PARUSIA. – A Greek term (παρουσία) which in the New Testament designates (16 times out of 24) the second coming of Jesus for the concluding phase of the messianic Kingdom.
It properly means “presence” (from παρὼν, “present”) and, by an obvious extension, “presenting oneself,” “coming”; this classical usage occurs 3 times in the Septuagint (II Mach. 8:12; 15:21; Iud. 10:18) and 6 times in St Paul
(I Cor. 10:10; etc.). The “coming with power and glory” (Mt. 24:30) of Jesus is called p. 7 times by St Paul (I Cor. 15:23 and 6 times in I-II Thess., in addition to the p. of the Antichrist in II Thess. 2:9), in Iac. 5:7, 8, in II Pt. 1:16; 3:4, 12, in I Is. 2:28, and in Mt. 24:3, 27, 37, 39. Equivalent to it are the terms: “day [of the Lord or Christ]” (17 times in St Paul: Act. 2:20; I Pt. 3:10, 12; Apoc. 16:14), “manifestation” (ἐπιφάνεια: 5 times in the Pastoral Epistles), “revelation” (ἐποκάλυψις: I Cor. 1:7; II Thess. 1:7; I Pt. 1:7, 13; 4:13). It is also called “visitation” (ἐπακοπή: Lc. 19:44; cf. 1:68, 78; 7:16; I Pt. 2:12 [c. 5:6]), according to the prophetic expression (pēquddāh: Is. 10:3; Os. 9:7; Num. 16:29 is “the death that awaits all”).
In the Hellenistic world, p. had become a technical term designating the solemn “coming” or “visit” of a king or emperor (in documents from the 3rd century B.C. to the 2nd century A.D.), celebrated with memorable festivities, sometimes marking the beginning of the reckoning of a new era. The inscription of Olbia (3rd century B.C.) relates the p. of King Saitharphanes; a papyrus from Tebtunis (ca. 113 B.C.) speaks of the feverish preparations for the p. of Ptolemy II Soter; an inscription from Tegea is dated to the 69th year of the first p. of the god Hadrian in Greece; Corinth and Patras, in memory of Nero’s p., minted coins inscribed “Adventus (=p.) Augusti”; Germanicus Caesar notified the Alexandrians (A.D. 19) that he did not wish, when he appeared (ἐνρανίζεσθαι) among them, to receive acclamations (cf. Act. 12:22) as a god (ἐσθένειες ἐσφανήσεις), since these belonged only to the emperor, “the true savior and benefactor of all humanity.” Analogous are the texts concerning the salvific “manifestation” associated with the emperor’s birth: the inscription of Priene (9 B.C.), which celebrates the good news (εὐαγγέλια) of the peace connected with his p.; the inscriptions of Paullus Fabius Maximus (9 B.C.) and of Narbo (22 September 12 B.C.), all of them possessing a “messianic” resonance like Virgil’s IV Ecloga.
In the New Testament writings, p. retains the fundamental meaning of “presence,” and can imply the sense of “return” only by virtue of the context. Like the “manifestation” (II Tim. 1:10; 4:8) or the “revelation” (I Pt. 1:7, 13) of Jesus, his p. is a presence begun with the Nativity, which will culminate in his supreme appearance as universal king and judge. Correlative to the Kingdom of God (II Tim. 4:1), which “has come” and yet must still come (Mt. 4:17; 6:10), the p. of the King-Messiah, a reality and an end toward which all things tend, assumes different aspects according to the phases of the Kingdom to which it corresponds. The p. is the renewing theophany that fills “the day” of the Lord, which is the “day of Yahweh” of the Prophets (Is. 2:12; 13:6, 10; etc.). The Incarnation too was called p. (St Ignatius, Ad Philad. 9:2: it was the first theme of the εὐαγγέλιον; perhaps II Pt. 1:16). The p. of Christ is the beginning and the epilogue, 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 final episode of the human drama; therefore, “to await the p.” (I Cor. 1:7; Phil. 3:20; Rom. 8:19-25) is not equivalent to awaiting the end of the world. Like the Kingdom of God, the p. of Christ is constantly progressive: it has opened the era of the definitive (I Cor. 10:11, “the ends of the ages have come upon us”) as “first fruits,” and will then mark the end in the full attainment of its goal (ibid. 15:23-28), when Jesus will reappear in the glory into which he will introduce all the elect (I Thess. 3:13; 4:14-17; II Thess. 1:7-10; cf. St Ignatius, Ad. Eph. 15:3).
Jesus preaches the Kingdom of God as already brought by him among humanity (Mt. 11:12; 12:28; Lc. 17:21), open to those who wish to be blessed (Mt. 5:3-11; 11:25-30), but also as still enclosed in the seed and developing little by little before being actualized (Mt. 13:24-33); this takes place slowly and without anyone noticing (Mt. 13:31-33; Mc. 4:26-29; Lc. 17:20; Is. 18:36). Although present, or in gestation, the kingdom is nevertheless future, especially as the eternal reward of individual believers at their death (Mt. 22:1-44; Lc. 14:15-24; 16:19-31). And, in connection with the mysterious advent of the Kingdom, Jesus announces his future p., impossible to determine either in time or in space (Mt. 24:25-36); it cannot be calculated in human figures or dates, since “the day” of God does not coincide with human days (II Pt. 3:8 = Ps. 89:4). The prophetic perspective, on the plane of eternity, placing the messianic advent—of capital importance for 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 make the beginning of the messianic era coincide with the end of the world; and every human being, since he places himself at the center of history, tends to confuse the absolute with what is immediate in time and space in relation to himself. Jesus insists on the moral and ascetic consequence of this essential indeterminacy of his p. in time; like the prophetic “day of Yahweh,” it is a reality ever impending over humanity, both individual and collective, terrifyingly sudden (Mt. 24:36-42, 44, 50; Lc. 12:39; 17:22-37), near because no one will escape it, when the account of life and death will be settled for all. It will surprise them “like a thief” during sleep; therefore one must “keep watch,” always be “ready” with lamps lit, doing good without ceasing (Mt. 24:36-25:13; Mc. 13:32-37; Lc. 12:35-48), even if it “delays” (Mt. 24:49; 25:5; Lc. 12:45; Hebr. 10:37; II Pt. 3:4-9), awaiting “the day and the hour” when it will descend to “demand the soul” (Lc. 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 that unfolds in three moments: the appearance of the Son of Man (Dan. 7:13 = Mt. 24:30 and 26:64), the resurrection and universal judgment, and the glorification of the saints. Within the customary biblical apparatus of theophanies (trumpet, cry, cloud, smoke, storm), amid human calamities and the convulsions of the entire cosmos (Mt. 24:6–9, 29: prophetic images of Is. 13:10; 34:4; Am. 8:9; etc.), which too has reached its final goal, Jesus with his followers will defeat in the p. all hostile forces (the flesh, sin, and death in the individual sphere; evil spirits and men in the collective sphere). Universal King-Judge, redeemer of the faithful and avenger of the oppressed, he will close the earthly militant age of the Kingdom of God in order to inaugurate its glorious heavenly age. The final act of the p. is constituted by the resurrection of the dead (I Cor. 15:26, 54–57); the risen will appear before the throne of the Messiah, «who comes upon the clouds of heaven». Jesus will judge «the living and the dead», that is, those of the past, the present, and the future, «the earthly (τῇ ζώντων) Ps. 26, 13; 51, 7; etc., in opposition to the ἀν' ἁδί) and the underworld», over which he has every power (Phil. 2:10; for «the heavenly» cf. I Cor. 5:3): the formula of apostolic catechesis, «the living and the dead» (Act. 10:42; II Tim. 4:1; I Pt. 4:5), which entered the Creed, must be understood in relation to the person reciting it (s. Thomas, Suárez), since it is obvious that, after the universal resurrection, all will be alive. Once the just have been taken into glory and the wicked cast into the eternal fire (Mt. 25:31–46), there will occur the reunion of those whom death had separated: «together» (ὅμα σόνο) they will shine in the procession of the divine King, with whom they will rejoice in his love and in that of their dear ones restored to them (I Thess. 3:13; 4:17; Apoc. 7:4–17; 14:1–5; cf. Dante, Paradiso, XXII, 97–110). A precursor of the p. antichrist (v.), who brings about «the mystery of iniquity» and sweeps people into «apostasy»: Jesus will destroy him «by the manifestation of his p.» (II Thess. 2:3–12). On the «signs» of the p., cf. Didaché, 16, 3–8.
As for the time of the p., Jesus declared it unknowable (Mt. 24:36; Act. 1:7). In Mc. 13:32 he specifies that «that day and hour» are known only to the Father, «neither to the angels nor to the Son»: he emphatically asserts here that the power to establish it belongs (by appropriation) to the Father (whose every secret Jesus knows: Mt. 11:27); what is at issue here is not theoretical information, but the awe-inspiring, undisclosable mystery, which «imposes unceasing vigilance». The Holy Office condemned (5 June 1918) Catholics who, following H. Klee (1848) and H. Schell (1893), restricted Jesus’ knowledge (Denz-U, nn. 2183–85), thereby specifying the condemnation of propositions 33–34 of the decree Lamentabili (3 July 1907; Denz-U, n. 2033 ff.).
J. Weiss (Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, Gottlinga 1892, revised edition 1900), followed by A. Loisy and A. Schweitzer, claimed that the messianism of Jesus was purely eschatological, based on the imminence of his glorious p., which was to inaugurate the Kingdom of God; Christianity would have arisen from this illusion concerning the end of the world. But Jesus did not consider the end of the world near: he founded the apostolate and the Church, and preached a morality of familial and social stability. He did indeed predict his vindication within the course of a generation (Mt. 10:23; 16:28; 24:23–28 and 34; 26:64; the discourse on the p. in Lc. 17:22–37); but these allusions to Jesus’ imminent return certainly refer 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; Mc. 13), many Catholics distinguish the end of Jerusalem from the end of the world; but it is better to understand everything 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 was effectively refuted within the Protestant liberal sphere itself, first of all by H. Windisch; R. Bultmann (v. BIBLICA., p. 39) observes that Jesus’ preaching «is in no way 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 p. as lying many centuries in the future, deducing this above all from the founding of the Church upon Peter (Mt. 16:16–19); P. Busch, finally, sees in the «synoptic apocalypse» a strong warning against the illusion of an imminent p., rightly identifying the predicted «tribulation» with the long messianic Kingdom on earth.
The mentality of those who continued Jesus’ preaching was no different. In Christianity, the mystery of Christ’s eschatological coming is placed at the center of history and in the depths of souls. But it does not at all follow that in the first century the end of the world was expected more intensely than among earlier or later generations. The expectation or fear of cosmic catastrophe emerges in every human generation, accompanied by predictions, omens, and calculations; on the other hand, Christian preachers, from Jesus and the Apostles onward, constantly inculcate fear of the last things. It follows only that among the faithful of Thessalonica, around the year 52, there were some who were «frightened» by the prospect of the end, and St. Paul exhorts them not to believe that «the day of the Lord is imminent» (II Thess. 2:2); nothing more. Like Jesus, the Apostles refuse to concern themselves with the time of the supreme p., and they take advantage of every question on the subject to recommend vigilance and persevering action over the long term (Act. 1:6–8; I Thess. 5:1–11; II Pt. 3:4–14; Apoc. 3:3; 16:15); like Jesus, St. Paul describes the precursor «signs» of the p., which must strengthen moral resistance (Mt. 24:21–27; II Thess. 2:3–12). The apostolic injunction is ascetic («to keep watch»), since Christ’s judgment always hangs over the world, and mystical: Jesus is present, yet he must be desired, his return hastened, and he must be met as one runs toward him.
St. Paul always taught the universality of death (Rom. 5:12–21; I Cor. 15:22; Hebr. 9:27; cf. Gen. 3:19; Eccle. 12:7; Ps. 88:49). The entire redemptive economy that he expounded is summed up in the antithesis of death and life, in the succession of two aeons: the tribulation of the present time and future glory; and the sole passage between the two is that already traversed by the Redeemer: death and resurrection (Rom. 8:11–17 ff., 23; II Cor. 4:17). A positive man of perfect balance, who never denied obvious experience and common sense, St. Paul never doubted that he and his disciples would have to die and then rise again.
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 Datierung 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. Joüon, in Recherches de sc. rel., 29 [1938], p. 89 ff.) and that «to die is gain»; he expresses this desire for bodily death several times (Rom. 7:24), as do all the saints, because «to be separated from the body» is an indispensable condition for being united with the Lord (II Cor. 5:6–8). While awaiting death, Paul is wholly directed toward the expectation of the p. (Phil. 3:13–21; II Tim. 4:8), the culmination of hope and salvation; meanwhile, the union of the heavenly and the earthly continues to be accomplished in Jesus (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 close to the “end of the things” of the world (Hebr. 10, 25, 37; Iac. 5, 8; I Pt. 4, 7; I Io. 2, 18). When the Apostles proclaim “the Lord is near” (Phil. 4, 5; Rom. 13, 11; Iac. 5, 8; Apoc. 3, 20), this concerns a spatial-spiritual rather than a temporal proximity; it is the presence of Jesus already living among his own (Mt. 18, 20; 28, 20; Io. 14, 3-23), in which the whole theology of Grace is contained. 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 unite themselves from now on, by living with Christ, to his p., which will also be the p. of his faithful (Col. 5, 4; Hebr. 9, 28; I Pt. 5, 4; I Io. 2, 28; 3, 2). The “nearness of the Lord” is a motive for fear, like the intrusion of a thief (I Thess. 5, 2-4; II Pt. 3, 10; Apoc. 1, 3; 16, 15), for austerity (Rom. 13, 11 ff.; I Cor. 7, 29-32; II Cor. 6, 2), but also for joy (Phil. 4, 4-6). Because it is connected with death and judgment, the p. must be awaited with anguish and trust, since it is the passage from the precarious to the eternal (II Cor. 4, 14-17; Rom. 8, 18-25).
The Apostle was in continual contact with death, for which he was always ready and whose expectation was familiar to him; he swears that he is “in danger every hour; every day I am exposed to death,” and that only the hope of resurrection after death gives him courage (I Cor. 15, 30-32); in constant danger of death, he hopes only “in the God who raises the dead” (II Cor. 1, 8 ff.), and glories in this life of risk and infirmity of his: entire chapters insist on this theme (II Cor. 4, 7-17; 11, 23-33; 12, 5-10). S. Paolo teaches that all will be judged according to what they did “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, in order 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, in expectation of the resurrection). And the Christian economy that Paolo foresees on earth requires many centuries: among other things, he hopes to save only “some” Jews, while their mass (τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῶν) will come to Christ much later than his death, after “the time of the Gentiles has been fulfilled” (Lc. 21, 24).
But many exegetes, including Catholics, maintain that s. Paolo, conforming to the alleged opinion of the Christians of his time, hoped not to die, believing the p. to be imminent. The first Catholics to attribute to Paolo and the Apostles the error or illusion of the imminence (whether desired or feared) of the 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 during the 20th century, down to F. Guntermann (1932), who maintains that for s. Paolo death and resurrection were a purely theoretical possibility, since he expected the p. of the Lord very shortly and preached its nearness. It is sufficient to cite F. Prat, La théologie de St Paul, I, 12ª ed. (Parigi 1924), p. 89, for all of them: “An undeniable fact: the Christians of the apostolic age believed themselves to have reached the end of time... Their error, consisting partly of desire and hope, was connected with the universal prejudice... perhaps also with a false interpretation of the Savior’s saying” (Mt. 24, 34); and he adds that nothing prevents s. Paolo from having “shared the common illusion,” although he did not teach II. He further specifies that s. Paolo always “taught that the last generation of the just would be clothed with immortality without passing through death” (p. 90), and invokes in support of this “the clear affirmations, 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, as does more fully B. Allo in his commentary (Deuxième aux Corinthiens, Parigi 1936, pp. 124-29), where he demonstrates that II Cor. 5, 3 expresses the desire for death. Nor is it serious to speak of a nonexistent “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 s. Paolo teaches unambiguously that all human beings must pass through death in order to attain glory. Jesus had affirmed this (Io. 12, 24), and s. Paolo is indignant at anyone who might think otherwise: “Fool! What you sow cannot attain the flourishing of life unless it first dies” (I Cor. 15, 36). And the whole of chap. 15 of I Cor. is the application of this fundamental axiom; the resurrection, which presupposes death, is the supreme truth for every Christian: it rests on the principle of the two Adams, since Jesus is “the firstfruits of those who sleep” (I Cor. 15, 20-22, 45-49), and the whole life of s. Paolo is based on the expectation of the resurrection of the dead (ibid. 30-32, cf. 58); it is impossible for “corruption (the earthly body) to inherit incorruption” unless it is abolished by death (v. 50); the whole “mystery” of glorious renewal described by s. Paolo is the ultimate and definitive victory over death (I Cor. 15, 26-54-57), a mystery analogous to the great mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. “In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet, on the one hand we shall all no longer be in sleep, and on the other we shall all be transformed: the dead will rise incorruptible, and we (therefore) will be transformed, since it is necessary that (through death, annihilated by the resurrection: cf. vv. 55-56) this (our) corruptible and mortal body put on incorruption and immortality” vv. 51-53). The context, and the manifest teaching of the entire chapter, impose this translation; it is instead an error to translate πάντες μὲν οὐ χομυγῆσάμεθα, πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησάμεθα, as though the construction were οὐ πάντες... ἀλλὰ; the two πάντες are opposed in the rhetorical pattern of anaphora, and each expresses the full universality of the resurrection, stated under two aspects.
Nor does the text of I Thess. 4:13–18 (whose subject is “the p. of Our Lord Jesus Christ and our reunion in him”: II Thess. 2:1) demonstrate that s. Paul cultivated the very strange illusion of escaping death, even if … he did not teach II. There the Apostle reproaches the faithful of Thessalonica because they were mourning their dead “like those who have no hope”; when the dead are mourned, the sole grievous doubt that arises is whether one will ever be reunited with them; and in order to “console them” (vv. 13 and 18), he sets before them the joyful Christian hope, founded on the resurrection of the dead (which derives from the fact “that Jesus died and rose again,” V. 14, as also 5:10): we shall be reunited with our dead in Jesus, and they will return with Jesus. And the Apostle solemnly declares “by the word of the Lord”: “We who are alive, who remain (the present sense is certain), shall not precede, at the presence (or coming) of the Lord (εἰς τὴν παρυσίαν has a local, not temporal, meaning, and refers to the verb, as is evident from the consistent construction of φθάνο in s. Paul), those who have fallen asleep.” And he describes the resurrection of the dead “while the Lord himself will descend from heaven.” Thus the joyful reunion of “us who remain,” mourning the separation from our dead, with the dear departed will follow: “Then we who are alive (here it cannot refer to those who will not have died at that time, since after the resurrection all will be alive), who remain, shall be taken up together with them on the clouds to meet the Lord in the air (cf. s. John Chrysostom: PG 60, 678), and thus (we who remain today reunited with our dead of today) shall be forever with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another … cf. s. John Damascene: PG 95, 275–277, 913–15 (and 96, 27–44). L. Simeone, A. Piolanti, F. Spadafora, and K. Staab explain it in the same way. There is no need to construct implicit episodes (hopes [i] of the imminent cosmic end, illusions of not dying, errors concerning the fate of the dead, letters to s. Paul in which he would repeat the inaccurate or ambiguous words of his faithful …). Those who, like s. John Chrysostom (PG 62, 436), saw here an allusion to the survival of the contemporaries of the p. excluded any illusion on s. Paul’s part and resorted to enallage: “we” (as also in I Cor. 15:51) would be a plural by which the writer associates himself with the faithful, with the Church, of every age.
It cannot be admitted, with F. Guntermann (1932) and so many others, that on this point Paul’s thought changed over the years (between 58 and 61, in only 3 or 4 years). The non-Catholic T. A. Lacey (II Cristo storico, Italian trans., Turin 1907, p. 122) already observed: “The words written by s. Paul on two occasions (II Cor. 5:8 and Phil. 3:11), separated by a long interval of time, show the continuity of his thought. His constant aspiration, both at the beginning and at the end, was to penetrate the mystery of the resurrection … by passing through death,” and in 1941 B. Allo developed the demonstration of this point. No indication reveals that in his later letters the Apostle felt the need to modify or deny what he had written a few years earlier; nor did the faithful, who read the epistles publicly and learned them by heart, ever discern contradictions between the earlier and the later ones.
The general theme of II Pt. is the p. of the Lord. S. Peter is about to “lay down his tabernacle” (1:14 ff.). He exhorts his readers to prepare for the coming of Jesus through the Christian virtues (1:3–15): the p. of Jesus is certain, foretold by the Prophets and inaugurated in 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 it will occur: one day of God is a thousand years for us, and vice versa: “the day of the Lord will come like a thief,” and with the cosmic dissolution the new age of the transfigured world will begin; it is therefore necessary to keep watch, both awaiting and hastening toward the p. of the day of the Lord” (3:5–16).
Apocalypse (v.), finally, describes the majestic p. of Jesus, to which the Fourth Gospel often alludes (Io. 13:31–33; 14:18–23; 16:16–30; I Io. 3:8); it will be preceded and, in its initial stages, accompanied by a long and fierce struggle between good and evil. Jesus also comes to a single person (Apoc. 2:16; 2:5; 3:3). All those who go to meet Jesus will have passed through death and resurrection (ibid. 14:13; 20:6, 12–13). The “end” is considered in the broadest sense, and the final universal p. is joined there to the present personal p., awaited and invoked (ibid. 1:7; 3:20; 22:7, 11, 12, 20; V. MARANATHA).
Today also, as in apostolic times (Hebr. 9:28), the p. of the Lord is awaited, desired, and invoked. Every Christian life is summed up in this expectation of faith, hope, and love; the liturgy of Advent, of the Easter Vigil, and of the entire year expresses this pleading expectation (cf. I. Herwegen): Jesus will repeat his coming with victorious and total efficacy. Jesus has come; Jesus is coming; Jesus must still come. Three aspects of the same mysterious redemptive reality, which every believer understands and which preachers recall in order to exhort us, after Jesus, to “be ready” always (cf. s. Bernard, In adventum Domini sermones VII: PL. 183, 35–56).
The Pontifical Biblical Commission (18 June 1915: Denz-U, nos. 2179–81) asks Catholics not to maintain that s. Paul, or another Apostle, expressed, even without teaching it, the erroneous personal opinion that the p. was near (responsum I); for “everything that the inspired writer affirms, states, or implies” derives as such from the Holy Spirit (responsum II); the words of I Thess. 4:15–17 ἥλεις οἱ Ὑπνῶς οἱ περὶ Ἀντιδύσῳνων in no way affirm that the p. would take place while s. Paul and his recipients were still alive (responsum III). The learned commentary on this document by L. Méchineau (in Civ. Catt., 1918–20) is always useful, and should be supplemented by L. Billot, La parousie, Paris 1920.
Num et quomodo docente s. Petro (Act. 3, 19 n.; II Pt. 3, 12) Parusium accelerare possimus?, in Verbum Domini, 18 (1938), pp. 209-307; id., «... Appropriquat redemptio vestra », ibid., pp. 334-37; D. Busy, St Paul et st Matthieu, in Recherches de sc. rel., 28 (1938), pp. 420-42; L. Simonne, Resurrectionis iusto-rum doctrina in epistolis s. Pauli, Roma 1938, pp. 15-82; L. de Witte, La Christ a-t-il prédit la fin du monde?, in Collectanea Mechlinensia, 24 (1939), pp. 519-39; L. Gry, La date de la Parousie d'après l' Epistula Apostolorum, in Revue biblique, 49 (1940), pp. 86-97; F. Vaccari, Il discorso eucarologico nei Vangeli, in La scuola cattolica, 68 (1940), pp. 5-22; B. Allo, L' éculition à de « l'Évangile de Paul » (II), in Vivre et penser, 1 (1941), pp. 170-83; F. Segarra, Precipuae D.N. J. Christi sententiar eschatologica... expositae, Madrid 1942; G. Thils, L'enseignement de st Pierre, Parigi 1943, pp. 154-65; P. Morant, Die Zukunfts-erswartungen des Neuen Bundes (Biblische Beiträge, 6), Baden 1945; I. Herwegen, L'Écriture Ste dans la liturgie, in La Maison-Dico, 5 (1946), pp. (7-20) 14-16; E. Walter, Das Kommen des Herrn, 2 voll., Friburgo in Br. 1947-48; A. Feuillet, La synthèse eschatologique de st Matthieu, in Revue biblique, 56 (1949), pp. 340-364; 57 (1950), pp. 62-91, 180-211; A. Piulanti, De novicissis, 3e ed., Torino-Roma 1950, pp. 6-7, 121-25; F. Spadafora, Gesù e la fine di Gerusalemme, Rovigo 1950; K. Staab, Die Thessalonischerbriefe... (Das N. Test. übersetzt., di A. Wikenhauser e O. Kuss, 7), Ratisbona 1950, pp. 28-31; «2) Acattolici: H. L. Strack-P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum N. Test. aus Talmud u. Midrasch, IV, Monaco 1928, pp. 977-1015; H. Windisch, Der Sinn der Bergpredigt, Lipsia 1929; R. Bultmann, Die Erforschung der synoptischen Evangelien, Giessen 1930, pp. 11-40; M. Goguel, Parousie et résurrection, in Rev. d'hist et de philos. rel., 10 (1930), pp. 371-409; A. Schwaitzer, Die Mystik des Apostels Paulus, Tubinga 1930, pp. 42-96, 111-74, 219-38; H. D. Wendland, Die Eschatologie des Reiches Gottes bei Jesus, Gütersloh 1931; id., Geschichtsanschauung und Geschichtbewusstsein im N. Test., Gottling 1938; E. Holmström, Das eschatologische Denken der Gegenwart (trad. dal danese), Gütersloh 1933; W. T. Hahn, Das Mistertzen u. Mitanferstehen mit Christus bei Paulus. Ein Beitrag zum Problem der Gleichzeitigkeit der Christen mit Christus, Gütersloh 1937; J. Hering, Le Royaume de Dieu et sa venue selon Jésus et selon l'apôtre Paul, Parigi 1937; F. Busch, Zum Verständnis der synoptischen Eschatologie: Markus 13 neu untersucht (Ntl. Forsch., II), Gütersloh 1938; E. Haack, Eine exegetische-dogen Studie zur Eschatologie über I Thess. 4, 13-18, in Zeitschr. f. systematische Theologie, 15 (1938), pp. 544-60; W. Michaelis, Der Herr verzicht nicht die Verheissung. Die Aussagen Jesu über d. Nähe des Jüngsten Tages, Gütersloh 1942; O. Cullmann, Le retour du Christ, Neuchâtel 1945. Antonino Romeo