NOTE: The exam will take place on Tuesday, December 14, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in our classroom, 518 Whitehead. It is an open book exam. You may also refer to notes but be sure to write your exams in class. This exam is in two parts. Part II is on a separate sheet.

Email me if you have questions as you prepare. There is also a Caucus item for the exam in case you want to raise questions there. I encourage you to discuss these questions amongst yourselves.

 PART I. [40%]

Write an essay on ONE of the following questions.  Be sure to draw explicitly on appropriate readings. For grades above C, you must use and refer to specific readings. The essays will be evaluated in part on how well you use course materials.

 1. “The historical Jesus, although shadowy and elusive, has been the recurring corrective to distortions of the Christ of faith in the development of the Christian tradition.” Explain and discuss your agreement or disagreement.

 2.   Discuss the image of Jesus that you believe has made the most positive contribution to western civilization and the image that has had the most negative effect.

 3.   Write a comparison of Paul, Augustine, Luther and Jefferson (use the documents in the Reader) on the connection between their images of Jesus and their views of human nature. You can write the essay either in dialogue form [like a play] or as an essay.

 4.   Explain and discuss the division of western Christianity into Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

 5.   In what ways do you find Christianity in the modern world to be most different from Christianity in the Patristic age? Use at least two sources from each age in your discussion.

 PART II [60%]

1. Augustine of Hippo, Letter
No one will doubt for a moment that it is better for men to be led to the worship of God by instruction than for them to be forced to it by the fear of punishment threatened or the pain of punishment inflicted. But because the former method is the better way, it does not follow that the second method (for those who are not in the first category) should be disregarded altogether. There are many people for whom has been of value as we have learned and are still learning by experience. At first they are compelled by fear or pain; later they can a taught or can live out in practice what they had earlier learnt only in words. The opinion of a secular author [Terence] has been quoted against me on this point: 'I believe it is better to restrain children by their sense of decency and by kindness rather than by fear.’ That is perfectly true. But if those whom love directs are the better, those whom fear corrects are the majority. To reply in the words the same ant author,  there is another quotation: 'You do not know how to act rightly unless you are compelled by fear of harm.'

2. Rule of Saint Benedict
Whenever an important matter is to be undertaken in the monastery the abbot should call the entire community together and should set forth the agenda. After hearing the various opinions of the brothers, he should consider all and then do what he thinks best. We feel that all should meet for the Lord often reveals the best course to a younger monk. The brothers should give advice with humility and not presume stubbornly to defend their views. They should leave the question to the abbot's resolution so that they may all obey that which he decides is best. But as disciples should obey a master, the master should arrange all matters with consideration and justice. Everyone shall follow the Rule as his master. No one should rashly deviate from it.

 Individual desires have no place in the monastery and neither r inside .nor outside the walls should anyone presume to argue with the abbot. If he dares do so, he should be punished according to the Rule. The abbot himself must do everything according to the Rule and fearing God, knowing that he will be held accountable for his reign to the highest judge, God. The abbot should take counsel of the seniors alone in minor matters in the monastery for "Do all things with counsel, and you shall not regret it afterwards" (Eccles. 32:24).

 3. Second Council of Nicea
Proceeding as it were on the royal road and following the divinely inspired teaching of our holy Fathers, and the tradition of the Catholic Church (for we know that this tradition is of the Holy Spirit which dwells in the Church), we define, with all ore and exactitude, that the venerable and holy images arc set up in just the same way as the figure of the precious and life‑giving cross; painted images, and those in mosaic and those of other suitable material, in the holy churches of God, on holy vessels and vestments, on walls and in pictures, in houses and by the roadsides; images of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ and of our undefiled Lady, the holy God‑bearer, and of the honourable angels, and of all saintly and holy men. For the more continually these are observed by means of such representations, so much the more will the beholders be aroused to recollect the originals and to long after them, and to pay to the images the tribute of an embrace and a reverence of honour, not to pay to them the actual worship which is according to our faith, and which is proper  only to the divine nature: but as to the figure of the venerable and life‑giving cross, and to the holy Gospels and the other sacred monuments, so to those images to accord the honour of incense and oblation of lights, as it has been the pious custom of antiquity. For the honour paid to the image passes to its original, and he that adores an image adores in it the person depicted thereby . . .

4. The Little Flowers of Saint Francis
That true disciple of Christ, St. Francis, while he was still living in this  miserable and pitiable world, being enlightened by the Holy Spirit, always strove with all his strength to follow in the footsteps of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect Master. Thus as Christ Himself condescended to become a pilgrim, so St. Francis showed himself and his friars as true pilgrims, and he also had it written in the Rule that all his friars should serve the Lord in this world as pilgrims and strangers.

Moreover, as Christ came not only to serve people with leprosy, healing and cleansing them in body, but He also wished to die for them, sanctifying and cleansing them in their soul, so St. Francis, longing to be entirely conformed to Christ, used to serve victims of leprosy with very great affection, giving them food, washing their sore limbs, cleaning and washing their clothes, and, moreover, frequently and fervently giving them kisses. And so it happened many times that God by His power simultaneously healed the soul of one whose body the Saint healed, as we read of Christ.

 5. Luther, Ninety-Five Theses
26.  The pope does very well when he grants remission to souls in purgatory, not by the power of the keys, which he does not have, but by way of intercession for them.

27.  They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.

28.  It is certain that when money clinks in the money chest, greed and  avarice can be increased; but when the church intercedes, the result is in the hands of God alone.

43.  Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better deed than he who buys indulgences.

45.  Christians are to be taught that he who sees a needy man and passes him  by, yet gives his money for indulgences, does not buy papal indulgences but God's wrath.

50.  Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the  indulgence preachers, he would rather that the basilica of St. Peter were  burned to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.

51.  Christians are to be taught that the pope would and should wish to give of his own money, even though he had to sell the basilica of St. Peter, to  many of those from whom certain hawkers of indulgences cajole money.

86.  Again, "Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?"

 6. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
I most firmly, acknowledge and embrace the Apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the same Church. I acknowledge the sacred Scripture according  to that sense which Holy Mother Church has held and holds, to whom it belongs to decide  upon the true sense and interpretation  of the Holy Scriptures nor will I ever  receive and interpret a Scripture except according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.

I recognize the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church as the mother and mistress of all churches; and I vow and swear true obedience to the  Roman Pontiff, the successor of blessed Peter, the chief of the Apostles and the representative vicarius of Jesus Christ.

I accept and profess, without doubting, the traditions, definitions and declarations of the sacred Canons and Ecumenical Councils and especially those of the holy Council of Trent; and at the same time I condemn, reject and anathematize all things contrary thereto, and all heresies condemned, rejected and anathematized by the Church. This true Catholic Faith (without which no one can be in a state of salvation), which I at this time I of my own will profess and truly hold.

7. Thomas Jefferson
No one sees with greater pleasure than myself  progress of reason in its advances towards rational Christianity. When we shall have done away the incomprehensible jargon of  the Trinitarian arithmetic,  that  three are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus when, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been  taught since His day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines He inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily His disciples; and my opinion is that if  nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from His lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian.

8. Keshub Chunder Sen
I rejoice, yea, I am proud, that I am Asiatic. And was not Jesus Christ an Asiatic? (Deafening applause.) Yes, and his disciples were Asiatics . . . In fact, Christianity ' was founded and developed and developed by Asiatics and in Asia. When I reflect on this, my love for Jesus becomes a hundredfold intensified; I feel him, nearer my heart, an deeper in my national sympathies. Why should I then feel ashamed to, acknowledge that nationality which he acknowledged?­ Shall I not rather say he is more congenial and akin to, my Oriental nature, more agreeable to my Oriental habits: of thought and feeling? And is it not true that an Asiatic can read the imageries and allegories of the Gospel, and its descriptions of natural scenery, of customs, and manners, with greater interest, and a fuller perception of their force and beauty, than Europeans? (Cheers.) In Christ we see not only the exaltedness of humanity, but also the grandeur of which Asiatic nature is susceptible. To us Asiatics, therefore, Christ is doubly interesting, and his religion is entitled to our peculiar regard as an altogether Oriental affair. The more this great fact is pondered, the less I hope will be the antipathy and hatred of European Christians against Oriental nationalities, and the greater the interest of the Asiatics in the teaching of Christ. And thus in Christ, Europe and Asia, the East and the West, may learn to find harmony and unity(Deafening applause.) I must therefore protest against that denationalization which is so general among Native converts to Christianity (Cheers). With the religion of their heathen forefathers they generally abandon the manners and customs of their country, and with Christianity they embrace the usages of Europeans; even in dress and diet they assume an affected air of outlandishness, which estranges them from their own countrymen: They deliberately and voluntarily cut themselves off from Native society as soon as they are baptized, and, as an inevitable consequence, come to contract a sort of repugnance to everything Oriental, and an enthusiastic admiration for everything European. (Hear, hear.) They seem to be ashamed of their country and their nationality. They forget that Christ, their master, was an Asiatic, and that it is not necessary in following him to make themselves alien to their country or race. I sincerely beseech them not to confound the spirit of Christianity with the fashions of Western civilizations.

 9. Jacquelyn Grant
More than anyone, Black theologians have captured the essence of the significance of Jesus in the lives of Black people which to an extent includes Black women. They all hold that that the Jesus of history is important for under­standing who he was and his significance for us today. By and large they have affirmed that this Jesus is the Christ, that is, God incarnate. They have argued that in the light of our experience, Jesus meant freedom. They have main­tained  that Jesus means freedom from the socio-psychological, psycho‑cultural, economic, and political oppression of Black people: In other words, Jesus is a political messiah. “To free [humans] from bondage was Jesus's own definition of  his ministry.”   'This meant that as Jesus identified with the lowly of his day, he now identifies with the lowly of this day who in the American context are Black people. The identification is so real that Jesus Christ in fact becomes Black. It is important to note that Jesus's Blackness is not a result of ideological distortion of a few Black thinkers, but a result of careful Christological investigation Cone examines the sources of  Christology and concludes that  Jesus is Black because "Jesus was a Jew." He explains:

“It is on the basis of the soteriological [soter = redeemer or saviour] meaning of the particularity of his Jewishness that theology must affirm the Christological significance of Jesus' dialectically present blackness. He is black because he was a Jew. The affirmation of the Black Christ can be understood when the significance of his past Jewishness is related dialectically to the significance of his present blackness On the other hand, the Jewishness of Jesus located him in the context of the Exodus, thereby connecting his appearance in Palestine with God's liberation of oppressed Israelites from Egypt. Unless Jesus were truly from Jewish ancestry, ii would make little theological sense to say that he is the fulfillment of God's covenant with Israel. But on the other hand, the blackness of Jesus brings out the soteriological meaning of his Jewishness for our contemporary situation when Jesus' person is understood in the content of the cross and resurrection. Without negating the divine election of Israel, the Cross and resurrection are Yahweh's fulfillment of his original intention for Israel. . . “

The  condition of Black people today reflects the cross of Jesus. Yet the resurrection brings the hope that liberation from oppression is immanent. The resurrected Black Christ signifies this hope.

. . . Cone further argues that this Christological title, "The Black Christ;"  . . . points to God’s universal will to liberate particular oppressed people from inhumanity.  These particular oppressed peoples . . .are characterized in Jesus's parable on the Last Judgment as "the least." “The least in America are literally and symbolically present in Black people." This notion of "the least" is attractive because it descriptively locates the condition of Black women. .  Women share in the reality of a broader community.  They share race suffering with Black men; with white women and other Third World women they are victims of sexism; and with poor Blacks and whites, and other Third World peoples, especially women, they are disproportionately poor.  . . . Likewise, with Jesus Christ, there was an implied universality which made him identify with others – the poor, the woman, the stranger.