I haven't felt well for the past couple of days. I would call it a malaise of some sort, but that's too generic. In fact, I'm tired -- all the way down to my bones.Which means I've had no strength to focus on telly. I tried reading last night, but that didn't work either. So tonight I decided I'd flip through a couple of books in my new, developing collection, when I chose Athanasius' De Incarnatione.
And I happened upon this line as my eyes skimmed the text: "The angels served [the Son] as one who is other than them".
Those of us who care about historical theology know that the textbooks -- at least until the latter part of the twentieth century -- said that Athanasius "won" because his "high christology" beat out Arius' "low christology". But if we take that line seriously, there's a problem -- and it's a problem that scholars since the latter part of the last century have insisted upon: The stature of the Son was not the heart of the question. As Athanasius points out, scripture does not depict the Son as more illustrious than other creatures. Divinity is not measured in greatness. The angels worship the Son, Athanasius observes, but not because he is greater than them. If all that was required to be eligible as an object of worship was greatness, then we would all be free to worship other creatures instead of God. But Cornelius is told not to worship Peter, and John is told not to worship the angel. The Son is worshipped "not as one who is greater in glory, but as being other ... than all creatures".
Reading through some of the other paragraphs of De Incarnatione, I notice a scheme that quickly develops. Athanasius doesn't lift up the Son. Instead, Athanasius is amazed to have discovered humility in God. In De Incarnatione, he addresses those who wonder why the Son should come as a human instead of one of the "other more noble parts of creation ... as the sun or moon or stars or fire or air?" Because, he suggests, the Lord did not come to "be put on display but to heal ... One being put on display only needs to appear and dazzle the beholders; but one who heals and teaches does not simply sojourn, but is of service to those in need".
All of this makes me wonder whether the "high" and "low" christology stuff that I learnt at school is even right. Maybe "high" christology isn't all that great a measure for orthodoxy.
If we think, for example, that "high" christology is lifting Christ up to worship, then Apollinarius has a high christology. But Apollinarius is still a heretic -- last I checked.
If we're tempted to think that there can be some negotiated compromise between the two, we need only remember poor old Eutyches, and his fateful mediating ousia. The language can be retained only if they cease to be poles on a continuum. A faithful christology is simultaneously "high" and "low" -- a theology of the high made low for our sake. That's Paul in Philippians 2, after all.
The Son is not merely greater than us, but is entirely different to us. The good news of the Gospel is that he becomes one of us. Salvation rests in the blessed union of difference and solidarity in the person of Christ. That's Hebrews in a nut shell.
So I'm thinking, on a Thursday night, that there really is more to these Church Fathers than I've ever even dreamt of fathoming.