Notas introductorias al estudio de la Cristología

Abstract

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The author offers some preliminary observations on the study of Christology. The entire article seeks to point out its contents and the how to focus them. For example, the article refers to how nowadays questions on Jesus Christ, his Person and his work are made with renewed acuteness, also in the field of scientific investigation. Studies on Christology encompass diverse points of view based on distinct philiosophico-theological criteria. Jesus Christ is always the object of the study, but the angle from which he is contemplated reveals the content of his mystery according to a specific intellectual way of looking at things. Some show more interest in the historical aspects and even separate the «historical Jesus» from the «Christ faith». Others follow a different method and speak of a Christology «from above» and another «from below»; here the method itself implies a precise theological position. Finally, other authors distinguish Christology from Jesusology, considering the latter as a variant of ascending Christology.

Given its essentially theological nature, Christology is simply the study of what the faith teaches concerning the mystery and work of Christ, in the light of that same faith. Tradition, Holy Scripture and the Church's Magisterium bear witness to that faith: the three, united and inter-related, contribute to the construction of a genuine Christology, as is shown by the theological syntheses of the Ecumenical Councils of the first seven centuries of Christianity. At the same time, Christology has many implications in other theological treatises, for example, that which deals with God, or soteriology, etc. When it is studied in this light and conscious of these implications, the treatise on Christ becomes a real beacon shedding light on the mystery of man.