Frases de Oscar Cullmann

“Si preguntásemos a un cristiano medio hoy en día (ya fuese un informado católico o protestante, o no) cual es la concepción que tiene de la enseñanza del Nuevo Testamento acerca del destino del hombre después de la muerte, con pocas excepciones obtendríamos la respuesta: "La inmortalidad del alma". Sin embargo, esta ampliamente aceptada idea es uno de los mayores malentendidos del cristianismo.”

“Las enseñanzas de los grandes filósofos Sócrates y Platón no pueden, en modo alguno, armonizarse con las del Nuevo Testamento.”

“El que la actitud de los primeros cristianos ante el Estado no sea acorde, sino que parece ser contradictoria, guarda relación con el concepto complejo de [que el Estado es] ‘provisional’. Hago hincapié: parece ser así. Pensemos, por ejemplo, en Rom 13, 1: "Sométase toda persona a las autoridades superiores"; y junto a esto, el Apocalipsis de Juan 13, 1 y sig[uiente]s, donde el Estado es la bestia que sale del abismo.”

“Ninguna otra publicación mía ha provocado un entusiasmo tan grande o tan violenta hostilidad.”

“Because Jesus came, died, and was resurrected, O[ld] T[estament] festivals have now been fulfilled, and to maintain them ‘means reverting back to the old covenant, as if Christ had never come.”

“The Gospel knows nothing of that confusion of the Kingdom of God with the State which is characteristic of the theocratic ideal of Judaism. On the contrary, it opposed the theocratic ideal of Judaism with the same sharpness with which it resisted the totalitarian claims of the Roman State.”

“For the Greeks who believed in the immortality of the soul it may have been harder to accept the Christian preaching of the resurrection than it was for others.. . . The teaching of the great philosophers Socrates and Plato can in no way be brought into consonance [agreement] with that of the New Testament.”

“There is a radical difference between the Christian expectation of the resurrection of the dead and the Greek belief in the immortality of the soul.. . . Although Christianity later established a link between these two beliefs, and today the average Christian confuses them completely, I see no reason to hide what I and the majority of scholars consider to be the truth.. . . The life and thought of the New Testament are entirely dominated by faith in the resurrection.. . . The whole man, who is really dead, is brought back to life by a new creative act of God.”

“Plato shows us how Socrates goes to his death in complete peace and composure. The death of Socrates is a beautiful death. Nothing is seen here of death’s terror. Socrates cannot fear death, since indeed it sets us free from the body.. . . Death is the soul’s great friend. So he teaches; and so, in wonderful harmony with his teaching, he dies.”

“To superficial consideration, it might appear that in its relationship to the State Christianity simply took over the heritage of Judaism, and that the problem poses itself in exactly the same way here as there. Actually, however, the Jewish theocratic ideal is expressly rejected by Christianity as satanic—we need only recall the temptation stories in the Gospel. Satan offers to Christ the kingdoms of the world.”