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Paradosis and Kyrios "KYRIOS" AS DESIGNATION FOR THE ORAL TRADITION CONCERNING JESUS (Paradosis and Kyrios)1 by PROFESSOR DR OSCAR CULLMANN rT"'HE work of the form-critics on the Gospel has directed our X attention more than ever before to the historical develop- ment of the material of the tradition, which took place before the fixing of our Gospels in writing. Collections of single or several words of Jesus, and narratives about Jesus, were estab- lishing themselves already in the early Church, and were passed on by it. How far this tradition was already in part written down, or, as with the oldest Jewish traditions, was only orally transmitted, is not a question of importance for us here, but in any case it could never be solved with certainty. That is also true, as M. Dibelius has rightly stressed, of the much quoted "Q, source".2 It is indeed very probable that already before the composition of our Gospels, there were smaller writings, above all collections of words of Jesus, but it is in no way pos- sible to define or demarcate them more exactly. On principle, this whole stream of tradition, whether it is transmitted in writ- ten or oral fashion, in so far as it is not yet channelled in our Gospels, can and must be handled as a unit. When in the title we speak of an "oral" tradition concerning Jesus, ; we mean simply the tradition concerning Jesus which existed j before the Gospels. Similarly, in the Jewish tradition of the ; Old Testament law, the interpretations of the law were at first orally handed down from Rabbi to pupil, and then later writ- 1 ten, but neither the fact of this taking place, nor the time when *i it took place, are of any fundamental importance for this Jewish J tradition. \ When we speak of the tradition in the early Church in what 1 follows, we shall have to keep constantly before us, the parallel J in the Jewish tradition of the Rabbis. We shall see that Paul | 1 Lecture given to the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas in Oxford, 15th '| September 1949.- I 2 M. Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangcliums, 2nd edn., 1933, pp. 234 ff. -I 180 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 10:26:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600057379 PARADOSIS AND KTRIOS 181 used exactly the same Greek word, TrapdBoois, which to him as the pupil of Rabbi Gamaliel was familiar from his Jewish past. If we consider how, in general, Jesus spoke against the paradosis of the Jews, then we are immediately faced with a problem. How could Paul take this notion, apparently discredited by Jesus, and without more ado transfer it to the instructfen and teaching which were held to be normative in the Christian Church? The problem, however, is yet more complicated by the fact that, instead of "tradition", Paul can sometimes say "the Lord" (o Kvpios) as for example when he quotes words of Jesus (i Thess. 4.15; 1 Cor. 7.10, and 7.25; 1 Cor. 9.14). In 1 Cor. 11.23 ^e joins the two concepts "tradition" and Kyrios when he writes: "I have received the tradition from the Lord." There follows the account of the institution of the Lord's Supper: "that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed . ." *Eya) irapeXafiov OLTTO rov Kvplov . Why "from Kyrios"? Why not "from the Church"? This passage, 1 Cor. 11.23, *s usually, but falsely, treated alone, and has, as is well known, given rise to two different interpretations. The one maintains that this passage is not concerned with tradition in the usual Jewish sense, whereby a whole chain of successive human members would be pre- supposed, from whom Paul had received the account of the institution of the Lord's Supper, but that, on the contrary, it is here a question of direct, immediate revelation from the Lord. This has come to Paul in a visionary experience such as that referred to in Galatians 1.12 where he says, he has not received the Gospel from men, but through direct revelation, through apokalypsis, and where clearly the moment of Christ's appearing on the road to Damascus is meant. This interpretation has been given again and again; by LefeVre d'Etaples, and by Bengel who followed and quoted him approvingly in this same interpretation; then in more recent times with special emphasis by F. Godet,1 A. Loisy2 (who erroneously considers this whole passage to be an insertion) and W. Heitmueller.8 The French deniers of the historical 1 F. Godet, Commentaire sur la lire ep. aux Corinthiens, vol. 2, 1887, pp. 160 ff. • A. Loisy, Lts origines de la Cine eucharistique. Congres d'Histoire du Christumisme, vol. 1, p. 77 ff. 8 W. Heitmuller, Z""1 Problem Paulus und Jesus (Z.N.W., 1912), p. 321. Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 10:26:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600057379 i8a SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY existence of Jesus, Gouchoud1 and Alfaric,2 have made use of the same explanation. They believe that they can make this passage into a sort of test case for showing the one source out of which the material of the Gospel has arisen: Paul has had visions, and he has transferred the matter of these visions into history, while in reality this "Lord Jesus" never lived. If this is the right way to understand i Cor. 11.23, tnat is> if the words: "I have received the tradition from the Lord" mean: "I have received the account of the institution of the Lord's Supper directly in a vision from the Lord", then this passage will have no bearing upon the problem of "the tradi- tion" which we are discussing. It will not deal at all with the tradition in the Church. However, by far the preponderant majority of scholars, representing all points of view, are agreed that this interpretation is not accurate, and that the words; "I have received the tradition from the Lord", do not exclude the normal tradition which comes through the Church. I name here, for instance, H. Lietzmann,3 Johannes Weiss,4 E. B. Allo,5 Jean Hering6 (in the latest commentary on 1 Corinthians), R. Bultmann (in his Theology of the Mew Testament which appeared a short time ago).7 Also M. Goguel has shown, against those who deny the historical existence of Jesus, that in reality those words presume an historical transmission of the facts.8 Thus we see that a very wide consensus exists among the scholars of the various schools and even confessions. And if this interpretation is accurate, then the words "I have received the tradition from the Lord" mean nothing else than: "to re- ceive by means of the tradition which comes through the Church". But if this is so, how is Paul's surprising expression, "from the Lord", to be explained? Here the various individual interpretations draw somewhat apart, though all more or less agree that with the preposition dno Paul points to the chrono- 1 P. L. Couchoud, Le mystire de Jesus, 1924, p. 141. 2 P. Alfaric, Le Jesus de Paul (Revue d'Histoire des Religions, 1927), pp. 276 ff. 3 H. Lietzmann, An die Korinther, 1-2 (Handbuch zum N.T.), 4th edit, by W. G. Kiimmel, 1949, p. 57; see also the footnote added by W. G. Kummel, p. 185. 4 John. Weiss, Der erste Korintherbruf(Krit. exeg. Kommentar N.T.), 1919, p. 283. 5 E. B. Allo, Premiire epttre aux Corinthiens, 2nd edit., 1934. 6 J. Hiring, La premiere epttre de S. Paul aux Corinthiens (Commentaire du JV.T.), 1949, p. 100. 7 R. Bultmann, Thtologie des Neuen Testaments, 1948, pp. 148 f. 8 M. Goguel, La relation du dernier repas de Jesus dans 1 Cor. 11 et la tradition historique chez Vapotre Paul (Revue d'Histoire et de Philos. rel., 1930, pp. 61 f.) Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 10:26:16, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600057379 PARADOSIS AND KTRIOS 183 logical origin of the whole presupposed chain of tradition: I have received it from the Lord. One might reword it thus: I have received it through a chain of tradition, which begins with the Lord. This answer to our question, Why the designation Kyrios? will have to be tested, but it must first be pointed out that we are dealing here with an hypothesis, and that, in the nature of the case, we are forced to use an hypothesis for the answering of this question. Instead of the above hypothesis, however, I should prefer to put forward another which is somewhat dif- ferent. I agree indeed with the great majority of scholars that 1 Cor. 11.23 deals with a tradition through the Church, and not with a vision; but I should like to explain the fact that Paul refers it back to the Lord rather in terms of the whole complex of paradosis in the New Testament. I should like to show that, seen in this connexion, the designation Kyrios not only points to the historical Jesus as the chronological beginning of the chain of tradition, as the first member of it, but accepts the exalted Lord as the real Author of the whole tradition develop- ing itself in the apostolic Church.
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