Son Of Man

Son of Man refers to the original man, or Anthropos, that first appeared in early Near Eastern myth… a synonym for Son of Man according to the archetypal interpretation might be ‘primal Man’ — Man spelled with a capital M.

Edinger catalogues four distinct hermeneutic categories for ‘Son of Man’ — personalistic, archetypal-Anthropos, messianic, and eschatological — arguing that the figure’s symbolic polyvalence is the signature of a genuinely living symbol.

Edinger, Edward F., Transformation of the God-Image: An Elucidation of Jung’s Answer to Job, 1992thesis

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Christ called himself ‘Son of Man’ with the evident presupposition of everybody knowing what he was talking about… Christ obviously took up this idea, feeling that his task was to represent the role of the ‘Teacher of Justice’ and thus of a Mediator.

Jung, in a letter cited by Edinger, argues that Christ consciously appropriated the Son of Man title from the Enochic tradition, identifying his mission with the archetypal mediator-figure who confronts an ‘unpredictable and lawless God.’

Edinger, Edward F., The New God-Image: A Study of Jung’s Key Letters Concerning the Evolution of the Western God-Image, 1996thesis

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Job’s encounter with Yahweh… had the effect of generating a mediating figure called the Son of Man, who makes an approach to Yahweh and starts to build a bridge between the ego and the Self.

Edinger synthesizes Jung’s argument that Job’s heightened moral consciousness catalyzed the emergence of the Son of Man as an archetypal mediator, initiating the ego-Self rapprochement within the divine drama itself.

Edinger, Edward F., The New God-Image: A Study of Jung’s Key Letters Concerning the Evolution of the Western God-Image, 1996thesis

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The ‘Son of Man’ who is with the ‘Head [or Ancient] of Days’ looks like an angel… ‘hath righteousness’; ‘with him dwelleth righteousness’… It is probably no accident that so much stress is laid on righteousness, for it is the one quality that Yahweh lacks.

Jung reads the Book of Enoch’s Son of Man as a compensatory divine figure whose defining attribute — righteousness — is precisely what Yahweh’s moral character lacks, making this figure the axis of the entire Answer to Job argument.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Answer to Job, 1952thesis

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The man Enoch is not only the recipient of divine revelation but is at the same time a participant in the divine drama… in the same measure as God sets out to become man, man is immersed in the pleromatic process.

Jung explicates how Yahweh’s address to Ezekiel as ‘Son of Man’ initiates the theme developed in Enoch: the mutual interpenetration of divine and human, with the Son of Man as the hinge-figure of the Incarnation’s archetypal preparation.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis

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Enoch, in his ecstasy, recognizes himself as the Son of Man… Yahweh’s benevolent aspect incarnates itself, as its own hypostasis, in the Son of Man, and in so far as the Son of Man proves in Enoch to be a representative of justice and, in Christianity, the justifier of mankind.

Jung argues that Enoch’s visionary self-identification with the Son of Man anticipates the Incarnation by demonstrating that Yahweh’s benevolent aspect achieves hypostatic expression in a human-angelic figure who embodies cosmic justice.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis

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In chapters 45-50 we have a vision of the Last Judgment, the image of the Ancient of Days, and the Son of Man who will pass judgment… ‘the Son of Man to whom righteousness belongs, with whom righteousness has dwelt.’

Edinger details the Enochic textual structure to show how the Son of Man’s association with righteousness and eschatological judgment forms the symbolic backdrop for Jung’s psychological reading of the figure.

Edinger, Edward F., Transformation of the God-Image: An Elucidation of Jung’s Answer to Job, 1992supporting

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Bousset traced the genealogy of the Primal Man figure from its ‘dark origins’ in Oriental fertility rites toward the New Testament Son of Man… a divine, cosmic figure who comes in the Endtime to bring salvation and to judge the world.

King’s account of Bousset’s genealogical method shows how the Son of Man was constructed as the culmination of a pan-Near Eastern Primal Man tradition, a comparative-religion framework that directly informs Jung’s archetypal interpretation.

Karen L. King, What Is Gnosticism?, 2003supporting

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The ‘one like a son of man’ entered Daniel’s dream. He rode from earth to heaven on the clouds… He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and human beings of every language worshiped him.

Thielman’s exegesis of Daniel 7 establishes the primary eschatological-judicial matrix for the Son of Man concept — the cosmic figure vindicated before the Ancient of Days — that underlies both Enochic and Jungian readings.

Frank S. Thielman, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005supporting

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Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have not life in you… there is not one Son of Man and another Son of God; nor one in the form of God, and another born perfect man.

John of Damascus deploys the Son of Man title to defend the hypostatic union, insisting that the Eucharistic flesh of the Son of Man and the divine Son of God are one and the same person against all dualistic separation.

John of Damascus, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016supporting

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The Son of Man is glorified; God is glorified in Him; God glorifies in Himself Him, Who is glorified in the man… if you allow it to be Christ, despite yourself you confess Him God.

John of Damascus uses the mutual glorification of ‘Son of Man’ and God to press a Christological argument: the title cannot be separated from divinity without collapsing into heresy.

John of Damascus, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016supporting

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The Son of God became Son of Man in order that His individuality might endure. For since He was the Son of God, He became Son of Man, being made flesh of the holy Virgin and not losing the individuality of Sonship.

John of Damascus argues that the Incarnation’s logic demands the Son of God become Son of Man precisely to preserve — not dissolve — the eternal individuality of divine Sonship.

John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 2021supporting

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This conception fully accords with that of the ‘Monad’ and ‘Son of Man’ in Monoïmos… thinks that there is a single Monad, ungenerated, imperishable, eternal.

In Aion, Jung notes the Gnostic Naassene and Monoïmian equivalence of the Son of Man with the Monad and the indivisible point, situating the figure within the phenomenology of the Self as an objective psychic symbol.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951supporting

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Yahweh’s moral defeat in his dealings with Job had its hidden effects: man’s unintended elevation on the one hand, and on the other hand a disturbance of the unconscious.

Jung frames the psychological conditions — Yahweh’s moral deficit and the consequent elevation of human consciousness — that necessitate the emergence of mediating figures such as the Son of Man.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958aside

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Above the firmament over their heads something like a throne could be seen, looking like sapphire. Upon it was seated, up above, one who had the appearance of a man.

Edinger presents Ezekiel’s throne-vision of a man-like divine figure as visual context for the ‘Son of Man’ address, situating the term’s origins in prophetic apocalyptic imagery.

Edinger, Edward F., The Creation of Consciousness Jung’s Myth for Modern Man, 1984aside

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