Ipse tuum calcabit caput (San Ireneo y Gen. 3,15)
The first part, reserved for prolegomena of Irenaeus, has two sections: A) ecclesiastics, and B) Valentinians. Among the ecclesiastics, we submit to the analysis Saint Justin, Tertullian, Saint Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Special attention had to be given to Hippolytus and his posteri...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1971
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| In: |
Gregorianum
Year: 1971, Volume: 52, Issue: 1, Pages: 95-150 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The first part, reserved for prolegomena of Irenaeus, has two sections: A) ecclesiastics, and B) Valentinians. Among the ecclesiastics, we submit to the analysis Saint Justin, Tertullian, Saint Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Special attention had to be given to Hippolytus and his posterity. Hippolytus switched attention to Gen. 49, 17. The verse, literarily related to Gen. 3, 15, acquires in him great resonance. It is interesting because of the bite in the heel, prophesied in the blessing of Dan. The serpent symbolizes the Antichrist in his conflict with the Saviour; the heel (πτέρνα) wounded by the serpent, the human nature of the Word. He, knight in his humanity, falls dead backwards (εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω) in a gesture of mysterious meaning: with the death on the Cross to the end of time (= in the heel), the Word will remedy 'the falls of the human race, beginning from the last to the first (ἀπὸ τῶν ἐσχάτων ἐπὶ τὰ πρῶτα ... τὰ τοῦ Ἀδὰμ σφάλματα), with a soteriological efficacy inverse to the course of history. Without applying explicitly the idea to Gen. 3, 15 Hippolytus suggests the jump from one verse to the other, with the same meaning for the two most prominent terms (ὄφις and πτέρνα). What was implicit in Hippolytus becomes explicit among his disciples (St. Ambrose, Procopius de Gaza, Claude of Turin, the pseudo-Anastasius Sinaitic); while the symbolism of the fall of the horseman backwards, not understood, stumps then. The second part will explain the importance of such an apparently arbitrary symbol. The second section is devoted to the Valentinians. Their exegesis of Gen. 3, 15 easily passes unnoticed. Hidden in the isolated terms of the Excerpta ex Theodoto, 53, 1 it is necessary to submit it to analysis. The battle between two 'seeds', good and evil, assignable to the parable of the sower, acquires unsuspected cosmic dimensions. The terms are technical and on account of their polivalence, attest a multitude of relations (in particular, with Gen. 3, 15) by defining the characteristics of the duel between the seed of the Woman (= Sophia) and that of the devil. The main deviation of the Valentinian exegesis is in switching the fight from its true battle-filled — the Salvation or not of material man (= plasma = flesh) — to a false one, the Salvation of incorporeal anthropos (psychic or pneumatic). Because of a false anthropology (resp. soteriology), Gen. 3, 15 drays in as many equivocations as it has words. From Eve there is a jump to the Spiritual Woman, Sophia. From the normal seed, 'according to the flesh', to sperma 'according to the Spirit'. From the battle between Christ and the devil for dominion over (carnal) man fallen in Adam, to the battle for the dominion of the 'physically' savable, psychic and pneumatic anthropos. In contrast with similar exegesis, Irenaeus locates the fight in the most humble and primary element of man — in the flesh —and its field will extend from the mystery of the carnal maternity of the Virgin, to that of the death of Christ 'secundum carnem'. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Gregorianum
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