“The complex notion of the ‘provisional’ character of the State is the reason why the attitude of the first Christians toward the State is not unitary, but rather appears to be contradictory. I emphasize, that it appears to be so. We need only mention Romans 13:1, ‘Let every man be subject to the powers that be...,’ alongside Revelation 13: the State as the beast from the abyss. In both instances, the same Roman state is spoken of.”

Source: The State in the New Testament (1956), p. 3

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 16, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The complex notion of the ‘provisional’ character of the State is the reason why the attitude of the first Christians t…" by Oscar Cullmann?
Oscar Cullmann photo
Oscar Cullmann 7
French theologian 1902–1999

Related quotes

“…a state is not the same thing as a society, although the Greeks and Romans thought it was. A state is an organization of power on a territorial basis.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Oscar Iden Lecture Series, Lecture 3: "The State of Individuals" (1976)

John Ogilby photo

“So great the Task to raise the Roman State!”

John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

Thomas Jefferson photo

“It is more a subject of joy that we have so few of the desperate characters which compose modern regular armies. But it proves more forcibly the necessity of obliging every citizen to be a soldier; this was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free State.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Referring to the importance of well trained militia amidst the populations of the states and their preferability to standing armies, in a letter to James Monroe (19 June 1813), published Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 19 June 1813 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-06-02-0188; though most publications of the letter since the 1830s usually provide a date of 18 June 1813, the actual manuscript seems to distinctly read "June 19 '13" http://memory.loc.gov/master/mss/mtj/mtj1/046/0800/0894.jpg; a portion of this statement is sometimes paraphrased: "Every citizen should be a soldier."
1810s
Context: !-- Dear Sir,—Your favors of the 7th and 16th are received, and --> I now return you the memoir … I am much gratified by its communication, because, as the plan appeared in the newspapers soon after the new Secretary of War came into office, we had given him the credit of it. Every line of it is replete with wisdom; and we might lament that our tardy enlistments prevented its execution, were we not to reflect that these proceeded from the happiness of our people at home. It is more a subject of joy that we have so few of the desperate characters which compose modern regular armies. But it proves more forcibly the necessity of obliging every citizen to be a soldier; this was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free State. Where there is no oppression there will be no pauper hirelings. We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education. We can never be safe till this is done.

“So vast the labor to create
The fabric of the Roman state!”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 4

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Joseph Stalin photo

“We are in favour of the withering away of the state, and at the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the most powerful and mighty of all forms of the state which have existed up to the present day. The highest development of the power of the state, with the object of preparing the conditions of the withering away of the state: that is the Marxist formula. Is it "contradictory"? Yes, it is "contradictory."”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

But this contradiction is a living thing and wholly reflects the Marxist dialectic.
Address to the 16th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (1930) Quoted in: Alfred B. Evans, Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ideology pg. 39 https://books.google.com/books?id=ezGGPIze4ZYC&pg=PA39&dq=withering+away+of+the+state+stalin&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAWoVChMIz_WZ46adxwIVR5YeCh1g7AKD#v=onepage&q=withering%20away%20of%20the%20state%20stalin&f=false
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Boutros Boutros-Ghali photo
Lew Rockwell photo

“In the end, what is really needed is a fundamental rethinking of the notion that the state rather than private markets must monopolize the provision of justice and security. This is the fatal conceit. No power granted to the state goes unabused. This power, among all possible powers, might be the most important one to take away from the state.”

Lew Rockwell (1944) American libertarian author and editor

As quoted in "The Police State Abolishes the Trial" http://mises.org/library/police-state-abolishes-trial, (30 September 2011), Mises Daily, The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
2010s

Ennius photo

“The Roman state survives by its ancient customs and its manhood.”
Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque.

Ennius (-239–-169 BC) Roman writer

Annals, Book V

Rousas John Rushdoony photo

Related topics