Questions arising from the text of Rosenstock-Huessy
Given the summary of the work “The Fruit of the Lips” and as a result of my research and study, it is my intention to address the following topics here.
1. The order of the Gospels
2. The historical process to which the texts bear witness
3. The name Ichthys
4. The Christian Way
5. The cross, the cross of reality
6. The cross of reality and the revival of the tribes
I will elaborate on each of the mentioned topics to indicate the questions that arise here.
1. The order of the Gospels
Rosenstock-Huessy adopts a critical stance towards Gospel criticism, especially against the textual criticism of the 19th century. He regards the latter as a speculative construction that seeks something behind the text. However, what the text says is contained within the text itself. One cannot find the truth behind the text through mere speculation. Thus Rosenstock-Huessy. He adheres to ecclesiastical tradition regarding the order of origin of the Gospels. It is possible that he goes too far in this regard as a reaction. Text and context are always in interaction. This applies to both Rosenstock-Huessy and the Gospels. Necessarily, Rosenstock-Huessy is also brief in his text of barely 100 pages. The question is therefore: Is his interpretation of the order of origin of the Gospels correct? The question is also: how can Rosenstock-Huessy’s view be positioned within the ongoing debate regarding the texts of the Gospels? It is also a question to what extent New Testament scholarship confirms Rosenstock-Huessy’s view that, with the exception of John, all Gospels originated before the year 70. All of this influences our interpretation of an orientation towards the Gospels, towards Rosenstock-Huessy’s work, and towards the question of whether and to what extent our history is a history of salvation. In other words, is our history leading somewhere?
2. The historical process attested to by the texts
The Gospels evoked one another, according to Rosenstock-Huessy. In response to one another, they take the next step in each case. The question is: what did that historical process look like? One cannot reconstruct this at will. On the one hand, the texts themselves provide clues regarding the sequence. But here, we are always dealing with clues. These can accumulate in such a way that they lend a certain probability to a particular interpretation. However, on the other hand, a normative element plays a role in the assessment of the data. In the historical context, one may find one way in which the Gospels reacted to one another more credible than another representation of the facts. This is the case, for example, with the question of whether Mark shortened Matthew and Luke, or whether Matthew and Luke, conversely, expanded Mark. That question cannot be answered definitively, because the answer depends in part on the historical credibility one can attach to such a representation. It is therefore quite possible that the historical process is ultimately different from the sequence of the Gospels in the current Bible. Then the question also arises as to how the current Biblical order could nevertheless have originated.
3. The name Ichthys
The name Ichthys, Jesus, Christ, Son of God, Savior: according to Rosenstock-Huessy, it reflects in reverse order the four important steps that the Gospels take: John was Jesus’ personal friend, they understood each other; Luke portrays Jesus as the Christ and as an example of the path that all people must follow; Mark portrays Jesus as the Son of God and thus places the suffering man at the top of the hierarchy of the Kingdom; Matthew portrays Jesus as the Savior. The victims and outsiders are now part of the picture. Does that interpretation remain valid if the order of creation of the Gospels is different from what Rosenstock-Huessy proposes?
4. The Christian Way
Matthew, as the most Jewish Gospel, could still be interpreted as an attempt to return to a more pure Judaism. Matthew does not distance himself from Jewish law and only wants a lifelike and lively interpretation of the law. That interpretation is called Jesus Christ and from Jesus Christ the law is understood in the sense of Matthew 25: clothing the naked, visiting the prisoners, feeding the hungry. Luke, on the other hand, replaces the struggle for the purity of Jewish monotheism by opening the Trinitarian path into history. To what extent does this insight influence the interpretation of the textual data about the order of the Gospels?
5. The cross of reality
Rosenstock-Huessy’s thesis is that the cross of Christ made the four tradition streams of antiquity accessible to each other. This also justifies giving the cross of Christ a central place in world history. In his text in “The Fruit of the Lips” he is – necessarily – short about this. One should of course not forget that this text is part of the work of Rosenstock-Huessy at the end of a comprehensive history of the human race “Die Sprache des Menschengeschlechts”. What is a more detailed substantiation of this insight and what does it mean for the future, for the Christian era?
6. The Cross of Reality and the Revival of the Tribes
In Rosenstock-Huessy’s work the return of the tribes in our era, already in his time, occupies a major place. On the one hand, modern society is heir to the church, because without an ethic of cooperation and long-term commitment, a global economy is unthinkable. On the other hand, many people in our society experience that they have become a number and that they have lost their long-term orientation. The most natural reaction and solution in the short term is often to identify with a group. This encourages mutual exclusion. So what does the path forward look like?
