The son of God in the Roman world: divine sonship in its social and political context

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Michael Peppard's engaging book is a focused, extensively researched study a title that has played a major role in development Christology. Scripture refers to Jesus as both and Man, but Peppard notes that latter descriptor has received more attention than former. For many Christians, Jesus' role as God's Son seems obvious. Orthodox doctrine teaches that he is uniquely begotten by and of one substance with God Father--part triune deity. But, as Peppard points out, these beliefs, which many Christians now take for granted and affirm in creeds, were outcome over three centuries debate, disagreement, and dissent. He claims that scholarship on divine sonship in New Testament has relied anachronistically on philosophical and theological categories fourth century, especially key distinction, begotten, not made (4). Peppard reasonably questions wisdom imposing fourth-century meanings on first-century terms and proposes instead that we try to understand what first Christians might have been thinking when they called Jesus God?Peppard believes that early Christians were inspired more by soteriology than philosophy. That is, for them Jesus' power to save testified to his sonship. But by fourth century, increasing theological reliance on Greek thought encouraged Christians to trace this power to nature his sonship. Influenced by Platonic distinction between a realm eternal ideals and a less real world approximations, they posited a gulf between absolute Creator and His creatures. This raised issue where Jesus belongs, and Nicene orthodoxy chose to stress his likeness to God. Jesus was not one God's creatures; the Son is , he did not become (11).Peppard suggests that Christians initially saw Jesus as God's son because they believed he had power to make other sons for God. He was heir to a divine estate, a legacy that he generously offered to share with others. The Roman world offered these Christians a powerful for expressing this faith: the metaphor 'son God' (3). The title and concept were familiar to Christians from both Hebrew and pagan sources.Jesus and Octavian Augustus, founder Rome's first imperial dynasty, were contemporaries. Octavian ended a century-long civil war by establishing an empire behind facade Rome's Republic. The role he chose to play in new system was traditional: a paterfamilias presiding over a familia . Unlike a modern family, Latin familia could be a very large organization people bound by blood and various kinds economic and political dependence. …