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The Word becoming flesh, itself an “eschatological” event, the parousia “in the last times,” is not, therefore an absolute beginning, but a recapitulation, a résumé in clear brevity, of the continual presence and activity of the sameWord. Against Marcion, on the one hand, Irenaeus can maintain that there is nothing new in the Gospel, what he is preached as having done, in the Gospel, is what he has done in directing the economy from the beginning. What is new is that Christ himself, who previously had only been announced, has arrived—the concise Word, the Gospel, is clearly proclaimed. On the other hand, with the eschatological character of the Gospel reflecting the divine perfection of Christ, he can also maintain, against the Gnostics, that there is nothing more to be added to it. Recapitulating this history in himself, Jesus Christ furnishes us with salvation through a résumé, which, as an epitome, provides the guidelines for the correct reading of the same Word throughout the long history written in Scripture.

The apostolic proclamation of the crucified and exalted Lord, the Gospel, is made up of the texture of the Scripture—the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets—no longer proclaimed in the obscurity of types and prophecies, but refracted through the cross, and proclaimed clearly and concisely in a résumé. When Irenaeus says that the Son becoming flesh recapitulates the long narrative of the economy, this is a recapitulation made by God through the apostles and their concise word: the sameWord of God, obscurely written at length in Scripture, is preached concisely and clearly, enfleshed, by the apostles in their Gospel proclaiming the human sojourn of the Word of God. The unique revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the Word become flesh, is located specifically in the apostolic preaching of him, the Gospel which refracts Scripture through the cross, and in which theWord hidden in Scripture becomes visible and comprehensible—becomes flesh. The affirmation that Jesus Christ is the Word of God become flesh is thus not based upon a historicizing conflation of John 1:14 with the infancy narratives, which would effectively turn theology into mythology. Rather, the confession that Jesus Christ is theWord of God is based in the literary dynamics of this relationship between Scripture and the Gospel, a relationship which turns specifically upon the axis of the Paschal faith, the lordship of the crucified and exalted Christ, as proclaimed by theapostles “according to the Scriptures,” and as continually reflected on thereafter by those who followed in their tradition. In this way, the confession that Christ is the Word of God directs our own attention back to Scripture, to reflect yet further on the identity of Christ, and this is an engagement to which all Christians are called, so coming to understand themselves in the light of Christ and eventually to come to the fullness of his stature (Eph 4:13). To overlook this dimension in which such theological affirmations take flesh, are embodied, in preference for the already familiar shorthand formulae and the theological edifices built from them, turns theology from confession to a mixture of metaphysics and mythology, and bypasses the perennial challenge of Christ’s question “Who do you say I am?” (Mt 16:15).

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For all the fathers considered, and examples could be multiplied easily, the Incarnation of the Word is not located in the birth of Jesus from Mary as a distinct event from the Passion and exaltation. In some ways, such a position results from assuming the shorthand
formulae as "dogmatic facts," and then conflating John 1:14, which does not speak of a birth, with the infancy narratives, which do not speak of an incarnation of a heavenly, previously existing being. That Jesus was indeed born fromMary-a specific, temporal, historical event-was indeed assumed as a given. But, it is essential to note, to describe this event as "the Incarnation of the Word" can only be done by reflecting on Christ in the light of the cross through the medium of Scripture. When this is done, when the Passion, the crucifixion, and exaltation, is taken as the central axis of theological reflection, then, as we saw from Origen earlier, this becomes determinative for contemplating the identity of Christ, and everything else is understood through this prism and in this pattern. Thus, the infancy narratives are not an attempt to preserve accurate historical information regarding the birth of Christ, but are, as Raymond Brown has so clearly pointed out, a retelling ofthe basic kerygma in a mode appropriate for the occasion.27
………. (27 Cf. R. E. Brown, "The Birth of the Messiah"
………. (New York: Doubleday, 1993) and, more briefly,
………".An Adult Christ at Christmas" (Collegeville: Liturgical
……….Press, 1988).)
This point is equally evident from iconography, which depicts the Christ not in a stable, but wrapped in swaddling clothes and lain in a cave, the shape of which mirrors the posture of the virgin, just as he was lain in the virgin cave owned by the other Joseph to emerge as the exalted Lord. The same point is made even more dramatically in the hymnography for the pre-feast of the Nativity, which consciously uses the same imagery and phrases as the material for Holy Week, which itself culminates in the Paschal reading of the Prologue of John.



Many other examples from the tradition of the Church could be
brought in to exemplify the point. For instance, one hymn which is particularly interesting when viewed in this perspective is the "Only-begotten Son" attributed to Justinian. Although it is easily heard (especially in English) in the theological perspective outlined earlier, that is, as Trinitarian theology-"Only begotten Son and Word of God"-followed by "Incarnation" and Christology-"who accepted to become flesh for our salvation"-nevertheless, the subject, the addressee, of the whole hymn is in fact "Christ God" (given in the vocative), who is positioned between being crucified and trampling down death by death (staurwqeiv~ te, Criste; oJ qeov~, qanavtw/ qavnaton pathvsa~), culminating in the acknowledgement that he is one of the Trinity and to be glorified with the Father and the Spirit. Rather than being read as a chronological narrative, which would ultimately temporalize God, the whole hymn is a reflection on the crucified and exalted Christ: it is confessional, rather than mythological. The same point is equally evident, though often overlooked, in the creeds and dogmatic definitions of the Councils. For instance, the Chalcedonian definition specifies that it is one and the same Jesus Christ who is both God and man, one hypostasis in two natures, and that it is he who is Lord, God, Son and Logos-in other words, "logos" is a title of Jesus Christ, rather than being the name of the eternal second person of the Trinity who "subsequently" (as if God is subject to time) becomes the man Jesus Christ. It is one and the same Jesus Christ, as St Cyril of Alexandria affirms so emphatically, who is from the Father as theWord of God and from the line of David as man-two births but one and the same subject, Jesus Christ.28

Theological talk of "Incarnation" thus operates at an interpretative level, based on the paschal faith-it is the Crucified One who is the IncarnateWord. But one must also go further, as already indicated by Irenaeus and Hippolytus. If it is from the perspective of the cross that we speak of the Word becoming flesh, fashioning a body from the virgin to be the temple in which he dwells, as Athanasius puts it, then this body cannot be separated from the bodies of Christians in whom the Word now dwells. So, in Athanasius' work On the Incarnation, there is very little about Jesus' actual birth or his life before the Passion: the treatise is mainly concernedwith what the Word has worked through the body, by dying in the body and so granting his disciples life in his body, and consequently the bulk of Athanasius' demonstration of the divinity of Christ argues from the divine works the Word effects in Christians now. The various levels in all of this reflection are summed up concisely in the second century Letter to Diognetus: "He was from the beginning, appeared new yet was found to be old, and is ever new [or "young"] being born in the hearts of the saints."29

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...the Incarnation of the Word is not located in the birth of Jesus from Mary as a distinct event from the Passion and exaltation.

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