Native son
Native son is a now outdated translation of the Greek expression monogenetos hyios ( Latin : unigenitus dei filius ) by Martin Luther . The term belongs to the elementary Christian statements about the essence of Jesus Christ and has become an important part of Christian creeds .
origin
The name is originally found in the Bible in the Gospel of John ( Joh 1,14.18 Lut ; 3,16.18 Lut ) and in the 1st letter of John ( 1 Joh 4,9 Lut ).
The essential statement in the prologue of the Gospel of John reads in the version of the standard translation :
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."
meaning
The literal German translation of the Greek expression reads only or only born son ( monos = alone, only, genetos = born, hyios = son). It remains open what the term “monos” refers to. If one relates him to God, it is said that the Son comes from God as the Father alone (and from no one else). If one relates it to the son, it would be said that the son is the only son (and no other sons exist). Both meanings, however, equally emphasize the uniqueness of this father-son relationship, which excludes a closer connection with biological terms such as “procreation” or “birth”. That is why the prologue of the Gospel of John can speak of all believers in the same breath as "children of God" ( John 1:12 EU ) without creating a contrast to the unique position of the Logos as the Son .
The term μονογενής (“only-born”) has a special theological proximity to the Hebrew root יָחִיד ( jachid ). This means “one and only” and is applied in the Bible above all to the special relationship between Abraham and his son Isaac. In this sense, the term is also used in the Letter to the Hebrews ( Hebrews 11:17 EU ). The relationship between Abraham and Isaac is described in more detail in Gen 22.2 EU as a love relationship. This is how the relationship between God and Jesus appears in John's Gospel ( Joh 3.35 EU ; Joh 10.17 EU ).
An understanding as innate in the sense of being born in or born in as the outdated term for native inhabitants is in any case both linguistically and theologically incorrect.
Church tradition
The formulation only born son was also in the main Greek added creeds of the church, the Nicene Creed and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed . The Latin Apostolic Creed , on the other hand, has a different wording: filium eius unicum = "his only son". Compared to the Greek monogenetos hyios , it emphasizes the uniqueness of the son's relationship with the father even more succinctly and does without the term genus (“gender”). The German ecumenical translation of the filium eius unicum as "his only begotten son" goes back to Luther and is less an exact translation of the Latin original than an interpretation of the text from the spirit of the Greek creeds.
Unigenitus dei filius is also the title of two papal bulls .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hartwig Thyen, Das Johannesevangelium , HNT 6, Tübingen 2005, p. 97
- ↑ see also Rudolf Schnackenburg, Johannesevangelium , HThK IV, 1, Freiburg 1965, p. 246