The Character of Jesus Christ
The surpassing eminence of the character of Jesus has
been acknowledged by men of the most varied type:
* Kant testifies to His ideal perfection;
* Hegel sees in Him the union of the human and the
Divine;
* the most advanced sceptics do Him homage;
* Spinoza speaks of Him as the truest symbol of
heavenly wisdom;
* the beauty and grandeur of His life overawe Voltaire;
* Napoleon I, at St. Helena, felt convinced that
"Between him [Jesus] and whoever else in the world
there is no possible term of comparison" ( Montholon,
"Recit de la Captivite de l'Empereur Napoleon").
* Rousseau testifies: "If the life and death of
Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of
Jesus are those of a god."
* Strauss acknowledges: "He is the highest object we
can possibly imagine with respect to religion, the
being without whose presence in the mind perfect piety
is impossible".
* To Renan "The Christ of the Gospels is the most
beautiful incarnation of God in the most beautiful of
forms. His beauty is eternal; his reign will never
end."
* John Stuart Mill spoke of Jesus as "a man charged
with a special, express, and unique commission from God
to lead mankind to truth and virtue".
Not that the views of the foregoing witnesses are of
any great importance for the theological student of the
life of Jesus; but they show at least the impression
made on the most different classes of men by the
history of Christ. In the following paragraphs we shall
consider the character of Jesus as manifested first in
His relation to men, then in His relation to God.
A. JESUS IN HIS RELATION TO MEN
In His relation to men Jesus manifested certain
qualities which were perceived by all, being subject to
the light of reason; but other qualities were reserved
for those who viewed Him in the light of faith. Both
deserve a brief study.
(1) In the Light of Reason
There is no trustworthy tradition concerning the bodily
appearance of Jesus, but this is not needed in order to
obtain a picture of His character. It is true that at
first sight the conduct of Jesus is so many-sided that
His character seems to elude all description. Command
and sympathy, power and charm, authority and affection,
cheerfulness and gravity, are the some of the qualities
that make the analysis impossible. The make-up of the
Gospels does not facilitate the work. At first they
appear to us a bewildering forest of dogmatic
statements and moral principles; there is no system, no
method, everything is occassional , everything
fragmentary. The Gospels are neither a manual of dogma
nor a treatise on casuistry, though they are the
fountain of both. No wonder then the various
investgators have arrived at entirely different
conclusion at the study of Jesus. Some call Him a
fanatic, others make Him a socialist, others again an
anarchist, while many call Him a dreamer, a mystic, an
Essene. But in this variety of views there are two main
concepts under which the others may be summarized :
Some consider Jesus an ascetic, others an aesthete;
some emphasize His suffering, others His joyfulness;
some identify Him with ecclesiasticism, others with
humanism; some recognize in Him the prophetic picture
of the Old Testament and the monastic of the New,
others see in Him only gladness and poetry. There may
be solid ground for both views; but they do not exhaust
the character of Jesus. Both are only by-products which
really existed in Jesus, but were not primarily
intended; they are only enjoyed and suffered in
passing, while Jesus strove to attain an end wholly
different from either joy or sorrow.
(a) Strength
Considering the life of Jesus in the light of reason,
His strength, His poise, and His grace are His most
characteristic qualities. His strength shows itself in
His manner of life, His decision, His authority. In His
rugged, nomadic, homeless life there is no room for
weakness or sentimentality. Indecisionis rejected by
Jesus on several occasions: "No man can serve two
masters"; "He that is not with me, is against me"; Seek
first the kingdom of God", these are some of the
statements expressing Christ's attitude to indecision
of will. Of Himself He said: "My meat is to do the will
of him that sent me"; "I seek not my own will, but the
will of him that sent me." The authority of the Master
does not allow its power to be questioned; He calls to
men in their boats, in their tax-booths, on their
homes, "Follow me", and they look up into His face and
obey. St. Mathew testifies, "The multitude...glorified
God that gave such power to men"; St. Mark adds, "the
kingdom of God comes to power"; St. Luke says, "Thou
hast given him power over all flesh"; the Book of the
Acts reads, "God anointed him...with power"; St. Paul
too is impressed with "the power of our Lord Jesus". In
His teaching Jesus does not argue, or prove, or
threaten, like the Phrarisees, but He speaks like one
having authority. Nowhere is Jesus merely a long-faced
ascetic or a joyous comrade, we find Him everywhere to
be leader of men, whose principles are built on a rock.
(b) Poise
It may be said that the strength of Christ's character
gives rise to another quality which we may call poise.
Reason is like the sails of the boat, the will is its
rudder, and the feelings are the waves thrown upon
either side of the ship as it passes through the
waters. The will-power of Jesus is strong enough to
keep a perfect equilibrium between His feelings and His
reason; His body is the perfect instrument in the
performance of His duty; His emotions are wholly
subservient to the Will of His Father; it is the call
of complying with His higher duties that prevents His
austerity from becoming excessive. There is therefore a
perfect balance or equi- librium in Jesus between the
life of His body, of His mind, and of His emotions. His
character is so rounded off that, at first sight, there
remains nothing which could make it characteristic.
This poise in the character of Jesus produces a
simplicity which pervades every one of His actions. As
the old Roman roads led stright ahead in spite of
mountains and valleys, ascents and declivities, so does
the life of Jesus flow quietly onward in accordance
with the call of duty, in spite of pleasure or pain,
honour or ignominy. Another trait in Jesus which may be
considered as flowing from the poise of His character
is His unalterable peace, a peace which may be ruffled
but cannot be destroyed either by His inward feelings
or outward encounters. And these personal qualities in
Jesus are reflected in his teaching. He establishes an
equilibrium between the rightousness of the Old
Testament and the justice of the New, between the love
and life of the former and those of the latter. He lops
off indeed the Pharisaic conventionalism and
externalism, but they were merely degenerated
outgrowths; He urges the law of love, but shows that it
embraces the whole Law and the Prophets; He promises
life, but it consists not so much in our possession as
in our capacity to use our possession. Nor can it be
urged that the poise of Christ's teachhing is destroyed
by His three paradoxes of self-reliance, of service,
and of idealism. The law of self-sacrifice inculcates
that we shall find life by losing it; but the law of
biological organisms, of physiological tissues, of
intellectual achivements, and of economic processes
shows that self-sacrifice is self-realization in the
end. The second paradox is that of service: "Whosoever
will be the greater among you, let him be your
minister: and he that will be first among you, shall be
your servant." But in the industrial and artistic
world, too, the greatest men are those who have done
most service. Thirdly, the idealism of Jesus is
expressed in such words as "The life is more than the
meat", and "Not in bread alone doth man live, but in
every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." But
even our realistic age must grant that the reality of
the law is its ideals, and again, that the world of the
idealist is impossible only for the weak, while the
strong character creates the world after which he
strives. The character of Jesus therefore is the
embodiment of both strength and poise. It thus verifies
the definition given by such an involved writer as
Emerson: "Character is centrality, the impossibility of
being displaced or overset...The natural measure of
this power is the resistence of circumstances."
(c) Grace
But if there were not a third essential element
entering into the character of Jesus, it might not be
attractive after all. Even saints are at times bad
neighbours; we may like them, but sometimes we like
them only at a distance. The character of Christ
carries with it the trait of grace, doing away with all
harshness and want of amiability. Grace is the
unconstrained expression of the self-forgetting and
kindly mind. It is a beautiful way of doing the right
thing, in the right way, at the right time, therefore
opens all hearts to its possessor. Sympathy is the
widst channel through which grace flows, and the
abundance of the stream testifies to the reserve of
grace. Now Jesus sympathizes with all classes, with the
rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, the
happy and the sad; He moves with the same sense of
familiarity among all classes of society. For the self-
righteous Pharisees He has only the words, "Woe to you,
hypocrites"; he disciples, "Unless you become as little
children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven." Plato and Aristotle are utterly unlike Jesus;
they may speak of natural virtue, but we never find
children in their arms. Jesus treats the publicans as
His friends; He encourages the most tentative
beginnings of moral growth. He chooses common fishermen
for the corner -stones of His kingdom, and by His
kindliness trains them to become the light of the world
and the salt of the earth; He bends down to St. Peter
whose character was a heap of sand rather than a solid
"foundation, but He graciously forms Peter into the
rock upon which to build his Church. After two of the
Apostles had fallen, Jesus was gracious to both, though
He saved only one, while the other destroyed himself.
Women in need are not excluded from the general
graciousness of Jesus; He receives the homage of the
sinful woman, He consolves the sorrowing sisters Martha
and Mary, He cures the mother-in -law of St. Peter and
restores the health of numerous other women of Galilee,
He has words of sympathy for the women of Jerusalem who
bewailed His sufferings, He was subject to His mother
till He reached man's estate, and when dying on the
Cross commanded her to the care of His beloved
disciple. The grace of the Master is also evident in
the form of His teaching: He lays under contribution
the simple phases of nature, the hen with her chickens,
the gnat in the cup, the camel in the narrow street,
the fig tree and its fruit, the fishermen sorting the
catch. He meets with the lightest touch, approaching
sometimes the play of humour and sometimes the thrust
of irony, the simple doubts of His disciples, the
selfish questions of His hearers, and the subtlest
snares of his enemies. He feels no need of thrift in
His benefits on the few as abundantly as the vastest
multitudes. He flings out His parables into the world
that those who have ears may hear. There is a
prodigality in this manifestation of Christ's grace
that can only be symbolized, but not equalled, by the
waste of seed in the realm of nature.
(2) In the Light of Faith
In the light of faith the life of Jesus is an
uninterrupted series of acts of love for man. It was
love that impelled the Son of God to take on human
nature, though He did so with the full consent of His
Father: "For God so loved the world, as to give his
only begotten Son" (John, iii, 16). For thiry years
Jesus shows His love by a life of poverty, labour, and
hardship in the fulfillment of the duties of a common
trademan. When His public ministry began, He simply
spent Himself for the good of His neighbour, "doing
good, and healing all that were oppressed by the devil"
(Acts, x, 38). He shows a boundless compassion for all
the infirmities of the body; He uses His miraculous
power to heal the sick, to free the possessed, to
resuscitate the dead. The moral weaknesses of man move
His heart still more effectively; the woman at Jacob's
well, Mathew the publican, Mary Magdalen the public
sinner, Zacheus the unjust administrator, are only a
few instances of sinners who received encouragement
from the lips of Jesus. He is ready with forgiveness
for all; the parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates
His love for the sinner. In His work of teaching He is
at the service of the poorest outcast of Galilee as
well as of the theological celebrities of Jerusalem.
His bitterest enemies are not excluded from the
manifestations of His love; even while He is being
crucified He prays for the their pardon. The Scribes
and Pharisees are treated severely, only because they
stand in the way of His love. "Come to me, all you that
labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you"
(Matt., xi, 28) is the message of His heart to poor
suffering humanity. After laying down the rule,
"Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay
down his life for his friends" (John, xv, 13), He
surpasses as it were His own standard by dying for His
enemies. Fulfilling the unconscious prophecy of the
godless high-priest, "It is expedient for you that one
man should die for the people" (John, xi, 50), He
freely meets His sufferings which He could have easily
avoided (Matt., xxvi, 53), undergoes the greatest
insults and ignominies, passes through the most severe
bodily pains, and sheds His blood for men "unto
remission of sins" (Matt., xxvi, 28). But the love of
Jesus embraced not only the spiritual welfare of men,
it extended also to their temporal happiness: "Seek ye
therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice,
and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt.,
vi, 33).
B. JESUS IN HIS RELATION TO GOD
Prescinding from the theological discussions which are
usually treated in the theses "De Verbo Incarnato", we
may consider the relations of Jesus to God under the
headings of His sanctity and His Divinity.
(1) Sanctity of Jesus
From a nagative point of view, the sanctity of Jesus
consists in His unspotted sinlessness. He can defy His
enemies by asking, "Which of you shall convince me of
sin?" (John, viii, 46). Even the evil spirits are
forced to acknowledge Him as the Holy One of God (Mark,
i, 24; Luke, iv, 34). His enemies charge Him with being
a Samaritan, and having a devil (John, viii, 48), with
being a sinner (John, ix, 24), a blasphemer (Matt.,
xxvi, 65), a violator of the Sabbath (John, ix, 16), a
malefactor (John, xviii, 30), a disturber of the peace
(Luke, xxiii, 5), a seducer (Matt., xxvii, 63). But
pilate finds and declares Jesus innocent, and, when
pressed by the enemies of Jesus to condemn Him, he
washes his hands and exclaims before the assembled
people, "I am innocent of the blood of this just man"
(Matt., xxvii, 24). The Jewish authorities practically
admit that they cannot prove any wrong against Jesus;
they only insist, "We have a law; and according to the
law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of
God" ( John, xix, 7). The final charge urged against
Christ by His bitterest enemies was His claim to be the
Son of God.
The positive side of the sanctity of Jesus is well
attested by His constant zeal in the service of God. At
the age of twelve He asks His mother, "Did you not
know, that I must be about my father's business?". He
urges on His hearers the true adoration in spirit and
in truth (John, iv, 23) required by His Father.
Repeatedly He declares His entire dependence on His
Father (John, v, 20, 30; etc.); He is faithful to the
Will of His Father (John, viii, 29); He tells His
disciples, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent
me" (John, iv, 34). Even the hardest sacrifices do not
prevent Jesus from complying with His Father's Will:
"My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I
must drink it, thy will be done" (Matt., xxvi, 42).
Jesus honours His Father (John, ii, 17), and proclaims
at the end of His life, "I have glorified thee on the
earth" (John, xvii, 4). He prays almost incessantly to
His Father (Mark, i, 35; vi, 46; etc.), and teaches His
Apostles the Our Father (Matt., vi, 9). He always
thanks His Father for His bounties (Matt., xi, 25;
etc.), and in brief behaves throughout as only a most
loving son can behave towards his beloved father.
During His Passion one of His most intense sorrows is
His feeling of abandonment by His Father (Mark, xv,
34), and at the point of death He joyfully surrenders
His Soul into the hands of His Father (Luke, xxiii,
46).
(2) Divinity of Jesus
The Divinity of Jesus is proved by some writers by an
appeal to prophecy and miracle. But, though Jesus
fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament to the
letter, He Himself appears to appeal to them mainly in
proof of His Divine mission; He shows the Jews that He
fulfills in His Person and His work all that had been
foretold of the Messias. The prophecies uttered by
Jesus Himself differ from the predictions of the Old
Testament in that Jesus does not speak in the name of
the Lord, like the seers of old, but in His own name.
If it could be strictly proved that they were made in
virtue of His own knowledge of the future, and of His
own power to dispose of the current of events, the
prophecies would prove His Divinity; as it is they
prove at least that Jesus is a messenger of God, a
friend of God, inspired by God. This is not the place
to discuss the historical and philosophical truth of
the miracles of Jesus, but we know that Jesus appeals
to His works as bearing witness to the general truth of
His mission (John, x, 25, 33, 38), and also for the
verity of some particulr claims ( Matt., ix, 6; Mark,
ii, 10, 11; etc.) They show, therefore, at least that
Jesus is a Divine legate and that His teaching is
infallibly true.
Did Jesus teach that He is God? He certainly claimed to
be the Messias (John, iv, 26), to fulfill the Messianic
descriptions of the Old Testament (Matt., xi, 3-5;
Luke, vii, 22-23; iv, 18-21), to be denoted by the
current Messianic names, "king of israel" (Luke, xix,
38; etc), "Son of David" (Matt., ix, 27; etc), "Son of
man" (passim), "he that cometh in the name of the Lord"
(Matt., xxi, 9.etc). Moreover, Jesus claims to be
greater than Abraham (John, viii, 53, 56), than Moses
(Matt., xix, 8-9), than Solomon and Jonas (Matt., xii,
41-42); He habitually claims to be sent by God ( John,
v, 36, 37, 43; etc), calls God His father (Luke, ii,
49; etc), and He willingly accepts the titles "Master"
and "Lord" (John, xiii, 13, 14). He forgives sin in
answer to the observation that God alone can forgive
sin (Mark, ii, 7, 10; Luke, v, 21, 24; etc). He acts as
the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt., xii, 8; etc), and tells
St. Peter that as "Son" He is free from the duty of
paying temple-tribute (Matt., xvii, 24, 25). From the
beginning of His ministry he allows Nathanael to call
Him "Son of God" (John, i, 49); the Apostles (Matt.,
xiv, 33) and Martha (John, xi, 27) give Him the same
title. Twice He approves of Peter who calls Him "the
Christ, the Son of God" (John, vi, 70), "Christ, the
Son of the living God" (Matt., xvi, 16). Four distinct
times does He proclaim Himself the Son of God; to the
man born blind (John, x, 30, 36); before the two
assemblies of the Jewish Sanhedrin on the night before
His death (Matt., xxvi, 63-64; Mark, xiv, 61-62; Luke,
xxii, 70). He does not manifest His Divine Sonship
before Satan (Matt., iv, 3, 6) or before the Jews who
are deriding Him (Matt., xxvii, 40). Jesus does not
wish to teach the evil spirit the mystery of His
Divinity; to the Jews He gives a greater sign than they
are asking for. Jesus, therefore, applies to Himself,
and allows others to apply to Him, the title "Son of
God" in its full meaning. If there had been a
misunderstanding He would have corrected it, even as
Paul and Barnabas corrected those who took them for
gods (Acts, xiv, 12-14).
Nor can it be said that the title "Son of God" denotes
a merely adoptive sonship. The foregoing texts do not
admit of such an interpretation. St. Peter, for
instance, places his master above John the Baptist,
Elias, and the Prophets (Matt., xvi, 13-17). Again, the
Angel Gabriel declares that the Child to be born will
be "the Son of the most High" and "Son of God" (Luke,
i, 32, 35), in such a way that He will be without an
earthly father. Mere adoption presupposes the existence
of the child to be adopted; but St. Joseph is warned
that "That which is conceived in her [Mary], is of the
Holy Ghost" (Matt., i, 20); now one's being conceived
by the operation of another implies one's natural
relation of sonship to him. Moreover, the Divine
Sonship claimed by Jesus is such that he and the Father
are one (John, x, 30, 36); a merely adopted sonship
does not constitute a physical unity between the son
and his adoptive father. Finally if Jesus had claimed
only an adoptive sonship, He would have deceived His
judges; they could not have condemned Him for claiming
a prerogative common to all pious Israelites. Harnack
(Wesen des Christentums, 81) contends that the Divine
Sonship claimed by Jesus is an intellectual relation to
the Father, springing from special knowledge of God.
This knowledge constitutes "the sphere of the Divine
Sonship", and is implied in the words of Matt., xi, 27:
"No one knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither doth
any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom it
shall please the Son to reveal him". But if the Divine
Sonship of Christ is a mere intellectual relation, and
if Christ is God in a most figurative sense, the
Paternity of the Father and the Divinity of the Son
will be reduced to a figure of speech. (See THEOLOGY,
sub-title Christology.)
A.J. MAAS Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas In memory of
Archbishop Mathew Kavukatt
[New Advent Catholic Website]
http://www.knight.org/advent
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright �
1996 by New Advent, Inc., P.O. Box 281096, Denver,
Colorado, USA, 80228. (
[email protected])
If you would like to contribute to this worthwhile
project, please contact Kevin Knight by e-mail at
(knight.org/advent). For more information please
download the file cathen.txt/.zip.
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