1.
Starting from its etymology
«By Christian eschatology we mean Christian theology
to the extent in which, starting from what has come (namely,
from the experiences that humanity, and particularly
Jesus Christ, have had of God) it reflects upon what
is to come, upon what is new and definitive and, starting
from there, tries to interpret the present and to mediate
impulses for present-day action*.1 It is within this
interpretative framework that we should examine the profound
and present meaning that eschatology has with regard
to theological reflection and the missionary praxis of
the Church. If the time inaugurated by Jesus is an eschatological,
qualitatively new time, it is important to understand
the horizon of meaning that eschatology has as a dimension
that indicates the workshop of salvation in everyday
life. In fact, it is not by chance that the renewal of
eschatological reflection is motivated by three factors.
The first, regarding questions about man's destiny in
his individuality, but also in his quality as a creature
in relation to the world, to others and to God. The second
focuses on a reassessment of apocalyptic literature no
longer understood as thought projected in a highly imaginative
manner towards the next world, but as a real theology
of history, in which one tries to understand the meaning
of evil and its excess regarding any explanation, in
relation to God's self-communication. The third, corresponding
to a historical-salvific re-reading of creation that
extends interest to an ecological interpretation of life
and the world, to which the human person's destiny is
related. At the same time, we must stress that eschatological
reflection maintains a radical tension that cannot bring
any rapid solution to the questions and doubts that assail
the existences of men and women. Therefore, it is necessary
to maintain one decisive point: the eschaton is the God
who comes (adventus); it is the word that enters our
present with an unforeseeable otherness that calls us
to listen carefully to the signs of the times. Human
knowledge is possible only if this future is anticipated
in the present, as in the Jesus Christ event. It is within
this framework that the proclamation of the Gospel can
open the search to a journey that never tires of experiencing
the gift of liberation capable of building a civilisation
of love. Following these premises, it is not superfluous
to recall the particularity of the meaning of the term
eschatology, whose definition requires a more structured
approach. To say that eschatology is the discourse about
the eschaton means asking what its specific object is
since the adjective eschatos indicates extreme, last,
which does not envisage anything further. As G. Kittel,2
points out, the word eschatos, in its various forms (adjective,
noun, adverb) appears several times in the New Testament,
with a meaning linked to experience of the definitiveness
of salvation in Jesus Christ, within the present-future
tension. Thus the word eschatology has different accentuations
that reveal the whole series of meanings that it contains
from the classic acceptation of eschatology as a discourse
about the last realities; to the meaning of a discourse
about the future of the history God opened to man; from
eschatology as a discourse about the last times, to theological
reflection about the principle-hope that individuates
the qualifying fact in the central event of Christ. It
is within the framework of these indications that the
biblical interpretation on the peculiarity of eschatology
in its apocalyptic and prophetic elements must be individuated.
(all text is avaible
in pdf)
|
1. H. VORGRIMLER , Hoffnung auf
Vollendung. Aufriss der Escatologie , Herder,
Freiburg 1980, 13. Per un inquadramento globale cf.
E. SCOGNAMIGLIO , "Ecco, io faccio nuove tutte
le cose": avvento di Dio, futuro dell'uomo e destino
del mondo , EMP, Padova 2002.
2. G. KITTEL , «éscatos», in Grande Lessico del Nuovo Testamento , III, Paideia, Brescia 1967, 995-1000.
|
