Rozwój interpretacji chrystofanii paschalnych w teologii XX wieku

Abstract

The Department of Fundamental Theology of the Catholic University of Lublin has already prepared several synthetic monographs devoted to the problems connected with Jesus Christ’s resurrection (K. Skawiński, T. Dola). Another one in this series takes up the problem of paschal Christophanies. From the abounding literature on the subject the article tries to extract and to present synthetically the main types of interpretation that occurred in the 20th century theology. During the studies it was found that there is a correlation between various types of interpretation of Christophany and the way of understanding the New Testament testimonies. This finding was the basic methodological assumption supporting the realization of the task of the present article. The kinds of interpretation found in the analysis of theological literature yielded as a result six different solutions concerning the nature of the event of the Resurrected Christ’s appearances. These sulutions, presented one by one, interpret Christophanies 1) as sensory seeing, 2) as subjective visions, 3) as objective visions, 4) as revelations, 5) as literary „interpretaments”, 6) as historical-salvific events. Especially the two latter interpretations are original achievements of contemporary theology. They were possible owing to application of new research tools, namely, the method of Form Criticism, Tradition and Redaction Criticism. Investigations carried out by U. Wilckens, W. Marxsen, R. Pesch, J. E. Alsup, J. Kremer, showed paschal sources in a new light by penetrating their literary form and theological contents. However, only the more integral conceptions put forward by such authors as e.g. H. Schlier, X. Léon-Dufour, G. Lohfink, K. Lehmann, J. Blank, W. Kasper, L. Scheffczyk, E. Kopeć, W. Hryniewicz and others, contributed to the development of a new interpretation in historic-salvific terms. Contemporary fundamental theology accepts that Jesus Christ’s Resurrection is a real event that transcends the historical dimension. However, the salvific sense of that event becomes perceptible owing to the „extraordinary signs” („Christophanies”) which were a significant assumption for the origin of the Easter faith in the disciples. Study of these signs and determining their credibility belong to the main tasks of this discipline.