One of the classic, and seemingly never-ending, debates among New Testament scholars is whether Jesus’s earliest followers viewed him as fully divine, and (perhaps more importantly), whether Jesus viewed himself as fully divine. Some scholars say yes to both, some say no to both, and some are mixed.
In fact, I will be speaking on the subject of early Christology at The Gospel Coalition’s National Conference on April 23. My friend Scott Swain and I are tag-teaming the breakout session for Reformed Theological Seminary. He is speaking on the Names of God in the OT, and I am speaking on “Is Jesus the God of the Bible? High Christology in Early Christianity.”
As the title of my talk indicates, I will be arguing for “High Christology” in the earliest layers of the Christian movement. While there are many disputes and complications regarding what counts as “high,” I will essentially be arguing that Jesus was viewed as sharing the same divine identity as the God of the Old Testament.
But there is an important clarification that needs to be made in these discussions, and not all arguments for high Christology make it. That clarification is that not all high Christology is necessarily orthodox Christology.
As strange as it sounds, a person can believe that Jesus is fully divine and still be a heretic. Indeed, a number of early Christians went down exactly this path.
The Gospel of Peter
To illustrate this scenario, we turn our attention to the Gospel of Peter. During the winter season dig of 1886-1887, at Akhmim in Upper Egypt, archaeologists uncovered our first manuscript of this lost Gospel, P.Cairo 10759. This manuscript, dubbed the Akhmim fragment, was a rather small codex (13 x 16 cm) containing portions of what we now call the Gospel of Peter, along with the Apocalypse of Peter, portions of 1 Enoch, and the martyrdom of St. Julian.
While the Gospel of Peter was probably written in the second century (and thus could not have been written by the apostle Peter), this codex has been dated to the seventh or eighth century and still constitutes our only meaningful access to the Greek text of the Gospel of Peter. We do have early fragments that may be connected to this Gospel—P.Oxy. 2949 and P.Oxy. 4009—however, the textual connections are just too limited to be sure.
The Gospel of Peter offers of a rather vivid and detailed account of Jesus’s trial, death, and resurrection. The crucifixion account shares many similarities with the canonical accounts—e.g., Jesus is crucified between two thieves, one of which defends him, the offering of wine and vinegar to drink, and darkness cover all the land.
But the crucifixion account differs in a number of places, most notably in Jesus’s final cry from the cross. Rather than the cry of dereliction, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?,” the Gospel of Peter has Jesus declaring, “My power, O power, you have left me!”
When the story transitions to the resurrection of Jesus, there are even more differences. Unlike the canonical Gospels where eyewitnesses arrive only after Jesus has already risen and departed, the onlookers in the Gospel of Peter get to watch the resurrection happen firsthand. Yet, when Jesus emerges from the tomb he is flanked by two angels whose heads were as high as the heavens and Jesus is described as being even taller than the angels with his head surpassing the heavenly places.
Needless to say, these sorts of descriptions have occasioned much discussion and debate. In particular, the focus has largely been on Peter’s Christology. What kind of Jesus does the author have in view here? What do we make of these strange and enigmatic changes to the canonical narrative?
Historically, scholars have argued that the Gospel of Peter has a form of Christology called Docetism. And it’s to that issue we now turn.
What is Docetism?
Docetism is not easy to define. Generally speaking, it is a reference to the belief that Jesus was never really or fully human (Docetism comes the Greek word dokeo which means “to seem” or “to appear”). Such an approach appears to be driven by concerns over how Jesus could be divine and yet still suffer pain or death.
Nailing down the definition is complicated by a couple of additional factors. First, most of what we learn about Docetism comes from the mouths of the orthodox and it was one of those charges that got thrown around a bit indiscriminately and without much precision.
Second, it seems there were different versions of Docetism. In some versions Jesus was more like a phantasm, only appearing to be human. In other versions, Jesus was really a human but simply had the divine Christ descend upon him at his baptism and leave before his crucifixion. This latter version would be similar to what is known as “adoptionistic” Christology.
Is the Gospel of Peter Docetic?
When the manuscript of the Gospel of Peter was first discovered, most scholars regarded it as having a form of Docetism. But in recent years, the pendulum has swung in the other direction. A number of scholars have argued that the Gospel of Peter can be understood in different (and they would argue better) ways that don’t entail a docetic Christology.
The debate is too big to resolve in this single article. I do think that recent scholarship has shown that the Gospel of Peter does not require a docetic interpretation. However, while Docetism is not required, that is not the same as saying it is not possible. Indeed, I think that it’s still reasonable to interpret some aspects of the Gospel of Peter as advocating some form of Docetism.
First, the Gospel of Peter has Jesus declaring, “My power, O power, you have left me!” This is followed immediately by the phrase, “And he was taken up.” The phrase “taken up” (analambano) is the normal word used for Jesus’s ascension. But since the body of Jesus still hangs on the cross, what has ascended?
Some have argued that the “taken up” language here is no more than a euphemism (perhaps a clumsy one) for death. And that’s certainly possible. But I still think it’s reasonable to see this as a reference to an adoptionistic version of Docetism where the divine Christ leaves the human Jesus.
Second, when Jesus emerges from the tomb in the Gospel of Peter, he is now a “giant” Jesus whose head surpasses the heavens themselves. Clearly this Jesus does not have a human body in any normal sense of the word.
Again, modern scholars have argued that this need not be interpreted in a docetic fashion because Jesus changes physical appearance after his resurrection even in the canonical Gospels. And that’s a fair point. At the same time, however, we should not forget that many other texts with a shape-shifting Jesus were gnostic or docetic. Particularly illuminating is the Acts of John, a notably docetic text, which describes Jesus as having a “head [that] reached to the heavens” (90.13), a strikingly similar description as we find in the Gospel of Peter.
Here’s the point. I think it’s still reasonable to see the Gospel of Peter as advocating some type of docetic approach to the person of Jesus where he was not a human being in every way that we are.
High Christology in the Gospel of Peter
Regardless of what one makes of these seemingly docetic features, here is one thing that seems very clear: the Gospel of Peter views Jesus as fully divine. In fact, Peter changes the canonical stories in a number of ways that show that Jesus is even super divine. In some ways, he is more glorious, more exalted, and more powerful even than the canonical Gospels.
A few examples of such changes:
- In the canonical account there are guards at the tomb, but now we have a named centurion (Petronius), an entire attachment of guards, and also the scribes and elders also guarded the tomb!
- In the canonical accounts there is a seal on the tomb, now in the Gospel of Peter there are seven seals.
- In the canonical Gospels, the only people that acknowledge Jesus’s righteousness, the only people that defend him, are a criminal crucified with him and a Roman guard. But in the Gospel of Peter, the vindication is expanded and heightened so that the scribes, elders, and Pharisees all join in, publicly admitting their culpability in the death of a righteous person.
- In the canonical accounts, angels are present at the empty tomb, but in the Gospel of Peter, the angels are the glorious entourage, escorting Jesus to heaven. And the text is clear: Jesus is not just another angel. The head of the angels reaches the heavens, but Jesus’ head surpasses the heavens!
So, the Gospel of Peter not only has a divine Christ but has, as David Wright describes it, “an exaggeratedly divine Christ.” And this explains the possible docetic overtones lurking around. Jesus is so divine, that the Gospel of Peter cannot imagine how he could suffer and die.
God and Man
Here’s where we come to the core issue. The Gospel of Peter demonstrates that one can have a very high Christology and still have a heretical Christology. This gospel is so focused on the divinity of Jesus, that it can hardly make room for the (full) humanity of Jesus.
And we all face this temptation. We can be so concerned to affirm and defend the full divinity of Jesus (which is a good thing), that we can, perhaps inadvertently, overlook his full humanity. After all, the average non-Christian we meet doesn’t need to be persuaded Jesus is a human. They likely already believe that Jesus is just a good human teacher. They need to be persuaded that Jesus is God.
But that wasn’t always the case in the ancient world. Some groups, like the Docetists, were quite convinced Jesus was God. Indeed, they were so convinced he was God, that they couldn’t imagine how he could really be human.
But the author of the book of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus’s humanity matters more than we think: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death” (2:14).
In sum, the mistakes of the Gospel of Peter remind us that Jesus’s humanity is as essential to our salvation as his divinity. We can’t just have a divine Jesus. And we can’t just have a human Jesus. We need a Jesus that is both.