Encarnación y Epéctasis en el comentario de San Gregorio de Nisa al Cantar de los Cantares

Zusammenfassung

The present work aims to emphasize that St. Gregory of Nyssa¿s teaching of epéctasis - as it is developed in his Commentary on the Song of Songs and supported by biblical and theological grounds - is tightly linked with the one of Incarnation. Neither this Book of Scripture nor its patristic interpretation offers a mere allegory; on the contrary, they both celebrate the real ¿wedding¿ of God with the humankind. Concretely, Gregory displays the articulation mentioned above following the pattern of Flp 3,12-14, whose five conceptual ¿pillars¿ are grouped in two binoms ¿ a theological one (arché¿télos) and an anthropological or rather ascetic-mystical (olvido-epéctasis) ¿ around the main axis granted by the theme of ¿infinity¿. The actual or essential Infinity of God fosters the potential infinity of the human being through his spiritual progress. Based on this hermeneutical paradigm the Cappadocian Father tries to interpret The Song of Songs as an ongoing history, of love and salvation at once. The Bride, representing at the same time the human person, the Church and humankind, cannot save herself without loving; and this love makes her plunge within an unstoppable race following the Groom who has already grasped her through his incarnated philanthropy. In fact, the main conclusion of this interpretation consists in the necessary connection between incarnation and epéctasis, as interlaced dynamical approaches of the mystery of God and mystery of human being. The Incarnation of the divine Logos is the actual origin of the process of every woman and man¿s deification. On the other hand, this process is continually growing through the existential configuration with Christ of each individual destiny, as well as of the Church and humankind altogether. In this way one can affirm according to St. Gregory of Nyssa, that epéctasis has no other finality that the constitution and perfection of the mystical body of the Incarnated Word.