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The Heir

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Cary Elwes O.S.B.
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Extract

Beres Universorum’ occurs in the accusative case in the first sentence of the Epistle to the Hebrews. St Paul is intensely conscious that Christ's coming is the summing up of the past, the completion of an immense cycle, the climax of a great series of stupendous events, the crowning act of a drama, the final interference of God in his own creation. Not only that; Christ's ‘coming, for St Paul, gathered up all the past, gave it shape and substance, explained it, since all things pointed to or prepared for him. He was the heir of all things. In this title we have a glimpse of the Augustinian vision that history was summed up in Christ, that all the golden threads in pagan life and worship led ultimately to heredem universorum Christum. Thus there are two lines of thought: Christ heir to the Jewish tradition, and Christ heir to the pagan tradition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 3 , Issue 33 , March 1949 , pp. 394 - 401
Copyright
Copyright © 1949 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Cf. ‘The Bread of Life’ (Life of the Spirit, June, 1947, p. 403), where a passage is quoted from St Augustine.

2 'But if I should rehearse all that the prophets … foretold of Christ …1 should never make an end'. (City of God, Bk. 17, ch. 1).

3 In this meditation I follow Pascal as interpreted by Lagrange in Revue Biblique, 1906.

4 Pensies de Pascal, No. 793, ed. Brunschvicg.

5 Histoire du Peuple Hebreu, par L. Desnoyers, t. III, p. 309, quoted in ‘lies Prophetes d'Israel', Ed. Tobac, T. Coppens whose ideas are here used.

6 ‘Les choses de Dieu etant inexprimables, elles ne peuvent etre dites antrement’ (Pensie 687).

7 Pensees de Pascal, Brunschvicg Minor. Hachette p. 635, no.

8 In passing, just to round off the subject, iti may be worth while to give a reference for the question of whether the prophets were conscious of the figurative and inadequate nature of their expositions. Edouard Tobac has said interesting things on the subject in the brochure already cited.

9 Cf. op. cit. pp. 83-4.

10 Translated from the French.