Mysterium Paschale

The book began as a monograph-sized article for the volume 3/2 of the dogmatic encyclopedia Mysterium Salutis (1965-1976), which was intended as a complete treatment of the mystery of salvation in Catholic theology. Balthasar wrote several sections, but he was not initially asked to author this one on the paschal mystery. The editors had commissioned the article from another collaborator, and when he refused because he was sick, Balthasar was called to replace him at short notice and had to write hastily. The article (197 pages in the original) was published almost simultaneously also in book form, with the title Theologie der drei Tage. ==Content==

Mysterium Paschale offers an account of the death and resurrection of Christ, and their significance for the Christian life. Balthasar discusses the "bodiliness" of the Resurrection from the "radical" death of Jesus, involving his descent into the place of the dead on Holy Saturday. Balthasar's willingness to assume the nature and the consequence of his sin makes him, as well as the reader, extrapolate that God can endure and conquer godlessness, abandonment, and death. His exegesis emphasizes that Jesus was not betrayed but surrendered and delivered up by himself, since the meaning of the Greek word used by the New Testament, paradidonai (παραδιδόναι, ), is unequivocally "handing over of self". In the 1972 "Preface to the Second Edition", Balthasar takes a cue from Revelation (Vulgate: agni qui occisus est ab origine mundi, NIV: "the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world") to push the theology of the Cross from the immanent Trinity up to the economic One, so that "God is love" consists in an "eternal super-kenosis". In the words of Balthasar himself: "At this point, where the subject undergoing the 'hour' is the Son speaking with the Father, the controversial 'Theopaschist formula' has its proper place: 'One of the Trinity has suffered.' The formula can already be found in Gregory Nazianzen: 'We needed a...crucified God'." But while theopaschism indicates only a Christological kenosis (or kenotic Christology), instead Balthasar supports a Trinitarian kenosis: "The persons of the Trinity constitute themselves as who they are through the very act of pouring themselves out for each other." This allows to clearly distinguish his idea from Subordinationism. ==See also==