That is a very good question. But I believe it can be answered. If Jesus never claimed divinity, than the Gospels never would have been accepted as inspired.
Obviously they weren’t by many people. (And only the Gospel of John makes an explicit claim of divinity–even that doesn’t say quite what the Nicene dogma says, but it’s the closest.)
Followers of Christ would have thought them to be heretical. But they didn’t. They accepted and even revered the texts.
Those Christians whose version of Christianity we have inherited did so, true. But it’s clear from the NT and even more so from the second-century sources that there were a lot of dissenting voices. Why do you think the NT is full of references to “false teachers”?
I find it inconceivable that in the span of only a few decades between the resurrection and the writing of the gospels, the “novel” idea of Christ’s divinity could have been introduced without producing any outrage or internal strife in the Christian community.
But there’s every evidence that there was plenty of internal strife.
Had the Gospels ascribed to Christ profound teachings He never taught, His followers would have raised their voices in opposition.
Many would say (I’m not among them, but it can’t be simply disproved historically) that Christ’s most faithful followers were those labeled “Ebionites,” whom we know by the witness of early Christians
did deny Jesus’ divinity. The Epistle of James is entirely consistent with such a position.
But that didn’t happen. There are writings going all the way back to the very beginning of the second century in which Christian leaders (such as Ignatius of Antioch) are speaking of Christ’s divinity (in a non-apologetical manner).
Right. In Ignatius’s context the Ebionites don’t seem to be the major threat–the Docetists were. For many early Christians (put “Christians” in scare quotes if you like) it was Jesus’ humanity, not His divinity, that was a problem. But that could be taken as evidence simply of how attractive the idea of an incarnate deity was in that culture (in other words, from an Ebionite point of view the emerging “orthodox” and the “Gnostics” would seem to be two degrees of the same basic error–introducing a Gentile concept of incarnate deity into Biblical religion and thus corrupting it).
Take for example the following quote from Ignatius of Antioch in 110 AD: “[T]o the Church beloved and enlightened after the love of Jesus Christ, our God, by the will of him that has willed everything which is” (Letter to the Romans 1). This text is fairly standard. Ignatius invokes a common expression “Our God” and applies it to Christ, without feeling the need to include apologetical materials to support the claim that Christ is divine. It was written instead in a manner that makes it clear that the view expressed was consistent with accepted teaching.
I am not convinced by that argument. I don’t think anything Ignatius says can be taken as uncontested. The letters are argumentative through and through, and even when he simply asserts, he may be asserting in order to underline a controversial point that distinguishes his community from others that claim to be Christian.
Your entire post ignores the existence of the Ebionites, which is an incontrovertible historical fact.
It’s certainly true that they never seem to have had much appeal in the Gentile world. But there are cultural explanations for this.
Please bear in mind that I’m playing devil’s advocate in order to make the point that the evidence is inconclusive. I don’t think that the Ebionites were the best interpreters of who Jesus was. But the argument that Christianity as we know it is an essentially Gentile construction is a serious one that has to be dealt with, not simply ignored or dismissed.
Edwin
