37

THE CONCEPTION/BIRTH OF JESUS AS A CHRISTOLOGICAL MOMENT

Reginald H. Fuller,
Virginia Theological Seminary,
Alexandria, VA 22304.

Abstract

This paper is intended as a critique of Professor

Raymond Brown’s thesis that the Christology expressed in
the birth narratives /1/ developed by a process of
pushing back the post-resurrection Christology of Jesus’
enthronement as Son of God first to the baptism and
finally to his conception/birth. The argument is that
the conception/birth was a christological moment with
the Son of David Christology. It remains such in the
sending of the Son pattern (which we argue should be
distinguished from the pre-existence Christology),
whence it provided the background for the Christology of
the virginal-pneumatic conception.

1. A Retrojected Christology?
One of the major theses of Raymond E. Brown’s
magisterial monograph on the Matthean and Lucan birth
narratives is that they express a Christology arrived at
by a process of retrojection. Early post-Easter
Christology had pinpointed the resurrection (or possibly
before that the parousia) as the decisive christological
moment, the moment of Jesus’ installation in his
messianic office. In course of development this decisive
moment was pushed back first to Jesus’I baptism and in
the birth narratives to his conception/birth. The Fourth
Gospel took a different route and postulated a pre-
existence and incarnation Christology. This thesis is
repeatedly stated throughout the book /2/ and perhaps
receives its clearest formulation in the following
passage:

The same combined ideas that early Christian

38

preaching had once applied to the resurrection

(i.e. a divine proclamation, the begetting of God’s
Son, the agency of the Holy Spirit), and which Mark
applied to the baptism, are now applied to the
conception of Jesus in the words of the angel’s
message to Joseph and to Mary (respectively, in
Matthew and Luke). And once the conception of
Jesus has become the Christological moment, the
revelation of who Jesus is begins to be proclaimed
to an audience who come and worship (the magi, the
shepherds), while others act with hostility (Herod
in Matthew; those who contradict the sign in Luke
2:34)...
The addition of these stories to the Gospel
proper is thus intelligible as part of a
Christological process - a process which explains
why they appear in the later Gospels rather than in
Mark (John took another route, namely through pre-
existence) /3/.

Clearly, there is much that is plausible in this thesis.

The most convincing part of it is the appearance of the
same christological vocabulary in the primitive &dquo;two-
step&dquo; or &dquo;stage&dquo; christological formula of Romans 1:3f
and in the angelic annunciation at Luke 1:35 /4/. The
purpose of essay is to ask whether this is not an
this
oversimplification of the christological development
behind the infancy narratives in their final form. Is
the retrojection process sufficient as its sole
explanation?
2. Davidic Descent

The birth of Jesus does not appear as a christo--

logical moment for the first time in the infancy
narratives as Brown sometimes appears to suggest. The
birth of Jesus figures as a christological moment almost
from the very beginning. The earliest instance is in the
pre-Pauline formula already alluded to, namely Romans
1:3f. Some years ago the present writer proposed a
traditio-historical analysis of this tradition in three
stages /5/. The first stage, it was suggested,
originated in the earliest Palestinian community in the
form
 39

YEVOuEVOU ex an~PPUTOS Aau~6,

op~a9evTOS ULOO Jeov ~~ ava6Ta6EwS vExpwv.
In this expression of a two-step Christology, the first
step already had christological significance, though
a
of a lower degree than the second: Jesus was designated
Son of David during his earthly life, and became such
at the moment of his birth
/6/. It is this christo-
logical significance from the moment of birth that
qualified him to be installed at the resurrection as the
Son of God.

The second stage in the development of this formula

was the addition of the two qualifications xaTa oápxa
and xaTa nvEUua to the original formula. This is still
a two-step Christology but formulated in terms of
dualism of flesh and spirit. This was assigned to pre-
Pauline Hellenistic Jewish Christianity. Finally we get
Paul’s appropriation of the formula:
NEPU %lob aUTOU
TOD
TOO YEVOP~vou ex QnEpuaTOS 6auLõ Kara aapxa,
Tou åP~0~ÉVTO~ ULOO 3EOU ~v 6uv6pcL
xaTa ncvdpa &YLoa0vn~ I£ ava6pa6FC~5 v~fcpi~v.
Paul has thus pushed back the title Son of God from the
resurrection to a point antedating or coincident with
the birth. If it antedates the birth, then Paul was
already presupposing a pre-existent Christology, a
matter which we will take up later. Meanwhile, we have
three different expressions of a Son of David Christology
in which the birth figures as a decisive moment. Which
of these birth Christologies corresponds most closely
lo the Christology of the Matthean and Lucan birth
narratives?

Clearly, the birth narratives show no sign of a

pre-existence Christology /7/. Although the Son of God
figures as a title in the birth narratives, this title
becomes operative only from the moment of conception.
Nor is there any sign of a flesh/spirit dualism in the
birth narratives. The Spirit invariably occurs in these
narratives as the agent of God’s action, not as the
expression of a dualistic anthropology. This leaves us
with the probability that the birth traditions first
took shape as the expression not of a retrojected Son of
God, but of a Son of David Christology. The birth of
Jesus at Bethlehem, the city of David, from Joseph,
40

himself Davidide, marked the moment when Jesus

a
acquired the necessary qualification to enter upon his
messianic functions. It is even possible that the
annunciation tradition which underlies Matthew 1:18-25
and Luke 1:26-38 was originally designed to express
this Son of David Christology. For as B. Lindars has
argued, Isaiah 7:14 may first have come into Christian
use at a stage when the Hebrew Bible was still being
employed. If so, its purpose would have been to
express not a virginal conception, but the conception
of a child in the Davidic line /8/. Thus it is evident
that the Son of David Christology permeates all the
infancy traditions, while the title Son of God has
gained a foothold only here and there. For Matthew
introduces it only at one point, in the fulfillment-
citation of Hosea 11:1 at Matthew 2:15, while Luke
features it rather more prominently at 1:35 (cf. also
Luke 3:38). Matthew 2:15 is clearly redactional /9/,
and Luke 1:35 probably so, too /10/. The Son of God
Christology thus plays a relatively minor role in the
birth narratives, which are shaped principally by the
Son of David Christology.

3a. The Sending of the Son

But how did the title Son of God come to be

connected with the conception/birth? To answer this
question we turn to another Pauline passage, Galatians
4:4f, which reads:
e~anEOTe~aev Ó Jedg Tov UGOV U6TO6,
-YF-VOPEVO’V EX yuvaLxoS
, t’, .

YevouEVOV uno vdpov,

Lva TOUS uno v<pov Èçayopáan, .

Gva Tnv Ulo8eGldV aaswuev.

It has been argued that this passage, while not
strictly speaking a formula, nevertheless reflects a
pre-Pauline pattern of thought found elsewhere /11/.
This pattern has the following features: 1. God is the
subject; 2. the verb speaks of God’s action in sending:
3. his Son for: 4. a soteriological purpose expressed
by a Lva-clause. As we examine Galatians 4:4f in the
light of this pattern, we note immediately that it is
overloaded. The birth /12/ is twice specified as a
significant moment in the sending, and the soterio--
logical purpose (cf. ùn6 vdpov in both clauses) whereas
 41

the first reference to the birth and the second state-

ment of its soteriological purpose correspond to one
another, thus forming a chiastic structure, a-b-b-a.
Since the b-clauses clearly reflect Paul’s theological
interests in Galatians, we may safely conclude that
they are his own editorial insertions into a pre-
Pauline formula. This leaves us with:
, , , , , ., ,

E~aTtEOTEbXEB) o OEOS
I I I
Tov ui,ov autou,
cvopcvov Ex yuvauxos
lvd Tnv Ulo8eGldV aaac~uEV.
It is worth noting that the hymn-like material
apparently continues beyond this point:
&dquo;OTL 6~ EOTE U1.0~,
E~aTLEQTEI,~EV 0 8e~( To Xvebpd...
xp6§ov, A~~u Ó narnp.
Here we have a parallel sending of the Holy Spirit
with a parallel statement of soteriological purpose.
This whole passage looks like a liturgical fragment
perhaps of the kind that N.A. Dahl has called a baptis-
mal anamnesis /13/. For the reception of the Spirit
undoubtedly has baptismal associations. The use of the
semitic Abba would at first sight suggest that this
baptismal fragment originated in an Aramaic-speaking
community. The fact however is that most of the
traditional baptismal material and catechetical
patterns employed in the Pauline churches derive from
the pre-Pauline Hellenistic Jewish mission. So it is
probably safer to assume that the latter is the Sitz im
Leben of the baptismal fragment and therefore also of
the sending of the Son schema.

Now it is remarkable that Raymond Brown made no

use of Galatians 4:4f as a background for the Christol-
ogy of the birth narratives. Partly this is because of
his justifiable refusal to use that passage as evidence
for Paul’s knowledge of the virginal conception /14/.
But I suspect that a deeper reason is at work. There
is a widespread consensus that the sending of the Son
pattern always implies and in fact originates in a
Christology of pre-existence. And as we have seen,
Brown rightly supports the view of Bultmann and others
that the New Testament nowhere combines pre-existence
and virginal conception /15/.
42

This consensus that the sending of the Son pattern

involves the Son’s pre-existence appears to have its
roots in the theory that it was derived from the
Gnostic redeemer myth /16/. This theory, which origin-
ated in the History of Religions School and was
perpetuated by Bultmann, was decisively refuted by
C. Colpe /17/. About the same time E. Schweizer
proposed an alternative origin for the pre-existence-
incarnation pattern, viz. Jewish wisdom speculation.
This alternative derivation has been widely accepted,
even in the Bultmann school /18/. Curiously, however,
no one has ever questioned the common origin of the
sending of the Son and the pre-existence incarnation
patterns. The usual argument in favour of their common
origin is that the sending formula occurs in precisely
those writings which exhibit elsewhere a wisdom based
Christology, namely the Pauline corpus, Hebrews and
Johannine writings. But there are a number of con-
siderations which militate against a common origin for
these two patterns.

First, the sophiological hymns in the New

Testament almost invariably include a statement about
the mode of the pre-existent One’s being. He is in the
n of God (Phil 2:6). He is the elx£v of God (Col
1:15) and npo T6vTiiv (Col 1:17). He is the anauyaaua
rns 6<Eng xab XapaXT6p rug lxoaT6aewg a6TOD (Heb 1:3).
He was ev apxo, RPO~ TOV Seov (John 1:1). Most of
these hymns or fragments specify further some activity
on the part of the pre-existent One. He is the agent
creation: 5u’ o5
of creation:6L’ o6 -i’a
Ta R’C’CVTA
naVTa ( 1 Cor 8:6);
(1 ev aUT~ ,
8:6) ; eB)
a6T~ ,
T$ x~vTa
exT~a~r1 Ta
E~TlO~n ~aB~Ta (Col1 :1:16);; Ól 5L, ’ou h~8L EnOlnOEV
o6 xau ixoInaev 10V~
TOV£
abacas (Heb 1:2); navTa 6L’ auTOV ~Y~VETO (John 1:3).
Sometimes he is the agent of the preservation of the
cosmos: Ta navTa 5L’auTOU ouB~EOTr)MEB) (Col 1:17);
4)~PWV ... TU navTa T~ $4paTL Tig ÓUVå1JEWÇ OC6TOD (Heb
1:3b). He is the source of general revelation (John
1:4f) and of Israel’s Heilsgeschichte (John 1:10-12).
The sending of the Son pattern is completely silent on
the mode of his being before he was sent or on his
activity during that period.
Secondly, it has been whether in the
questioned
Jewish wisdom speculation sophia was &dquo;sent&dquo;.
ever She
always comes. on her c~wn initiative /19/. The same is
 43

true of the pre-existence-incarnation hymns and

formulae in the New Testament. The pre-existent One
~au1~v exevw6ev (Phil 2:7). The Logos became flesh
(John 1:14). Only where the sending of the Son pattern
has been subsequently combined with the pre-existence-
incarnation Christology, do we find the initiative in
the incarnation assigned to God himself, as in Hebrews
1:6. In the Fourth Gospel the two christological
patterns are allowed to stand paradoxically side by
side /20/.

Thirdly, the sending of the Son schema exhibits a

much closer affinity to the synoptic parable of the
vineyard (Mark 12:1-12par) than to the sophiological
hymns. Here the sending of the Son is the last in a
series of sendings, and the Son is no more pre-existent
than were the Old Testament prophets before him /21/.
This places the sending of the Son in its proper
perspective. It originates not in the mythological
thinking of Jewish wisdom speculation any more than iu
the Gnostic redeemer myth but in salvation-historical
thinking. This is further indicated by the ~va-clause
which is an invariable part of the pattern. We can
only conclude that the continued attribution of the
sending of the Son Christology to the same source as
the wisdom hymns is a hangover from Bultmann and the
History-of-Religions School. It is time it was laid to
rest.

Of course the two patterns are easily combined.

This has perhaps happened already in Romans 1:3f,
where Paul has prefaced the earlier formula with the
title, &dquo;his Son&dquo;. However, this is not absolutely
certain. It could be that the use of the title &dquo;his
Son&dquo; here is prospective, referring to the mission
inaugurated at the moment of the birth. There is
anther occurrence of the sending pattern in Romans
8:3, where the phrase Ev ó~oLw~a1L GAPHOS is
reminscent of the language of the pre-Pauline hymn in
Philippians 2:7 (lv 6POU(spaTu lvJp£xwv YEVÓ~EVOÇ).
Here the suggestion of pre-existence is somewhat
stronger. But this combination should not obscure our
eyes to the different origin and background of the two
patterns.
44

3b. Conception/Birth Christology

Once have detached the sending of the Son
we

Christology from the pre-existence-incarnation pattern,

it becomes easy to see how it could have helped to shape
the conception narratives. It also becomes an important
clue to their meaning. Birth/conception already plays
an important role in the sending of the prophets. Thus
Deutero-Isaiah can write:
The Lord called me from the womb,
from the body of my mother
he names my name.
........................................

And now the Lord says,

wlio formed me from the womb
to be his servant
to bring back Jacob to him.
(Isa 49:lcd, 5abc)

Or again Jeremiah can say:

Before I formed you in the womb
I knew you,
and before you were born
I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
.......................................................................

For to all whom I send you

you shall go.
(Jer 1:5, 7d)

Here we see birth/conception as the moment when God

elects and predestines a prophet in preparation for his
sending to perform his special role in salvation
history. Conception or birth is not the moment when
God actually sends but preparatory to that moment. The
sending takes place when the prophet actually embarks
upon his mission. At the same time however the birth
or conception is an important moment, in which God acts
interventively in history. How do the birth narratives
of Matthew and Luke appear in the light of these
considerations? First, while it may be true as Brown
argues that the language of the annunciation echoes
earlier christological language about the entlronement
 45

of the Messiah at his resurrection or parousia, the

annunciation stories most emphatically express the
divine initiative in the same way as the language of
the sending of the Son. Our contention is that this
sending language is the christological root of the
virginal conception. It expresses the election and
sending of God’s final emissary in language reminiscent
of the birth or conception of the prophets. This is
true whatever the basis of the virginal conception may
be in history /22/.

Secondly, in the annunciation stories the angel

declares not the ontological status of the child but
his future role in salavation history. Thus we read:
&dquo;...he will save his people from their sins&dquo; (Matt
1:22). The name Emmanuel is likewise a future promise
which does not find its fulfillment until the risen
Christ announces &dquo;Lo I am with you always, to the close
of the age&dquo; /23/.

Similarly, in the Lucan annunciation the verbs of

the angel’s announcement are all in the future tense
and speak of the role predestined for the child in
salvation history:

&dquo;...He will be great, and will be called

the Son of the Most High;
and the Lord God will give to him
the throne of his father David,
and he will reign over the house of Jacob
for ever;
and of his kingdom there will be no end&dquo;.
......................

therefore the child to be born

will be called holy,
the Son of God.

These statements about the future role of the child

correspond to the ~va-clause in the sending pattern.
Divine Sonship, divine initiative, future role in
salvation history - these parallels between the
annunciation stories and the sending of the Son schema
are every whit as significant as the parallels between
these same annunciations and the exaltation (or
parousia) Christology pointed out by Brown. They also
46

have the further advantage of giving a truly biblical

meaning to the virginal conception. It symbolizes the
intervention of God in salvation history in a final,
decisive way. It is in this sense that the birth/con-
ception served as a (not the) christologically
significant moment.
4. Pre-existence and Incarnation

In the pre-existence-incarnation pattern the birth

of the Redeemer sometimes figures as a significant
christological moment, but not invariably. It is absent
from 1 Corinthians 8:6 and from Colossians 1:15-20 and
is not too clear in Hebrews 1:1-4 /24/. The Philippians
hymn reads ~v 6poLi~puTL åv~pwnwv ycvdpcvos , where
yEVOuEVOS may again be translated &dquo;born&dquo; /25/. But as
in the other formulae and patterns we have studied, the
birth does not stand on its own but is one stage on the
way of the Redeemer to his soteriological goal. He
became man in order that he might humble himself to the
death of the cross.

Another hymn which pinpoints the birth of the

Redeemer is the Johannine Prologue: 6 Adyos Gap~
ÈyÉVETO. Here the birth is strictly preparatory. The
Logos does not begin to operate effectively in the flesh
until the moment of the baptism or rather the testimony
of the Baptist to its christological significance and
the inception of the public ministry. Only in the total
ministry of Jesus, inaugurated by the baptism, does the
Logos become effective utterance and only then does the
Christian community &dquo;behold his glory&dquo;. The preparatory
character of the birth is similarly spelled out in the
only other reference to it in the Fourth Gospel, where
Christ testifies before Pilate: &dquo;For this I was born
(yEYevvnua~), and for this I have come into the world,
to bear witness to the truth&dquo; (John 18:37). To bear
witness to the truth is a Johannine way of expressing
the revelatory and soteriological purpose of the ministry
as a whole. The birth of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is
not in isolation the moment of the incarnation. In fact,
it is only mentioned twice. Rather, it is the
preparation for the revelation of the incarnate Word
that is to take place throughout the ministry,
culminating in the glorification of the Son of God.
 47

5. Summary and Conclusion

We have found that there are three distinct
Christologies which feature the birth of Jesus as a
christologically significant moment. These Christo-
logies are: Davidic descent as qualification for the
messianic role; the sending of the Son pattern, which
is expanded in the birth stories into virginal-pneumatic
conception; and the pre-existence-incarnation schema.
Within the confines of the New Testament these
Christologies may be combined in various ways. The
Davidic descent may be combined with the sending of the
Son pattern, according to a possible interpretation of
Romans 1:3f, and the same combination may be expressed
in narrative form in the Matthean and Lucan
annunciations. The sending of the Son pattern may be
combined with the pre-existence-incarnation schema.
This may have occurred already in Romans 1:3f, and very
likely in Romans 8:3. It has certainly happened in
Hebrews l:lff and throughout the Fourth Gospel. What
we do not find in the New Testament is the combination
of the virginal-pneumatic conception with the pre-
existence Christology. This particular combination does
not occur until the second century /26/.

There is not necessarily, as Bultmann felt, a

basic incompatibility or inconsistency between the
last two Christologies we have mentioned /27/. But
there is a distinct difference between them. The
virginal-pneumatic conception stresses God’s initiative
in the saving event, the pre-existence and incarnation
Christology the self-giving of the Redeemer /28/. These
two Christologies, though not yet combined in the New
Testament, aremoving along two converging trajectories
which were to together in the post-New Testament
come

period. When this happened, however, the Church was

already well on its way towards the ontological way of
thinking which was to result in the recasting of the
conception/birth as the decisive moment /29/, and not,
as in the salvation-historical and mythological thinking
of the New Testament, as a strictly preparatory moment
for the real salvific event. In those later develop-
ments there was both gain and loss.
48

Footnotes

1. Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah. A

Commentary on the Infancy Narratives of Matthew and
Luke (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977). For a review
article on this work by the present writer see CBQ 40
(1978) 116-20.
2. See Brown, Birth, 29-32, 134-37, 140-42, 181-83.
The parousia is suggested as an earlier starting
point for the christological moment on p. 425. This
would accord with the thesis that the "most primitive
Christology of all" had two foci, looking back upon the
earthly life of Jesus and forward to his parousia. See
P.H. Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology
(London: Lutterworth, 1965) 143-151. Note however that
in the two-foci view the earthly life of Jesus was
already fraught with christological significance. The
criticism of this thesis by M. Hengel, "Christologie
und Chronologie", in H. Baltensweiler and B. Reicke
eds), Neues Testament und Geschichte (O. Cullmann
Festscrift; ZUrich: Theologischer Verlag/T&uuml;bingen: Mohr,
1972) 43-67, esp. 52-53 on the ground that it reduces
earliest Christianity to the status of a Jewish
apocalyptic sect looking only to the future, therefore
does not hold.

3. Brown, Birth 31.

4. "The conglomeration of terms that one finds in the

second half of the formula in Rom 1:3f (designation as
Son of God, ’power’, ’Holy Spirit’) is remarkably like
the conglomeration of terms in the second half of the
angelic message reported in Luke 1:35 (’called Son of
God’, ’power’, ’Holy Spirit’),"Brown, Birth, 313.
5. Fuller, Foundations, 165. Since then, H. Schlier,
"Zu R&ouml;m 1,3f" in Neues Testament und Geschichte, 207-18
has independently propounded an almost identical
reconstruction of the history of the tradition. He
postulates the same three stages, the first two of which,
perhaps with greater caution, he refrains from identi-
fying with Palestinian and Hellenistic Jewish Christian
Christianity.
6. &gamma;&epsiv;&nu;&ogr;&mu;&eacgr;&nu;&ogr;&upsi; here means "born" (BAG s.v.; RV; NEB);
 49

AV and RSV both obscure the highlighting of the birth

as a significant christological moment.
7. It is generally agreed that the infancy narratives
have no pre-existence Christology, despite the claim of
B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic (London: SCM, 1961)
213, that "both Matthew and Luke have a combination
of both the Davidic and pre-existence strands in the
tradition of the virgin birth". See Brown, Birth,
141-42.

8. Lindars, Apologetic, 213-14. He contends that Isa

7:14 underlies Luke 1:26-38 as well as Matthew 1:18-25.
For a contrary view see Brown, Birth, 153 and n 6; also
524. If the annunciation tradition behind the two
Gospel stories was originally formed to express a Son
of David Christology, Lindars’view will be more
probable.
9. Brown, Birth, 99-104.
10. Brown, Birth, 311-16.

11. E. Schweizer, TDNT 8:374-76, cites Gal 4:4f; Rom

8:3f; John 3:(16), 17; 1 John 4:9. The occurrence of
this pattern in both the Pauline corpus and the
Johannine writings, between which no literary dependency
is demonstrable, suggests that the pattern antedates
both groups of writings.

12. is unnecessary to argue again that &gamma;&epsiv;&nu;&oacgr;&mu;&epsiv;&nu;&ogr;&nu;

It
here ’’birth" (see n 3 above), despite H. Schlier,
means
Galaterbrief (K-eKNT 11; G&ouml;ttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1962) 196, who prefers "geworden" to
"geboren".
13. For the term baptismal anamnesis see F.O. Francis,
"The Christological Argument of Colossians", in
J. Jervell and W.A. Meeks (ed), God’s Christ and His
People (N.A.Dahl Festschrift; Oslo: Universitets-
vorlaget, 1977) 192-207, esp. 204 and n 35, following
N.A. Dahl, "Anamnesis: M&eacute;moire et commemoration dans
le christianisme primitif ", ST 1 (1947) 74-75.

14. Brown, Birth, 518-9. Brown concludes: "Without

further indication of Paul’s mind, it would be abusive
50

to read a knowledge of virginal conception into Paul’s

use of ginesthai".

15. Brown,Birth, 141 on the difference between

conception and pre-existence Christology; cf. R. Bultmann
in H.W. Bartsch (ed),Kerygma and Myth (London: SPCK,
1952) 11.
16. R. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (London:
SCM, 1952/55) I:164-76. The gnostic redeemer myth
theory originated in the History of Religions School a
generation before Bultmann.
17. C. Colpe, Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule
(FRLANT 78; G&ouml;ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961).
It is ironic that my personal copy of this work is a
bound set of page proofs given to me by Professor
Bultmann when I visited him in Marburg in 1961. He was
at that time editor of the FRLANT series.

18. E. Schweizer in a series of articles, the earliest

of which apparently is "Zur Herkunft der Pr&auml;existenz-
vorstellung bei Paulus", EvTh 19 (1959) 65-70 repr.
in Neotestamentica (Z&uuml;rich:Zwingli, 1963) 105-9. See
also idem, "Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund
der Sendungsformel", ZNW 57 (1966) 99-210, repr. in
Beitr&auml;ge zur Theologie des Neuen Testaments (ZUrich:
Zwingli, 1970) 83-95. The wisdom origin of the pre-
existence Christology as expressed in both the sending
pattern and the great christological hymns is accepted
e.g., by J.M. Robinson and H. Koester, Trajectories
Through Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971
971); J.T. Sanders, The New Testament Christological
Hymns; Their Historical-Religious Background (SNTSMS
15; Cambridge: University Press, 1971); M. Hengel
"Christologie und Chronologie", 43-67, esp. 66.
19. M.D. Johnson, "Reflections on a Wisdom Approach to
Matthew’s Christology", CBQ 36 (1974) 44-64 in reply to
M.J. Suggs, Christology and Law in Matthew’s Gospel
(Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1970). Suggs
had used the expression "wisdom’s envoy" for an
important aspect of Matthew’s Christology. Johnson
demonstrated that the sending of wisdom is foreign to
Jewish wisdom speculation, where wisdom always comes on
her own initiative.
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20. I have argued elsewhere for a two-level Christology

in the Fourth Gospel. On one level the historical
Jesus is sent by the Father on a mission inaugurated at
his baptism. On another level, he incarnates the pre-
existent heavenly wisdom, identified in the Prologue
(added by the Johannine redactor) with the Logos. See
R.H. Fuller, "The Incarnation in Historical Perspective",
in W.T. Stevenson (ed) Theology and Culture: Essays in
Honor of Albert T. Mollegen and Clifford L. Stanley
(ATRSS 7; Evanston,IL, 1976) 57-66.
21. It is worth noting that E. Schweizer, TDNT 8:376,
recognizes the affinity between the sending pattern and
the parable of the vineyard, noting that neither
necessarily includes the notion of pre-existence. But
he does not draw the full consequences of this
observation.

22. "The Biblical Narrative of the Virgin Birth is

intended to illustrate the Church’s consciousness that
the unique figure of Jesus originated in a ’fresh
creative act of God’", (W. von Loewenich, Modern
Catholicism (London: Macmillan, 1959) 238.

23. For the connection between Matt 1:23 and 28:20 see
Brown, Birth, 153.

24. See however 1:6 - which is perhaps why IIeb 1:1-12

is the traditional epistle of Christmas Day.
25. See above, n 3. The translations oscillate between
"being born" (RSV; Phillips; NAB), "become" (JB; TEV)
and "made" (AV; NIV). NEB "bearing the human likeness"
obscures all reference to the birth. The reference of
&gam a;&epsiv;&nu;&oacgr;&mu;&epsiv;&nu;&ogr;&sfgr;
E. K&auml;semann’s exegesis of the preceding phrase
to the birth of the Redeemer is supported
by
&mu;&ogr;&rho;&phiv;&e acgr;&nu;
&delta;&ogr;&uacgr;&lambda;&ogr;&upsi; &lambda;&alpha;&beta;&OHacgr;&nu;, where &delta;&ogr;&uacgr;&lambda;&ogr;&sfgr; is taken to mean that
condition of human bondage to the powers of evil which
the Redeemer entered in order to deliver us, rather
than the unique christological status of the Servant of
Yahweh. See E. K&auml;semann, "A Critical Analysis of
Philippians 2:6-11", in God and Christ: Existence and
Providence (JTC 5; T&uuml;bingen: Mohr/New York: Harper &
Row, 1968) 45-88, esp 65-67.
26. Brown, Birth, 141, n 4, following A. Hoben, thinks
52

that the combination is probably already discernible in

Ignatius Eph 7:2. It is clearly present in Aristides,
Apol 15:1; Justin Apol 1:21, 23; Melito of Sardis,
Discourse on Faith 4.

27. See above n 15.

28. The juxtaposition of two Christologies of origin,

one of which highlight God’s initiative, the other the
Redeemer’s self-devotion, is analogous to the juxta-
position of two different presentations, both of the
Cross and of the resurrection. On the one hand, the
cross is the act of God’s initiative, as in Romans
8:32, "He...gave him up for us all"; and on the other
hand it is the act of the Son’s self-surrender, "the
Son of God, who...gave himself for me" (Gal 2:20).
Similarly, the resurrection is presented in the New
Testament both as an act of God, e.g., "God raised him"
(Acts 2:24), and elsewhere as the act of the Redeemer
himself, e.g., "I have power to take it (sc. my life)
again (John 10:18). This shows that the pre-existence
Christology is not just abstract speculation, but an
extension of what. the community had encountered in the
concrete history of the earthly Jesus.

29. As when the theotokos became a decisive christol-

ogical affirmation at Ephesus and Chalcedon.