Olena Syrtsova. The Apocalypse of Theotokos and the question of the merciful eschatology in II–V centuries. Vol. 3. No. 2. 2018

Publication Details

The Apocalypse of Theotokos and the question of the merciful eschatology in II–V centuries
Title in the language of publication: Апокалипсис Богородицы и вопрос о милосердной эсхатологии во II–V веках.
Author:
Olena Syrtsova
PhD in Philosophy, Senior Research Fellow at the Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Address: 4 Treuchsviatitelskaia, Kyiv 01001, Ukraine.
Issue:
P. 358–386.
Language: Russian
Document type: Research Article
 
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Abstract

The collation of the oldest manuscripts of the Apocalypse of Theotokos with the content of the Apocalypse of Peter, the Apocalypse of Paul, the oldest versions of the Dormition of Theotokos, the Book of Henoch (II), the Apocalypse of Esdra and other apocryphal texts allows to reconsider the traditional views on the comparatively late origin of the Apocalypse of Theotokos: it should not be excluded that it appeared in the III–IV centuries, and the significantly more reserved, if not polemical position of the author of both first and second redactions of the Apocalypse of Paul relatively to the idea of the final complete abolition of the everlasting punishments comparably to the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of Theotokos should be estimated as well. The ideas of a possibility for the final mercy for the damned sinners reflected in these earlier Apocalypses are considered as coherent in moral and anagogical senses with the conception of apocatastasis of the hope of Clement of Alexandria and the idea of the total apocatastasis of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. Тhe testimony of Augustin about many variants (besides the Origenian one), in which the idea of the impossibility of everlasting tortures for the sinners and admission of the temporary interruption and even final abolition of the punishments was spread during the III–IV centuries, attests not only the then existence of the representations about the possibility of temporary relief for the damned, which find their echo in the apocryphal Apocalypse of Paul, but also of the Christian belief that all the damned could be finally saved due to the prayers of the saints, which was expressed in the Apocalypse of Peter and especially in the ekteneia of the Mother of God іn thе Нell, described in the Apocalypse of Theotokos. The main idea of the Greek, few Slavonic and one Georgian versions has just constituted the perspective of the final interruption of sufferings in the other world.

Keywords

Apocalypse of Peter, Apocalypse of Paul, Apocalypse of Theotokos, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, eschatology.

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