DISSERTAZIONI DI DOTTORATO
2024-2025
INFANTINO Luca
Predestined for Adoption.
Mod.: Prof. R.P. GRANADOS ROJAS Juan Manuel, S.J.The dissertation investigates the meaning of Paul’s term for the divine filiation of believers, υἱοθεσία (“adoption”), as it occurs within the Eulogia at the beginning of Ephesians (1:3-14).
This investigation begins by discerning whether “adoption” is merely one of many gifts mentioned in a prayer of praise for the benefits God has bestowed on believers or whether it also has Iinks with the rest of the Eulogia and ramifications for its interpretation. To answer this question, it is necessary to ascertain the internal structure and organisation of the Eulogia. Having critically examined the many ways scholars have construed the text, this study ultimately endorses Aletti ‘s proposal, which has accordingly been adopted as the framework for its analysis. He interprets the single sentence that is the Eulogia as a “continuum textuelle”-a stream of thought in which each clause is governed by the preceding one (syntax en cascade).
Establishing the unity of the Eulogia – that is, demonstrating that it develops a coherent Iine of thought – is foundational to this study, as it allows for analysis using rhetorical tools. The study employs both the principles of Literary Rhetoric and those of the “New Rhetoric”. One of the aims of this analysis is to investigate how thought unfolds within the Eulogia. The findings suggest that a distinctive feature of this unfolding is the generation of an αὔξησις (incrementum), a process by which the description of divine blessings progressively expands and intensifies. The primary drivers of the αὔξησις are repetition and accumulation, both of which are prevalent in the Eulogia. These literary features, which appear in various forms both within individual verses and across different sections of the Eulogia, are examined in depth to clarify how they shape the flow of thought and to explore the meaning they convey.