Storypath/Cuentocamino: : II. RUDOLF BULTMANN'S FIRST SERMON FROM MARBURG--June 7, 1936

II. RUDOLF BULTMANN’S FIRST SERMON FROM MARBURG: June 7, 1936

[from the second book of Marburg sermons: This World and the Beyond]

Acts 17: 22-32

June 7, 1936

“I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship

as something unknown, I am going to proclaim to you.”

Acts 17: 23

This is Paul talking to the Men of Athens.

Paul introduces his God, the creator, “who does not live in temples built by hands…”

Acts 17: 24

“In Him we move and have our being.” Paul says more about his God, before returning

to the inscription on the altar to the Greek god.

Acts 17: 28

“...as even some of your poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

Acts 17: 28

“For we are indeed his offspring…”

Paul is quoting Aratus of Soli, here, Acts 17: 28, and see also Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus.. Aratus was a poet and astronomer from Cilicia, Paul’s own province. Aratus’ poem is called “Phenomena.”

Having marked his territory, and his boundaries now, Bultmann sets out, moving deeper into his sermon, quoting the young Nietzsche: “Thou, unknown God, thee will I know…”

This is from the first of twenty-one sermons in Bultmann’s This World and the Beyond, collected in the book, The Marburg Sermons. In this first sermon, Bultmann names the following poets:

Aratus, Cleanthes, Epimenides, Holderlin, Virgil, Karl Immermann, Dwinger, Goethe, Nietzsche, R.A. Schroeder, Wilhelm Busch, Paul Gerhardt, Mathias Claudius—AKA ASMUS, Schubert, Jesus, Eichendorff, Homer, Wilhelm Raabe, Klopstock, C. F. Meyer, Hebbel, Thomas Carlyle, Adalbert Stifter, Schuler, J. Chr. Gunther, Franz Werfel, Novalis, Rilke, A.V. Arnem, Pindar, Paul Fleming, Tibillus, Hoffmannshal.

My list here contains 34 poets. I may have missed some. My apologies to Rudolf Bultmann. I do not count poets included in the Bible, except for Jesus. I do not count David, the psalmists, the author/s of Lamentations, or others. Naming the poets Bultmann cites is one of my points in this documents.

In addition to introducing the first poet like this: “As some of your own poets have said,…” Bultmann introduces the poets like this:

“This the poets also know…”

“The poet says…”

“For the poet wishes…”

My point? Try doing this work without the poets. Many have tried it. Many haven’t given it a second thought. Ask yourself, those of you with ears to hear, what is missing? Or who? Among your listeners maybe. Among your listeners, What doesn’t get heard?

Poets are present in 20 of the 21 sermons in This World and the Beyond.

This first sermon with Paul in the Aereopagus,is also a sermon full of repetition. In Him we move and have our being… said 5 times? More? In this sermon? I’m not counting here, but the movement, the transport, my God! It’s immense—the territory covered. I’d love to see the notes from those in attendance. Wouldn’t it be something, to see the notes of the students? Of Bultmann’s colleagues in attendance! And this, too, Did even some of these notes reach me, in some even fragmented form—somewhere in my own pilgrimage? Know, too. I didn’t have the qualifications to have sat in that auditorium, chapel, sanctuary, listening.

After listening, walking,

my son calls from his mountain

where he’s walking himself,

it is a day of calls. My grand-daughter

calls from the university, telling

of her mornings with meditation

and writing. She studies psychology,

and asks questions of my reading.

Her questions mirror her own listening,

and I feel like the grandfather

vulnerable, aka the fool, too ready

to believe his stubbornness understands.