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Document Details : Title: Le cours du Jourdain à travers l'Église primitive Author(s): TEN KATE, A.A.S. Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Volume: 80 Issue: 1 Date: April 2004 Pages: 167-173 DOI: 10.2143/ETL.80.1.504562 Abstract : In the history of the Church, the river Jordan has acquired a rather negative function. As a point of demarcation between life and death it took on a function similar to the Styx and other rivers, which had to be crossed in order to reach the underworld. This attribution was an accommodation to the Hellenistic environment. In the earliest history of both Judaism and Christianity, however, the river had a positive function, namely that of reflecting the abundance of the messianic age (c.q. the coming Kingdom). Its earliest attestations are of liturgical origin; both in the baptismal liturgies and in the catechetic teachings, the Jordan symbolises the arrival in the Promised Land with all its benefits. The liturgical function of the Jordan should, therefore, be reappraised as the origin of the hope from which the Church lives. |
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