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Son of Man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Columba Cary-Elwes O.S.B.
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Of all the titles of Jesus this is the most mysterious, yet also it was the one most used by him, the title of his predilection.

Christ is called Son of Mary; and that is not difficult to understand. She gave him as much as any mother ever gives her child, his body, his features, temperament maybe. Mary must have given all these, for there was no human father. Thus Nestorius was indeed wrong-headed when he refused her the title of Mother of God. We do not say of our mothers ‘That is the mother of Charles’s body’, but ‘that is Charles’s mother’, i.e., the person Charles; so Mary is the mother of the Person Christ, and the Person is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Son of David, likewise we can understand; though even this is not simple, for he was not so by direct male descent. Still, he was sufficiently descended by blood through Mary, and far more deeply so by inheriting the kingdom; and yet again, not the kingdom of the earthly Jerusalem, but that of the spiritual Jerusalem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 1 , Issue 7 , January 1947 , pp. 204 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © 1947 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Cf. Job 25:5-6. ‘Behold even the moon is without light, the stars are not pure in his eyes; how much less man, that little worm, the son of man, that vile insect’.

2 Mk. 8:31. Cf. Matth. 17:22 and Luke 18:31.

3 Isaias 42:1-4; 49:1-6. Cf. Lemonnyer, Théologie du Nouveau Testament. pp. 65 ff.

4 It is usually held that this ‘Son of Man’ in Daniel referred to the whole Jewish people, But (a) Christ uses it of himself; (b) he is the fifth of a series, the first four being individual kings, and (c) whether we accept the implications or not in ideas, the phraseology, the imagery, is similar to the Zoroastian literature concerning the Son of Man, a superhuman, yet human, saviour.

5 He is referring to his discussion with them on Psalm 110 about the Son of David.