Some might question yet another title added to the list of contemporary Christological studies, particularly from a Thomistic perspective. Matthew Levering is well aware of contributions of past and contemporary theologians as to scriptural, dogmatic, and Thomistic Christology. He purposefully enters into dialogue with them, using them as a catalyst towards the next steps of investigation in Thomas Aquinas’s Christology. For this reason, one might classify this work among the ranks of Matthew Levering’s critical or ‘diagnostic’ studies (see The Abuse of Conscience, 2021, p. 1). Levering’s work aligns with theological renewal promoted by Dei Verbum: Scripture is ‘the very soul of sacred theology’ (Dei Verbum, 24), with the specific focus on contemporary Thomistic Christology which, he claims, needs to ‘be reconfigured in a certain way’ (p. 26).
Contemporary Thomists have acknowledged and explicated Thomas’s integration of Scripture and Patristic teaching. Levering proposes that future studies must also assimilate eschatological aspects of Jesus in the New Testament (p. 6), an approach that requires continuation of both ‘metaphysically realist dogmatic claims about Jesus Christ, the incarnate Lord’, and Christ’s ‘dramatic new twist’ on the Jewish paradigm (p. 176), whereby he portrays himself as the New Adam, the New Isaac, the New Moses, the New Joshua, and the New David.
Given that a reconfiguration requires an assessment of the current state, Levering’s first chapter provides a subtle analysis of key Scriptural and Christological authors of the last decades, including an ecumenical perspective, both as to Catholic and non-Catholic writers, and to neoscholastic and Ressourcement Thomism. The analysis references a veritable Who’s Who of past and contemporary theologians and Thomists (a few of whom include Lonergan, Nicholas, Scheeben, and von Balthasar; Dale Allison, Richard Hays, Sanders, and Wright; Bonino, Emery, M.-J. Lagrange, Vijgen, and Thomas Joseph White), since the richness of past and present debates and dialogue serve as a foundation for new discussions and investigations.
Each of the following chapters addresses one of the five typologies with a common systematic manner, first examining the scriptural foundations, then relevant patristic insights, followed by Thomistic sources and interpretations. That being said, the structure is not rigid. Each chapter develops in an organic manner, with the appropriate Scriptural, Patristic, and Thomistic references intertwined with relevant commentary from secondary sources.
Regarding the first type – Christ as the New Adam – Luke and Paul’s texts offer an inexhaustible source for philosophical, exegetical, and theological discussion. Aquinas highlights parallels of similarity and distinction between Adam and Christ. Both were conceived without intercourse; both were the ‘source’ of their bride – Eve from Adam’s rib and the Church from the blood and water that flowed from Christ’s side. But Adam was of the earth and became the source of sin and death for all by his sin of disobedience. Christ, from heaven, was the source of life and grace by his obedience to the will of the Father (pp. 84–91). Levering makes special note of Thomistic Christology benefiting from Gaudium et Spes’s explicit identification of Adam as a type of Christ the Lord, with specific emphasis on Christ as the ‘eschatological New Adam’ who is Head of the Church and source of salvation (Gaudium et Spes 22; pp. 97–99).
In his discussion of Christ as the New Isaac, Levering leans heavily on Huizenga’s New Isaac, a contemporary work that examines the history of Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Isaac and the Akedah, Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac. Levering demonstrates how several Fathers of the Church corroborate the general elements of this typology, which with the Scriptures, serves as a foundation for Aquinas, who in turn identifies Isaac as a figure of Christ crucified and resurrected (p. 134). Looking ahead to reconfigurement, Levering asks whether Thomas’s biblical commentaries might not offer further insights on topics including Christ as victim and offerer, development of Christ’s Passion as sacrifice, and the relationship between the Akedah and the Resurrection, since the New Isaac is the sacrificial Lamb.
Moving forward to Moses, Levering shows how some of the Fathers interpreted Moses as a type for Christians led by the Church from slavery rather than a type of Christ himself (p. 144). The Church purifies the Torah that Moses represents; his serpent represents the Cross. Eusebius of Caesarea dared to identify Christ as the New Moses, prophet and lawgiver, a thread richly developed in Dale Allisons’s The New Moses: A Matthean Typology. Levering shows how Allison connects Moses and Christ in their infancy, one saved from Pharoah, the other from Herod; in their fasting of forty days and forty nights; as lawgivers and in their miracles; in seeing God face-to-face; is their role as ‘servant of God’; the manna and the Eucharist; Sinai and the Transfiguration; as well as in the blood that Moses sprinkled on the people and Christ shed on the Cross (pp. 151–159). Though one of many typologies, Levering notes that Thomists might benefit from Aquinas’s teaching of Christ as priest and prophet and develop the New Moses ‘to strengthen the sense of the role of the sacraments within the inaugurated kingdom (p. 173).
Like the previous three, Levering lays out the historical and contemporary tradition for identifying Christ as the New Joshua. References include Origen and Ounsworth’s Joshua Typology in the New Testament. Key foreshadowing of Christ includes Joshua’s crossing the Jordan, which, like Moses and the Red Sea, symbolizes a type of baptism whereby one enters into the Promised Land. But one should not overlook that even the name Jesus (Yeshua) is a variant of Joshua (Yehoshua). Aquinas extends the comparison between the Red Sea and the Jordan, stressing that the Red Sea foreshadows Jordan. The latter symbolizes humility, the place of Christ’s baptism and gateway to the heavenly kingdom opened by Christ’s Passion, as well as Christ’s Ascension and a new exodus, another topic Levering identifies for theological development (pp. 222, 225).
More explicitly than the others, the royal typology of King David foreshadows the Headship of Christ the Messiah, the ‘eschatological Davidic King’ (p. 278). Here too, Levering proposes further study expounding upon conciliar teachings on divine salvation and the eschatological David, examining the David, the righteous and pious prophet and the grace and virtue of Christ, the ‘righteous Davidic warrior’ who reigns in justice, mercy, and love. (pp. 180, 182).
One cannot fail to note Levering’s ‘ontological’ footnote to each of the five types. These demonstrate fidelity to his purpose of a reconfiguration that expounds the fullness of Thomas’s teaching, that is, without negating either Scriptural or dogmatic Christological principles. Each Old Testament type prefigures specific aspects of Christ, the Incarnate Word, always with eschatological nuance. Thus, Christ the New Adam possesses a human nature while at the same time being filled with grace and ‘all the virtues’ (ST III, q. 8, a. 2; p. 99). Christ the New Isaac ‘surrendered himself, from charity’ (ST III, q. 47, a. 3, ad 3, p. 136). The New Moses is the risen Christ who enables all human beings to share ‘more perfectly in the eternal law’ (ST I–II, q. 91, a. 4, ad 1, p. 175). Christ the New Joshua causes grace by ‘coming sacramentally into man’, providing food for the new exodus (ST III, q. 79, a. 1, p. 223). Finally, Christ the New David, ‘being established in His heavenly seat as God Lord’ is Head of the Church, reigning here and now (ST III, q. 57, a. 6, p. 282).
The past decades have witnessed many fruits of the Second Vatican Council. But as Levering and others before him have noted, some areas of renewal still require labour, particularly that of a more vigorous collaboration between the Scriptural scholarship and dogmatic and moral theology. With this work Levering has sown seeds in the field of Christology; I doubt we will wait long to see a response.
