Johannine Christology and the Early Church

Download or read book Johannine Christology and the Early Church written by T. E. Pollard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-08-22 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor Pollard attempts to show how the early Church interpreted the Gospel of John and its witness to the person of Christ. The two paradoxes implicit in John's theology - the distinction between the Father and the Son in the unity of the Godhead, and the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ - were developed in varying ways and the resultant heresies arose from attempts to deny one element or the other in each paradox. In their refutation of the heresies, on the other hand, the Fathers struggled to keep both elements of the paradoxes in equipoise. The different traditions came into conflict in the controversy which raged around the figure of Arius and his supporters in the fourth century, of which the climax came in the debate about the views of Marcellus of Ancyra.