Introduction

not merely naive Bible students who in the words of a remote psalmist hear their own voice to their astonishment or judgment, but even the most objective investigators who in order to understand the text try in some measure to think its thoughts as their own.

As we certainly do not overlook the fact of variety, of individuality, no less certainly this fact obstinately and at every juncture points beyond itself. The angle from which we see what we are studying; and the presupposition of what we are studying, seems not to be multiplicity but unity. We come from that and return to it. It is the great “As if” with which we always work, whether wittingly or unwittingly. The God of Abraham? The God of Isaac? The God of Jacob? Yes, but not the God of the dead [Luke 20:37-38], of those who have been, of those who are lost here and there in the sea of time, of those who are isolated and limited, but the God of the living, te God in whom the multiplicity of our life is unity. Pantes gar auto zosin, in him, the One, they all live, adds Luke, the pupil of Paul (Luke 20:38). And poly planasthe is Mark’s word (12:27) to those who have ears to hear but not ears to hear. The problem of individuals, of ethics and history, will not leave us alone, because it implies unity, the unity of God. We see that the past is so important for us, not just true or interesting or profitable but vitally necessary, because it has present significance. We open books from the past in order to come to ourselves. The living, speaking, working past is the present.

All study of the past is thus done for its own sake. Historical study is itself historical action and passion; it is itself history. The past seeks to live again, to speak and work, to be the present. That this may happen can alone be its purpose, and that we may be open to its happening can be its only essential presupposition. This is not for me a postulate but a simple fact. All study of history is above all itself history, the living, speaking, and working past, and thus itself the present as well. No historian can be detached and not seriously seek and find himself or herself in history. Have you ever found a historical book that is not above all else a mirror of its author's soul? That image, history as a mirror, does not come from me but from Calvin, who liked to use it (33, 386; 34, 146).!3 Each time, then, one can only ask: Who is reflected in this mirror? What kind of present is it that studies the past there? Or what is the past living and speaking and working there? We are all hearing, but with what ears? We are all seeking, but what?

13. CR 33, 385f., on Job 8:9-10; also 34, 146 on 22:4-5.