Professional Documents
Culture Documents
OF EVIL
PAUL RICOEUR
BE AC O N PRESS B O STO N
This Beacon paperback edition reprints Volume X V II
o j the R eligious Perspectives Series
which is planned and edited by R uth N anda A nshen
D r. Anshen's Epilogue to this reprint appears an page 358
PART I
Introduction: PH E N O M E N O LO G Y O F “ CO N FE SSIO N ” 3
C hapter 1. D E F IL E M E N T 25
1. T h e Im pure 25
2. E thical T e n o r 29
3. T h e Symbolism o f Stain 33
4. T h e Sublimation o f Dread 40
Chapter I I . SIN 47
3. Scrupulousness 118
C onclusion: R E C A P IT U L A T IO N O F T H E SY M B O L ISM
O F E V IL IN T H E C O N C E PT O F T H E SE R V ILE
W IL L 151
P A R T II
Introduction: T H E SY M B O L IC F U N C T IO N O F M Y T H S 161
Chapter I . T H E D R A M A O F C R E A T IO N A N D T H E
“ R IT U A L ” V IS IO N O F T H E W O R L D 175
C hapter I I I . T H E “ A D A M IC ’ M Y T H A N D T H E
“ E SC H A T O L O G IC A L ” V IS IO N O F H IS T O R Y 232
C hapter I V . T H E M Y T H O F T H E E X IL E D S O U L A N D
S A L V A T IO N T H R O U G H K N O W LE D G E 279
T he Primary Symbols:
Defilement, Sin, Guilt
Introduction:
Phenom enology
o f "Confession”
* This second volume does not push reflection beyond myths; the elabora
tion of speculative symbols will be the object of the third volume. It appears,
in fact, that the immediate debate of gnosis is with philosophy, and so it is
in the framework of a philosophy of fault that gnosis must be examined.
in a fragm ent o f the^cosmos, w hich, in return, loses its concrete
limits, gets- charged w ith innum erable meanings, integrates and
urnfipa the greatest possible num ber o f the sectors o f anthropocos-
m ic experience.t^Tirgi? o f all, then, it is the sun, the m oon, the
waters—that is to say, cosm ic realities— that are symbols. Shall w e
say, therefore, that symbols, in their cosm ic aspect, are anterior to
language, or even foreign to it? N ot at alL F or these realities to b e
a symbol is to gather together at one point a mass o f significations
which, before giving rise to thought, give rise to speech. T h e sym
bolic m anifestation as a thing is a m atrix o f sym bolic meanings as
w ordsr W e ' have never ceased to find m^nninga in the sky (to take
the first exam ple on w hich Eliade practices his com parative phe
nom enology). It is the same thing to say that the sky m anifests
the sacred and to say that it signifies the m ost high, the elevated
am i the immense, the pow erful and the orderly, the clairvoyant
, i »J»u» 'i* :*WWN|»'>—■.<■!]. 'jin ijiBliiW^iyiWi'
I
origin is the fundam ental intersection that founds ou r culture. T h e
Jewish source is the first “ other” o f philosophy, its “ nearest” other;
the abstractly contingent fact o f that encounter is the very fah» o f
our occidental existence. Since our existence begins w ith it, tins
encounter has becom e necessary, in the sense that it is the presup
position o f our undeniable reality. This is why the history o f the
consciousness o f fault in Greece and in Israel w ill constantly he our
central point o f reference; it is our “ nearest” origin, in this spiritual
econom y o f distance.
T he rest follow s from this double privilege o f Athens and Jeru
salem : everything that, step by step, has contributed to our spiritual
genesis belongs to our investigation, but along the lines o f motiva
tion that are expressed by “ near” and “ far.”
W hat, then, does “ step by step” mean? V arious sorts o f relations
o f orientation: relations in “ depth,” “ lateral” relations, “ retroac
tive” relations.
“ Relations _in depth’C & s P There are themes o f the religious con - ‘
sciousness that appear to us today, as it were, in the “ thickness”
and the transparency o f our present m otivations. T h e conception
o f fau lt as defilem ent is the best exam ple o f this; it shows through
all ou r Greek and H ebrew docum ents. I t is im possible to over
estimate the im portance o f this stratified structure fo r the con
sciousness o f fault. Psychoanalysis, it w ill b e seen, tries to m ake a
logical archaism coincide w ith tins cultural “ distance.” It is to
elucidate this sedimentation erf our cultural m em ory that w e can
appeal to docum ents bearing on civilizations w hich d o n o t belong
to that memory— civilizations o f A frica, Australia, Asia, etc.— and
winch are quite often contem porary civilizations. T h e objective
likeness that ethnology discovers between them and ou r ow n past
authorizes us to use know ledge about those civilizations to diagnose
our ow n past, suppressed or buried in oblivion. I t is solely in virtue
o f their diagnostic value in relation to our m em ory that w e shall
invoke the testimony o f ethnology concerning m odes o f behavior
and consciousness o f fault.
B ut one cannot explicate these relations in “ depth” in the bosom
o f our m em ory without bringing the “lateral” relations to light also.
F or «ram plftj it is im possible today to understand the H ebrew
source without placing its beliefs and its institutions in the fram e
work o f the culture o f the ancient M iddle East, fo r it repeats some
o f the fundam ental themes o f that culture (b y direct borrow ing, by
reference to com m on sources, o r in virtue o f the parallelism o f
material and cultural con dition s), and above all it m odifies same
others profoundly. T h e understanding o f those likenesses and un
likenesses pertains henceforth to the proper understanding o f the
H ebrew source o f our m em ory, so that the culture o f the ancient
M iddle East itself belongs m arginally to our m em ory.
In their turn, these relations in “ depth” and in “ breadth” are
reshaped by retroactive relations. O u r cultural m em ory is unceas
ingly renewed retroactively by new discoveries, returns to the
sources, reform s and renaissances that are m uch m ore than revivals
o f the past and constitute behind us w hat one m ight call a “ neo
p ast” Thus, our Hellenism is not exactly the Hellenism o f the
Alexandrians, o r o f the C hurch Fathers, o r o f Scholasticism , o r o f
the Renaissance, o r o f the A ufklarung; think, fo r example, o f the
rediscovery o f tragedy by the m odem s. Thus, by retroaction from
the successive “ nows,” ou r past never stops changing its m eaning;
the present appropriation o f the past m odifies that w hich motivates
us from the depths o f the p ast
T w o m odalities o f thiB neo-past .deserve to b e m entioned: restora
tion o f lost intermediaries and later suppression o f distance,
j T h at such intermediaries have been lost is a part o f the situation
o f our m em ory; but suddenly their restoration transforms the
understanding that w e had o f ourselves on the baas o f that past full
o f lacunae. Thus, the discovery o f manuscripts in the desert of
Judea restores an im portant transition in the Judeo-Christian p a st
N ow , the ignorance o f that transition was part o f the m otivations
o f our consciousness u p to a recent d ate; the present discoveries
reshape the established tradition, throw light on obscure m otiva
tions, and thus give us a new m emory.
2 . A second source o f neo-form ations in our memory com es from
later m odifications o f the "distance” between the sources o f our
consciousness. T h e science o f religion "brings together” cultures
that have not encountered each other. But these "bringings to
gether” remain arbitrary insofar as n o bonds are fan n ed such as'
engender great works o f the sort that renew our patrim ony, as was
the case between the H ebrew and Greek cultures; w hich effectively
encountered each other in a w ay that was decisive fo r the constitu
tion o f our memory. But there are cultures w hich have been brought
Jogether only in the m ind o f the scholar, but w hidT have n ot yet
encountered each other t o the point o f radical!^transform ing onr
tradition ; this is the case w ith the Far-Eastern civilizations; T his
explains why a phenom enology oriented by the philosophical ques
tion o f Greek origin cannot d o justice t o the great experiences o f
In dia and China. H ere, not only the contingency but also the limits
o f our tradition becom e eviden t There is a m oment when the
principle o f orientation becom es a principle o f lim itation. It w ill
be said, n o fw ith o u t reason, that those rivilizatjans are o f equal
value w ith the Greek and Jewish civilizations. But the point o f view
from w hich this equality o f value can b e seen does n ot yet exist, and
it w ill exist eventually only when a universal human culture has
brought all cultures together in a w hole. In the m eantim e, neither
the history o f religions n or philosophy can b e a concrete universal f
rapnhlp o f em bracing all hum an experience. O n the on e hand, the
objectivity o f science, w ithout a point o f view and w ithout situation,
does n ot equahre ciilhirEs’e ^ e p t'b y h K fia lS i^ M d ie ir i ^ u e j it can^
not think the positive reasons fo r their equal value. O n the other
hand, philosophy, as w e have received it from the Greeks and
perpetuated it in the W est, w ill rem ain unequal to this concrete
universal as long as n o serious encounter and n o m utual clarifica
tion have brought these civilizations into the field o f ou r experience
and at the same tim e rem oved its lim itation. This encounter and
this mutual clarification have n ot yet really taken place. T h ey have
taken place fo r same m en and some groups and they have been the
great concern o f their lives; but they have rem ained episodic fo r
our culture as a w hole. T his is w hy, u p to the present, they have
not had the significance o f a foundation (as did the encounter o f
the Greek question w ith the H ebrew religion) and o f a re-creation
(as have the various renaissances and returns to sources in the
bosom o f W estern cu ltu re). T h eir phenom enological character is
precisely that they have rem ained episodic, and so the relation o f
ou r culture to the Far East remains a relation to something distant.
N o doubt w e are drawing closer to the m om ent o f a creative en
counter and the reshaping o f a m em ory based on the opposition o f
“near” and "far5’ ; but w e are n ot in a position to im agine what
that w ill m ean fo r the categories o f our ontology and fo r our read
ing o f the Pre-Socratics, Greek tragedy, and the Bible. But one
thing is certain: w e shall n ot enter into this great debate o f each
culture w ith all w ithout our m em ory; the lessening o f the distance
between our civilization and those w hich today w e still call “ dis
tant” w ill not suppress the structuration o f ou r m em ory, but w ill
com plicate i t It w ill n ot cease to b e true that w e w ere b om to
philosophy by G reece and that as philosophers w e have encountered
the Jews before encountering the Hindus and the Chinese.
1. T h e I mpure
2. E th ic al T error
d e file m e n t 45
o f education, fam ilial, scholastic, civic, as w ell as in the protection
o f society against the infractions o f citizens. T h e project o f an
education w hich w ould dispense w ith prohibition and punishment,
and so witBTfear, is ‘undoubtedly n ot only chim erical h u t harm ful.
M uicKlirteam ed^through fear and obedience—including the liberty
which is inaccessible to fear. There are steps that cannot be dis-
pensed w itlf w ithout harm . Certain form s o f hum an relations, the
relations that are properly spealdrig“ cu«*;, cannot, perhaps, ev e rg e t
beyond tbeTstage o f fear. O n e carfim agine penalties that afflict less
and less and amend m ore and m ore, b u t perhaps one cannot
imagine a state w hich has n o necessity to m ake law respected
through the threat o f sanctions and w hich can awaken consciences
that are still unrefined to the notion o f what is perm itted and what
prohibited without the threat o f punishment. In short, it is possible
that a w hole part o f human existence, the public part, cannot raise
itself above the fear o f punishment and that this fear is the indis
pensable means by w hich m an advances tow ard a different order,
hyperethical in a w ay, where fear w ould be entirely confounded
with love.
H ence, the abolition o f fear could only b e the horizon, and, so
to speak, the eschatological future o f hum an m orality. B efore cast
ing ou t fear, love transforms and transposes it. A conscience that is
militant and n ot yet trium phant does n ot cease to discover ever
sharper fears. T h e fear o f not loving enough is the purest and worst
a ffea rs. It is the fear that the saints know , tbe^fearthat love itself
begets. A n d because m an never loves enough, it is n ot posable that
die fear" o f nofISem g loved enougiTin return should b e abolished.
O nly p erfect love casts out fear. .
SucJTiTthe future o f fear, o f that archaic dread which anticipates
vengeance in an interdiction. It is because that future belongs to
it potentially that the “ prim itive” dread o f the im pure w ill n ot be
an element that is simply abolished in the history o f conscience,
but w ill be able to be taken up in new form s o f feeling that at first
negate it.
I f one should ask, then, what the nucleus is that remains con
stant through all the symbolizations o f defilem ent, w e should have
to answer that it is only in the progress o f conscience, as it advances
beyond and at the same tim e retains the notion o f defilem ent, that
its m eaning w ill b e manifested. W e shall try to show this when w e
have gone through the entire cycle o f the primary symbols o f eviL
L et us content ourselves fo r the mom ent w ith Socrates’ play an
words in the Cratylus (4 0 4 e-4 0 6 a ): A pollo is d ie god “ who
washes” UrroAovav), but he is also the god w ho speaks the “ simple”
truth (durXoBy). I f, then, sincerity can be a sym bolic purification,
every evil is symbolically a stain. T h e stain is the first “ schema”
o f evil. ’
II. Sin
1 See the index “Verbormn et Reran,” in Moulinier, op. cit., pp. 431 B.,
which contains all the useful references concerning the Greek vocabulary of
the Pure and the Impure.
* C f. above, p . 29.
logical types, the most remarkable example o f “ transition” from
defilement to sin is furnished by the Babylonian confession o f tins.8
T h e symbol o f defilement is dominated by the symbol o f ‘‘binding,”
w hich is still a symbol o f externality, but w hich expresses seizure,
possession, enslavement, rather than contagion and contam ination:
“ M ay the evil that is in m y body, in my muscles and tendons, depart
today,” the penitent prays; but at the same tim e as the schema o f
defilement is incorporated into that o f possession, the notions o f
transgression and iniquity are added: “ D eliver m e from the spell
that is upon m e . . . fa r an evil spell and an im pure disease and
transgression and iniquity and sin are in m y body, and a wicked
spectre is attached to me.” It is already the personal relation J o a
god that determines the spiritual space where sin is distinguished
from defilem ent; the penitent experiences the assault o f demons
as the counterpart o f the absence o f the g od : “ An evQ curse has
cut the throat o f this m an as if he were a lam b; Ins god has gone
out o f his body, his goddess has kept herself aloof.” Polarly op
posed to the god before w hom he stands, the penitent becom es
conscious o f his tin as a dim ention o f his existence, and n o longer
only as a reality that haunts h im ; the examination o f conscience
and the interrogative thinking that it gives rise to are already there:
from facts the penitent goes back to acts and their obscure back
ground: “ Has he afflicted a god, scorned a goddess? Can he have
scorned the nam e o f his god in making an offering? Can he have
kept back what he m ight have consecrated?” T h e question makes
its way through the labyrinths o f anguish and dereliction: “ C all?
N o cme hears. A nd that crushes m e. Cry out? N o cme answers. T h a t
oppresses m e.” A nd the feeling o f being abandoned gives a new
impulse to confession, w hich plunges into the depths o f forgotten
or unknown tins; com m itted against an unknown god or goddess:
“ T h e faults that I have com m itted I do not know. . . . T h e sins
that I have com m itted I d o not know. . . . O god, known or un-
/
1. T h e C ategory of “ B efore G od” : T h e C ovenant
7 For the general relation between the idea o f sin and the idea of
Covenant, see E ich rodfs magistral T heologie des alien Testam ents (Leipzig,
1933-39, 3 v ola.). I refer in particular to V oL I I I , $ 23, “ Sfinde im d
Vergebung.” See also the excellent synthesis in E d. Jacob, Las th&mes
essentiels d’ une th iologie de FAncien Testam ent (N en d ittri, 19 55 ), pp.
7 5 -8 2 , 91 -9 4 , 170-77, and 226-40.
m an. It is, then, the prior establishment o f the band o f the C ove
nant that is im portant fo r the consciousness o f sin; it is this that
makes sin a violation o f the Covenant.
Shall w e say that sin presupposes a “ theistic?* perspective? T his
proposal is juster, but on tw o conditions: that w e take the theistic
thesis in a sense that includes both m onotheistic and polytheistic
representations, and that w e take theism prior to the elaboration
o f any theology, as the fundam ental situation o f a m an w ho finds
him self im plicated in the initiative taken by someone w ho, on his
side, is essentially turned tow ard m an; a god in the im age o f m an,
if yon wish, but above all a god concerned about m an ; a god w h o
is anthropotropic—before being anthropom orphic.
This initial situation, this disconcerting initiative that rails and
elects, appears suddenly and becom es silent, is n o less foreign to
philosophical discourse— at least discourse instituted b y a reason
defined by universality and non-tem porality—than defilem ent; inter
dict; and vengeance. But, just as defilem ent was related to philo
sophical m editation insofar as it had the character o f language, or
the w ord (parole) — the w ord o f prohibition and rite, the w ord o f
confession,— so the Covenant as w ord penetrates into the same
space o f reflectionT T h e ruah o f Yahw eh in the O ld Testam ent,
w hich w e translate b v Spirit fo r lack o f % better term ,..designates
the'irrational aspect o f the C ovenant; but this ruah is also davar,
w ard (parol*)»8 I t is n o accident th a t the only suitable equivalent
o f the H ebrew davar was the Greek logos. This translation, even
though only approxim ate and inexact, was itself an im portant
cultural event. I t expresses the conviction, first, that all languages
are translatable in to one another, and that all cultures belong to a
jtngleTium anity; and then that w e must seek the least bad eqiuva-
lentTfor the calling o f m an by G od in the logos, in w hich the Grades
recognized the unity o f ratio and oratio. T h e projection o f the
H ebrew davar upon the Greek logos, a projection pregnant with
equivocations in one sense; m arked first of^all the recognition o f
thETTact: the initial situation o f m an as G od’s pray can enter into
the
■« p i.w *
universe o f discourse because
—-
it is itself analyzable
» it w w -
in to an
- n m w tfi
2. T h e I n f in it e D em a n d an d t h e F in it e C o m m a n d m e n t
In other words, the B iblical discovery o f sin does n ot reside in the measuring
o f faults by a code. These views o f L ods are complem ented by the m uch
less evolutionary interpretation o f G . von B ad {op. eit., pp. 192 ff .) .
as F or this contribution o f the Scriptural prophets to the theme o f sin, see
A . Ndher, op. eit,, pp. 213 ff.r and A . Lods, op. eit., Second Period.
Ilosea, it is true, introduces into the consciousness o f sin a note
o f tenderness that dings to his m etaphor o f the conjugal bond. F or
the ritual pact he substitutes the pact o f affection, with its reciproc
ity and its abandon: “ They did n ot understand that I brought
them healing; I drew them w ith the bonds o f kindness, w ith the
chains o f love. . . But this affection is n o less dem anding than
tiie justice o f A m os; the G od o f tenderness is a husband jealous o f
the lovers w hom an adulterous w ife prefers to h im ; and the prophet
mim ics, even in his own sexual behavior, the parable o f adultery,
accusation, and desertion. Thus adultery, crim inal preference fo r
another lover, becom es a m etaphor fo r tin, at the same tim e as
G od reveals him self as the master w ho repudiates. T his symbol o f
repudiation is frightening; it announces that m an is abandoned
by G od’s absenting him self. T his absence o f G od, according to
H osea, is already the dereliction o f the m odem s, that is to say, an
insecurity and an anguish worse than suffering. It is from the
depths o f this desolation o f the repudiated spouse that H osea tries
to instigate the m ovem ent o f return: “ It is tim e . . . com e back
to me.”
But Isaiah, in the lightning-like vision in the Tem ple (6 :1 -1 3 ),
discovers another dimension o f G od, and so a new dim ension o f
tin : after the G od o f justice, after the G od o f the conjugal bond
betrayed, here is the G od o f sovereignty and m ajesty, the holy G od.
B y his measure man appears “ undean in lips-an d h ^ r t ” H ence-
forth tin is represented by the figure o f violated suzerainty; tin is
pride, arrogance, false greatness. Isaiah draws from it a policy
that anticipates the defeatism o f Jerem iah during the siege o f
Jerusalem ; i f tin is the false greatness o f purely hum an dom ination,
Judah should n ot seek support in its m ight or in its alliances; if
Judah h ad abandoned itself to unarm ed obedience, w ithout any
reliance on itself, w ithout defense and w ithout alliance, Judah
w ould have been saved. This unarm ed obedience, true contrary o f
tin, Isaiah, it seems, was the first to ca fi.fa ith j Thus, the consdous-
ness o f tin advances and becom es boundless as historical insecurity
grows, as the sign o f history as devastator replaces the sign o f vic
tory, and as the failure o f m ight becom es the sacrament o f holy
majesty. H e w h o threatens infinitely is he w ho demands infinitely.
Shall w e say that this infinite measure, this immeasurability o f
perfection, this ethical immensity sets u p an “ im potence” o f m an,
a “ wretchedness” that alienates him before tire face o f an Other
beyond reach? D oes not tin m a le G od the 'W holly O ther?
T his question must be placed against the background o f the
Covenant, w hich is the all-em bracing factor in the Biblical relation
between G od and man. Then it takes an a specific form : H ow does
the bond o f the Covenant em body the “ ethical distance” between
the holy G od o f the vision in the Tem ple and the man o f unclean
lips and heart? H ow does the Covenant involve tins indignation
and this distance? It is here that the dialectic o f an nnlitnitad de
mand and a lim ited imperative is disclosed.
W e cannot understand Biblical sin if w e consider only a con
science crushed beneath an im perative foreign to it ; in this way
one speaks facflely o f the “ m orality o f Sinai.” W e d o n ot under
stand it any better if we purely and simply oppose the “ m orality o f
the prophets,” as an open m orality, to a closed m orality, the ritualis
tic, legalistic, particularistic m orality o f the priests and the Levites.
T h e dialectic o f the code and the unlimited demand is the basic
ethical structure o f the Covenant.
W e have already alluded to the codes w hich preceded the a c
tivity o f the prophets o f Israel and which relate Israel to its neigh
bors in the Near E ast Prophet!sm introduces a tension between the
immeasurability o f perfection and d ie measure o f the im perative.
T he consciousness o f tin reflects this tension: on the one hand, it
penetrates beyond faults towards a radical evil that affects the
indivisible disposition o f the “ heart” ; on the other hand, it is
coined into m ultiple infractions denounced by particular com
mandments. Thus prophetism unceasingly leads u p the slope from
infractions to tin, w hile legalism unceasingly leads back down it
from sin to infractions; but prophetism. and legalism farm an in -
divitibte whole. T h e D ecalogue o f Exodus 20 is the central witness
o f this dialectic; even if w e are less sure today than the preceding
critical generation was that the D ecalogue expresses the penetra
tion o f prophetic preaching into sacerdotal circles, it remains true
that it expresses a tension that n o doubt goes back to a tim e m uch
before the scriptural prophets; fo r the old Sem itic codes were re-
vised and am ended in a spirit akin to that o f the prophets. The
specific character o f the D ecalogue resides, then, less in the material
content o f its articles than in the sense o f this elevation to a higher
level undergone by the ancient codes. In spite o f the negative char
acter o f its interdictions, the fragm entation that it introduces into
the “ w ill o f G od,” the apparent indifference o f its enunciations to
intentions, nevertheless tire rhythm o f prophetism and legalism is
visible in i t I t is viable in the prohibition o f “ idols,” inseparable
from the prophetic preaching o f the -G od o f justice, o f m ercy, o f
fidelity, inseparable also from the reference to the “ G od w ho
brought thee out o f Egypt, out o f the house o f bondage” ; so the
code becom es the charter o f a liberated people. T his rhythm is
visible also in the designation o f “ covetousness,” in article 10, as an
evil disposition m ore internal than the forbidden m odes o f be
havior: “ covetousness” recalls the endless dem and that proceeds
from divine holiness and that makes one’s neighbor and all that
belongs to him infinitely respectable.
There was a tim e when Biblical critics failed to recognize this
rhythm o f prophetism and legalism, essential to the H ebraic con
ception o f tin. T hey also displayed an excessive contem pt for
legalism, w hich, they said, rem ained under the influence o f the
negative character o f the ancient prohibitions, disregarded inten
tions, and finally fragm ented, “ atomized” the “ w ill o f G od.” This
tension between the absolute, hut form less, dem and and the finite
law , which breaks the demand in to crum bs, is-essential to the con-
srionmess o f tin : one cannot just feel oneself guilty in general;
tEfTlaw”is a _“ pedagogue” w hich helps the penitent to determine
h ow b e is a tinner; he is a tinner through idolatry, filial disrespect,
etc. It is true that h e w ould fall back in to m oralism if he ceased to
regard tin as something beyond the enum eration o f his fau lts; but
the breakthrough o f prophetism w ould have rem ained futile if it
h ad n ot carried forw ard an already ancient m ovem ent o f revision
o f earlier codes and given a new im petus to the rhythm o f the
indeterm inate dem and and the determinate com m andm ent S o far,
then, is the law from being a concession o f prophetic circles to the
archaic religion o f the priests that prophetism presupposes the law
a n d refers to the law . T h e Covenant lives by this alternation o f the
prophet and the Levite. H ow cou ld the prophet becom e indignant
against injustice, if his indignation w ere n ot articulated in definite
reproaches: exploitation o f the poor, cruelty towards enemies, the
insolence o f luxury?
It may he granted without difficulty that this survival o f the old
codes was at the same tim e a snare and that the tension could be
slackened in compromises. H istory confirm s tins fa ct: the reform of
Jonah, connected w ith the m ore or less accidental “ discovery” of
’ tE e'book w hich present criticism usually recognizes as Deuteronomy,
again gave first place to the suppression o f the high places, the
concentration o f worship at Jerusalem, the destruction o f idols and
baals. T hat reform in one sense extended the first commandment
o f the D ecalogue; but at the same tim e it brought back religious
scrupulousness alongside the rites.18
This displacement o f accent in the Law has its counterpart in a
new style o f historiography. W hile the older chronicles o f Saul and
D avid, Ahab and Jehu were marked with the brand o f th e pro
phetic spirit and unfolded the stark tragedy b om o f the confronta
tion o f the guilty king and the accusing prophet, the new history
o f the longs concentrates an the “ tins” denounced by the reform of
Jotiah: worship on the high places apart from d ie Tem ple, re
ligious syncretism with baals and other idols. Such are the tins
designated by the books o f Kings as “ the tin o f Ahab,” “ the tin
o f Jeroboam .” 1*
Nevertheless, it is this same ritualistic and legalistic Deuter
onom y15 w hich, in its parenetic parts, contains the m ost vibrant
** A . Lods, op. cit., pp. 371-74. The author sees In Deuteronom y the
birth o f Judaism, in the precise sense o f the term , founded on the authority
o f the written w ord : “ Deuteronom y, m oreover, was the first layer o f die
Torah in d ie Jewish sense, a written and definitive form ula o f the w ill of
G od. It was, at the same tim e (and thereby it has a still m ore extensive
historical im portance), the first nucleus o f th e B ible, con caved as the divine
standard o f life” (p . 3 7 4 ).
15 A . Lods, op. cit., pp. 375 ff.
15 G . von B ad, in his Devteronom ium studien (1948) and his T htologit
das alien Testam ents, p p . 21 8-3 0, using a m ethod akin to that o f the
Porm geschichte school, has restated d ie problem o f th e structure o f Deuter
onom y aw f o f ttia h ah iifa between exhortation, fnTTimBT|^mprit«J benediction,
amt mnlmiirritwt, w irin g therein the unity o f a liturgical developm ent The
w ord T orah (w e translate it by Law , fo r want o f a better alternative),
pages on the unlim ited demands o f faith and love, and thereby
internalizes sin in the m ost radical fashion. A t the m om ent when
Moses is supposed to prom ulgate the m oral and cultual charter
that w ill sanction the im m inent establishment o f the people in the
promised land, it is to the inner obedience o f the heart that he
appeals (D e u t 6, 11, 29, 3 0 ). Thus Deuteronom y repeats the same
balancing o f infinite demand and determinate com m andm ent at a
new stage that anticipates Judaism and the religion o f the Torah.
It is n ot b y chance that Jesus, w h o taught us at the same tim e to g o
beyond the L aw and to retain it, took the Summary o f th e Law
from Deuteronom y and n ot from a prophetic b o o k : “ H ear, O
Israel, Yahweh our G od is the only Yahweh. T h ou shalt love
Yahweh thy G od w ith all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all
thy m igh t L et these words w hich 1 com m and thee this day be
graven in thy heart” (D eut. 6 :4 - 6 ) . T h e “ fear” o f G od, like the
“ covetousness” nam ed in the D ecalogue, proceeds from that fine
point o f existence that th e prophets had sharpened by threats and
indignation.
That the reform o f Jonah had brought a false security into the
consciousness o f tin is sufficiently evidenced by the disconcerting,
scandalous behavior o f Jeremiah and Ezekiel. T hose w h o had
satisfied the cultual demands o f the deuteronam ic reform m ight
nourish a legitim ate confidence in the face o f the storm that broke
over Judah. But here is Jeremiah taking up the how ling o f A m os:
“Y ou shall be destroyed because o f your tins.” H is non-resistance
which presides over the theological unity o f the book, covers, then, all
Yahweh’* Interventions and tends to raise to a “ didactic” level what first
appears as a liturgical unity. It is within this w hole that one m ust place
the exhortations (Chaps. 6 -1 1 ) and the body o f laws (Chaps. 12 f f .) ,
winch, m oreover, sound hom iletic rather than ju ridical, in the style o f
preaching'. T he legalistic and cultual aspect then gets a new m eaning,
pniemiral and m ilitant, directed against the Canaanitish nature-religion.
Finally, one must never lose sight o f the fa ct that all these im peratives are
motivated by the recognition o f the gratuitous apd m erciful election o f
Israel by its G od, w ho loved it first Even the situation in w hich D euteron
omy is supposed to be proclaim ed by M oses is fu ll o f sym bolic meaning :
between Egypt and Canaan, betw een the going ou t and the com ing in ,
between the prom ise and th e fulfillm ent— that spiritual “ moment” is the
moment o f the Torah.
rises up accusingly against the false confidence spread by legalistic
piety; his prophecy thus makes contact, over the reform o f Josiah,
w ith the accusation o f the first prophets. It is within the horizon
o f the already declared wrath o f history that he shatters any as
surance that the pious man m ight draw from his observance o f the
com mandm ents; the catastrophe m ust b e consummated even to the
end, Israel must have neither seal, nor temple, n or king (there were
tw o kings, one protected, the other deported, but Jeremiah and
Ezekiel worked unremittingly to destroy their influen ce). In short,
there must be nothing left o f Israel from a human paint o f view,
n o room fo r political hopes, in order that the song o f hope o f die
second Isaiah m ight be heard.
ThiS political “ nihilism” i« smwntial to thw IfpT-irair. m p y jouaress
o f sm ^itls^ in fact, the expression o f a pedagogy.-^!historical failure
that aiirm at placing the ethical demand beyond any assignable
historical end, beyond any finite observance, beyond any self-justi
fication. T h e deuteronom ic spirit, then, is only an episode between
the terrible preaching o f Justice by Am os and the defeatism in
w hich Jeremiah and Ezekiel mask their unlim ited demand fo r sefi-
abandonment to the absolute o f Yahweh.
Thus, from Am os to Ezekiel the ethical tension essential to the
Covenant was never broken, even if it was stretched in one direc
tion o r another:1* on one side, an unconditional but formless de
m and that finds the root o f evil in the “heart” ; on the other, a
finite law that determines, makes explicit, and breaks up sinfulness
into enumerable ‘ ‘transgressions,” subjects fa r a future casuistry.
I f this dialectic is broken, the G od o f the infinite demand with
draws into the distance and the absence o f the W holly O ther; or
the legislator o f the commandments becom es indistinguishable from
the finite m oral consciousness and is confounded w ith the witness
that the Just O ne bears to him self. In this double m anner the para
d ox o f distance and presence w hich constitutes the “ before God”
is abolished at the heart o f the consciousness o f sin.
i* It is true that "post-exilic” Judaism is an undisputed historical dimen
sion; but the moment that we have wished to grasp is thereafter out
distanced. We shall discover the contribution o f the Judaism of die second
Temple in the framework of a reflection on Scrupulousness (below, Chap.
n i, f 3).
3. T h e “ W rath or G od”
H osea, the tender H osea, the terrible H osea, roars w ith s im ila r
violence:
5. T he Sy m b o u s m o f S i n : (2 ) S in a s P o sitive
1. Bir th of a N e w Stage
4 Prof., 324a6; Gorg., 418a, 5058, 4 8 0 c4 ; and Laws, VI, 762c, 777e;
X , 8544, 86 7 c; X II, 9444, 9645c.
o f involuntary crim e from every point o f view , blam ing and ac
quitting him self b y turns, sometimes o f incest and the crim e that
began his misfortunes, sometimes o f the w rath that m ade him lay
hands cm his own body.8 O f course, to this im aginative treatment
o f sacred crimes w e must add the m ore m odest w ork o f the
“ exegetes” o f D elphi, concerned to m ete out a just penance to the
devotees o f the god .
From these convergent reflections on penal law , on legendary
crimes, and cm the penances m eted out to initiates, there issued
the fundam ental concepts w hich the H ato o f the Law s and espe
cially the author o f the N icom achean Ethics later brought to a
certain degree o f rigor: (a ) the intentional o r voluntary pure and
simple (acotimmd and its contrary, the involuntary product o f
com pulsion (fiia ) or ignorance (ayvota); ( b) preferential choice
Wpoaipctns), hearing an the means, and deliberation (/fovAsj,
/W Acucns), w hich makes the choice a deliberative, desire
(fiovkamiai dpc£ts}; (c ) the wish (jSovAijoxs), bearing on ends. Be
fore this reform ing w ork o f reflection, the distinction, purely penal,
between the voluntary and the involuntary, rem ained im precise;
thus, the “voluntary” sometimes involved prem editation, some
times am ple volition, w hile the “ involuntary” em braced absence
o f fault, negligence, im prudence, sometimes cases o f being carried
away, o r am ple accidents.
T h e elucidation o f various lim iting cases, such as faults in
curred through im prudence or negligence, in games or in w ar,
played a decisive rule in w hat m ight be called a subtle psychology
o f guilt. Responsibility w ithout prem editation constitutes, indeed,
a sort o f prelim inary zone to the voluntary w h ich is very favorable
to the distinctions o f jurisprudence; blow s delivered in the heat o f
8 T h e repetition o f the w ord dixwp (involuntary) in the Oedipus at
Colonus Is n ot fortuitous. A ntigone first speaks o f the “ unpurposed actions”
o f her old father (2 3 9 -4 0 ). T h e latter declares solem nly that he has
“ suffered” rather than “ done” his acts (2 5 6 -5 7 ); “ I have burdened m yself
w ith an alien m isfortune; yes, I am burdened w ith it in spite o f m yself
(4 6 n w ). L et the divinity be witness I nothing o f all that was purposed
(aM oIpenaff’ (522—2 3 ). T o Crean h e replies: “ T h y m outh reproaches m e
w ith murders, incests, evils that I have borne, unfortunate that I am ,
against m y w ill (Smm>)” (9 6 4 ). Involuntary (£ «»») was the m urder o f his
tether (9 7 7 ), involuntary his union w ith his m other (9 8 7 ).
discussion, wounds inflicted in a state o f intoxication, revenge for
an outrage in the case o f a flagrant act o f adultery— all such acts
a m an repents when he returns to reason, as Lysias remarks
(M oulinier, 1 9 0 ); so there is some fault and yet n o vpovoia, and
even a certain conform ity to the laws. It was m ore precisely
accidents in games and mistakes in war that provoked the most
rigorous reflection; and one can see why. In these tw o situations
the social band that underlies the holding o f games and the con
duct o f w ar is a civic bond, w hich extends beyond and engulfs the
tw o fam ily groups o f the plaintiff and the defendant set a t variance
by the murder. In such a case society becom es aware o f its sym
pathy and indulgence fo r the m urderer; in its turn this sympathy,
w hich itself extends beyond and engulfs the anger o f a wronged
fam ily, invents a juridical expression fo r itself by creating a suit
able penal category.
In all these cases conceptual analysis comes secon d; the con
ceptual distinctions are regulated by the degrees o f public indigna
tion and reprobation, and the education o f judgm ent is effected
by tiie w ork o f legal proceedings and by the disputes o f lawyers.
Thus it is always by the roundabout way o f legislation, legal con
tests, and the sentences o f judges that conceptual analysis advances.
3. Scrupulousness
rabbinical literature. From the beginning this notion oscillates between the
voluntary and the involuntary, the responsible and the irresponsible, fault
and weakness, m an's share and G od’s share; it is im printed in the heart o f
every man, although it cannot be called hereditary; it is evil because it
Inclines to evil, but it can be used fo r good. N . P. W illiam s sees in it an,
alternative to the theme o f the fall o f A dam ; he judges that Jesus' words
about the evil heart o f m an are com patible w ith the theory o f the yetzer
harm and that it was St. Paul w ho gave precedence to the A dam ic theory.
18G . F. M oore, Judaism, V oL I , pp. 507 ff.t repentance is both “ turning
back” and “ being sorry” ; it is also making amends and having the firm
resolve to renew one’s obedience, and sometimes it is also suffering fo r the
sake o f atonem ent I t should be remarked, in this connection, that the
ritual atonem ent described by Leviticus never excused from repentance;
that is why Judaism could -survive the disappearance o f the Tem ple and
the discontinuance o f the sacrificial c u lt C f. G . F . M oore, ibid., V oL I ,
pp. 497-506.
and radical deliverance, but a slow and progressive process of
salvation, in w hich “ pardon” is not lacking to “ repentance,” grace
to the good w ill.
Such is the greatness o f scrupulousness, o f its sense o f guilt, and
o f its sense o f responsibility. A s to the lim itation o f the scrupulous
conscience, it is to b e sought fo r nowhere else than in that which
is the principle o f its greatness;, nam ely, the thoroughgoing am]
freely accepted heteronom y that defines it. A nd this limitation,
w hich was ignorant o f itself, was to give rise to a new peripeteia
o f the guilty conscience—that w hich S t Paul brought to light in
his tw o letters to the Rom ans and to the Galatians. In itself and
fo r itself, that lim itation is n ot yet guilt, but constitutes a part of
the training in holiness and consequently o f th e quest fa r innocence
that characterizes the “ type” o f the scrupulous conscience.
T o locate the point o f deflection, i f one may so call it, o f the
scrupulous conscience, we m ust start from that w h ich appeared
essential to the doctors o f Pharisaism, nam ely, the elaboration o f
an oral tradition that could keep the written T orah alive and that
could be taken in its turn fo r an aspect o f the eternal T orah which
had been taught to M oses. A ctually, by attaching itself to the
written Torah, the oral Torah not only profits by the sacred
character o f the latter, but projects upon it the procedure b y which
the tradition was constituted. N ow , in w hat does the work of
interpretation that the sages pursued during the centuries when
they were “ fixing” the halachah consist? Essentially in a judicatory
activity, in jurisprudential labors. It remains true that it was tins
judicatory activity, this long discipline o f the faculty o f judgment,
this cultivation o f m oral correctness or exactitude, which main
tained the T orah as a living instruction and fashioned the Jewish
character practically and effectively. But, conversely, it appears
that the T orah, although it is teaching rather than law , became
dependent on the essentially definitive and legislative operation of
the sages; and it was tins operation w hich in fa ct becam e divinized
under the title o f unwritten T orah. Thus the unwritten Torah
guaranteed and placed to o high a value an a precise and limbed
type o f relation between man and the divine, namely, correctness
o f judgm ent, discernment, w hich is the soul o f casuistry. T h at this
discernment was exercised by the sages o f the Fhaiisean school w ith
die zeal o f obedience;, and fo r the sole purpose o f recognizing d ie
will o f G od in all circumstances, is now indubitable. Nevertheless,
it remains true that the sages divinized casuistic discernment and
thus placed h in the same rank as the undivided and unlim ited
call o f d ie Prophets to perfection and holiness.
It w ill b e objected that the halachah does n ot cover the w hole
interpretation o f the T orah, but only its im perative part, and that
the kaggadah covers all that w hich is n ot o f the order o f precepts;
it was there that the sages gave free rein to their m editations and
to then: Imagination, em ploying the freer form s o f story, parable,
and fantasy. O nly a Jew experienced in the double play o f halachah
and haggadah can say h ow they are fitted together in the m entality
at Judaism. It remains true, nevertheless, that the m ost fervent
rehabilitations o f the Pharisees d o n ot deny that the halachah is
binding and the haggadah free, that the first is m ore coherent and
the second m ore im provised, that the first is submitted to collegiate
judgm ent and the second is left to opinion and im agination; that
the Pharisees w ere'lay preachers and n ot theologians; that, m ore
over, they m ade scarcely any innovation in speculative theology;
and, finally, that the Pharisees are m en o f a practical religion ; so
that, in the end, Pharisaism stakes its fate on the halachah,M
T hat is the p oin t: if the Pharisees have been the educators o f
the human race through the Jewish people, 'their pedagogy shows
dearly the greatness and the lim itation o f the scrupulous con
science or, m ore exactly, o f religious scruple. Its fundam ental
limitation is that it confines the G od-m an relation to a relation o f
instruction— that is to say, in the last resort, a relation o f a w ill
that com m ands to a w ill that obeys. T his is the very essence o f a
“ practical” religion. N ow , does the w ill to com plete and exact
obedience, even when prom pted by the joyous acceptance o f a
“ “A n d though the H aggadah was its indispensable accom panim ent, yet
h was the H alachah w hich, so to speak, gave the w ord o f com m and. . . .
It was the peculiar genius o f Pharisaism that developed them both, and that
put Halachah first” (Travers H erford, op. cit., p. 18 5 ).
grateful heart, exhaust the dialogal situation expressed o f old by
tibe conjugal symbolism o f the Prophets? Is the bond between G od
and man solely or even essentially "practical” ?
Judaism itself has lived only by that w hich overflows and exceeds
religious praxis. M any authors celebrate the sweetness, yes, the
tenderness, reserved and circum spect, o f the best sages and the
best rabbis; they say how spontaneous in all o f them was the exer
cise o f justice and friendliness. F or its part, the lyricism o f the
Psalms, w hich nourished the liturgy o f the synagogue long before
it fed the liturgy o f the Christian churches, expresses all the more
than “ practical” aspects o f the Hialnga.1 situation w hich is the
background fo r the teaching o f the Torah.
But if w e put in question the “ tradition o f the Ancients” (M ark
7 :1 -1 3 ), w hich impresses its juridical style on all the relations of
the human to the divine, how far back must we trace the origin of
this aberration? O nly to the oral tradition? But did not the written
law issue from a like process? Is it not evident that very early in
the history o f Israel the M osaic aspect o f the dialogal situation was
overvalued? T h e lim itation o f all scrupulous conscientiousness
seems to m e to be exem plified b y what I should like to call the
construction o f a M osaic fantasy: M oses is placed above all the
Prophets; it is granted that he knew all the law fo r all times and
fo r all m en, and that the Prophets only repeated it; all the succes
sive legislations— the D ecalogue, Deuteronom y, Leviticus— are at
tributed to h im ; lastly, the oral law itself is absorbed into the
M osaic revelation. Thus all the m odalities and all the stages o f the
religious experience are contracted into the figure o f th e legislator
and into the single event o f the giving o f the Law . This absorption
o f all the outbursts o f prophecy into the M osaic figure seems to m e
to be the key to the form ation o f any scrupulous conscience; in
every case you can find this m ovem ent o f contraction o f an actual
tradition into something like an absolute “ event,” by which this
conscience was supposedly given to itself in the past; this gift o f its
ethos plays fo r it the role o f a Torah, a divine instruction; tire
scrupulous conscience swears to be faithful, with understanding,
zeal, humility, and joy , to this divine instruction in which, to its
eyes, its absolute O rigin is summed up. Its wholehearted fidelity is
its greatness; the M osaic fantasy (o r whatever takes its p lace) is its
limitation. But this lim itation is n ot experienced as a fau lt; it is an
integral part o f that technique o f innocence, that cultivation o f
justice, the purpose o f w hich is precisely to reduce guilt.
W ith this schema o f ju rididzation, w hich I see represented in
Judaism by what I have called the M osaic fantasy, w e can connect
certain other trails that w ill enrich o u r description o f scrupulous
ness. T h e first is the coincidence o f ritual and m orality in scrupu
lousness.80
Scrupulousness could as w ell have been defined as a ritualization
o f the m oral life or a moralizatian o f ritual; but this trait cannot
b e grasped directly. W hy, in the scrupulous conscience, does one see
a certain esoteridsm that is characteristic o f ritual take over, step
by step, every obligation that must be perform ed thus and not
otherwise, w hile rites receive an accent o f obligation that confers
upon them the sense o f a duty? T h e historidst and progressivist
interpretation, according to w hich the Judaism o f the second
Tem ple fe ll back to a bygone stage o f the m oral consciousness, to
the archaism o f the pure and the im pure, is n ot sufficient; it ac
counts at best fo r the origin o f the ritual content, but n ot fo r the
decisive fa c t that those archaic m odes o f behavior w ere resumed
after the ethicaj stage represented b y prophetidsm . I t seems to m e
that this resum ption, this resurgence o f a post-ethical ritualism, so
to speak, cannot b e understood unless w e take as our point o f de
parture the p roject o f a consistent and voluntary heteronom y. T h e
esoteridsm o f the rite beam witness to conscience that conscience is
not the source o f the L aw , a p ce the Law is n ot transparent to
rnmgrimeg. In perform ing the rite, the conscience gives p roof o f its
w ill to obey the L aw n ot because it com m ands this rather than
that, but because it makes m anifest the w ill o f G od. Thus the
ritualization o f ethics is a corollary o f its heteronom y: the scrupu-10
4. T h e I m p a ss e of G u ilt
27 This hell o f guilt, engendered by the law and its curse, finds its supreme
symbol in the Satanic figure itself. W e know that the D evil was understood
not only as the Tem pter bu t as the A ccuser o f man at the last judgm ent
(w hile Christ becomes the Advocate, the P araclete). Thus the dem on
stands not only behind transgression, bu t behind the law itself, inasmuch as
it is a law o f death.
the good w ill is something that conscience could n ot discover by
follow ing the forw ard m ovem ent from defilem ent to sin and from
sin to guilt, but only by looking back from "justification b y faith”
to the curse o f the law . W e shall see later how the psychology o f
self-accusation, narcissism, and masochism explains these subtle
procedures, n ot w ithout having itself lost the key to them.
W e are now to discover that the curse o f the law, the condition
o f the divided m an, and M b inarch tow ard death cou ld n ot be
described accept in terms o f a com pleted situation. In the language
o f S t Paul, the final experience o f Bin is recounted in the past:
“ O nce you were dead in your tins, b u t now . . . T h is is m ost
astonishing. D eath, w hich in the ordinary experience o f human
beings is pre-em inently the always future event, the im m inence o f
the end, is here death in the p a st T his extreme symbol o f a death
that one has got beyond cou ld b e w on only in the context o f a new
set o f problem s that itself gravitates around another sym bol, as
enigm atic as it is fundam ental— the symbol o f “ justification.”
T h e philosopher m ust recognize from the outset h ow shocking
this symbol is fo r a m ind educated by the Greeks. F ar from its
denoting the ethical quality o f a person, tire supremely disposable
thing am ong those things at Ms disposal, in short, fa r from its b a n g
the case that justice is the architectonic, virtue o f a m an, as in
Book I V o f Plato's R epublic, “ justice” according to St. Paul is
something that com es to a man— from the future to the present,
from the outward to the inw ard, from the transcendent to the
im m anent A true exegesis com pels us to start from w hat is m ost
foreign to the knowledge, w ill, and pow er o f a m an, and to over
take the human only by darting from the m ore than human. T o be
“ just” is to b e justified by an O ther; m ore precisely, it is to be
“ declared” just, to b e “ counted as” ju st T his forensic sense, as has
been said, is bound u p w ith all the symbolism ranrmming the
eschatological judgm ent; justice, in fact, is the verdict o f acquittal,
having the effect o f a decision o f a public court (hence the forensic
expression). It is only when the transcendent forensic, eschato
logical dimension o f “ justification” has been recognized that the
im m anent subjective, and present im part o f justification can be
understood. F or S t Paul, in fa c t the eschatological event is pres
ent, already there, in such a way that justice, although it is extrinsic
to a m m as far as its origin is concerned, has becom e something
♦bat dwells within him , as far as its operation is concerned; die
"future” justice is already imparted to d ie m an w h o believes; and
so the man w ho is "declared” just is “ m ade” just, really and vitally.
Thus there is n o ground fo r opposing the forensic and eschato
logical sense o f justice to its immanent and pretent sense: fo r Paul
the first is d ie cause o f the second, but the second is d ie fu ll mani
festation o f the first; the paradox is that the acm e o f outwardness
is the acm e o f inwardness; o f that inwardness th at Paul calls new
creature, or liberty. Liberty, considered from the point o f view o f
last things, is not the pow er o f hesitating and choosing between
contraries, n or is it effort, good w ill, responsibility. F or S t Paul,
as fo r H egel, it is being at hom e w ith oneself, in the w hole, in the
recapitulation o f C hrist
Such is the symbol in the light o f w hich the final experience of
fault is perceived as som ething in the past that one has got beyond.
I t is because “ justification” is the present w hich dominates the
backward look on tin, that the supreme sin consists, in the last
resort, in the vain attempt to justify oneself. There is d ie key to die
break w ith Judaism : m an is justified “ without d ie w orks o f the
law” : “ But now without the law the justice o f G od is m ade mani
fe st . . . For we account a m an to be justified b y faith, without
the practice o f the law” (R om . 3 :2 1 —2 8 ). Justification by faith,
then, is what makes m a n i f e s t the failure o f justification by the law,
and the failure o f the justice o f works is what reveals the unity of
the entire domain o f sin. O nly a retrospective view discloses the
profound identity o f ethics and cultual-ritual behavior, o f morality
and im m orality, o f obedience or good w ill and knowledge or wis
dom .
It is, then, impossible to reflect philosophically on fault while
om itting the fact, embarrassing fo r reflection, that the ultimate
meaning o f fault could be manifested only by means o f the great
contrasts set u p by the first passionate thinker o f Christianity:
justification by the practice o f the law and justification by faith;
boasting and believing; works and grace. W hatever weakens those
contrasts dissipates their meaning.
Sin, thus described in the past tense and related to the experience
that goes beyond it, now gets its final m eaning o f ambiguous
threshold. In itself and fo r itself, it is the impasse and the hell o f
guilt; it is a curse. But seen from the paint o f view o f “justifica
tion,” the curse o f the law constitutes the supreme pedagogy. But
this m eaning can be recognized only after the event.
S t Paul’ s language is fam iliar: “ B efore faith cam e, w e w ere kept
under the law, shut u p unto the faith w hich should afterwards be
revealed. W herefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto
Christ, that w e m ight b e justified by faith. But after that faith is
com e, we are n o longer under a schoolmaster” (GaL 3 :2 3 -2 4 ). It
would be a serious misunderstanding o f the Pauline paradox if we
interpreted this schooling as a tranquil growth from childhood to
adulthood; the childhood that is here in question is enslavement
under the law : “ N ow I say that the heir, as long as he is a child,
differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord o f all” (4 :1 ) ,
and the schoolmaster is the law o f death. Consequently, the pas
sage from one regim e to the other must not b e thought o f in terms
o f developm ent; rather, there is a sort o f inversion through excess:
“T h e law entered, that the offense m ight abound; but where tin
abounded, grace did m uch m ore abound” (R om . 5 :2 0 ). In a text
that is even m ore striking, because it emphasizes the divine origin
o f this schooling fo r liberty, St. Paul declares: “ G od hath shut
up all men in disobedience, that he m ight have m ercy upon all”
(R om . 1 1 :3 2 ). This pedagogy o f excess and increase, w hich draws
the superabundance o f grace from the abundance o f tin,28 is not
at the disposal o f anyone; n o one can m ake a technique out o f it
and pretend that he sins abundantly in order that grace m ay super-
abound. A fter the event, the delivered conscience recognizes in the
ethical stage, experienced as slavery, the tortuous road to its libera
tion ; but it is n ot permissible to turn the paradox, w hich can be
read only from the top downward, into some sort o f technique
that w ould make the cultivation o f sin a means o f obtaining grace.
*
Introduction: T h e Sym bolic
Function o f Myths
1 As the third book o f this w ork w ill show, the refusal to reduce the myth
to an allegory that can be translated in to an intelligible language does not
exclude all “ interpretation” o f myths. W e shall propose a type o f “ interpre
tation” that is n ot a “ translation” ; let us say, to be brief, that the very
process o f discovery o f the field o f experience opened u p by the m yth can
constitute an existential verification com parable to the transcendental de
duction o f the categories o f the understanding. C f. the final chaper o f the
second book : “ The Symbol Gives Rise to Thought.”
'Ijt-
■ /*.-!»!>: i '
introduction: the symbolic function of myths 165
and reason a choice must be m ade. But perhaps there is a way
o f recovering the m yth as myth, before it slipped into gnosis, in
the nakedness and poverty o f a symbol that is n ot an explanation
but an opening up and a disclosure. O ur whole effort w ill be
directed toward dissociating myth and gnosis.
W e are encouraged in this attem pt by the great exam ple o f
Plato. J*lato inserts myths into his philosophy; he., adopts them as
myths, in their natural state, so to speak, w ithout trying to dis
guise them as explanations; they are there in his discourse, fu ll o f
' enigm as; fEey are there as myths, w ithout any possibility o f con
fusing them with*Knowledge.
i t is true that the m yth is in itself an invitation to gnosis.
Furthermore, d ie problem o f evil seems to be the principal occa
sion o f this passage from m yth to gnosis. W e already know what
a pow erful incitem ent to questioning springs from suffering and
sin: “ H ow long, O L ord?” “ H ave I sinned against som e divinity?”
“ Was m y act pure?” O ne m ight say that the problem o f evil
offers at the same tim e the most considerable challenge to think
and the most deceptive invitation to talk nonsense, as if evil were
an always prem ature problem where the ends o f reason always
exceed its means. Lang before nature m ade reason rave and threw
it into the transcendental illusion, the contradiction felt between
the destination o f m an, projected in the im age o f prim ordial inno
cence and final perfection, and the actual situation o f man,
acknowledged and confessed, gave rise to a gigantic "W h y?” at the
center o f the experience o f existing. H ence, the greatest explanatory
ravings, w hich com pose the considerable literature o f gnosis, came
in to being in connection w ith that “ question.”
W hat, then, was the m yth p rior to its “ etiological” pretentions?
W hat is m yth if it is not gnosis? O nce m ore w e are brought back
to the function o f the symbol. T h e symbol, w e have said, opens
up and discloses a dimension o f experience that, w ithout it, w ould
remain closed and hidden. W e must show, then, in what sense th eI) u'
myth is a second-degree function o f the prim ary sym bols that w e |
Gave been exploring u p to the present
F or that purpose w e must rediscover this function o f opening
up and disclosing— w hich w e here set in opposition to the explana-
tory function o f gnosis— right dow n to the m ost specific traits that
" '' ’ ' '* ' symbols. N ow , it is the
nananon m at auua a new stage at meaning to that o f the primary
symbols.
• i t — . . _____ <s________ ______ ^ ___ ___________l . ___ ________i___ ___________j _____ ____________ : ___i
H ow can d ie narration mean in a sym bolic and non-etidogical
m ode?
reisted directly o r indirectly to such events and to the prim ordial person
ages** (T n ritf d’H istoire d es R eligions, p . 3 5 5 ).
* O ne cannot h old at the same tim e, as G . G nsdorf d oes in M yth* *t
M Hapkysiqu* (Saris, 1 9 5 3 ), th at the m yth has a biological, protective role
(pp. 12, 21 ) m id that it is “ die spontaneous form o f brin g in the w orld.”
AH d ie excessive overestimations o f the m ythical consciousness cam e horn
1. F bimordial C h aos
Theodore H . Gaster has translated this story and told it anew in The
Oldest Stories in the W orld (Boston, 19 32 ), pp. 52-70.
* Various authors (S . N . Kram er, Sumerian M ythology, Philadelphia,
1944; Thorkild Jacobsen, in T he Intellectual A dventure o f A ncien t Mast,
by H . and H . A . Frankfort, J. A . W ilson, and Thorkild Jacobsen, Chicago,
1947) have reconstructed the background o f the Akkadian m yth that we
are studying here. It appears from this investigation that the question o f
the origin o f order was a relatively late question, and that it was order
itself that was first celebrated. That order has been represented as a cosmic
State, or a Cosmos-State, in w hich the fundamental forces o f the universe
have a determinate rank: at the top, authority, majesty, reign (A nu, the
S k y ); then force, ambiguous m ight (E nlil, Lard o f the Storm ), w ho brings
devastation and aid by turns (it is he, as we shall see, w ho vanquishes the
monstrous pow er o f Tiam at in the Akkadian poem o f crea tion ); then the
passive fertility o f M other Earth; then active and ingenious creativity
(Enki, lord o f the earth, the sweet waters o f wells, springs, and rivers). H o
doubt this vision o f order must b e kept in m ind when one reads the later
myths o f w hich M arduk is the hero, where order is challenge d ; bu t the later
theogonic and cosm ogonic myth is contained in germ in the oldest myths.
In the first place, the vision o f the cosm ic hierarchy contains a dram a from
the beginning, even if only by the conjunction o f these m ultiple forces,
which change their respective places. Second, there was always a place for
myths o f origin, even if only w ith respect to secondary divinities; m atings,
conflicts, divine decrees pu t the hierarchy o f the cosmos in flux. But above
all, m ajesty, deposited in the pow er o f the supreme god , passes from ope
god to another by delegation o f the assem bly o f the godB^and tfahg m ove-
m ent is introduced in to the system. T hat madams w hy the successive
apogees o f the M -t-p"irrrm nn r tjr r .tstsaqthr »
series o f divinities w ithin the flexible framework o f the divine hierarchy.
T h e enthronement of*M arduk, w ho is at the center o f the’ m ytlfth at w e take
here as an exam ple o f the first type, belongs in this evolution o f kingship
within the M esopotam ian pantheon. Thus there is continuity, and not
contradiction, between a vision in w hich order is prim ordial, and another,
w hich we are going to examine, in w hich order is w on by strife on high.
fid . D horm e, in L es R eligions de Babylonia at tFAssyria (Baris, 1945),
also proposes a description o f the “ gods o f the world” (p p . 2 0 -5 2 ) which
is m odeled on tire fou r divirions o f visible and invisible space— sky, earth,
waters, underworld— and puts d ie study o f the cosm ogonic and heroic myths
a t the end o f Ids work (p p . 2 9 9 -3 3 0 ). O n the contrary, in L a littirature
babylonieune at assyrieune (Baris, 19 3 7 ), the study o f th e “ cosm ogonic
literature” (and o f Bnvsna elish, p p . 27—34 ) com es at th e beginning, before
appears m ost naive in its execution, m ost indebted to the m odels
provided by fictile production and sexual production, and so most
dependent cm the narrative farm , anticipates typologically the
most subtle antogeneses o f m odem philosophy, especially those
o f German idealism . T hat is why w e m ust n ot allojv ourselves to
be turned away from the typological interpretation b y the most
legitimate sociological explanations, even i f it is true that Babylonia
emphasized its~political supremacy by m aking M arduk, hitherto
a m inor divinity, the hero o f the cosm ic struggle. That explanation
does n ot exhaust the m eaning o f the poem ; there remains the task
o f understanding the epic schema itself, through w hich the political
supremacy was expressed, and the vision o f the w orld that was
worked out by means o f that schema. In short, it is the “ epic”
m ode o f ontogenesis that requires interpretation— a m ode o f
thought according to w hich order com es at the mid and n ot at
tfieTbeginning. T hat cosm ology com pletes theogony, that w hat there
is to say about the w orld is the result o f the genesis o f the divine
—4fus is tiie intention that must be recaptured and understood
“ in” and “ beyond” the images o f the myth.
This first trait leads to a second: if the divine cam e in to b o n g ,
then chaos is anterior to order a id the principle o f evil is prim or
dial, coextensive w ith the generation o f the divine. O rder cam e to
pass in the divine itself, and it cam e to pass b y the victory o f the
latest over the earliest forces o f divinity. T h e anterior disorder is
represented in ou r poem b y various figures and episodes, and first
o f all b y Tiam at, the prim ordial m other— “m other o f them all”
(I , 4 )— w h o w ith Apsu, the prim ordial father, represents the
initial com m ingling o f the vastness o f the m arine w aters w ith the
fresh waters. But tins liquid chaos has a surcharge o f m eaning,
in w hich the m yth o f the origin o f evil takes shape. F ar Tiam at
is m ore than the viab le immensity o f the waters; she has file pow er
to produce. M oreover, she is capable o f plotting against the other
gods. A ccordin g to the story, the younger gods disturbed the
prim eval peace o f the old cou ple:
* This and the follow ing quotations are from the. English translation of
Enuma elish by E. A Speiser, in Pritchard, op. cit., pp. 60 ff.— T r.
' l-h P ii'ie t J > r & c u & £ 4 o iu S U i 2 -c ‘ x ^ l
• , that puts an end to the life o f the oldest gods, inseparable from a
<f» 'uet'Ss
' deid de inherent in the divine. A nd man himself8 STliiarn from a
new crim e: the ch ief o f the rebel gods is declared guOtyphropght
to trial, and shun; from his b lood Ea, an the counsel o f M arduk,
creates m an; m an has now the task o f serving i»nH nourishing the
great gods in place o f the vanquished gods. Thus man is m ade from
the Mood o f an assassinated g o d , that is to say from the life o f a
god, but from his life ravished % a m urder:
This role o f violence at the origin o f the divine itself, and sub
sequently at the origin o f the w orld and o f m an, appears still m ore
striking if one remarks the filiation between E nlil, Sumerian god o f
the storm as w ell as o f help, and M arduk. The_creative act that
separates the mass o f the upper waters from the m assTofthe low er
waters, in the manner o f a pow erful w ind inflating an orderly
space, a solid sky and a habitable earth, between the liquid re
serves,— this act is also the devastating act o f the Storm , w hich
finds expression m another w ay in great historical catastrophes.
T h e barbarians w h o destroyed U r are the Stm m , and the Storm is
Enlil
“ But pour out the life o f the god w h o seized evil” (IV , 1 8 ), say
the gods when they grant kingship to M arduk, their avenger.
T he intentions and actions w hich the mythographers ascribe to
the gods are the same as those w hich man recognizes as evil for
him self and w hich the penitent repents. In the course o f the
struggle that opposes M arduk to Tiam at, M arduk appears as brute
force, as little ethical as the wrath o f Tiam at. M arduk personifies
the identity o f creation and destruction; when he is enthroned by
the gods, before the decisive com bat w ith Tiam at, all cry ou t:
It w ill be seen what human violence is thus justified by the prim or
dial violence. Creation is a victory over an Enemy older than the ,
creator; that Enemy, immanent in the divine, w ill be represented
in history by all the enemies whom the king in his turn, as servant
r o f the god, w ill have as his mission to destroy. Thus V iolence is
inscribed in the origin o f things, in the principle that establishes
while it destroys.
14 G . Contenau, p. 71.
hnman disorder, there is a confrontation o f gods w ho blam e one
another, trem ble like dogs, and crow d about the sacrifice o f the old
Sage like flies. T h e them e o f human fault, w hich the ep ic o f
Atrahaas approaches and w hich th e Akkadian ep ic is on the point
o f evoking tow ard the end, in the reproaches o f E a, is, so to speak,
masked, im peded, b y the dom inant structure o f the m yth. I t must
be admitted that the same folk loric foundation supports tw o dif
ferent theologies.11' '
^ T hat the intention o f the m yth is n ot to illustrate the wickedness
o f m en is confirm ed further by its insertion in the fam ous E pic of
GSgamesh.** T h e quest o f Gilgamesh has nothing to d o w ith sin,
but only w ith death, cbm pletely stripped o f any ethical significance,
and wifla'tHe’tiesire fo r im m ortality.
GSgamesh is th e ep ic o f th e "hum an, aU too*human” ; it . is the
quest fo r immortaiity^thatTrggals m ortality as fate.17 E viLis death.
clearly seen the difference between the O rphic myth and the Babylonian
myth o f men created w ith the blood o f a god.
It is fo r F.nkidu, m y [friend], that I w eep,
M oaning bitterly like a w ailing w om an [etc.]. . . .”
V I I I , ii, 1 ff.
A nd again:
*• Labat, op. cit„ p . 222. The Jong “ occupied a privileged place between
gods and m en ; h e was, in a way, the bond that unites d ie w od d o f mortals
with the sublime sphere o f the gods" (ibid. ) . “ H e is ehn«wi b y the gods,
not to be a god him self but to b e the M an par «atceUeucd* (p . 3 6 2 ). We
are referred to th e celebrated analyses in Frazer’s Golden Bough, V L This
theme is taken up vigorously by F.ngnell, w ho goes so fa r as to identify the
king w ith the g o d ; he sees this identity o f the king and the g o d o f vegeta
tion ratified by the sym bol o f the tree, o r the plant o f fife , w hich connects
heaven and earth; like the tree, the lon g is a giver o f life (op. a it, pp.
2 3 -3 0 ).
27 Thorkild Jacobsen, “ M esopotam ia,” in T h e Intellectual Adventure of
A ncient Man. T h e author (w ho, like Frankfort, insists an tile contrast with
Egypt and finks tins contrast w ith a difference o f attitude towards nature)
shows that the cosm ic order is represented as an integration o f gigantic and
frightening pow ers, and so as a Copnos-State. Arm represents the essence
o f authority in his terrible greatness, “ the very centre and source o f aO
majesty” ; the devastating violence o f M l is co-ordinated w ith it as
catastrophe w ith sovereignty, or, says the author, quoting M ax W eber, as
violence w ith the essence o f th e State. T h e manifestations o f fertility and
creation, in the figures o f M other Earth and W ater, are also in eluded in
this com plex o f w ills and elevated to die dignity o f powers In the Cosmos-
State.
“ O n the evolution o f the conception o f kingship boat the Sumerians
to the Babylonians and the Assyrians, cf. Labat, op. cit., introduction.
is fully m anifested only in the person o f the long w ho, w ithout be
ing personally a god , h olds his sovereignty by divine favor. T h e
king is the place w here the prim ordial kingship descends from
heaven to earth ; kingship is com m unicated to him b y the ch oice
of the gods w h o look w ith kindness upon him , by calling upon a
favorable nam e, b y the determ ination o f a propitious destiny— in
short, by investiture and adoption rather than b y actual filiation.
The ritual o f enthronem ent is on ly the m anifestation o f tins pre
destination.
flan an ech o o f th e cre^eti^bcam a b e fou n d in this theology o f
power? Y es, in the essentially precarious conception o f Babylonian
kingship, an w hich Frankfort and T h T jacobsen insist so m uch, in
contrast with. tErTEgyptian canception.” “N ow , the*M esopotam ian
and Egyptiairthealqgies a f pow er b oth conform to their respective
views a f creation ; in contrast w ith the “ serene splendor o f the
Egyptian creator tiring from the prim eval ocean o s the first m orn
ing to shape the w orld h e was to rule,” 80 there is the lon g conflict,
of w hich d ie Babylonian creation is only the final episode; M arduk
hgrtmu-B king only a t the height o f the crisis in ord er to save the
assembly o f the god s; thus tile divine m onarchy itself is the product
of confusion and anxiety. T h e kingship o f the terrestrial m onarch
reflects this painful parturition; after his enthronem ent, “ the task
which h e now faced was hazardous in the extreme.” 81 H e has to
interpret the w ill o f the gods unceasingly, through signs and om ens;
he represents the people before the gods, offering to them an epit
ome o f human piety encased in a very com plicated daily ritual;
he is legiriator and ju dge in the nam e o f the gods. H e is responsible
far the w hole life a f the country: h e is m an p a r excellen ce, and
the unique being in w hom all the life-giving forces o f the land are
concentrated ;** being responsible fa r the relations between heaven
and earth, he w ill aim b e the victim o f any discord and w ill have
to hum ble birrvu»1f unceasingly fa r it, “ as i f the cause o f the evil
from w hich the universe suffers w ere in him and had to be extir-
33 Ib id ., p . 279.
M Should one g o so far as to say, with Engpell, that the psalm literature
(hymns and psalms o f repentance and lam entation) gravitates around the
king, that tee psalms are prim arily royal psalms (op. cit., pp. 4 5 -5 1 ) ?
ss Labat, op. eit., p. 14.
3 3 /b id ., p. 2 2 .
37 Ibid ., p . 51.
that die strong m ight n ot oppress the weak. . . .” * Thus the king
cannot be judge, laborer, penitent, without w ielding the sword
against the w icked in his kingdom and outride it ; violence is in
cluded in the fa te that has m ade him the M an par excellen ce.
Among the Insignia. conferred upon him at the tim e o f his enthrone
ment, the king receives the sacred arms o f the divine conqueror and
the divine avenger; “ the invincible bow” o f the king o f Assyria,
“tee terrible b ow o f Ishtar, L ady o f Combats,” is, then, n ot w ithout
precedents.” From this to regarding the enemy him self as repre
senting the prim ordial chaos, there is only a step. T hat step was
taken with greater alacrity by the Assyrians89 than by the Babylo
nians.40 T h e enem y must b e punished because he does n ot obey the
word o f Assur, because h e is im pious and sacrilegious (and so he
will first have his tongue cut o u t); his death w ill b e evidence o f
the power o f the god , while his pardon, if he is pardoned, w ill be
a sign o f the fear inspired by the god.
So I see the ultim ate outcom e o f this type o f m yth in^a theology
of war founded on the identification o f the Enemy w ith the powers
teat the god has vanquished and continues to vanquish in the
drama o f creation. Through the m ediation o f the king, the dram a
of creation becom es significant fo r the w hole history o f m ankind,
and particularly fo r all o f that aspect o f hum an life w hich is
characterized by ctim bat In other w ords, them ythological type o f
rfr*mn. o f cr»»n.tinn is marked by the K ing-E nem y relation,
• Tr. by T . J. M eek, in Pritchard, A ncien t N ear Eastern T exts, p.
164— Ta.
38 The reliefs in the British M useum , in w hich the position o f the royal
archer duplicates exactly the position o f tee divine bowm an, whose figure
dominates his, are w ell known. Thus the historical violence o f the king
imitates the prim ordial violence o f the god.
80 In th e chapter entitled "G uerre Sainte,” Labat (o p . tit., p p . 2 5 3 -7 4 )
takes his examples principally from the Assyrian period.
• E. D honne (o p . tit,, p . 145) recalls the enum eration o f the arms o f
Marduk in Enuma elish, IV . Thoridld Jacobsen (op . t it .), w ho insists on
the anteriority o f B n l'l, god o f the storm and o f counsel, to M arduk, sees
in tee function o f Bnlfl the source o f historical violen ce; he rites numerous
contemporary texts concerning tee city-state in w hich E nlil is invoked as
the executor o f punitive jn stice; it is the pasting o f sovereignty from one
city to another which manifests the arbitrament o f violence in this epoch ;
then te e god o f the city weeps over it, as N ingal grieves fo r the “ day o f
storm” teat sees tee destruction o f her city, U r.
w hich becom es the political relation par excellen ce. This phenom
enological filiation is fundam ental, fo r it introduces us through the
myth to the problem o f political evil, w hich w ill hold an im portant
place in our later research. Even if, as it seems, this theology o f war
was not developed explicitly and systematically b y the Assyro-
Babylonians, it can be said inversely that any coherent theology of
the holy w ar is founded on the first m ythological “ type” o f EviL
A ccording to that theology, the Enemy is a W icked O ne, war is
his punishment, and there are wicked ones because first there is
evil and then order. In the final analysis, evil is n ot an accident
that upsets a previous ord er; it belongs constitutionally to tie
foundation o f order. Indeed, it is doubly original: first, in the rale
o f the Enemy, whom the forces o f chaos have never ceased to in*
carnate, although they were crushed at the beginning of the world;
second, in the figure o f the K ing, sent to "destroy the wicked and
the evil” by the same ambiguous pow er o f devastation and of pru
dence that once upon a time established order.3
48 See the chapter on the A dam ic myth. A . H eidel has seen this dis
continuity very clearly {op . eit., p . 1 2 6 ): the essential poin t in the
Babylonian theme is the victory o f Mardulc over the savage earlier gods,
and the cosm ogony is a part o f the theogony; in the Bible, the essential
paint is the creation o f the w orld, and cosm ogony is divorced from the-
ogony. T h e first verse o f Generis expresses this typological difference;
Heidel- gives an exegesis o f it {o p . cit^ p p . 128—4 0 ). T h e creation o f m an
also ceases to belong to theogony; autonom y and responsibility are aim ed
at, rather than service to the gods {ibid ., p p . 1 1 8 -2 2 ). Finally, the author
has seen clearly that the fa ll o f man is substituted fo r the guilt o f the gods
{ibid., pp. 1 2 2 -2 6 ).
vanquished myth in the culture o f the p eople; aided by this sort
o f inertia o f images, the new myth works a slow transmutation in
them until it carries them to the level o f the new “m yth."
W e can, therefore; relate to this subterranean work o f the new
myth certain o f the developments described above as the damped
waves o f the old myth. W e shall review them in the reverse order.
1. W e w ill not dw ell here o n the transition h orn the Messiah
immanent in history to the transcendent and heavenly San o f Man.
T h e series o f figures stretching from the K ing to the Son o f Man,
and then to the L ord o f the Gospels, does n ot simply perpetuate
the initial figure, but constantly adds new dim ensions: that o f the
sacrificed Prophet— M oses “ redivivus” — above all, that o f the “ Serv
ant o f Yahweh.” N ow , the novelty o f those figures is inseparable
from the novelty o f history, the novelty o f evil, and the novelty
o f salvation, with respect to any dram a o f creation.
2. T h e em ancipation o f history from the “ cultual-ritual” drama
is the second aspect o f that obscure mutation w hich affects all die
images inherited from the ideology o f the K in g. A purely historical
com bat takes the place o f the theogonic com bat. T h e Exodus— that
is to say, the departure from Egypt—the key event o f the whole
Biblical theology o f history, has acquired a consistency o f its own,
a new signification w ith regard to the prim ordial creation; it is
an event without any reference in principle to any dram a o f crea
tion. T h e Exodus, as we have seen, itself becam e a source of
“ symbolization” fo r the w hole H ebrew experience o f deliverance
from tins, which were themselves com pared to the servitude in
E gypt; it is History, and no longer the drama o f creation, that
becom es the active center o f symbolism. A t the same tim e, the
Enemy ceases to represent prim eval chaos; he undergoes a sort of
reduction to the purely historical, as a function o f the action of
Yahweh. Egypt in relation to the Exodus, the Philistines in relation
to the settlement in Canaan are now simply com ponents o f die
history o f Israel. Thus, one sees the image o f the sea-monster itself
turn from die cosm ic to the historical when it enters in to the field
o f attraction o f the new Volkerkam pfm ythus.4*
44 It can be added that the dow nfall o f the ideology o f kingship was
accelerated by the discrediting o f m onarchy, w hich, to o , was considered as
3. But if the Enemy loses his cosm ic position to becom e historical,
nothing but historical, the prim ordial M an must him self becom e
human, nothing but human, and human, purely human evil must
find a new m yth capable o f taking over the wickedness o f the Enemy
and, even m ore than that o f the Enemy, the wickedness o f man
in every man.
T h e ideology o f the king m ay, indeed, continue to nourish the
theme o f the kingship o f man, or that o f man as the son o f G od,
image o f G od, little low er than a G o d ; but the wickedness o f m an,
however kingly, discovered in th e course o f several centuries o f
prophetic accusation, remains w ithout roots in the creation, now
that the creation is w ithout dram a. A new m yth, purely anthropo
logical, w ill b e needed to take the place o f the old cosm ic myth.
The figure o f the U rm ensch w ill then have to b e detached from
the figure o f the K in g ; his fau lt w ill have to constitute a radical
novelty in the good creation. I t is tins need w hich w ill b e fulfilled
by the A dam ic myth.
N ow one m ay legitim ately ask whether this m ythical substitution
can b e carried through right to the end, and whether m an can
bear the burden o f evil in the w orld all b y him self. T h e Serpent,
whose “ guile" precedes the fall, is perhaps the last evidence o f the
drama o f creation. But even so it remains true that it is n ot in
man, in the figure o f Adam , long o f creation, that the dram a o f
creation is prolonged, but in the O ther than M an, in that Other
who w ill later be called Satan, the Adversary. W e w ill speak o f
him when the tim e com es. Fear the m om ent, let us leave in suspense
this “ rem ythologization” o f human ev il; it cannot very w ell be
understood until after the “ dem ythologization” o f cosm ic evil—
a rained and condem ned historical m agnitude. A t the same rime, the
oriental king appears as rite figure o f false greatness, as the caricature and
no longer the im age o f G od. R ead, fo r exam ple, the prophecy o f Ezekiel
against the king o f Tyre (2 8 :1 f f . } : “ Because you are swollen w ith pride,
you have said: 1 am a god, I am seated on the throne o f G od, in the
midst a t the sea.’ Although you are a man and not a god, you set your
heart as the heart o f G od.” T he figure o f the king, then, had to diminish
in order that those at the .Prophet, o f a new M oses connected w ith a second
Exodus, o f the servant o f Yahweh, and finally o f the Son o f M an m ight
increase.
that is to say, the movem ent o f thought that liberated three com
ponents w hich the cosm ic dram a cannot take upon itself: die
"eschatological” com ponent at salvation, the “ historical” com po
nent o f the human dram a, and die “ anthropological” component
o f human evil.
4. A “ M u t a n t ” F o rm
o f t h e D ra m a o f C r e a t io n :
T h e H elle n ic T ita n
47 This work had already been printed before I became, acquainted with
the remarkable essay o f Ctemence Ram noux on L a N utt t t Us Enfants dt
la N uit d e la tradition grecqu* (Baris, 1959; especially pp. 62—1 0 9 ).
Hesiod’s Prometheus is almost an Urmensch, a “prim ordial m an.”
This m ovem ent tow ard m ore anthropogenic myths takes various
routes. In the first place, it is favored b y the anthropom orphism
in the creation-dram a itself] w ith the purely physical violence o f
the old gods there is already associated what m ay be called the
“ psychological” violence o f guile, or trickery. In the second place,
as the ouranian aspect o f divinity becom es m ore dearly defined, all
die chthonic violence w hich has been expelled from the sphere of
the divine is le ft in suspense, like an unused w aste-product o f the
divine; and it is this less than divine that is gathered u p in the
image o f the Titans. Finally, the figure o f the (S an t— a very large,
very strong, and very savage m an— furnishes a plastic representa
tion o f this inferior kind o f divinity and contributes to its attraction
toward a sort o f prim ordial m an.
'Nevertheless, th e Prom ethean m yth, a t least in H esiod, is n ot
com pletely em antipated from its theogonic m atrix; it continues to
share in d ie defeat o f the T itanic and chthonian elements belong-
ing to d ie origin o f things and to the genesis o f the divine itself.
Prometheus does n ot invent e v il; he continues it ; his guile is a
sequel to the guile displayed in the theogonic com bats.
It was Aeschylus w h o transform ed Prometheus in to a “ tragic”
figure. 'While he keeps the theogonic setting, he really makes
Prometheus the vis-k-vis o f Zeus, w ho him self becom es the hidden
god, or the kok&« 8alfuav; and so Prometheus becom es the “ H ero”
pursued by the w rath o f the god. O n the other hand, in ac
centuating his philanthropic character, Aeschylus makes him , if
not a Tnrni, at least the dem igod w ho gives man his humanity.
Thus Prometheus becom es a sort o f m odel o f m an, as the German
Sturm und D rang rightly saw. In Aeschylus him self this transfor
mation is n ot yet com plete, fo r at the end o f the trilogy, now lost,
Prometheus is again exalted as a god and given back, so to speak,
to theogony. But the direction in w hich the theme o f the Titan
evolved is n ot doubtful.
Perhaps it is am ong the O rphics that the myth o f the T itan gets
its closest association with an anthropogony. T h e O rphic myth,
we shall see, is in general a myth o f m an, a myth o f “ soul” and
“ body” ; “ the crim e o f the Titans,” w h o dismembered and devoured
the young god Dionysos, becom es the origin o f m an; from their
ashen Zeus raised up the present race o f m en, w ho thus have a
tw ofold inheritance from god and T ita n ; the myth o f the Titan
is henceforth an etiological myth, designed to account far the
present condition o f m an; it is detached com pletely from the
theogonic background to becom e the first link in an anthropogany
Plato’s words in the Laws about the “ T itanic nature” o f man are
perhaps the best testimony fo r this shift in the theme o f d ie Titan
from theogony towards anthropogany.
Finally, it w ould appear that a theme akin to that o f d ie Titans
served the Hebrews fo r a w hile as a myth, o f the fall, at least in an
obscure tradition, a trace o f w hich is found in the Bible in die
sixth chapter o f Generis (vss. 1 -4 ). T h e Giants—Nephilim ,— to
whom the Y ah wist account alludes, appear to be derived from
oriental Titans b om o f the union between m ortals and heavenly
beings; but the origin o f d ie legend is less interesting than the use
which the Yahwist makes o f it. It is to be n oted that the Yahwist
incorporated this popular legend into his description o f the growing
corruption in human history, w hich was to provide a m otive for
the Flood. H ere, then, the th an e af the Titans is brought into the
story o f the fall.
Thus the myth o f the insolent race o f d ie Titans is incorporated
by turns in the tragic type, the O rphic type, and the Biblical type.
It is a sort o f evasive myth that hesitates between several types of
anthropogany, while rem aining a captive o f its prim itive theogonic
m atrix. It represents an uncertain attempt to situate d ie origin of
evil in a region o f bring intermediate between the divine and the
human. T hat is w hy it remains unusual, d ose both to chaos and to
the U rm ensch. I t signifies, perhaps, an attem pt to tie the antiquity
o f human evil, w hich is always already there, to those aspects of
brute reality w hich testify o f themselves to a resistance to aider
and beauty— masses o f shapeless rocks, the Caucasus battered by
storms, to w hich Aeschylus’ Prometheus is nailed.
II. T h e W icked G od and the
"T ragic” Vision o f Existence
THE SECOND TYPE 0 7 MYTHS o f beginning and end gets its nam e
from, its m ost fam ous “ exam ple” : Greek tragedy.
H ow is tins “ example” related to the “ essence o f the tragic” ?
O ne w ould like to think that the task o f the philosopher is to
approach G reek tragedy w ith a category o f the tragic already in
mmd, or a t least w ith a w orking definition broad enough to in
clude all tragic w orks: Greek, Christian, Elizabethan, m odem . It
would seem that tins m ethod, proceeding from essence to exam ple,
is the only one capable o f avoiding th e questionable procedure o f
advancing, by w ay o f induction, from the particular case to the
general structure.
Nevertheless, one must start w ith Greek tragedy. F or several
reasons. In the first place, because the Greek exam ple is n ot one
example am ong others; Greek tragedy is n ot at all an exam ple in
the inductive sense, but the sudden and com plete m anifestation
of die essence o f the tragic; to understand the tragic is to relive
in oneself the Greek experience o f the tragic, n ot as a particular
case o f tragedy, but as the origin o f tragedy— that is to say, both
its beginning and its authentic emergence. It is far from bring the
case that this approach to the tragic through Greek tragedy con
demns us to a doubtful process o f induction and am plification;
rather, it is by grasping the essence in its Greek phenom enon that
we can understand all other tragedy as analogous to Greek tragedy.
an
For, as M ax Schder him self says,1 although he proposes to go
from the essence to the exam ple, the problem here is not t o prove
but to “ make see,” to show ; Greek tragedy is the most advantageous
place fo r getting “ the perception o f the phenomenon itself/’8
Betides, the Greek example, in showing us the tragic itself, has
the advantage o f revealing to us, without any attenuation, its non*
nection w ith theology,3 I f there is a tragic vision o f man in Aeschy
lus, that is because it is the other face o f a tragic vision o f the
divine; it is in Greek tragedy that the theme o f the m an “ blinded”
and led to h is destruction by the gods is carried all at once to the
uttermost lim it o f its virulence, so that thereafter the analogues of
Greek tragedy are perhaps only m uted expressions o f the same
insupportable revelation.
Finally, the Greek exam ple is especially fitted to persuade us
that the tragic vision o f the w orld is tied to a spectacle and not to a
speculation. T h is third trait is n ot w ithout relation to the preceding
on e; fo r, if the secret o f tragic anthropology is theological, that
theology o f m aking blind is perhaps unavowable, unacceptable for
thought. T h e plastic and dram atic expression o f the tragic would
not, then, be a redothing, m uch less an incidental disguise, o f a
conception o f man that cou ld have been expressed otherwise in
plain language.
It is o f the essence o f the tragic that it must be exhibited in a
tragic hero, a tragic action, a tragic denouem ent Perhaps the
tragic cannot tolerate transcription into a theory w hich— let us say
it im m ediatdy— could only be the scandalous theology o f predesti
nation to evil. Perhaps the tragic theology must b e rejected as soon
as it is thought Perhaps also it is capable o f surviving, as spectacle,
all the destructions that follow upon its transcription into the plain
language o f speculation. This connection w ith a spectacle, then,
w ould be the specific means by w hich the sym bolic pow er that
retides in every tragic myth could be protected. A t the same time,
the connection with a spectade, with the theatre, w ould have the
1 M ax Scheler, L e Ph/nomhu du tragique, tr. into French by M . Dupuy
(Paris, 1952).
‘ Ibid., p. 110.
* This chapter owes m uch to the reading o f Gerhard N ebel, Weltangit
und C otttrzom ; tine D rafting der griechischm Tragodi* (Stuttgart, 1951).
value o f a warning and o f an invitation. T h e philosopher w ould
be put o n guard by the invincible tragic spectacle against the illu
sion that h e has done w ith the tragic vision o f the w orld when he
has unmasked— w ith the Plato o f the second book o f the R epublic,
far example— the scandalous theology im plicit in tragedy. A t the
same tim e, he w ould be invited to try to discover a hermeneutics o f
the tragic symbol that w ould take in to account the invincibility o f
the spectacle in the face o f any reductive criticism based on the
transposition from “ theatre” to “ theory.”
1. T he P re - T bag io T hem es
8 H esiod tends tow ard the “ nan-tragic” type, when he makes die malefi
cent forces issue from the oldest race o f the gods; M oros and Thanatns an
children o f N ight ( T h t o g 2 1 1 }, bu t so are M em os (blam e), Qizys (da-
tress), the Hesperides w ho guard the golden apples beyond Okeanos, and
Nemesis— but so are A pate and Philotes, Gem s and Eris (K erenyi, La
mythologia das Graes, French translation, Paris, 1952, p p . 3 5 -3 6 ). Ib is
m ythological ensemble that K erenyi gathers together under the tide of
pre-Olym pian divinities is a fantastic assemblage o f terrifying figures who
gear dow n the w orld horn its original violence, ham w hich d ie just reign
o f Zeus w ill rescue it. It is interesting to see these figures waver between
tw o types, the creation-dram a "type” toward w hich they are drawn by
theogony, and the w icked-god “ type” toward w hich they are drawn by die
epic. Cl&nence Ram noux, in La Nutt at las Enfants da la Ntcit, shows d o t
these figures o f fright also waver between tw o “ levels,*’ that o f archaic
images (o r infantile images, such as the ogre hither and the castrated
father) and that o f the incipient physical concepts. T h e story o f the mutila
tion o f K ronos still belongs to naive m ytho-poetic creation ; tile cosmogonic
in the strict sense is lin k ed w ith the progressive personalization o f
that am biguous sort o f divin ity w h ich , w h ile rem aining polpa,
involuntary a n d h yper-divin e, irration al an d in elu ctable fatality,
takes d ie quam -psychological fo rm o f m alevolen ce. I t m ay b e said
that divin e m a levolen ce has tw o p oles, an im personal on e in pmpa
and a personal on e in th e w ill o f Zeus.
T h e decisive m om en t in this personalization o f divin e hostility
is represented b y th e co n ce p t o f d ivin e <p66vosl th e “ jealou s”
gods can n ot en d u re an y greatness beside th eirs; m an , then, feels
himself thrust b a ck in to his hum anity. H ere is th e birth o f the
“ tragic,” contem poraneous w ith th e fam ou s G reek n otion o f m eas
ure, or m od era tion ; th a t seem ingly tran qu il and h app y m odesty
preached b y w ise m en , that acceptan ce o f finiteness, is haunted b y
die fear c i an im m oderation th at d ivin e “ jealou sy” ca n n ot tolerate.
It is divin e jealou sy th at denounces im m oderation , an d it is fe a r o f
im m oderation th a t instigates th e eth ical riposte o f “ m odesty.”
O f course, th e w ise m en tried t o m oralize divin e ^0ovo« b y re
ducing it t o a punishm ent fo r hybris and prop osin g a n on -tra g ic
genesis fa r hybris: success begets a desire fo r m ore an d m ore—
vAeom^a,— greed begets com p la cen ce, a n d com p la cen ce begets
arrogance. T h u s ev il does n o t com e fro m <f>66vos', it is hybris
that is first B u t in dem ythologizm g hybris, th e m oralist m akes it
ready far a n ew tra g ic in terpretation ; fo r is there n o m ystery in
die giddiness th a t lays h o ld o n com p la cen ce, m akes it clearly ex
cessive, an d sets it an th e p erilou s ro a d o f th e endless desire fo r
m ore? T h e rp&rw kokov o f hum an hybris>• as T h eogn is says, w h o
appears to ca m e d o s e to th e B iblical con cep tion o f th e fa ll, w ill
becam e tragic again , as soon as hum an hybris is n o t on ly th e initia
tive that p rovok es th e jealou sy o f th e god s, b u t th e in itiative th at
is caused b y th a t jealou sy th rou gh th e interm ediary o f blindness.8
*
tion in Prometheus, guilty benefactor, and Zeus, god o f wrath on the way
toward a religion o f justice and wisdom.
pres by the T itan ic nature o f Prometheus.14 Freedom has its roots
in the chaotic depths o f bein g; it is a m om ent in the Titanom achy.
Prometheus calls unceasingly upon G aia, symbol and epitom e o f
the chthonic pow ers; from the beginning he summons ether, winds,
springs, earth, and sun to bear witness; his defiance is in keeping
with the gigantic character o f mountains and waves. In his free
dom, elementary wrath loom s up. A n d that elementary wrath,
winch is expressed in his defiance, does n ot d iffer fundam entally
firm the dark pow er w hich animates Clytemnestra, in wham the
dreadful powers o f a maternal bosom , o f the earth, and erf the
dead are united. N either does it differ essentially from the ethical
terra represented by the Erinyes, w hich shuts m an up in the cycle
of vengeance. A ll that is chaos, and so is freedom in its first ap
pearance.
Thus Prometheus bound bears witness n ot so m uch to the para
dox as to the deep-seated com plicity o f the wrath o f G od and the
wrath o f m an, o f the w icked god and T ita n ic freedom . Both taste
the bitterness o f the “ grapes o f wrath.”
h seems to m e, then, that this hybris o f innocence, if I m ay call
it so, this violence that makes Prometheus a guilty victim , throws
light retrospectively on the original them e o f the m yth, the them e
of tiie theft o f fire. T h e drama, it is true, begins afterw ard; it falls
within the period o f punishment (ju st as the incest and the m urder
are anterior to the tragedy o f O edipus, w hich is a tragedy erf dis
covery and recognition, a tragedy o f tru th ). T h e tragedy o f Pro
metheus begins w ith the unjust suffering. Nevertheless, by a retro
grade m otion, it makes contact w ith the original germ o f the
drama: the theft was a benefaction, but the benefaction was a
theft. Prometheus was initially a guilty inn ocen t
u Nebel, o p . a t., pp, 233-53: “ Blessed death in the O edipus a t C olon u s"
30 Karl Jaspers, Fen d er W ahrheit, pp. 915-60. C l below, Chap. V ,
religion o f “ divine ecstasy” — that is to say, escape horn the human
in to d ie divine,— religion in its A pollonian o r Dionysiac form is
n ot a resolution o f the tragic. T h e authority o f the D elphic arade
does indeed reassure, guide, and in this sense p acify; A pollo was
the great pacifier insofar as he was, through the intermediary of
the oracle, the great counselor, the guarantor o f the legislative
activity o f the great founders o f law s; but A pollo is also the peat
master o f ritual purifications, w hich means that his counsel, al
though it gives some security to the human w ord, does not heal the
“ tragic” soul, since recourse to the old purifications is necessary
after all. A pollo, the counselor, could not forgive tins but only
wash away the stains o f defilement, because the tragic vision of
the w orld excludes forgiveness o f tins.*1
Dionysos seeks even less to make the wounded soul whole again;
he provides an outlet fo r the anguish due to faults by drawing the
soul out o f itself and out o f its solitude. Thus his ecstasy relieves
man o f the w eight o f his responsibility by changing him in to some
one else. Dionysos does n ot confirm m an in the truth o f his finite
ness; he offers him an exaltation, a sort o f sacred frrnrindnrarinn,
by w hich he escapes from him self rather than becom ing reconciled
with him self.18
Adam means M an. But not every m yth o f “ the prim ordial man”
is an “A dam ic” m yth. Each o f the other types o f m yth includes
some reference to m an: thus the figure o f the K in g, in the theo-
gon ic m yth, gives substance to a certain sort o f history and t o a
certain sort o f political reality; but d ie origin o f evil is not at*
tributed to m an in any peculiar sense in that m yth. Likewise, die
figure o f the T itan, w hich fluctuates am ong the various types of
m yth, is very d ose to changing into the figure o f the primordial
m an; but d ie O rphic "anthropogony,” w hich annexed th e myth of
the Titans to itself— at a late date, n o doubt,— does n ot co nstitute
an anthropogenic myth o f evil: d ie being o f m an is itself d ie result
o f a dram a anterior to m an; the evil is that there are human be
ings; the genesis o f evil coincides w ith anthropiogony. M any other
representations o f the prim ordial m an w ill be foun d at d ie gnostic
level o f speculation; but those speculations d iffer fundamentally
from the A dam ic theme because in them the genesis o f the present
condition o f man is regularly considered as identical w ith the evil
process displayed in the “ eons” anterior to d ie present mnrW+inn
o f man.
O nly tiie “ Adam ic” m yth is strictly anthropological. This means
that it has three characteristics. In the first place, the etiological
myth relates the origin o f evil to an ancestor o f the human race as
it is now whose condition is hom ogeneous w ith ours. A ll the specu
lations on the supernatural perfection o f A dam before the fall are
adventitious contrivances w hich profoundly alter the original
naive, brute m eaning; they tend to m ake A dam superior and hence
a stranger to ou r condition, and a t the same tim e they reduce the
Adam ic m yth to a generis o f m an from a prim ordial superhumanity.
There Is n o doubt that the very w ord “ fall,” w hich is foreign to
die Biblical vocabulary, is contem poraneous w ith the elevation o f
the “Adam ic” condition above th e present h u m an con dition ; only
what has first been elevated falls. T h e symbol o f the fall, then, is
not tim authentic symbol o f the “ Adam ic” m yth; m oreover, it is
found in Plato, in gnosis, in Plotinus. T h at is why w e have not
called this chapter “ T h e M yth o f the Fall,” b u t “ T h e A dam ic
Myth.” W hen w e have traced the roots o f the symbolism o f the
Adam ic m yth back to the m are fundam ental symbolism o f sin, w e
shall see that the A dam ic m yth is a m yth o f “ deviation,” o r “ going
astray,” rather than a myth o f the ‘'fall.”
Second characteristic: the etiological m yth o f A dam is the m ost
extreme attem pt to separate the origin o f evil from the origin o f
the g o o d ; its intention is to set up a radical origin o f evil distinct
from the m ore prim ordial origin o f the goodness o f things. W hat
ever the strictly philosophical difficulties o f this attempt m ay be, the
distinction between radical and prim ordial is essential to the anthro
pological character o f the A dam ic m yth; it is that w hich makes
man a beginning o f evil in the bosom o f a creation w hich has al
ready had its absolute beginning in the creative act o f G od. A t the
time when the A dam ic m yth was com posed, the concept o f freedom
had not yet been elaborated as a support fo r this, so to speak,
second beginning, although the D euteronom ic idea o f a radical
choice im posed by the prophetic summons portends the evolution
of the A dam ic m yth tow ard a speculation o f a higher degree, in
which freedom w ill b e n ot only a sort o f beginning, but the pow er
of the creature to defect— that is to say, in the strict sense, the
power o f the human creature to undo (dS fm re), and to unmake
him self (se defaire) , after he has b eat m ade (J o t) and made per
fect (par-fait) . O n 'die level o f the myth, to w hich we confine oar-
selves here, this pow er o f defection w hich belongs to freedom is
still only im plicit in d ie structure o f the story; it is represented by
a happening that loom s up, one does n ot know where from, and
that distinguishes a before from an after. In d ie term inology o f the
fall, about w hich w e have expressed reservations above, there is a
supralapsarian state o f innocence and an infralapsarian state of
peccability. (L e t us note, in passing; that fallibility and peccability
are not identical. “ Fallibility,” in the sense given to it in Book 1,
denotes the human structure capable o f departing from the right
way out o f m alignancy, w hile “ peccability” describes the condition
o f mankind when they are already inclined to e v il T h at is why we
speak o f peccability here in the sense o f a habitus o f the species;
we shall discuss it at length in Book I I I .) T he passage from inno
cence to sin as the status o f a man destined fo r good and mdmed
to evil is narrated by d ie A dam ic m yth as something that happened.
But because the origin o f evil is narrated as a story about something
that happened, and because that story is connected with a legen
dary character, A dam , w e are n ot yet in d ie presence o f speculation,
but only at an etiological myth. N o doubt d ie myth is ready to be
taken over by speculation, but it is still immersed in mythical space
and tim e; and so it must be understood as a m yth, half-way be
tween the prim ordial symbols and the speculative symbols created
b y gnosis, o r against gnosis.
Finally— third characteristic— the A dam ic m yth subordinates to
the central figure o f the prim ordial m an some other figures winch
tend to decentralize the story, but without suppressing the primacy
o f the A dam ic figure. I t is noteworthy, in fact, that d ie Adamic
myth does n ot succeed in concentrating and absorbing the origin
o f evil in the figure o f a prim ordial m an alon e; it speaks also of
the adversary, the Serpent, w h o w ill becom e the devil, and o f an
other personage, E ve, w ho represents the vis-h-vis o f that Otter,
Serpent or D evil. Thus the A dam ic myth raises up one or more
counterpoles to the central figure o f the prim ordial M an, and from
those counterpoles it gets an enigm atic depth by w hich it com
municates subterraneously with the other myths o f evil and main*
pnssihle what w e shall call further on a system o f the myths o f
eriL But, how ever far it m ay b e posable to g o in the direction
af this m ultiplication o f the centers o f proliferation o f evil, the
central intention o f th e m yth is to order all the oth er figures in
relation to the figure o f Adam , and to understand them in con
junction w ith him and as peripheral figures in the story w hich has
Adam as its principal protagonist.
Such is the dialectic o f sin and the law , w hich Luther and
Nietzsche also knew w ell. H ow , then, can an interdiction belong
to the order o f innocence? N o doubt w e must lindeinfaind that, in
m aking m an free, G od gives him a finite freedom . T h e finitMM-w
o f that freedom consists in the fa ct that it is a freedom primordiaDy
oriented not, o f course, by what w e call “ values,” w hich am
already m uch elaborated cultural products, but by a hierarchical
principle o f preference am ong values. This ethical structure d
freedom constitutes the authority o f values in general. Perhaps that
is why the Yahwist, w ho elsewhere relates the crim e o f Cain and
w ho therefore knows the gravity o f m urder, retained the naive
m otif o f the forbidden fruit, w hich may have had a different mean
ing in the older legend. In the new and peculiarly H ebraic myth,
the forbidden fruit stands for prohibition in general; compared to
m urder, eating forbidden fruit is a peccadillo.8 H ence the man-
of this k in d : the serpent is the sym bol o f the gods o f vegetation; without
being the representative o f sex as such, he represents the tem ptation o f the
divinities that sacralize sex. Goppens is even m ore precise: the fault must
have to do w ith the only commandment reported in Genesis before the foil,
the command to procreate. Thus the serpent w ould represent the tempta
tion to place sexual life under the influence o f the lirantious pagan colts
and so to surrender it to dissoluteness (op. cit., pp. 13 -2 8 , 7 3 -9 1 , and, in
the same collection, Analecta Lovaniensia Biblica at Orientalia, I I , 8, pp.
396-408). I t m ust b e said that M . G oppens rests his interpretation an a
vast and solid inquiry concerning the significance o f the serpent as associated
with the divinities o f vegetation (shut., p p . 91—117 and 4 0 9 -4 2 ). But, in
my opinion, he passes too quickly over the question whether it is really the
existence o f sexual transgression that the sacred author teaches. W hen he
encounters tins question, w hich ought to dom inate the discussion, h e answers
m the negative: "D oes the sacred author teach the existence o f the sexual
transgression o f w hich w e have spoken? I think n o t T h e developm ent o f
that theme is m uted. I t was m uch clearer, I think, in the source known to
the author. T he hagiographer dropped the them e; but there remain same
traces o f it w hich must be m ade out as in a palimpsest. O r one m ay suppose
that h e did n ot abandon it entirely fo r his ow n part, but that he abstained
from m eiilrating i t H e m ay have contented him self w ith insinuating it,
wthay because he preferred not to rend the veil or because he deliberately
madw it thicker11 (ibid., p . 2 6 ). These remarks make m e think that the
mama! interpretation is a recessive interpretation o f the sin o f Adam . I f it
hairaga to the m ost archaic level, the editor has suppressed it n ot in order
to conceal the m eaning, hut in order to say something m uch m ore im portant
It seems to m e that the intention o f the text is to reduce the content o f the
fault to the extent o f m aking it a peccadillo, in order to emphasize the fact
that rnaT> has broken the filial dependence that united him to his Father.
That is why, finally, the question o f the tree is not im portant, as Zimm erli
has clearly seen (p p . 165-66, 2 3 5 -3 8 ). T h e decisive argument, in m y opin
ion, is the place td this story, at the head o f the series form ed by Generis
1-T1. T he rin td Adam is the first, in the sense that it is at the root o f ail the
others: Adam breaks w ith G od, as Gain separates him self from his brother
and tiie m en o f Babel are confounded. W e shall take up this problem again
in Book I I I , when w e examine the psychoanalytic interpretation o f guilt;
it w ill then be possible to discover the positive value o f the sexual interpre
tation and to assign Coppens* interpretation to its right place, which is not
that o f intentional instruction.
tw o words, “ g o o d " and “ evil,” ' place d ie hidden meaning far
beyond any m agic, at the very foundation o f the discrimination
between being good and being evil; what is forbidden is not this
or that, but a state o f autonom y w hich w ould m ake man the
creator o f the distinction between good and eviL
There is m ore to be said. F or an innocent freedom , this limita
tion w ould n ot be felt as an interdiction; but w e n o longer know
what that prim ordial authority, contem poraneous with the birth of
finite freedom , is; in particular, w e n o longer know w hat a Gnat that
does n ot repress, but orients and guards freedom , could be Eke;
w e n o longer have access to that creative lim it W e are acrpiaimeri
only w ith the lim it that constrains; authority becom es interdiction
under the regim e o f fallen freedom . T hat is w hy the naive author
o f the Biblical story projects into the state o f innocence the sort
o f interdiction that w e experience “ after” the fa ll; the G od who
says Yes— “L et there he ligh t: and there was light” — now says
N o— “ As fo r the tree o f the knowledge o f good and evQ, thou shah
not eat o f i t ” T h e fall is at the same tim e a fall o f m an and a fall
o f the “ law” ; as S t Paul says, again, “ T h e com mandment that
was to give m e life has led m e to sin.” Thus the fa ll is a caesura
cutting across everything that makes ra m hum an; everything—
sexuality and death, work and civilization, culture and ethics—
depends on both a prim ordial nature, lost b u t yet still lying there
underneath, and an evil w hich, although radical, is nonetheless
contingent
I f n ow we ask the meaning o f that in n n n m y w hich the myth
projects as a "before,” w e can answer: to say that it is lost is stiH
to say something about it ; it is to posit it in order at least to cancel
i t Innocence here plays the role o f the Kantian thing-in-itseif: it
is thought o f to the extent o f being posited, but it is n o t known;
that is enough to give it the negative role o f a lim it in relation
to the pretensions o f the phenom enon to b e coextensive w ith bring.
T o posit the w orld as that into which a n entered, o r innocence as
* M . H um bert translates: “ Tartu* du nm m U r* W m et maL” H e thinks
that it is a question o f judgm ent in its JnQ extent: ^Knowledge both
theoretical and practical, experimen tal; knowledge in general, making one
experienced, capable, and prudent in aD fields. A n exclusively m oral sense
is excluded” (op. c i t p. 9 0 ).
that from w hich sin strayed, or again, in figurative language, Para
dise as d ie place from w hich m an was driven, is to attest that sin
is not our original reality, does n ot constitute ou r first ontological
status; sin does n ot define w hat it is to be a m an ; beyond his
becom ing a sinner there is bis b o n g created. T h at is the radical
intuition w hich the future editor o f the second creation-story
(G en. 1} w ill sanction by the w ard o f th e L ord G o d : “ L et us make
man in o u r im age, after our likeness.” T h e im ago D ei— there w e
have both our being-created and our inn ocen ce; fo r the “ goodness”
of the creation is n o other than its status as “ creature.” AH creation
is good, and the goodness that belongs tom a n is his being the im age
o f G od . Seen retrospectively, from the point o f view o f o n , as a
“prior” state in m ythical language, the likeness appears as an
absence o f guilt, as innocence; but his goodness is altogether posi
tive; it is o n that is the nothingness o f vanity.
Thereby the possibility arises o f interpreting the tw o states o f
innocence and o n n o longer as successive, but as superim posed;
on does not succeed innocence, but, in the h u ia n t, loses it. In the
Instant 1 am created, in the Instant I fa ll. In the Instant I am
created.: m y pristine goodness is m y status as a created b rin g ; but
I do n o t cease to b e a created bein g unless I cease to b e ; therefore
I d o n ot cease to b e good. T hen the “ event” o f sin terminates
innocence in the Instant; it is, in the Instant, the discon tinuity,
the breach between m y having been created and m y becom ing eviL
T he m yth puts in succession that w hich is contem poraneous and
cannot n ot b e contem poraneous; it makes an “ earlier” state o f in
nocence term inate in an instant that begins the “ later” state o f a c-
cursedness. B ut that is h ow it attains its depth ; in telling o f the fall
as an event, springing u p from an unknown source;, it furnishes
anthropology w ith a key con cept: the contingency o f that radical
evil w hich th e penitent is always on the p rin t c f calling Ids ev il
nature. Thereby the m yth proclaim s th e purely “ historical” char
acter o f th at radical evil; it prevents it from brin g regarded as
prim ordial evil. Sin m ay he “ rider” than mm, but innocence is
still “ rider.” T h e “ anteriority” o f innocence to the “ oldest” sin
is, as it w ere, the tem poral cipher o f a profound anthropological
fa c t B y the m yth anthropology is invited, in the first place, to
gather all the sins o f the w orld into a sort o f transhistorical unity,
symbolized by the first m an; then to put the stam p o f contingency
on that radical ev il; and finally to preserve, superimposed an one
another, the goodness o f created m an and the wickedness o f his
torical m an, while “ separating” the one from the other by the
“ event” which the myth tells o f as the first sin o f the first man.
That is what Rousseau genially understood: m an is “ naturally
good,” but w e know him u n der the regim e o f civilization— that is
to say, o f history— only as “ depraved.” A bove all, that is what
K ant understood w ith adm irable rigor in the Essay on Radical
EoU: m an is “ destined” fo r the good and “ inclined” to evil; in this
parados o f “ destination” and “ inclination” d ie w hole meaning of
the symbol o f the fa ll is concentrated.
But the same myth that focuses the “ event” o f the fall in one
m an, one act, one instant, also spreads it out am ong several char
acters— Adam , Eve, the serpent—and several episodes— the seduc
tion o f the woman and the fa ll o f the man. H ence, a second read
ing offers itself, in w hich the “ passage” from innocence to fru it gets
the sense o f an insensible transition and n o longer that o f a sudden
occurrence. T h e m yth is both th e m yth o f the caesura and the
myth o f transition, the m yth o f the act and that o f motivation,
the myth o f an evil ch oice and that o f tem ptation, the myth of the
Instant and that o f a lapse o f time. U nder this second aspect the
myth tries to fill up the interval between innocence and the fall
by a sort o f dizziness from w hich the evil act emerges as if by
fascination. But in articulating the event o f the fall upon the dura
tion o f the dizziness, the Yahwist gives his story a second pole—
the serpent; the serpent is a figure o f the transition. Furthermore,
the m ediation o f the serpent is itself linked with another figure—
that o f the wom an, Eve, l if e . Thus the myth multiplies intermedi
aries, countering the irrationality o f the Instant.
L et us not ask first who the serpent is. L et us see what he does.
T h e drama begins between the serpent and the woman. The
serpent raises a question and that question insinuates a doubt:
"H as G od truly said N ow the question 1b an interrogation
concerning the In terd ict; it is a question that seizes upon the inter
diction and transforms it into an occasion fo r fallin g; or rather, if
our analysis o f the creative lim it is exact, the question makes the
l i m i t suddenly appear as an interdiction. Dizziness begins w ith
H irin g, op. eit., pp. 8 3 -8 5 ; A . Bentzen, op. cit., pp. 42 f f .; Th£o Frew,
L e FUs de l’H om m e, fragments d’un couxs sur la cbristalogie d o N . T.
(M ontpellier, 19 51 ), pp. 51 f f .; O . Cullm ann, op. eit., pp. 4 8 -7 3 .
19 O . Cullm ann, op. cit., p p . 52 and 64.
and the w ork o f the Eternal w ill prosper in his hands. Because o f
die travail o f his soul, he w ill see and b e satisfied; through his
knowledge m y just servant w ill justify m any m en and h e w ill take
their iniquities upon him self.” Expiation through the voluntary suf
fering o f another, however mysterious the E bed Yahweh m ay be,
is an essential key to the idea o f pardon ; it w ill b e relayed through
aO the successive m ediations developed by the other figures.90
Other, profoundly other, is the apocalyptic figure indicated in
Daniel 7 :1 3 and in the extra-canonical apocalypses (book o f Ezra,
Ethiopian b ook o f E n och ). “ I w atched during m y visions in the
nigh t, and behold, an the clouds o f heaven there cam e one like
a sou o f m an; he advanced toward the A ncient o f Days, and they
brought him near to him . A n d there w as given him dom inion, glory,
and kingship; and all peoples, nationB, and m en o f every language
served him . H is eternal dom inion w ill never pass away, and his
kingship w ill never b e destroyed” (D am 7 :1 3 -1 4 ). A ccording to
the ensuing explanation given b y th e visionary (vss. 15 f f .) , the
“ Scm o f M an” represents the “ saints o f the M ost H igh.” This
figure, o f heavenly origin, com es to assemble the holy people o f the
end o f tim e and to share his reign w ith them. T his figure, the most
distant from the figure o f the earthly K ing,91 w ill lead us back, at
o f tiie “ spiritual” and tike “ earthly” (o r “ tike psychic” ) than to the Hebrew
tradition. I t is above a ll the other A dam ological passage in St. Paul ( I Gar.
1 5 :3 5 -5 5 ) that poses the problem : “ The first man Adam was m ade a
living sou l: the last Adam is a spirit w ho gives life. . . . T he first man,
sprung from the earth, is earthy; the second m an is from heaven.” O n this
hypothesis, w e shall attem pt further on to account fo r th e attraction o f
the A dam ic type in the direction o f the type o f the exiled soul (<£ below ,
Chap. V , $ 4 ) ; w hat w e have said about the dualism o f “ spirit” and “ flesh”
in St. Paul (Part I , Chap. I l l , 9 4 ) has prepared the way. F or the m o
ment, let ns say only that S t fo u l does not break with the H ebrew tradi
tion o f the Son o f M an, w ho there, too, is “ heavenly” (H an. 7 :1 3 ). Further
m ore, as H irin g has suggested {o p . cit., p. 1 5 3 ), follow ed by GuDmarm {op.
cit., p p . 1 4 4 -4 5 ), the key to the text m ight b e to regard it as a polem ic
against the interpretation o f Philo, w ho distinguished tw o “ first men,” the
first heavenly and perfect (accordin g to Generis 1 :2 6 ), the second earthly
and fallen (according to Genesis 2 :7 ). F or S t Paul, it is the first who is
earthly, m id there is n o other first; it is the second w ho is heavenly, and he
is the la st T h e movem ent, the progression, from the earthly Adam to the
heavenly Adam is only m ore striking; there is n o longer, behind us, a
“ heavenly” A dam ; the perfect m an is w holly signified by the M an to
Gome.
81 A . M . D ubarle, L e p ic h i origm el dans VAcritnre (Paris, 19 58 ), p . 4,
notes 1 and 2.
M Texts from John Chrysostom and Irenaeus in Stanislas Lyonnet, D e
Peccato et Redem ption*, I (R om e, 19 57 ), pp. 36-37.
fall is turned into grow th and progress; the curse o f paradise lost
becom es a test and a m edicine. It is, therefore, S t PauFs “ how
m uch mare” and “ in order that” w hich con fer its truth upon that
vision o f history according to w hich man’ s access to his humanity,
his passage from infancy to maturity, both on the individual level
and an the level o f the species, proceed through awareness o f his
lim itations, his conflicts, and his sufferings. Salvation evolves a
history; in sym bolic term s: the second Adam is greater than the
first A dam ; the first A dam is with a view to the second Adam . We
must g o this far in order to understand that the Bible never speaks
o f sin except in the perspective o f the salvation that delivers from
sin. This “ pedagogy” o f the human race makes the pessimism af
the fall abound in order that the optimism o f salvation m ay super-
abound.
This detour through the “ images o f the End” permits us to give
the notion o f “ pardon” a ll its richness. I t has been said too readily
that pardon is G od’s answer to man’s avow al o f fault. B u t pardon
cannot be understood directly as a psychological event; in order
to arrive at the experience, one must have w nw from the symbolic
universe constituted by the accum ulation o f figures stretching from
the Adam o f the Yahwist editor to the tw o Adam s o f d ie Pauline
epistles and including the figures o f the M essiah-King, the Shep
herd-K ing, the Prince o f Peace, the Servant o f Yahweh, and the
Son o f M an, to say nothing o f d ie L ord and the L ogos o f the
apostolic Church. Pardon, as something experienced, gets its mean
ing from the participation o f the individual in the “ type” o f the
fundam ental M an. W ithout that reference to the symbol o f the
M an, the experience is shut u p in that w hich is m ost inward and
most individual. Something essential is then lost, something that
cannot be conveyed except by the over-determ ined figure o f a M m
w ho is him self and all m en, as the figures o f the Servant and o f die
Son o f M an already were. In Pauline language, the passage from
the “ old man” to the “ new man” is the psychological event which
expresses the incorporation o f the individual in the reality signifigd
by the “ types” o f the first and the second A dam ; the im w muta
tion— “ putting an the new man” — is the shadow cast an the pin™*
o f experience by a transformation which cannot be w holly experi-
m iw l subjectively, n or observed from outride, but can on ly be
signified sym bolically as a participation in the “ types” o f the first
and the second Adam . It is in tins sense that St. Paul says that the
individual is “ transformed [furapoptpoiaOai—metamorphosed] into
the sam e im age [dietin']” (2 C or. 3 :1 8 ), “ conform ed [av/t/top^os] to
the im age [cuouv]” o f the Son (R om . 8 :2 9 ), and that h e “ bears
the h-nagR o f the heavenly” after having “ borne the image of
the earthy” ( I Car. 1 5 :4 9 ) .** O f course, w hat gives ontological
weight to these “ types” in S t Paul is the faith that Jesus him
self, a historical m an, “ exists in the form o f G od,” that he ful
fills the type, the form , the im age. T h e plenary sense o f those
images is therefore inseparable from that faith, and the phenom
enology o f the images as such remains an abstraction in relation
to that faith. A t least, a simple com prehension o f the symbols, such
as w e are pursuing in this book, is sufficient to m ake it understood
that the psychology o f religious experience does n ot render an a c
count o f phenom enon o f pardon. I t is n ot that the individual
undergoes a certain experience and then projects it in to a w orld
o f im ages; on the contrary, it is because he is incorporated into that
which those “ images” signify that the individual attains the experi
ence o f pardon. T h e experience o f pardon is, so to speak, the
psychological trace o f that w hich happens in reality, and which
can on ly be spoken o f in an enigm a and signified as the passage
from incorporation in the first A dam to incorporation in the second
Adam .
N ow this transfiguration, this metamorphosis, or rather this
symmorphosis, is itself so rich in meaning that even an the level
o f “ types” it gives rise to a series o f sym bolic equivalents which
enrich the experience in their turn. W e should like to dwell an the
interplay between tw o significant symbolisms which develop in two
divergent directions, but without exhausting it, the same theme
o f the assimilation o f the individual to the QKXUVf the futptjnjy
o f the M a n : the m ore “ juridical” symbolism o f acquittal and the8
88 O . Cullm aim , op. eit., pp. 130-33, w ith reference to the third Pauline
passage on the M an (PhO. 2 :5 -1 1 ), w hich, according to H iring, n a y like
wise be regarded as associating the figure o f the San o f M an { “ in the ferm
o f G od” ) with the figure o f the Servant ( “ he humbled himself” ).
m ore “ mystical” symbolism o f the living g ra ft It must not be
thought that th e first is the poorer, because “ juridical” ; “ juridical”
does not mean “ legalistic.” O n the contrary, this symbolism reaches
its culm ination in St. Paul, w ho pushed furthest the criticism of
the Law and o f justification by works, and in S t John, w ho does
not concern him self with the problem o f the Law . T h e “ juridical”
symbolism conveys some fundam ental significations without which
the “ mystical” symbolism itself w ould lose its force. It can be traced
very far back, to^the archaic theme o f retribution as w ell as to the
contractual aspects o f the “ C ovenant” This, perhaps, is what ex
plains the appearance, in later Judaism and in the Septuagint, of
the idea o f “ debt” (o^dXq/ua) and the idea o f “ remission” ( o f m ,
rem ittere, to remit a d eb t), w hich in the Septuagint covers the
M essianic “ propitiation,” and even sometimes the M essianic “ lib
eration.” ®* T h e notion o f “ debt’5 has, it is true, a short career
in the N ew Testament (it appears only in the enunciation of
the O ur Father in M atthew [6:1 2]— “ forgive us our debts as we
have forgiven our debtors” ) ; on the other hand, charts, the re
mission o f sins in the sense o f forgiving a debt, plays a consider
able role in the writings o f the prim itive Church. N ow this theme
o f “ remission” — associated with the themes o f “ unbinding,” “ taking
away,” “ destruction,” “ purification” — receives a considerable am
plification when it is inserted in to the eschatological context o f tie
cosm ic judgm ent; the “ remission” o f the debt is the acquittal at tie
great trial in w hich the fundam ental M an is Judge and Advocate.
T he symbolism o f the eschatological judgm ent swells the m in in g
o f the notion o f pardon, because it relays to the level o f symbols
o f mythical degree the prim ary symbolism o f “ justification” which
w e have interpreted in our study o f g u ilt“ O n the one hand, the
primary symbolism provides a first foundation o f m eaning: gracious
initiative, m ovem ent from transcendence toward im m anence; but
it is the second-degree symbolism o f the eschatnlfyral judgment
that supplies the cosm ic and com m unal dimension, along with the
tem poral tension o f hope. W ithout that relay o f the images o f die
Through Knowledge
5 “ It was here that the new religious pattern m ade its fateful contribu
tion : by crediting man with an occu lt self o f divine origin, and thus selling
soul and body at odds, i t introduced in to European culture a new interpre
tation o f hum an existence, the interpretation w e call puritanical” (£ JEL
D odds, T h t G retks and th t Irrational, p . 139),. It is o f little importance
fo r us whether this type was foreign to G reece and whether it was shamams-
tic before being O rp h ic; w hat is im portant fa r us is tin t this type of
“ divine man” appeared in G reece, at the source o f our peridental culture.
8 For Abaris, Aristeas, H ermotimut o f Clazamenae, and the farpopbm a
in contact with the N orth, and, on the other hand, Epimenides o f Crete,
cf. E. R . D odds, op. cit., p. 141.
generation o f contrary states, from the “ wheel o f birth and rebirth.”
W e are an the threshold o f a new understanding o f the self:
the soul, having becom e the counterpole o f the life-death pair,
outlasts the tim e o f repetition. It is true that before Plato, before
i die attempt in the Phaedo to link this perenniality o f the soul with
tbe non-tem porality o f the Forms, “ imm ortality” is not yet “ eter
nity” ; it is only, so it seems, a force sufficient to keep the soul in
existence through several bodies and several lives, as we see in
Socrates’ discussion w ith Simmias and Cebes. Before philosophy
there does n ot yet e a st a carefully thought-out m odel fo r an exist
ence that remains identical, th e same as itself. But at least the
myth, in im agining a cycle o f life and death, suggests a sort o f
carrying forw ard o f the Self beyond contradiction, a sort o f Repose
beyond discord. Philosophy w ould n ot have tried to conceive the
ami’ s identity w ith itself if the m yth had not inspired it.
There is n o doubt that this understanding o f the self preceded
Plato. Even if those to whom he refers in the M en o are not O rphics
— or n ot only Orphics,— it is certainly the type o f th e exiled soul
that h e evokes in th e follow ing term s: “ T h ey are priests mid
priestesses w h o are anxious to b e able to give reasons fa r the func
tions they perform , as w ell as Pindar and m any other poets— all
the truly divine ones. H ere is what they say; consider whether you
think they speak correctly. They say that the soul o f man is im
mortal, and that it sometimes departs from life, w hich w e call
dying, and sometimes com es back to life, but that it is never de
stroyed; and that, fo r this reason, one’s conduct in this life should
be as holy as posable right to the end” (81 a-& ).
O f course, im m ortality is still tied to the im aginative schema o f
multiple rebirths ( “ thus the soul is im m o rta l and reborn many
times,” dflavards re o&ra. jeat voXX&kk ycyorna, ibid., 8 1 c ); but
the jtSBo* is already Xdyos it gives reasons (\6yav. . . 8i8ov<u).
That is w h y those m en and those wom en, “ skilled in divine things,”
said “ things w hich are true and beautiful” (8 1 a ).
2. T h e F inal M y t h
It was this myth o f situation w hich evolved into a myth o f
origin in the anthropogony that the Neo-Platonists “ quote” frag-
merits o f. A re w e in the presence o f an authentic restoration, or
rather o f a late construction which w ould perm it the last philoso
phers o f G reece to place their speculation under d ie authority of
the poem s from w hich their master, Plato, was supposed to have
drawn his inspiration?
A re w e in the presence o f a pagan apologetics intended to tom
the tables on Christianity by countering its stories concerning the
origin and the fall o f mankind with com parable stories?
Som e paints are certain: it is- n ot disputed that the Orphic
movem ent was distinguished from similar movements o f the archaic
era by the existence o f writings, w hich broke w ith the oral and
confidential teaching o f other initiations o r liturgies; and it is cer
tain also that those books included theaganies. B ut tire books must
have been in perpetual flu x; there was n o fixed “ canon” o f them,
and they were continually swelled by new speculations; the diversity
o f the N eo-Platonic versions is itself a sign o f this. Besides, it can
not be proved that the archaic theogony was expanded into an
anthropogony; this can only be conjectured an the baas o f some
allusions in classic authors, such as Plato’s remark in the Laws
about the “ Titanic nature” o f man. It is also a reasonable way of
erecting a bridge between the theogony and the O rph ic preaching,
which was essentially turned toward m an and his actual condition
It is those allusions and this argument o f convenience winch io
d in e the m ajority o f specialists on Orphism7— in spite o f Wfiamo-
“ H ere," he says again, “ we touch upon the m ost original part o f the
Orphic creation in religion: the addition to theogony o f an anthropogony
designed to explain the nature o f man, com posed o f good and evil” (p.
650).
A. Boulanger, O rphia, rapports da Forphisme at du christianisme, pre
lents the same argum ent o f convenience: the anthropogony reported by
the Neo-Platonists “ accounted for the tw ofold nature o f the origin o f evil
cm the earth, and. thus gave the author an opportunity to expound the
Orphic doctrine o f salvation through expiation and purification” (p . 3 3 ).
He does not go so far as to make o f Onamacritus (the chresm ologos o f the
era o f d ie Pidstraddae, o f whom Pausamas says that, “ borrowing from
Homer the name o f the Titans, he m ade them the authors o f the passion
of Dionysos” ) the St. Paul o f Orphism, and to ascribe to him a veritable
doctrine o f original sin and redem ption, “ w hich w e know only from texts
of a m uch later epoch” (p . 3 3 ). H e grants, nevertheless, that the O rphic
refigian was form ed fay the end o f the sixth century and that Onoxnacritus
limited him self to bringing together tw o myths that had been independent
before: the birth o f m en from the ashes o f the giants struck dow n by the
thunderbolts o f Zeus, and the passion o f Zagreus; that, however, is enough
to justify the attribution to him o f the discovery o f “ a new cause fo r the
existence o f evil an the earth” (p . 3 4 ). Such arguments authorize Boulanger
to present as an O rphic doctrine all o f the anthropogony which receives
a complete exposition only in the last Neo-Platonists. There is an excellent
summary an p p . 2 7 -2 8 . W e shall see later that the fundam ental argument
at Boulanger has been contested. A ccording to him , the myth o f the m urder
of Dionysos by the Titans is etiological: “ I t was evidently created to explain
a rite o f w hich the celebrants n o longer understood the m eaning, namely,
amophagy—that is to say, the sacrifice o f an anim al in w hich the spirit o f a
god o f vegetation is incarnated and the consum ption o f its raw flesh by the
participants, w ho believed that thereby they were assimilating a b it o f the
fe m e virtue” (p . 2 8 ). But is am ophagy a “ vegetation” rite? A nd, above
afl, is the m yth o f the dismemberment o f Dionysos in harmony w ith this
rite o f tearing apart and eating raw flesh? Jeanm aire, in his D ionysos
(pp. 3 8 4 -9 0 ), contests both points. T he second concerns us m ore here.
Furthermore, Jeanmaire grants the antiquity o f the myth o f the passion and
dismemberment o f' D ionysos: “ T o the extent that [the revelation contained
in the O rphic writings] unquestionably proceeds from systematic thought,
rim myth appears inseparable from their conception o f human nature, the
origin o f evil, and the conditions o f individual salvation” (p . 4 0 4 ); but he
regards the m yth as a dventitious in relation to the trance and the D ionysiac
ritual; it represents rather a m utation o f the legend o f Dionysos in the
direction o f a “pre-philosophy still held captive by and, so to speak, still
under the spell o f the categories o f immemorial myths” (p . 4 0 2 ).
• W ilainow itz-M oellendorf, D or G laubt dor H ellen tn , I I (1 9 3 2 ), pp.
199-202; F etfu giire, “ Les myst&res de Dionysos,” in R ev. biblique, X L JV
(1935). H ere is Festugiire’ s conclusion, after a careful examination o f the
archaic, classic, H ellenistic, and N eo-Platonic stages o f the final m yth:
Platanists preserve the essential character o f the ancient poem.
O ur typological m ethod does not require us to settle the purely
historical debate concerning the date when the anthropogenic myth
was worked out. A ccording to Glotz’s form ula, d ted by Boulanger,
the theory o f sin preceded that o f the fall am ong the Hellenes as
“ L et us sum up the fruit o f our inquiry. The historian finds Mrmmtf in the
presence o f three kinds o f documents.
“ 1) In the first place, a good number o f inscriptions relative t o the
mysteries o f Dionysos. Joined to the monuments decorated w ith figures in
Italy, this m aterial gives us .a pretty good knowledge o f d ie organization of
the thiasoi and the rites o f initiation. T he best specialists, Cum ont, WHarao-
w itz, Nilsson, have been able to pursue their studies without saying a word
about Orphism. Issuing from the Thraco-Phrygian cults, the religion of the
thiasoi is seen to depend m ore and m ore on public control: the are
fixed, they are humanized. The same evolution is repeated everywhere.
T he initiate at first sought only to escape fa r same hours from d ie
o f daily life. A t the tim e o f Christ, he is assured also o f happiness as a
reward after death. Orpheus is never named. Neither is Zagreus; th en is
only once an allusion to his legend, in the inscription o f Perm thus, which
is late and which, m oreover, relates an oracle o f the Sibyl.
“ 2 ) In the second place, a literary tradition about Orpheus. From the
sixth to the third century before our era, Orpheus appears as an inspired
singer, com panion o f the Argonauts, founder o f the teltta i, able to persuade
rocks, w ild beasts, and even Pluto. H is disciples, in the fifth century, prac
tice rules o f abstinence and read poems attributed to him. In the fourth
century, itinerant charlatans sell pseudo-orphic recipes. I f Orpheus had his
colleges, his mysteries, as some pretend, they have left n o trace. T he vogue
o f Orphism was born again only in the third and fourth centuries of our
era. A t that time there flourished a whole literature, the authenticity at
which cannot be established.
“ 3 ) From the third century b .c. there circulated an ‘O rphic’ poem telling
the myth o f Dionysos Zagreus tom apart by the Titans. The identity of the
Cretan and the Thraco-Phrygian seems then an accom plished fact, at least
in a particular tradition, w hich does not exdude others. This legend of
Zagreus copies the legend o f O siris; we d o n ot know when and where it
was form ed. In an Egyptian ritual, it gives rise to special rites: the
deposits in the kalathos objects offered to the infant god b y tile T itan k a
‘passion’ o f the god perform ed? Is om ophagy practiced? W e do not know.
Plutarch connects the legend with the psychological dualism dear to the
school o f Pythagoras and to Plato. W ith Neoplatonism , the m oral tease
dominates and perhaps gives rise to rites that escape us. Unless new texts
are discovered, nothing allows us to say that Orphism transformed the
Bacchic mysteries constituted as w e see them in the first tw o centuries of
our era.
“ T o ask oneself whether tile mysteries o f Dionysos influenced Christianity
is therefore a vain question. I f one means the mysteries m ade known to ns
by epigraphy, no one dreams o f a relation. F or d ie rest . .
well as am ong the Jews. H ence, it is to an intentional analysis o f
the m yth o f the fault o f the Titans that w e must now proceed, in
order to show in what sense it explicates and completes the myth
o f situation. Such an intentional analysis presupposes that we take
the myth in its final state (hence, in its late m anifestation), and
that w e relate it retrospectively to the exegesis o f the human con
dition that w e have already reconstructed, w ithout the aid o f that
-------------------- '»*■ ■
things. In this regard, the figure o f the Titans, w hich w ill b e the
-
pivot o f the new m yth, is a part o f that pain o f bein g; the Titan
*- —
! In Ihe first place, it is significant that the origin o f evil was re-
1 lated to the “ passion” o f the youngest o f the gods, Dionysos. The
J new m yth, then, com es about from a strictly “ theological” elabora-
1 tion o f the figure o f Dionysos. N ow , the infant god w ho is at the
center o f the original fault is not the Dionysos w h o inspires the
? futna o f the bacchantes, the rhythm ic frenzy, their jo i de vivre;
j he is a master o f life, the young god w h o com es after Zeus.
* First, then, the madness o f w hich Euripides’ Bacchantes gives us
! a picture (itself n o doubt m ythical, but significant) had to be
j replaced by m editation, delirium had to becom e speculation. That
the O rpines did thus turn Dionysianism against itself is very
probable;® that they oriented it toward a sort o f pre-philosophy,
•Nilsson, Gesch. del gr. R el., regards the legend that Orpheus died by
being tom apart b y the M aenads as an indication o f the vindictiveness o f
still captive to the mythical im agination, is all the more admissible
as the Dionysiac movem ent suffered other transpositions just as
extraordinary, if it is true that ritual action gave birth to the tragic
spectacle, by way o f the dithyramb.*10 T h e possibility is not excluded
that Qrphism from the beginning turned Dianyaanism toward
speculation and placed Dionysos a t the center both o f creation, as
the last g od , and o f anthropogony, as the victim o f the Titans. But
n o doubt it was only later that Dionysos becam e explicitly the
conqueror o f the O rient, and then master o f the world, ready for
those great syncretisms, strongly tinctured w ith Orientalism, which
dom inate the mystery religions centered on the death and resur
rection o f tire god. T h e anthropogenic m yth does not presuppose a
fu ll explicitation o f the consequences o f the reform o f Dionysiamsin
by the O rphics, but it does, surely, presuppose a derisive inversion
o f the type o f religious experience w hich was essential to it.
T h e second point to b e considered is the rede o f the Titans in
the new myth. O n the one hand they are associated with the pas
sion o f Dionysos as the “ authors” o f his m urder; an the other hand
the devotees o f Dionysos against the reform er. T h e prohibition of meat ap
pears to him as another sign o f the struggle o f the O rphics against the
barbarous rite o f tearing an anim al apart ( diasparagmos) and devouring k
raw ( om ophagy) .
10 Jeanmaire, D ionysos, pp. 220 ff. The author, a partisan o f the antiquity
o f the O rphic anthropogony, agrees that, “ although there is n o reason to
doubt that this introduction o f Dionysos in to the system that be exposed
goes back to the oldest O rphic writings, tire consequences o f it appeared
only in a future w hich at that date was (till q u ite distant?* (p . 40 1). The
author undermines one o f Boulanger’s arguments in favor o f d ie antiquity
o f the legend o f the dismemberment o f Dionysos. I f one could show that
the dismemberment is the m ythical explanation o f the .rite o f tearing apart
{diasparagm os) the animal that the initiate devours taw (om ophagy),
it w ould have a bans in the archaic ritu al; bu t in the m yth the infant-god
is n ot devoured raw ; he is “ boiled,” and “ tile affirm ation that the flesh was
consumed by the Titans (after bring cooked) is found only in some wit
nesses and does not seem to be essential” (p . 3 8 4 ). T h e myth o f tile snfis-
ing o f Dionysos is, then, not specifically D ionysiac; it is adventitions sad
is only attached to, rather than integrated in , tin legendary cyde of
Dionysos. Even if, independently o f the cult o f Dionysos, it has in own
archaic roots—as Jeanmaire believes, seeing in the sufferings o f the young
god the mem ory o f a ritual o f initiation,— it w ould be necessary to show
that the myth o f the “ passion” o f the young god was already incorporated
in the legendary cyd e o f Dionysos in archaic times.
they are incorporated in the genesis o f m ankind through their
punishment and their “ ashes.” I t is this progression in the m yth
that the literary expression perm its us to follow from century to
century. I f d ie passion o f Dionysos at the hands o f the Titans is
attested b y several authors between the third century before our
era and d ie first century o f ou r era,11 n o text before Plutarch puts
the crim e o f the Titans in to relation w ith the birth o f mankind.
After having told h ow the Titans w ere struck b y lightning as a
pmrnhTpmt fo r the m urder o f Dionysos, Plutarch gives the follow
ing explanation: “ T his myth makes allusion to palingenesis. In
fact, that part o f us w hich is n ot amenable to reason or order,
which is violent, n ot divine but dem oniac, was called by the an
cients Titans, and it is that part w hich is chastised and must pay
the penalty” (D e E sv Carnium , I, 9 96 ; K ern, O . F ., 2 3 1 ). N ow it
was Plutarch also w h o assimilated the Dionysos-Zagreus myth to
the myth o f O siris; it is tem pting to suppose, w ith Festugiere, that
he was d ie author o f the T itan ic origin o f m an as w ell. T h e
Christian writers— Justin, Clem ent o f Alexandria, A m obius— w ho
worry about the persistence o f the ancient beliefs say nothing about
For their part, mendicant priests and soothsayers go to the doors o f the
rirh and persuade them that they have power, obtained from the gods by
sacrifices and incantations, to repair by means o f pleasurable rites and
feasts any crime committed by a man or by his ancestors. . . . On die
other hand, they produce a host of hooks by Mnsaeus and Orpheus, sons
of the Moan and of the Muses, so they say. They follow these books in
their sacrifices, and they make not only individual men but also states
believe that there are ways o f absolving and purifying men from their
crimes through sacrifices and diversions, whether they he living or dead.
They give the same o f initiations to those ceremonies which deliver us
from the evils o f the other world, and they assert that dreadful things
are in store for those who have not sacrificed.
Republic, 3646-365a
Nevertheless, one can discern, am id these equivocal activities, the
attem pt to discover a life m ore concerned w ith purity o f h eart18
18 Compare this severe fragment with the testimony of Fausanias, quoted
by Guthrie, op. a t, pp. 59-60: “Now in my opinion Orpheus was one who
surpassed those who went before him in the composition of verses, and
reached a position of great power owing to the belief that he had dis
covered how to initiate into communion with tile gods, how to purify from
N o doubt O . Kern’s grandiose reconstruction, in D ie Religion
der Griechen, o f an O rphic religion on the Christian m odel, with
parishes, sacraments, hymns, and dogmas, must be rejected. It is
posable that Orphism was less a hom ogeneous movem ent than the
m odification o f several other movements dedicated to A pollo and
Dionysos, themselves on the way to merging.1* Orpheus himself
seems to have been an A pollonian reform er o f the w ild cult of
Dionysos before becom ing the patron saint o f the sects in Italy,
w hich did not hesitate to place their own mystical com positions
under his patronage. But it appears that same o f them had begun
to realize, before Plato, the “ potential greatness,” as Guthrie says
(1 8 7 ), in Orphism . Otherwise, how can w e explain the fa ct that
Plato, so severe in R epublic I I , could w rite in die Phaedo:
sin, to cure diseases and to avert divine vengeance” Kern, Test., 142, 93,
116, 123, 120.
Guthrie himself writes: “The Orphic showed a genius for transforming
the significance of his mythological or ritual material (he would not have
been a Greek if he had not), and sometimes saw an opportunity of preaching
his religion through the medium of symbols which were in their origin of
the crudest and most primitive” [ibid., p. 128).
14Guthrie, op. cit., pp. 41-48.
such as Plato im plies in his allusion to the “ O rph ic regime” and its
abstinences (Law s, 782$).15
T hat O rphic “ purification” was already an d ie road toward
philosophy is suggested by the saying quoted by P lato: “ M any bear
the thyrsus, b u t few becam e bacchantes.”
I t is the Pythagorean literature that m arls, decisively and ex
plicitly, the passage from “purification” as rite and “ purification”
as “ philosophy.” 1* T h e “ sacred discourse” o f Pythagoreanism— as
it can b e reconstructed, o r am ply conjectured, on the baas o f the
testimony o f the fourth and third centuries alone, w ithout recourse
to the N eo-Pythagorean apocrypha o f about the beginning o f our
era, and still less to the even later “ G olden Verses” — was pre
eminently a discourse o f this sort, hesitating between m yth and
philosophy. T h at literature, situated at the crossroads o f science
and revelation—the division between “ M athematicians” and
“ Acousmatics” is very significant in that respect,— is connected on
the one hand w ith the pessimistic m yth o f the fa ll and, on the
other hand, points toward purification b y knowledge. It is an echo
o f Orphism that w e hear in the fragm ent o f Chrysippus, w hich
refers expressly to a Pythagorean m axim : y m r o 8’dvfyxoxovs abOalpera,
mjpar’ cypimus.17 It is Orphism that the Pythagoreans extend
in the direction o f Platonism when they proclaim that unity o f
the race o f m en and o f gods w hich Pindar also rings: “ O ne is
the race o f m en, one the race o f the gods” (frag. 131, N em .,
6, 1 ). “ T o follow the god,” to w alk in the “ traces o f the di-
r
4 .
vine”— this is already the scheme o f deliverance o f “ philosophy.”
Plato also w ill spealc o f the “ traces o f the G ood” in the Republic.
The very word “ philosophy” bears witness to what we have said:
rather than calling a man w ho meditates in pursuit o f the god
<ro<f>ot or (Totfrurnp, the Pythagoreans preferred d ie rather eso
teric term pthooopoei it evokes d ie piXia that is broken by “ dis
cord,” by ipn, which sets man at variance with the divine and
with his own origin. W ithdrawal o f the soul, reunion o f the soul
with the divine— there we have the philosophical intention before
Plato. T h e idea o f happiness— ti>8at/iovdv— is at the point where
the m agical vision and the philosophical vision m eet; fo r “ happi
ness” is the “ good soul,” 18 and the “ good soul” com es to a man
when he “ knows,” when knowledge is the “ strongest” and desire
the weakest19
Perhaps w e can best sum up the w hole pSBos and the whole
jSfos o f the Orphico-Pythagoreans in the follow ing exclamations,
taken from the Purifications o f E m pedocles: “ W hat honors and
what heights o f bliss have I left to wander here am ong m ortals!”
And again: “ I have wept and I have w ailed upon seeing the un
fam iliar place where M urder dwells, and W rath, and tribes o f
other woes— withering diseases, corruption, flood.” A n d : “ O f these
am I now one, exiled from the divine abode, a wanderer w h o has
placed his trust in raving D iscord.” A nd, finally, the fam ous w ords:
“ I assure you that I am an immortal god, and n o longer a m ortal.”
But these fragments n ot only testify to the carrying out o f the
Orphico-Pythagorean tradition in the m ingled ligh t and shade o f
the philosophizing m yth (o r m ythicizing philosoph y); they herald
something else. W e cannot forget that the author o f the Purifica
tions is the author o f a poem On N ature. F or the first tim e, per
haps, tiie same principle— D iscord, vukos— is invoked both as a
cosm ological principle, coupled with Friendship, and as the root o f
human evils; the souls o f m ortals are long-lived gods w ho have
“ erred, soiling their hands with murder,” and w ho, 'la v in g vio-
11D . L., VIII, 32: tiS a i/ u n w r r ’ irC p d r rovi St o p 'h ’ x h w p o o y ip q n u .
19 “What is strangest?” the catechist asks the acousmatics. Answer
"‘ynbpil.” “What is most excellent? Happiness.” “ What is the truest
saying? That men are wicked.” (From lamblichus, Life of Pythagoras,
Chap. XVIII, quoted by Delatte, op. cit., p. 282).
lated their oath,” have “ follow ed in the steps o f D iscord.” Friend
ship and D iscord em erge from the myth and are elevated to the
rank o f Principles: “ G ood and E vil as principles,” says Aristotle.*0
W ith Em pedocles’ D iscord, a principle o f things w hich is mani
fested in human evil, w e are on the threshold o f a new peripeteia;
the “ myth” rises to “ speculation.” W e shall n ot now cross this
threshold o f d ie sym bolic know ledge o f EviL
paths o f the penitential B alm s, leaving the problem that had been raised
unsolved. But although one finds here the Babylonian confession o f divine
mscrutahility, enmnum to all orthodox prayers ( “M ankind is dum b and
knows nothing. M ankind as m any as hear names, what know they?” ) and
to Greek wisdom , on the other hand the avow al o f sin forgotten, unknown,
rmnnmiml o r ancestral, already ceases in the sapiential literature o f
Babylon to support the old theory o f retribution; that is w hy the problem
remains open . Stamm (o p . eifc, p . 19 ) emphasizes the value o f tins poem
as an anticipation o f J o b : die theophany o f M ardnk attests that the in
comprehensible god has the pow er to save when man does n ot expect it any
longer; thus h e w ill praise the L ord, even though d ie enigm a persists.
O h ! if I knew how to fin d him ,
h ow to com e to his dw elling place,
I w ould present m y case before him ,
m y m outh w ou ld b e fu ll o f arguments.
I w ould know th e w ords o f his defense,
I w ould b e attentive to w hat h e w ould say to m e.
Job 2 3 :3 -5
I f now w e turn back from “ faith in the hidden G od” and die
“ re-enactm ent” o f misfortune— w hich illuminates it with a sombre
light— to the A dam ic m yth, w e see what tragedy contributes to dm
understanding o f that m yth. I t contributes tw o things: o n dm one
hand, pity fo r human b on gs, w ho are nevertheless accused by dm
Prophet; on the other hand, fear and trem bling before die divine
abyss, before the G od whose holiness is nevertheless proclaim ed by
the Prophet. Perhaps it is necessary that the possibility c f dm tragic
G od should never be abolished altogether, so that Biblical theology
m ay be protected from the platitudes o f ethical monotheism, with
its Legislator and its Judge, confronting a m oral subject who is
endow ed w ith com plete and unfettered freedom , still intact after
each act. Because the tragic theology is always posable, although
n ot to b e spoken, G od is D o ts Absconditus, A nd it is always passi
ble, because suffering can no longer be understood as a chastise
m en t
Just as the tragic anthropology regroups the scattered signs of
the ineluctable that are m ingled with the growth o f ou r concrete
freedom , so the tragic theology regroups d ie signs o f the apparent
hostility a t fate. Those signs appear when, fo r exam ple, ou r vision
o f things becom es contracted. W hen wholeness is lost, w e sink into
the angularity o f conclusions w ithout premises. O nly dm “ seer” cf
Greek tragedy and the “ fool” o f Shakespearian tragedy escape from
(fae tragic; the seer and the fo o l have ascended from the tragic to
Shall w e leave the A dam ic myth and the tragic m yth face to face,
as tw o interpretations o f existence between w hich w e can only
fluctuate endlessly? N ot a t all.
In the first place, the tragic myth saves the Biblical m yth only
• M ax Scheler, L e phJnomin* du Tragique.
insofar as the latter first resuscitates i t W e must not grow weary of
repeating that only he w ho confesses that he is the of evil
discovers the reverse o f that confession, namely, the non-posxtcd in
the positing o f evil, the always already there o f evil, the other of
tem ptation, and finally the incom prehensibility o f G od, who tests
m e and w ho can appear to m e as m y enemy. In this circular rela
tion between the Adam ic myth and the tragic myth, the Adamic
myth is the right side and the tragic m yth is the reverse side.
But, above all, the polarity o f the tw o myths betokens the arrest
o f undem anding at a certain stage. A t that stage our vision re
mains dichotom ous. O n the one hand, the evil that is committed
leads to a just exile; that is what the figure o f Adam represents.
O n the other hand, the evil that is suffered leads to an unjust dep
rivation; that is what the figure o f Job represents. T he first figure
calls fo r the second; the second corrects the first. Only a third figure
could announce the transcending o f the contradiction, and that
w ould be the figure o f the “ Suffering Servant,” w ho would make
o f suffering, o f the evil that is undergone, an action capable of re
deem ing the evil that is com m itted. T his enigmatic figure is fire
one celebrated by the Second Isaiah in the fou r “ songs o f the Serv
ant o f Yahweh” (Is. 4 2 :1 -9 ; 4 9 :1 -6 ; 5 0 ;4 - l l ; 5 2 :1 3 -5 3 :1 2 ), and
it opens up a perspective radically different from that o f “ wisdom.”
It is not contem plation o f creation and its immense measure that
consoles; it is suffering itself. Suffering has becom e a gift that ex
piates the sins o f the people.
8 Cf. N. P. Williams, Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin (New York
and Toronto, 1927).
rpggrm and bringing m e into captivity to the law o f sin w hich is
in m y members” ; sometimes the body itself is called “ body of
death.” But it is enough to extend the line that passes through the
symbol o f captivity and d ie expressions o f Jeremiah and Ezekiel
to reconstruct the Pauline theme. As w e have already said, the
Paulina con cept o f the “ flesh” and the “ body” designates n ot a
mihui-qntinl reality, but an existential category, w hich n ot only covers
the w hole field o f the passions, but includes the m oralizing w ill that
boasts in the law . I t is the alienated self as a w hole, in opposition
to the “ desires o f the S p rit,” w hich constitute the inw ard m an.
T h e cleavage between m e and m yself and the projection into ex
ternality o f this self that is alienated h u m itself is the key to the
Pauline conception o f the flesh. There is n o need to dw ell further
an tins generis o f St. Paul's symbolism o f sin. W hat concerns us
h o e is that that symbolism, although it can b e explained in its
essentials b y the H ebrew tradition, gives significant pledges to the
Hellenistic tradition o f a soul exiled in a body that is evil from its
origin, and prepares the w ay fo r a ll the subsequent contacts o f
Christianity w ith Neo-Platonism and fo r all the misunderstandings
w hich result therefrom . Step by step, the B iblical them e o f sin
tenth towards a quasi-dualism, accredited by the inner experience
o f cleavage and alienation.
As fo r St. Paul him self, far as he w ent in the direction o f H el
lenistic dualism, at least in his vocabulary,9 it m ust be admitted
* We wfll consider some of those texts in which die equivocation is at its
height: Ram. 8:1—12; Eph. 2:1-6; 4:22; II Cor. 4:16. All these texts
wtn he interpreted according to the schema of externality proposed above;
bat, once the motivation is forgotten that leads to the concept o f flesh, the
hum wprwannn becomes quasi-iniiiBtingTiishahlB from the expressions of the
Hellenistic conception. The equivocation becomes all the more inevitable
because St Paul himself perhaps conceded much to the language of his
ffrffenfond surroundings hi his description of a situation which owes nothing
to tile Hellenistic conception. Was St Paul misled thereby? None of the
texts, even the most suspect, convicts him openly of dualism. Thus, I Cor.
15 totally opposes the “psychic,” “terrestrial,” "corruptible,” “mortal” body,
that of the “first man,” to the “spiritual,” “celestial)” “incorruptible,”
“immortal” body, that of the “second man” ; but one cannot distinguish in
first man, sprung from the earth, terrestrial, an aspect created good
and an aspect tint became evil contingently. But perhaps it should be said
that Sb Pruil had no need to make that distinction at that moment, since
his problem is that of death and not that of sin, and since the series of
that he was kept from falling into gnosticism, first, by his acute
sense o f file incarnation o f Christ in a flesh like ours; second, by
his expectation o f a redem ption o f our bodies; and finally, by the
A dam ic myth. This l^st point merits further attention; for, while
it m ay have been disturbing to see St. Paul contributing to the
A dam ic m ythology and congealing the A dam ic symbol in literalism
by regarding Adam as an individual situated at the beginning at
history, it must now be granted that it is that m ythology which
keeps S t Paul from turning to dualism. T h e same pages that make
the individual Adam the counterpart o f C h rist called the second
A dam ( “ as fay one man . . .” ) , have a new ring when they are
com pared with the quasi-dualistic texts; they re-introduce con
tingency where there was a tem ptation to see a law o f nature. The
“ one man” represents the divergence between the good creation and
the actual state o f man, which S t Paul calls elsewhere “ the flesh,”
“ the old m an,” “ the w orld.” Thus it Is the A dam ic mythology
that strikes a counterblow in opposition to the drift towards gnosis.
T h e distance between the A dam ic myth and the myth o f the
exiled soul, w hich is still very perceptible in S t Paul, wiD become
smaller when, on the one hand, the peculiar traits o f the Adamic
myth becom e attenuated and, on the other hand, new traits o f
Christian experience make the m yth o f the exiled soul more se
ductive. O n the one hand, Adam w ill be le a and le a the symbol
o f the humanity o f m an ; his innocence w ill becam e a fantastic
innocence, accom panied by knowledge, bliss, and immortality,
whether by nature o r as superadded g ift; at the same time, his
fault, instead o f being a case o f “ going astray,” w ill becom e truly
a “ fall,” an existential downgrading, a descent from the height o f
a superior and actually superhuman status; consequently, Adam’s
fall w ill n o longer b e very different from the fa ll o f the souls in
But this trend from the A dam ic scheme toward the theme o f die
exiled soul w ould n ot have been possible if the latter, an its
had n ot revealed an extraordinary potency fo r sym bolic transposi
tion. Severed times w e have alluded to the sym bolic richness o f the
oldest o f the symbols erf evil, the symbol o f defilement. Defilement
is always m ore than a stain, and so it can signify analogically all
the degrees erf the experience o f evil, even to the m ost elalvwatp
concept o f the servile w ill. N ow the over-determ ination o f the sym
b ol o f the body is not less than that o f the symbol o f defilem m t,
fo r the tw o processes are inseparable. O ne can understand why. If
the essence o f the symbol o f defilem ent is constituted by the tlwmw
o f positiveness, externality, and nan-destructive alteration, the body,
in its turn, can serve as a symbol far the sym bol; it, too, is brought
into existence, it is on the border between the inner and the outer,
it is essentially a producer o f effects. T h at is w hy “ explanation” of
evil by the body always presupposes a degree o f sym bolic transpo
sition o f the body. W ithout this, the body w ould b e sim ply an »Khi
fo r guilt, as it is when someone invokes character or heredity to
excuse him self. T h e explanation o f evil by the body is n ot an ob
jective explanation, but an etiological m yth; that is to say, it is
ultimately a symbol o f the second degree. But if that explanation
aims at becom ing scientific, as in m odem times, th a t the ethical
character o f evil action disappears; m an cannot im pute evil to
him self and at the same tim e refer it to the body, without treating
the body as a symbol o f certain aspects o f the experience o f the evil
that he confesses. T h e sym bolic transmutation o f the body is a nec
essary condition fo r its belonging to the mythics o f evil.
T hat is why it is n ot astonishing that history presents examples
o f the internalization o f the O rphic symbol o f the body-prison,
corresponding to the extern aliration o f the Biblical symbol o f the
fall. Just as S t Paul is on the road that goes from the image o f the
“ fall” to the im age erf the “ flesh,” Plato illustrates the apposite
m ovem ent, leading from the evil body to the unjust soul.
It w ould b e inexact to Bee in Plato only the accusation against
the body— “ that evil thing w ith w hich our soul is m ixed,” says the
Phaedo— and n ot to recognize the m ovem ent o f review , rectifica
tion, and internalization o f the previous symbolism o f the body-
prison. A t the «amn tim e as he projects the Socratic analysis o f the
unjust soul into the body, he transmutes the body itself into a sym
b o l o f the passivity o f the soul. O n the one hand, the idea, w hich
seems to b e purely Socratic, o f “ tending” the soul, or “ taking care”
o f the soul, calls fo r the symbolism o f the b o d y ; “ care” o f the soul
presupposes, in fact, that the soul is like a body threatened by
disease, w hich must b e cared fo r and saved; and so ethics and poli
tics are com parable to a “ m edicine” o f the soul (Protagoras, 31 l b -
3138, 3 5 6 c-35 7a ). T o this m edical symbol o f “ care o f the soul”
corresponds the symbol o f the “ disease o f injustice” (rd vdmj/ta
•rijs a&xlas, Gorgjias, 4 8 0 b ), and o f the other discordances in the
soul, conceived on the m odel o f derangements o f the hum ors o f
the body. T h e same symbolism governs the idea o f expiation; it
“ relieves” the soul o f its wickedness, as purgation “ relieves” the
body o f its evil humors. T h at is w hy the soul that has been pun
ished— purged o f its ills b y punishment—is happier than the un
just soul that has n ot m ade atonem ent; this function o f punishment
supposes that injustice is like a disease and that justice, w hich
administers punishment, is like the art o f healing. H ence, before
the body is the “ cause” o f injustice, its ow n ills are the symbol o f
injustice. It was this m edical m etaphor o f disease and cure, directly
applied to the ills and the care o f the soul, w hich m ade possible,
in the other direction, the philosophical transposition o f the
O rphic m yth o f the body-prison and its transmutation in to a cipher
o f the unjust soul. T h e Socratic soul was ready fo r Plato’ s resump
tion o f the O rph ic myths. T h a t resum ption marks both a re-immer
sion o f philosophy in m yth and an advance tow ard a symbolism o f
a higher degree, in w hich the literal m eaning o f the bodily symbol
is increasingly m uted.
T h e progressive transmutation o f the symbol o f the body is quite
visible in a dialogue like the Phaedo> o f w hich it has been said
that it runs through the w hole gam ut o f the degrees o f knowledge.
N ow , just as the meaning o f the soul changes, as one rises above
am ple exhortation, w hich is itself d ose to mythical speech, the
meaning o f the body changes also. A t the first level, it is living in
its totality, and as such, that constitutes evil and form s the ahrahim
contrary o f philosophizing; the body is the counterpole o f thought,
apparently n o innocence is left unsullied by contact with the world,
since it is the body that “ troubles the soul and prevents it from
attaining truth and thought, every tim e w e have HpaKnpt with it”
(6 6 a ); philosophy consists then in the death o f the body, in order
to “ behold things themselves w ith the soul itself’ (6 6 d ); the body
appears to b e pre-eminently the locus o f evil: “ ou r soul is mired
w ith an evil thing” (6 6 b ), it is delivered up to the “ dementia of
the body” (6 7 a ). But even at this low er degree o f knowledge, the
evil influence o f the body does not reside in what today we would
call its m ateriality, n or in its pow er to make contact with things;
rather, w hat is blam ed in that contact is the “ spell” that bewitches
it and thus rivets the soul to the body, making it captive to the
“ contact” : “ T he soul o f every human being, w h at it is intensely
pleased or pained by something, thinks that the particular object
o f its feeling is the clearest and truest thing in the w orld, although
it is not so at all” (8 3 c). H ence, i f the percept is not nmooent,
that is because the feeling that clings to it is n ot innocent either;
and the feeling, in its turn, holds the soul captive because there is
in the soul a dizziness that transforms feeling and perception into
vado<s. It is this dizziness in the soul that precipitates the soul into
a body o f desire (7 9 c ). H ence “ passivity” is secretly an action cf
the soul w hich makes itself a captive, w hich delivers itself up to
im prisonm ent: “ A nd the astonishing thing about this prison, as
philosophy has seen, is that it is the work o f desire and that he
w ho helps m ost to load the prisoner w ith bis chains is perhaps die
prisoner him self” (8 2 e ). I f this is so, it must be admitted that the
soul is “ its ow n torm entor.”
W e are fa r from the myth o f the evil body. O r, rather, the
ethical exegesis o f the myth brings out the over-determination of
the expression “ s8ma” in the m yth; this mythical “ sSma” is already
m ore than body. O f course, the notion o f reincarnation attracts
it tow ard a purely im aginative m ode o f representation, according
to w hich existence is a literal captivity in a series o f corporeal
coverings w hich are put an and taken o ff like a garm ent; but the
practice o f purification already begins to attract the m yth o f the
“ body” in the direction o f meanings that are sym bolic, rather than
literal.
T hat is why, when Plato goes farther u p in the hierarchy o f
degrees o f knowledge, the m eaning o f the body changes w ith the
m eaning o f the soul. T h e soul is n ot only a fugitive that goes from
body to body, wearing them out one after another; it is also— at
1«w t at a level w hich is n ot yet th e level o f dialectics— an existence
characterized by its ‘ likeness” to the Ideas (at a higher level it
w ill b e constituted b y an Idea, tire Id ea o f life ). N ow , i f the soul
is “ that w hich is m ost like” the Ideas, w hich rem ain identical w ith
themselves, the body is “ that w hich is m ost like” that w hich per
ishes. Just as the soul is in labor w ith regard to being, so the body
is less a thing than a direction o f existence, a counterlikeness:
“ Then the soul is dragged by the body in the direction o f those
things th at never preserve their identity; it wanders about, it is
troubled, its head spins as i f it w ere drunk, because it is in contact
w ith things o f that kind” (7 9 c ). Thus tw o existential movements
are sketched, tw o movem ents governed b y tw o “ likenesses,” by
tw o “ kinships,” one w ith the perishable and one w ith the immuta
ble. Just n ow w e contrasted the Id ea and the B ody, in a naive way,
as tw o ‘Svorids” ; but the soul itself, w hich is between the tw o, is
m ovem ent tow ard both— a m ovem ent by w hich it attempts to make
itself im m utable b y means o f geom etry and dialectics, and a m ove
m ent that consists in m aking itself perishable through the v ertig o'
o f desire.
T h at “ something evil” w hich is the body is, then, less a thing
than the direction o f a vertigo, the counterpole o f the likeness o f
the soul to the idea. T he soul makes itself like the order o f perish
able things, instead o f “ seeking refuge” in the ideas.11
care. The txace of the old body is like the habitus of the soul, its customary
manner of being “chained and glued” (82c), “nailed” (83d) to its body.
man w ho has the power to satisfy all his desires; he is the myth
o f unlimited desire— unlimited because it is ministered to by a
pow er that is itself not lim ited by law. N ow the tyrant gives evi
dence that this body o f desire undergoes a sort o f m utation from
the fa ct o f the unjust soul w hich inhabits it, that desire is a crea
tion o f injustice and not vice versa.
“ Injustice,” then, and not the “ body” as such, makes detire a
disease o f the souL
W e have now m ade the opposite journey o f the one that led us
from the Socratic idea o f the unjust soul to the idea o f an evil
influence o f the body, taken over from the myths o f defilement.
T h e dizziness that seemed to m ount from the body toward the
soul, in a first philosophical approxim ation that was still close to
the language o f m yth, is really an evil o f injustice, an evil o f false
discourse, w hich paralyzes the soul and delivers it up to the sorcery
o f its suffering. T h e body, then, is no longer the origin o f evil,
but only the “ place” o f the soul’ s captivity, while detire is “ tempta
tion,” and injustice is the origin o f the evil by w hich the soul makes
itself like its body. Injustice begets the dizziness that disrupts the
original com m unity o f the soul w ith truth, and produces the de
ceptive likeness o f the soul to its body.
Is it possible to interpret the myth o f the fall in tire Phaedrus
similarly? I think so. T h e opposition between the Biblical fall, con
strued as a deviation o f the w ill, and the Platonic fall, construed
as a fall into the body, should not be pushed to o far. Otherwise,
besides rem aining a prisoner o f the most literal interpretation o f
“ b o d /’— an interpretation encouraged, it is true, by those Platonic
“ revivals” w hich are closest to the myth,— one does n ot take ac
count o f the structure o f the myth itself. W e have had occasion to
begin this exegesis in our phenom enology o f fallibility and to note
that the myth is a myth o f “ com position” before being a m yth o f
a “ fall.” By the same token, evil is not exactly outside, in an alien
and seductive body, but inside, in a discordance o f self with self,
tiie decisive philosophical interpretation o f w hich belongs to the
ethical order. T h e soul is com posite and incarnate before the fa ll;
that statement is so true that the p roof o f imm ortality in the
Phaedrus rests on the hypothesis o f a soul that m oves itself in m ov-
342 THE SYMBOLISM 0 7 EVIL
* *
Religious
Perspectives
I ts M eanin g an d P urpose
recognize that human m orality and human ideals thrive only when
set in a context o f a transcendent attitude tow ard religion and that
by pointing to the ground o f identity and the com m on nature o f
being in the religious experience o f man, the essential nature o f
religion m ay be defined. Thus, they are com m itted to re-evaluate the
m eaning o f everlastingness, an experience w hich has been lost and
w hich is the content o f that visio Dei constituting the structure o f all
religions. It is the many absorbed everlastingly into the ultimate
unity, a unity subsuming what W hitehead calls the fluency o f G od
and the everlastingness o f passing experience.
These volum es w ill seek to show that the unity o f w hich we speak
consists in a certitude em anating from the nature o f m an w ho seeks
G od and the nature o f G od w ho seeks man. Such certitude bathes
in an intuitive act o f cognition, participating in the divine essence
and is related to the natural spirituality o f intelligence. This is not
by any means to say that there is an equivalence o f all faiths in the
traditional religions o f human history. It is, however, to emphasize
the distinction between the spiritual and the tem poral w hich all
religions acknowledge. For duration o f thought is com posed o f
instants superior to tim e, and is an intuition o f the perm anence o f
existence and its metahistorical reality.
R e lig io u s P e r spe c tiv e s is therefore an effort to explore the
meaning o f G od, an exploration w hich constitutes an aspect o f man’ s
intrinsic nature, part o f his ontological substance. T he Series grows
out o f an abiding concern that in spite o f the release o f man’ s
creative energy w hich science has in part accom plished, this very
science has overturned the essential order o f nature. Shrewd as man’ s
calculations have becom e concerning his means, his ch oice o f ends
w hich was form erly correlated w ith belief in G od, with absolute
criteria o f conduct, has becom e witless. G od is not to be treated as
an exception to m etaphysical principles, invoked to prevent then-
collapse. H e is rather their ch ief exem plification, the source o f all
potentiality. T h e personal reality o f freedom and providence, o f w ill
and conscience, may demonstrate that “ he w ho knows’ ’ com m ands
a depth o f consciousness inaccessible to the profane m an, and is
capable o f that transfiguration w hich prevents the twisting o f all good
to ignom iny. This religious content o f experience is not within the
province o f science to bestow ; it corrects the error o f treating the
scientific account as if it were itself metaphysical or religious, it
challenges the tendency to make a religion o f science— or a science
o f religion— a dogm atic act w hich destroys the m oral dynam ic of
m an. Indeed, m any m en o f science are confronted with unexpected
im plications o f their ow n thought and are beginning to accept, for
instance, the trans-spatial nature o f events w ithin spatial matter.
R eligious P erspectives attempts to h o w the fallacy o f the
apparent irrelevance o f G od in history. T h e Series submits that no
convincing im age o f m an can arise, in spite o f the m any ways in
w hich hum an thought has tried to reach it, without a philosophy o f
human nature and hum an freedom w hich does not exclude G od.
H ub im age o f Homo cum Deo im plies the highest conceivable freedom ,
the freedom to step into the very fabric o f the universe, a new form ula
for man’ s collaboration w ith the creative process and the only one
w hich is able to protect man from the terror o f existence. This image
im plies further that the m ind and conscience are capable o f making
genuine discrim inations and thereby m ay reconcile the serious ten
sions between the secular and religious, the profane and sacred. The
idea o f the sacred lies in what it is, timeless existence. By emphasizing
timeless existence against reason as a reality, we are liberated, in our
com m union w ith the eternal, from the otherwise unbreakable rule
o f “ before and after.” Then w e are able to admit that all forms, all
symbols in religions, b y their negation tit error and their affirmation
o f the actuality o f truth, make it possible to experience that knowtng
w hich is above know ledge, and that dynam ic passage o f the universe
to unending unity.
T h e volum es in this Series w ill seek to challenge the crisis which
separates, to make reasonable a religion that binds and to present
the num inous reality w ithin the experience o f man. Insofar as the
Series succeeds in this quest, it w ill direct mankind toward a reality
that is eternal and away from a preoccupation w ith that which is
illusory and ephem eral.
F or m an is now confronted w ith his burden and his greatness:
“ H e calleth to m e, W atchm an, what o f the night? W atchman,
362 THE SYMBOLISM OF EVIL
what o f the night?” 1 Perhaps the anguish in the human soul may
be assuaged by the answer, by the assimilation o f the person in G od :
“ T he m orning com eth, and also the night: if ye w ill inquire, inquire
ye: return, com e.” *
R trra N an d a A nshen
New York, 1960
1 Isaiah 21 :11.
* Ibid., 21 :12.