Editing Propitiation (section)

=== Contemporary Catholic theology ===
The Latin [[Vulgate]] translates ''hilasterion'' in Romans 3:25, and ''hilasmos'' in 1 John 4:10, as ''propitiationem'', and this is carried over to the [[Douay-Rheims Bible]] as "propitiation". This was also the case with the [[Confraternity Bible]] (New Testament 1941). However the promulgation of the encyclical ''[[Divino Afflante Spiritu]]'' in 1943, and the [[Second Vatican Council]] document ''[[Dei verbum]]'' in 1965, led to increased engagement with biblical manuscripts in the original languages, and ecumenical cooperation in Bible translation.<ref>Thuesen, Peter J. (1999). ''In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible''. Oxford University Press, pp. 138–141. {{ISBN|0-19-512736-6}}</ref> A [[Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition|Catholic Edition]] of the [[Revised Standard Version]] New Testament was published in 1965. And an ''imprimatur'' was granted in 1966 to the [[Oxford Annotated Bible]] with the [[Biblical apocrypha|Apocrypha]] by [[Richard Cushing|Richard Cardinal Cushing]] of Boston.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Bible: One for All at Last|publisher=Time|date=June 3, 1966|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835742,00.html}}</ref> Another ecumenical edition of the RSV was published as the Common Bible in 1973. In 1970 the first edition of the [[New American Bible]] was published. In both the RSV and the NAB, ''hilasterion'' in Romans 3:25, and ''hilasmos'' in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, are translated as "expiation."

The NAB includes a note on the use of "expiation" in Romans 3:25, explaining that "this rendering is preferable to 'propitiation,' which suggests hostility on the part of God toward sinners. As Paul will be at pains to point out (5:8-10), it is humanity that is hostile to God."<ref>''The New American Bible'' Including the Revised New Testament. Published as ''The Catholic Study Bible'' (1990). Oxford University Press p. NT 234.</ref>

[[Raymond E. Brown]] in the ''[[Jerome Biblical Commentary|New Jerome Biblical Commentary]]'' argues that in the NT sacrifice (''hilasterion'') does not appease God's wrath but is best expressed from its Jewish roots (76.89–95) as atonement or expiation (82.73).<ref>{{cite book|title=New Jerome Biblical Commentary|last=Brown|first=Raymond E.|publisher=Pearson|year=1990|isbn=0136149340|pages=1399|chapter=Pauline Theology, 82, #73}}</ref> Recent [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] studies<ref>{{cite web|date=2019-10-16|title=Is the Mass a Propitiatory or Expiatory Sacrifice?|url=https://emmanuelpublishing.org/article-categories/eucharistic-teachings/is-the-mass-a-propitiatory-or-expiatory-sacrifice/|access-date=2020-09-11|website=Emmanuel Magazine|language=en-US}}</ref> have depended heavily on the [[Trinity|Trinitarian]] perspective presented by Jesuit theologian Edward J. Kilmartin:
<blockquote>  Sacrifice is not, in the first place, an activity of human beings directed to God and, in the second place, something that reaches its goal in the response of divine acceptance and bestowal of divine blessing on the cultic community. Rather, sacrifice in the New Testament understanding – and thus in its Christian understanding – is, in the first place, the self-offering of the Father in the gift of his Son, and in the second place the unique response of the Son in his humanity to the Father, and in the third place, the self-offering of believers in union with Christ by which they share in his covenant relationship with the Father.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Eucharist in the West, History and Theology|last=Kilmartin|first=Edward J.|publisher=Liturgical Press, 1999|year=1999|isbn=0814661726|location=Collegeville, MN|pages=381f}}.</ref></blockquote>Jesuit theologian Robert Daly has explained the background for this renewed understanding. Daly points out that the initiative is entirely with the Father who "loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10 NAB), and that "when we see the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Mass as a Trinitarian event, we see that, strictly speaking, there are no recipients." He compares the Eucharist to a marriage ceremony that receives its meaning by becoming the reality of one's life.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Daly|first=Robert J.|date=2000|title=Robert Bellarmine and Post-Tridentine Eucharistic Theology|url=http://cdn.theologicalstudies.net/61/61.2/61.2.2.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://cdn.theologicalstudies.net/61/61.2/61.2.2.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|journal=Theological Studies|volume=61|issue=2|pages=260|doi=10.1177/004056390006100202|s2cid=171048687}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Daly|first=Robert J.|date=February 2003|title=Sacrifice Unveiled or Sacrifice Revisited: Trinitarian and Liturgical Perspectives|journal=Theological Studies|volume=64|issue=1|pages=24–42|doi=10.1177/004056390306400130|s2cid=170816180|issn=0040-5639}}</ref>

The French Jesuit theologian and biblical scholar Stanislas Lyonnet has explained the [[Johannine epistles|Johannine]] usage of the term, "When St. John in two different places alludes first to the heavenly intercession of Christ before the Father (1 John 2.2), and then to the work accomplished here below by His death and resurrection (1 Jn 4.10), he declares that He is or that the Father has made Him a '''hilasmos'' for our sins.' This term certainly carries the same meaning which it always has in O.T. Greek (Vulgate Ps 130.4) and which the Latin word ''propitiatio'' also always conveys in the liturgy: through Christ and in Christ, the Father achieves the plan of His eternal love (1 Jn 4.8) in 'showing Himself propitious,' that is in 'pardoning' men, by an efficacious pardon which really destroys sins, which 'purifies' man and communicates to him God's own life (1 Jn 4.9)."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Lyonett |first=Stanislas |editor-last=Léon-Dufour|editor-first=Xavier |encyclopedia=Dictionary of Biblical Theology [Vocabulaire de theologie biblique] |title=Expiation |edition=2nd, revised |year=1973 |publisher=Geoffrey Chapman |location=London |pages=156 }}</ref>

Along similar lines, the entry on "sacrifice" in the ''Theological Dictionary of the New Testament'', after reviewing the epistles of Paul and Hebrews, concludes that "total self-giving, first that of Christ, and then, on this basis, that of his people, is the true meaning of sacrifice." And Cardinal-theologian [[Walter Kasper]], in his book ''The God of Jesus Christ'', concludes that what Jesus effected was to give suffering "eternal import, the import of love." Kasper points out that [[Gregory of Nyssa]] and [[Augustine of Hippo]], working out of the New Testament, speak of a God who can freely choose to feel compassion, which implies suffering. Kasper adds that: "It is [[Origen]] who gave us the clearest statement.  In Origen's words: 'First God suffered, then he came down.  What was the suffering he accepted for us?  The suffering of love.'  Origen adds that it is not just the Son but also the Father who suffers so. This is made possible by God's freedom in love."<ref>Walter Kasper, ''The God of Jesus Christ.'' Crossroad (1986), pp. 191, 195. {{ISBN|0824507770}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite journal|last=Zupez|first=John|date=December 2019|title=Is the Mass a Propitiatory or Expiatory Sacrifice?|url=https://emmanuelpublishing.org/article-categories/eucharistic-teachings/is-the-mass-a-propitiatory-or-expiatory-sacrifice/|journal=Emmanuel|volume=125|pages=378–381}}</ref>

Currently, however, some scripture scholars contend that using the word "propitiation" was a mistranslation by [[Jerome]] from the Greek ''hilastērion'' into the Latin Vulgate,<ref name=":1">{{cite book|last=Brown|first=Raymond E.|title=New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 82: 73|publisher=Pearson|year=1989|isbn=0136149340|display-authors=etal}}</ref> and is misleading for describing the sacrifice of Jesus and its Eucharistic remembrance. One expression of the conclusion of theologians is that sacrifice "is not something human beings do to God (that would be [[propitiation#Contemporary Catholic theology|propitiation]]) but something which God does for human kind (which is expiation)."<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite journal|last=Daly|first=Robert|date=March 2003|title=Sacrifice Unveiled or Sacrifice Revisited|journal=Theological Studies|doi=10.1177/004056390306400130|s2cid=170816180}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Mulcahy|first=E|title=Cause of Our Salvation|publisher=Gregorian & Biblical Press|year=2007|isbn=978-8878390805}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Fides|first=P. S.|title=Past Event and Present Salvation|year=1989|isbn=066425036X|page=71|publisher=Westminster John Knox Press }}</ref>