Christology and the Traditions of Christian Spiritual Theology

The focus of this course is the extent to which Christ and Christology has to be both mentioned and serve as central to any presentation of the Christian spiritual life.  We will explore the relationship of pre-modern spiritual writing and some more technical treatments of Christology in order to understand their mutual influence. The chapters from Pelikan’s book, Jesus Through the Centuries, should demonstrate how there has always been a subjective input from the spirituality of the church into how Christ is understood, as well as the obvious input of Scripture and tradition. The thorny issue of whether Christology went astray after the High Middle Ages will be considered, as well as Jesus in the Reformation and Post-Reformation period (Catholic and Protestant).