Sunday 3 May 2015

Zachary Esterson: The Quasi Sons of Man and God: recapitulatory, retrojective exegesis of Christ's Resurrection and Ascension in Victorinus of Pettau's In Apocalypsin

In an oft-overlooked allēgoresis of Rev. 1:13, Victorinus of Pettau sees Christ's Sonships of Man and God as not only especially intellectually perceived by scriptural exegesis, after Resurrection and Ascension respectively, but as (only) truly realized or conceived as their so-called "quasi" states, Quasi (≡ similis) filio hominis/dei, (truly) "like / as / as if" their (merely) titular Sonships of Man and God hitherto i.e., paradoxically, more like their former selves than those very selves!
However unlikely, Victorinus' attempt to square heterodox (possibly Jewish quasi-Christian or Ebionite) with solidly Catholic views of Jesus' Messiahship, may yet derive from less-examined features of Irenaeus' concept of ἀνακεφαλαίωσις, recapitulatio, and Tertullian's defence of the Two Comings.
Moreover, the Spirit that communicates these revelations to exegete-prophets following the Resurrection (Act. 2:33) travels backwards from a Teilhardian Omega Point, apparently along an Origenian Road of Time, in retrojective motion, forbidden-by-yet-analogous-to the Alexandrian's solely permitted eschatalogical activity of contemplative retrospection or cognition. Victorinus assumes a chronological Circus Maximus, which the Spirit traverses, accelerating back and forth, interacting with exegete-prophets, problematically while seemingly evading itself's travelling contrariwise i.e. its own very will.
This paper discusses the origins of such views, chiefly in Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen, but also perhaps in Plato and Aristotle, and why they may have died with the commentator of Poetovio.

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