Parousia

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Parousia depiction on a lintel (11th century)
Parousia depiction as an ivory carving (13th century)
The Christ returned in the Parousia, who appears at the Last Judgment ; Altarpiece by Lucas Cranach the Elder

Parousia literally means “to be present” or “to be next to” (Greek Δευτέρα Παρουσία, parusía , “presence, presence”; παρά ([there] with, [there] next to) and ουσία : (there) being, essence ). In Hellenistic philosophy , the word originally describes the effective presence of deities and rulers . Plato describes the presence or presence of ideas in things.

In the Bible and in Christianity , the eschatological return of Jesus Christ , adventus Domini (Latin for the arrival of the Lord), is referred to as parousia. The word parousía is used 24 times in the New Testament Greek scriptures.

In Christian theology, the failure of the second coming of Christ is referred to as the parousia delay . It is thematized in several New Testament writings and interpreted in different ways.

Biblical source

One of numerous diagrams that attempts to locate the parousia alongside the other themes of the end times and to locate it on a timeline. The parousia as the second appearance of Christ takes place here after the great tribulation , but before the millennium (the millennium ) and at the same time before the final judgment. Other possible models for the time of the Second Coming, for example, Jesus' second coming before the Great Tribulation or just after the millennium (see Postmillenarismus ).

In the biblical sources, the parousia is flanked by various other ideas and themes. This includes, for example:

The parousia is always about the return of Christ

This intermingling of concepts and ideas ultimately results in a broad and complex picture of the parousia of Christ.

Old testament

There are already numerous references to a Last Judgment in the Old Testament , the Psalms and the Book of Daniel being particularly important here . Within the Old Testament scriptures, a change can be seen from the idea of ​​a world judgment emanating from the people of Israel, which exclusively affects the enemies of Israel, to a comprehensive divine judgment that is binding on all people. This lays the foundation for the differentiated and salvation-historically relevant development of the theme in the two main New Testament sources that have shaped the concept of the Last Judgment: the Gospel of Matthew and the Apocalypse of John .

Of course, there is no concrete idea of ​​Christ's return in the Old Testament. However, there is the idea of ​​the appearance of an eschatological son of man , which is then echoed in the New Testament:

  • Lk 12.40  EU : For the Son of Man comes at an hour when you don't mean it.
  • Mk 13.26 EU and parallelpassages : And then one will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory. (indirect quotation from Daniel 7.13 f.)
  • Mk 14.62  EU : Jesus said: It is me. And you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of might and coming with the clouds of heaven.

Late writings and early Jewish sources

There are also numerous early Jewish sources on the subject of parousia : this includes that from 170 to 120 BC. Chr. Arising Book of Enoch . It is the oldest Jewish script with eschatological content and already describes the judgment and the afterlife in detail .

New Testament

The precise description of the Last Judgment in the Gospel of Matthew ( Mt 25.31  EU ) is one of the most important New Testament sources. In addition, for example, in the parables of all the gospels almost all of the judgment metaphors can be found , for example in Mt 13.24-30  EU ; Mt 13,36–43  EU , where on the day of harvest the wheat is separated from the chaff. Especially in the Gospel of Matthew, the focus is on a certain work righteousness: merciful acts are suitable for influencing the judgment at the Last Judgment in a favorable way for the individual.

This clear ethic is relativized in the Apocalypse of John. Here the idea of ​​the Last Judgment overlaps with the second eschatological vision of Christianity: Christ's Millennial Kingdom of Peace . Satan will be chained for a thousand years and Christ will return for the first time to reign with the saints during this millennium. Only then will the second return of Christ take place, when he calls all living and dead to the Last Judgment ( Rev 20 :EU ). In the Apocalypse , the Last Judgment is therefore the keystone of a completely different eschatological narrative, in which the devil or antichrist is endowed with considerable power as a constant tempter and the fate of the individual takes a back seat in this cosmic struggle.

Who will be judged?

Since the beginning of Christianity , believers have asked themselves again and again whether everyone should come before the judge. In their answers, the theologians always referred to two passages of the Bible that provide different information about it. The Gospel of Matthew only differentiates between good and bad. All will be judged on their actions at the Last Judgment and then sent to either Paradise or Hell . According to the wording, however, this passage refers to “the peoples”, therefore to persons to whom the gospel has not yet been preached. These people are judged by the question: Have they done the acts of love?

The standard is different for those who had ample opportunity to get to know Jesus Christ: In this respect, the Last Judgment is described in the Gospel of John . Here the followers of Jesus, the believers and converts escape judgment:

“I assure you that all who listen to my word and trust him who sent me will live forever. You will not be judged. They have already left death behind and reached immortal life. "( Jn 5:24  EU )

time

In early Christianity in the first two to three centuries after the turn of the times - based on corresponding statements in the New Testament - the second coming of Christ was hoped to be near in time, which is known as the near expectation . In early Christian times the word Maranatha expressed this expectation of Jesus Christ soon after his ascension into heaven .

Several statements in the New Testament suggest a return of Jesus within a very short time. For example, B. Paul in 1st Thessalonians :

“For this is what we say to you according to a word of the Lord: We, the living who are still left when the Lord comes, will have no advantage over the dead. ( 1 Thess 4.15  EU ) "

Accordingly, Paul seems to expect to see Jesus' return in his own lifetime. He wrote this letter around AD 50, twenty years after Jesus' public ministry. Other statements made by Paul in the 1950s are more likely to mean that he is expecting his death before the arrival of Jesus.

In addition, there are utterances that point into the distance or warn against a temporal fixation, for example: “But this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed all over the world so that all peoples can hear it; only then does the end come ”(Mt 24:14), or when Jesus said that the exact day of the end of the world was uncertain.

In one of the most recent texts of the New Testament, the so-called Second Peter’s Letter , explicit reference is made to the confusion in the Christian community due to the lack of a parousia:

“They will make fun of you and say:
He promised to come back! Where is he?
In the meantime our fathers have died, but everything is as it has been since the beginning of the world ...
My friends, you must not overlook one thing:
the Lord has a different time scale than humans.
For him a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day.
The Lord does not hesitate to fulfill his promises, as some believe;
on the contrary, he has patience with you because he does not want some to perish. "

- 2 Peter 3: 4–9

Many statements emphasize that the end will come (but without a time):

“So be vigilant! Because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. "

- Mt 24.42  EU

The time before that is described as terrible in the Bible , because many false prophets would appear ( Mt 24.5  EU ), evil would prevail and love would grow cold ( Mt 24.11-12  EU ). Only then will the resurrection of the dead and the universal judgment of the world take place.

"After this period of horror, the sun will darken
and the moon will no longer shine,
the stars will fall from the sky
and the order of the sky will collapse."

- Mt 24.29  EU

It is not least these announcements that in the following centuries, in times of actual or supposed crises, repeatedly led Christians to believe that the Parousia, the second coming of the Messiah, was imminent.

Parousia delay

The Jesus movement was characterized by a strong expectation. The coming of Jesus was expected almost every hour. The first generation of Christians lived in the hope of experiencing the coming of the kingdom of God in their own lives ( 1 Thess 4: 13-17  EU ). The fact that some Christians died before the parousia occurred is initially the exception for Paul. As the death toll rose, Paul had to respond. In 1 Cor 15.51f  EU f, he assumes that most will die before the Parousia, but that some will still experience it. In 2 Cor 5 : 1–10  EU there seems to be an increasing delay. From this Paul develops the idea that every Christian receives a transformed body at his death and that the coming of Jesus moves into a more distant future.

The change in the understanding of faith brought about by the delay in the parousia has probably taken place gradually and cannot be imagined as an abrupt break.

Old church

Theologians of the early Church

In addition to these two conceptions, further interpretations arose in theological writings of the early church , which overlap, interact, but also show massive contradictions. In Augustine 's Enchiridion there is a model that extends these ideas: Augustine describes that souls at the Last Judgment would be divided into three categories: the perfectly good who do not need intercession , the utterly bad who are damned in any case - and those who stand between these two extremes: they are not good enough not to need help, but neither are they bad enough not to benefit from it.

As a result of such discussions, the idea of ​​the Last Judgment, to which all humanity is subject and which always remains the same in its basic concept, has been juxtaposed with two other eschatological concepts over the centuries . On the one hand, the idea of ​​a single or particular court that takes place immediately after the death of each individual - and on the other hand, the creation of a 'third' location for the 'half-goods' described above: purgatory .

4th century creed

The Christian creed , also called Credo in Latin, which is still valid today in Christian ecumenism , confesses the parousia of Christ in the Nicano-Constantinopolitanum with the following words:

Latin German

    Sedet ad dexteram Patris.
    Et iterum venturus est cum gloria
    iudicare vivos et mortuos,
    cuius regni non erit finis.

    He sits at the right hand of the Father
    and will come again in glory
    to judge the living and the dead;
    there will be no end to his rule.

Augustine

The writings of Augustine von Hippo (354-430), especially the 20th book from De Civitate Dei , know prophecies of the Last Judgment . Here Augustine interprets the passages of the Old and New Testaments relevant to the presentation of the judgment. He affirms that Christ will first return for judgment, after which the dead will rise. Christ separates the good and the bad, then it would come to a fire and a renewal of the world.

middle Ages

The Middle Ages also deal with the parousia:

  • The Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine (written 1263–1273) begins with the detailed description of the Second Coming of the Lord. After the resurrected have been separated immediately before the judgment, the unbelievers have gone straight to hell , the bad and good before the tribunal and the saints have gone to heaven as judges , Christ shows the cross and the stigmata as a two-faced sign of judgment and the Redemption . The accusers appear: the evil spirit, their own iniquity and the whole world. Then the three witnesses are heard: God , the conscience and the guardian angel of the individual. Now the judgment follows, against which no objection can be raised.
  • The third book in the Elucidarium by the scholastic Honorius Augustodunensis (approx. 1080–1150 / 1151) is written in the form of a teacher-student conversation. Honorius is extremely free with source texts, especially when it comes to the creative design of details. Precisely for this reason it was received so intensely for the court presentations at the tympana of French cathedrals .
  • The popular sermons, for example by the Franciscan Berthold von Regensburg (around 1210–1272), deal with the return of Christ as the judge of the world.
  • Numerous vision reports , such as the vision of the farmer Thurkill, which was created between 1207 and 1218 in the English Cistercian milieu, contain a detailed description of the topography of Hell and Purgatory . It is remarkable that hell is compared to a theater scene : every Saturday evening, to the delight of the devil, the damned have to repeat on the theater stage the sins that they had committed during their lives.

Interpretations in the religions and denominations

Roman Catholic Church

In its catechism from 2003 (Latin: Vatican 1997), the Catholic Church expressly establishes the connection between Parousia and the Last Judgment: “The Last Judgment will take place at the glorious second coming of Christ .” All people, the living and the dead, will be through Jesus Christ judged. Those who died in a state of mortal sin without repentance will be sentenced to perpetual punishment in hell on Judgment Day, along with the angels ( devils ) who have fallen away from God . The Church avoids making precise statements about the nature of this punishment and has expressly warned against extreme representations since the Council of Trent .

The Catholic Catechism emphasizes on the one hand: "No one is predetermined by God to go to hell". On the other hand, the Church expressly teaches: “The Church prays that no one is lost”.

According to Christian conviction, however, the universe will ultimately be completed ( newly created ), and the Christians who have served their punishments for sins that have remained from their temporal existence will unite with God in a mystical way; they will see God face to face ( 1 Cor 13:12  EU ). In this fellowship with the Trinity , the angels and saints , they will then enjoy the redeemed world forever. "The Last Judgment will show that God's righteousness triumphs over all injustices perpetrated by his creatures and that his love is stronger than death."

Protestant church

The near expectation of the end of the world among the reformers existed only with Martin Luther . For Ulrich Zwingli , the present day, in which God is constantly acting, was particularly important.

Martin Luther

The reformer Martin Luther assumes that the raising of the dead will begin with the return of Christ. For him there is no difference here between people of the present day and people of the Bible who have long since died.

“It all happened at once before God. It is neither in front nor behind, those (namely figures that have long since become history, such as Adam) will never come to the last day then (as) us. "

- Luther

For Luther, the moment of parousia also seems to be the moment of death:

“Immediately [when your eyes close when you die], you will be raised from the dead. A thousand years will be the same as if you had slept half an hour. ... Before he looks around, he's a beautiful angel. "

- Luther

And conversely, the coming of Jesus is the moment in which he calls us to himself:

“This is what we should learn, namely the great power that God will work on us through Christ on the last day: in one word, he will draw us out. He says: Doctor Martine, come here! and it will be done in no time. "

- Luther

17th century Lutheran Orthodoxy

The scholars of Lutheran orthodoxy after the Reformation , such as Johann Gerhard or Leonhard Hutter , teach a multi-level model of the so-called Four Last Things : the resurrection of the dead takes place at the end of time, then the parousia, i.e. the appearance of Christ at the last judgment and to the end of the world. A twofold outcome is connected with the judging of Christ: eternal death or eternal life .

Lutheran orthodoxy strictly rejects the medieval idea that there were several common rooms for the deceased until the Parousia of Christ : purgatory ( purgatory ) no longer occurs, the waiting room for children who have died unbaptized ( limbus infantium ) and the common room for the fathers of the Old Testament ( limbus patrum ) are removed from Lutheran Orthodox dogmatics .

Church dogmatics by Karl Barth

Karl Barth deals with the theme of the Parousia of Christ in several places in his Church Dogmatics . He differentiates between three forms of the parousia.

  • The first figure of the parousia of Christ is for him the Easter event , is the resurrection of Jesus Christ .
  • The second figure of the Parousia, also "the middle figure", is "the gift of the Holy Spirit", is the Pentecost event , the outpouring of the Spirit to the community and church.
  • The third figure, "the last form", is "the coming of Jesus Christ as the goal of the history of the church, the world and every single person." This is how Karl Barth defines "Judgment Day". This is the "new coming" of what has previously come, "the new being with us of the one who was with us."

This threefold figure of the parousia of Christ must not be torn apart, but must be understood as a unity.

Adventists

Adventist followers expect the imminent return of Christ; concrete dates have already been mentioned in the past. The Baptist preacher William Miller (1782–1849) from the USA first named the fall of 1843, then March 21, 1844 and finally October 22, 1844 as the time of Christ's return. Seventh-day Adventists assume that the appointment cannot be far away.

New Apostolic Church

In the New Apostolic Church , the parousia is one of the central contents of faith. The second coming of Christ to “bring his bride home”, a subsequent Millennium and the concluding Last Judgment are main components of the future doctrine of the church. The expectation is based on the understanding of the first Christians, who expected the return of Jesus in their time.

In other apostolic churches (such as AJC , OAC ) there is the basic statement that the second coming of Christ was already fulfilled at Pentecost. Thus Christ already lives in man as the good being and through the Holy Spirit . The second day of Christ is therefore the last day lived for these Christians, i.e. the day of the last judgment.

Jehovah's Witnesses

The Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ is invisible recurred in 1914 and thus the "last days" had begun. As a first act, he banished Satan and his demons from heaven close to earth. Since then, the battle of Armageddon has been waited for in order to subsequently establish the millennial kingdom of peace.

Islam

According to the idea in Islam , Jesus did not die on the cross, but God raised him alive to himself. Exegesis therefore understands his return on the day of resurrection in human form. With a lance he will kill the Dajāl (a figure comparable to the Antichrist ).

Only the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community takes the view that Jesus was crucified; that he was then taken from the cross in an unconscious state, i.e. still alive. Jesus is said to have been cared for by his disciples in the grave for three days , after which he naturally left the grave, emigrated to India and lived on for many years. The tomb of Jesus is said to be in Srinagar in Kashmir today .

Others

In the science fiction animated series Futurama , which plays in the year 3000, is in the sequence , when aliens attack (the twelfth episode of the first season ; title When Aliens Attack ) mentioned that Jesus appeared again in 2443rd Large amounts of film material from the 20th century were destroyed.

literature

  • Erich Gräßer : The problem of the parousia delay in the synoptic Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles , Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1977.
  • Gerhard Maier : It will come. What the Bible Says About the Second Coming of Jesus. 3. Edition. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 2001, ISBN 3-417-20522-0 .
  • AL Moore: The Parousia in the New Testament , Leiden, Brill, 1996.
  • René Pache: The Second Coming of Jesus Christ. 12th edition. Brockhaus, Wuppertal u. a. 1993, ISBN 3-417-21409-2 .
  • Joseph Ratzinger : eschatology. Death and eternal life. Pustet Verlag, Regensburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7917-2070-8 , new edition of the 6th extended edition. ibid 1990, ISBN 3-7917-0517-2 (Small Catholic Dogmatics 9).

Web links

Wiktionary: Parousia  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Ludwig Reinhardt: The New Testament from the standpoint of the early community . 2nd Edition. Munich 1923, p. 32 ( limited preview [accessed July 14, 2015]).
  2. Hermann Menge, Greek-German Dictionary Ancient Greek-German , 42nd verb. Ed., Langenscheidt, Berlin 1985, pp. 323, 330.
  3. In Mat 24: 3, 27, 37, 39; 1Co 15:23; 16:17; 2Co 7: 6, 7; 10:10; Php 1:26; 2:12; 1Th 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2Th 2: 1, 8, 9; Jak 5: 7, 8; 2Pe 1:16; 3: 4, 12; 1Jo 2:28.
  4. ^ Franz Graf-Stuhlhofer : "The end is near!" The errors of the end-time specialists . 3rd expanded edition. Verlag für Kultur und Wissenschaft, Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-938116-30-2 , pp. 103f.
  5. Gerd Lüdemann: Heretic. The other side of Christianity , Radius, Stuttgart 1995, pp. 86-93.
  6. Oskar Köhler: Small story of faith. Being a Christian in the Changing Times of the World , Herderbücherei 987, Herder, Freiburg 1982, p. 48.
  7. Both versions ( Latin , German ) based on the missal of the Roman Catholic Church and based on the Evangelical hymn book ; all text here .
  8. a b Catechism of the Catholic Church, German edition, Munich 2003, p. 297.
  9. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, German edition, Munich 2003, p. 296.
  10. Catechism of the Catholic Church, German edition, Munich 2003, p. 300.
  11. ^ Daniel Regli: The Apocalypse Henry Dunant. The historical picture of the Red Cross founder in the tradition of eschatological expectation. (Zugl .: Zürich, Univ. , Diss., 1993/94) Peter Lang, Bern 1984, ISBN 3-906752-72-0 , p. 212.
  12. Martin Luther, Sermon of June 7, 1523, Weimar Edition XII, p. 596; quoted here from: Emanuel Hirsch , Hilfsbuch zur Studium der Dogmatik, Berlin 1964, 4th edition, p. 263.
  13. Martin Luther, home sermon 1532, “to the young servants and maidservants, from living and dying in faith”, Weimar edition XXXVI, p. 349; quoted here from: Emanuel Hirsch, Hilfsbuch zur Studium der Dogmatik, Berlin 1964, 4th edition, p. 263.
  14. Martin Luther, home sermon of September 28, 1533, Weimar Edition XXXVII, p. 149; quoted here from: Emanuel Hirsch, Hilfsbuch zur Studium der Dogmatik, Berlin 1964, 4th edition, p. 264.
  15. Representation based on: Heinrich Schmid, Die Dogmatik der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche illustrated and documented from the sources, Gütersloh 1983, 10th edition, pp. 394–399.
  16. Horst Georg Pöhlmann, Abriss der Dogmatik, Gütersloh 1980, 3rd edition, pp. 308–309.
  17. See among others: Karl Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, Volume IV / 3, p. 339.
  18. See among others: Karl Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, Volume IV / 3, p. 338.
  19. See among others: Karl Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik, Volume IV / 3, pp. 354–356.
  20. See also: Otto Weber, Karl Barths Kirchliche Dogmatik. An introductory report, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1984, 10th edition, p. 301, ISBN 3-7887-0467-5 .
  21. References to Jesus in Futurama. kottke.org, August 13, 2010, accessed January 4, 2019 .