Cullmann on Salvation as History

Summary

Oscar Cullmann sees salvation history as a "göttliche, von uns zunächst unabhängige Geschichte" (p.10), which does not obey the historiographical approach of scientific history in reconstructing a network of events chained by cause and effect (p.37; p.59) and finds faith to be directed toward the historical, even if not the academic historiography, as Cullmann phrases the problem in discussion of Gerhard von Rads Theologie des AT:

... der Glaube [ist] zwar nicht von der durch die historisch-kritische Wissenschaft erarbeitete Historie abhängig, wohl aber doch durch sie auf Geschichte als Objekt jener Glaubensdeutung verwiesen .... (p.36)

For Cullmann, the coupling of eschatology and salvation history is provided by a New Testament conception of time that combines the "schon" with the "noch nicht" (p.44; p.20).

Oscar Cullmann's work is a reaction to the existential-philosophical approach of Rudolf Bultmann in the spirit of Heidegger. According to Cullmann, Bultmann and his students interpreted eschatology as a point event (p. 23; 25; 27-29), as "existentiell punktuelle Eschatologie" that is the opposite to a salvation history. It is equally a criticism of the work of Albert Schweitzer and his students (p.12ff), who had pointed to the processing of the parousia delay as the core origin of salvation history in the New Testament. Indeed, for Bultmann student E. Fuchs, the end of the Law was synonymous with the end of History (p.30). In the Bultmann school, men like Conzelmann in his analysis of Luke, Mitte der Zeit, made Luke guilty of inventing the concept of salvation history (p.26), even if that result was relativized the work of Philhauer (p.28) and Grässer (p.28f).

Cullmann sees the resurgence of the question of the historical Jesus, which Schweitzer had demolished as a question and Bultmann rejected (p.30) as a necessary consequence of the lack of historical depth to the Bultmann conception. 

Wer von einer Kontinuität zwischen dem historischen Jesus und dem Christus des urgemeindlichen Glaubens redet, redet damit implizit von Heilsgeschichte, ob er will oder nicht. ... obwohl diejenigen, die die Diskussion ins Leben gerufen haben, sich ausdrücklich gegen eine Verquickung mit Heilsgeschichte verwahren. (p.34)

From Gerhard von Rad's Theologie des ATs, Cullmann learns that

Entwicklung der Traditionen ist selbst Heilsgeschichte und steht in Kontinuität mit dem ursprünglichen Geschehen (p.35), 

even if these experiences were initially localized to individual tribes (p.36).

Not uninterestingly, Cullmann discusses H. Ott's attempt to get past Bultmann and a bit toward Barth by reducing the level of mythology suspected in the New Testament, although Cullmann concludes with some resignation:

Aber letzten Endes kommen für OTT wie für BULTMANN doch nur diejenigen eschatologischen Aussagen in Betracht, in denen sich der individuelle Glaubenszeuge in seinem Existenzverständnis ange- || sprochen weiß. (pp.44f)

Ott is interesting here because he wrote the RGG3 entry on Heilsgeschichte.

In his discussion of Hermeneutics, Cullmann again shows that he has a Barthian assumption of the prior of the divine action that is independent.

Heißt Glaube bei Paulus nicht gerade, daß daran geglaubt wird, daß ein anderer das Heilswerk schon für mich vollbracht hat, aber für mich, weil eben ganz und gar unabhängig von mir, unabhängig auch von meinem Glauben? (p.51)

Though Cullmann pays lipservice to the Vorverständnis, he insists on a "neutralen Erforschung von Ereignissen" (p.51) without explaining what that might be.

Wenn die im Neuen Testament gemeinte Glaubensentscheidung wirklich unsere Selbsteinreihung in jene Ereignisfolge fordert, so darf diese Ereignisfolge gerade nicht in dem genannten Sinne entmythologisiert, d.h. nicht enthistorisiert, nicht entobjektiviert werden. Das heißt aber, daß die Mitteilung über diese---wenn auch gedeuteten---Ereignisse zunächst als gegenständlicher Ereignisbericht ernst zu nehmen ist. (p.52) 

Because Cullmann pooh-poohs Vorverständnis, he then cannot understand that the Hermeneutic Theory in the style of Gadamer that the Bultmann School is using is based on a shared anthropology and gives no guarantee of understanding at all.

Einen Text einer heidnischen Religion vermag ich ja auch richtig zu interpretieren, ohne dieser Religion anzugehören, sonst wäre alle Religionswissenschaft unmöglich. (p.53)

Of course Cullmann is correct in observing that understanding is not the same as agreement, and that the message need not be accepted if it is received (p.53). But he then calls that interpretation of what the text says prior to its kerygmatic acceptance the proper "Vorverständnis" (p.54). Furthermore, Cullmann believes that the circle of interpretation means that that

ich mir einigermaßen sicher bin, daß mein Glaube demjenigen der ersten Christen adäquat ist  (p.54)

a situation that Gadamer's theory would never permit one to detect.

Cullmann observes that the NT uses salvation plan, via oikonomia, rather than history (p.57), which carried over into the work of Irenaeus of Lyons (pp.57f).

The main difference between a history of philosophy and salvation history is the selection principle of the events: the philosophy uses some philosophical principle, while the salvation history uses revelation (pp.58f). The resulting event selection need not coalesce into a narrative and may have gaps along the timeline, the skipping of whole periods of time (p.59).

As a result, Cullmann has to deal with the criticism that the salvation history is not much like history at all (p.59). Though Cullmann has a separate chapter on this, the basic idea is that there is analogy between history proper and salvation history, given by their connected series of events (p.59); the space that salvation history has for human resistance, "Unheilsgeschichte" (p.60); and the historical nature of the core events of the salvation history, foremost of which is the crucifixion of Jesus (p.60).

Against Bultmann, Cullmann probably rightfully points out, that eschatology means "final time" (Endzeit), not "time of decision" (Entscheidungszeit), and that he will stick with that form of the terminology (pp.60f). Of course, for Bultmann and his students, as Cullmann himself pointed out with respect to Ernst Fuchs (p.30; cf. p.68 Fn 2), the end of the law is also the end of time. Cullmann needs that sense of course to maintain the connection to salvation time.

Cullmann sees "apocalypse" as proximate to "eschatology" (p.62), though he shares some of the speculative criticism (p.63) and wants to predominantly use it as a literary form label (p.63). If there is any temporal orientation, it is usually via the notion of the two eons (p.63). Cullmann claims that to Bultmann and his school, apocalyptic is whatever is not kerygmatic (p.63), but rejects such pejorative use of the word.

Wir werden als Wesensmerkmal aller biblischen Eschatologie feststellen, daß das kosmische Geschehn mit historischem Geschehen heilsgeschichtlich so verbunden wird, daß die Kosmologie sozusagen entmythologisiert und historisiert wird; ferner, daß alles kosmische Geschehen mit dem Menschheitsgeschehen verknüpft und auf diese Weise der Kosmos in die Sünde und die Erlösung einbezogen wird. (p.64)

[[RCK: This reconstruction, though appropriate for understanding the biblical notion of cosmos and eschatology, is also a prime example for why de-mythologizing is not optional. The idea that human sin somehow affected a cosmos that had begun running its processes billions of years before is odd to the modern ear.]]

Cullmann warns that not all cosmological eschatology, such as Mk 13 and parallel, need be formation of the congregation, just because they express views that are inconvenient,

als sei jede kosmische Zukunftsaussage Entartung wahrer Eschatologie. (p.65)

Cullmann then points out that the continuation of the OT salvation history in the NT is due to the prophecy -- fulfillment scheme that the early Christians use from the very beginning; he points to 1 Kor 15:3, a very old creed, with its reference kata tas graphas (p.67). These old creeds also identify the core events of that history of salvation (p.67). This import relationship means that the understanding of OT salvation history is a key to understanding NT salvation history (p.68). Cullmann is ready to admit the historical process that underpins the construction of the salvation history.

Wir werden ... sehen, daß schon im Alten Testament das Gesamtverständnis des heilsgeschichtlichen göttlichen Plans im Zusammenhang || mit immer neuen Gegenwartsereignissen evoluiert und zum Teil bereits tiefgreifende Wandlungen durchmacht. (pp.69f)

Cullmann is adamant that the process of evolving understanding causes mutual shifts in interpretation with respect to the old and the new.

Heilsgeschichte entsteht also nicht durch bloße Addition von Geschehnissen, die im Glauben als Heilsereignisse erkannt sind, sondern jedesmal werden zugleich auch an der Interpretation der vergangenen Heilsereignisse Korrekturen im Licht der neuen vorgenommen. (p.71)

[[RCK: This logic is not surprising,  this is the only way the Christian claim of the NT as completing or closing the OT can even be implemented.]]

Cullmann also wants to integrate the act of interpretation (Deutung) into salvation history.

Wir werden sehen daß diese Einbeziehung der Heilsmitteilung in die Heilsereignisse für das Neue Testament ganz wesentlich ist. Sie ist aber auch im Alten Testament bald implizit, bald explizit vorhanden. (p.71)

Cullmann insists that the prophet is an eye witness---an antidote to Doketism (p.73) and an even more decisive criterion for the resurrection (p.83)---of the event that receives an interpretation from within a salvation historic plan---though the prophets do not always give the full plan (Gesamtschau), while the alignment with the other prophets, eschatology and pre-history can be viewed as a later process of reflection (p.72).

In the Old Testament, the core conviction of the salvation plan is the selection of Israel as God's chosen people

[Der Mittelpunkt des göttlichen Heilsplans im OT ist, RCK] die Erwählung Israels zum Heil der Menschheit .... (p.74)

The prophet has only witnessed his own event; all the others he has received via the tradition of writing and liturgy, just as the present day people have (p.74). And it is from the new event that the old kerygma is restructured (p.75), which in turn refers to the individual events. [[RCK: Cullmann tries to make this restructuring as dynamic as possible, using a concept pair of Kontinuität und Kontingenz, which also allows him to bundle in the problem of human resistance and sin; cf. (pp.104ff).]]

Cullmann knows that the overall salvation plan contains myths and legends adjacent to events, both couched in terms of narrative, but he insists that this need not imply an equivalence of myth and event (p.75) and that all such cases subordinate the myth to the event and use it to illustrate the event (p.76)---a discussion he promises to have on pages pp.117ff.

Cullmann claims that the difficulty of separating the narratives into event and legend have led modern interpreters of the Bible (Exegeten) to discard the question and focus on the kerygma; but he finds that unhelpful, as the kerygma is tied back to events in his notion, and thus historical.

Was für Ereignisse haben Jesus selbst zu dem von ihm gebrachten Kerygma veranlaßt? (p.76)

Thus he believes that interpreters are scared of the hard work of digging for the historical kernel that supports every event depicted (p.77), but does not seem to consider the possibility that something might lack any historical truth. Thus, he can propose to go with the men of the Bible the way from eyewitness event to salvation historical interpretation (p.78).

Wir dürfen also auch die Formgeschichte nicht einseitig so auffassen, als wäre ihr einziges Ziel, uns die Unüberbrückbarkeit des Abstandes zwischen Kerygma und Geschichte greifbar zu machen. (p.78)

Cullmann believes that he has no philosophy of history (Geschichtsphilosophie), unlike Bultmann claimed (p.80), and terms his use of prophetic revelation as historical foundation a prophecy of history (Geschichtsprophetie).  As a consequence, there is no structure to the revealed sequence of events making up the salvation history, but is a skandalon already to the contemporaries (p.102).

As before in the OT, Cullmann insists on the historical facts underpinning the Easter Narratives, such as the resurrection (p.81), which he identifies as transformative for salvation history in the sense that a single event now becomes the immutably maximally important event (p.82).

Though Cullmann had resented the question of the historical Jesus as caused by the focus of the Bultmann school, he ends up with a doubling of kerygmata instead, one for Jesus, one for the disciples and the congregation (p.88). This of course is anathema to Bultmann, who knows not what the kerygma of anyone other than the congregation would be and how to reconstruct it (p.89). [[RCK: Of course Bultmann's approach has none of the continuity problems that Cullmann finds so vexing, cf. (pp.88-90).]]

Because the formula of the "son of man" is one of the salvation historical formula of inclusion

Selbstbezeichnungen, die ja eine heilsgeschichtliche Einreihung implizieren (p.90)

just as "leidende Gottesknecht", the Bultmann school has rejected it as a self-description used by Jesus. For Cullmann, who wants to distribute the titles over the two kerygmata, the categorical NO of Bultmann to all OT titles is implausible, because it makes for a break and not a continuity (p.91). Cullmann believes that the remembering of the Disciples, which is a necessary part of the kerygma formation that happens as part of the Easter event, presupposes that Jesus used at least some of the titles to refer to himself, but not just "indirectly" (i.e. in the third grammatical person) (p.92). However, it is very likely that Jesus spoke about these titles in the third person, and thus indirectly, and the Disciples then applied them to him--a solution that Cullmann rejects with no good argument (pp.92f).

For Cullmann, revelation is first about divine existence and secondarily about the human existence (p.97). [[RCK: But he gives no indication that he understands that this is the human speaking about the revelation, which factually inverts the relationship again.]] He amplifies this separation in the case of faith (p.101), where he insists on the extra nos, pro nobis division.

Cullmann turns to the relationship between history and salvation history in more detail in the phenomenological considerations, starting on (p.117). Here Cullmann first has to address the issue again of how to deal with the mix of myth and history that he admits the OT salvation history is--cf. pp.75f above. Their entanglement is readily admitted (pp.118f) Cullmann seems to think that the myths were external accretions, because he continuously insists that the OT already de-mythologized them by virtue of including them into a historical framework (p.120). The myths are thus controlled by the Biblical program, and not by any philosophy of history (p.121). [[RCK: However, that completely fails to address the issue that there are historical narratives that have no historical basis, such as the destruction of Jericho, which is at best an etiological explanation of the ruins, but not a myth in the sense that Urgeschichte und Endgeschichte are (pp.118f). Thus, Cullmann can tick off de-mythologizing as accomplished---again (p.130). Conversely, Cullmann can interpret the de-mythologizing work of the Bultmann school as de-historizing and re-mythologizing (p.127), because they end up with more myth than his approach does, as loci of Seinsverständnis.

Cullmann next analyzes the relationship between profane and salvation history (pp.132f). They share commonalities that support the analogous use of the word "history" in both (p.133), but they also have serious differences (p.132).

Heilsgeschichte ist demnach nicht eine Geschichte neben der Geschichte ... sondern sie wickelt sich in der Geschichte ab und gehört in diesem Sinne zu ihr.  (p.134)

Cullmann thinks that it is foundationally true that salvation history exhibits gaps and jumps (p.135), whole periods are missed or glossed over.

Einzelne Ereignisse erscheinen hier aus dem Gesamtgeschehen --- historisch gesprochen --- willkürlich ausgesondert, ausgezeichnet, und doch besteht zwischen ihnen ein Zusammenhang. (p.135)

This context is almost the flip side of the Erwählungs-Idee (p.135) [[RCK: Cullmann writes "irrational" but probably means "transrational".]] which is permitted to gloss over whole periods (p.135). [[RCK: see discussion below]]

Part and parcel of Cullmann's alternate proposal for the interpretation of salvation history is the rejection of the crisis mode form of Parousie disappointment. Under the topic of the elongation of the time between (Dehnung der Zwischenzeit, pp.214ff), Cullmann tries to show that there was no crisis but a gradual acceptance of the lack of a return and the passing away of members of the congregation that had been expected to be alive when the Return of the Son of Man was to come (p.215). Recall that Bultmann and Schweitzer had taken this insight as the core of their motivational structure of the kerygmatic formation. Cullmann is also trying to show that salvation history was not compensatory to the parousie delay (pp.215f). Especially the build out of congregation organization however (p.216) makes no sense prior to an appreciation for the delay, as Cullmann notes. Elsewhere (p.185) Cullmann correctly points out---with reference to Strack-Billerbeck IV, Excourse 30---that the notion of the suddenness of the arrival of the Messiah is already topical in Jewish thinking.

Die Paruiseverzögerung sei das eine große Problem, mit dem sich das Urchristentum abgequält habe, innerhalb deren die Zwischenzeit von unbestimmter Dauer als sich selbst genügende Erfüllung angesehen und die Frage des Kommens des zukünftigen Reiches dementsprechend völlig irrelevant wurde. In einer großen Zahl von Jesuslogien werden nun Spuren endloser Bemühungen der Gemeinde gefunden, mit diesem einen Problem fertig zu werden, und auf ihr Konto werden zahllose Umbildungen und besonders Neubildungen von Jesusworten gesetzt. (p.218)

Cullmann rejects that interpretation; he finds the basis in the NT too small (p.219) and believes that the continuity of the gifts of the Holy Spirit helped to stabilize the community across the experiences of the delay (pp.220f).

Die Einschaltung einer gedehnten Zwischenzeit in eine Heilsgeschichte war nicht ein theologisches Fündlein, nicht eine "Verlegenheitslösung". Sie war überhaupt nicht primär Lösung eines Problems, sondern heilsgeschichtliche Deutung neuer Ereignisse, wie es solche schon immer in der Entwicklung der biblischen Heilsgeschichte gegeben hatte. (p.221)

Cullmann proposes that in the case of Paul, the salvation historical thinking is in some sense a carry over from the OT thinking (p.226), when he reconnects to the OT in his explications (p.227). Cullmann points out that Paul's conversion experience is itself salvation historical in structure (p.228).

Cullmann has a whole section (pp.269ff) on what the end of salvation history could be (p.101), but briefly mentions it to be the canon.

Discussion

Cullmann does not really face the problem that the historical-criticial sciences have been unable to reconstruct any history for some of the narratives in the Bible. It's not just a question of extending the event from a small localized setting to a broader Israelite tradition, as Cullmann thinks with von Rad (pp.35f), nor of faith finding itself directed at history as its object (p.36) independent of how the historical reconstruction came out. This situation has clearly gotten worse, especially in terms of archaeology, since Cullmann's times.  Cullmann is still under the impression that the basic history of the people called Israel is roughly correct.

So stellt grosso modo der ganze Ablauf der Geschichte Israels Heilsgeschichte dar.  Nun werden aber vom Profanhistoriker die gleichen Ereignisse nicht als Geschichte des erwählten Volkes dargestellt, sondern im Gegenteil in die Geschichte der anderen Völker eingereiht. (p.135)

This leaves it completely open what to do if these parts are no longer supported by profane historiography. The current professional historian is not at all working with the same events, but is looking to rather different evidence and events.

Cullmann in general seems to be unclear that the whole idea of the Entmythologisierungsprogramm in the spirit of Rudolf Bultmann was to rectify a bad situation, not to cause a problem. It was precisely because the historical context was floating away that it became important to substitute something else---here Heidegger's Existential Philosophy---which became the new solid ground.

While the notion of the eyewitness inserting the event into the salvation historic plan is plausible for the prophetic tradition, it makes almost no sense for the events of the Pentateuch. Who is supposed to have witnessed the crossing of the reed sea---cf. p.77---and made that part of the salvation plan? Or the Passah meal? This is especially true for events that we now know to have been fictional, e.g. the destruction of Jericho. The problem is especially troublesome because Cullmann is effectively forced to assume that there is always a historical nugget that can be excavated, and that it is predominantly an issue of scale, e.g. a few chariots of Pharaoh rather than the whole army (p.77). But that is taking too easy a way out.

The interleaving of myth and historical events, that Cullmann finds acceptable (pp.120f), raises the question of why God cannot provide an interpretation of the historical events that is independent of the mythology. As a result, the Biblical authors end up being naive and incapable of distinguishing between myth and history (p.125), just as we are stuck with their narratives as hard to separate (p.122; p.129). Again, we find this inversion; Cullmann tries to sell as a feature what is the problem, and complains about the solutions as if they were gratuitous impositions rather than desperate rear-guard actions.

Cullmann is right of course that the whole punchline of the NT and the resurrection is the historically localized event (p.124) couched in mythical language, and that narratives like the nativity try to show the divine action in the ministry of Jesus (p.125). But that's not all the mythology, and all the historization that needs to happen, and the claim of all exegesis to always have been de-mythologizing (p.130) just indicates a lack of appreciation for the issues involved. Cullmann reserves the notion of myth for the front and the back of the story, but considers the middle section the "historische Mittelstück" (p.133).

The notion of the gappy historical narrative that a Heilsgeschichte has (p.135), skipping entire periods at a time, Cullmann takes as a key differentiator between profane and sacred history. But this double edged sword is hardly useful. From the point of view of the profane historiography, there are many narratives that are equally gapped, as in idea history or style history. Indeed, Cullmann's own historical retrospective of the discussion in the Prolegomena (pp.10-45) makes that clear---he has skipped writers and papers and books in this discussion, focusing on a few writers without showing the causal connections. Even more damaging though is that the nature of these gaps in Heilsgeschichte is a huge problem from the modern perspective, a lack rather than a feature. Just as some of Cullmann's contemporaries must have been disappointed that their paper did not justify inclusion, how is the believer supposed to feel that their period, times and struggles have no place in the event signature of salvation history? Theodicee is popping into the picture with a vengeance.

Cullmann's dismissal of the parusie delay is somewhat abrupt (pp.218ff) and in general underplays all the logia he had already been arguing about. Distinguishing between historiographical interpretation (Deutung) and problem solving (see the quote above from page p.221) is an especially questionable non-starter: how could a revelation be received as new if it did not solve a problem?

Bultmann and those that follow him propose that we do not have access to Jesus independent of the writings of the NT and the sources used by the NT. The Jesus of Paul is a different one than the Jesus of Luke or Mark or John. Sometimes we can use their agreement to postulate that Jesus of Nazareth may have said something himself, originally, but we cannot be sure that this is all that he said nor that he used those words. Unfortunately, it is difficult to date Q precisely with respect to Paul's writing, putting in jeopardy the assumption that congregation traditions were circulated previously to Paul's letters in writing. [Fn: A look at a modern chronology of the writings (1996 by Udo Schnelle) shows that the entire NT was written in a window of about three generations, between 50 (Thes) and 120 (2 Petr, Joh).]

Bibliographic Record

Oscar Cullmann, Heil als Geschichte, Tübingen (Siebeck-Mohr) 1965.