Geneza tytułu Kyrios w listach św. Pawła

Abstract

The full analysis of the problem has been dealt with in a monograph which is being prepared for print. The present article only contains the essential premises of the problem, the method applied for its solution and the final results of the research. I. As starting point for the explanation of the origin of St. Paul’s belief in the divinity of Jesus I consider the ascertainment of the doctrinal content of the title Kyrios, which depends on its development in the Christian tradition, and the discovery of the place of its origin. Next, one must deal with the question of whether there existed in Judaism the possibility of a conception admitting the acknowledgment of Jesus as God’s equal, which is implied by the title Kyrios in St. Paul’s letters. Finally, considering that St. Paul’s personal meeting the Risen from the Death – as conceived by the Apostle himself – became the beginning of his new life in Christianity, it seems necessary to answer the following question. What is the foundation of the Apostle’s of Nations faith in Kyrios Jesus, the event near Damascus, the Easter Evangel of the community or the earthly Jesus’s life? II. To answer the above question, I have chosen the existialist method of research, which, in this case, consists in a synthesis of the Apostle’s personal experience with his theological teaching. III. The conclusion reached by means of this method deny the position represented by the historical-religious school, which abstracts the origin of the title Kyrios from the life of the original Christian community connected with the person of Jesus of Nazarene. For, the idea of Kyrios Jesus having nothing in common with the deification of man enters into the essential structure of Christianity as a strictly religious idea grown up on a monotheist basis. It expresses Jesus’s sovereign position in the whole world in an absolute sense, which for St. Paul meant a conception equivalent to that of Theos. For St. Paul three factors constitute the foundation of the title Kyrios: the personal experience near Damascus, the Easter Evangel of the community and the tradition reaching back to the person of Jesus of Nazarene. Putting it differently, the true origin of St. Paul’s faith in Jesus as Kyrios is the reality of the person of Jesus of Nazarene in earthly existence as well as in the adorable one.