PRIMACY OF JESUS CHRIST. — The primacy of Jesus Christ in the history of humanity is a fact attested by chronology. His appearance in the world marked the reversal of the course of the centuries; the whole world, one may say, dates from his coming what it regards as the definitive stage of its existence. The most ancient civilizations have merged, or are merging more and more each day, into that which bears his name and which, sometimes without even realizing it, bears the imprint of the « good news » proclaimed to all peoples from his birth at Bethlehem.
This primacy undoubtedly derives from his miracles, from his doctrine, and from the influence exercised by the Church, established by him as the « pillar of truth »; but it derives above all from the supreme dignity and power of his person. « Who, then, is this man? », asked themselves first those who saw him command the winds and the waves, heal the sick, and raise the dead. « Who, then, is this man? » still ask today those who are strangers to his Gospel and see millions of men, even after so many centuries, ready to sacrifice their lives for him rather than deny their faith in him. « He is the Son of God », all Christians answer with one voice, and the Churches, scattered throughout the world, are unanimous in confessing that « he descended from heaven for us and for our salvation ». « And he was also crucified for us », add those who, as they sing the Creed, have prostrated themselves at the remembrance of the mystery of his Incarnation.
God and Savior are, in fact, the two titles on which the universally acknowledged primacy of Jesus Christ is founded. Center and summit of the religion he founded, he rules and commands all that is greatest and holiest in II. Infinitely above his Angels, his Prophets, and his Apostles, infinitely above his own Mother, he alone is adored, he alone is believed in and served for his own sake. The Church, with its hierarchy, its dogmas, and its worship, is subordinate to him; it exists only through him and for him; its essential task consists in leading men to him, so that they may adhere to his person and render him a worship made up of trust, submission, and love. A body has also been constituted for him, with members distributed in heaven and on earth, of which he is the one true head. In them and through them everything converges toward him: « All things are yours, but you are Christ’s » (I Cor. 3:23). Such, indeed, is God’s design concerning Jesus Christ: that he should have primacy in everything, and that everything, in the course of the centuries, should tend to constitute itself and conform itself to him (Col. 1:1-18; Eph. 1:10).
Catholic theologians have vied with one another in finding the best way to make the magnificence of God’s plan understood. Two schools of thought have thus arisen, whose very opposition contributes to revealing « the height, the depth, the breadth, and the sublimity » of God’s design concerning Christ. Proceeding from the present fact that all men and all beings are subordinate to Jesus Christ and to Jesus the Redeemer, and both groups admitting that the God-Man could not and could under no circumstances have been willed by God without being established as head of humanity, and that this primacy, from the moment the God-Man is willed, belongs to him by right because of his divine personality even more than because of his redemptive work, they ask whether, as a matter of fact, humanity was directed toward him from the very beginning of its existence. Some, believing that they recognize in the Church’s traditional teaching that Jesus Christ was willed solely with regard to the men to be redeemed, cannot for that very reason regard him as having been given from the beginning as head to Adam: the first man would not have been foreseen, willed, and ordered toward him except as a consequence of his sin and with him as his redeemer.
Others, considering it unworthy of Jesus that he should have been given as head of humanity and creation only on the occasion and as a consequence of original sin, believe they find in divine wisdom proof that Adam, even before his sin, was in a state of dependence upon Jesus Christ. They base this affirmation on the immutable order which, in their view, must have presided over the divine designs, and they say that, in willing beings outside himself ordered to his glory, God had first to will him whom he saw as able to give him greater honor and glory. Moreover, it is inconceivable that God, in decreeing to create Adam, did not foresee his fall with all its consequences. If, therefore, God proceeded in spite of this foreknowledge, it was because in the same perspective he saw included the remedy to be brought to so great an evil, and that this remedy would be Jesus Christ. In short, to these theologians the acceptance of the perspective of original sin does not seem conceivable except as a function of the determined will to remedy II. And since on this latter point they appear to agree with the Fathers of the Church, who stopped at this consideration, they hold that the conclusion follows of itself: namely, that the Incarnation of the Son of God must be conceived as willed for its own sake and as the sole explanation of the reason why God could accept the prospect of a first man dragging all his descendants down with him in his fall. In this sense the primacy of Jesus Christ appears absolute. Of these two opinions, the first is that of St. Thomas (Sum. Theol. 3ᵃ, q. 1, a. 3) and is the one most widely taught in the schools (Cajetan, Toledo, Vasquez, Petavius, Pesch, Billot, Hugon, D’Alès); the second, that of Scotus (Reportata parisiensia: III Sent., d. 7, q. 4), found in St. Francis de Sales an advocate whom a considerable number of authors have followed.