Erdő Péter (szerk.): Bűn és isteni irgalom mint a mai ember problémája - Studia Theologica Budapestinensia 30. (2002)

László Vanyó: The Patristic interpretation of 'Redemptio'

The Gospel that recapitulates everything, which renews and lifts up the man into the kingdom of heavan.32

The subject of the creation and the redemption is the man of the same nature, the Creator and the Redeemer is the same God, the intention of the redemption is the realisation of the will of the Father. It is a requirement: "antiquam plasmationem in se recapi tulans"33 The recapitulation of the “kath eikona kai kath homoiosin" is the order of the Father, whose original project said: "Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram" and his two "hands" (manus Dei) that is the Logos and the Pneuma who accomplish the work both in the first and the second creation. The Verbum is that who form, the Spirit gave the life and the growth. By the sin the man lost the likeness, the image remained intact, because she is Christ himself. The God's image and likeness of the man in Irenaeus has a trinitarian character.34 The living nature of the "image" is guaranted by the presence of the Holy Spirit, For the recapitulation of the image and likeness, then had had to unite both the Verbum and the Spiritus with the image. It is remarkable: the model of the first Adam is not the Logos without body, but the "pais Theou" of the "oikonomia", that is in advance the incarnated Word, as regards to him that the Verbum and the Spiritus had formed the first man. Also the incarnated Word had body and soul too, and the soul received immediately the Spirit, and through the mediation of the soul that has the Holy Spirit united with the body. Then in this union the “eikon" is identical with Christ, and the "homoiosis" with the Holy Spirit. The "eikon" is the constant, static, permanent element, neither the sin annihilates it, the "homoiosis" is yet dinamic and it is the prey of the sin, it annihilates it first, therefore the first Adam came to a standstill in the "childhood" because the Spirit who gives growth left him. The "anima" and the “corpus" are realities hardly separable, . while the Spirit keep his sovereignty then too, if He united himself with the body, that is He resides in him. The incarnation of the Word is the

32 "Et propter hoc quatuor data sunt testamenta humano generi: unum quidem ante cataclysmum sub Adam, secundum vero post cataclysmum sub Noe; legislatio sub Moyse; quartum vero quod renovat hominem et récapitulât in se omnia, quod est per Evangelium, elevans et pennigerans homines in coeleste regnum" (AH III, 11,11 Harvey 11,50)

33 AH m, 19, 6 Harvey 11,102

34 AH V,l,3; V,2,l; V,6,l Harvey 11,316; 317; 333 ss

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