Babylon, in biblical terms, is the predatorial city in which the people of God who mourn for Zion are resident aliens. Those who await Zion’s repristination are committed nonetheless to Babylon’s peace and prosperity (Jeremiah 29:7). The Bible has been a fundamental resource in Western civilization. Despite or perhaps because of the new atheists, it still is. In accordance with the metanarrative within which the Bible has come to be read, commitment to the weal of Babylon can be described as an antecamera or training grounds for citizenship in the City of God.
In Genova at the beginning of January, I chanced upon a copy of Jacob Taubes’s Abendländische Eschatologie (1947) in Italian translation. A work at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and political theory, it attempts to describe the eschatological coordinates by which both Left and Right – philosophical and political – navigate in Western tradition. The work predates the events of the second half of the 20th century which on some accounts change everything (Taubes will later disassociate himself from the political aesthetics of Adorno). Somehow the datedness of the essay works in its favor. After all, from the point of view of the early 21st century, it is not at all clear that “the end of history” (Fukuyama) lies behind us; that the rebirth of the state of Israel represents an authentic realization of Zionist ideals; or that the “manifest destiny” of the United States is more than a fading memory. As for Hal Lindsey who at age 81 still waits for the return of the Christ, well don’t we all, but not according to Lindsey’s jejune schemes. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of Walter Benjamin remains forever (go here for an orientation to B’s philosophy of history).
To put it in stark terms, the navigational coordinates Taubes has in mind are those which Gabrielle Giffords, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, and Mike Huckabee make use of, however inchoately, as they go their separate ways. American politicians are of course rarely conscious of the extent to which the eschatology and political theory of the Bible, Augustine, and later Western thought determine the direction of their political journeys. On the other hand, on the other side of the pond, politicians like Bernard Kouchner and Tony Blair, given their political and confessional biographies, might stand a chance of making sense of Taubes’s meditations. Not that it necessarily matters, since Taubes seeks to understand rather than change the world. If the world is to be changed, according to Taubes, it will be changed from without.
Still, in the wake of the peculiarly American tragedy which just unfolded in Tucson, one might wish for an attempt to return to the sources (ad fontes).
If not with the Hebrew Bible, Jesus, and Paul, ineliminable points of departure for Taubes, one might start with Augustine. The following passage is drawn from his Exposition of Psalm 136, Psalm 137 according to the common reckoning today.
In reading the following, it helps to keep in mind that in Augustine’s day, two legal systems, each of which sought to regulate public life, competed with one another: that of the Roman state, and that of the Catholic church. Given a choice citizens preferred to be tried before a Catholic bishop. The trial was likely to be fairer and the penalty inflicted more humane than it would have been before a Roman magistrate.
Augustine’s remarks are a kind of captatio benevolentiae in the direction of those who are currently unwashed by biblical faith, but labor well for the earthly republic. Augustine’s own commitment to Babylon / Rome / the earthly republic seeps through on multiple levels.
Habet et haec civitas quae Babylonia dicitur,
This city too, called Babylon, has
[not just Zion/Jerusalem; Babylon and Zion stand for realities and truths larger than themselves in Augustine’s exegesis],
amatores suos consulentes paci temporali,
those who hold it dear, who seek its peace here and now,
[love of Babylon, grosso modo following Jeremiah, is given a positive connotation by Augustine]
et nihil ultra sperantes,
and hope for nothing beyond,
totumque gaudium suum ibi figentes, ibi finientes,
fixing their entire joy therein, realizing it therein,
[Augustine’s rhetorical gifts are on full display here]
et videmus eos pro republica terrena plurimum laborare:
and we see them labor greatly on behalf of the earthly republic.
[Augustine probably had particular people in mind, people he knew from public life in the Roman province where he served as bishop; both criticism and measured praise find a place in A’s rhetoric]
sed et in ea quicumque fideliter versantur,
And even so, whosoever pours himself faithfully into it,
[it is probably just a coincidence in diction, but one cannot help but bring to mind quicumque vult salvus esse]
si non ibi appetant superbiae typhum
if in so doing they do not thirst after arrogant pride,
et perituram elationem odiosamque iactantiam;
perishable glory, and odious boasting,
[a list of the traditional stigmata of the political craft]
sed veram fidem exhibeant, quam possunt, quamdiu possunt, quibus possunt,
but exhibit true faith, as they can, as long as they can, to those they can,
[qualified recognition of what persons of good will can accomplish by common grace]
ad quantum vident terrena,
in so far as they see earthly things,
et ad quantum intellegunt speciem civitatis;
and in so far as they understand the outline of the city,
[the Platonic pedigree of this diction seems probable; the earthly republic is in some sense an instantiation of the heavenly republic]
non eos sinit Deus perire in Babylonia:
God will not let them perish in Babylon;
[an assertion on the level of the history of salvation]
praedestinavit enim eos cives Ierusalem
he has predestined them to be citizens of Jerusalem.
[a paradigmatic example of the sense in which the doctrine of predestination is gospel for A]
Intellegit captivitatem eorum Deus,
God understands their captivity
et ostendit illis aliam civitatem,
and shows them the other city
cui vere debeant suspirare,
for which they must needs truly sigh
pro qua debeant cuncta conari,
on behalf of which they must needs direct every endeavor,
ad quam capessendam debeant
with a view to the possession of which they must needs
cives suos secum peregrinos, quantum valuerint, adhortari.
exhort their fellow-citizens and fellow-wanderers, in so far as they are able.
[thus Augustine preached good news to the men and women in his day who selflessly dedicated their lives to the earthly republic]
Note: I reproduce the Latin from the critical CSEL edition (2002). The English version is indebted to available translations in Italian, French, and English; it is a revision thereof based on a fresh look at the Latin Vorlage.
I wonder how much this is intended as a sop or ecumenical move on Augustin's part, though. I mean, considering the Psalm he's expounding!
"If the world is to be changed, according to Taubes, it will be changed from without." You think? No so sure, need to look back at my notes (in the margins of the handy translation Stanford put out last year).
Excited to see your next step!
Posted by: Seth L. Sanders | January 17, 2011 at 08:51 AM
Hi Seth,
I think it's possible that Augustine was reaching out to his secular Roman colleagues with these words. The goal would have been to coopt them for gospel and church. In light of events soon to happen - the Roman province of Hippo was sacked and ruined by invaders; neither the Roman state nor the church were ever to truly recover in what is now Tunisia - Augustine's invitation might appear to be meaningless, but on a world-historical plane, it continues to be of interest.
Judaism and then Christianity attracted people in the mid and upper echelons of Roman society, as scholars as diverse as Wayne Meeks and Rodney Stark have argued. The metaphysical framework of monotheism would seem to have been congenial, and often still is, to commitment to the earthly respublica.
My sense that Taubes's conception of history was shot through with "acts of God" - catastrophes and revolutions, for worse more often than for good - needs careful documentation. I have the German editions of the relevant works on order.
Was Taubes able to appropriate apocalyptic, an in particular, Paul's universalization of Jewish apocalyptic, to that extent? Walter Benjamin found truth in the notion of an angel of history not to be identified with history itself, but transcendent to it, an angel in thrall to a still higher power. However fragmentarily and poetically, the appropriation of apocalyptic truth is real in these authors. But that doesn't make them quietists, or indifferent to politics - far from it, even if they did not expect political action on its own to be capable of anything. Rightly or wrongly - perhaps wrongly, given the tail end of both of their lives - I think of Benjamin and Taubes as in agreement with the saying attributed to Luther:
Even if I knew that the world was going to end tomorrow, I would still plant my apple tree today.
Posted by: JohnFH | January 17, 2011 at 09:37 AM