Probing the Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality: Worship, Mediatorial Figures, and the Homoousion

Modern Theology 37:3 July 2021 ISSN 0266-7177 (Print) ISSN 1468-0025 (Online) DOI:10.1111/moth.12665 PROBING THE EXEGETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CONSUBSTANTIALITY: WORSHIP, MEDIATORIAL FIGURES, AND THE HOMOOUSION D. GLENN BUTNER, JR. Abstract This article explores the question of whether modern theologians can adopt pro-Nicene theology on the basis of modern biblical studies. It argues that under two hermeneutic assumptions (identified as the canon principle and inspiration principle), key data assessed in the Christological monotheism debates provides warrant for pro-Nicene defenses of consubstantiality. Three features of Athanasius’s Contra Arianos are explored in dialogue with modern biblical scholarship to defend this claim: Athanasius’s variegated mediatorial Christology, his emphasis on Christ as preeminent mediator, and his appeals to cultic worship of Christ in the New Testament. Introduction A perennial question facing any Trinitarian theologian is whether the doctrine of the Trinity is in any sense biblically necessary, or even warranted. This was certainly a question in the debates between Arius, Athanasius, and other noteworthy fourth-century figures, to the point that the Arian debates are often interpreted to be “essentially about hermeneutics.”1 The question of biblical warrant is no less pointed today, nor is the answer to that question any less dependent on fundamental hermeneutic assumptions. Thus, at the height of historical-critical scholarship the noted patristics scholar Maurice Wiles wrote a famous, perhaps notorious, article questioning the biblical origins of the doctrine of the Trinity. Wiles considers four possible relations between the Bible and the doctrine of the Trinity. First, the Trinity may be derived from revealed propositions in the New Testament. Wiles quickly dismisses this pre-critical and pre-modern hermeneutic, as “it appears to conflict with the whole idea of the nature of revelation to which t biblical criticism has led us.”2 Leonard Hodgson proposes focusing on the activities of D. Glenn Butner, Jr. Assistant Professor of Theology and Christian Ministry, Sterling College, 125 W. Cooper Street, Box 174, Sterling, KS 67579, USA Email: glenn.butner@sterling.edu 1 Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, revised edition (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), 108. 2 Maurice Wiles, “Some Reflections on the Origins of the Doctrine of the Trinity,” The Journal of Theological Studies 8, no. 1 (April 1957): 92-106; at 104. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 680 D. Glenn Butner God as a second path forward, an option that Wiles challenges on the basis that the Bible does not consistently attribute any divine act to a singular person. A key example for Wiles in this argument is creation, which is attributed in the New Testament most frequently to the Son (i.e., Col. 1:15; John 1:3, 10), while patristic theologians cited Psalm 33:6 to attribute it to both Son and Spirit. Of course, the plain reading of the Old Testament would lead one to conclude that the Father created. One cannot easily move from the triad of creation, salvation, and sanctification to an immanent Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.3 If a particular experience of God’s work in history fails to provide warrant for the Trinity, one might follow Karl Barth in seeing an intrinsic Trinitarian dimension in the very idea of divine self-revelation, of God revealing himself as Lord. Wiles rejects this third option on the grounds that it “sounds suspiciously like a later rationalization to support a doctrine really based on [propositional revelation] and now in search of a new foundation.”4 This leaves Wiles to support the fourth option: “our Trinity of revelation is an arbitrary analysis of the activity of God.”5 So much for a biblical doctrine of the Trinity. A committed Trinitarian who reads Wiles might be tempted to reject a modern hermeneutic as insufficient at best and fundamentally flawed at worst, allowing the deep modern chasm between biblical studies and systematic theology to persist. Unfortunately, even this move might not resolve the question of the presence or absence of warrant for the Trinity in Scripture. One must still ask whether the pro-Nicene theology that developed the doctrine of the Trinity had any basis in the Bible.6 Leander Keck laments three challenges facing anyone intent on connecting New Testament studies with pro-Nicene theology: 1) the historical-critical method emphasizes and seeks diversity in texts at the expense of unity; 2) historical criticism deploys genealogical methods of etymology and historical origin at the expense of the future reception of texts; and 3) “the history of Christological materials and motifs is not yet Christology.”7 Choosing to set aside these limitations and probe where the New Testament agrees with basic concerns of Arius and Athanasius, Keck’s conclusions are not particularly favorable for the pro-Nicene doctrine of the Trinity. “If what separated the two fourth-century combatants was the issue of ‘essentialism’ or ‘will,’” writes Keck, who is aware of recent scholarship on the links between soteriology and the Trinity in pro-Nicene debates,8 “then one must ask whether in this regard John was not closer to Arius.”9 Though Arius inappropriately downplayed the pre-existence of Christ, Keck believes “the Arians could indeed appropriate much of Hebrews.”10 Paul leaves “conflicting impressions,” at times seeming “closer to the Arian 3 Ibid., 94, 98. Ibid., 105. 5 Ibid., 104. 6 I am following the terminology of Lewis Ayres, on which see n. 13. 7 Leander E. Keck, Why Christ Matters: Toward a New Testament Christology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015), 127-30. Keck rightly identifies the fact that “NT scholarship has not, thus far at least, been willing to understand its texts by seeing what they permit, inhibit, or set in motion” (128). 8 Keck is entirely dependent on Robert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh, Early Arianism—A View of Salvation (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1981). One might reasonably critique Keck on this basis, for it is likely that Gregg and Groh overstate their case when they center a soteriology of the Son’s conformity of will to the Father as constitutive of early Arianism. Nevertheless, this article will pursue a different course than that of Gregg and Groh. 9 Keck, Why Christ Matters, 155. 10 Ibid., 153. 4 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 681 concern for [unity of] will.”11 Near the end of his treatment, Keck retracts some of the initial favorable support of agreement between Arius and the New Testament, but he nevertheless summarizes that “the topic is . . . resistant precisely to conclusion.”12 The goal of this article is to address the dual concerns of hermeneutics (what rules we use for interpretation) and exegesis (what the texts mean) raised by Wiles and Keck. This goal can be divided into two subsidiary questions. First, are there any hermeneutic assumptions which might be amenable to some modern biblical scholars that may nevertheless overlap with pro-Nicene approaches to interpretation? Second, given these hermeneutic assumptions, can the exegetical conclusions of recent New Testament scholarship comport with those of pro-Nicene orthodoxy? To put the question another way, are there hermeneutic assumptions that would resemble those adopted by both pro-Nicenes and some contemporary biblical scholars which, when adopted, would allow a theologian to reach similar conclusions as the pro-Nicenes on the basis of modern exegetical conclusions? I intend to answer all three questions affirmatively in a restricted manner. Given several hermeneutic assumptions and constraints, recent debates on the nature of second temple monotheism and divine mediators provides exegetical conclusions consonant with those of Athanasius of Alexandria in defense of the consubstantiality of the Father and Son. A full biblical defense of pro-Nicene theology is well beyond the scope of a single article, so I will note several constraints from the outset. I will limit myself to consideration of the nature of the divinity of the Son in Athanasius’s first two books of Orations Against the Arians. These texts are beneficial because they are heavily exegetical, because their focus overlaps in surprising ways with the focus of recent debates on Christological Monotheism, and because they engage primarily with early figures like Arius and Asterius who relied less extensively on philosophical arguments than later figures like Eunomius of Cyzicus. I begin in part one with a brief survey of the Christological monotheism debate, noting areas of consensus and disagreement. I will not attempt to defend my own position on the nature of monotheism in the first century, but rather will argue that a certain set of hermeneutic assumptions will render parts of the debate peripheral to the question at hand. Part two will therefore consist of a brief explanation of these hermeneutic principles, noting where they were present in Athanasius (and his opponents) and to what extent similar principles may be accepted in certain circles of modern biblical scholarship. I will not defend these assumptions but will rather show that they are assumed in both eras by certain parties. Part three will then argue that, under the specified hermeneutic assumptions, a modern theologian can reasonably side with Athanasius on biblical grounds in many of his objections against Arius. Thus, were they to accept the specified hermeneutic assumptions, modern theologians could appeal to contemporary biblical scholarship to reach conclusions like those reached by Athanasius in defense of consubstantiality. I should note that the Orations were written before pro-Nicene trinitarianism was completely developed. A full defense of pro-Nicene thought would require additional analysis of concepts such as eternal generation, inseparable operations, and the person/ nature distinction as used in a much wider range of authors.13 It would also need to 11 Ibid., 149-50. Keck sees Paul’s emphasis on “redemption from bondage” as closer to Athanasius, but his emphasis on right relation to God is more Arian. 12 Keck, Why Christ Matters, 156. 13 Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 236. Ayres rightly identifies this triad of concepts as central to pro-Nicene theology. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 682 D. Glenn Butner extend consubstantiality to include the person of the Holy Spirit. The person/nature distinction is absent from the Orations and would only be developed in later decades, Athanasius had not yet been prompted to develop a robust pneumatology in response to the Tropikoi, and certain key texts in the development of inseparable operations would not become central to the trinitarian discussion for several years.14 Nevertheless, Athanasius’s work lays key foundations for the eventual full development of proNicene thought.15 For example, the judgment that the Father and Son are consubstantial, when coupled with a rejection of modalism and an affirmation of divine simplicity, prompts the need for a logical distinction equivalent to the person/nature distinction. Of course, the exegetical foundations of both the rejection of modalism and the doctrine of simplicity can also be contested. Moreover, it is possible to affirm consubstantiality and reach conclusions that are not pro-Nicene, as did Marcellus of Ancyra. The point here is not to provide an exegetical defense of the final form(s) of pro-Nicene thought,16 but rather to probe the foundations—if Athanasius’s exegetical work falls apart here, much subsequent pro-Nicene trinitarianism would also need to be questioned. Thus, this article begins an exegetical defense of pro-Nicene trinitarianism by considering it in its incipient form. The Christological Monotheism Debates Over the past several decades, important and technical debate on what is often called “Christological Monotheism” has focused on the nature of early Christology, particularly on the manner in which this Christology was understood to be compatible with Jewish monotheism. This discussion is of such importance that any analysis of whether the doctrine of the Trinity would find scriptural support must engage the Christological monotheism debate. Fortunately, the discussion is comparable in its broad contours to the pro-Nicene discussion, so it is relatively easy to explore the question of whether a theologian today can accept pro-Nicene thought in light of the Christological monotheism debate. Influential figures in the Christological Monotheism discussion agree on a number of key points, but I will focus on two. First, there is widespread consensus that mediatorial figures can helpfully illuminate New Testament Christology, which deploys mediatorial categories in explaining Christ. It is typical to consider three types of divine mediators or agents: personified divine attributes, exalted human figures (i.e., Enoch, Moses, etc.), and angelic mediators.17 Numerous studies indicate that each mediatorial category is applied to Christ in at least some of the New Testament writings. Second, the 14 Ibid., 183. Ayres suggests that John 5:19 became “an increasingly important battleground in the 360s.” The extent of Athanasius’s direct influence here is contested, but at a minimum this work can be taken as representative of certain early exegetical moves that continue to be seen in subsequent decades. 16 I am convinced by the exegetical basis for rejecting modalism or the doctrine eternal generation, for example, but cannot treat such questions here. 17 The threefold distinction is drawn from Larry W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988). Paul Rainbow critiques the schema on the grounds that exalted figures and angelic mediators may overlap. Here, for example, we might think of Enoch being identified with Metatron (3 Enoch 4:2-3). Personified divine attributes, however, are not truly personal, so are in a different category. Paul A. Rainbow, “Jewish Monotheism as the Matrix for New Testament Christology: A Review Article,” Novum Testamentum 33, no. 1 (January 1991): 78-91; at 84. James Davila would add “charismatic prophets” and “ideal figures” to the schema as additional examples of divine agents. James R. Davila, “Of Methodology, Monotheism and Metatron: Introductory Reflections on Divine Mediators and the Origins of the Worship of Jesus,” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus, edited by Carey C. Newman, James R. Davila, and Gladys S. Lewis (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 3-18; at 6-7. 15 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 683 major figures involved recognize that fully understanding the place of Christ in early Christianity requires consideration not only (or even centrally) of titles, but also and especially of devotion to Christ. Larry Hurtado, for example, prefers to speak of Christdevotion over Christology precisely because, though titles are important, “to do full justice to the way which Jesus figures in early Christian circles requires us to take account of additional matters,” where “one particularly important matter” is “the place of Jesus in the patterns of worship characteristic of early Christian groups.”18 Unfortunately, though there is agreement that some form of reverence to Christ was common among early Christians, the specific nature of that reverence and the extent to which it was found is contested, hence the need to speak not only of a Christological monotheism discussion, but also a debate. The debate on Christological monotheism has focused on several questions, including the nature of reverence offered to Jesus, the extent to which such reverence is evident in the New Testament writings, and, if it is, the question of whether this reverence is unique in historical context. The question of uniqueness connects worship with mediatorial Christology. Hurtado considers early Christian worship of Christ a “mutation” of earlier Jewish practices, applying exalted titles for which there is precedent in other mediators, but worshipping the bearer of such titles in a cultic context in an unprecedented way.19 Scholars like James McGrath and Crispin Fletcher-Louis consider reverence of Jesus one example of many comparable practices in the first century context. McGrath insists that sacrifice is the clear delineating feature—sacrifices were offered to God, but other forms of worship may be offered to non-divine mediatorial figures.20 While Hurtado may be right when he says we know of no examples where personified divine attributes were “adored alongside God,”21 the same claim is more contested when it comes to exalted mediators and angels.22 For example, McGrath points to evidence of invocation of angels.23 While such invocations may not directly parallel corporate hymns in a cultic context (see Eph. 5:18-20),24 they do further blur the distinction between worship of Creator and creature. Crispin Fletcher-Louis argues that most New Testament scholars see clear 18 Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 3-4. 19 Hurtado, One God, One Lord, 99. “Accommodation of Christ as a recipient of cultic devotion in the devotional practice of early Christian groups was a most unusual and significant step that cannot be easily accounted for on the basis of any tendencies in Roman-era Jewish religion.” Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 31. 20 “The sacrificial worship of the one God without images was the make-or-break issue.” James F. McGrath, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 35. 21 Hurtado, One God, One Lord, 48. 22 Hurtado sees exalted figures as evidence of the future state of the faithful, “an assurance of the eschatological reward for which [second temple Jews] themselves hoped.” Hurtado, One God, One Lord, 66. 23 McGrath notes that Jews were willing to die rather than sacrifice to the Emperor, but there is archaeological evidence of funerary inscriptions invoking angelic intermediaries. James McGrath, The Only True God, 7, 30. See also Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Angel Veneration and Christology: A Study in Early Judaism and in the Christology of the Apocalypse of John (1995; reprint Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017), 161-63. Loren Stuckenbruck points to comparable textual examples of blessing angels or invoking their names (for example in 11 Berakhot or Joseph and Aseneth 14:1-12; 15:11-12). 24 Hengel rightly argues that the practice of hymns is Jewish in origin, rather than Hellenistic as once supposed. Martin Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul: Studies in the Earliest History of Christianity (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013), 90. Thus, we have reason to expect the possible preservation of hymns to other figures. The lack of much evidence in this regard may be evidence of the uniqueness of worship of Jesus in cultic context. It may also be a result of the fragmentary nature of ancient documentary evidence. Arguments from silence remain weak at this point. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 684 D. Glenn Butner precedent for reverence of mediators in earlier Jewish practices.25 In particular, FletcherLouis points to texts describing the worship of Adam along with reverence for messianic figures within the Jewish community that may mirror the reverence paid in the Gentile world to divine king figures.26 Certainly, these examples give pause to claims that Christian worship of Jesus was without any analogue, and many see them as evidence that Christ was not particularly unique among mediators. In a review of Fletcher-Louis’s work, Hurtado appears to deploy the strategy of minimizing Fletcher-Louis’s argument for greater continuity between pre-Christian and early Christian reverence of mediators by highlighting places where Fletcher-Louis qualifies the extent of overlap.27 Though there is not likely to be complete agreement on the nature and extent of worship of Christ in the near future, the research generated by the Christological monotheism debates does provide clear data for those seeking whether pro-Nicene conclusions can be accepted by modern theologians on the basis of modern biblical studies. Having identified a helpful related modern dialogue, I can now turn to the question of hermeneutics. Two Hermeneutic Principles I am exploring the question: can a contemporary theologian accept Athanasius’s doctrinal conclusions on the basis of modern New Testament scholarship? I believe the answer to this question is yes, provided that two hermeneutic principles are in place, which I shall call the canon principle and the inspiration principle respectively. Taken together, these hermeneutic principles can be deployed in such a manner that Athanasius’s conclusions have warrant given modern exegetical conclusions. The canon principle is a hermeneutic commitment to reading the biblical text in light of the canon of the Bible. This principle has three dimensions. The canon principle has a normative dimension in that books recognized as canonical become determinative of the worship, teaching, and practice of the Church. An inclusive dimension of the canon principle requires the theologian to draw from all texts in the canon in the development of doctrine. In short, the canon determines which sources are included as among the basic data of theologians and it prevents a theologian from restricting analysis to too narrow a selection of texts. A restrictive dimension excludes texts not recognized as canonical from being normative for doctrinal considerations. The theologian is not necessarily bound to derive doctrine from texts that are not identified as canonical, though some non-canonical texts may still become normative for theology once embraced as central to tradition.28 Whereas the inclusive dimension requires the theologian to treat 25 See Crispin Fletcher-Louis, Jesus Monotheism, Volume 1 – Christological Origins: The Emergence of the Consensus and Beyond (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015), 129 n. 3. Fletcher-Louis helpfully compiles sources from Daniel Boyarin, Andrew Chester, Christopher Rowland, Jarl Fossum, and others to demonstrate his point. 26 Fletcher-Louis, Jesus Monotheism, 206-92. 27 See Larry W. Hurtado, “Jesus Monotheism, Volume 1: Christological Origins: The Emergence of the Consensus and Beyond,” Review of Biblical Literature, 19 (2017): 319-22. In fairness, Hurtado had already critiqued an earlier article of Fletcher-Louis with similar conclusions by arguing that Fletcher-Louis “seems to lump together a range of reverential gestures as all indicating ‘worship.’” In point of fact, many of the examples provided are not cultic, and it is cultic worship that Hurtado finds decisive. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 37-42. 28 This restrictive dimension of the canon principle should be clarified vis-à-vis the role of tradition in theology, which is also normative. The restrictive dimension would suggest that tradition is not normative as Scripture. The significance of this claim will vary depending on the height to which a particular Christian community elevates tradition. However, no matter how authoritative one views tradition it would be viewed as authoritative for reasons other than its inclusion in the canon. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 685 canonical texts as authoritative, by default the restrictive dimension treats non-canonical texts as not authoritative unless such texts are recognized as authoritative tradition, in which case the authority is of another nature. The canon principle is amenable to pro-Nicene hermeneutic methods found in incipient pro-Nicene texts like the Orations and lingering in the later fully pro-Nicene works. It is also amenable to certain strands of modern biblical scholarship,29 making it an appropriate hermeneutic principle for the question at hand. Of course, the development of the canon is an ongoing question among specialists in canonization. Despite the complexity of this debate, which exceeds the scope of this article, several basic pieces of data are relevant. Athanasius’s thirty-ninth festal letter contains the first extant list of texts matching the twenty-seven books traditionally listed in the New Testament canon.30 This fact suggests an overlap between the commitment to certain texts as canonical and the theological conclusions that Athanasius defended.31 It is also noteworthy that during the prolonged Arian debates, the Council of Laodicea (363) prohibited reading “uncanonized books,” though the canons of the council’s precise position on Nicene Trinitarianism is impossible to discern.32 At the least, this may mean that the restrictive dimension of the canon criterion may have its origin, or at least grew in prominence, during the time of the Arian debates.33 It is also the case that early Arians appealed to core texts that were recognized as Scripture jointly by the early Arians and by Athanasius and other pro-Nicene authors.34 Though the fragmentary nature of the extant early Arian texts prevents complete certainty about consensus concerning which texts were recognized as authoritative, it is clear that there is at least some agreement between all sides of the debate concerning what counts as Scripture.35 Each appeared to treat common texts as normative such that it was worthwhile to debate interpretations of the same texts. And while divergences exist as to what is included and excluded as Scripture, 29 There are certainly other strands of modern scholarship that would object to this principle. Again, I will not seek to defend this principle, but will rather note its content and the perhaps limited trajectories of study within which it could be adopted. 30 Lee Martin McDonald argues that Athanasius is also the first individual to use the term “canon” to refer to something that is closed. This fits with what I am calling the restrictive dimension of the canon. Lee Martin McDonald, The Formation of the Biblical Canon, Volume 2 – The New Testament: Its Authority and Canonicity (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 306. 31 See David Brakke, “A New Fragment of Athanasius’ Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter. Heresy, Apocrypha, and the Canon,” Harvard Theological Review 103, no. 1 (January 2010): 49-56. Brakke surveys some recent literature in dialogue with his own views to suggest that Athanasius makes the canon less academic speculation and more ecclesiastical in nature, while emphasizing the anti-heretical role of the canon. 32 McDonald, Biblical Canon, 312. 33 Besides the role played by theologians here, there is some overlap between Constantine’s involvement in seeking unity of theology and of canon, though we ought not overstate his influence, for most books were already affirmed by consensus, and even his preference for Revelation may be less consequential than the believed Johannine authorship of the book. See Ibid., 90-95. 34 Though it was once fashionable to contrast Arius’s “philosophical monotheism” with a “biblical monotheism” (for example, see T. Evan Pollard, “The Origins of Arianism,” The Journal of Theological Studies 9, no.1 (April 1958): 103-111; at 106-7), it is now widely held that Arius was in fact deriving much of his thought from scriptural sources. Frances Young argues that we should interpret Arius to be developing a scriptural theology because a non-scriptural term (homoousios) was needed to refute him, and because so much of the polemic centered on certain biblical texts. Frances M. Young with Andrew Teal, From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and its Background, second edition (London: SCM Press, 2010), 46. See also: Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 46-47. 35 Indeed, in the extant letters of Arius we see canonical sources as predominant. However, his contemporaries claim over seventy of his letters were known in the fourth century, meaning the sample size is too small to make any solid conclusions. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 686 D. Glenn Butner the increasingly common practice of posting canon lists of affirmed, disputed, and rejected texts suggests that there is at least an impulse among some fourth-century figures toward a canon with inclusive, normative, and restrictive intent.36 Although the tendency among modern biblical scholarship has been to emphasize differences among the individual texts contained within the canon, there are still corners of academia within which the canon is of particular interest. Most obviously, Brevard Childs’s efforts to develop “a canonical approach to biblical theology” represent a modern deployment that I am calling the canon principle. The inclusive and normative dimensions are evident in Child’s attention to “canonical shaping,” whereby juxtaposition of texts creates a “larger context” that shapes how each individual text is read.37 Canon situates the modern interpreter in a different context than the first century author, who lacked the full canon, meaning that the modern conclusions of biblical theology may differ to some degree from what may have been acceptable first-century conclusions.38 Though Childs’s work has met opposition, at a minimum we should recognize that the various allusions and echoes throughout the New Testament would lead the reader to interpret it in light of the Old Testament, such that modern intertextuality studies are, to an extent, an exploration of what I am calling the canon principle’s normative principle. The inspiration principle—the second of the two key hermeneutic principles—assumes that the meaning of a text relevant to the Christian community may exceed what would have been intended by the historical human authors but does not treat that excess as imposition of meaning through eisegesis.39 These depths of meaning rather derive from exegetical analysis of the text itself. Although the inspiration principle appeals to divine inspiration to explain this phenomenon, it does not commit a theologian to a particular theory of inspiration. Any number of theories of inspiration could fit the principle, provided that the theory allow for the possibility that the meaning in a text may exceed its original historical meaning and that this possibility be somehow construed as divine agency. For example, the Old Princeton account of inspiration fits what I am calling the inspiration principle. A. A. Hodge, a representative of this approach, argues that divine guidance of the process of forming the Bible proceeds in the stages of providential control of the events described, spiritual illumination of the authors, revelation to some authors of certain supernatural knowledge, and inspiration of all authors in order to elevate and guide their abilities to ensure infallibility.40 Hodge admits that books in the canon were “specifically adapted to accomplish [their] immediate end among [their] contemporaries,” while yet remaining “books of all times, adapted perfectly to the edification and instruction of the Church in every age.”41 Thus, as an “organic whole,” the parts of the Bible may fit a larger divinely-ordained narrative that may exceed the grasp of 36 I am indebted to Tim Gabrielson for valuable feedback on this section. Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), 75. This work contains a briefer account of Childs’s methodology than other works, but it modifies some of his earlier conclusions in significant ways in response to scholarly criticism. 38 Childs, Biblical Theology, 78. 39 “Inspiration” thus refers to meaning that has been “breathed into” the text pneumatologically, not to meaning that resides only in the reader, as in reader response theories. 40 Archibald Alexander Hodge, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1887), 84-88. 41 Ibid., 82. 37 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 687 individual historical authors.42 Admittedly, Hodge’s version of the inspiration principle assumes the pre-modern assumptions of which Wiles is so critical. What I am calling the inspiration principle also comports with more contemporary approaches to the question of how God is involved with human theological language. For example, Kevin Hector’s Theology Without Metaphysics offers a “therapeutic” noncorrespondentist and non-essentialist account of how theological language can speak truthfully of God. Hector explains that if theological language carries on the trajectory established by certain precedents, then it can be counted as true theological speech without being concerned with whether the speech corresponds with the divine essence. (Hector is responding to theologians like Marion and Caputo who view attempts at linguistic correspondence with the divine nature as violence or idolatry.) On Hector’s account, a concept counts as carrying on a precedent trajectory as a result of “an ongoing process of recognition” whereby those who are recognized as speaking rightly of God norm subsequent claims by individuals who seek recognition from the established accepted teachers.43 Significantly, Hector notes that “the trajectory implicit in a series of precedents changes every time a novel use is recognized as carrying it on,” such that the truth of theological statements is not restricted to a strict correspondence to a “literal meaning.”44 In other words, as a trajectory is normed by the process of recognition (which Hector links with the Spirit’s work in a manner that functions much like a theory of inspiration), new God-talk can exceed first-century God-talk while still speaking truthfully. Both Hector and Hodge fit within the inspiration principle. The idea of the continued development of the meaning of a religious text is not foreign to contemporary biblical scholarship, despite the widespread tendency to privilege the grammatical historical meaning when interpreting a given passage. At the very least, source criticism recognizes that ongoing traditions can use earlier materials in a manner that exceeds the intent of the original authors, sometimes in a manner faithful to their original message, and at other times in a revisionary fashion, yet always with at least some attempt to maintain that which has gone before in a faithful manner.45 Turning to more recent methodology, some advocates of reception history recognize “a multiplicity of potential meanings that cannot be contained by whatever context one decides is original.” Though there are still “exegetical limits” to a text, diverse communities using a text throughout time may develop valid readings of the text that exceed what may have been evident in original communities.46 Both reception history and 42 Ibid., 83. See the summary in Kevin Hector, Theology Without Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 72-73. 44 Hector, Theology Without Metaphysics, 124. 45 To illustrate with one example, consider Gerhard von Rad’s treatment of the historical nature of biblical theology. Von Rad notes that the Hexateuch contains a number of diverse texts and traditions that are blended together, with a “strong tendency toward unification” such that old traditions “have been given a reference which in most cases was foreign to their original meaning.” Yet, at the same time von Rad affirms a “theological dialectic” that refuses to fully silence tradition, with the result that components of texts that stand in theological tension with one another are preserved. Here von Rad points not only to the contrast between Genesis 1 and 2, but to competing interpretations of the historical events by prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Unifying tendencies are not affirmed to the extent that diverse voices and notions are silenced fully. There is an affirmation of tensions coupled with a historical process of reshaping the canon to find unity amid diversity. Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, Volume 1 – The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions, trans. D. M. G. Stalker (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 118-21. 46 Christine E. Joynes, “The Reception of the Bible and Its Significance,” in Scripture and Its Interpretation: A Global, Ecumenical Introduction to the Bible, ed. Michael J. Gorman (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017), 160. 43 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 688 D. Glenn Butner source criticism recognize that the meaning of a text may unfold across time, providing a parallel to the theological ideas of the inspiration principle. There is, of course, a degree of difference, insofar as the inspiration principle would accept some divine guidance or involvement, however construed, of this development to ensure its trustworthiness as an interpretation of revelation. However, that theological dimension need not reject such methods as much as add a theological gloss to them. With relevant contemporary biblical scholarship at hand, and having identified the key hermeneutic parameters in the canon principle and the inspiration principle, I am now able to turn to the question of the exegetical foundations of pro-Nicene thought in general, and the work of Athanasius in Contra Arianos in particular to consider how this work’s theological conclusions may fare in light of the proposed method and data set. Athanasian Exegesis and the Christological Monotheism Debates Athanasius’s Contra Arianos, particularly the first two books, is an ideal candidate for considering the manner in which pro-Nicene exegesis may overlap with the Christological monotheism debates. This is for several reasons. First, Athanasius’s argument is primarily exegetical, rather than philosophical in nature (though there is never a clear-cut distinction between these two modes of thought in Athanasius). Though Contra Arianos 1.9 uses the term homoousios, the word is not used again in the remainder of the text. This is because Athanasius’s arguments center on the scriptural relation between the Father and the Son, and likely also because Athanasius was hesitant to use non-scriptural language at this stage of his career.47 In other words, consubstantiality follows as a conclusion to Athanasius’s exegetical arguments rather than standing as a philosophical presupposition to them. Second, the texts that Athanasius treats in his arguments are the same texts centered in modern debates concerning Christological monotheism. Though we lack complete access to early Arian texts, it is probable that Arian exegesis emphasized 1) Proverbs 8:22’s claim that Wisdom was created, and 2) a series of texts suggesting that Jesus is a created power of God (1 Cor. 1:24) like other created “powers” found across the canon (i.e., Psa. 103:21; Joel 2:26, etc.).48 In response, Athanasius dedicates a significant portion of Contra Arianos to exploring Jesus as a personified divine attribute, or in terms of angelomorphic Christology, central themes of the Christological monotheism’s emphasis on the divine mediator trope. Athanasius offers extended and repeated treatment of texts like 1 Corinthians 1:24, Hebrews 1:4, and Proverbs 8.49 Partly because of these emphases, a total of 41.5% of Athanasius’s Scripture citations in Contra Arianos come from Proverbs, the Gospel of John, and Hebrews.50 Since these texts center media47 Thomas G. Weinandy, Athanasius: A Theological Introduction (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), 73. Éphrem Boularand, L’Hérésie d’Arius et La Foi de Nicée. Part 1 – l’Hérésie d’Arius (Paris: Éditions Letouzey & Ané, 1972), 88-90. Boularand argues that the Arians appealed to a third set of texts centered on John 14:28, which explicitly name the Father as greater than the Son. Though important to both the patristic era and modern Christological debates, these texts exceed the specific scope of this article. On the risks of too confidently asserting Arian proof-texts given our limited historical data, note the caution of Rowan Williams: “We can never be sure that the theological priorities ascribed to Arius by his opponents were his own, even if his statements are transmitted correctly.” Williams, Arius, 95. 49 Athanasius treats 1 Corinthians 1:24 in Contra Arianos 1.32; 2.37, 42, 62; 3.1, 30, 48, 51, 63. Proverbs 8:22 is the subject of the second half of book 2. Hebrews 1:4 receives extended attention in Contra Arianos 1.53-64, as well as minor references in 2.1, 18; 3.1. Another text with significant mediatorial overtones, Philippians 2:9-10, receives extended treatment in 1.37-45. These counts were tabulated by James D. Ernest, The Bible in Athanasius of Alexandria (Boston, MA: Brill, 2004), 118. 50 Ibid., 116-17. 48 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 689 torial Christologies, assessing Athanasius’s argument from a modern standpoint will require engaging the Christological monotheism debate. Athanasius was not a modern exegete, so from the standpoint of a historian it would be inappropriate to evaluate the debate between Athanasius and anti-Nicenes like Arius, Asterius, and Eusebius of Nicomedia in the same terms as the debate between Larry Hurtado and James McGrath, for example. Nevertheless, Athanasius’s argument is not so foreign that we cannot appropriately ask a dogmatic question distinct from historical analysis: under what conditions, if any, can theologians today reach conclusions similar to those of Athanasius despite differences in hermeneutics? Fortunately, Athanasius’s basic hermeneutic approach is not entirely foreign to modern discussions of New Testament exegesis. In his own words, Athanasius advocates viewing time, person, and occasion in exegesis.51 When Athanasius considers time, he allows for the possibility of a passage speaking prophetically beyond the literal historical context of the human author. What the ancients called typology and allegory, modern scholars are prone to call intertextuality. Thus Richard Hays begins his seminal Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul by characterizing Paul’s use of the Old Testament as, in a positive light, “theologically generative” showing Scripture’s “living flexibility,” or, more critically, prone to “hermeneutical idiosyncrasy,” and “misreadings.”52 As Hays remarks, Paul’s exegesis “exposes the quest for hermeneutic closure as an illusion.”53 If we grant what I have called above the canonical principle and the inspiration principle, Athanasius’s appeal to prophetic time becomes more palatable. Just as Paul, to quote Hays again, centers “attentiveness to the promptings of the Spirit” over historical, literal meaning,54 Athanasius assumes a role for the Spirit in inspiration that allows him to consider a text as referencing prophetic time beyond the intent of the historical human author. The normative dimension of the canonical principle would lead to the conclusion that Athanasius is not obviously wrong in following the interpretive strategies of Paul. When Athanasius considers person, he often treats a passage as if it represents an intra-divine dialogue instead of a monologue from the human author in the historical context in which it was written. This hermeneutic—alternately prosopographic exegesis55 or prosopological exegesis56—has in recent decades been recognized as a common 51 Athanasius, Contra Arianos, 2.8. Cf. Athanasius, De Decretis, §14. A helpful English translation of much of the first two books of Contra Arianos (hereafter CA) and of portions of De Decretis is found in Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius (London: Routledge, 2004). I relied on the Benedictine text for Greek comparison when needed: Athanasius of Alexandria, The Orations of St. Athanasius Against the Arians: According to the Benedictine Text, second edition, edited by William Bright (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1884). Sieben traces this to precedent in Tertullian and Origen, though arguably Athanasius practices more restraint than his Alexandrian forebear. Hermann Josef Sieben, “Herméneutique de l’Exégèse Dogmatique d’Athanase,” in Politique et Théologie chez Athanase d’Alexandrie, edited by Charles Kannengiesser (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974), 199. Cf. Charles Kannengiesser, Athanase D’Alexandrie Évêque et Écrivain: Une Lecture des Traités Contre les Ariens (Paris: Beuchesne, 1983), 65-66. 52 Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 1-5. Ibid., 4. 54 Ibid., 156. 55 So Sieben notes that Athanasius is prone to “l’exégèse prosographique.” Sieben, “Herméneutique,” 205. This terminology derives from the German “prosopographische Schriftexegese” in Carl Andersen, “Zur Entstehun und Geschichte des trinitarischen Personbegriffes,” Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 52 (1961): 1-39. 53 56 Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Bates traces this terminology to Marie-Josèphe Rondeau, Les Commentaires pastristiques du Psautier (3e–5e siècles) i. Les Travaus des Pères grecs et latins sur le PSautier. Reserches et bilan; ii. Exégèse prosopoligique et théologie (Rome: Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1982–85), i. 8 n. 7. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 690 D. Glenn Butner interpretative strategy not only in the patristic era, but also in the New Testament texts themselves. Here again, acceptance of the canonical principle in its normative dimension could lead to the conclusion that Athanasius’s hermeneutic method is normed by the precedent set within the New Testament and is thereby defensible in certain circumstances. It is with good reason that Matthew Bates argues that considering prosopological exegesis can serve to “supplement” and serve as “an approach that largely complements the approach of Hurtado and others.”57 For now, this cursory treatment of Athanasius’s hermeneutic demonstrates the manner in which it differs from typical modern historical-critical methods while still remaining within the purview of discussions of modern biblical scholarship. I can now turn to consider the exegesis of Contra Arianos to see whether a modern biblical scholar might accept its conclusions for modern reasons, granting the canonical and inspiration principles. Assessing the Exegesis of Athanasius’s Contra Arianos Athanasius’s Contra Arianos is a direct response to early Arian texts and arguments, though that does not mean that he emphasizes all early Arian arguments, or even those most central to Arian theology itself. As a result, scholars differ considerably regarding the central points Arius and his allies were attempting to make. Robert Gregg and Dennis Groh have argued that Arius emphasized Christ being a creature elevated to the status of God, which would make his Christology an example of the exalted mediator type, to use the modern taxonomy discussed above.58 Not all scholars are convinced by the approach offered by Gregg and Groh. Khaled Anatolios notes that the emphases Gregg and Groh claim are central to early Arianism are not central to extant early Arian texts. Arius would acknowledge the Son’s preexistence, so we cannot reduce Arianism purely to an exalted mediator or adoptionist position.59 Lewis Ayres suggests that Gregg and Groh are imbalanced in their presentation because they rely too heavily on Athanasius’s writings to reconstruct Arian views.60 Arius did not restrict himself to viewing Christ as an exalted mediator, but it was this feature of his Christology that many of his opponents, including Athanasius, emphasized.61 As a result, Contra Arianos offers a defense of the consubstantiality of Father and Son by appealing to other forms of divine agency found throughout the New Testament, overlapping nicely with contemporary Christological monotheism debates. I will analyze three aspects of Athanasius’s argument to show how his conclusions may be shared by modern exegetes who accept the canon and inspiration principles. First, Athanasius appeals to various forms of mediatorial Christology, using the inclusive dimension of the canonical principle to offer a more well-rounded Christology than 57 Bates, Birth of the Trinity, 27. Gregg and Groh, Early Arianism, 3. The authors argue that Arius draws on the theme of faithfulness of Hebrews 3:1-2a and the following comparison between Christ and Moses to make this point. This theory also posits a Stoic emphasis, where Christ is like the ideal Stoic one advancing toward the good. Ibid., 18, 21. 59 Anatolios, Athanasius: Coherence, 94. This is most obviously evident in the Arian confession given to Alexander of Alexandria, which affirmed that the Son was begotten “before everlasting ages.” 60 Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 55-56. 61 Boulerand notes that the New Testament uses katabainō to describe Christ’s descent in John 3:13, for example. It does not put the word used in the Nicene Creed, Katelthonta, “on Christ’s lips.” Boulerand speculates that the council may have chosen this word to rebuke Paul of Samosata, who prohibited its use. Alexander of Alexandria thought Paul’s theology was the source of Arius’s, putting perhaps too heavy an adoptionist emphasis on his reading of Arius. Boulerand, L’Hérésie d’Arius, 366-69. 58 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 691 his Arian opponents. Second, Athanasius emphasizes the uniquely supreme nature of the Son as Word and Wisdom of God. When evaluated within the context of the restrictive dimension of the canonical principle, Athanasius’s position is defensible from a modern standpoint. The canonical emphasis on the angelic refusal of worship trope affirms his conclusion in ways that second temple literature as a whole may not. Third, at the culmination of several key arguments, Athanasius appeals to the worship of Christ as demonstrative of his full divinity. This takes us to the heart of the Christological monotheism debates. When Scripture is read with the inspiration and canon principles in mind, Athanasius’s conclusions are warranted. Athanasius and Variegated Mediatorial Christology Khaled Anatolios argues that one of Athanasius’s main strategies is to emphasize “New Testament applications to Jesus of Old Testament characterizations of divine presence and activity in the world.”62 In other words, Athanasius highlights divine agency and mediatorial tropes. Rowan Williams argues that Arius tended to reduce the title “Son” to a metaphor, while Athanasius prefers to use an “inductive” exegesis, that is “more inclined to allow the metaphor of ‘sonship’ to establish its own core area in relation to all the other clusters of imagery used to characterize the mediator’s status, in Scripture and in worship.”63 Because of this, Athanasius is prone to use one mediatorial trope as an interpretive key for others. This is evident, for example, in Athanasius’s treatment of Hebrews 1. Athanasius argues against an Arian reading of Hebrews 1:4, which likely treats the scriptural claim that the Son “became superior to the angels” as evidence of the Son’s gradual progression toward perfection.64 In Contra Arianos 2.8, Athanasius appeals to the context of Hebrews 1:3 and 1:5-14, arguing that the Arians have the wrong time in mind.65 Hebrews 1:3 is recognized by some modern scholars as drawing on the motif of Wisdom as a divine effulgence (apaugasma), a term only used one other time in biblical literature (Wis. 7:26 LXX) where it describes Wisdom as the effulgence of “everlasting light.”66 In Hebrews 1, Christ is at once pre-existent Wisdom and exalted human. If Arians only attend to Hebrews 1:4 and the exalted mediator trope without also affirming Christ as the personified divine attribute of Wisdom, they fail to satisfy the canon criterion’s inclusive dimension. Athanasius is prone to appeal to Wisdom Christology throughout Contra Arianos, particularly Wisdom’s role in creation. He frequently argues that if the Son were not pre-existent, all things could not be made through him, for he would be among the “all things” that were made (Contra Arianos 1.38; 2.21, 24). Elsewhere, Athanasius writes, “It is written, ‘God established the earth in Wisdom’ (Pr 3:19). So if the earth is established through Wisdom, how can the one who establishes be the one who is established?”67 It is true that Jesus is the “firstborn” over creation (Col. 1:15), but it is also the case that the Son is the only-begotten creator of all things. To reconcile these two principles, which would be necessary per the inclusive dimension of the canon criterion, Athanasius 62 Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, 110. Williams, Arius, 112. 64 This is one passage that is central to Gregg and Groh’s claim that Arius builds his theology upon an exalted mediator Christology. See, for example, Gregg and Groh, Early Arianism, 167. 65 See the discussion in Sieben, “l’Exégèse Dogmatique d’Athanase,” 203-4. 66 For example, see William L. Lane, Hebrews 1–8 (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1991), 13. 67 Athanasius, CA, 2.73. 63 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 692 D. Glenn Butner again appeals to different times. “‘Only-begotten’ is in reference to the generation from the Father, while ‘firstborn’ is in reference to the condescension toward creation and taking many others to be his brothers.”68 Athanasius’s answer to a Christology highlighting exaltation is to draw on a wider range of canonical texts and their mediatorial emphases. This strategy applies not only to Arius (or at least a partial representation of his arguments), but also to modern scholars like Oscar Cullman who are prone to argue that any New Testament affirmation of the deity of Christ is only on the basis of “the lordship he exercises since his exaltation.”69 There are certainly passages and books that highlight this trope over others, but a canonical approach may shift Cullman’s conclusions, though we are not yet at the point of being able to adjudicate this disagreement at this stage of our analysis of Athanasius. Athanasius’s strategy of considering various mediatorial tropes is an aspect of his larger treatment of paradeigmata, a technical term he uses to explain symbols that describe the Son or serve as Christological titles. Scholars have recently emphasized the role of the canon in Athanasian interpretation. Thus, James D. Ernest writes, “In Athanasian exegesis, it is clear that the part can be understood only in terms of the whole.”70 This roughly corresponds with what I have called the canon principle, an idea that increasingly fits Athanasius’s hermeneutics as his career progresses.71 Granting that “it is easy enough to dismiss the logical force of Athanasius’s rhetoric” when Athanasius cites Christological titles and divine names from across the canon to interpret a given passage, Anatolios insists that Athanasius’s approach does have “a certain logic,” but one that requires us to “empathize with the fundamental conviction that the Scriptures are really revelatory of God.”72 In other words, if we grant the inspiration principle and the canon principle, then interpretation of the Bible requires recognition that certain texts may have a meaning exceeding the historical human authors’ understanding, but the normative dimension of the canonical principle requires reading the text in a manner that allows the texts to cohere.73 Recognizing these assumptions, Anatolios argues that we can explain Athanasius’s logic in three stages: 1) recognition of the canonical teaching that divine presence is manifest through Word, Power, and Wisdom; 2) recognition that Christ is identified with the same lexical field (essentially by appeal to a mediatorial Christology similar to that in modern debates); 3) concluding that “the biblically named God is the God whose being must be construed according to the mutual correlation of these lexical fields.”74 Although the Arians may have a certain scriptural logic behind their argumentation insofar as their position is rooted in 68 Athanasius, CA, 2.62. Oscar Cullman, The Christology of the New Testament, trans. Shirley C. Guthrie and Charles M. Hall, revised edition (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1963), 235. 70 Ernest, Bible in Athanasius, 133. 71 Ernest notes that Athanasius used the threefold exegetical rule of attending to person, time, and occasion for roughly a decade. By the third book of Contra Arianos, he had substituted alternative language of attending to the “scope of Scripture.” Ernest suggests this is more precise in comparison with what the “tripartite rule had artificially and inconsistently technologized.” This is especially the case since Athanasius had largely referenced time and person simply to establish the preexistence of Christ that was a necessary inference from the larger story of the Bible. Ernest, Bible in Athanasius, 141-42. 72 Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, 111. 73 As T. F. Torrance summarizes, Athanasius treats the paradeigmata as divine revelation, such that they are “not arbitrary,” but must be interpreted “within the scope of Scripture, and within the relation of the Son to the Father and the Father to the Son which they are adopted to express.” Thomas F. Torrance, Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Hermeneutics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995), 255-56. 74 Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, 112. 69 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 693 scriptural citation, Athanasius insists that it is not sufficiently scriptural because it does not account for the full range of inspired texts.75 Athanasius’s hermeneutic provides him ammunition for his dispute with Asterius in Contra Arianos. Asterius points to other figures that were called the power of God in the Bible to offer a less exalted view of Christ. As a result, Asterius concludes that the Word must have learned how to create. Athanasius responds, “If the Wisdom of God has acquired the creative agency through teaching, how can it still be Wisdom if it is in need of learning?”76 The Son did not need to learn since he was God’s very Wisdom and Word.77 Asterius uses a deflationary approach, reducing the significance of titles like “power of God” that are applied to Christ (1 Cor. 1:24). The canonical principle would challenge such an approach. Although some object, there is good reason to believe that in 1Corinthians 8:6 Paul is incorporating the Son into the Shema, an elevation of status that would justify a more exalted Christology than Asterius’s deflationary approach suggests.78 Thus, while the prophets may speak the words of God, for example, Athanasius insists that the Word of God is not “mere enunciation,” for it differs from human words as God differs from humans in mode of speaking.79 Jesus, as Word, is the one through whom God creates all things.80 Jesus, as Lord, is the one incorporated into the Shema. Jesus, as power, cannot then be reduced to a mere creature.81 This brings us to the central disputed text in Contra Arianos book 2: Proverbs chapter eight.82 Early Arians often appealed to Proverbs 8:22—“The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works”—considering this text clear proof of their position. Athanasius counters by appeal to the paradeigmata. The Son is “proper (idios) Word and Wisdom of the Father’s being.”83 Contra Arianos reveals a shift in Athanasius’s rhetoric, 75 The confession of the Arians calls God “alone true” (cf. John 17:3), “alone wise” (cf. Romans16:27), and “alone good,” (cf. Mark 10:18), and drew on 1 Timothy 6:15-16. Gregg and Groh conclude: “Arius consciously portrays God in language which is, at the very least, consonant with Scripture.” Gregg and Groh, Early Arianism, 89-90. 76 Athanasius, CA, 2.28. 77 Athanasius, CA, 2.29. 78 James Dunn argues that Paul not only “splits the Shema,” but “splits the more regular Stoic formulation also between the one God (‘from him,’ ‘to him’) and the one Lord (‘through him’; contrast Rom. 11:36).” James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1980), 180. McGrath objects, arguing that Paul could not identify “Lord” with Jesus and “God” with the Father “in passing,” since the Deuteronomic form considered both titles as applying to one subject. Surely, Paul would need to explain his meaning if he intended to incorporate the Son into the Shema. Noting the context of 1 Corinthians 8:5, which discusses gods in heaven and earth, McGrath argues that Paul means there is one God in heaven, one Lord on earth. McGrath, Only True God, 39-41. I find the cumulative evidence for splitting the Shema more compelling. As Dunn notes, not only is the Stoic formulation also split, but Fletcher-Louis adds an interesting numerological argument in support of this reading. The numerical value of the divine name was 26, and Paul’s new confession includes 26 words, thirteen dedicated to the one God, thirteen to the one Lord. Fletcher-Louis notes that such numerical allusions were common in second temple writings. Fletcher-Louis, Jesus Monotheism, 43-50. 79 Athanasius, CA, 2.35. 80 Athanasius posits a fundamental distinction between that which creates and that which is created, such that creation is both ‘outside’ of God and yet ‘in’ the Word. Anatolios, Athanasius: Coherence, 101-4. 81 The New Testament’s emphasis on the variegated mediatorial roles of Christ finds a parallel in Philo of Alexandria’s discussion of the Word (Logos), which he also depicts as God’s angel leading the Israelites in the wilderness (Quaest. Exod. 2.13), as “first-born,” “archangel,” and “name of God” Conf. Lng. 146), who is the power of God. See the summary in Hurtado, One God, One Lord, 44-45. This parallel suggests that individual biblical authors may not have viewed the different Christological models throughout the New Testament as opposed, but as complementary. This would mitigate concerns that a canonical approach is too prone to harmonizing. 82 See Athanasius, CA 2.18ff. 83 Athanasius, CA 2.49. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 694 D. Glenn Butner including a significant increase in emphasizing how the Son is proper (idios) to the Father.84 Because he is proper to God, the Father’s very Wisdom and Power, Proverbs 8:22 cannot logically refer to a merely created reality. Instead, it must speak only of the Son in respect to his created and incarnate form. Here we see Athanasius’s emphasis on variegated mediatorial Christology leading him to an elevated view of Christ as mediator. This is a second constitutive dimension of his argument. Athanasius and Christ the Superior Mediator Athanasius’s appeal to the paradeigmata within canonical context allows him to identify a range of mediatorial types attributed to Christ that prevents exclusive attention to one type only. This is a helpful starting point, but considerably more is needed if theologians committed to the advances of modern biblical scholarship wish to share Athanasius’s conclusions regarding consubstiantiality. Fortunately, a supplemental support of consubstantiality is found in those New Testament texts that depict Christ as the superior mediator. Modern debates about such texts can helpfully illuminate a theme present yet perhaps peripheral in Contra Arianos. In order to defend the consubstantiality of the Son, Athanasius must challenge Arian interpretations that treat the Son as a creature, preeminent perhaps, but nevertheless not fully divine.85 Early opponents of Arianism denied the creaturehood of the Son as unduly elevated theological anthropology,86 but Athanasius considers this approach unduly minimal Christology. He objects to the language of “creature but not as one of the creatures” or “offspring but not as one of the offsprings” because by attributing to the Son “things that one would say about the other creatures,” they cannot explain what makes the Son “exceptional.”87 Writing against Asterius, who appeals to the example of God saying that the locust is his great power (Joel 2:25 LLX), a deflationary account of the divine attributes (see Contra Arianos 2.37), Athanasius deploys a principle that Anatolios summarizes as follows: “Since Scriptures as a whole . . . assert the unique preeminence of Christ, that preeminence must be applied to the interpretation of all the Christological titles in a way that maximizes their value.”88 Arian exegesis emphasized New Testament passages that point to an exalted mediator, perhaps suggesting that Jesus’s elevated state was earned; contested texts include Philippians 2:9-10 and Psalm 44:8. Athanasius points to a cluster of texts in Contra Arianos 1.37-40 that demonstrate Christ’s pre-existence. Several of these texts draw on other mediatorial titles (John 1:3; Prov. 8:30). Athanasius cites Hebrews 1:6 in the context of verses showing the Son had the name before exaltation, apparently because he identifies having the name with being worshipped.89 Bearing the name thus makes Christ pre-existent and worthy of worship such that he cannot be a mere creature like the locust. The variegated mediatorial Christology found within the canon, including angelomorphic and personified divine 84 The term idios is used Christologically only twice in On the Incarnation 3.32 and twice in Contra Gentiles 2.40. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 114 n. 31. 85 Some treatments of Arius’s theology emphasize his idea that the Son is the preeminent creature. See Joseph Wolinsky, “Le Monothéisme Chrétien Classique Principalement au IVe siècle,” in Le Christianisme Est-Il Un Monothéisme?, edited by Pierre Gisel and Gilles Emery (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2001), 157-58. 86 See the discussion in Gregg and Groh, Early Arianism, 56. “Athanasius spoke with some accuracy and certainly with full seriousness when he warned that the Arians sought ‘to ascend to heaven and be like the Most High.’” Ibid., 66. 87 Athanasius, CA 2.19. 88 Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, 112. 89 Ernest, Bible in Athanasius, 127-28. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 695 attribute Christology, are thus important weapons in Athanasius’s anti-Arian arsenal. However, given modern debates surrounding Christological monotheism and mediatorial Christology, we must question whether Athanasius is correct in viewing the Son as divine on the basis of being the unique mediator who is worthy of worship. I will consider his role as unique mediator in this section, and the role of worship in the next. Modern scholars are prone to point to examples of other mediatorial figures that may fit the Arian deflationary account of Christ. Where early Arians may have believed that God will have many sons and words,90 some modern scholars note that there are other mediatorial figures who may bear the divine name. Adela Yarbro Collins points out that in Psalm 45:7 “the king is addressed as ‘Elohim,’” while Isaiah 9:5 addresses the king “Mighty God.”91 Setting aside disputes over how to interpret these texts, note that at least some modern commentators wonder in light of these verses whether the divine name bestowed in Philippians 2:10-11 is truly evidence of the unique mediatorial role of Christ, as Athanasius posits.92 James McGrath echoes the sentiment of many when he notes that there are analogues in second temple Judaism, for example, in the Apocalypse of Abraham 10:3, 8, where the angel Yahoel (a combination of the divine names Yahweh and El) is sent to mediate the divine name.93 Such examples make it tempting to agree with Asterius that Christ is created wisdom, but not God’s proper Wisdom.94 Athanasius’s position is strengthened to a degree if we accept the canon principle, which in its restrictive dimension would exclude texts like the Apocalypse of Abraham from dogmatic consideration since they are not in the canon. Eliminating the many second temple texts with such exalted mediator figures as Yahoel reduces the number of candidate mediators who may be equal in nature and glory to Christ. We are still left with some puzzling canonical texts to address, including not only those noted by Yarbro Collins above, but also texts like Exodus 23:21, where an angel is said to have God’s name in him. Might Jesus be a similar non-divine figure to the angel in Exodus 23? Athanasius’s appeal to the paradeigmata and variegated mediatorial imagery is of some help here, for this angel may bear the name like Christ, but is not also called God’s Wisdom, Word, and Power. One might also argue that the New Testament appropriates this Exodus tradition to Jesus himself. For example, some textual variants of Jude 5-7 attribute a series of acts to “Jesus” or, more boldly “God Christ” (theos christos), depending on the textual variant,95 including delivering the Israelites from Egypt, destroying those in the desert who did not believe, and binding fallen angels. Jarl Fossum argues that these acts were all attributed to angelic mediators by the second temple period, so he sees this passage as an example of 90 Gregg and Groh, Early Arianism, 56. Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Worship of Jesus and the Imperial Cult,” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus, edited by Carey C. Newman, James R. Davila, and Gladys S. Lewis (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 234-57; at 239. These verses are interpreted as evidence of the “human king as divine agent.” Ibid., 251. 92 Athanasius explains in detail that Christ was exalted and given the name he already had as a sign of how through the Incarnation and Resurrection he had provided for the theosis of humanity. “It was so that we may receive, that we may be anointed, that we may be highly exalted in him, just as he sanctifies himself for our sakes, so that we may be sanctified in him.” Athanasius, CA, 1.48. 93 McGrath, Only True God, 49. 94 Athanasius summarizes Asterius’s position in CA 2.37-38. 95 Many translations prefer MSS that attribute these acts to the Lord. For example, see the NASB, NIV, NKJV, and NRSV. The CSB and ESV favor the MSS supporting “Jesus.” 91 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 696 D. Glenn Butner angelomorphic Christology.96 It may be that language of Jesus receiving the name in Philippians 2:10-11, John 17:11, and other passages is meant to allude to the angelic bearer of the divine name in Exodus 23, serving as another example of angelomorphic Christology.97 Using the canon principle, such angelomorphic Christology could perhaps undercut Exodus 23 as a counterexample to Athanasius’s argument, though further arguments will be needed to fully defend the Athanasian point.98 A number of New Testament texts are thought to serve the purpose of denying any elevated status for other mediators in comparison with Christ. At times this is obvious: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Here Christ alone is the true mediator. Hebrews 1:4–2:10 clearly elevates Christ above any angels who might wrongly (in the author’s mind) be considered his equal.99 At other times, scholars identify passages that would likely have been interpreted as minimizing other mediators when read in first-century contexts. For example, John’s “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven” (3:13) may be intended to deny ascension traditions associated with seers or exalted human mediators.100 When Jesus claims in Matthew 11:27 that “no one knows the Father except the Son,” a similar denial of other mediators may be in mind.101 Where Asterius offers a deflationary account of the Son’s status, the New Testament offers a deflationary account of potential competing mediators, providing further warrant for Athanasius’s claim that the Son is not merely a “creature but not as one of the creatures.” Recent debates concerning angelic refusal of worship can also supplement Athanasius’s defense of the consubstantiality of Father and Son. In a much-discussed article, Richard Bauckham identified a common trope where angels refused worship from human beings. Bauckham particularly emphasizes such refusal traditions in numerous ancient Jewish texts, particularly in Revelation 19:10 and 22:9 and in the 96 Jarl E. Fossum, The Image of the Invisible God: Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 50-57. 1 Enoch 10:4-6 depicts God assigning one of the four “angels of the presence” with binding fallen angels until the day of judgment. Numbers 14 depicts the Israelites in the desert being destroyed by a plague. 1 Chronicles 21:12, 15 identifies plagues being brought by the angel of the Lord. Wisdom 18 expands on these traditions to claim that the Egyptians are punished by God’s word, which seems to be identified with the angel of the Lord. 97 See the survey of divine name Christology and its precedents in Charles A. Gieschen, “The Divine Name in Ante-Nicene Christology,” Vigiliae Christianae 57, no. 2 (2003): 115-58. Gieschen cautiously claims that “Although it is often very difficult to chart direct influence of some [second temple and earlier texts on the divine name] in early Christian literature, nevertheless they provide traditions that were in the literary and theological milieu of the first century.” Gieschen, “Divine Name,” 128. 98 A number of scholars have suggested that Arius relied on angelomorphic Christology to argue for the subordinate nature of the Son. See the brief survey in Charles A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 187-88. 99 In fact, this exaltation of the Son over angels is likely the center of a chiastic structure found in Hebrews 1:1-14, further emphasizing the significance of Christ’s superiority to angels. See Victor (Sung Yul) Rhee, “The Role of Chiasm for Understanding Christology in Hebrews 1:1-14,” Journal of Biblical Literature 131, no. 2 (2012): 341-62; at 342. 100 Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (1977; reprint Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), 214; D. Moody Smith, Jr., John (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1999), 98. 101 Nolland notes that some interpret the passage as meaning that the Son knows the Father by virtue of his heavenly origin, which might allow creatures with similar heavenly origins to have similar knowledge. Nolland argues that this approach is mistaken. “The note of exclusivity is carried not by any sense that such knowledge is too lofty, but rather by something much closer to an image of the privacy of an intimate family relationship.” John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005), 472. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 697 Ascension of Isaiah 7:21 and 8:5.102 In contrast to these refusals, Jesus is worshiped in Revelation 5:8-14, where he alone is worthy to open the sealed book (5:2-3), another affirmation of the Son’s unique mediatorial role. Bauckham concludes: Far from endorsing a general tendency to reverence intermediary beings, these writers [of Revelation and of the Ascension of Isaiah]—and no doubt the apocalyptic Christian circles they represent—emphasized a traditional motif designed to rule out angelolatry. At the same time they depicted the worship of Jesus in the throne-room of heaven. This combination of motifs had the effect, probably more clearly than any other Christological theme available in their world of ideas, of placing Jesus on the divine side of the line which monotheism must draw between God and creatures.103 Bauckham’s work has both found support and met resistance. Stuckenbruck argues that angelic reassurances to humans not to be afraid (Matthew 1:20-21; Mark 16:5-7; Luke 1:1120; 2:8-12) may also seek to prohibit the worship of angels, given the overlap between fear and reverence.104 McGrath objects that humans were not to prostrate themselves before angels because angels were equals with humans. Prostration before kings was apparently accepted (see 1 Chr. 29:20-23).105 He adds that the veneration of Jesus evident in Revelation was acceptably applied to other figures besides God elsewhere in second temple literature. However, typical examples of equivalent veneration are found outside of the canon (as the next section will explore in more detail). If we accept the canon principle, as both Athanasius and his early opponents appear to, then it becomes much more difficult to identify figures within the canon that receive similar cultic veneration, while the New Testament clearly and consistently deflates other mediatorial figures. If the first step in defending Athanasius’s conclusions from a modern standpoint is to recognize that the variegated mediatorial Christology of the New Testament prevents us from treating Christ as mere exalted figure, then a second step is recognizing that the Son, the exalted Messiah, the very Wisdom and Word of God, even though depicted angelomorphically, is the supreme mediator of the Father unlike any other mediators. A third and final step is necessary. Athanasius’s argument that the Son is a unique mediator, consubstantial with the Father, culminates with a discussion of worship. Athanasius is clear that “even before he became human he was worshipped by angels 102 Other examples include Tobit 12:16-22, the Apocalypse of Zephaniah 9:12–10:9, 3 Enoch 16:2-5, and others. Richard Bauckham, “The Worship of Jesus in Apocalyptic Christianity,” New Testament Studies 27, no. 3 (April 1981): 322-41, at 335. 104 Stuckenbruck, Angel Veneration, 87-92. Bauckham comments, “The fear which is a primary ingredient in . . . reaction to angelophanies . . . comes very close to the essentially religious response to the numinous. Accounts of angelophanies depict the angels radiant with the divine glory they share, and many of the accounts of the visionaries’ reactions seem to exemplify precisely that mixture of terror and fascination which Rudolf Otto described as man’s basic, primitive response to the numinous Other, which lies at the root of all religious worship.” Bauckham, “The Worship of Jesus in Apocalyptic Christianity,” 324. 105 McGrath, Only True God, 19, 79. McGrath argues that since prostration is permissible, we cannot clearly identify the Son with God. The true dividing line between creature and Creator is rooted in sacrifice. He asks, “As there was apparently no sacrificial worship of Jesus by the early Christians, does this clarify his relation to Israel’s one God?” McGrath, Only True God, 19. McGrath overstates the case, as Revelation 5 moves beyond prostration (5:8) to the singing of songs to the Lamb as one “worthy” (5:9, 12) to the point of being included beside God in receiving “blessing and honor and glory and power . . . forever and ever!” (5:13). Where humans are denied prostration before angels, the Lamb is the object of cultic devotion and prostration. More on this will be said in the coming section. 103 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 698 D. Glenn Butner and by all creation.” It is this fact, that “even the angels and archangels” worship him forever, that proves his deity.106 Modern debates on Christological monotheism focus on worship in the same way. Therefore, the final evaluation of whether and under what conditions a modern theologian can accept Athanasius’s defense of consubstantiality in light of modern biblical scholarship leads to the question of worship. Athanasius and Christological Monotheism Throughout Contra Arianos Athanasius points to the worship of the Son to argue that the Son is divine. This appeal to worship serves as the culmination of Athanasius’s argument. For example, he insists: [The Son is] worshipped by [angels] not as one who is greater in glory but as being other than them and other than all creatures and as the only one who is the Father’s own Son by essence. If he was worshipped because he excelled in glory, then each of those who are inferior should worship the one who excels it. But it is not so. A creature does not worship a creature, but the servant worships the master and the creature worships God.107 Here Athanasius assumes that anything worshipped is God, and that lower creatures should not worship those who are higher. Of course, this assumption has been challenged by modern biblical scholars who have pointed to plenty of second temple texts where this assumption may not apply, particularly in terms of prostration to show veneration. Closer examination of Athanasius’s broader project, however, reveals that he has specifically cultic worship in mind, even if he is not aware of the fluidity of worship in the first-century context in which the Bible was written. It is this cultic emphasis and its implications that will be the subject of this section. Twice at crucial junctures of the second books of Contra Arianos, Athanasius concludes his argument by appealing to the worship of the Son as the final vindication of his position. After arguing against Asterius in particular concerning the uncreated nature of the Son, Athanasius concludes his line of thought with an appeal to baptism in 2.41 and 2:43, arguing that baptism’s triadic structure necessitates viewing the Son as God, not creature.108 In 2.71-72, Athanasius offers what Kannengiesser calls a “doctrinal post-script” to his explicit commentary on Proverbs 8:22.109 The Son cannot be a creature since he is one who is worshipped with the Father, Athanasius concludes. Thus, the Son who is Wisdom cannot be created. Both of these appeals are particularly cultic in nature and warrant further examination. In Contra Arianos 2.41 and 43, Athanasius points to the asymmetry of baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit if all three are not divine. “It would be impious to say that it is because the Father is not self-sufficient,” so we cannot say that two figures are added because of a lack in the Father unless there is good reason. Apparently, there is no good reason to include creatures in this list, for “why is what is made counted 106 Athanasius, CA 1.42. 107 Athanasius, CA 2.23. 108 I am following the analysis of Contra Arianos provided by Kannengiesser, Athanase D’Alexandrie, 73-83. Ibid., 90. Kannengiesser then treats 2.73 and following as “appendices” on Wisdom in general and on Proverbs 8:23. 109 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 699 together with the Maker in the act whereby we are all perfected?”110 Athanasius ultimately concludes that those who believe they are baptized into the name of two creatures along with God “have received nothing at all; and being aligned with a creature they will have no help from the creation.”111 To be sure, Asterius can point to other powers that share a title with Christ. Athanasius has already shown that no such powers share in other mediatorial roles and possess other mediatorial titles. Christ is the unique mediator in that sense. Here is Athanasius’s strongest argument, though—even if a figure did share such roles, the Son and Spirit alone are included in the baptismal rite and so are on the divine side of the Creator/creature distinction. The appeal to baptism is linked to Athanasian soteriology, with its emphasis on participating in the divine nature to avoid corruption.112 When we partake of the Son (see 2 Pet. 1:4), we only partake of God if the Word is God. Otherwise, we are left in corruption.113 Although a full discussion of contemporary treatments of baptism would take an entire article, several salient features can be noted here. It is noteworthy that the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 occurs in the context of Jesus announcing that he has been given all authority (28:18), meaning that the scope of his power and authority are universal, in contrast to other powers.114 Note also Christ’s promised presence with his disciples (28:20). Hurtado suggests that Christ’s promise forms an inclusio with Matthew 1:23, where Jesus is named Immanuel, “God with us.” The identification between Christ and God is significant here, too.115 Within this already elevated mediatorial identification, we have the presence of the divine name attributed to Father, Son, and Spirit conjointly. Though there is some canonical precedent for the giving of this name to the angel of the Lord elsewhere (Exod. 23:20-21), angelomorphic Christology in the New Testament could perhaps allow for the identification of this figure with Christ himself. (No doubt this move would be heavily contested today, though not in Athanasius’s time). It is in the context of these three features that baptism is commanded in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here, the cultic initiation into the Christian community, a central cultic event in the life of all Christians, is not only done in the name of Jesus, but introduced to the Matthean community in a context where the Son’s authority and power, worldwide presence, and identity are all associated with the Father. This is not an explicit affirmation of consubstantiality, but it is certainly an easier hermeneutic move, especially assuming the inspiration principle, to deduce from the baptismal formula the divine status of the Son than it is to reduce him to a mere mediator among other mediators. 110 111 Athanasius, CA 2.41 Athanasius, CA 2.43. 112 For Athanasius, baptism involves mystical unity with God and adoption as God’s son. Athanasius, CA 1.34; 2.41. 113 Athanasius, CA 1.16. This argument assumes that the Son is internal to the essence of God, while we are external. That which is external must be affixed to the internal to receive any benefit. Anatolios, Athanasius: Coherence, 107-8. 114 Lars Hartman notes the parallels between Matthew 28:18-20 and Philippians 2:9. In both, Jesus is said to have received power, and in the context of both this is likely seen as an exaltation. In both instances, moreover, there is a significant association between Christ and God, though one can certainly dispute the extent on the basis of having received authority alone. Lars Hartman, “Into the Name of the Lord Jesus”: Baptism in the Early Church (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), 148-49. 115 Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 332. This may also be an echo of the frequent Old Testament promise that God would be with his people, further identifying the Father and Son. Hak Choi Kim, “The Worship of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew,” Biblica 93, no. 2 (2012): 227-41; at 234. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 700 D. Glenn Butner In Contra Arianos 2.71, Athanasius argues that “the Word is not a work and not one of those who praise but is himself praised (hymnoumenos) and worshipped (proskunoumenos) and confessed (theologoumenos) as God.”116 Note the cultic terminology used here. As modern scholars note, proskuneō can refer to prostration in many contexts, but Athanasius clarifies that the Son is hymned and confessed. The scriptural use of the word hymnoumenos clearly references song “in a cultic setting,”117 and though the larger context of classical Greek includes examples of this verb being used to praise heroes, generally the term refers to praise given to the gods.118 Athanasius interprets Psalms as being sung to or about Christ,119 continuing the prosopological exegesis common throughout the New Testament. Though prosopological exegesis exceeds the scope of the Christological monotheism debate proper, it is related to the subject of worship insofar as interpreting Old Testament passages as pre-incarnate conversations between Father and Son further highlights the Son’s role as a preexistent mediatorial figure. Furthermore, such New Testament prosopological hermeneutic methods may lie behind early Christian singing of hymns to Christ, since such exegesis made it possible to read certain parts of the Psalms as originally referencing Christ. Interpreting and singing Psalms to Christ is another cultic practice that may have played a historical role in the development of viewing Jesus as divine long before the time of Athanasius’s writing.120 Here again, Athanasius has a cultic emphasis. Athanasius has hit on the center of the Christological monotheism debates: is the worship that Christians rendered to Christ unique and therefore evidence of his divinity? As discussed above, there is no consensus among New Testament scholars on this question when it comes to first-century Judaism. Hurtado believes the cultic dimension of Christ-worship is unique and evidence of a Christian mutation of earlier Judaism. Note that Athanasius emphasizes the particularly cultic reverence of Christ to make his case, making a claim that is functionally parallel to Hurtado’s main argument. If Hurtado’s position is sound, it provides warrant for Athanasius’s conclusions using decidedly modern exegesis. However, Hurtado’s detractors may be correct, and worship of Christ may not have been so unique in first-century context. If they are correct, is this a decisive modern blow to Athanasius’s affirmation of consubstantiality? Granting that Hurtado’s position may be wrong, the hermeneutic specified in this article still justifies siding with Athanasius when he believes that worship indicates the divinity of Christ, and for two reasons. First, the restrictive dimension of the canon 116 Athanasius, CA 2.71. Bright, ed., 142. William F. Arndt, Frederick William Danker, and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 1027. See Acts 16:25; Hebrews 2:12. In fact, Matthew 14:26 may use the term to refer to a “‘singing recitation’ of the second part of the Hallel (Ps 114–118).” Gerhard Delling, “Hymnos,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 8 edited by Gerhard Friedrich, translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972), 489-503, at 499. 118 Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones, and Roderick McKenzie, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), 1849. 119 For example, in Contra Arianos 1.46-47 Athanasius cites Psalm 45 to argue that Christ’s throne is eternal (45:7) and that he is “here ‘anointed’ not so as to become God, for he was God before this” but “as a human being” so that he may “provide us human beings with the indwelling and intimacy of the Holy Spirit.” Athanasius’s argument is less significant here than the fact that he appeals to the Psalms as if sung to God, a common practice and evidence that the fourth-century Church likely sung these Psalms to Christ cultically. 120 See Margaret Daly-Denton, “Singing Hymns to Christ as to a God,” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus, edited by Carey C. Newman, James R. Davila, and Gladys S. Lewis (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 272-92. 117 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Exegetical Foundations of Consubstantiality 701 principle would remove many of the purported counter-examples from any normative role in the Christian Church. Whether these examples were archaeological121 or present in such texts as the Life of Adam and Eve, someone affirming the canon principle could simply view such worship as deviant and heterodox. Other exalted mediatorial figures are incorporated into the identity of Christ due to the normative and inclusive dimensions of the canon principle. For example, the Son of Man in Daniel 7 does not stand as an independent figure, but in canonical context must be seen as a reference to Jesus Christ, the Son of Man. Thus, if worship of the Son of Man is evident in Daniel 7, the canon principle, if accepted, compels the reader to identify this worship as worship of Christ. Of course, such interpretations likely exceed both the intent of the historical author and the understanding of the historical audience. This is where the inspiration principle comes in with a second defense of Athanasius’s conclusions. If Hurtado is wrong, the first century audience may not have yet understood the divinity of Christ in light of his cultic worship. Yet the preservation of this cultic worship in the New Testament canon does foster the “problem of the Trinity,”122 the question of why it is that the Son can be worshipped in this manner beside the Father. Even if first-century Christians may not have interpreted this pattern of worship as indicative of consubstantiality, the inspiration principle allows that the full meaning of the text may exceed what was understood in the first century. Once we apply the canon principle, it is a rational conclusion to interpret the Father and Son as equally worthy of worship, and so equally divine, fully consubstantial with one another. With the right hermeneutic, Athanasius’s conclusions comport well with modern New Testament scholarship. The Bible, Hermeneutics, and Philosophy I began this exploration with two treatments of Nicene thought in light of contemporary biblical studies by Maurice Wiles and Leander Keck. Wiles, writing before the emergence of the Christological monotheism debates, saw no viable connection between biblical studies and the conclusions of Nicaea. This article has shown that there is in fact considerable overlap between the Christological monotheism debates and Athanasius’s Contra Arianos, both in the emphasis on mediatorial figures and in the decisive role reserved for worship. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, Wiles’s concerns appear outdated. Of course, this need not imply that Athanasius would be supported by contemporary scholarship, and this is the concern raised by Leander Keck. Keck claimed that modern methods were not amenable to theological questions, and that modern exegesis lends little support in favor of Athanasius over Arius. I have countered this claim by noting two specific hermeneutic principles that would fit both Athanasius’s and contemporary methods, at least in some quarters of the academy. On the basis of these hermeneutic principles, I have argued that Athanasius’s appeal to variegated mediatorial Christology is more defensible than the deflationary account of early Arians like Asterius. Similarly, Athanasius’s appeal to the cultic worship of Christ compellingly persuades that the Son is divine and not merely an advancing creature, as Arius likely supposed, provided that one restricts consideration to the New Testament canon. 121 See, for example, McGrath, Only True God, 30. 122 The language here is from Arthur W. Wainwright, The Trinity in the New Testament, second impression with corrections (London: SPCK, 1969). © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 702 D. Glenn Butner It appears, then, that the question of whether Athanasius’s conclusions can be accepted today by those informed with and formed by contemporary biblical scholarship relies upon two other assumptions. The first is simply the acceptance of a certain Hellenistic metaphysic that would express the co-divinity of Father and Son in terms of consubstantiality. If the move to such concepts is problematic, then the modern predicament with the Trinity is more philosophical than exegetical in nature. In any event, I am unconvinced by philosophical concerns with “substance metaphysics,” so I do not find this troubling. For those who disagree, at the very least this article seeks to provide evidence that there is exegetical warrant for the judgment that “consubstantiality” is attempting to express. A substitution of functionally comparable terminology using different metaphysical systems would do little to damage the core of Christian dogma. The second assumption is considerably larger than that of hermeneutics. I have argued that Athanasius’s conclusions can be held today on the basis of modern biblical scholarship provided that the interpreter affirm what I have called the canon principle and the inspiration principle. Although I have noted corners of the academic world where such concepts may be welcome, I am under no illusion that all parts of the academy would embrace such principles. Certainly, many would object. This is well and good, but it only shows that in the context of certain academic questions and methods there may not be exegetical warrant for the Trinity today. I am more interested in the question of what the Bible means for the Church, and, in the context of Christian community, it seems far more reasonable to affirm something like the canon principle and the inspiration principle. In other words, in a community that has committed to uphold the Bible not merely as an object of study but as Scripture, it is plausible to count the very notions of canon and inspiration as intrinsic to the very notion of Scripture. Can the exegetical conclusions of recent New Testament scholarship comport with the exegetical foundations of pro-Nicene orthodoxy? This article has provided an answer with respect to consubstantiality: yes, modern biblical studies can support consubstantiality, provided that one commit to reading the Bible as Scripture. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd