Early Christians struggled to define the nature of Jesus from "summary" of A History of God by Karen Armstrong
In the first centuries of the Common Era, Christians found themselves grappling with a theological dilemma that would eventually lead to bitter disputes and schisms within the Church. At the heart of the matter was the nature of Jesus Christ: was he divine, human, or both? The early Christians had inherited a rich tradition of Jewish monotheism, which taught that there was only one God, and any suggestion of a divine man was deeply troubling.
As the followers of Jesus reflected on his life and teachings, they began to see him not just as a prophet or a teacher, but as the very incarnation of God. This radical idea posed a challenge to their traditional understanding of monotheism, and they struggled to find a way to reconcile the two. Some believed that Jesus was a purely divine being who only appeared to be human, while others insisted that he was fully human as well as fully divine.
This debate came to a head in the fourth century, when the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and called the first ecumenical council at Nicea in 325 CE. The bishops who gathered there sought to define once and for all the nature of Jesus, and they formulated the Nicene Creed, which declared that Jesus was "begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father." This formula was meant to affirm both Jesus's divinity and his humanity, but it did little to resolve the underlying tensions.
Subsequent councils and debates would continue to wrestle with the question of Jesus's nature, leading to further divisions and controversies within the Church. The Arian heresy, which denied the full divinity of Jesus, would persist for centuries, while other groups such as the Nestorians and the Monophysites would offer their own interpretations of Christ's nature.
In the end, the struggle to define the nature of Jesus would shape the development of Christian theology for centuries to come, laying the foundation for the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The early Christians may have grappled with this question in their own time, but their debates continue to resonate in the beliefs and practices of Christians today.
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