Koncepcje świętości w okresie patrystycznym. Zarys problematyki

Abstract

The above article presents the concepts of holiness developed in the patristic period by the Church Fathers and early Christian writers. Ancient Christianity has not worked out one specific model of holiness. Attempts of this kind of unifcation in the Western Church did not appear until the time of the scholastic theology and medieval legal theology of canonization. For patristic theology only God is holy in the full and the only sense, the holiness of a man and the things is a derivative of a relationship to this fundamental source of holiness. The article consists of two major parts: in the first – Indications of holiness – different meanings of holiness and realities referred as holy by early Christian writers have been presented. In the second part – The ways to holiness – five, the most common in the writings of the Church Fathers, concepts of holiness and sanctifcation of man were presented, among which we can distinguish: a deifcation of man, man’s sanctifcation in the Holy Spirit, the sanctifcation of man in grace, the perfection and holiness of man as a model of life promoted by the Church. To understand modern understanding of holiness and to present as a whole the issue of holiness one must consult the Tradition of the Church in the first centuries, and the writers who not only wrote about holiness, but in many cases they have become saints.