Jesus After the Gospels: The Christ of the Second Century

by Robert M. Grant

This study first examines the New Testament origins of second-century the humanity of Christ in biblical Christology, including the infancy narratives and the divinity of Christ. The book then deals with Gnostic Christologies of the early second century, interprets the christological thinking of the apostolic fathers and Justin Martyr, discusses the Jewish Christian Christology of Theophilus, shows how disagreements were dealt within developing concepts of orthodoxy versus heresy, and explores how Irenaeus's Christology was worked out as a basis for molding an orthodox consensus. The book shows early attempts to synthesize diverse strands in the Gospel portraits of Jesus.

134 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1990

About the author

Robert McQueen Grant was an American academic theologian and professor.


There are more authors with this name in this data base. This one is Robert M.^^Grant. For the strategic management expert go to Robert M. Grant.

Reviews

[Adam Carnehl · Rating 2 out of 5]

A brief overview of 2nd century Christologies from Ignatius and Clement to Irenaeus, "Jesus after the Gospels" (1989) now reads as a surprisingly dated and surface-level work (no offence to the late Professor Robert Grant). Grant begins this work (which began as a Hale lecture at the no longer extent Seabury Seminary in Evanston) with an analysis of the Christology of the New Testament, specifically looking at the humanity and divinity of Christ. A lot has changed in the 30 years since this book was written, especially due to the work of scholars like Larry Hurtado, Martin Hengel, Peter Stuhlmacher, Richard Baukham, John Behr and many others. The Gospels emerged to preserve the Apostolic Tradition and to allow the Church to pass this Tradition. Grant posits (without any proof) that Luke has a low Christology with no doctrine of the atonement; this was a popular view in the 20th century and has since been mostly overthrown. Overall, in the 20th century, few scholars (except for Danielou? Hebert? Cullmann?) recognized that the New Testament has many more connections with the world of the Apostolic Fathers and Apologists. There was not some massive divide between the deaths of the Apostles and the rise of the theologians in the 100s! People like Grant in the 1980s still kept NT exegetical scholarship in its own pen with Patristics in its own pen. Nowadays scholars are more ready to say, yes, Irenaeus and Justin and the others do "get" Paul.

Where this book is helpful is, I think, in Grant's sweeping overview of the difference between the Apologists' Christology and the Gnostics' Christology. In this, Grant did pave the way for 21st century scholarship which now sees such a wide divide between Gnostic texts and New Testament texts, whereas in the 70s and 80s, many more popular scholars were arguing that the division was arbitrary or due to ancient episcopal power.

I disagree with Grant at numerous other points, especially in his dismissive opinion of Irenaeus's doctrine of recapitulation as being "idiosyncratic" and "original" with him. I highly doubt that; I see Justin (going back to Luke the Evangelist and Paul in Ephesians 1) as passing on the recapitulation teaching without using the terms Irenaeus prefers. Justin (and Luke and Paul) use Adamic themes and types to signify Christ's human-divine work on behalf of all humanity.

More work needs to be done on the themes of "knowledge" and "teaching" in these 2nd century Christologies. Grant is rather over-simplistic when he bemoans the fact that he sees these ancient theologians writing of Christ's work as "exemplary" rather than as "efficacious," as if it can't be both at the same time (due to participation).

I do appreciate that Grant draws attention to that fascinating detail in Irenaeus where he passes on what Jewish-Christians had told him about Genesis 1:1, that the Hebrew (understanding "bar," that is, "a son," for the "ber-" in "bereshith," that is, "beginning") sounds like, "In the beginning God established a Son."

This book has been superseded by many superior works of scholarship in the 21st century, but it does give a helpful overview of Gnostic Christologies and the work of Theophilus of Antioch. However, it leaves much to be desired in its analysis of Justin and Irenaeus, and its overall thesis.