ITALIAN POPULAR PARTY. – A political party, which arose after the First World War, with a strong democratic content, inspired by the doctrines of the Christian social school.
I. ORIGIN
It was founded by Fr. Luigi Sturzo in conjunction with a group of politicians already well known in Italian public and administrative life, who, after some preparatory meetings (in November and December 1918), on the evening of 18 January 1919, from Rome, issued to the press the first appeal to the nation and the text of the programme. The appeal “to the free and the strong” was signed by a provisional committee composed of eleven members: Fr. Luigi Sturzo, Hon. Avv. Giovanni Bertini, Avv. Giovanni Bertone, Stefano Cavazzoni, Surveyor Achille Grandi, Count Giovanni Grosoli, Hon. Dr. Giovanni Longinotti, Hon. Avv. Angelo Mauri, Avv. Umberto Merlin, Hon. Avv. Giulio Rodinò, Count Avv. Carlo Santucci. The committee temporarily assumed the leadership of the new Party and from the outset designated Fr. Sturzo as political secretary.The Party drew its inspiration from the antithesis between moderate Catholics and democratic Catholics which had provoked – between 1904 and 1906 – the noted crisis of Christian Democracy (v.). Fr. Sturzo, in his speech at Caltagirone (29 December 1905), had already highlighted the synthesis of the vague aspirations of Christian democrats, which often manifested themselves in intemperate assertions aimed at affirming a doctrinal religious autonomism, thereby providing powerful weapons to conservatives to react against democratic action under the guise of defending orthodoxy. From that time, in order to operate effectively on the political and trade union terrain in Italy, he had indicated the necessity of a party with a strictly national character, which would not involve the ecclesiastical authorities in its stances; but which, acting autonomously and with its own strength on the political and social terrain, could affirm, precisely on this terrain of historical and contingent reality, fundamentally Christian principles. Thus, at the end of 1918, in laying the foundations of the P.P.I., he was merely resuming the logical line of his own thought. The Party is historically linked to Christian social doctrine, from Ozanam to Toniolo, but principally to Rerum Novarum; politically, it is linked to the political praxis of the Christian social parties of Central Europe and to Christian Democracy (v.).
The First World War had not only altered borders between peoples, resolved old problems and posed new questions on the international stage, but within each nation it had brought profound social changes. Between the two dominant parties – the liberal and the socialist – there was room for a new party, for the affirmation of a new democratic concept of the State, based not on the dictatorship of any class, even the proletarian, but on the decentralisation of all functions and activities, on respect for all freedoms, and on the rigorous application of justice. The working masses affiliated with the Italian Confederation of Workers were pressing to insert themselves between the two then-dominant parties and to attempt the reorganisation of Italy on the basis of Christian justice.
On 4 November 1918 Italy entered into armistice, and on the 17th Fr. Luigi Sturzo delivered his “Milan Speech” on post-war problems, in intimate ideological connection with the programme of the P.P.I. The principal characteristic of the Milan Speech lies in having marked out the fundamental and necessary recognitions of freedom in order to be able to act effectively upon the modern world.
II. PROGRAMME
Fr. Sturzo and his associates took up the problem of regional decentralisation and placed it on the political and parliamentary terrain, grounding it on a solid national basis, firmly upholding the anti-pantheistic concept of the State as an organ of direction, coordination, oversight and protection, making of the region a unit not divergent but convergent with the State, recognising it as a specific unity.The Party conducted a lively campaign, during the Nitti ministry in the first half of 1919, for proportional representation, which, after notable difficulties, achieved a victorious conclusion in Parliament with the approval of the Michel report. The new electoral system replaced competition among individuals and local factions with that of parties, that is, of ideas. The general political elections, held on the basis of proportional representation on 16 November 1919, with the conquest of 100 seats by the P.P.I. and the election of 156 socialist deputies, placed on the agenda the discussion of a problem already presented several times in the political arena: the problem of collaboration between liberals and democrats with socialists. An agreement between the Popular Party and the socialists was also considered; but, on this point, Fr. Sturzo, when questioned on the matter, pointed out that the events were not yet ripe for such collaboration.
As Bolshevik propaganda began to take stronger hold, the Party leadership felt the need to issue a manifesto to the nation, a true anti-Bolshevik proclamation which called on the masses to “flee from every anarchic violence” and which invited Parliament and the government to rapid resolution of the major moral, social and economic problems.
The first Congress of the P.P.I., held in Bologna on 14 June 1919 under the presidency of Alcide De Gasperi, reaffirmed the pillars not as theoretical but as technical, economic and legislative measures aimed at curbing Bolshevik agitation; it demanded legal recognition of organised classes, precisely in order to steer the resolution of all class conflicts towards peaceful orientations, through stable organs of representation; legal recognition of trade organisations – to give them responsibility for their own actions – effective freedom of organisation – that is, parity of treatment for all organisations before the law, precisely to remove anarchic violence between organisations; it finally demanded the transformation of the wage contract and the introduction of operational profit-sharing and operational shareholding, to make the interests of capital and labour mutually dependent and to suppress the struggles that disturbed social peace and were ruinous to national production. At the second Congress of the P.P.I. – held in Naples from 8 to 11 April 1920 – the debates were most lively, but the central programme line, represented by the political secretary, had been delineated with such precision that the internal consolidation of the Party proceeded without deviation. Fr. Sturzo summarised the aims of the Party in three points: to overthrow state centralisation, to restore consciousness to natural bodies, and to stimulate individual energies. Turning then to the discussion on school reform, final motions were passed which, while outlining a broad programme of reform for public schools, insisted above all on the necessity of instituting state examinations for schools of every level. The agrarian problem was also widely discussed; the report presented was based on numerous principles: the social function of land, the problem of production, the necessity of facilitating the attainment of property through labour; the necessity of regional decentralisation and of representation for agricultural classes, etc. A notable programme was thus outlined, yet it stopped short of the concept of even partial transfer of property to the benefit of the collectivity. The political and parliamentary situation, particularly grave at that time, was examined during the final days of the Congress.
The PPI established itself in the chambers and in the government through the work of its well-prepared politicians and organizers: foremost among them Filippo Meda, followed by Angelo Mauri, Giuseppe Micheli (architect of the first agrarian reform), Giulio Rodinò, Giovanni Battista Bertone, Fulvio Milani, Salvatore Aldisio, Antonino Anile, Giovanni Gronchi, Giovanni Maria Longinotti, Umberto Tupini, Mario Augusto Martini, Francesco Degni, Mario Cingolani, Vincenzo Tangorra, Umberto Merlin, and others. At this time, the figure of Alcide De Gasperi began to emerge. Party leadership was supported by a central office, to which Mario Cingolani and Giuseppe Spataro successively served as vice-secretaries, and finally, in the private secretariat, Mario Scelba. The party also had a press office directed by Fr. Giulio de’ Rossi (a noble figure of priest and scholar), with the collaboration of Igino Giordani, Giuseppe Fuschini, Vincenzo Mangano, and Giuseppe Trocchi—especially on matters of education and culture.
In 1920, during the two major postal and railway strikes, the Party sided with the “white” organizations against the strike. By late August and early September 1920, during the factory occupations, it supported the “white” organization, the *National Union of Metalworkers*, elevating its political profile and defending it against reprisals from the “reds.”
The Fascist movement began to grow and threaten socialist and popular organizations, both political and syndical. *Il Popolo Nuovo*, the PPI’s organ, deplored the government’s inaction.
### III. ELECTORAL TESTS
On April 7, 1921, Giolitti dissolved the Chamber and called new elections. The PPI took a firm stand in the campaign, raising the banner of national discipline, social reconciliation, and the moral, legal, and economic reconstruction of the country. During the electoral battle, Don Sturzo spoke at the Augusteum in Rome, then in Turin and Palermo, advocating the restoration of state authority and respect for the law.
The PPI’s victory in the May 15, 1921 elections was resounding: it won 107 seats, despite open opposition from Giolitti, who allied with the Fascists to fight both the Populars and the Socialists. The Tovini motion, signed also by Deputy Cavazzoni (secretary of the Popular parliamentary group), marked the PPI’s position, placing it between the two extremes.
After the civil servants’ strike ended, Don Sturzo, in an interview, outlined a series of reforms and criticized the rebellious stance of state employees, acknowledging that the moral crisis had been fueled by a hypertrophy of the state—“willed, nurtured, and sustained by the ruling classes and liberal democracies.” During the Bonomi ministry, the PPI pursued a clear and consistent policy aimed at defending the state, threatened from all sides, and at social reconstruction. In August 1921, the Party’s National Council laid down firm guidelines. The Gronchi motion affirmed that any cooperation with other political forces could only occur on the basis of progressive, deep renewal of economic and political institutions, and through clear programmatic commitments.
At the Venice Congress (October 20, 1921), the PPI noted that “since the Naples Congress, the collaboration of the Popular parliamentary group in various ministries had been dictated by the duty to keep the parliamentary system functioning and to restore state authority.” However, the failure to implement key programmatic points—especially agrarian reform, proportional representation in local government, state examinations, and cooperative legislation—was due not only to the slow and obstructed workings of the Chamber, but also to the succession of political and electoral events. The Congress reaffirmed this limit on collaboration with other political groupings. At Venice, Don Sturzo delivered an extensive report on the regional question, framing it on solid organic foundations. His report remains authoritative even today. A few days before the Chamber reconvened in January 1922, Don Sturzo delivered a speech in Florence commemorating the third anniversary of the Party’s founding. He addressed the crisis and renewal of the state, highlighting the deficiencies, weaknesses, and errors of the ruling classes’ policies, directly confronting the issue of the state and proposing a bold solution.
When the Bonomi ministry resigned due to Giolitti’s maneuvers, the Popular parliamentary group unanimously passed a resolution stating that in the event of a crisis, the following should be “preliminary conditions” for its resolution by the Popular group: the establishment of a clear government direction and a legislative work program agreed in advance with the responsible organs of the groups; the formation of a permanent majority committee; and proportional representation in cabinet participation based on the numerical strength of the groups. *Il Popolo Nuovo* of March 5, 1922, commenting on these events, noted how the PPI—having been the first, as early as October 1920, to sound the alarm against Giolitti’s financial plans and having agreed with the Bonomi ministry to suspend the application of the law on bearer securities—had raised the economic and financial question regarding Giolitti’s return to power, forcing all sides to declare themselves in favor of a change in direction.
As the parliamentary situation grew increasingly confused, the King rejected Bonomi’s resignation and urged him to return to the Chamber (February 16, 1922). But the cabinet was again torpedoed by Giolitti, who sought to regain power. The Populars could not lend themselves to these maneuvers, especially given the grave internal situation, nearly revolutionary in character, provoked by Fascists and Communists. The Party therefore resolutely opposed Giolitti, whom it saw as the embodiment of Italy’s democratic political degeneration. As de’ Rossi notes, Giolitti was accused of having “assumed the guise of defender of the secular state against the encroaching clericalism” and of covert maneuvers aimed at divorce legislation. It was at this point that the famous “veto” was issued by the Party’s leadership and the Popular parliamentary group against Giolitti’s political comeback. Giolitti finally understood the futility of his ambitions and turned instead to the weak and uncertain Deputy Facta. The only viable solution, however, would have been a cabinet led by Meda, Amendola, and Turati. Unfortunately, the Popular leader Meda withdrew. Giolitti was old and weary; the methods he had used in the past were no longer effective. He lacked popular support, and his agreements with the Fascists in the 1921 elections—aimed at combating the Populars and legalitarian Socialists—had compromised him in their eyes. Moreover, the man he would have had to suppress or bend to his will—Mussolini—was himself bold and unscrupulous, backed by an armed organization that had infiltrated even the higher ranks of the military, and by a movement unrestrained by moral or legal limits.
### IV. IN THE GREAT DEMOCRATIC CRISIS
On the direction of the new Facta ministry, the PPI’s National Council urged the Party leadership and parliamentary group to press the government to assert “the authority of the state and the moral foundations of civil life” in defense of constitutional freedoms and public order against the resurgence of agrarian-Fascist violence by armed squads.
With the fall of Facta’s ministry in July 1922, the crisis was protracted, and the King reappointed Facta, who reappeared before the Chamber with the same ministry. The Popular Party then imposed the approval of the agrarian reform (colonization of large estates), which the Chamber approved on 10 August 1922. This intensified the struggle of the Fascists, allied with the landed interests, leading to the occupation of town halls, arson against cooperatives, and street and square clashes. The National Council of the PPI, convened in Rome on an urgent basis on 20 October 1922, issued an appeal for a return to internal peace.
B. Mussolini, who from the 21st to the 22nd had prepared to enter a coalition government, then aimed for a national union government pivoted on the right. While conducting perfunctory negotiations with Giolitti, Orlando, and Salandra, he instead sought a complete takeover. The Fascist Congress in Naples was but a prelude to the March on Rome. The Popular ministers and the party secretary, who from the outset had grasped the Fascists’ aims, attempted to alert Prime Minister Facta to the danger, without managing to shake his confidence.
As early as the end of 1920, Don Sturzo had defined Fascism as a movement born of the war, to which one could grant the merit of rehabilitating the war and the victory that the socialists had wrongly disparaged. Yet it was a movement, born socialist and revolutionary-anticlerical, that was aligning itself with the “landowners” of the Po Valley. Exploiting national and patriotic sentiment, it would serve as a pretext for the industrialism and landownership of northern Italy to rally around itself the forces of reaction and conservation of privilege against the demands of the working classes. “The government,” Don Sturzo added, “with its classic tactics of contingency and accommodation, will abet and aid Fascism, only to become its victim and captive.”
V. WITH FASCISM IN GOVERNMENT
After Mussolini’s rise to power and the formation of the first coalition ministry, which included liberals, Populars, and democratic-socialists alongside nationalists and Fascists, Don Sturzo refused collaboration and confined himself to bringing the matter before the party Congress. He declared that he would leave the Popular group in the Chamber free to make the experiment (on its own responsibility): this was the spirit of his speech in Turin on 19 December 1922.Collaboration could not last: the rupture came shortly thereafter. Sturzo had given Mussolini no blank cheque. The autonomy and dignity of the PPI had to remain intact at any cost. Hence the need for clarifications and adjustments: reservations and criticisms whenever necessary. The critical articles published from time to time by Don Sturzo, and his Turin speech of 20 December 1922, provoked increasingly severe reactions, and the report to the National Congress in Turin on 12 April 1923 marked the definitive withdrawal of the Populars from the government.
The Turin Congress was an “act of daring” by the party leadership, and many well-meaning conservatives opposed holding it, but Sturzo saw its absolute necessity and indeed foresaw its historic role. Meanwhile, *Il Popolo*, the PPI’s daily newspaper edited by Giuseppe Donati, had appeared. As a fighting organ, *Il Popolo* helped clarify the party’s stance and differentiate it, culminating in its definitive break from collaboration in Mussolini’s first ministry and its open opposition.
When the attempt to channel the Fascist revolution within the orbit of the constitution and legality failed—despite the efforts of the Popular group, ably led by De Gasperi—the electoral reform of 23 July 1923, which from the outset ensured a majority for Mussolini’s government, drove the PPI definitively into opposition, despite the defection of a small group of its deputies. With the legislature prorogued on 24 January 1924 (in December, the first attack on Amendola had occurred in Rome, followed by other grave acts of violence against Catholic and Popular organizations), the general election held on 6 April 1924 took place in a climate of violence and resulted in a decisive victory for the Fascist Party. “With these elections,” notes Jacini, “the PPI’s position in Italian public life underwent a radical change: no longer a governing and centrist party, no longer the pivot of the parliamentary majority, free in its movements and formally unshackled from a collaboration that daily weighed heavier upon it, it found itself flanked, in a supplementary role, by a growing array of liberals, democrats, and socialists, forming with them the diverse ranks of the constitutional opposition committed to defending the Statutory liberties.”
Yet one must look back to an exceedingly significant event in the party’s life. Overwhelmed by reaction, Don Sturzo tendered his resignation on 10 July 1923 to the National Council of the Party, meeting at the height of the parliamentary group’s opposition to the electoral reform and the Fascist government. He declared that his decision was not driven by disagreement with the parliamentary group, but to deny his adversaries any further pretext for misrepresenting the PPI’s relations with the Church and thus embroiling it in the inevitable political conflicts the party had to face in defense and pursuit of its ideal and practical program. The National Council then entrusted the functions of the political secretariat to a triumvirate composed of Hon. Rodinò as president, Hon. Gronchi as secretary, and Attorney Spataro as deputy secretary. The impression within the party was profound, and the homage paid to Don Sturzo was immense. His resignation was variously interpreted: in ministerial circles as a success for Mussolini, elsewhere as a prelude to a hardening of the Popular group in opposition. Yet it had become inevitable, for the government’s persecutionist directives raised fears that Fascist hostility toward Sturzo and the party might extend to the clergy at large. Meanwhile, the deputy Giacomo Matteotti (10 June 1924) and Don Giovanni Minzoni, archpriest of Argenta (14 August 1924), were murdered.
After his resignation and until the day of his exile, Don Sturzo devoted himself intensively to study and launched the *Bollettino di scienze sociali e politiche*, a lively critical review examining and debating the principal problems agitating Italian and foreign social and political culture. When Don Sturzo left Rome for London on 25 October 1924, the party’s secretariat and leadership passed to Alcide De Gasperi, who, with Spataro’s help, maintained and strengthened the ranks until they were swept away by violence.
The Populars rendered invaluable assistance to the political movement known as the Aventine, provoked by political crimes and other grave liberticidal outrages committed by the Blackshirt squads, which made parliamentary opposition impossible. The Matteotti campaign was *Il Popolo*’s greatest honor. Donati, with his indictment of De Bono presented to the High Court of Justice and a series of meticulously documented articles, irrefutably exposed the political responsibilities for the crime. He displayed the same zeal in his journalistic campaign and in denouncing Balbo for the murder of Don Minzoni. (After the Matteotti crime, De Gasperi—one of the most active members of the Aventine steering committee, together with Amendola and De Cesare—went to the Quirinale to present the King with the opposition’s demands regarding the crime.)
VI. The Last Congress
The last Congress of the Italian People’s Party (P.P.I.) was held in Rome in the spring of 1925, in a cramped hall near Sant’Andrea della Valle, where De Gasperi gathered his loyal friends. After an examination of the situation, it was concluded that, with every possible defense of action or reaction now removed, nothing remained but to affirm their moral independence. On 14 December 1925, De Gasperi was also compelled to resign as the Party’s political secretary and retire into private life.On 25 January 1927, the dissolution of the Chamber was decreed, and the Popular parliamentary group, already crippled by the measure stripping the Aventine deputies of their parliamentary mandate, ceased to exist even in theory. Most of the Party’s leaders were deprived of their passports and firearms and forced to receive identity cards marked with their fingerprints. They were barred from any public office and permitted only very limited professional activity.
VII. The Party’s Historical Role
To summarize in a single judgment the historical role of the Italian People’s Party (P.P.I.), it may be legitimately affirmed that the Party, by transferring the principles of Christian social teaching into an autonomous sphere, gave a democratic-Christian consciousness and responsibility to a significant portion of Italian Catholics, freeing them from the tutelage and minority status imposed by the ruling political classes; and, on the other hand, it helped disengage the Church from the conflicts of political parties.The present-day Christian Democratic Party is nothing more than its heir and continuer.
P. A. P. A. — A Greek term (παρουσία) which in the New Testament designates (16 times out of 24) the Second Coming of Jesus for the final phase of the messianic Kingdom.
It properly means “presence” (from παρεῖναι “to be present”) and, by obvious extension, “appearance,” “coming.” This classical usage occurs 3 times in the Septuagint (2 Macc. 8, 12; 15, 21; Judith 10, 18) and 6 times in St Paul (1 Cor. 10, 10; etc.). Jesus’ “coming in power and glory” (Matt. 24, 30) is called παρουσία by St Paul 7 times (1 Cor. 15, 23 and 6 times in 1–2 Thess., besides the παρουσία of the Antichrist in 2 Thess. 2, 9), by James 5, 7–8, by 2 Pet. 1, 16; 3, 4, 12, by 1 John 2, 28, and by Matt. 24, 3, 27–37, 39. Equivalent terms are: “day [of the Lord or of Christ]” (17 times in St Paul: Acts 2, 20; 1 Pet. 3, 10, 12; Apoc. 16, 14), “manifestation” (ἐπιφάνεια: 5 times in the pastoral epistles), “revelation” (ἀποκάλυψις: 1 Cor. 1, 7; 2 Thess. 1, 7; 1 Pet. 1, 7–13; 4, 13). It is also called “visitation” (ἐπισκοπή: Luke 19, 44; cf. 1, 68, 78; 7, 16; 1 Pet. 2, 12 [and 5, 6]) in accordance with the prophetic expression (פְּקֻדָּה: Isa. 10, 3; Hos. 9, 7; Num. 16, 29 means “the death that awaits all”).
In the Hellenistic world, παρουσία had become a technical term for the solemn “coming” or “visit” of a king or emperor (in documents from the 3rd century B.C. to the 2nd A.D.), celebrated with memorable festivals, sometimes marking the beginning of a new era. An inscription from Olbia (3rd century B.C.) recounts the παρουσία of King Saitharphanes; a papyrus from Tebtunis (c. 113 B.C.) speaks of the feverish preparations for the παρουσία of Ptolemy II Soter; an inscription from Tegea is dated to the 69th year of the first παρουσία of the god Hadrian in Greece; Corinth and Patras, in memory of Nero’s παρουσία, struck coins inscribed “Adventus” (π.μ. Augusti). Germanicus Caesar informed the Alexandrians (19 A.D.) that he did not wish, upon his appearance (ἐνόντισχόν) among them, to receive acclamations (cf. Acts 12, 22) as a god (ἐνόντισχόν ἐκφωνήσεως) that were due only to the emperor, the “true savior and benefactor of all humanity.” Similar are the texts relating to the “saving manifestation” of the emperor’s birth: the inscription from Priene (9 B.C.), which extols the good news (εὐαγγέλιον) of the peace associated with his παρουσία; inscriptions by Paullus Fabius Maximus (9 B.C.) and from Narbonne (22 September 12 B.C.), all with a “messianic” resonance like Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue.
In New Testament writings, παρουσία retains the fundamental sense of “presence,” and only from the context can it imply the sense of “return.” Like the “manifestation” (2 Tim. 1, 10; 4, 8) or the “revelation” (1 Pet. 1, 7, 13) of Jesus, his παρουσία is a presence inaugurated at his nativity, which is to culminate in his supreme appearance as universal king and judge. Correlated with the Kingdom of God (2 Tim. 4, 1), which has “come” yet “is still to come” (Matt. 4, 17; 6, 10), the παρουσία of the Messianic King, the reality and end toward which all things tend, assumes different aspects according to the phases of the Kingdom to which it corresponds. The παρουσία is the renewing theophany that fills “the day” of the Lord, which is “the day of Yahweh” of the prophets (Isa. 2, 12; 13, 6, 10; etc.). Even the Incarnation was called παρουσία (St Ignatius, Ad Philad. 9, 2; it was the first theme of the εὐαγγέλιον; perhaps 2 Pet. 1, 16). The παρουσία of Christ is the beginning and the end, the inauguration and the conclusion, the faith and the “blessed hope” (Tit. 2, 11–13; Col. 3, 1–4); it is not limited to the terminal episode of the human drama; therefore, “to wait for the παρουσία” (1 Cor. 1, 7; Phil. 3, 20; Rom. 8, 19–25) does not mean to await the end of the world. Like the Kingdom of God, the παρουσία of Christ is constantly progressive: it has opened the era of the definitive (1 Cor. 10, 11, “the ends of the ages have come upon us”) as “firstfruits,” and will mark the end in the full attainment of its goal (ibid., 15, 23–28), when Jesus will reappear in the glory in which he will introduce all the elect (1 Thess. 3, 13; 4, 14–17; 2 Thess. 1, 7–10; cf. St Ignatius, Ad Eph. 15, 3).
Jesus preaches the Kingdom of God as already brought among men by him (Matt. 11, 12; 12, 28; Luke 17, 21), open to those who would be blessed (Matt. 5, 3–11; 11, 25–30), but also as still enclosed in the seed and gradually developed before being fully realized (Matt. 13, 24–33), which happens slowly and without anyone noticing (Matt. 13, 31–33; Mark 4, 26–29; Luke 17, 20; John 18, 36); present, or in gestation, the Kingdom is yet future, especially as eternal reward for the faithful at their death (Matt. 22, 1–44; Luke 14, 15–24; 16, 19–31). In connection with the mysterious advent of the Kingdom, Jesus announces his future παρουσία, indeterminable in time or space (Matt.
Messianic, central to the salvation of individuals and peoples, in intimate connection with the life of every soul and every generation, would seem, at a superficial glance, to equate the beginning of the messianic era with the end of the world; and every man, placing himself at the center of history, tends to confuse the absolute with the immediate in time and space relative to himself. Jesus insists on the moral-ascetical consequence of this essential indifference of His parousia in time; like the prophetic Day of Yahweh, it is a reality ever impending over individual and collective humanity, terrifyingly sudden (Mt. 24:36–42, 44–50; Lk. 12:39; 17:22–37), imminent because none shall escape it, in which the account of life and death shall be settled for all. It will come like a thief in the night; therefore one must “watch,” always “ready” with lamps lit, ever doing good (Mt. 24:36–25:13; Mk. 13:32–37; Lk. 12:35–48), even if “He tarries” (Mt. 24:49; 25:5; Lk. 12:45; Heb. 10:37; 2 Pt. 3:4–9), awaiting “the day and the hour” when He shall come “to demand the soul” (Lk. 12:20).
As in the second part of Daniel (chs. 7–12), the preaching of Jesus and the Apostles often recalls the mystery of the end, a mystery unfolding in three moments: the appearance of the Son of Man (Dan. 7:13 = Mt. 24:30 and 26:64), the resurrection and the universal judgment, and the glorification of the saints. Within the customary biblical apparatus of theophanies (trumpet, cry, cloud, smoke, storm), amid human calamities and convulsions of the entire cosmos (Mt. 24:6–9, 29: prophetic images of Is. 13:10; 34:4; Am. 8:9; etc.), which has also reached its final goal, Jesus, with His power, defeats all hostile forces (flesh, sin, death in the individual sphere; evil spirits and men in the collective sphere). As universal Judge, Redeemer of the faithful and avenger of the oppressed, He will close the earthly militant age of the Kingdom of God to inaugurate the heavenly glorious age. The final act of the parousia is the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:26, 54–57); the risen will appear before the throne of the Messiah “coming on the clouds of heaven.” Jesus will judge “the living and the dead,” that is, the past, the present, the future, “the earthly” (γῆ ζώντων: Ps. 26:13; 51:7; etc., in opposition to σέσῳ) and “the netherworld,” over which He has all power (Phil. 2:10; for “the heavenly” cf. 1 Cor. 5:3): the formula of apostolic catechesis “the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Pt. 4:5), which entered the Creed, must be understood in relation to those who recite it (St. Thomas, Suárez), it being obvious that, after the universal resurrection, all will be alive. Having taken the just to glory and cast the wicked into eternal fire (Mt. 25:31–46), there will occur the reunion of those whom death had separated: “together” (ἀμας σύν) they shall shine in the cortege of the divine King with whom they shall rejoice in His love and in that of the beloved found again (1 Thess. 3:13; 4:17; Rev. 7:4–17; 14:1–5; cf. Dante, *Paradiso*, XXII, 97–110). A precursor sign of the parousia is the Antichrist (q.v.), who works “the mystery of iniquity” that drags men into “apostasy”: Jesus will destroy him “with the manifestation of His parousia” (2 Thess. 2:3–12). On the “signs” of the parousia, cf. *Didache*, 16:3–8.
As to the time of the parousia, Jesus declared it unknowable (Mt. 24:36; Acts 1:7). In Mk. 13:32 He specifies that “that day and hour” are known only to the Father, “neither to the angels nor to the Son”: with emphasis He asserts here that the power to establish it belongs (by appropriation) to the Father (of Whose every secret Jesus is aware: Mt. 11:27), and it is not here a question of theoretical information but of the awesome, unfathomable mystery that imposes unceasing vigilance. The Holy Office condemned (June 5, 1918) Catholics who, following H. Klee (1848) and H. Schell (1893), limited the knowledge of Jesus (Denz.-U., nn. 2183–85), specifying the condemnation of propositions 33–34 of the decree *Lamentabili* (July 3, 1907; Denz.-U., n. 2033 ff.).
J. Weiss (*Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes*, Göttingen 1892, revised ed. 1900), followed by A. Loisy and A. Schweitzer, claimed that Jesus’ messianism was purely eschatological, based on the imminence of His glorious parousia which was to inaugurate the Kingdom of God; Christianity would have arisen from such an illusion about the end of the world. But Jesus did not consider the end of the world imminent: He founded the apostolate and the Church, preached a morality of family and social stability. He did, indeed, predict His triumph within a generation (Mt. 10:23; 16:28; 24:23–28 and 34; 26:64; discourse on the parousia in Lk. 17:22–37); but these allusions to the near return of Jesus refer certainly to the destruction of Jerusalem, with which the new religious era began. The Kingdom of God does not begin through evolution, but through rupture. In the texts of the “synoptic apocalypse” (Mt. 24; Mk. 13) many Catholics distinguish the end of Jerusalem from the end of the world; but it is better to understand all of it as referring to the end of Jerusalem (A. Feuillet, F. Spadafora), which represents the entire messianic economy of tribulation and struggle. The theory of J. Weiss and A. Schweitzer has been well refuted even within liberal Protestantism, first by H. Windisch; R. Bultmann (q.V. *bibl.*, p. 39) notes that Jesus’ preaching “is not at all influenced by the thought that the end of the world is near”; according to E. Holmström the Christian notion of the “proximity” of the Kingdom implies only the virtual and growing presence of the future Kingdom; H. D. Wendland demonstrates well that Jesus foresaw the parousia as very distant in the centuries, as is deduced especially from the foundation of the Church on Peter (Mt. 16:16–19); F. Busch, finally, sees in the “synoptic apocalypse” a strong warning against the illusion of a near parousia, correctly identifying the “tribulation” foretold with the long messianic Kingdom on earth.
No different is the mentality of those who continued Jesus’ preaching. In Christianity, the mystery of the eschatological coming of Christ is placed at the center of history and within the depths of souls. But it does not appear at all that in the 1st century the end of the world was awaited more than in previous or subsequent generations. The expectation or fear of cosmic catastrophe surfaces in every human generation, accompanied by predictions, omens, and calculations; on the other hand, Christian preachers, from Jesus and the Apostles onward, continually inculcate the fear of the last things. It appears only that among the faithful of Thessalonica, around A.D. 52, there were some “alarmed” by the prospect of the end, and St. Paul exhorts them not to believe that “the day of the Lord is at hand” (2 Thess. 2:2); nothing more. Like Jesus, the Apostles refuse to concern themselves with the time of the final parousia, and they take every question about it as an opportunity to recommend vigilance and persevering action for the long term (Acts 1:6–8; 1 Thess. 5:1–11; 2 Pt. 3:4–14; Rev. 3:3; 16:15); like Jesus, St. Paul describes the “precursor signs” of the parousia that must invigorate moral resistance (Mt. 24:21–27; 2 Thess. 2:3–12). The apostolic charge is ascetical (“to watch,” since the judgment of Christ is ever suspended over the world) and mystical: Jesus is present, yet one must desire Him, hasten His return, run to meet Him.
St. Paul always taught the universality of death (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:22; Heb. 9:27; cf. Gen. 3:19; Eccl. 12:7; Ps. 88:49). The entire redemptive economy, as he explains it, is summed up in the antithesis death-life, in the succession of two ages: the tribulation of this time and the future glory; and the only passage between the two is that already traversed by the Redeemer: death and resurrection (Rom. 8:11, 17 ff., 23; 2 Cor. 4:17). A man of perfect balance, who never denied obvious experience and common sense, St. Paul never doubted that he must die, and then rise again, he and his disciples.
He affirms this in 51 in I Thess. 5,10; in 57-58 in I Cor. 6,14; II Cor. 4,14, and after 64 in II Tim. 4,6-7; in 61 (W. Michaelis, Die Daterung des Philipperbriefes, Gütersloh 1933, dates Phil. between 53 and 56) in Phil. 1,21-23 he declares that true life, with Christ, is that which follows death (P. Jouon, in Recherches de sc. rel., 29 [1938], 8,9 sg.) and “to die is gain”; he expresses this desire for bodily death many times (Rom. 7,24), as do all the saints, because “to be away from the body” is the indispensable condition for being united with the Lord (II Cor. 5,6-8). While awaiting death, Paul is entirely oriented toward the expectation of p. (Phil. 3,13-21; II Tim. 4,8), the culmination of hope and salvation; meanwhile, in Jesus the union of the heavenly and the earthly is being fulfilled (Eph. 1,10). We are therefore in the new, final age, since the old era, with its economy, has ceased (II Cor. 5,17; Hebr. 8,13); we are near the end of worldly things (Hebr. 10,25-37; Iac. 5,8; I Pt. 4,7; I Io. 2,18). When the Apostles proclaim the Lord as near (Phil. 4,5; Rom. 13,11; Iac. 5,8; Apoc. 3,20), this is a spiritual proximity in space more than in time; it is the presence of Jesus already living among his own (Mt. 18,20; 28,20; Io. 14,3-23). In this is contained all the theology of Grace. In this mystical perspective time does not count: Paul and the perfect, immersed in the absolute, saw on earth only the precariousness (I Cor. 7,29-31; I Pt. 4,7; I Io. 2,15-18) of men and events (B. Allo [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 180-83). And Christians are already united, living with Christ, to his p. which will also be the p. of his faithful (Col. 3,4; Hebr. 9,28; I Pt. 5,4; I Io. 2,28; 3,2). The nearness of the Lord is a cause for fear, as the irruption of a thief (I Thess. 5,2-4; II Pt. 3,10; Apoc. 3,3; 16,5), of austerity (Rom. 13,11 sg.; I Cor. 7,29-32; II Cor. 6,2), but also of joy (Phil. 4,4-6). Because it is connected with death and judgment, p. must be awaited with anxiety and with trust, being the passage from danger to the eternal (II Cor. 4,14-17; Rom. 8,18-25).
The Apostle was in continual contact with death, to which he was always ready, whose expectation was familiar to him; he swears that he is “in danger every hour; daily I face death” and that only the hope of resurrection after death gives him courage (I Cor. 15,30-32); in continual danger of death, he hopes only “in the God who raises the dead” (II Cor. 1,8 sg.), and he glories in this life of risk and infirmity: entire chapters insist on this theme (II Cor. 4,7-17; 11,23-33; 12,5-10). St. Paul teaches that all will be judged according to what they have done and through the body, that is, before dying; he expresses the desire to leave the body since there is no other way than death, which frees us from exile, to be reunited with the Lord (II Cor. 5,6-10; after death, there will be the particular judgment (cf. I Cor. 3,13-15), and for the just the blessed reunion with Christ, awaiting the resurrection). And the Christian economy which Paul foresees on earth requires many suns: he hopes, among other things, to save only “some” Jews, while their multitude (τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῶν) will come to Christ long after his death, after “the fullness of the Gentiles” has come in (Rom. 11,25).
But many exegetes, even Catholic ones, hold that St. Paul, conforming to the common opinion of Christians of his time, hoped not to die, considering p. imminent. The first Catholics who attributed to Paul and the Apostles the error or illusion of the imminence (desired or feared) of p. were A. Maier (1847) and A. Bisping (1865), followed by J. Corluy (1887), E. Le Camus (1905), L. Duchesne (1906), A. Lemonnier (1906), A. Cellini (1907), F. Prat (1908), F. Tillmann (1909), and many others in the course of the 20th century, up to F. Gutermann (1932), who maintains that for St. Paul death and resurrection were a purely theoretical possibility, since he expected them in the very near future and preached the imminent p. of the Lord. It suffices to cite F. Prat, La théologie de St Paul, I, 12th ed. (Paris 1924), p. 80: “An undeniable fact: the Christians of the apostolic age believed themselves to have reached the end of time... Their error, partly one of desire and hope, was connected with a universal prejudice... perhaps also with a false interpretation of the words of the Savior” (Mt. 24,34), and he adds that nothing prevents St. Paul from having “shared the common illusion,” which however he did not teach. He specifies further that St. Paul always “taught that the last generation of the just will be clothed with immortality without passing through death” (p. 90) and cites in support of this “the clear statements, repeated three times” of I Thess. 4,15-17; I Cor. 15,51; II Cor. 5,3. Most Catholic authors today follow this opinion. Of these three texts, J. Chaine excludes the third, and more so B. Allo in his commentary (Deuxième aux Corinthiens, Paris 1936, pp. 124-29), where he demonstrates that in II Cor. 5,3 the desire for death is expressed. Nor is it serious to speak of a non-existent “universal prejudice” among the Jews of that time.
Since obscure passages must be explained in the light of clear ones, and not vice versa, it is certain instead that St. Paul teaches unambiguously that all men must pass through death to reach glory. Jesus had affirmed this (Io. 12,24) and St. Paul is indignant against anyone who would think otherwise: “Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies” (I Cor. 15,36). The whole of I Cor. 15 is the application of this fundamental axiom; resurrection, which presupposes death, is the supreme truth for every Christian: it rests on the principle of the two Adams, Jesus being “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (I Cor. 15,20-22,45-49), and the whole life of St. Paul is based on the expectation of the resurrection of the dead (ibid. 30-32, cf. 58); it is impossible that “corruption (the earthly body) should inherit incorruption” unless it is annulled by death (v. 50); the whole “mystery” of glorious renewal described by St. Paul is the ultimate and definitive victory over death (I Cor. 15,26-54-57), a mystery analogous to the great mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus. “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (vv. 51-53). The context, and the open teaching of the whole chapter, impose this translation; it is instead an error to translate πάντες μὲν οὐ κομψησόμεθα, πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησόμεθα as if the construction were οἱ μὲν... οἱ δὲ; the two πάντες are opposed in the rhetorical scheme of anaphora, and both express the full universality of the resurrection, “enunciated under two aspects.”
Not even the text of 1 Thess. 4:13–18 (whose theme is “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our reunion with him”: 2 Thess. 2:1) proves that St Paul cherished the most strange illusion of escaping death, even if he did not teach II. Here the Apostle reproaches the faithful of Thessalonica for mourning their dead “as those who have no hope”; when one mourns the dead, the only heart-rending doubt that arises is whether one will ever be reunited with them; and to “console” them (vv. 13 and 18) he sets before them the glad Christian hope, founded on the resurrection of the dead (which follows from the fact that Jesus died and rose again), cf. V. 14, as also 5:10; we shall be reunited with our dead in Jesus, who will return with Jesus. And the Apostle solemnly declares “by the word of the Lord”: “We the living who survive (the present sense is certain) shall not precede those who have fallen asleep at the coming (or presence) of the Lord” (εἰς τὴν παρουσίαν has a local, not temporal, value, and refers to the verb, as is clear from the constant construction of φθάνω in St Paul) “those who have fallen asleep.” And he describes the resurrection of the dead “while the Lord himself will descend from heaven.” There will follow, then, the glad reunion of “we the survivors,” who weep at being parted from our dead, with our beloved departed: “Then we the living who survive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (cf. St John Chrysostom: PG 60, 678), “and so we shall be for ever with the Lord. Therefore console one another...” cf. St John of Damascus: PG 95, 275–277, 913–15 (and 96, 27–44). So too explain L. Simeoni, A. Piolanti, F. Spadafora, K. Staab. There is no need to construct hidden developments (hopes of an imminent cosmic end, illusions of not dying, errors about the lot of the dead, letters in which St Paul would repeat the inexact or equivocal words of his faithful...). Those who, like St John Chrysostom (PG 62, 436), saw here an allusion to the survival of those alive at the coming, exclude every illusion on St Paul’s part, and resort to the explanation: “we” (as also in 1 Cor. 15:51) is a plural by which the writer associates himself with the faithful, with the Church, of whatever time.
One cannot admit, with F. Guntermann (1932) and many others, that on this point St Paul’s thought changed with the years (between 58 and 61, in only three or four years). The non-Catholic T. A. Lacey (The Historic Christ, Eng. tr., Turin 1907, p. 122) already noted: “The words written by St Paul on two occasions (2 Cor. 5:8 and Phil. 3:11), separated by a long interval, show the continuity of his thought. His constant aspiration was, both at the beginning and at the end, to penetrate the mystery of the resurrection... by passing through death,” and in 1941 B. Allo developed the demonstration of this. No indication reveals that the Apostle in his later letters felt the need to modify or contradict what he had written a few years earlier; nor did the faithful, who heard the epistles read in public and learned them by heart, ever discern any contradiction between the earlier and the later ones.
The general theme of 2 Peter is the coming of the Lord. St Peter is about to “lay aside his tabernacle” (1:14 sqq.). He exhorts that the coming of Jesus be prepared for by Christian virtues (1:3–15): the coming of Jesus is certain, foretold by the prophets and inaugurated at the transfiguration (1:16–21 and 3:1–4); in it the wicked will be “judged” and the just rewarded (2:1–9). But no one knows when: “one day of the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”; “the day of the Lord will come as a thief,” and with cosmic dissolution the new era of the transfigured world will begin: one must therefore reject it “waiting and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord” (3:5–16).
The whole Apocalypse (q.v.), finally, describes the grand coming of Jesus, to which the Fourth Gospel often alludes (John 13:31–33; 14:18–23; 16:16–30; 1 John 2:8); it will be preceded and, in its first stages, accompanied by a long and bitter struggle between good and evil. Jesus comes also to a single person (Apoc. 2:16; 2:5; 3:3). All who go to meet Jesus will have passed through death and resurrection (ibid. 14:13; 20:6, 12–13). The “end” is considered in a very broad sense, and the final universal coming is here joined to the present personal coming, awaited and invoked (ibid. 1:7; 3:20; 22:7, 11, 12, 20; V. MARANATHA).
Even today, as in apostolic times (Heb. 9:28), one awaits, desires, and invokes the coming of the Lord. Every Christian life is comprehended in this waiting of faith, hope, and love; the liturgy of Advent, of the Spanish vigil, of the whole year, expresses this imploring expectation (cf. I. Herwegen): Jesus will repeat his coming with victorious and total efficacy. Jesus has come; Jesus comes; Jesus must come again. Three aspects of the same mysterious redemptive reality, which every believer understands, which preachers recall to urge, after Jesus, to “be ready” always (cf. St Bernard, In adventu Domini sermones VII: PL 183, 35–56).