New Testament Christology, Athanasian Apologetic, and Pagan Polemic

Abstract

In the absence of full-scale credal formulae, New Testament authors wrote of Christ the god-man utilizing language applied to God in the Old Testament. In the effort to emphasize the divinity and uniqueness of Christ, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews utilized three terms: καθαρός (10:22), δημιουργός (11:10), and δυνατός (11:19), all part of an extended passage treating God’s sacrifice and man’s resulting salvation. This theme and language crops up again in Athanasius of Alexandria, employed to defend and explain the incarnation of Christ, and then once more in Julian the Apostate, employed to appropriate characteristics of Christ for his pagan Christ-parallel of Heracles.