PRIMACY OF JESUS CHRIST. - The primacy of J.C. in the history of humanity is a fact, attested by chronology. His appearance in the world marked the overturning of the course of the centuries; the entire 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 every day more and more into that which bears his name and which, sometimes without even being aware of it, bears the imprint of the "good news" proclaimed to all peoples by his birth in Bethlehem.
This primacy undoubtedly derives from his miracles, from his doctrine, 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?" asked first those who saw him command the winds and the waves, heal the sick, raise the dead. "Who is this?" those still ask today 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 came down from heaven for us and for our salvation." "And was also crucified for us," add those who, singing 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 primacy universally recognized in Jesus Christ is founded. Center and summit of the religion founded by him, he dominates and commands all that is greatest and holiest in it. 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 task consists essentially in leading men to him, so that they may adhere to his person and render him a worship made of confidence, submission and love. A body has also been constituted for him by members distributed in heaven and on earth, of which he is the only and true head. In them and through them everything converges to him: "All things are yours, but you are Christ's" (I Cor. 3:23). Such, in fact, is God's design regarding Jesus Christ, namely that he have the primacy in all things, and that everything, in the course of the centuries, tend to be constituted and conformed to him (Col. 1:1-18; Eph. 1:10).
Catholic theologians have vied with one another in finding the way to better convey the magnificence of God's plan. Two currents of thought have thus formed, whose very opposition helps to make known "the height, the depth, the breadth and the sublimity" of God's design concerning Christ. Starting from the actual fact that all men and all beings are subordinate to Jesus Christ and to Jesus the Redeemer, both groups admitting that the God-Man could not and could not in any hypothesis have been willed by God without being established as head of humanity, and that this primacy, since 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 themselves whether, as a matter of fact, humanity has been oriented toward him from the beginning of its existence. The one group, believing they recognize in the traditional teaching of the Church that Jesus Christ was willed solely with regard to the men to be redeemed, cannot for that very reason consider him as given from the beginning as head to Adam: the first man would not have been foreseen, willed and ordered to him, except consequently to his sin and as to his redeemer.
The others, deeming it unworthy of Jesus to have been given as head to humanity and to creation only on the occasion and in consequence of original sin, believe they find in divine wisdom the proof that Adam, even before his sin, was in a state of dependence on Jesus Christ. For this affirmation they rely on the immutable order that seems to them to have had to preside over the divine designs, and they say that in order to will, outside of himself, beings ordered to his glory, God had first to will the one whom he saw could give him greater honor and greater glory. Moreover, one cannot conceive that God, in decreeing to create Adam, did not foresee his fall with all its consequences. If therefore God passed over this foresight, it is 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, the acceptance of the prospect of original sin seems to these theologians conceivable only in function of the determined will to remedy it. And since on this last point they seem to agree with the Fathers of the Church, who dwelt on this consideration, they hold that the conclusion imposes itself, namely that the Incarnation of the Son of God must be conceived as willed for itself and as the only explanation of the reason why God could accept the prospect of a first man dragging down in his fall all his descendants. 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 most 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 upholder, whom a fair number of authors follow.
Bibliography11 works
Paolo Galtier