Outros artigos deste número | Versão em inglês | Versão em Francês

Discussion
Ugo Bianchi

Question:
The phrase `The glory of Adam will be theirs' in the Qumran material is an eschatological promise, which is placed within the context of the covenant. The pauline treatment of Christ-Adam includes also, when dealing with Christ's fidelity to the Father's commandment in Rom 5,17 ss, the idea of the covenant. Does the covenant fidelity also form a theme in the apocalyptic material concerning Adam?

Answer:
The question is whether there is a relation between the structure of the very beginning and the final conclusion of history on one hand and the particular and sacred history of Israel on the other. The problem is that the history of Israel, though it certainly does not concern only Israel, touches the whole of mankind only indirectly. The Qumran community was certainly very much interested in the connection between human history in general and the history of Israel in its particularity. This is not the case in the apocryphal material. Here we find a conception of a more sapiential type, in which the sacred history of Israel and its leaders e.g. Abraham is not emphasized. The conception is more general and universal, reflecting on the destiny of man determined by the fall of Adam and leading to the final resurrection. It is this idea of universality, which is not the chief constituent of the idea of the covenant, that Paul could use inserting into this structure the completely new, soteriological element of Christ. So the Qumran material must be considered somewhat special with regard to the link between the general history of mankind and the sacred history of Israel.

As to the obedience of Christ: The obedience of Christ concerns first of all his entering into human history as the result of the intersection of the horizontal (heilsgeschichtlich) and the vertical (heilsmetaphysisch) structure. There is an obedience in the vertical line to descend and an obedience in the horizontal line to insert himself in the central point of this created history. In this cross-structure there is no place for the Law, which does not concern directly the totality of mankind even if one conceives it as the noachic Law.

As a matter of fact the sacred history of Israel is mentioned in the jewish Apocryphals. We find there a prophecy of Adam and Eve, which concerns the future of the history of mankind and the future of the history of Israel. But the more general structure and the framework in which all is put certainly goes beyond the history of Israel and the noachic period.

Question:
Do you see on the basis of your interpretation of Israel's role in history a difference between the function of the community of Israel and the mystical body of Christ?

Answer:
On the functional level the community of Israel is characterized by the jewish conception of a special salvation history. In this salvation history Israel has a special function with regard to the messianic age. The conception includes particularity, since Israel is different from the other nations, and at the same time universality because of the special function of Israel for the others. In the pauline structure and in the christian conception in general the body of Christ assumes the totality, which is characteristic of Christ himself. The history of Israel is enacted within a larger context of human history, for Israel did not exist before Abraham, whereas in the christian vision based on the Adam speculation, the body of Christ has a universal meaning, since the omnipresence of Christ vis a vis history redounds upon his mystical body. So the christian community is conceived as sacrament of salvation with regard to the totality of mankind. The very fact that the Law is given to Israel at a certain moment in history implies a dialectic element between Israel's history and the history of mankind. Therefore the relation between particularity and totality as a characteristic of the community of Israel excludes the idea of totality in the sense of an omnipresence.

Question:
Without entering into a philological discussion whether the term Adam is a proper or a common name in the hebrew Bible I refer to one of the attributes of Adam, namely of his being a servant. Adam was placed in the garden of Eden to serve. Since he is created a free man there are two possibilities of fulfilling this role of being a servant. He becomes either an `ebed' of Egypt in the catastrophe or an `ebed' of God in harmony. In this perspective Adam becomes the incarnation of the ideal way of being servant of God, which functions as a model of inspiration for the community. This brings me to the distinction between two categories of messianism: either a personal messianism or a messianism understood as a messianic sphere or time. The last category makes the particularization of a person or a group very delicate. God said to his people: you are my choosen son; this means that there are other children too. God said through the prophet Amos to Israel: for me you are as the children of Kul (Am 9,7); this means that they are children in the same way as the others, perhaps with a special mission with regard to the others, but as children of God not different from them. The same idea is expressed in Is 19,25. Now my question is whether in this perspective the word Adam does not have a collective meaning. This means that we should not limit it to a particularization as the individual Adam, Christ or the community of Israel.

Answer:
With regard to particularity there is a difference between the particularity of Adam or the second Adam vis a vis the totality and the particularity of Israel. These two situations are not the same. In Adam we have something primordial in an absolute sense, which relates him obviously and immediately with the totality of mankind. From the structural point of view this cannot be said of Israel. The relationship between Israel and the totality is based on the historical character of the community of Israel. If Israel has a function visa vis the totality of mankind, then this function is not based on its primordial character as is the case with Adam. So Israel and Adam have a different relation to the totality of mankind.

From the structural point of view Christ unites in himself these two relations. He is related to the totality of mankind because he is the first. He is also related to it because he has manifested himself in history. So the primordial aspect of Adam and the historical aspect of Israel are united in Christ.

The fact that Adam is primordial relates him to the totality of mankind in an exclusive way. The introduction of death into human life, which can be conquered only at the end of time through a diachronical process, is the manifestation of this relation. Now if this structure makes sense, we must conclude that Adam is the first man and not Adam in general. In a `heilsgeschichtlich' conception, which is different from e.g. sapiential speculation, Adam is nothing but the first man in human history. The same applies to Christ. He is not a kind of hypostasis of humanity, but a personality, who is first vis a vis the others. When we use here the term `particular', it indicates a person who is active with regard to other persons and who is not at the same level as the others. This applies to Adam on the horizontal line and to Christ, in whom the horizontal and the vertical lines cross.

Question:
You use the notion of Christ as the agent of soteriology, of salvation at the end of time in contradistinction to Adam. Then you use the notion of Christ as the centre of history. I cannot reconcile these two functions of Christ as the centre of history and as the soteriological end.

Answer:
I consider the centre of history as a situation in which the beginning and the conclusion, which are typical for a linear structure, are connected through the insertion of an active element in the history of mankind. This is not the case with Adam, because he is only a passive protagonist or element in the general human history. After the sin Adam is passive with regard to his destiny. The abolition of the passive situation as the consequence of his sin takes place only at the final resurrection. So Adam as the passive protagonist functions only at the very beginning and at the very end. In the pauline conception the centre of history is the very point of insertion between the horizontal and the vertical lines. This centre has a diachronical dimension, for at a certain moment in history Christ died and the salvation of mankind took place. This we could compare with the johannine concept of the Logos who came into the world. But in order to understand the pauline conception the synchronical dimension must also be emphasized. The salvation of Christ is at the same time synchronical to all periods of human history.

Question:
We have not spoken about an ethical dimension of the meaning of history. An ethical dimension could be deduced from Phil 2,5 ss: the obedience of Christ, becoming a slave and dying, an obedience which is a dimension of the parallel Adam-Christ. The obedience of Christ however in this text is preceded by an exhortation 'have that mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus'. This now is a moral exhortation to imitate Christ. So we have here a notion of the image of God and of the imitation of God through Christ. And my question is whether we can find this pauline notion of image of God implying imitation of God also in the Adam material.

Answer:
For Paul the true image of God is Christ. This certainly implies the imitation of Christ. But by introducing into the structure of Adam the christological dimension Paul has remodelled the concept of the image of God. Paul does not insist upon Adam as the image of God. On the contrary, the true image of God is Christ in opposition to Adam. This is due to the vertical dimension that Paul introduces; and this makes Adam earthly (psychikos). In late jewish speculation a certain dignity is ascribed to Adam. It is quite possible that Paul has put this partially positive character of Adam in the shade in order to throw light upon Christ. With regard to the image of God he only refers to Christ, who has a totally new function in the structure because of his heavenly and spiritual quality. Hence Adam becomes, if not evil, in any case earthly and psychikos.

After Christ's very particular place had been theorized in Christianity it was no longer necessary to hold exclusively to the pauline elaboration of the Adam-Christ typology. In other Christian speculations we therefore find conceptions of Adam which are not exactly the same as the pauline conception from the point of view of moral evaluation. So it could happen that Irenaeus interpreted Adam's sin only as a sin of his youth, an interpretation which diminishes the guilt of this sin. In Irenaeus' view Adam certainly needs a redeemer, but his Adam is undoubtedly closer to the linear structure of the late Jewish texts. A different and opposite development is presented by Tatian who characterizes Adam as damned, perhaps in connection with encratic speculation. So in Paul, by comparison with the late Jewish speculation, we see a relative anti-adamism for the sake of the proclamation of the complete novelty of Christ. After Paul had established this novelty and the uniqueness of Christ was theorized in the Church, it was possible to take up again the Adam tradition and to reformulate Adam's position. This was done either by attributing again a certain dignity to Adam or by a radicalisation of his damnation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Most of the arguments touched upon here aredeveloped in the author's article "Adamo e la Storia della Salvezza" (Paolo e i `Libri di Adamo') in L'uomo nella Bibbia e nelle Culture ad Essa Contemporanee, Atti del Simposio per it XXV dell'Assoc. Biblica Italiana, Brescia 1975, pp. 209-223 (see also "La Redemption dans les Livres d'Adam" in Numen XVIII, I, 1971, pp. 1-8, and "Gnostizismus und Anthropologie" in Kairos 1969, pp. 9-13, with "Cristo e le Totenze"' (Archai ed exousiai) in Asprenas XVI, 3, 1969, pp. 315-321).
For the text of the Latin Vita: W. Meyer, Vita Adae et Evae, `Abhandl. Bayer. Akad. d. Wissensch' I, XIV, III, Munchen 1979; for the Apocal. Mosis, Tischendorf, Apocalypses Apocryphae, 1866 (see also Denis' Les Pseudepigraphes Grecs d'A.T., Leiden 1970). English translation of these books: R.H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, Vol. II, Oxford 1913 [1966], pp. 134-154.
On the gnosticizing Testamentum Adae (to be sharply distinguished from the books discussed here) see Kmosko, Patrologia Syriaca 1, 2, c. 1340 ff. The Nag Hammadi Apocalypse of Adam is frankly agnostic (A. Bohlig - P. Labib, Koptisch-gnostische Apokalypsen aus Codex V von Nag Hammadi... Halle 1963).
For a criticism of recent books on Adam and Christ by E. Brandenburger (Adam und Christus, Neukirchen 1962) and P. Lengsfeld (Adam et le Christ, Paris 1970) see "Adamo e la Storia della Salvezza" quoted above.
As for the Greek and Iranian materials and the religio-historical discussion, see Author's Prometeo, Orfeo, Adamo. Tematiche Religiose sul Destino, Male, la Salvezza, Edizioni dell'Ateneo - Bizzarri 1977; and "The Greek Mysteries" in the series Iconography of Religions, XVII, 3, Leiden 1976.