Comparing Augustine's Confessions And The Incarnation
1458 Words6 Pages
The word “Christology,” as it relates to this essay, is defined by Musser and Price as dealing “with questions about who Jesus is and about why he makes the decisive difference in human destiny.”1 The term itself implies a philosophical and apologetic approach in a study of the Person of Jesus, Who that Person is, and role He plays in the continuously unfolding human narrative. In Augustine’s Confessions, the subject of the Incarnation is argued in a philosophical aesthetic, whereas in Pope Leo’s Tome ad Flavianum, an apologetic approach is taken. Though offering two slightly different variations on the theme of the “Personhood” of Jesus, Pope St. Leo and Augustine agree on one condition: that the Incarnation of the divine Logos was necessary for salvation, as Jesus’s role become one of Mediator between God and humanity. In order to understand the incarnation of the divine Logos into the form of a human being, one must take an apologetic or philosophical approach. If argued apologetically, there is an attempt to defend or refute a particular doctrine, in this case, the Incarnation as it relates to an ontological act of creation, as Pope St. Leo does in his Tome…show more content… This construct was affirmed by the Prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as in the epistles of Paul.13 It had been God’s plan from the beginning that the Logos be incarnate in the flesh and take on the likeness of a human being in order to bring salvation for all. Leo writes, “This birth in time in no way detracted from that divine and eternal birth and in no way added anything to it. Its entire meaning was worked out in the restoration of humanity, which had been led