Universale Heilshoffnungen im Christentum

This monograph provides an overview as an example of the fact that in Christianity eschatological hopes of salvation were widespread for all people from the beginning, but in different forms and frequencies. It is also shown how they were founded in the individual historical epochs and what contemporary significance was assigned to them in each case. The lack of a theological hermeneutics of eschatological biblical texts becomes evident in all of this. The manifold receptions and adaptations that these universal expectations of salvation experienced in European culture, especially in poetry, literature, philosophy and music, since the Middle Ages, are again presented in examples. It is shown that these transformations, especially in the literature, often took place from the beginning with the inclusion of non-Christian ideas of apocatastasis. Since the Enlightenment, as a result of the increasing disentanglement of religion and society, tendencies towards secularization can often be observed.