Felix culpa

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Felix culpa ( Latin for "happy guilt") is a formulation from the Exsultet that has been traceable since the early Middle Ages and is still part of the Roman Catholic Easter Eve liturgy today . The expression is a pointed formulation of the soteriology of the Exsultet, but was also taken up in other contexts.

text

The whole verse goes like this:

Roman Missal ³2002 Missal (1996) Literal translation
"O felix culpa,
quae talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem!"		 "O happy guilt,
what a great savior you have found!"		 "O happy guilt that
deserved to have such a great Savior."

This verse is the fourth of five O-Calls that represent the paradox of blanket redemption. In the preceding verse there is the expression necessarium peccatum ("necessary guilt", Missal [1996]: "saving sin of Adam").

Classic interpretation

The concept of renovatio in melius (“renewal towards something better”) serves to understand “happy guilt” . In the view of Augustine and also of Ambrose of Milan , redemption is not a return to the paradisiacal original condition of man and the world ( renovatio in pristinum ), but the creation of an “even better” condition. Augustine characterizes this outperformance as follows:

“But such an order of things could not be overlooked, in which God wanted to show how good a reasonable being is, who has the possibility not to sin [non peccare posse], although a being that cannot sin at all [peccare non posse], stands higher. "

- Augustine

Augustine then says the same about the possibility of not dying and the (better) immortality . The second mentioned is understood as a promise that is bestowed on the redeemed person.

The underlying concept of freedom , according to which the inability to sin is “freer” than the possibility or ability to sin, is an ancient conception. Behind this, however, is the (believing) concept of will, according to which the will is free and perfect when it is like the will of God. In surpassing the state of paradise, this agreement ("Thy will be done!") Is now a personal decision that is made in conscious knowledge of the alternatives, since man now takes with him the learning experiences of life and the distance from God that "Adam" did not have. Redemption includes - figuratively speaking - the eaten fruits of the knowledge of good and evil.

So it is “more beautiful” in the (eschatological) heaven than in the Garden of Eden. For Christ surpasses Adam; Salvation surpasses creation. This statement is taken up in the Ambrose quotation Nihil enim nobis nasci profuit, nisi redimi profuisset , also in the Exsultet. In Augustine's formulation, the redemption grace is greater than the original grace . Grace uses and surpasses sin, instead of merely compensating for it or, as it were, undoing it (so also "Where sin became abundant, grace became abundant", Rom. 5:20  EU ). Such a great redemption is cheered in poetic and poetic language. In addition, “this world” and people are put in a positive light without denying the evil in it: The saving God is greater, and thus the world is to a certain extent a “fallen” one, but as such a higher one Degree accepted; God comes closer to man than he has removed from him.

In scholasticism, Thomas Aquinas takes up this interpretation in the discussion of whether God would have become man even if man had not sinned. That God allows sin and suffering is evident for Thomas under the premises that, firstly, God is good to the greatest possible extent and, secondly, that it is more good to make good out of bad than just let the good be good:

“A double faculty can be distinguished in nature: one is according to the order of natural faculties; and this is always done enough by God, who gives things to everyone according to his natural faculty. The other is based on the order of divine power, which every creature obeys at the prompt and without delay; and that includes the ability touched upon here. God does not always do enough of such a faculty of nature; otherwise God could not do anything else in nature than what He is doing; what is wrong, according to Chapter I. 105, Art. 6. But nothing stands in the way of the fact that after sin human nature has come to a greater good; for God allows evil to happen so that He may make something better out of it, according to Rom. 5: "Wherever sin overflowed, grace also overflowed." Accordingly, it is also said with the blessing of the Easter candle: "O happy guilt, which was the cause that we have such a good and great Savior."

- Thomas Aquinas : Summa theologica III, q. 1 a. 3 ad 3

The felix culpa idea differs from the idea of ​​“bonum through malum” (new and greater good can grow out of evil as a justification of evil) used for the theodicy question in that the possibility that good comes from evil or from Suffering grows out of it, not an intrinsic quality of evil, but rather God's saving work.

Adam's guilt is therefore not a happy or liberating one “in and of itself” or out of itself, but is taken into the act of redemption in order to be led to its consummation. Comparable with this is the saying in the saying that one learns through mistakes. This does not mean that one should make mistakes now in order to learn from them, nor that mistakes are good as such, but a mistake becomes a “good mistake” if and only if the necessary learning experience is made from it. Correspondingly, guilt becomes "happy" when it is redeemed. This superiority does not deny either the sole effect of God's saving act or the severity of the guilt.

Other interpretations and adaptations

Immanuel Kant interprets the fall of man as "the release [...] [of man] from the womb", which "drove him out of the harmless and safe state of childcare, as it were in a garden that looked after him without his effort" and marks it as such the "transition from the rawness of a mere animal creature into humanity, from the cart of instinct to guide reason, in a word, from the guardianship of nature to the state of freedom" or culture and be as the emancipation of man to be welcomed to an autonomous being.

The felix culpa idea was also processed literarily in a modified form in modern times, especially by Thomas Mann in his story The Chosen One. In it the sinner Gregorius is given the highest honor after a long period of penance. The narrator reflects on the sinner's speculation on grace, which makes grace impossible.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Missale Romanum ex decreto Sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II instauratum auctoritate Pauli PP. VI promulgatum Ioannis Pauli PP. II cura recognitum. Editio typica tertia 2002. pp. 342-347.
  2. ↑ The celebration of Holy Mass. Missal . For the dioceses of the German-speaking area. Authentic edition for liturgical use. Holy Week and Easter Octave. Supplemented by the celebration of baptism and confirmation as well as the consecration of the oils. Edited on behalf of the Bishops' Conferences of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Solothurn et al. 1996. pp. 107-115.
  3. ↑ Norbert Lohfink , Das Exsultet German. Critical analysis and redesign. In: Ders., Georg Baulik , Easter Vigil and Old Testament. Studies and suggestions. With an exsultet setting by Erwin Bücken. (Austrian Biblical Studies 22) Frankfurt 2003, p. 120 ( online ).
  4. ↑ Augustine of Hippo: Enchiridion de fide spe et caritate. Handbook on Faith, Hope and Love XXVIII, 106. Ed. v. Joseph Barbel (Test. 1).
  5. ↑ See Guido Fuchs , Hans M. Weikmann, Das Exsultet. History, theology and design of the Easter light thanksgiving. Regensburg ²2005. Pp. 65-67.
  6. ↑ Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica Tertia Pars, Quaestio 1, Articulus 3, ad 3. Quoted from unifr.ch .
  7. ↑ In the theodicy of Leibniz , this refers to the "felix culpa" of Exsultet.
  8. ↑ Immanuel Kant, Probable Beginning of Human History [1786]. In: Kant's collected writings. Ed. vd Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. Volume VIII, First Section: Works. Eighth volume. Berlin and Leipzig 1923. Treatises after 1781. pp. 107–124.