The Christ and the History: a dialectical perspective of the Christological quarrels
José Pedro LUCHI, Helio Pedro Pretti PERIM
Original title: O Cristo e a História: uma perspectiva dialética das querelas cristológicas
Published in Art, Criticism and Mysticism
Keywords: Christology, Councils, Dialectic, Incarnation, Katabasis.
This research atempts to trace the progress of the historical and theological comprehension of the Person of Christ by exposing the positions risen before Nicea, as well as those developed during the first four ecumenic councils, in order to investigate the competence of the formulae throughout achieved. Two major works will be of aid to this quest, namely The Ecumenical Councils, by the historian Hubert Jedin, and The Incarnation of Christ, by the philosopher and theologian Hans Küng, which assumes the dinamics of the Hegelian dialect all along his work. The concepts of katabasis and anabasis, both borrowed from the mythological analysis tradition, will be summoned to the actual research and resignified by their new usage in the Judaeo-Christian theodissey. Concepts whose meanings are broadly urdestood in the Christian context like kenosis, incarnation and humanization will also be utilized. The research will climax in the Council of Chalcedon, the one in which the ultimate definition of Christ’s nature was arranged. It’s formula is crucial to understand the relationship between Jesus, God and man in the subsequent medieval thought.
The Protagoras, by Plato (c. 427-347 a. C.), in dialogue with the Ethical Writings, by Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Wilson Coimbra LEMKE; Bento Silva SANTOS
Original title: O Protágoras, de Platão (c. 427-347 a. C.), em diálogo com os Escritos Éticos, de Santo Tomás de Aquino (1225-1274)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Dialectic, Philosophy, Plato, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Virtue Ethics.
In his dialogue on the Sophists, entitled Protagoras, Plato deals with the nature of virtue, basically discussing whether it is something teachable. Some scholars, however, have designated this dialogue as aporetic, that is, inconclusive. We must, therefore, try to answer those questions that Socrates and Protagoras may have left unsolved on that occasion. Now, most of these questions were taken up in some works by Plato’s most famous disciple and, later, resolved in the Ethical Writings, by Saint Thomas Aquinas, such as the “Treatises on the virtues” (Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance), contained in the Second Part of the Summa Theologica, the Disputed Questions on the Virtues, and the Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Hence, we must consider them here in the light of the great Aristotelian-Thomist synthesis. To do so, we use the scholastic method of disputatio, in which a quaestio is debated, structured in four articles, addressed by the Athenian philosopher to the great medieval Doctor. The article first discusses whether virtue is a science. The second, whether virtue can be taught. The third, whether virtue is one or multiple. And the fourth, if someone voluntarily acts badly.
