Original scientific paper
Recapitulation and Civilization of Love. Contribution to the Soundness of Šagi-Bunić’s Assertion that Mt 25,40 is a Constituent of Irenaeus’ Doctrine of Recapitulation of all in Jesus Christ
Andrea Filić
orcid.org/0000-0002-1609-3972
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb
Abstract
Šagi-Bunić believed that the words “In so far as you did this
to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.”
(Mt 25, 40) were the fundamental premise of building a civilization
of love, understanding that the Son of God had identified himself,
united with each man, that we should see Jesus in every man. He
held that those words were an integral part of Irenaeus’ doctrine of recapitulation. He wrote on it on several occasions and tried to
make a theological analysis of Irenaeus’ thoughts, believing that
they could provide additional theological basis of a civilization of
love. This article is a contribution to his unfulfilled intentions.
Irenaeus’ writings are here approached by analytical-deductive
method. In fact, we are trying to find and analyze the places where
Bishop of Lyons discusses what Šagi-Bunić means by Mt 25, 40,
and out of that we draw conclusions on possible interpretations
of Irenaeus’ recapitulation and their closeness to Šagi-Bunić’s
thoughts. The article is divided in two parts. In the first part we
research the issue of union and identification of the Logos with
every human being. In the second part, in three steps, we search
for those places in Irenaeus’ works in which he speaks about
seeing God and watching God. We find out that Irenaeus’ theology
of recapitulation of all in Christ, with a pronounced universal
soteriology and developmental anthropology, contains ideas, either
expressly or implicitly, which Šagi-Bunić deduced from Mt 25, 40.
We conclude that Irenaeus’ words: “Gloria enim Dei vivens homo,
vita autem hominis visio Dei” may be interpreted like this: The
glory of God is every living man. Man’s life is seeing God in every
man.
Keywords
T. J. Šagi-Bunić; Irenaeus of Lyons; recapitulation; union of God and man; Christology; soteriology
Hrčak ID:
137206
URI
Publication date:
30.3.2015.
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