The second century was a religious and cultural crucible for early
Christian Christology. Was Christ a man, temporarily inhabited by the
divine? Was he a spirit, only apparently cloaked in flesh? Or was he the
Logos, truly incarnate? Between varieties of adoptionism on the one
hand and brands of gnosticism on the other, the church's understanding
took shape. In this clear and concise introduction, James Papandrea
sets out five of the principal images of Christ that dominated belief
and debate in the postapostolic age. While beliefs on the ground were
likely more tangled and less defined than we can know, Papandrea helps
us see how Logos Christology was forged as the beginning of the church's
orthodox confession. This informative and clarifying study of early
Christology provides a solid ground for students to begin to explore the
early church and its Christologies.
