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Church Teaching

Christology 101: The Humanity of Jesus

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It is too often the case that when people talk about the divinity of Jesus, they imply that his divinity either overwhelms, supplants or destroys his humanity. Often, in fact,…

It is too often the case that when people talk about the divinity of Jesus, they imply that his divinity either overwhelms, supplants or destroys his humanity. Often, in fact, people will defend their devotion to the saints because they are “not God like Jesus is.” Well intentioned, it is a way of speaking that too easily undermines a central tenant of the Christian faith: that being fully God, Jesus is also fully man.

This problem was the subject of many intense theological debates over the early centuries of the Church and still plague us in the context of certain modern questions. The issues surrounding this are: If God becomes man, what of man remains? Does the divinity in any way replace the human? Does the human in any way limit the divinity?

To answer this problem, the Fathers of the Church developed a principle that helped guide our understanding of Jesus: “That which is not assumed is not redeemed.” If there is anything of our humanity that Jesus does not possess, then that aspect is not redeemed. If he has no body, the body is not redeemed; no will, the will is not redeemed, etc. If there is an aspect of our humanity that is not redeemed, then Jesus did not really accomplish what he set out to accomplish. If Jesus has not accomplished our salvation, then we are still in our sin, and more pitiable because of it.

Perfect harmony and communion

It is for this reason the Church confidently affirms the full humanity of Jesus and applies the following principle when speaking about Jesus’ humanity and divinity: The humanity of Jesus in no way limits his divinity, and his divinity in no way overwhelms, destroys or sublimates his humanity. They are in a perfect harmony and communion. The divinity dwells in his humanity as the burning bush appeared to Moses: It was aflame but not consumed or destroyed. The divinity is always greater, but never in a competition with creation. No, God himself is always seeking to lift creation to its perfection.

Thus we must affirm that Jesus does have a humanity exactly like ours. He has a body, soul, mind, memory and will just like ours. If we believe that the divinity being united to humanity in some way makes us less human or less ourselves, then it betrays an unbiblical view of God. The biblical view, definitively revealed in Jesus, demonstrates that humanity is most itself when it is closest to and rooted in God.

There is one thing we have that Jesus lacked: sin. “For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin” (2 Cor 5: 21). We might respond to this by saying: “This makes him difficult to relate to” or “Then he really isn’t like us, then.” But instead of the earlier error of overemphasizing the divinity to the neglect of his humanity, we now fall into the opposite error of over emphasizing his humanity to the neglect of his divinity. It is because of sin that we are, in fact, less human!

Perfecting

Sin destroys the image of God in which we have been made, it makes us subject to corruption and death and it dulls our mind towards God. But if God is the source of our dignity, freedom and identity, it follows that the more God is present, the more human we are. In Jesus we find God most relatable because he is most human. When we buy into the idea that Jesus is difficult to relate to because he is without sin, we are giving power to the forces of sin and death and see God in a competitive, instead of perfecting, fashion. The humanity of Christ is of supreme importance because it shows us both what true humanity looks like and gives us a pattern and way to follow, but it also is in the humanity of Jesus that we are born into a redeemed humanity. Without this humanity, we have no hope of eternal life, because it is in the humanity of Jesus that we are truly alive.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison.

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Relics

Face Cloth of Jesus’ Burial: The Sudarium of Oviedo

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For more than a thousand years, Christian pilgrims have traveled to Oviedo, Spain. At the cathedral there, they venerate a small linen cloth identified by ancient tradition as the bloodstained…

For more than a thousand years, Christian pilgrims have traveled to Oviedo, Spain. At the cathedral there, they venerate a small linen cloth identified by ancient tradition as the bloodstained cloth that covered Jesus’ face after His death.

In the Middle Ages these pilgrims made the difficult detour from the Camino de Santiago (“the Way of St. James,” which led to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela) to Oviedo’s Cathedral of San Salvador. They traveled there in response to the popular refrain, “He who goes to Compostela and not to San Salvador honors the servant and forsakes the Lord.” The saying reflects the age-old tradition that Santiago de Compostela was the final resting place for St. James the Apostle, while San Salvador (“Holy Savior”) was famous for the relic of Christ’s death.

The Cloth’s Appearance

What makes this ancient cloth distinctive? The Sudarium of Oviedo, as it is called, is 34 by 21 inches. Its linen fabric is dirty, stained and wrinkled, with a large number of transparent brown “washed out” bloodstains. It does not contain a facial image, although its stains clearly conform to those that would be produced by the head of a man brutally crucified.

The stains are the product of pulmonary edema that flowed from the nose and mouth after death, as is characteristic of crucifixion victims — the same kind of flow that St. John witnessed from Christ’s side (see Jn 19:34). The cloth is also covered with aloe, which was used in first-century Jewish burials as a preservative. St. John testifies that Nicodemus brought 100 pounds of aloes and myrrh to anoint Jesus (see 19:39).

The Evangelist mentions a sudarium as “the cloth that had covered [Jesus’] head” (Jn 20:7), rolled up and set apart from the shroud in the tomb. This Latin term comes from sudor, meaning “sweat.” (In the Gospel account, the term appears in the Greek text as a Latin loan word, soudarión.) The word refers to a small, multipurpose cloth that was tied to the arm as a towel to wipe sweat from the face, also serving as a scarf, apron or turban.

In the case of severe trauma and when blood flowed at the time of death, Jewish law mandated use of a sudarium to retrieve the victim’s blood. Since blood was viewed as the “seat of life,” it was unthinkable to move a disfigured corpse without covering it, and it was imperative not to lose the blood because it was just as much a part of the body as the flesh. Burial of the blood was required, even to the extent of digging up blood-soaked earth and interring bloodstained clothes and linens.

The Sudarium’s Travels

An ancient tradition claims that St. Joseph of Arimathea gave Christ’s sudarium to St. Peter, who sometimes used it as a relic when praying for someone to be healed. It was later cared for by religious women in a cave close to the Monastery of St. Mark on the far side of the Jordan River. Its history took a turn when the Persians invaded Jerusalem and its environs in 612, necessitating drastic measures.

The face cloth was taken to Alexandria, Egypt, along with many other relics. Only two years later the Persians conquered this city as well, but by that time the chest of relics was already on its way to Spain, where it was placed in the custody of St. Isidore (560-636), bishop of Seville, an influential figure in the Western Church. After Isidore’s death, St. Ildephonsus, his disciple who became bishop of Toledo, brought the relic to that city, the new Christian capital of Spain. It remained there until the Muslim invasion.

The Moors invaded Spain in 711, reaching Toledo from the coast in a matter of days. The Christians, in fear for their relics, fled north to mountains that even the Romans had never conquered. Arabic manuscripts state that the relics were hidden in a well on a mountaintop called Monsacro, an ancient sacred peak near the city of Oviedo. St. James’ pilgrims would later visit a small hermitage at the site, making the treacherous climb to pay their respects.

After the danger had passed, King Alfonso II the Chaste (c. 759-842) built the Holy Chamber for the relics at his palace in Oviedo, now part of the Gothic cathedral. Their fame quickly spread throughout the Christian world.

Archival documents relate that King Alfonso II desired to embellish the Holy Chamber with a magnificent cross. In 808, two workers appeared at his palace to offer their services, and the king left them in a room with gold and jewels while he ate lunch. When he returned, a bright light was emanating from its interior, the men were nowhere to be found, and a beautiful cross was left behind.

This “Cross of the Angels” is one of the cathedral’s most precious objects. Because of it, Rome has granted a plenary indulgence to all those who visit the cathedral each year on Sept. 14, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Benediction with the Sudarium is traditionally held on Sept. 14 and Sept. 21, the first and last days of the Jubilee of the Holy Cross.

In medieval times, the pilgrims would hold up bread and other objects during this blessing, then use them later to cure the sick. Many miracles have been recorded over the years, such as a mute pilgrim who suddenly recovered his voice in 1415, and a woman who was freed from demonic possession as she prayed in front of the chest containing the Sudarium.

Unfortunately, the Holy Chamber was destroyed in 1934, just before the Spanish Civil War, when Marxists placed dynamite in the lower crypt of St. Leocadia. The Sudarium, however, was found miraculously unharmed in the rubble, and the original stones of the chamber were collected for reconstruction. It was rededicated at the end of the war in a ceremony presided over by General Francisco Franco.

The Sudarium and the Shroud

The Spanish Center for Sindonology, based in Valencia, engages in scientific research related to the Sudarium. This institution received permission to conduct a multidisciplinary study of the cloth in 1989. Their investigation has demonstrated the overwhelming probability that the Shroud of Turin — which many believe to be the cloth in which Jesus’ crucified body was buried — and the Sudarium of Oviedo actually covered the same crucifixion victim.

If this is indeed the case, then the only possibility that can be supported historically, scientifically and biblically is that this person was Jesus of Nazareth.

A number of significant marks on the two cloths coincide: blood flows, a contusion on the right cheek, the nose flattened to the right, a similar pattern of puncture wounds at the nape of the neck, and the presence of aloe and myrrh. The two burial cloths have been separated throughout their histories, so there is little chance that one could have been forged in order to resemble the other.

But there is another compelling piece of evidence that the cloths covered the same man. Jesus is the only crucifixion victim reportedly crowned with thorns. The Shroud of Turin has in fact a distinctive trickle of blood on the forehead in the shape of the Greek letter epsilon, which appears above a drop of the same blood, from a puncture wound. This pattern appears on the Sudarium in exactly the same place.

Both linens, then, covered a man who was scourged, crowned with thorns, struck in the face, brutally crucified and buried, just as Scripture describes Christ’s unique passion, death and burial.

Witness to Christ’s Suffering

Today, many believe that the Sudarium of Oviedo is an archaeological treasure now yielding its silent testimony to the Lord’s sufferings on the cross.

Scientists have determined that the cloth remained in place for up to one hour while the dead body was still on the cross, and for another hour after the body had been placed horizontally on the ground for the first burial anointing. At that time the linen was rewrapped and knotted at the top, as documented in a fifth-century paraphrase of John’s Gospel. When the cloth was later set apart in the tomb for burial, this knot would have given it the twisted or rolled-up appearance described by John.

In the Sudarium of Oviedo, tradition, science and history have all collaborated to explain the vagaries of John 20:7 and the meaning of the linens in the tomb. The mysterious “cloth that had covered [Jesus’] head” testifies to the excruciating pain of the crucifixion, and by its connection to the Shroud of Turin, points to the reality of the Resurrection.

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Relics

Shroud of Turin: Evidence of Jesus’ Resurrection?

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The Shroud of Turin is a burial shroud (a linen cloth woven in a 3-over-1 [3:1] herringbone pattern) measuring 14 feet 3 inches in length by 3 feet 7 inches…

The Shroud of Turin is a burial shroud (a linen cloth woven in a 3-over-1 [3:1] herringbone pattern) measuring 14 feet 3 inches in length by 3 feet 7 inches in width. It apparently covered a man who suffered the wounds of crucifixion in a way very similar to that recorded for Jesus of Nazareth.

The cloth has a certifiable history from 1349, when it surfaced in Lirey, France, in the hands of a French nobleman — Geoffrey de Charny. It also has a somewhat sketchy traceable history from Jerusalem to Lirey — through Edessa, Turkey and Constantinople. This history is confirmed by the pollen grains found by Max Frei, the coincidences between the Shroud and the Sudarium (facecloth) of Oviedo, and the coincidences between the Shroud’s seven unique facial features and those attributed to the Mandylion — the Holy Image of Edessa.

The Shroud has undergone considerably more scientific testing than any other relic in human history. The 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) investigation and subsequent investigations were remarkably thorough, and with the exception of the questionable 1988 carbon dating, all the evidence points to it being the burial cloth of Jesus, including the following:

I. Four contemporary dating tests: The vanillin dating test of Dr. Raymond Rogers, the two spectroscopic analyses (of professor Giulio Fanti, et al.), and the compressibility and breaking strength tests (of Fanti, et al.) date the Shroud to a time commensurate with the life and crucifixion of Jesus.

II. Three kinds of extrinsic dating evidence: (A) Testing of pollen samples by Dr. Max Frei who collected dust samples from the Shroud during the 1978 STURP investigation and later classified 58 pollen grains by comparing them to pollen grains in the largest botanical museums around the world. His conclusion was that the majority (45) were from the region of Israel (specifically from sedimentary layers from 2,000 years ago near the area of the Sea of Galilee), with six grains from the eastern Middle East (two grains from Edessa, Turkey, and one growing exclusively in Istanbul/Constantinople). The remaining grains came from France and Italy. Importantly, 13 of the pollen grains are unique to Israel and are found at the bottom of both the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. (B) Roman coins on the eyes of the image on the Shroud, which give evidence that it’s highly probable that the image of the man on the Shroud of Turin has two Jewish lepta, minted in A.D. 29 by Pontius Pilate in Judea at the time of Jesus, on his eyelids. (C) One-hundred twenty coincidences of blood and fluid stains between the Shroud and the Sudarium of Oviedo give evidence of a date and location of the Shroud’s origin similar to that of Jesus.

III. The blood stains on the Shroud: The blood stains tell a story very similar to the highly unusual crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth — they were imprinted on the Shroud before the image was made (the opposite of what would need to be done by a forger). The Shroud has deposits of real human blood, according to the experts who studied the blood flecks gathered on the STURP tapes in 1978. They determined that the blood on the Shroud is real. Some researchers have found that male DNA and an AB blood type are also present on the cloth. Though genetic testing confirms these findings, there is no guarantee that they belong to the man on the Shroud.

IV. Formation of the image on the Shroud: The image was not formed by dyes, chemicals, vapors or scorching. The only known explanation for the formation of the image is an intense burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation (equivalent to the output of 14,000 excimer lasers) emitted from every three-dimensional point of the body in the Shroud.

The combination of the above evidence is exceedingly difficult to explain in any way other than the burial cloth is that of Jesus of Nazareth. Moreover, the formation of the image by an intense outburst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation is suggestive of a resurrection event similar to that described in the Gospels. The above scientific evidence requires that a new carbon-dating test be done which observes the standard protocols for sampling. When these protocols are observed, it would be surprising if the result was not similar to the results of the four new dating methods mentioned above — approximately A.D. 50. If this result is obtained, it would indicate that the Shroud of Turin is very likely the burial shroud of Jesus Christ with evidence suggestive of His resurrection in light.

Evidence?

While we currently do not have a definitive explanation for how this unique and mysterious image was created from the body of a deceased man, the most plausible current hypothesis comes from a combination of two teams of researchers.

Dr. John Jackson’s team studied the Shroud and proposed the vacuum ultraviolet radiation hypothesis in 2008.

According to Jackson, an intense burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation produced a discoloration on the uppermost surface of the Shroud’s fibrils (without scorching it), which gave rise to a perfect three-dimensional negative image of both the frontal and dorsal parts of the body wrapped in it.

Currently, we know of no natural explanation for the seemingly unique occurrence of such a burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation from either a decomposing body or the geological/atmospheric conditions within a tomb. Though this is suggestive of a possible supernatural origin of the radiation — perhaps as a part of Jesus’ resurrection — we cannot prove this scientifically, because we cannot construct a scientific test for a supernatural cause — all we can do is eliminate every known natural cause of this seemingly unique radiation. The uniqueness and current inexplicability of this phenomenon gives us reason to believe that God has given us evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. This belief can be strengthened by further understanding of the light phenomenon that seems to be the source of the image as well as the continued elimination of natural causes for it. The most convincing seems to be the hypothesis of Jackson.

Research

The research of the 1978 STURP investigation, as well as subsequent research of Jackson, Fanti, Paolo Di Lazzaro and their teams, shows the likelihood that sometime after the blood deposits had dried on the Shroud the decomposing body in the Shroud emitted a short intense burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation that led to a dehydration and discoloration of the frontal and dorsal parts of the Shroud, giving rise to a perfect photographic negative image. Jackson’s research also suggests that the body inside the Shroud became mechanically transparent and emitted light evenly from every three-dimensional point within it. This allowed the frontal part of the Shroud to collapse — creating an image (of both the inside and outside of the hands) as well as a double image on the frontal part of the Shroud.

Currently, the known laws of physics cannot explain how a decomposing body can emit an intense burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation. Furthermore, they cannot explain how such a body could become mechanically transparent and emit light from every three-dimensional point within it.

So, where does that leave us? If Jackson’s explanation continues to be the only one to explain away the enigmas, and if future articulations of the laws of physics cannot explain how a decomposing body could become mechanically transparent and evenly emit vacuum ultraviolet radiation from every three-dimensional point within it, then we are left at the brink of a trans-physical or metaphysical explanation. Under these conditions, it would be both reasonable and responsible to believe that a trans-physical cause interacted with the decomposing body to transform it into an intense burst of light.

Evidently, we cannot scientifically prove a trans-physical cause, because science is restricted to the domain of physical causation. However, if the above conditions hold, we can reasonably infer the possibility and perhaps the likelihood of such a trans-physical cause. This is sufficient for reasonable and responsible belief.

Does this trans-physical explanation of the Shroud’s image point to the resurrection of Jesus? Jesus’ resurrection was not a resuscitation of a material corpse but rather a transforming event which gave rise to what St. Paul called a “spiritual body” — a body transformed in glory, spirit and power. Could this transformation of a material body into a burst of intense light signify a beginning point of the transformation of Jesus’ body from a physical one to a spiritual-glorified one? Though there can be no scientific proof of this, it is a reasonable inference from the parallels between the explanation of the Shroud’s enigmatic image and the testimony of St. Paul and the Gospel writers. In this sense, we might say that the image on the Shroud presents a clue — even a relic — of Jesus’ resurrection.

Conclusion

Why would we think the body in the Shroud was that of Jesus? As explained above, it is exceedingly improbable that the Shroud is a medieval forgery. First, there are no paints, dyes or other pigments on the Shroud (except for the small flecks coming from the sanctification of icons and paintings which touched it).

Second, the anatomical precision of the blood stains — which are real human blood that congealed on the Shroud before the formation of the image — are in precise anatomical correlation to the image itself. How could a medieval forger have accomplished this?

Third, it is exceedingly difficult to explain how pollen grains indigenous to Palestine appeared in abundance on a shroud of probable Semitic origin (if it originated in medieval Europe) and how coins minted in A.D. 29 in Palestine appeared on the eyes of the man on the Shroud. How could a medieval forger have duplicated these first-century Palestinian characteristics of the Shroud?

Fourth, the five enigmas of the image on the Shroud almost certainly preclude a forgery. How could a medieval forger have used vacuum ultraviolet radiation to discolor the cloth on the uppermost surface of the fibrils? How could he have created a perfect photographic negative image? How could he have created a double image on the frontal part of the Shroud? And how could he have known how to duplicate the interior and exterior of the hands in perfect proportion to each other? Thus it does not seem reasonable or responsible to believe that the Shroud is a medieval forgery.

Three Last Points

Beyond this, there are three probative kinds of evidence pointing specifically to Jesus’place and time of origin and to His unique crucifixion and resurrection:

The material of the Shroud, the pollen grains on it and the coins on the man’s eyes all have their origin in first-century Palestine — the place where Jesus was purported to have died.

The blood stains come from a crucifixion event identical to the one described in the four Gospels — which was very unusual, if not unique, in many respects — such as being crowned with thorns, being flogged and being pierced with a Roman pilum (spear).

The five enigmas of the Shroud’s image point to a trans-physically caused burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation from a mechanically transparent body. This is suggestive of the transformation of Jesus’ body from a physical one to a spiritual-glorified one (as reported by St. Paul and the four Gospels).

The spiritual-glorified transformation of Jesus’ body was unique to the Christian view of resurrection. It was not known in Judaism (which held to a resuscitation of the flesh) or pagan cults (which held to ethereal or ghostlike views of immortality). Thus the enigmas on the Shroud’s image point to the uniquely Christian view of resurrection implied by Jesus’ risen appearance.

The odds of this first-century Palestinian burial shroud — with the unique features of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection — being that of anyone else is exceedingly remote. Inasmuch as the image is not a forgery, and that it originated from a real person living at the time of Jesus, crucified in the unique way of Jesus, and producing a burst of intense vacuum ultraviolet radiation from his decomposing body, who else would it be? Given all this, we might reasonably infer that the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus, which contains not only a relic of His crucifixion but also His resurrection in glory. If so, it shows both the truth of the most significant event in human history as well as the accuracy of the Gospel accounts of it.

Father Robert J. Spitzer, Ph.D., is a Jesuit priest currently serving as president of the Magis Center in Garden Grove, California. A prolific author, he also appears weekly on EWTN’s “Father Spitzer’s Universe.”

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Church Teaching

Christology 101: Why does Jesus’ divinity matter?

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Often many who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus argue that there is not one place in the Scriptures where Jesus explicitly states that he is God. That,…

Often many who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus argue that there is not one place in the Scriptures where Jesus explicitly states that he is God. That, however, imposes contemporary linguistic standards on an ancient culture that appreciated subtlety of language — a subtlety we do not appreciate today. There are, in fact, numerous places that Jesus claims to be God: “Before Abraham came to be, I am” (Jn 8:58); “The Father and I are one” (Jn 10:30); “… who, though he was the form of God …” (Phil 2:6) etc.

Oneness

How Jesus understood his oneness with the Father, in the context of his humanity, is a topic for another day, known as the problem of the consciousness of Jesus. What is abundantly clear, though, is that Jesus understood his uniqueness as the Son of God and that the early Church clearly worshipped him as God.

It is from Jesus’ own revelation that he shares in the divine nature — as does the Holy Spirit — that the Church slowly developed and crystalized its Trinitarian dogma. Yet this did not stem the tide of various misunderstandings about who he is, and so came many heresies about Jesus’ divinity.

Sure, we worship Jesus, but is he really God? This question boggled many early Christians who were influenced by Greek philosophy and who struggled to see how difference could be the basis of unity. Is he God, or God’s son? God can have no difference because if he does, he has parts, and is, therefore, not a simple unity and, thus, not God. This was no easy problem to overcome and came to a head with the heresy of Arianism, which claimed that Jesus is a sort of mashup of divinity and humanity — a demigod.

Perfect communion

It its fight against Arianism, the Church finally clarified her understanding of the person and role of Jesus based on the revelation we received from him. In the Nicene Creed — the fruit of the conflict with Arianism — we profess that Jesus is “God from God … consubstantial with the Father.” Thus everything the Father has Jesus has. There is nothing lacking, second-class, or different in the divinity that both Jesus and the Father possess. No, Jesus is not some mixture of humanity and divinity, nor is he only God or he only man. He is both God and man, each fully and completely.

What does this mean for us? First, it means that Jesus has all the qualities of God and they are never absent from him in the Incarnation. Jesus never loses his divinity at any moment. He has all the powers and properties of God in his Incarnation. Yet, and this is the important point, this does not entail any sort of overwhelming or annihilation of his humanity. He is fully God and fully man, the divinity never overwhelming his humanity, the humanity never limiting his divinity. The two natures live in a perfect communion.

Second, we know that in becoming one of us, God touches every aspect of our humanity and indeed, all of creation so that it can slowly be brought back into communion with God. If Jesus is not fully God, then humanity is still stuck in sin because God has not touched creation to draw it back to himself. Only when Jesus is fully God is redemption truly possible.

Suffering and death

Jesus’ union with us included even suffering and death. This does not mean that God’s being is subject to suffering. Rather, it means that the Person of the Son, whose humanity perfectly is united to his divine person, dies on the cross, and where the Son is, God is there. Thus when Jesus dies, God enters in the realm of the dead, bringing to life those who are dead and separated from God. When Jesus suffers, God is in the midst of the suffering. He is not suffering in his being, but now present, in the humanity of Jesus, in all human suffering.

And, finally, alongside Jesus’ claims of divinity came the promise that he would rise from the dead. That, in fact, gives credence to all of his claims because it makes possible what only the power of God can accomplish.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison.

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Jesus

Why We Celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus

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In the commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and handed down to us, we are told to honor the name of God. It is a name used in prayer…

In the commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and handed down to us, we are told to honor the name of God. It is a name used in prayer and as a blessing, but it is, unfortunately, all too often these days used in vain or as a curse. Nowadays we hear not only the word “God” invoked in negative ways, but also the name of Jesus, the name of God born of the Virgin Mary.

While most of our liturgical celebrations throughout the year focus on biblical events or the lives of the saints, on Jan. 3 is honored the name of Jesus, observed as an optional memorial. Why should we celebrate and honor the name of Jesus with a feast? Here are a few reasons:

1. A Name Reverenced by All

St. Paul tells us in his Letter to the Philippians, “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, / of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (2:10). The name of Jesus was first spoken by an angel and is the cause of adoration by the heavenly court. It is a name reverenced especially during the Mass, as the General Instruction of the Roman Missal instructs the priest to bow his head at the mention of Jesus’ name (see No. 275). It is a name that evil fears, and when invoked can cast out demons. We honor and celebrate the name of Jesus because the name of God deserves reverence. By celebrating this feast, we seek to make reparation for the irreverent use of God’s name and restore it to proper dignity.

2. It Is the Name by Which We Are Saved

The angel tells St. Joseph to name the child Jesus because he will save us from our sins (see Mt 1:21). By His incarnation, God made man takes on a name indicating he comes to save us. Jesus becomes the source of our salvation. Since apostolic times, the name of Jesus has been preached and proclaimed. First, by the apostles as they sojourned on their missionary efforts, then by their successors who sought to evangelize, by various missionaries who brought the name of Jesus to the New World, and by teachers of the Faith who sought to combat heresy. We celebrate a feast in honor of Jesus’ holy name because it has been spoken throughout the world, and when proclaimed to those who have never heard His name, lives are changed.

3. Many Have Died Pronouncing the Name of Christ

Those who have worked as missionaries to spread the name of Jesus have often suffered because of His name. In the beatitudes, Jesus foretold that some would be persecuted for His sake (see Mt 5:10). Throughout the history of Christianity, many have shed their blood and died a martyr’s death, some even have professed the name of Jesus on their lips as they breathed their last. Celebrating the Holy Name of Jesus reminds of us these ancestors in the Faith and hopefully encourages us to want Jesus’ name to be our last word.

4. There Is Power in His Name

Jesus powerfully taught that where two or three are gathered in His name, He would be in their midst (see Mt 18:20). People also called upon Jesus by name when asking for a miracle. The blind man cried out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!” (Lk 18:38), and with that invocation and further conversation his sight was restored. Demons were cast out of the possessed by Jesus’ name (Acts 16:18; 19:16). Celebrating the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus reminds us that we should pray the name of Jesus in our struggles or when we are anxious, because His name is powerful for those who call upon Him.

5. Many Have Been Devoted to the Holy Name for Centuries

The name of Jesus has been a source of devotion for centuries. In 1274, the Council of Lyons recommended that all the faithful should foster a devotion to the name of Jesus. Many saints also have recommended the devotion, most notably, St. Bernadine of Siena. Fr. Paul O’Sullivan’s book “The Wonders of the Holy Name” gives an exhaustive overview of the countless saints, known and unknown, who promoted devotion to the name of Jesus.

One of the most public displays of devotion to Jesus’ holy name arose out of societies and confraternities dedicated to the Holy Name. While no longer as popular as in days gone by, there are many ways people can foster a devotion today to the name of Jesus. The Eastern Church’s practice of the Jesus Prayer (“Lord, Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner”) recited many times connects the name of Jesus and invocation for His mercy. The Hail Mary, when split in two parts, hinges on the name of Jesus. St. Louis de Montfort, in “The Secret of the Rosary” encouraged people to add a short phrase there to focus one’s meditation (for example, “thy womb Jesus, born in poverty, Holy Mary … ”). I developed de Montfort’s suggestion in my Rosary devotional “A Rosary Litany.” There is also a Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus, and many songs such as “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” or “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,” in addition to several contemporary Christian songs.

We celebrate the feast of Jesus’ holy name in order to foster a deep love for His name. If we pray the name of Jesus continually in this life, then it will be His name that we pronounce when we meet our Savior face to face.

Father Edward Looney is a priest of the Diocese of Green Bay, WI. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook at @FrEdwardLooney.

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Jesus

Did Jesus Really Exist?

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Scouring in a used-book store a few years ago, I came upon an impressive volume of Catholic apologetics titled “God, Man, and the Universe,” originally published in 1950 in French,…

Scouring in a used-book store a few years ago, I came upon an impressive volume of Catholic apologetics titled “God, Man, and the Universe,” originally published in 1950 in French, then published in English in 1953 by P.J. Kenedy and Sons (apparently the first Catholic publishing house established in the United States). Subtitled “A Christian Answer to Modern Materialism,” the volume featured chapters by an impressive array of mostly French academics, including the great Jesuit scholar Henri de Lubac and the prolific Dominican theologian Yves M.J. Congar.

The chapter titled “The Problem of Christ” (and subtitled “The Myth of Jesus”), written by Henri Fehner, opens with this: “Did Christ ever exist? is the question so many materialists ask; and their way of framing it is a virtual anticipation of the answer.” Fehner then quotes from a work of Soviet propaganda, which contains the humorous claim that many “western European scholars” have “long ago been convinced that the Christ of the Gospel never existed.” As Fehner dryly observes, the specific time frame of “long ago” dates to the “end of the eighteenth century! Before this, nowhere at any time had there ever been any doubt about the historical existence of Christ.”

This basic bit of data will likely surprise some readers. But the “mythicist” school — that is, those who claim that the story of Jesus is entirely mythical in nature, for he never existed — is not only young, it often exhibits all of the hasty brashness and sneering insolence of youth. All of these qualities were taken up recently by the agnostic New Testament scholar (and former fundamentalist Christian) Dr. Bart D. Ehrman in his book “Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth” (HarperOne, 2013), which begins exactly where the Catholic Fehner did many decades ago:

“The first author to deny the existence of Jesus appears to have been the eighteenth-century Frenchman Constanin Francois Volney, a member of the Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution. … Several years later [after 1791] a much more substantial and influential book was published by another Frenchman, Charles-Francois Dupuis, who secretary of the revolutionary National Convention.”

Dupuis’ book, titled “The Origin of All Religions” (1795), was over 2,000 pages long and argued — as did Volney’s earlier essay — that all religions are essentially the same, each being variations on a mythology of a “solar deity.” Thus, as Ehrman summarizes, “Jesus too was originally invented as another embodiment of the sun-god.” It wasn’t until the 1850s that a biblical scholar, the “idiosyncratic” German philosopher and historian Bruno Bauer (d. 1882), a student of philosopher Friedrich Hegel, wrote a series of books arguing that the Jesus as an invention of the Gospels writers, heavily indebted to Greek mythology and Roman Stoicism. Another German, Arthur Drews, built on the work of Bauer, and his 1909 book “The Christ Myth” was quite influential, being taken up and used by Vladimir Lenin in his particular variation of atheistic Marxism.

And, coming full circle, it was this Marxist belief that inspired Catholic books such as “God, Man, and the Universe.” But, of course, not all mythicists are Marxists. But mythicists today still rely on some basic arguments used throughout the relatively short history of mythicism; these include three key claims:

1. Everything we know about Jesus comes from the books of the New Testament — and they cannot be taken seriously as works of history as they were written many decades after the facts by authors who were not eyewitnesses.

2. Jesus is not mentioned outside of the New Testament in works by Jewish or pagan authors, further substantiating the first point.

3. The stories of Jesus are based upon pagan legends and myths about dying gods and their resurrections; they have little or nothing to do with first-century Judaism.

These claims are rooted in a combination of anti-Christian bias — especially anti-Catholic prejudice, as found in the writings of supporters of the French Revolution — and hyper-Enlightenment assumptions, which have little regard for ancient sources and place a tremendous amount of faith in supposedly “scientific” evidence. And such an approach, not surprisingly, is based on the premise that anything supernatural or miraculous is, by definition, contrary to reason, logic or evidence.

There is, then, a certain built-in circularity to the mythicist project. This can be seen in a Washington Post opinion piece, titled “Did historical Jesus really exist? The evidence just doesn’t add up”, written by Raphael Lataster, a lecturer in religious studies at the University of Sydney, and first posted in December 2014 before being retweeted by the newspaper in December 2017.  Lataster writes:

“The first problem we encounter when trying to discover more about the Historical Jesus is the lack of early sources. The earliest sources only reference the clearly fictional Christ of Faith. These early sources, compiled decades after the alleged events, all stem from Christian authors eager to promote Christianity — which gives us reason to question them.”

The blithe sloppiness here is partially due to big assumptions and sweeping judgments — all without any evidence. So, for instance, how is it that four lengthy biographical works written between 25 and 50 years after the death of Jesus, all containing claims to being based on direct witness and firsthand testimony, does not fall under the category of “early sources”? Because, as Lataster states, he assumes the Jesus being described is the “Christ of Faith,” not the “Historical Jesus.” How so? Because, as his essay indicates, they describe supernatural (or “celestial”) characteristics. Lataster further doubles down by essentially saying that the Christian authors cannot be taken seriously because, well, they believe in Jesus Christ. As is so often the case, the elephant in the room is metaphysical assumptions, which throw up a smoke screen when it comes to the historical veracity of the Gospels and the other New Testament texts.

That is one reason (but hardly the only one) that the vast majority of scholars of the New Testament, ancient history, and theology don’t take the mythicists seriously. Yet that scholarly disinterest is a problem, precisely because the mythicists’ audience is not scholarly, even if some mythicists want to be taken seriously by scholars. In my next column, I’ll show how the agnostic Ehrman, the Catholic scholar Brant Pitre, and the evangelical scholar Larry W. Hurtado each offer substantial responses to the basic premises of mythicism.

Carl E. Olson is the editor of Ignatius Insight (www.ignatiusinsight.com).

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