Original scientific paper
The Gentile-Christians: the Bone Structure of the Letter to Ephesians
Marinko Vidović
orcid.org/0000-0003-0746-023X
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Split
Abstract
The very title of this paper, The Gentile-Christians: the bone
Structure of the Letter to Ephesians, reveals the author's aim to
shed light on the fundamental problem in one phase in the life of the
Early-Church which has grown out of Paul1 thought: the unity and the
common life of Gentile-Christians' and Judeo-Christians' component
in the Church. Starting from general observations frorn Paul's
looking on that relationship, the author is pointing the Letter to
Ephesians as an expression of the changed relationships and
displacement of accents. While Paul, in his authentic Letters, is
persistent in the attempt to open the Church toward the gentile
component, the author of this Letter has totallv different perspective.
This is evident alreadv in the Letter's title, as well as in the linguistic, stylistic and thematic determinations of this Letter, which speaks in
favour of its deutero-pauline origin and changed Church's condition,
which is now, unlike that in authentic Paul's Letters, marked with
majority of Gentile-Christians over Judeo-Christians component in
the Church. The author, Judeo-Christian himself, is trying to
understand the Gentile-Christians position of exclusiveness toward
the Judeo-Christians, but he is trying very hard to weaken and
abolish that position in favour of peaceful life and unity of both
components, presenting differences as richness and not as the
Church's poverty. The key for the solution of ali tensions inside the
Church caused by the different origin of its members, the author of
this Letter sees in the Christ's novelty, in the man's renewal, in the
new man who realizes his likeness with God in his bond with Christ,
in his leaning on him and in the always greater taking over his figure
of the Glorified. Because of this point of view, which sees the
Church's richness in the pluralism and differences, this Letter is
considered as the most ecclesiological New Testament's writing, and
because of the offered christological solution, as the most theological
writing, namely, it is the expression of the greatest achievement of
Paul's thought. Finally, instead of the conclusion, the author of this
article explains the contemporary situation in the Church, pointing
out the contemporary values of this Letter.
Keywords
Ephesians; Addressees; Authorship; Church; Church's condition; Tensions; DMding Wall; Peace; Common life; Unity; Pluralism; Gentile-Christians; Judeo-Christians; Peacemaker; New man; New creature
Hrčak ID:
38826
URI
Publication date:
21.3.2003.
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