73 IS THE WORD OF GOD INCOMPLETE? This Christ, whose semantic content has been linked with the vocabulary of mystery and glory, is taken up again in the next phrase (1,28) by the relative clause (o]n h`mei/j katagge,llomen) and becomes the object of the apostolic proclamation. After that, the relative phrase in 1,29 (eivj o[) refers back once again to the mystery and amplifies the purpose of its proclamation 32. Both the syntactic accumulation and the semantic reversal focus on the notion of musth,rion, explaining its revelation and its contents. It is also important to notice that after centering the reader’s attention on this category, the line of thought moves toward its announcement, qualifying its pedagogy (nouqetou/ntej and dida,skontej) and its uni- versal range (pa,nta a;nqrwpon). Now the question is: what does the expression plhrw/sai to.n lo,gon tou/ Qeou/ mean within this line of thought? First, in 1,25-26 musth,rion is in apposition to lo,goj tou/ Qeou/, thus equating the word of God and the revealed mystery. If the word of God is to be brought to completion, then the mystery must also. Second, the line of thought does not suggest that the mystery is in- complete. Rather it is a mystery already revealed in Christ but still to be fully proclaimed. Third, the previous remark as well as the men- tion of plhro,w in Rom 15,14-19, together with several lexical simi- larities33, have been considered by many scholars enough evidence to interpret plhrw/sai to.n lo,gon tou/ Qeou/ as a universal broadcasting of God’s message. Nevertheless, the train of thought in 1,24-29 seems to go further in the description of preaching the mystery. Preaching the mystery’s contents includes not only the announce- ment, pedagogical attitude and universal extent of proclaiming Christ, but also the qualification of its ethical purpose. In fact the i[na clause in 1,28 constitutes an interpretive key for a better under- standing of the semantic enrichment of Christ’s mystery: its pur- pose is to present everyone as mature in Christ. In 1,28 the first person plural of pari,sthmi (also katagge,llw) should be read as pluralis maiestatis referring to Paul: the same as the first person singular (evgw/) in 1,24-25.29. The verb pari,sthmi could be interpreted in two different senses: (a) presenting a litur- Our remark corroborates that the closest referent of eivj o[ in 1,29 is the 32 relative phrase o[ evstin Cristo.j evn u`mi/n (1,27c), which refers back to mys- tery, rather than pa,nta a;nqrwpon te,leion in 1,28c. See nouqete,w (15,14); τὴν χάριν τὴν δοθεῖσάν µοι (15,15); to. 33 euvagge,lion tou/ Qeou/ (15,16.19); evqnh, (15,18). © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati