjiorary; and as sucli it has lost much of its interest for the modern «orld. But the two other titles of which we have leen speaking imply what is neither local nor temporary, but as permanent as Humanity itself. It is therefore specialK- under these titles that our Lord most freely revealed Himself.

There is, however, something in the title 'Mes- hiah ' which although present was not quite so prominent in the other two. They convey to us as fully as it could be convcj'eil what Jesus was in Himself. But they do not bring out in the same relief the historical mission that He had in the first instance for His contemporaries and through Ihem for all after-ages. The wonderful birth, the wonderful works, the crucifixion, the resurrection.

and the ascension maj- be viewed as aspects of th» work of the Son of JSlan and of the Son of God,— they are aspects of the work of salv.ation and of the coming forth from and return to the Father, — but as enacted in space and time they might be more ajipropriately described as belonging to the manifestation of the Messiah. Wliat deeper implications are there in the title ' Son of God ' ? Were the 4th cent.

Fathers right in claiming that He who bore this title was not only in the full sense ' Son ' but in the full sense ' God,' — that to be the Son of God implied identity of nature or of essence V We may say with confidence that a Sonship such as is described in the Fourth Gospel would carry with it this conclusion. How could any inferior being either enter so perfectly into the mind of the Father or rellect it so perfectly to man?

Of what created being could it be said, ' He that hath seen me hath seen the Father ' ? We need not stay to pick out other expressions that ailmit of no lower interpretation, because the evangelist has made it clear by his Prologue what construction he himself put upon his own narrative. But, although this conclusion can really be mada good independently of the next and last point that we have to consider, it is to some extent mixed up with it, and it may be well to pass on to this point. (iv.)

Pre-existence. — When we use the title 'Son of God,' how much does it cover ? Is it strictly and properly applied to the incarnate Christ, or does it extend backwards before the Incarnation ? In other words, does it, or does it not, imply pre- existence ? We cannot discuss this question ade- quately without taking in the rest of the NT. ^\'e may, however, provisionally ask what infer- ence would be drawn from the Gospels.

And in regard to these there is no doubt that in the great majority of cases the words would be satisfied by a reference to Christ as incarnate. All the instances in the Synoptic Gospels would come uniler this head. On the other hand, it is equally little oj)en to question that in the Fourth Gospel Christ is conceived as pre-existent. Nothing could be more explicit than the opening verse. Christ as the Lo''Os was in the beginning with God, and was God.

But does this hold good of Him also as the Sim ? That is more debatable. We have to look about somewhat for expressions that are free from ambiguity. Perhaps there are not any. The clearest would be the verse Jn 1" (which belongs to the evangelist), if we could be sure that the common reading is correct : ' the onlj'-begotten Son, which is in the bo.som of the Father,' seems to speak of this jne-existent condition (=irp6s rbr 6ebv of v.') as though it belonged to Him as Son.

l)Ut then we are confronted by the well-known question of reading. It must be enough to refer to the elaborate note in WH, and to Dr. Hort's dissertation (INTO), with which the present writer, so far as his judgment goes, would express his agreement. But the reading would then be not ' the only-begotten Scm,' but ' God only-begotten.' Places like 3"- [u.^]^', which are unambiguous ^.s to lire-existence, do not clearly connect it with ' the Son.'

Indeed the first of these introduces some- what unexpectedly not the ' Son of God,' but the ' Son of Man,' who must be the Son incarnate.

At tlie same time the terms ' Father ' and ' Son ' are so correlative that the frequent occurrence of such phrases as ' My Father which sent me,' ' Not any man hath seen the Father save he which is from (Jod,* ' I speak the things which I have seen with my Father,' would seem to suggest that the relation of Father and Son existed before the Son became incarnate.

At any rate the great emiihasis on the two terms would seem to show that the relition to SON OF GOD SOX OF GOD 577 wliicli they point is not a passing phase, but some- thing that goes deep don'n into the essence of being. Or perhaps the case might be stated thus. The burden of proof really seems to lie with those who would refuse to associate the idea of pre-existence with that of Sjnship.

The many examples in which the term ' Son ' is used without any such implication go but a very slight way to exclude it where it is really suggested. In the case of St. John there is a clear presumption that it is so suggested ; whUe in the Synoptic Gospels it is prob- able that the writers had nut rcHected upon the subject at all, and did but reproduce a portion of our Lord s teaching upon it.

The decision as to how far the Johannean presentation is to be accented will depend upon the general estimate of tlie Fourth Gospel as a historical authority. To the pre.-ient writer it seems in this instance, as in so many others, just to supply what the other Gospels lead us to the verge of without directly supplying. (c) For the apostles.

— We have seen that the apostolic writers freely make use of the title 'Son of God' as a formula to express their Chris- tian faith, or, as we may say in other words, in order to bring out their belief in the Divine side of the nature of Christ. What tliey meant would be very similar to the well-known exordium of the Secona (so-called) Epistle of Clement : ' Brethren, we ought so to think of Jesus Christ as of God (lit xcpi GeoD), as of the Judge of quick and dead.'

The phrase, in each case, is vague ; to define it more exactly will be the work of centuries ; but the frame or mould has been provided by which the work of those centuries is to be circumscribed. The principal question that meets us is the same as that with which we have just been dealing in regard to the Gospels. Does the term ' Son of God,' as used by the apostles, contain any implica- tion of pre-existence, or is it limited to Christ as incarnate ? Here again by far the greater number of p.

issages are ambiguous; if they do not sugge.^-t preixi^teiice and pre-existeut relations, they also do not exclude them. There are, however, two passages that bear upon the ouestion more directly. One is tlie opening of the £p. to the Hebrews : ' God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets . .

hath at the end of these days spoken unto ua in his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds ; who being the etl'ulgence of his glorj', and the very image of his substance, and upholdmg all things liy the word of his power, when he had made purilication of sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.' Two ways of taking this passage are possible.

On the one hand, if we argue strictly, it may be urged that there is but one principal clause in the sentence, to which all the otlier subordinate and relative clauses are referred. This principal clause speaks of the Son [of God]. It would tlierefore follow that all the relative clauses point back to Uim as Son. That is to say, that as Son Ho made tlie worlds'; as Son He is the elViilgence of the Divine glory, the image of the Divine sub- stance ; as Son He upheld and upholds all things.

That would carry luick the Sonship to tlie time before creation, and would make it an attribute pertaining to the essence of Christ's Godhead. But, on the other hand, it may be questioned whether we ou''ht in this case to argue strictly. Because the relative clauses refer to the Son, it does not quite necessarily follow that they refer to Uim as Son. It may be urged that the main contrast in the passage is between the previous revelations through the prophets and the final VOL. IV.

— 17 revelation through the Son, i.e. the incarnate Son, and that this contrast dominates the whole pas- sage, many parts of which do indeed point to the Son as incarnate (' whom he appointed heir of all things,' 'when he made purification of sins,' 'sat down at the right hand ').

The other clauses, which imply pre-existence, would then be referred to the Son not strictly as such, but by a slight and quite natural laxity of language to Him who [afterwards, in ^^ew of His incarnation] came to be specially called ' Son.' This second way of taking the passage is not really stretched beyond what is common enough in language, though the first would be more accurate. The other passage is Col 1'"'- " ' the Son of his love . .

who is the image (eiiriii') of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation' [wpoir&TOKO! Trdar/t Krlaeut). Now, it is true that in biblical usage the leading idea in jrpti)T6ro\os is that of the le"al rights of the firstborn, his precedence over all who are bom after him (cf. Ko S^). But in a context like this, in view of the defining genitive Trdatji KTlacus, it seems wrong to exclude the idea of priority as well {irpi jrdtrTjs xriaeui yevvriSds, Tlieodrt.

; otherwise Haupt, Gefanrjenschn/tsbriefe, p. 27). There is not a direct allusion to Ps SO""', though it is very possible that the Messianic application of that verse led by several steps to the use of the term here. It brings in another cycle of expressions which help to carry back the conception of sonship from the hi.storic to the pre- historic stage. See, further, Lightfoot, Col. ad loc.

Ro 8', where the Son does not become the Son by being sent, but is already ' God's own Son ' (emphatic) before He is sent, tends the same way. In the Epp. of St. John there is nothing quite conclusive. We are really at tlie same level as in the Gospel. But, as there, the absolute use of ' the Father ' and ' the Son ' and of ' God the Father ' (1 Ju 2~-« 4" 5'^ 2 Jn »••'• », cf. 1 P l^, Jude') sug- gests a conception of Sonship which dates bacK behind the historic iiiaiiifestation.

On Jn I" set above. 2iote on the origin of the Christian use of the title ' Son of God.' — In his able and interesting but far too confident and sweeping book, Die AnfUiu)e unaerer licliifion (Tiibingen u. Leipzig, 1901), p. i95, Prof. Wernle of Basel commits himself to the proposition that ' from the OT and from Rabbinimn there ia no road that leads to the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ.'

He allows that the title 'Son of God' is strictly Jewish, but he appears to think that the further step 'Son of God = God' was taken upon Gentile ground, through the lax ideas brought in by the converts from paganism, and their readiness to admit new divinities to the Pantheon. Against this, indeed, ought rightly to be set the fact that the Iirst lesson that they leamt on coming over to Christianity was the great lesson that God is One.

But it was not really left to the Gentile Christians to crown an edifice that was incomplete without them. Wernle himself evidently feels that St. Paul had already gone far by identifying Christ with the ' Lord ' of OT. He isohliged further to say that in his Christology St. Paul is not really a Jew, and to set down this side of his teaching to a supposed ' mytho- logical tendency ' which he himself is unable to an;ount for.

it is one of the ground fallacies of Wenile's book to attribute far too much to the initiative of St. Paul. It the deiflcption of Christ had been really due to him, and if in carrying it out be had been acting in opposition to the sense of the Christian community, we should most certainly have hoard of it. But it is quite beyond question thatChrist iliinself was accused before the Sanhedrin of an extreme form of blaijphemy, and that it was upon that charge that He was condemned (Mk I4"'i-'J^1).

In the Fourth Gospel we are expressly tolil that the Jews rtganled the claim of Christ as 'making himself equal with Qcri' (Jn 61**). It is, however, another of Wenile's ground fallacies to treat especially the Jewish element in this Gospel with great one-sidedness (see SynopU Frage, p. 255, a real blot upon on otherwise excellent book). The only at all coiiteinpomry attempt known to the present writer to distin^aiish radically between vlir Guu and 6wf ia in Clem, Ilotru xvu 15, 10 (cf. x. 10).

It is characteristic of the teaching of that curiously isolated production. At a later date the distinction became the main fulcrum of Arianism. III. The Early Ciiukch.— We might sum up at the point we have reached ; but it seems better to pass on a few steps beyond the close of NT. which is not a real break. 578 SON OF GOD SON OF GOD 1. Thr, sub-Apostolic Fathers. — In the sub-Apos- tolic writings we find a state of tilings very similar to that which we have just left behind.

There is no doubt a certain amount of usage in which the term ' Son ' may be appropriately explained of the Incarnate. Such would be, e.g., Ignatius, Smyrn. i. 1, 'per- suaded as touching our Lord that he is truly of the race of David according to the flesli, but Son of God by the Divine will and imwer, truly born of a virgin.' This is clearly modelled on Ro l* (.similarly Barn. v. 9, 11).

But even in this writer there are instances where a less restricted sense would seem to be intended, as in the Trinitarian passage, Magn. xiii. 1, 'that ye may prosper in all things ... in the Son and rather and in the Spirit' (iv vlf kclI irarpl Kal iv TTvevixaTi) ; and in Kom. inscr., '[the Cliurch] which I also salute in tlie name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father' (vlou rarods).

We seem to have here the absolute use of ' Father ' and ' Son ' as correlative to each other, without refer- ence to the Incarnation. Cf. Magn. vi. 1, 'Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before the worlds and ajipeared at the end of time ' ; if the Father- hood is i>re-niundane, the Sonship must also be pre-mundane. All ambiguity is removed in Bam. vi.

12, where we have the first express reference of the plural in Gn 1-' to ' the Son,' ' For the scripture saith con- cerning us, how he saith to the Son : Let us make,' etc. (cf. V. 5). The strange reading 'Son of God,' foisted into the free quotation of Ex 17'* in Barn. xii. 9, can hardly be adduced, because Joshua is regarded as a type by anticipation of the In- jarnate. Another quite clear passage is Herm. Sim. ix. 12.

2, where the Son of God, co nomine, is described as 'anterior to all creation, so that he became the Father's ad\-iser in his creation ' (6 /lif vl&s toS 6eoO TrdtTT/s r^s KTiVews aiVoD Trpoyey^^yrepds itTTiv, k.t.X.) This evidently takes up the irpuTuTOKos TrdtrTjs Krlaeus of Col 1'^, as.suiuing the doctrine if not actually referring to the words. Of the group of passages in Patr. Apost. where rah is certainly used in the sense of ' Son,' one at least. En. Diogn. viii.

9-11, refers unequivocally to the pre-Incarnate, ' having conceived a great and unalterable scheme, he communicated it to his Son alone ' (dye/coii'unTaTO fi6ycp ti^ ttcllSI). The state of the case appears to be, that while in Patr. Apost. the title is still predominantly referred to the in- carnate state, the writers have no sense of being confined to this, and are quite prepared to go be- yond it.

When we come to Justin all distinction is ob- literated, and tlie Son is frankly identified with the Logos ; Apol. ii. 6, ' But to the Father of all, who is uiibegotten, there is no name given. . And his Son, who alone is i)roperly called Son, the Word, who also was with him and was begotten before the works, when at first he created and arranged all things by him,' etc. (6 Si Mi iKdvov, 6 fi6vos Xeyifxevos Kvpiuji vlos, i X6yo^ irpd tuiv woitj- IiAtuv Kal (Twuv Kal y(vvwfifvo%, k.t.X.)

Here we not only have ' Son ' and ' Word ' used as convertible, but a special stress is laid on the idea of ' genera- tion ' as involved in 'Sonship,' which a little later in Origen took shape in the doctrine of the Eternal Generation (de Princ. I. ii. 4, 9). Before this, in Ignat. Eph. vii. 2, both words yefi'iiTds and d7^i'i'i;Tov (v. I. yevip-is and ayivrp-os) had been applied to Christ, but with quite untechnical freedom (cf. Lightfoot, ad lor., and ii.

90-94; also Kobertson, Athnnasius, pp. 149, 475 n.) The passage of Justin is very important as a landmark. Prom that time forwards what might be called the metaphysical treatment of the title ' Son ' becomes more and more common until it reaches its climax in the writers of tiie 4tli century. Xote on the meaning of 'Son' in the Apostteg' Creed.

— There arose in Gemmny in the years 1892-1894 a rather sharp discussion about the Apostles' Creed, begun by Harnack and taken up by Zahn, Kattenbusch, Cremer, and others. This also Eroduced in England an admirable little volume of lectures by T. Swete {The Apostles' Creed, Cambridge, 1S91), which gives a concise account of most of the points at issue. Among these was the question as to the interpretation of the term ' Son ' in the Creed, which Harnack wi.

shed to limit to the historic, aa contrasted with the prehistoric, Sonship. Dr. Swet« perhaps (p. :i6ff.) a little overstates both Harnack's contention and the strength of the arguments against it. And yet that contention is really too sweeping, though the point made by Kattenbusch in his recently completed larger work {Das Apost. Symbol, ii. 566f.), that the clause tov yiwyiDivra ix wvvjfz. ay. X. Mitp.x! Tx! vetpQ. shows that the historic yutxris was in the author's mind, appears to be valid.

It is true that the first interest in thia paragraph of the Creed is in historical facts. But at the same time, as Kattenbusch also verj' rightly observes, there is no antithesis to the Christology of Pre-e.\istence. The question is not really raised ; and yet, as we might perhaps put it, the conception of Sonship is le.ft open on that side.

We are re- minded that the Creed is in its origin Western and not Oriental, And for Western thought more especially, the denial of a purely natural birth may be taken to imply pre-existence. It should be added that recent research places the origin of the Creed with confidence in the first lialf of the 2nd cent., and many would say in the first quarter ; so that it would be strictly parallel to the .Apostolic Fathers. 2. Marcelliis of Anci/ra.

— One episode in the controversies of the 4th cent, has a not incon- siderable rellex bearing on the interpretation of NT. Marcellus of Ancyra was one of the keenest supporters of Nicene doctrine. lie seems, how- ever, to have asserted it on dillerent grounds from those commonly brouglit forward. The position he took up was in the first instance biblical. We have seen that the Arians exploited in their own interest the title 'Son.'

They inferred from it the posteriority and inferiority of Him by whom it was borne. Marcellus appears to have met them by sa3'ing that the use which they made of the title was unwarranted and indeed altogether wide of the mark. According to him, the title ' Son ' had no reference to origin or to the pre- existent relation of Christ to the Father. The proper term to denote this relation was in his view not 'Son,' but 'Logos.'

It appears to be a mis- take to say that he denied the ' Trinity ' or the distinct hypostatic existence of the Logos, though some of his speculations were not quite easily reconcilable with this. But his main contention was that ' Logos' was the proper name of the pre- Incamate and 'Son' of the Incarnate, and that the biblical writers observed this distinction, the only apparent exception being cases in which the title ' Son ' was used ' prophetically.'

Eusebius of Ca^sarea, who replied to liim, marshals an impos- ing array of no fewer than thirty separate desig- nations which he maintains to have been also used of the Son before the Incarnation ; but they are nearly all wide of the mark, and it must be con- fessed that on this ground the victory rests rather with his opponent (see Euseb. de Eccl. Theol. i. 17-20, Migne, Pat. Gr. xxiv. 856-896 ; and on the wliole controver.sy, esp.

the monograph by Zahn, Marcellus von Ann/ra, Gotha, 1867 ; and Moberly, Atonement and Personality (London, 1901, pp. 208-215). Conclusion. — From what has been said, it will be seen that the assertion of Marcellus in regard to the biblical usage was really very much in the right direction, though — as is so often the case with the ancients, when they have got hold of a riglit principle in criticism or exegesis — it is rather too sweeping and unqualified.

As compared with Marcellus and the modem revivers ot his opinion, our own conclusion from the evidence passed in review would be, that while it is undoubtedly true that the biblical writers and the other early Christian -WTiters before Justin, SOX OF MAX SOX OF MAN 579 start from the Incarnation and are thinking prinia/ily of this, tlieir tliought does not neces- sarily end with it. It seems to point liaikwards into tlie dim past beliind it.

Certainly there is no sharp line of demarcation restricting the meaning of the title to the incarnate state and no other. The writers are so far from guardin;; themselves against any reference beyond the Incarnation that they seem rather naturally to suggest it. The Son is so called primarily as incarnate. But that which is the essence of the Incarnation must needs be also larger than tlie Incarnation. It must needs have its roots in the eternity of Godhead. [See esp.

a very instructive and carefully balanced discussion in Moberly, Atonement and Person- ality,-p^. 18511., 211-215]. LmnLATURE. — The most important literatiire will have been sufficiently indicated in the couree of the article. The worka to which the writer himself owes most are Dalnian's Worte Jestt (Leipzig, 1898), and H. J. Holtziuann's Seute^t. Theotogie (Frei- burg I. B. u. Leiiizip, 1897).

To these should now be added Haruack's Das II e^en des Chrigtentums (admirably translated under the title What i« Chrittianity 1 London, 1901), which has a very sugcestive treatment of the subject, thoutjh too im- patient of formulated doctrine ; and the portion of Moberly, Atonement and Personality, just referred to. Younger students should not fail to have recourse to Dr. Swete's Ajiostls^ Creed (Cambridge, lt94). W. SANDAY.