Teologiczny sens „ethnos” w Ewangelii Świętego Mateusza

Abstract

In the Old Testament and Early Christian tradition there occurs the concept of a nation in its lay and religious sense. One of these terms, used by the biblical authors of the New Testament to express the reality of a nation, was the term ethnos. St Matthew's Gospel presents an original vision of a nation against the background of other books of the New Testament. That is why an analysis of this term in that Gospel brings forth many interesting conclusions. At the lay level ethnos bears many anthropogenetic, somatic and psychic characteristics; at the religious level ethnos means one great nation created by God and led through history to eschatology. It does not mean that this new nation levels historical nations. For the Editor of St Matthew Gospel it is an intermediate category between people and the Kingdom of God. God creates His Kingdom by virtue of nations. Consequently the large number of nations are bound together by Christ and his Kingdom which marches through the nations giving them a new dimension. In this sense nation – ethnos – is a certain substructure of the Church.