Primitive Christian Soteriological Themes

Abstract

WHAT FOLLOWS is a working hypothesis, a provisional synthesis. It is not difficult to test the elements of such a hypothesis and to come to judicious conclusions as to the strengths and weaknesses of a proposed synthesis; the author would take it as a great kindness if shortcomings were called to his attention. But some such synthesis as this is desirable in the current state of theological discussion, and it may not be too early to try. After a long period in which questions of basic soteriologe received little attention, perhaps because it was assumed that we knew all that was necessary, theologians are showing a renewed interest in talking not only about how we may appropriate salvation but also what this salvation is which we are offered. Robert Gregg and Dennis Groh, in their recent book on early Arianism, have gone a step beyond the usual pro forma acknowledgment that questions of Christology reflect and depend upon questions of soteriology. They attempt to portray the soteriologies which they think were at stake in the Arian controversy and to show how they gave rise to the theological constructions of reality which characterize the main antagonists' thought. In this article their attempt is not at issue; but both their project and the problems attendant on any critical evaluation of it point up the shortcomings in our map of early Christian soteriological ideas. Edward Schillebeeckx offers us a list of key concepts in New Testament soteriology, but the word-study approach to biblical theology has weaknesses, and the list is so long that it gives only limited help in clarifying what salvation was thought to be. James Mackey has taken a bolder tack in his identification of the experience of the Spirit and the kingdom of God, first in Jesus himself and then, by a sort of contagion, in the disciples. Mackey is certainly onto something important, but liberation theologians and others could reasonably feel that his simplification has obscured or omitted essential themes of salvation which are found not only in the