Salvation history and the static concept of time

Christian salvation history was pivotal in upholding the static concept of time well into the early modern period. It is a universal history that covers the entire history of humankind from its beginning to the end, and even beyond. All history was understood to be part of the salvation history, or seen in relation to it. More importantly for the static concept of time, it doesn’t assume, or allow, change.

Salvation history had to be immutable, because it was the story of the salvation of the humankind. Every historical event, as told in the Bible, was an expression of the ongoing battle between good and evil over the souls of humans. The battle is eternal, meaning it is outside time, even though it is fought in the temporal world. Therefore, it is always the same battle. The battle doesn’t evolve or progress, the battle is until it is brought to the climax at the end of time in the Apocalypse. Then the good will finally defeat the evil.

In a similar manner than the past could be consulted for the benefit of the present, in salvation history, the past was given religious meaning in the present. They were interpreted as part of the salvation history. In the early modern period, it was especially popular to look for signs about the approaching end of the world, equally visible in the past.

Even historical events not described in the Bible were given meaning as part of the salvation history, or seen as the signs of the coming end of the world. Reinhart Koselleck uses as an example of such treatment of history The Battle of Alexander at Issus (Alexanderschlacht), a 1529 painting by  Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480–1538), that depicts Alexander the Great defeating the Persian army in 333 B.C.

For us, that signals the start of Hellenism. For Altdorfer and his contemporaries – the commissioner of the painting, Duke William IV of Bavaria, included – “it was one of the few events between the beginning of the world and its end that also prefigured the fall of the Holy Roman Empire.” So the painting is heavy with Christian themes. “Heavenly and cosmic forces were participants in such a battle, expressed as Sun and Moon, powers of Light and Darkness” making the painting an “archetype of the final struggle between Christ and Antichrist.” All that in one painting.

What seems anachronistic to a modern viewer was of great historical – and salvation historical – importance for the early modern people. And it was the importance of salvation that maintained the static concept of time.

Altdorfer: The Battle of Alexader at Issus