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Document Details : Title: Divisions are Inevitable Subtitle: Unity and Schism in the Holy Scripture Author(s): FARRUGIA, Edward G. Journal: Revue des Études Arméniennes Volume: 41 Date: 2022 Pages: 601-613 DOI: 10.2143/REA.41.0.3291906 Abstract : Conflict is writ large in the OT and in the NT, yet both hold out the same hope for resolving division by sending Elijah on the impossible mission of solving an age-long crisis by converting the heart of the fathers to the sons and that of the sons (Lk: rebels) to the fathers (Malachy 3:1; Lk 1:17). This article takes conflict itself as a methodological — not a historical — starting-point to understand division, quite unlike Protestant exegetes Ferdinand C. Baur (d. 1860) for whom disunion seems to come before union, and unlike Walter Baur (d. 1960), for whom unorthodoxy precedes orthodoxy. From Scripture one gathers that conflict is a two-edged sword, because it can either lead to schism or to communion. Yet peace need not be postponed, if we understand it with Jn 17:24, peace on the model of the Father-Son unity, even before applying this verse to ecumenism. |
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