Volume 31: Cruciform Character Of History (1967)

Five 1-hour lectures.

Only this has become past which at one time beckoned the people as future. And only that deserves to exist as long as it still enlivens and enthuses people as a dream of the future… We become part of the story only when we take part at a time when the story hasn’t yet become history.

—March 1967

In these lectures Rosenstock-Huessy begins by laying out the difference between scientific or cyclical history (to which all of us were exposed in school) on the one hand, and “cruciform history” on the other. Scientific history reviews past facts, and puts current mankind outside the events. Cruciform history puts mankind inside events, shows how people take responsibility and create a future, guided by their dreams. The remaining lectures offer specific examples of the benefits to be gained from viewing history as cruciform, and seeing it bear fruit; they also give a grounding in Rosenstock-Huessy’s understanding of the future of Christianity.