Incarnation

The Incarnation is a theological, dogmatic teaching of Christianity; they do is at the core of all Christian faith traditions. It is also called incarnation of God ( incarnation, from Latin caro, flesh ) and separates Christianity from the other two Abrahamic religions, Islam and Judaism. Judaism sees this as a violation of the Ten Commandments ( Thou shalt have no other gods beside me ) and referred to it as Avoda sara (literally: "false service ", Hebrew: idolatry ). In Islam, this concept is seen as one of the possible forms of sin ( Shirk ).

• 2.1 The oldest stories in Hinduism
• 2.2 mythology of ancient Greece and Rome

• 3.1 Philosophy
• 3.2 Judaism

Christianity

In the New Testament

In the New Testament it says literally: "And the Logos was made ​​flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. "

The theme of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ was already in the early Church part of the liturgy, as for example the Canticles to the Philippians ( Phil 2:5-11 EU), Colossians (Col. 1:15-20 EU) and in the prologue of John's Gospel ( 1:14 EU) attest.

In the Christian tradition

However, it took centuries for that build upon Christology in numerous confrontations was definitely formulated. A milestone was the first Council of Constantinople Opel in the year 381, in which was the formulation of the first Council of Nicaea, that Jesus of Nazareth begotten from the essence of the Father and confirmed this was essentially identical at the end of the Arian controversy in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Christianity sees in Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Son of the Father (see Trinity), who was born, taught and healed, suffered, died on the cross and rose from the dead. This incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth is still the core of all the main directions of the Christian faith. The incarnation ( incarnation ) is celebrated at Christmas from the point of birth, Easter under the aspect of death and resurrection and at Pentecost in terms of the lasting presence. She is also the focus of faith in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

" He was baptized as a man, but he forgave sins as God - not because he needed purification rites, but the element of water to sanctify. He was tempted as man, and overcame as God. Yes, he asks us to be of good courage, for he has overcome the world. He was hungry, but he fed thousands. Yes, he is the bread that gives life, and cometh down from heaven. He was thirsty, but he called who thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. Yes, he promised that springs of living water flow from those who believe. He was tired, but he is the refreshment of those who are weary and heavy laden. He pays the temple tax, but with a coin from a fish. Yes he is the king of those who demanded. [ ... ] He prays, but he also heard prayers. He weeps, but it dries tears. He asks where Lazarus is buried, because he is a man; but as God he raised Lazarus from the dead. He is betrayed for only thirty pieces of silver, but he redeemed the world for a high price, because the price was his own blood. As a lamb, he is led to the slaughter, but he is the shepherd of Israel, and now also of the world. [ ... ] He dies, but he gives life and destroyed death by his death. He is buried, but rose again. "

Key to the framework of further theological development was the Christological definition of the Council of Chalcedon.

Anselm of Canterbury writes to the question of the Incarnation ::

" The question is now, how can God become man? Because the divine and human nature can not make a turn into the other, so that the divine to the human, or human would be divine; and they can also not be mixed so that a new third hervorgienge both which would be neither fully divine, yet fully human. Ever would yes, if that could happen, that the one in the other aufgienge, either only God and no man, or only man and not a god left. Or if they were so mingled that of the two mutilated a third nature hervorgienge ( as of two animal individuals of different species, a male and female, a third is born, which has neither the whole nature of the father, nor the mother, but a from both mixed third ); so this would be neither God nor man. The God-Man, in which we call divine and human nature, and consequently can not arise by transformation of one nature into the other; not by a mingling of both stümmelhafte to a third, because all that is either impossible or, if possible, would be meaningless for what we require. But if the two overall natures are joined in some way about in such a way that one but the other - and back on the other man - God would be, and thus would not be the same thing God, what man is; so impossible to make, what to make essential the two. Because God will not do because he does not need it to be made; man but it will not do, because he can not afford to; so that the words of the God-man bar, it will be necessary that he was just as well fully God, fully man as well as by accomplishing a satisfaction which only he can accomplish - as true God; and at the same time to accomplish - as a true man. Therefore, while a God - man must be found - without prejudice to the integrity of both natures - it does but not equally, that the two complete natures meet in one person himself, as well as meet the body and the rational soul in a people as it only possible in this way, that one and the same perfect God and perfect man should be. " "

For Meister Eckhart, the incarnation of God is not a one-time event, "The Father begets his Son without ceasing [ ... ] He begets me as his son and as the same son." God is not just "there" - became man, but " here and there ", " [ ... ] and he has become the reason man, that he may bear also you as his only begotten Son and not as - as Jesus of Nazareth low ".

Rejection of the ideas of an incarnation of God

In the history of Christianity, the doctrine of the incarnation of God from Arianism was later Jehovah of the Unitarians, the witnesses and rejected other groups. The non- Trinitarian communities speak only of the Incarnation of the Word, or Incarnation of the Word.

• For the Jehovah's Witnesses who recognize the pre-existence of Christ, the Incarnation of the Word is the incarnation of a being that has existed before his birth.
• For communities with sozinianistischer theology, for example, Christadelphians, the Incarnation of the Word, speaks of John, the incarnation of God's plan through the virgin birth and the literal fulfillment of the promise to Abraham.

Incarnation of God in other religions

Oldest stories in Hinduism

The incarnation of God is mentioned in Hinduism for the first time. In hundreds of stories is reported that Shiva visit the believers in human form, to check their sacrifice and their faith. See also Avatar.

Mythology of ancient Greece and Rome

Zeus kidnapped the beautiful princess as a bull Europe in the "Metamorphoses " of Ovid; Incarnate gods in Greek and Trojan warriors on the battlefield in the Iliad; Gods speak in human form to man; Demigods arise from the union of gods with human beings by birth:

The appearance of a god in human form is a common mythological motif in Greco-Roman antiquity. For example, Homer describes at the beginning of the Odyssey, that Pallas Athene after the counsel of the gods to the house of Odysseus rushes, where she talks to his son Telemachus in the form of a stranger in order to strengthen its resilience against the suitors of his mother Penelope and thus threatening injustice prevent.

The concept of incarnation is near the demigod who is born of the divine act of procreation between God and man, the human woman or the female deity - this divine proportion is human!

Here the pagan incarnation differs from the Christian Incarnation. The Son of God in his divinity wholly God and not just a demigod, or a righteous man, as Judaism today interprets the Son of God. From the Virgin Mary, the human nature of the Son of God was born, which has become new. Both natures are united in the one person of Jesus, without mixing.

Others

Philosophy

Have the philosopher Slavoj Žižek sees Christianity as the only religion that was even for a moment Atheist in God and in themselves ( at the crucifixion ) doubted ( Mk 15,34 EU). Emphasizes his interpretation of Christianity that if God "one of us " has become, is implied by the ability to question, inasmuch as it is a logical consequence of conscious existence. Without a doubt this the incarnation of God would have been incomplete.

Judaism

In Judaism, with its strict ethical monotheism there has been a decisive rejection of the Gentile-Christian concept of the Incarnation of the Son of God always depended. From all over the Jewish Bible there is resistance against the heretical idea a created by God be God or God man.

" God is not a man, that he betröge, no son of Adam, that he consider himself. Should speak and do not do, talk and not keep it well? "

The first ten verses of the word summarize:

Even Philo of Alexandria ( 10 BC - 40 AD ), the most important philosopher of Hellenistic Judaism, makes his lógos λόγος, the model for the " Christian Logos" in the prologue of John's Gospel, not sarx (Greek σάρξ meat, ie man ) will happen in John's Gospel as just later.