Contents Translasor’s Note and Acknowledgments a Preface Introduction 1 1. Autobiographical Approaches to the Epistle to the Romans 12, Paulin Jewish Religious History: Messianic Logie 5 Readings, Paul and Moses: The Establishment of a New People of God 8 1, Addresses of the Epistle co the Romans 13 a."The Gospel as a Declaration of War againsc Rome: A Reading of Romans 117 15. b, Jerusalem and the Legitimacy ofthe World Mision: A Reading of Romans 1530-3317 Excursus: The Fate of che Jewish Christian Congregations 21 2, Nomos. Law and Justi fication: A Reading of Romans 8-it 23. 3, Hlection and Rejee- tion: A Reading of Romans 8:31-9'5 and Berakliot 228 4, Poeuma. The Surpassing of Salvation History and the Over- coming of This World: A Reading of Romans 9-13 38 PART 11 Effecs, Paul and Modernity: Transfigurations of the Messianic 3 1, Strangers in This World: Marcion and the Consequences 55 2. The Zealots of the Absolute and of Decision: Carl Schmitt and Kael Barch 62.3. Nihilism as World Politics and Aestheticized ‘Messianisms: Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adore 70Contents ‘4 Bsodus from Biblia Religion Fredich Nietache and Sig: mund Freud 76 ‘Appendix As The Jacob Taubes-Carl Schmite Story Appendix B: Two Letters Aferwored om iy Wolf Daniel Hartich, Alida Asan, ad fan Ass Inwroduction x05 © Readings: The Legitimation and Form tion ofa New Union-Covenant [Ver-Bund] 117 > Flfects Pauland Modernity st 3: Politcal'Theology 138 Ediorial Note Notes Index of Names ” 107 ns 143 us 157 | | | | Translator’ Note and Acknowledgments AAs Aleida Assmann explains in her Editorial Note, this book is the edited version of a transcription of an oral event. The editors worked to preserve the oral flavor of Jacob Taubes’s Heidelberg lectures as they were delivered, and I to0 have endeavored in my translation to capcure the in- formality and energy of Taubes’ spoken diction. Biblical passages are largely drawn from the New Revised Standard Version, ith modifications where necessary to conform to the German teanslations given by Taubes. It a pleasure to be able present ro an English-language readership a book that ic has been a significant experience to translate. Engaging with ‘Taubes final work, with the many strands of scholarly and personal-his- torical experience that it represents and reflects upon, has led me to aca- demic and intellectual encounters that Ihave been much enriched by—be- ginning, with the experience, in 1994, of being addressed, in the cafeteria of the Maison des Sciences de Homme in Paris (the institution from which, ‘Taubes fifteen years earlier wrote the letter co Carl Schmitt that I have in~ cluded in Appendix B, by a stranger who turned ont to be the sociologist Pascale Gruson. She noticed me reading the book and exclaimed: “Crest un livre qu’on atten I” In North America, especially, where Taubes worked and had a considerable impact, itis my hope that the reencounter will be 2 fruitful one. Tam grateful to Hent de Viies for having taken my beginning eu riosity about Taubes as a reason to propose this translation project co me, and to Helen Tartar, who paticntly awaited the results aver a long period ‘of uncertainty, and who personally saw to it that the book became a real- ity, even under very dire circumstances. In getting my (at least lexicographical) bearings within the wide- Fanging subject matter and context of Taubes’ lectures, I benefited greatly from consulting with a number of people with relevant expertise, whom Isii Translators Note and Acknowledgments bk to thank here: Charlotte Fonrobert, Peter Low, Dale Martin, Alan Udoth and Noam Zobar, Taso thank Jan Assinann and Wolf-Daniel Hare- wich, ewo of the edicors of the original edition, for providing background Jnformation that helped me make sense of several difficul passages. Finally, he Arcs Research Board at McMaster University for a Lam grateful to th rane that supported the production of this volume, ¢s well a5 t Peter Killam for his help in che final stages. vAs always, Arnd Wedemeyer accompanied this project from begin- sing to end, {thank im for sharing my enthusiasm about Taubes and for his invaluable and patient assistance at every stage. Prefitce Invitations for an event at FEST, the Protestant Institute for Interdis- “Torahy to learn it and ro hep i, i che omnipresent basis ofa Jewish life. Wich imartiage begins the fll realization ofthis life; only chen do the “good works” really become posible, Yes, only the man needs the Torah ata conscious basis at the birth of a daughter, the father simply prays that he may lea her tothe bridal canopy and to good wor. For a woman has this basis of Jewish ife even without the conscious renewal of “learning” hat is necessary to the mian, who is more Joosely 1ooted in the earth ofthe natural. Afterall, according to ancient la, iis sie chrough whom Jewish blood is propagated. Not onky che chil of two Jewish parents, buc even the child of Jewish mother is Jowih by birth. "Thus, within the individual lf, itis martiage chat fills mere Jewish exis- tence with soul The house i the chamber of che Jewish bear. And just as evel tion walens something in eration that isa strong as death and sets against i and against al of cretion its new cretion, the soul, the unearthly in earthly life itself s0 the bridegroom under the canopy wears his death ttre as his wedding attire, nd challenges death atthe very moment he filly enters the eternal people— strong as death, Buc what chus ia moment in the life ofthe individual is nov also sn eternal moment inthe spiritual yeat. Here too, for once, the father ofthe house ‘wears his shroud, not as the attire of death but at wedding aie: at the firs of the feast of revelation, the evening meal of che summons of the people to freedom. ‘That is, on the eve of Pesal the master of the house weats this very robe, which is then called the Kittel. On Yom Kippur it is called by a Yiddish sword sargenis, meaning clothing worn in the coffin [Sargtleidung]. Here too the shroud designates the transition from mere Creation to Revelations icis worn on the fist of the three feasts, and here too in drinking and eating, in ‘gy, childlike jest and metry songs; itis a challenge to death. It is otherwise, however, thatthe worshiper wears ic during the Days of Awe. Here itis not wedding attire; no, ic is che uve atire of death. Just as in time to come man willbe alone when he is clothed in his shroud, so in the prayer of these dlays he is also alone. They too set him, in naked loneliness, immediately before the chtone of God, Just a¢ in time to come God will judge him soley by his oven36 Readings dleeds and the choughts of his own heart and will not ask about those round him and what chey have done o help him or 19 harm him, but he alone wil be judged, so here he steps before the eye of the judge in unter loneliness, dead in the midst of lfe,a member ofa gathered humanity tha, like himself, has already placed it- selP beyond the grave inthe midst of lie Let me just add: this loncliness is German Romanticism. The prayers of Yorn Kippur are “we” prayers. Precisely because we have learned from Rosenzweig to take liturgy seriously we must also be accurate and not in- troduce German Protestantism and interiority here. Ve-nislab means: the whole community is forgiven; this rus cum solo just docsnt exis. Everything lies behind him. Already at the commencement of the last day, for hich the preceding nine days were only preparations, he had in that prayer for the anoulment of all vows, all slP-consecratons and good resolves, attained co pute humility to step—not as his knowing, no, now meeely as Hs sensing (w= rend child—before Him who might forgive his, just as He forgave “ll he eon- sregation ofthe children of Isat, and he suanger that sojourneth amoig them, for in respect ofall that people it was done in errr Cin Wind.” Now he is ready ‘o confess his own gut before God in ever new repetitions. There is no longer any guilt before men, TFhe were oppressed by cha guilt, he would have to have un- burdened himself earlier in confessing i, man to man. The Day of Atonement does not atone such guilt it knows nothing of it. For the Day of Atonement, al sins, even those committed against and pardoned by man, ate sins before God, sins ofthe solitary individual, sins the soul—foe eis the sou hae sins. And God Jeans his countenance toward this united-lonely pleading of humanity in shrouds, « humanity beyond the grave, a humanity of souls, God who loves man both before and afer his sin, God whom man, in his need, may reproach, asking ‘why he has forsaken him, God who is mereiful and gracious, long-suffering and. bundane in goodness and truth, who keeps his mercy unto the thousandth gen station, who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin, and has mercy on him ‘who recuens, So thac man to whom the divine countenance cis leaned bursts cut into the exultant profession: this God of love, he alone is God! So far does everything earthly lie behind the fever of cttnity [Ewigheits- rauic, that one can hanlly imagine how a vey can lead back from here into the ‘ircut ofthe year. That is why ic is most signifcane for the structure ofthe spit ‘ual year chat the festivals of immediate redemption do not chemselves conclude the feast month of redemption which closes the annual eycle of Sabbaths, For ter them comes the Feast of Booths, which isa feas of eedemption founded on the base of an unredeemed era and of che historia! people, In the common unity af ‘he one humanity, che soul was alone with God. Against such a foretaste of eter- i | | Paul and Moses 37 sty, with this ease che reality of ime is reinstated, Thus the circuit ofthe year can recomunence, for only within it ate we allowed to conjure etexnity into ttne.”” 1 believe the text speaks for itself. want only to add one thing, which is, s0 to speak, the all-important point. Exodus 34 begins wich the following. sentence: ‘The Lord said co Moses: “Carve two tablets of stone like the fist.” ‘The festival of the old tablets is, according to Jewish custom, the Feast of “Weeks. Seven weeks after the exodus from Egypt, the Feast of Weeks takes place, the day of redemption. (In the Christian version this later becomes Pentecost.) And novr listen to what the Midrash has to say about this: ‘And God said to Moses: “Make [or form] this rable.” He went up on the new moon of illu [chat is, September]. “Make this figuee and be ready forthe morn ing.” And Moses did this and gor up in dhe morning and went up. He spenc there the entre monch of Hl and ten days ofthe month of Tishrei (this, the Days of “Awl. And he came down on the tenth day [which i the Day of Atonement]. And. Israel was in prayer and fasting, and on this day ic was said to Moses: let it be for- given according to your word. And the Hioly One, blessed be he, decreed the Day ‘of Atonement and Forgiveness for all peoples, as it says in Leviticus (Chapter 16, ‘which discusses the Day of Atonement: For on this day atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse you. And immediately Moses ordered: build a new sanctuary. ‘With that I close, and I believe that insofar as scholarship has something, to say about this topic and can draw liturgy out of the latent inco the man- ifest, 1 have at least honestly tried to do so. Now, what is the connection between what I presented to you about ‘Yom Kippur and the problem of Paul as it is formulated in the ninth chap- ter of the Epistle to the Romans? The crux of the thing and the purpose of iy confrontation of New Testament exegesis and Jewish holiday custom lies in the fuer that Paul faced the same problem as Moses. ‘The people has sinned. It has rejected the Messiah that has come to it Itis only from this, after all, thar the calling of Paul resuks, as ic says in Galatians. Because he himself had persecuted the congregation until the vision of light cured him around ancl asked: Why are you persecuting me? Which then gives hitm the notion: Here is a Messiah who is condemned according to the law. ‘ant pis, so much the worse for law. I've tried for my part to point out to you something of the multilayered quality and interpenetration of what is called “law.” And remember that Paul's appointed task is not that of an38 Readings apostle to the Gentiles, but that of an apostle from the Jews ro the Gen- tiles. You can read yourselves in Romans 9 whae the inner dialectic of chis is: bringing in the Gentiles in order to. make Israel jealous. He introduces the concept ofthe remnant and speaks of pas Israel, (In this connection we will also be talking about Rosenzweig, who develops an alternative vision to Paul’ by way of the two paths.) All of what F have said appears to me to be necessary in order to understand just what Paul meaais when he says he wants to be accursed by Christ. These are not rhetorical flourishes, but rather the devastation about the people of God no longer being the people of God, By presenting this to you, [also wanted to show you that this too has «a contemporary relevance, because the Day of Atonement has, so to speak, 4 power in whose experience every Jew shares. Rosenzweig has an ingen- ious handle on one aspect of the phenomenology of the Jewish soul on the Day of Atonement. Who else can write the way he does, there, on the bat- tlcfields of Macedonia, written on postcards to his mother, who copied it, He depicts something about the clothing, about the gescuces, in a way that is convincing, a least for me. I know how denigrated the field of liturgics is in departments of theology. If people really knew what goes on in liur- sics, then a very important man, highly distinguished, would have to be appointed to it. In any case, my ideas about liturgies and the general ideas about it are profoundly dissociared in chis regard. I would be inclined to develop the- ‘ology out of liturgies; perhaps this is a Catholic notion. I think this can be felt better from a Catholic than from a Protestant point of view. Iam thinking, for example, of Hans Urs von Balthasan.* 4. Pneuma. The Surpassing of Salvation History and the Overcoming of This World: ‘A Reading of Romans 9-13 ‘There’ a marvelous picture that my friend and colleague [Jan] Ass- ‘mann has sent me (and which can also be found on the cover of Giinther Bornkammn’s Paul book), which T particularly easure and catty around with me in my bag, because, with the naiveté of che medieval stonemason, it says everything for those who know how to read. It comes from a capi- ‘al in the cathedral in Vézelay, which is for me the only clutch of which 1 Paul and Moses 49 ‘can say that the sacred has become stone. (To me, Chartres is already Ieitsch compared to Vézelay. It's also one of che things I wish for, to be able to visit Vézelay again.) The picture shows Moses, who pours in grain from above, and the apostle Paul, who collects it below in the sack of the gospel. ‘The cext thar explicates this scene was written by Suger, the Abbot of St-Denis. I don't want to torture you wich my Latin; that’s why T trans- Iated it for myself right away. (One word remained unclear, and I had to have a call placed to the department of medieval Latin. It was the first time they had ever been phoned by anyone at all.) The text goes: ‘By working the mil, chou, Paul, takest the flour out of the bran. “Thou makest knowa the inmost meaning of the Law of Moses From so many grains is made the true bread without bran, ‘Oue and the angels’ perpetual food.” I think chats wonderful. This text, I carry it around wich me, and if 1 for- get what I think, [ook at it, and thes I realize again where T stand ‘This is the theme of Moses and Paul, OF course this is a Christian image, a medieval allegory, ox, more precisely, a Moses-Paul typology as it is felt by Christians. OF course, this is not my Paul, Here I can see how an abbot in the eleventh cencury imagined it. [c's the sum total of Christian ‘experience. (The word “Christian” of course doestit exist in Paul. This may surprise you, but that’s how it is. That is not unimportant, because if he hhad wanted to, he could certainly have had it.) As such I find the image tremendously dense, and for this reason J carry it around with me, What I have to say about Moses and Paul is naturally something else. My thesis is that Paul understands himself as ouidding Moses, You are of course familiar with the typological relationship berween the Old and the New ‘Testaments Lets take, for example, the pel of Matthew In it, the Sermon on the Mount is a surpassing of the sermon at Sinai: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times. ... Buc I say 0 you..." This is a strategy of outbidding. All of salvation history is an imitation: Jesus has to flee to Egypt, comes from Egypt, and so on. There the outbidding parallel between Moses and Christ is drawn, That Moses isa problem for Paul, in- deed, a very tough problem, is something you can glean from the Second, Epistle to dhe Corinthians. Init there is a whole series of Moses passages, all of which I cannot enumerate here. It isa matter there of the veiled face and the open face. The problem of old and new is, as you know, taken40 Readings apart with a radicality that cannot be surpassed. And there Moses is men- tioned by name. Wheteas, compared with the strategy of outbidding in 2 Corinthians, Matthew is only a very weak version, You recall the most itn- portant passage: the veil that lay on Moses and on the Jews is lifted off ‘The Paul-Moses comparison is forced by Paul himself, My chesis thus implies that Chistianity has its origin not properly in Jesus but in Paul. That if the problem we're dealing with here. And the argument for in the parallel between Moses and Paul. Being a historian of religion, and not a theologian, I see that Paul is connected with this prob- Jem, [have given you this whole extensive.and excessive preamble in order to understand that one sentence of Paul [Rom] 9:1-3, that being accursed and cut off, what that could mean for Paul and that i's meant seriously, but that he nevertheless does choose something other than what Moses chooses. And the grounds for his criticism of Moses you then find in the Epistle to che Corinthians. That's what I think, anyway. I believe that chis thesis is also philologically plausible, and in terms of religious symbolism. {ln this respect I have no problem with Carl Schmitt, He understands a symbol immediately. Bam. The rest, the exegesis, is for the scholars, Sure its dangerous, this intuitive method, but someone who can do it can do it. Not me, but him, I mean.) And I sense this polemical relationship, the way Paul measures himself against Moses, as being absolutely cental Some hold, of course, that he is measusing himself against Christ, that he is now Christ and bears Christ's sufferings on his own body. I re- gard that as total exaggeration, because he is always dewlos, he is always serving, No, not thar, but he does measure himself against Moses, that cer- tainly, And his business is the same: the establishment of a people. That's what's accomplished by chapters 9-13; in 9-a1 the legiimation of the new people of God is givens in 12 the Christian life is described; and 15—well, ‘we're living in the evil Roman Empire, so how ate we living there? What, should we sil be rising up against something thar’s going down anyway? ‘There's no poine in raising a finger; i's going to disappear anyhow. Not worth mentioning, quietistic, as Mr. Troeltsch says. Just look at that. The question, however, is: Quietistie, but out of what depths? ‘That's what 1 think. But chats where Karl Barth already drew an ingenious conclusion in his commentary on Romans, The way he draws the last sentence of 12 into 15, he gives the whole thing a completely new perspective. There he really opens our eyes. Sure its evil [das Base], but —what are you going to do. I know this sort of mentality. [es not at all foreign to me. I have a passport. this thesis | | Paul and Moree 44 But what do I have to do with my country beyond my passport? My pres- ident’s name is Reagan, Do I strike you as very American? ‘Okay, s0 Paul knows what he's talking about when he undertakes to legitimate the new congregation. I don't know if its become clear to you: chapters 9-11 are crammed with Bible passages. Far beyond Paul's normal rate of citation, which, afterall, is high enough. The text is overloaded in an almost baroque manner. This is tremendously necessary for him, since hhe wants to prove by means of Holy Scripture that now the moment has ‘come t0 open up to the Gentiles. The opening of the Jews, af God's holy people, to the Gentiles. And this holy people of God is transfigured, that is, the old people winds up becoming unclear. This Moses would not have done, and Paul knows that very well, that he is taking on a task that is un~ precedented and unique. I don't read this rhetorically, what Paul is saying here, at the beginning of 9—that he is burdened with great sorrow and an- guish and all of what he leaving behind: the sonship, the covenant, the fa- thers, the worship, the promises, the Messiah—there is nothing, afterall, that does not est on this people. So how can someone who thinks of Israel in chis way date to venturea single step beyond? J wane to tell you a story about this. I have a very good friend—now he's bishop in Stackbolm, he used to be a professor at Harvard, where 1 knew him well—Krister Stendahl. And I remember (I'm telling you this as a personal story), he visited me once in New York, and we were standing in front of a very large fireplace. And Krister—hes a real warrior type, you know, Goebbels would have envied him his figure—he says to me that his deepest worry is whether he belongs (we were speaking English) to the “commonwealth of Israel.” So I said to myself, Krister, you super-Aryan from Sweden, at the end of the world, as viewed fiom the Mediterranean, other worries you dor’t have? No, he has no other worries! There I saw ‘what Paul had done: that someone in the jungles of Sweden—as scen from where I'm standing—is worrying about whether he belongs to the “com- monwealth of Israch” that's something that’s impossible without Paul (L wai able to reassure him: as far as 'm concerned he's in.) “The question is, how do you even get at what is called pneuma? ‘Tianslated into German it becomes Geist (spirit). okay, so what does Geist mean? Pd like to begin by establishing what Hegel understood by it, who is not so long ago, even though between hisn and us lies a cataract of at tacks on Geist. Between him and us lie revelations and disclosures that Geist discredits itself. Geist discredies itself economically, according to Marx, it42 Readings discredits itself in its drives, according to Nietzsche and Freud, Spivit discredits itself. And then, alas, whar' left is just nebbich, these Geises- wissenschaften (human sciences, humanities—Tians.] about which no one knows what the concept Geis is still doing there. Is it the Hegelian con- cept? Oris it an impoverished concepe? I for one can only say: the Geist of Geiseswissenschafienis unclear to me, I donie understand it ‘Bus in Hegel I believe I still know what it is. The book all of this ‘turns on is called (in the end, regardless of what the ttle was supposed co hhave been beforehand) Phenomenology of Spirit (Phiinomenolagie des Geistes), and as such it took its course in the world and must be interpreted as such. And there I find two sentences in the Preface, which actualy isa postfitce—Hgel wrote it at the end, when the galleys had already been completed. But the whole story of the genesis of this work is not our prob- Jem here: very interesting, but for this there are salaried philosophy pro- fessors and lecturers who every twenty years change their minds about it, ‘There are ewo sentences chat I want to highlight in the preface, the pro- sgrammatie sentence and the explanatory sencence. In my view, which can be justified only by the exposition of he system itself, «everything turns on grasping and expressing the Truc, not only as Substance, but equally as Subject Well, about substance there’ a lot that can be told; he’s thinking here of Spinoza, of the young Schelling, and so on, and the point is for it to be transformed into the subject. By which, of course, he doesn't mean the small mortal “L.” (Actually, why not? Bue this is not something we want co ask him sight now.) This is the programmatic sentence of the Hegelian Phenomenology. This sentence is then explained on page 24 of the Hoffmeister edition as follows: ‘That the Tiue is actual only as system, or that Substance is essentially Subject, is ‘expressed in the representation of the Absolute as Spirit [now we understand why hhe emphatically underlines Geist herel—the most sublime concept and the one which belongs to the modem age and is religion.” Buc this is not Avistotle’s nous, which he invokes at the end of the Eneyelo- ‘peda but which in reality he understands very differently (this is some- thing that Theunissen in his book has interpreted quite rightly), buc its not my intention here to present some sort of Hegelian shmontsology. ‘This is che first explicic sentence about spit, Geir, which he interprets as Paul and Moses 43 the mose sublime concept, one which belongs to the modern age and its religion. Now one might think that we have before us a pious soul. But Hegel is perfidiously clever. If you ask yourself —this is how T do it—where does spirit come up, then you notice that spirit is the sixth chapter of the Phe- rnomenology. There he talks about the Greek polis, about government and ‘wat, about the Roman Empire, about the French Revolution and its pre- history in the philosophes, about the Enlightenment, and so on, and so forth. He depicts the history of the world, and not what che Geistests- senrchafien understand by Geise—teligion, art, culture—but rather the bloody history of the world as spirit. OF cousse this is nor exactly what Paul had in mind when he spoke about prnewrna. In Hegel we have the word Weligeist, world spirit. He uses ic in a leter to Niethammer, I believe, which he wrote to the sound of the thundering cannons of the battle of Jena. And he writes then to Nietham- rmer—this has been quoted often enough—that he had seen “world-spirit ‘on horseback.” This is completely mistaken and shows that one doesa’c know what Hegel is talking about here, Because there he says explicily die Wellseele, the soul of the world.” And Welseleis psyche kasmon, which isthe Neoplatonist unconscious soul. It is in Napoleon on horseback that history is concentrated; but what history means—that Mr. Hegel says in this book hhete. That is world-spirit. Wieh just the same concentration as Napoleon siding by the hills of Jena, the interpretation is concentrated in Hegel Bat there is such a thing as world-spiris it exists as polemical con- cept against Paul. Because Paul differentiates in Corinthians in the second chapter between the preua tow kosmow, the pnewma of this world or of this eon as a negative concept, and pneuma tou theou, the spirit of God. Hegel, ina consciously polemical fashion, now puts forward world-spirit as a positive, as hypostasis, (In the wake, of course, of Schiller, “world history as the world’s judgment” and all that sort of idealistic stuff.) So in Hegel ic js already hard enough to understand what Geist means. He continues, “The spiritual alone is the actual”—well, these are already things that I no longer understand; this is che'essencing ( Wésendé) or the being-for-itself (Ansichseiende), whatever all of that is, this is the purview of the special- ists—in any case: Geiss the actual. ‘Who can say this today? We knows chat spiri discredits iself I cited three witnesses to this discredit, to rake you through the nineteenth cen- tury: the suspicion of Geist { Geist-Verdachi] on economic grounds (Marx),44 Readings ‘on philosophical grounds (Nietzsche), and on the grounds of depthepsy- chology (Freud). So how are we going to get toa concept of pmenma at all? I sense here a very major problem. A path that I want ro show you in what follows goes by way of the link of theypneumatie¥s life experience with al- legorical texeual experience, ‘The sensus alleoricushas been denigrated as far back as the Protestant church since Luther, because one savr in allegory something azbitrary. With ix, you can do as you please, say with it whatever you wish, connect A and. Gin other words: a bricolage—type procedure. The first one to open our cyes to this was Walter Benjamin in the Origin of German Tragic Drama. He demonstrated that the sensus allegoricsis not only textual but a form of life. 1 will return to this. Modern Biblical criticism, however, beginning with Spinoza (and here [ differ from the Protestant history of Biblical crit- icism, which according to Ebeling begins with Luther), [ have no use for it. The sensu historicusis developed by Richard Simon, the Catholic theo logian and by the—hard to say, some call him a fiee sprit, some call him God-crazed, you can take your pick—Benedictus Spinoza is the attempt ro ‘cut off the basis or lifeline of church and synagogue interpretation, that is, of Rabbinic and Christian interpretation, by recognizing the sensus histori. cus or the sensu litenais exclusively asthe sensus out of which a text may be interpreted. Now, whether or not that is demonstrated more geometrica in the Evhies, certainly in che Thactatus Theologica-Palitcur it is the sensus anudas, Whatever can be developed within the sensus hisoricus has legti- macy; everything else is ideology and swindle. ‘The problem of Spinoza is radicalized in philology, which has a cathartic function vis--vis theology and philosophy. Philology is an im- plicic critique of theology and of philosophy. On this mater, I would like to place before you a text by Nietzsche entitled "The Philology of Chis- tianiey.” The Philology of Christianity —How lice Christianity educates the sense of hon- «sty and justice can be gauged frsly well from the character ofits scholar’ writ- ings they presen their conjectures a boldly as if they were dogmas and are rarely in any honest [rede] perplexity ofthe interpretation ofa passge inthe Bible The key word here is Redlichkeit, “honesty.” Since there is no longer any truth after Nietesche, from Nietzsche to Weber, anew criterion arises, that of honesty. And that is what he keeps harping on. ‘Again and again they say "Tau right, for iis written — and then follows an in= | | | i | Paul and Moses 45 terpretation of such impudent arbitrariness that a philologst who hears ie i ‘aught between rage and laughter and asks, himself i i possible? Is this hon- ‘onrable? is ic even deeent?—How much dishonesty io this matter i ill practised in Protestant pulpits, how grossly the preacher exploits the advantage that no one is going co interrupt him here, how the Bible is pumelled and panched and the ‘art of reading badlyis all due form imparted to the people: only he who nevet oes to church or never goes anywhere else will underestimate that. But aftr all, ‘what can one expect from the effects of arcigion which in the centuries ofits foundation pespetrated that unheard-of philological farce concerning the Old Tes- tament: T mean the atempe co pull the Old Testament fiom under the fet ofthe Jews with the assertion it contained nothing but Christian teaching and belonged to the Christians as the rue people of Israel, the Jews being only usurpers. And then there followed a Fury of interpretation and construction that cannot possibly be associated with a good conscience: however much Jevish scholars procesed, the (Ofd Testament was supposed to speak of Cheist and only of Christ, and especially of his Cross, wherever a piece of wood, 2 rod, a ladder, a twig, a tre, «willow a staff is mentioned, it is supposed to be a prophetic allusion to the wood of the Cross; even the erection of the one-horned beast and the brazen seapent even Moses spreading his arms in prayer, even the spits on which the Passover lamb was roasted —all allusions co the Cross and as it were prclades toi! Has anyone who asserted this ever believed it? Consider thatthe church didnot shrink from en riching the text of che Sepcuagine (ein Psalm 96, verse 10) so a8 afterwards to ‘employ the stuggled-in passage in the sense of Christian prophecy. For they were conducting a tarand paid more heed to their opponents than to the need to stay honest. So you see: the asic word in this text is “honesty” And so he asks: Has anyone who asserted this ever believed i? And I say: Yes, Paul the Apostle. “That isthe enterprise of Romans 9-1. Now] would have to embark on an intensive reading, but I don't have any hope of finishing it today and to- ‘morrow, For this reason, I propose a cursory reading, from 9'to 13, Lam presuming that everyone knows by and large what the ext says, I want to concentrate in greater detail on 9-r1, because here indeed this possibility of pneumatization, whose honesty is newly called into question by Nietzsche, is undertaken, Preuma as a force that transforms a people and that crans- forms the text. © ‘Well, of course nothing happens in a vacuum. I could refer to Alexandrian Allegoreis, the work by Jean Pépin, which spans from the ‘Alexandtians to Bultmann. This is just so typically Frenchy ini, everything is worked over with no consideration for what is important and what is46 Readings unimportant. But I will refer to a supplement to the journal Angelos by Hans Wenschkewitz, dating from 1932 and entitled “The Spiritualization of Cultic Concepts: Temple, Priest, and Sacrifice in the New Testament,” for the purpose of showing what I dor? mean2* There Wenschkewitz speaks about spiritualization, in which, naturally, Paul has an important role (pp. 110-58). [eantt trace this in depth hece, but itis an oversimpli- cation to understand Paul simply asallegoresis. Our concepts nowadays are much to precise to show that we are not dealing here merely with a srans- _figunatio upward, always up. Forgive me for thinking of such a stupid story in this connection, but it was in the Spiegel, which is no contradiction. ‘When Brezhney was here—he was here a few years ago, and suddenly it ‘was a holiday. And he asked: So what holiday is it today? Ie was Ascension Day. But how do you say that to Brezhnev? So they cold him it was the Day of the German Air Force. What the two have in common is, so r0 speak, the arrow pointing upward. I do not belicve that Paul is metely an arrow pointing upward to alle- goresis in the sense of spiritualization, as was pu forward fifty years ago by Wenschkewite, but that Paul isa very particular mixcure of allegoresis and typology. And the typological is not at all, so to speak, the Day of the Ger- tan Air Force pointing upward; rather, the connection spans from prehis- tory to history. Prehistory becomes a prelude that is only fulfilled larcr, that is, the binding of Isaac is the prelude to the crucifixion (to take the cxam- ple which especially incenses Nietzsche), That is, the matter is not cap- tured with the one vector “pointing upward.” More is ae stake here. ‘After these ptefatory and preparatory remarks, I now wane to chance a unified reading of Romans 9-15. {Lam speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lyings and my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit—I have great sortow and my anguish unceasing in my heart. For 1 myself wish I were accursed and cut off anathema from Christ for my brethren, my kindred according to the flesh, who are Ieracies, [and then comes the great Fague about all she things that constitute this community of solidaticy Is racl cha is, the status oF son (you are my firstborn, Exodus), the glory, the doxa, the testaments, the giving of che law, the cul, the promises] to whom belong the patriarchs, and from whom comes Christ, insofar ashe is les [and then, as Tread it, benedietion formuls!] God be blessed from eon to eon. Amen, So you sce the abundance of characteristics belonging to che people of Is- rael. This i said by Paul, the Paul of right now {der Jetc-Pawlus}, not some ‘old Paul who says: I once believed something like this. The problem is: if 7 Paul and Moses 47 this is the case—and we have, after all, ourselves been able to sce some thing of the devastation in Isracl in those two passages, afier the Golden Calf and after the scouts, where God makes the offer to destroy the people and to begin a new one with Moses. (I have made these texts available to you in the Buber translation with its Jewish coloring so that you can expe- rience it from the other side for a change.) Then to that [linked the entise beginning of the eve of the Day of Atonement; I dorit need to repeat that haere. I never claimed that these texts I read to you from the holiday prayers are pre-Pauline. [ presented to you a phenomenology and asked the ques- tion: How does a Jew experience this? How does a Jew experience this la- tently, not manifestly, why on the eve of the Day of Atonement do they crowd into the synagogue, ofall places, in order to recite a suspension of the oath-formulas, and why are they for this reason suspected by the Chris- tians of breaking their word? When instead what it really isis a repetition of the primal scene, the suspension of the destruction chat was pledged [geschworen| by God? This is what is played out over and over, and the df= Feulty consists it this: How can God be released from his oath? Yes, he can be, happy is the master who has such a student? Who dares to release him from the oath. I wanted to show you that this profoundly determines the entire liturgy ofthe beginning of the Day of Atonement, latently. But once you pin it down everyone notices it ‘These problems are not related to each other in the manner of filia- tion, The question here is not whether all of this was already known to Paul. Rather, Paul stands before che very same problem, and I have pointed out that the Moses-Paul comparison comes not from me but from Paul. In any ease, the problem exists, a problem which naturally someone with leanings toward Biblical criticism is not going to get worked up about: that the word of God could misfire, that his promises have missed their mark, s0 to speak. But the word of God cannot just go awry! The word of God is after all ruc and firm, asthe prayer of the Jews emphasizes daily. No, it didn’e go awry. Because not all who descend from Israel are I= tel. That is the key sentence. This means: this “all” according to the flesh is not identical to the “all” according to the promise.” Not everyone. ‘The apostle takes the election of Israel seriously. This is embarrassing for mod ‘em Christianity, but that's the way itis. I's embarrassing, You've got to be able to live with this, Better to live with embarrassments than to transfig- ure the text, Because he understands himself to be an apostle of the Jews t0 the Gentiles and understands this as a calling. In Galatians there is noth-