The impor- tance of this simple explanation for the present
elaboration
of Hegel's view on Judaism is that it makes us aware of (first) the relatively strong continuity in his writings on the subject, and (second) of the unmitigated relevancy of the extensive and very explicit earlier analyses.
Hegels Philosophy of the Historical Religions
this guarantee fails, however, at the moment that the human law is understood as an expression of the pure self.
the pure self is basically a free self that is able to commit any action or, at least, actions that are not in accordance with the prevailing human law.
therefore, the harmony of the polis is dependent on restric-
religion in the form of art 117
tive conditions that must be imposed on possible actions. these condi- tions can be specified for the different relations that the free individual can take upon himself towards the polis, i. e. , they can be specified for the different moments of the objectified Reason that compose the polis. We will see that these conditions are represented in the living and the spiritual works of art.
in the living work of art, the first moment of the objectified Reason, i. e. , the observing Reason, is represented as an absolute, everlasting relation- ship. At this level, the statue is unified with its precondition, the pure self, and has developed into a "living statue" expressed by living individuals. the two forms of living art represent, respectively, the Divine and the human law as separated entities. in this separation, the external, theo- retical relationship between the laws is reflected, which characterizes the form of the observing Reason.
We have seen that the Divine law is the "house" of the pure self. By means of the Divine law, the pure self is given an institutional body. the pure self and its incorporation, mind and body, are represented in "the mystery of bread and wine, of Ceres and Bacchus" (PhSp, 438). Ceres stands for the feminine principle of the body: the "simple essence as the movement, partly out of its dark night of concealment up into conscious- ness, there to be its silently nourishing substance; but no less, however, the movement of again losing itself in the nether darkness, and lingering above only with a silent maternal yearning. " (PhSp, 437) Bacchus stands for the masculine principle of the mind. As the "moving impulse" he is:
[n]othing but the many-named divine light of the risen Sun and its undis- ciplined tumultuous life which, similarly let go from its [merely] abstract Being, at first enters into the objective existence of the fruit, and then, sur- rendering itself to self-consciousness, in it attains to genuine reality--and now roams about as a crowd of frenzied females, the untamed revelry of nature in self-conscious form. (PhSp, 437/8)
the human law is the mediated "house" of the pure self, in which its medi- ated existence as citizen has been given a second nature in the objective institutional body of the state. this mediated unity of mind and body is represented in the athlete of the olympic games, the "inspired and living work of art that matches strength with its beauty; and on him is bestowed, as a reward for his strength, the decoration with which the statue was honoured, and the honour of being, in place of the god in stone, the high- est bodily representation among his people of their essence. " (PhSp, 438) in the representation of the athlete, it becomes clear how the religious
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consciousness regulates the actions of the free citizen (and postpones the decay of the polis). the freedom of the citizen remains encased in natural boundaries: mind and body appear as strength and beauty, i. e. , as culti- vated nature.
11. the Representation of the Deed: the Spiritual Work of Art
At the level of the practical reason, however, the citizen cannot accept boundaries that are set by an external, natural world. the practical rea- son wants to relate itself to an external world that it can recognize as the result of is own action. therefore, this world can only be a social world. this is illustrated by the moments of the practical reason as they appear in the harmonic unity of the polis.
the first moment of the practical reason, Pleasure and Necessity, con- sidered within the harmonic unity of the polis, is described by hegel as follows: "the individual who seeks the pleasure of enjoying his individual- ity, finds it in the family, and the necessity in which that pleasure passes away is his own self-consciousness as a citizen of his nation. " (PhSp, 276) if, however, the individual becomes aware of his pure freedom, he will no longer accept the self-consciousness of the human law and will resist it as a strange necessity. once again, the stability of the polis is threatened. to ward off this threat, the moment of Pleasure and Necessity is represented as an absolute relation in the first form of the spiritual work of art, namely, the Epic.
in the spiritual work of art, the representation of the pure self is no longer separated from the representation of its objective expression like in the living work of art. 14 in the spiritual work, the self is represented as the self expressing itself. therefore, speech is its medium: "the perfect element in which inwardness is just as external as externality is inward is once again speech . . . " (PhSp, 439) At the level of the Epic, however, the self that expresses the speech, the minstrel, is still distinguished from the self that is expressed in the speech. What is expressed is "mnemosyne, recollection and a gradually developed inwardness, the remembrance of essence that formerly was directly present" (PhSp, 441). here, hegel is making reference to homer's iliad. in this work, the expression of the self is still the result of the synthetic representation of the minstrel: "it
14 "in the Bacchic enthusiasm it is the self that is beside itself, but in corporeal beauty it is spiritual essence" (PhSp, 439).
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is no longer the actual practice of the Cult, but a practice that is raised, not yet indeed into the notion, but at first into picture-thinking, into the synthetic linking-together of self-consciousness and external existence. " (PhSp, 440)
in the epic, Pleasure is represented by human action, i. e. , the actions of the heroes. the actions of the heroes, however, are managed by the gods:
the universal powers have the form of individuality and hence the principle of action in them; what they effect appears, therefore, to proceed entirely from them and to be as free an action as that of men. Consequently, both gods and men have done one and the same thing. the earnestness of those divine powers is a ridiculous superfluity, since they are in fact the powers or strength of the individuality performing the action; while the exertions and labour of the latter is an equally useless effort, since it is rather the gods who manage everything. (PhSp, 441/2)
however, over the many gods hovers the universal self, the might of neces- sity. "they are the universal, and the positive, over against the individual self of mortals which cannot hold out against their might; but the uni- versal self, for that reason, hovers over them and over this whole world of picture-thinking to which the entire content belongs, as the irrational void of necessity . . . " (PhSp, 443)
As long as the universal self of necessity remains undetermined, it remains unclear how the unity of society can be concretized. therefore, the empty self of necessity has to be transformed into the determined law of society. We have already seen how the polis can exist as the harmonic unity of two laws, the human and the Divine. this harmony is guaranteed insofar as the Divine laws restricts itself to the underworld so that its action does not interfere with the action of the human law, i. e. , when "no deed has been committed. " in this case, all can accept the human law so that there is no need for "the law of the heart" to be revealed as "the frenzy of self-conceit. " the law of the heart can be understood as a constituting moment of the harmonic totality of the polis: "or, again, it is in knowing that the law of his own heart is the law of all hearts, in know- ing the consciousness of the self as the acknowledged universal order. " (PhSp, 276)
Principally, however, the deed is unavoidable because the pure self of the family and the real self of the polis do not immediately coincide. (their reciprocal relation has to be developed). this is exemplarily illus- trated by Creon's ban to entomb Polynices, who sacrificed the interest of the state for his own interest. the clash between the two laws is post- poned because in the Tragedy their ultimate harmony is represented as an absolute one.
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this appeal to the tragedy seems to be strange because hegel also describes the "deed" and the decline of the harmonic unity of the polis in terms of the Tragedy, in particular, Sophocles' Antigone. in the tragedy, however, the clash between the two laws is accompanied by a process that hegel calls the "depopulation of heaven. " (PhSp, 449) it is this pro- cess that, for the time being, can retain the appearance of harmony.
first, the "Chorus of the elders" representing the people praises a mul- titude of gods: "lacking the power of the negative, it is unable to hold together and so subdue the riches and varied abundance of the divine life, but lets it all go its own separate ways, and in its reverential hymns it extols each individual moment as an independent god, first one and then another. " (PhSp, 444) the clash between the two laws, however, is reflected in the religious representation:
if, then, the ethical substance, in virtue of its notion, split itself as regards it content into powers which were defined as divine and human law, or law of the nether and of the upper world--the one of the family, the other the State power, the first being the feminine and the second the masculine character--similarly, now, the previously multiform circle of gods with its fluctuating characteristics confines itself to these powers which are thereby brought closer to genuine individuality. (PhSp, 445)
Both characters--the actor of the human law and the actor of the divine law--are one-sided: they only know the content of their own law. there- fore, their consciousness is intrinsically connected with the side of not- knowing.
therefore, the two sides of consciousness which have in actuality no sepa- rate individuality peculiar to each receive, when pictorially represented, each its own particular shape: the one, that of the revelatory god, the other, that of the furies who keep themselves concealed. in part, both enjoy equal honour, but again, the shape assumed by the substance, Zeus, is the neces- sity of the relation of the two to each other. (PhSp, 447/8)
in the "deed," the one-sidedness of the ethical powers becomes manifest, resulting in the decay of these powers:
the action, in being carried out, demonstrates their unity in the natural15 downfall of both powers and both self-conscious characters. the reconcilia- tion of the opposition with itself is the lethe of the underworld in death; or the lethe of the upper world as absolution, not from guilt (for consciousness
15 'natural' is the translation of 'gegenseitig'. A better translation would have been 'reciprocal'.
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cannot deny its guilt, because it committed the act),16 but from the crime; and also the peace of mind following atonement for the crime. (PhSp, 448)
the downfall of the ethical powers is reflected in the completion of the depopulation of heaven.
the self-consciousness that is represented in the tragedy, knows and acknowledges, therefore, only one supreme power, and this Zeus only as the power of the state or of the heart, and in the antithesis belonging to knowing [of knower and known], only as the father of the particular that is taking shape in the knowing; and also as the Zeus of the oath and the furies, the Zeus of the universal, of the inner being dwelling in concealment. (PhSp, 449)
Self-consciousness, which has kept Zeus as its only god, has lost its spe- cific content. Zeus has become the representation of the pure form of self-consciousness. therefore, self-consciousness is no longer able to res- cue the ethical substance by sacrificing its self-conscious action. the pure self is explicitly separated from the contingent reality. the third moment of the practical reason, Virtue and the way of the world, ceases being a constituting moment of the reality of the polis. 17 Self-consciousness, "the simple certainty of self, is in fact the negative power, the unity of Zeus, of substantial being and of abstract necessity; it is the spiritual unity into which everything returns. " (PhSp, 449/50) this negative power of self- consciousness is represented in the Comedy: "the self-consciousness of the hero must step forth from his mask and present itself as knowing itself to be the fate both of the gods of the chorus and of the absolute powers themselves, and as being no longer separated from the chorus, from the universal consciousness" (PhSp, 450).
in contrast to the self of the gods, the self of self-consciousness is not imagined. moreover, the self of self-consciousness is not dependent on a substantial being: it is only involved in a substantial power insofar as it acts its part by putting on its mask. But the self "quickly breaks out again from this illusory character and stands forth in its own nakedness and ordinariness, which it shows to be not distinct from the genuine self, the actor, or from the spectator. " (PhSp, 450) this play between the self of the mask and the genuine self is the exhibition of "the ludicrous contrast
16 A better translation would have been 'deed'.
17 We have already seen how hegel characterized Virtue and the way of the world as a constituting moment of the polis: "it is virtue, which enjoys the fruits of sacrifice, what brings about what it sets out to do, viz. to bring forth the essence into the light of day, and its enjoyment is this universal life" (PhSp, 276).
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between [the self's] own opinion of itself and its immediate existence, between its necessity and contingency, its universality and its common- ness. " (PhSp, 451)
the self that has emancipated itself from the ethical substance is the free self with the capacity for reasonable thinking. 18 its gods are no longer coincidental individualities that reflect the divers powers in the ethical world. Reasonable thinking develops the individualities of the gods into the simple ideas of the Beautiful and the good in which return, at the highest level of abstraction, the divine and human laws. (in the Beautiful the individual gets a universal meaning and in the good the community encompasses the interests of the individuals). insofar as the gods have a natural side, "they are clouds,19 an evanescent mist, like those imaginative representations. " (PhSp, 451/2)
Because of their abstractness, the thoughts of the Beautiful and the good are empty so that any individual has the opportunity to give them his or her own meaning and make them the result of his or her coinciden- tal, contingent individuality.
therefore, the fate which up to this point has lacked consciousness and consists in an empty repose and oblivion, and is separated from self- consciousness, this fate is now united with self-consciousness. the individ- ual self is the negative power through which and in which the gods, as also their moments viz. existent nature and thoughts of their specific character vanish. At the same time, the individual self is not the emptiness of this disappearance but, on the contrary, preserves itself in this very nothingness, abides with itself and is the sole actuality. (PhSp, 452)
Conclusion
the religion of the work of art is the religion of freedom in its immediate form. it is the religion of the ancient greek people that has objectified the free self in the polis: the polis is the concrete totality of all moments of the free self. in the immediate form of the polis, however, freedom as such (i. e. , the free self in its pure form) is not objectified. the pure self is
18 J. heinrichs, Die Logik der 'Pha? nomenologie des Geistes', Bonn: Bouvier Verlag her- bert grundmann 1974. he thinks that the transition of the greek religion into reasonable thinking corresponds to the transition from Unhappy Consciousness to Reason, see p. 441. however, we have seen that reason is already represented by the living and the spiritual work of art.
19 here, of course, hegel is referring to Aristophanes' Comedy, The Clouds.
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the hidden presupposition of the polis. the reality of the polis is only a specific historical form of the polis that exists beside a multitude of other poleis. in the struggle between the poleis, each polis can become ruined. their decay appears as an external power, as the empty self of fate. in fact, the decay of the polis is caused by an internal power, i. e. , by the penetration of the ethical life of the polis by the pure self.
the development of the polis is the process in which the empty self of fate is recognized as the pure self of the real individual. the pure self will be understood as the fate of ethical life. in the end, the only reality is the reality of the contingent self that knows that in its part as persona, it is the master of this reality.
the development of the polis is an ongoing learning process that is performed by means of religious representations: all the constituting moments of the ethical life, the moments of the free self, are successively represented by a work of art. 20 this representation mediates a raising of the conscious, which results in the explication of the pure self as the pre- supposition of the polis. 21 At this point, the decay of the polis is over.
the religion of the work art first appears at the moment the pure self of the individual threatens to penetrate the public domain of the polis. the decay of the polis is warded off by representing the relation between individual and community as an absolute and harmonious relation: in the representation of the statue of the god and the temple. the statue and the temple, however, cannot repress the pure self because they only represent the objective appearance of individual and community, not the free activ- ity that is presupposed by them. therefore, the pure self is represented
20 Jaeschke, Vernunft in der Religion. he interprets the abstract, living and spiritual works of arts as historical stages of the religion of the work of art (see p. 208). Although within the development of the spiritual work of art there seems to be some chronological succession, the religious forms represent the moment of the polis which are real at the same time. therefore, it is not necessary that the logical development totally coincides with a chronological one.
21 R. Bubner, "Die ? Kunstreligion? als politisches Projekt der moderne" in A. Arndt e. a. (hg) Hegel Jahrbuch 2003, Glauben und Wissen. Erster Teil, p. 310: "Die generalformel einer entwicklung der Substanz zum Subjekt erzeugt in der spezifischen Anwendung auf das Religionskapitel, das wir diskutierten, die eigentu? mlichkeit, dass in der griechischen leb- ensform das Substantielle eingeu? bter, weitergereichter und durch tradition besta? tigter Sittlichkeit bereits durch a? sthetische transformation vom Ansichsein zum fu? rsichsein emporgehoben ist. " ("the general formula of the substance's development into Subject produces, as we discussed, in its specific use in the Religion Chapter the characteristic that in the greek form of life the substantial of the practiced, passed and by tradition affirmed ethical life is already sublated from being-in-itself into being-for-itself by aesthetic trans- formation. ")
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as an absolute being in the abstract work of art. the development of the abstract work of art results in the living work of art in which the represen- tation of the pure self is immediately united with its reality: in the athlete of the olympic games, the statue of god has become a living god.
in the athlete, however, the pure self remains embedded in natural relations. it is only at the level of the spiritual work of art that the self can be expressed as a spiritual one, i. e. , as a self that transcends the natural relations. in the Epic, Tragedy, and Comedy, the pure self is successively represented as the abstract self of fate, the self-conscious self of Zeus, who is the only one supreme power, and the pure self of the real indi- vidual that understands itself as the fate of the world.
Hegel's PHilosoPHy of Judaism Timo slootweg
1. introduction1
Hegel had a lifelong interest in Judaism. He wrote and lectured on the subject repeatedly and on many occasions. The early 'theological writings' (as they are called not quite correctly) are undeniably very critical about the Jewish faith. in the 1827 lectures, some 30 years later, the critique of Judaism is apparently almost muted. as Hodgson writes: "they carry further the favourable reassessment of Judaism begun in 1824. gone are all earlier references to 'the fear of the lord' that is 'the beginning of all wisdom' and to the 'execrations' of leviticus [. . . ]". 2 Careful analysis of the Jewish idea of god takes the place of the earlier critique, as well as a re-evaluation of the great contribution of israel to the history of religion: the spiritually subjective unity of god. Hodgson: "it [the subjective unity named 'god'] is in fact the highest philosophical concept; as such, god subsists without sensible shape, only for thought. "
in contrast to this somewhat apologetic reading of Hegel, i would like to insist here on not overestimating the differences in the development of Hegel's interpretations of the subject. Hodgson is certainly right that Hegel in his 1827 lectures mentions briefly 'certain limitations', only at the end of his overall quite 'sympathetic phenomenology of the Jewish repre- sentation of god'. However, as we shall see, the limitations that he notices in 1827 are broadly the same as the limitations he mentions and describes more extensively and critically in his early theological work. What then is it that indeed makes Hegel's later treatment of Judaism sound somewhat more sympathetic?
my explanation is quite simple and straightforward: it is mainly the dialectical structure of the lectures (which purpose is not to criticize but
1 i want to thank Rico sneller for his valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.
2 P. C. Hodgson, ? editorial introduction? in: g. W. f. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. The Lectures of 1827, one Volume edition, ed. P. C. Hodgson, oxford: oxford uP 2006, p. 55.
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strictly to develop logically the concept of religion) that indeed makes all the difference for the evaluation, not just of the determinate 'Religion of sublimity' (Judaism), but also for the other religious forms that precede the Consummate Religion of Christianity. in other words: it is primarily the progressively systematic and dialectical perspective of the mature Hegel that accounts for his notably sympathetic evaluation, in contrast to the relatively non dialectical, 'typological' and critical reflections of his early work on Judaism. it is in comparison to other determinate religions (especially the greek Religion, the Religion of Beauty), and in the context of the logical development Hegel perceives, that the Religion of sublimity is shown to be a necessary and rational stage and an indispensable pro- gression towards Christianity in which (eventually) the concept of religion becomes objective to itself.
in the following, i will demonstrate this reading by referring to other, later texts (taken from the Phenomenology en the Philosophy of Right) in which Judaism or one of its transformations (in Kant for instance, and in Pietism that share in the Jewish fate of Christianity) is at stake.
The impor- tance of this simple explanation for the present elaboration of Hegel's view on Judaism is that it makes us aware of (first) the relatively strong continuity in his writings on the subject, and (second) of the unmitigated relevancy of the extensive and very explicit earlier analyses. in fact, they might show us, not just the 'limitations' of Jewish religion in respect to the Hegelian perspective, but also some of the limitations of Hegel's own Philosophy of Religion, and (finally) the inherent danger involved in the Geist of his idealism.
This is why i would like to start here by referring to the brilliant essay 'der geist des Christentums und sein schicksal' (1799) that Hegel wrote when he was only twenty-nine years old. according to Wilhelm dilthey,3 the essay is one of the finest texts Hegel ever wrote in his entire life. Jacques derrida has called this essay, quite rightly, la matrice conceptuelle, 'the conceptual womb',4 of Hegel's mature system. Hegel's later dialectic schema is an abstraction of his contemplation of the nature of love as the spirit of Christianity, which is why it can serve as a excellent introduction to his later thoughts.
3 Wilhelm dilthey, Die Jugendgeschichte Hegels, gs Bd. iV, stuttgart/go? ttingen: Van den Hoeck & Ruprecht 1974, p. 68.
4 J. derrida, Glas. Que reste-t-il du savoir absolu? , Vol. i, Paris: deno? el / gonthier 1974, p. 78. J. derrida, Glas, english Transl. J. P. leavy and R. Rand, lincoln/london: university of Nebraska Press 1986, p. 55a.
? hegel's philosophy of judaism 127 2. The spirit of Judaism
Hegel's early work is essentially targeted at an evaluation of religion, the spirit of Judaism and Christianity, with respect to their disposition to produce unity and culture. like many of his friends at the Tu? binger Stift (schelling and Ho? lderlin) Hegel was very much infatuated by the greek civilization in which the humane and national religion of Beauty played an important role in the realization and unification of an integral and cohesive ethical life. But at the same time, notwithstanding this sincere admiration, he was already very much aware of the limitations of Helle- nism as a relevant example for his own time. already Plato had struggled in vain to safeguard the beautiful substantial unity of greek culture from the dangers of relativism (exemplified by the sophists). His solution, based on a philosophy of nature and theoria, eventually did not account for the emerging truth of subjectivity that eventually would have to destroy the naive happiness of the greek. This subjectivity and subjective freedom would necessarily have to develop further and further in history, in the context of Biblical Religion, through Reformation and enlightenment, up until the time of Kant and of Hegel himself.
it is against the pantheistic background of his nostalgic Hellenism of which he is already firmly convinced that, at least in its original form, it cannot and should not even return, that Hegel writes about the spirit of Christianity as it is born out of the theistic spirit of Judaism. Judaism (and Kantianism, because of its spiritual affinity to Judaism) is interpreted as representing a separation of god and nature; it represents a painful separation that is necessary with respect to the spiritual development of mankind. Christianity in turn, is interpreted as the healing introduc- tion of some remaining, viable aspects of the spirit of Hellenism (and its folk religion) into the estranged Biblical religion of the Jews. in short: the teachings of Christ are a synthesis of transcendent Jewish and immanent or this-worldly greek elements. "it is Hegel's thesis that Jesus teaches pan- theism of love which reconciles greek pantheism with Judaic and Kantian theism. "5
it is quite telling that Hegel develops his interpretation of love as the spirit of Christianity in flagrant contradiction to 'the loveless spirit of Judaism'. according to Hegel, Christianity arose out of the nothingness
5 Richard Kroner, 'Hegel's Philosophical development' in: g. W. f. Hegel, Early Theo- logical Writings, Knox and Kroner (eds. ), Philadelphia: university of Pennsylvania Press 1971, p. 10.
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and emptiness of the Jewish faith. although (indeed): "the fear of the lord is the beginning of all wisdom", and although it was as such a necessary stage in the development of the spirit (the spirit of unity and 'life'), the Jewish faith is the 'nullity' and the deserted barrenness that preceded the birth of Christianity; which is why Jesus, according to Hegel, had to start completely from scratch. according to Hegel, the Jews brought to mankind nothing but the ugly law and a senseless obedience without joy. Beauty, truth and goodness came from Christ only. These are, in essence, the same limitations that Hegel mentions some thirty years later, in his 1827 lectures on the philosophy of religion, although his formulations there sound somewhat more sympathetic. let us therefore follow care- fully his analyses of Judaism as he describes them in his extensive and thorough analysis of 1799.
in Jewish religion, spirit develops in extreme determination against nature and against the immediate unity with nature. it is only in rela- tion to this external and merely profane nature that a truthful reconcilia- tion can eventually be realized. as the result of this disenchantment (the Entgo? tterung of nature), people can be seen as individuals, not as divine incarnations. suns can be seen as suns, mountains as mountains; not as things with a soul and with a will of their own. in the earlier religious forms, the spiritual was still very much restricted by the natural. Neverthe- less, a terrible disaster must have ended this paradisiacal naivete? . accord- ing to Hegel, the faith of the old Testament was born from the experience of a terrible flood. This flood must have breached the original and secure mode of living in harmony with nature. The victims and witnesses (Noah) must have interpreted this flood as a cruel instrument of a strange god who used nature to punish mankind for its disobedience to him. Nature is merely an 'instrument' to this god. The god of the Jews does not 'partici- pate' in his creation, and nature has no intrinsic meaning to him. god is an absolute subject, not an object. This divine indifference towards being is mirrored in the way his people experience nature, their own personal nature as well as their neighbours' nature, as signifying absolutely noth- ing. and this already explains the characteristic urge of the Jewish people to independence, exclusiveness and disengagement.
The first act through which abraham became the progenitor of the nation was through a brutal act of disseverance (Trennung) that snapped the bonds of communal life and love. 6 indeed, god commanded him to
6 g. W. f. Hegel, 'The spirit of Christianity' in: Early Theological Writings, T. m. Knox/ R. Kroner, Philadelphia: university of Pennsylvania Press 1971, p. 185. The original text
? hegel's philosophy of judaism 129
leave his land and his natural family (cf. gen. 12; 1). later on, this god demanded further proof of abraham's 'slavish' faith and obedience when he asked him to sacrifice his son. for this god abraham's natural, fatherly love for his son does not mean a thing. according to Hegel, the Jewish need of independence explains their contemporary wretchedness, which is the direct consequence of their stubborn rejection of the spirit of truth, beauty and reconciliation. Hegel compares the fate of the Jewish people with the fate of macbeth who divorced himself from nature by clinging to these strange and unnatural voices. it is because they brought their sufferings upon themselves, that Jewish history is not in the least com- parable to a greek tragedy. The Jews share the fate of macbeth who, in the service of alien 'beings' trampled and slaughtered others, as well as (finally) himself. 7
much of what Hegel says about the fate of Jewish faith comes down to the restrictions of the mosaic law in comparison and in contradis- tinction with the 'free', moral teaching of Christ in his sermon on the mount. 8 according to Hegel, the pure divine law is not our salvation but our prison. The rule of law represents a state particular to fallen man. The law is in fact the product of the destruction of the original, friendly unity of life. Through this destruction, life is transformed into an enemy that presents itself only in the form of a divine command. moreover, although this breach with nature is necessary, if we are not able to transcend this lifeless law, if we are not able to surrender our abstract juridical rights through love, grace and mercy, spiritual life is cursed and lost forever.
Through the promulgation of the divine law, justice is reduced to a formalistic righteousness in front of the law, that is, to simply doing what the law says must be done. in addition, although one can indeed try to be righteous in this way, one cannot possibly expect to be able to reconcile oneself with the law as law, with this strange, purely subjective god. in penal law for instance, the administration of punishment does not lead to an internal atonement and it cannot really mend the gap between the law and its subject; that is: between the universal and the individual. Pun- ishment only installs a feeling of impotence in the face of a lord with whom one has nothing in common and with whom one cannot possibly reconcile oneself. on the other hand, at the moment that the trespasser
in german: g. W. f. Hegel, 'der geist des Christentums' in Werke 1, frankfurt am main: suhrkamp 1986, p. 277.
7 Hegel, 'The spirit of Christianity', p. 205/297.
8 see for Hegel's interpretation of (what he sees as) the purely moral teachings of Christ: idem, pp. 205/297 ff.
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comes to understand that he has not simply broken the law (this alien being), but that he has in fact thereby disrupted his own (divine) life and integrity, this feeling will become a longing for what has been lost, and remorse and reconciliation with life can be set to work. only then the trespass reveals the totality and unity that it has injured, and shows what the trespasser himself is lacking now.
The Jewish law is universal, and only as such is it 'real'. it is nothing more than a mere duty (a Sollen) backed by fear and threat, which means that it is the downright contradiction of being (Sein). Christian love on the other hand is the fulfilment of the law. Without this love, law is just an unnatural and artificial command that comes from an external force with which one cannot reconcile oneself. Through love, law and duty (Pflicht) are potentially reconciled with our natural inclinations (Neigun- gen). Through this fulfilment, the abstract law, the law as law is in fact annihilated and made superfluous. The love of Christ liberates mankind from a 'jealous' and ruthless master who 'presents' himself only through the 'positivity' of his abstract-universal commandments. Through the rev- elation in the coming of Christ man is liberated from a purely transcen- dent god, a hidden god who keeps everything to himself and so only enslaves his people. Charity, the neighbourly love between people (friends and foes indiscriminately) is the true embodiment of the eternal love of god on a temporary scale, and it is in this incorporation that we can find the Kingdom of god.
it is not this strange and violent force that moves the individual towards eternity. instead, it is its own nature and destination. Through the love of Christ, at last one can learn to do good without being coerced; to conform freely and internally motivated, that is: instinctively and emphatically--to the law. Thus Christian love promises to restore man's dismembered life to (what looks like) its original (paradisiacal) integrity.
Because of their iconoclasm and their negative theology, the 'Jews' who stand witness to his message must (for ever) remain blind for its symbolic, eternal content. To the 'typical Jew' the grave is nothing but an empty grave and the message thereof cannot penetrate his hard heart and soul. The Jew turns everything to stone, petrifying and materializing spirit. To dry Jewish rationalism an individual is nothing more than just an individual, equal in value with every other individual. even family life is but dutiful fidelity. Judaism (and Kantianism) cannot understand the doctrine of incarnation. for the Jew the Word cannot become flesh and consequently, Jesus cannot have been the son of god, nor can anyone else ever be. according to Hegel, a Jew is not able to value empathy for his
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fellow man as a finite embodiment of the infinite. The spirit of the love of Christ cannot possibly be at home in the dungeon of the Jewish soul ('in dem Kerker einer Judenseele'),9 nor can it be at home in any 'subjective' philosophy that breathes an equally violent, Jewish atmosphere.
3. Kant
according to Hegel, Jesus delivered mankind from the positivity of the Jewish law by interpreting the relationship with god on the basis of the purity of the heart, the human will and its natural inclination to do the good. The universality of the law makes it strange and objective. it is a conceptual abstraction of the full life, which is where proper love resides. love refers to the unity of life in which we can recognize and affirm our duties as inner desires.
after the appearance of Christ (god's loving sacrifice) it is evil simply to continue to labour under the law. However, in the protestant philoso- phy of Kant especially, the ugliness of Jewish religion returns in a slightly different form. Kants abstract morality is a version of Judaism that pro- hibits the advent of ethical life. for Hegel Christian love cannot be com- manded; it is simply not in accordance with reason to think of a command to love one's neighbour as one loves oneself. To Hegel, this means that what sounds like a command is in reality not a proper command at all; it is a command only in respect to its grammatical form. 10 according to Hegel, already Kant must have seen the paradox within the command of neighbourly love. moreover, like Hegel Kant also sought a way to solve this problem. Nevertheless, the solution he found, his interpretation of the law as an aspect of religion within the bounds of reason, suffers from the same defect as the mosaic law. True love is freedom, and freedom is love. However, there is no truth in the commandments of the oT:
9 "How were they to recognize divinity in a man, poor things that they were, possessing only a consciousness of their misery, of the depth of their servitude, of their opposition to the divine, of an impassible gulf between the being of god and the being of men? spirit alone recognizes spirit. They saw in Jesus only the man, the Nazarene, the carpenter's son whose brothers and kinfolk lived among them; so much he was, and more he could not be, for he was only one like themselves, and they felt themselves to be nothing. The Jewish multitude was bound to wreck his attempt to give them the consciousness of something divine, for faith in something divine, something great, cannot make its home in a dunghill. The lion has no room in a nest, the infinite spirit none in the prison of a Jewish soul, the whole of life none in a withered leaf. " idem, p. 265/381.
10 idem, p. 212/324.
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Truth is something free, which we neither master nor are mastered by; hence the existence of god appears to the Jews not as a truth but as a com- mand. on god the Jews are dependent throughout, and that on which a man depends cannot have the form of a truth. Truth is beauty intellectu- ally represented; the negative character of truth is freedom. But how could they have an inkling of beauty who saw in everything only matter? How could they exercise reason and freedom who were only either mastered or masters? 11
To elaborate on the extensive sphere of influence of the Jewish spiritual- ity, Hegel refers to the 'Religion within the bounds of reason alone' (iV, 2, ? 3) where Kant says that there may be big differences between the sha- man and the european prelates, between the moguls and the Puritans, but that they all share the same principle of belief. They all obey to exter- nal commandments instead of the laws of their own reason, which is in fact what the Bible, with all its symbolism, asks from us. indeed, in the interpretation of Kant that brings love within the bounds of reason, the message of the commandment becomes very clear. We should obey to the categorical imperative as the ultimate commandment of reason: "act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. " love is a duty to which we obey in the freedom that wells up from the autonomy of our own will. moreover, i am not obliged to obey to a commandment of which i cannot recognize and affirm the practical rationality.
Nevertheless, for Hegel, Kant's internalization (Verinnerlichung) of the law does not take away its intrinsically 'Jewish', abstract and repressive character:
By this line of argument, however, positivity is only partially removed; and between the shaman of the Tungus, the european prelate who rules church and state, the Voguls, and the Puritans, on the one hand, and the man who listens to his own command of duty, on the other, the difference is not that the former make themselves slaves, while the latter is free, but that the former have their lord outside themselves, while the latter carries his lord in himself, yet at the same time is his own slave. for the particular-- impulses, inclinations, pathological love, sensuous experience, or whatever else it is called--the universal is necessarily and always something alien and objective. There remains a residuum of indestructible positivity which finally shocks us because the content which the universal command of duty acquires, a specific duty, contains the contradiction of being restricted and
11 idem, p. 196/288.
132
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universal at the same time and makes the most stubborn claims for its one- sidedness, i. e. , on the strength of possessing universality of form. Woe to the human relations which are not unquestionably found in the concept of duty; for this concept [. . . ] excludes or dominates all other relations. 12
in Kantian ethics, man is free and autonomous in the sense that he is liberated from the transcendent law of god; he is free to obey to the tran- scendental rules of his own autonomous reasoning. Kant's 'solution' is intrinsically contradictory, because in his theory the duty still refers to an opposition, while the will is thought to remove it. Kant manages only to distance himself from the heteronomy of a transcendent religion outside of the bounds of reason alone. instead of being enslaved to an external master, we are now enslaved to a master within. While love and truth in fact implicate the reconciliation of duty and inclination.
'love god above everything and thy neighbour as thyself ' was quite wrongly regarded by Kant as a 'command requiring respect for the law which com- mands love. ' and it is on this confusion of the utterly accidental kind of phraseology expressive of life with the moral imperative [. . . ] that there rests Kant's profound reduction of what he calls a command [. . . ] to his moral imperative. 13
The law as law destroys life. The Jew is dutifully subjected to the law; that is why he does not, and cannot love. love reconciles a man to his neighbour, and to himself. Jesus' command to love one's neighbour as one self, has a completely different meaning than the law of the Jews, and it is also not in the least in line with the Kantian imperative. Jesus' sermon on the mount considering the fulfilment of the law is in fact targeted at the negation of the law as law. The divine command compels us to a love that makes the law redundant; it appeals to an organic and natural affection towards the other.
This spirit of Jesus, a spirit raised above morality, is visible, directly attack- ing the laws, in the sermon on the mount, which is an attempt, elaborated in numerous examples, to strip the laws of legality, of their legal form. The sermon does not teach reverence for the laws; on the contrary, it exhibits that which fulfils the law but annuls it as law and so is something higher than obedience to law and makes law superfluous.
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tive conditions that must be imposed on possible actions. these condi- tions can be specified for the different relations that the free individual can take upon himself towards the polis, i. e. , they can be specified for the different moments of the objectified Reason that compose the polis. We will see that these conditions are represented in the living and the spiritual works of art.
in the living work of art, the first moment of the objectified Reason, i. e. , the observing Reason, is represented as an absolute, everlasting relation- ship. At this level, the statue is unified with its precondition, the pure self, and has developed into a "living statue" expressed by living individuals. the two forms of living art represent, respectively, the Divine and the human law as separated entities. in this separation, the external, theo- retical relationship between the laws is reflected, which characterizes the form of the observing Reason.
We have seen that the Divine law is the "house" of the pure self. By means of the Divine law, the pure self is given an institutional body. the pure self and its incorporation, mind and body, are represented in "the mystery of bread and wine, of Ceres and Bacchus" (PhSp, 438). Ceres stands for the feminine principle of the body: the "simple essence as the movement, partly out of its dark night of concealment up into conscious- ness, there to be its silently nourishing substance; but no less, however, the movement of again losing itself in the nether darkness, and lingering above only with a silent maternal yearning. " (PhSp, 437) Bacchus stands for the masculine principle of the mind. As the "moving impulse" he is:
[n]othing but the many-named divine light of the risen Sun and its undis- ciplined tumultuous life which, similarly let go from its [merely] abstract Being, at first enters into the objective existence of the fruit, and then, sur- rendering itself to self-consciousness, in it attains to genuine reality--and now roams about as a crowd of frenzied females, the untamed revelry of nature in self-conscious form. (PhSp, 437/8)
the human law is the mediated "house" of the pure self, in which its medi- ated existence as citizen has been given a second nature in the objective institutional body of the state. this mediated unity of mind and body is represented in the athlete of the olympic games, the "inspired and living work of art that matches strength with its beauty; and on him is bestowed, as a reward for his strength, the decoration with which the statue was honoured, and the honour of being, in place of the god in stone, the high- est bodily representation among his people of their essence. " (PhSp, 438) in the representation of the athlete, it becomes clear how the religious
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consciousness regulates the actions of the free citizen (and postpones the decay of the polis). the freedom of the citizen remains encased in natural boundaries: mind and body appear as strength and beauty, i. e. , as culti- vated nature.
11. the Representation of the Deed: the Spiritual Work of Art
At the level of the practical reason, however, the citizen cannot accept boundaries that are set by an external, natural world. the practical rea- son wants to relate itself to an external world that it can recognize as the result of is own action. therefore, this world can only be a social world. this is illustrated by the moments of the practical reason as they appear in the harmonic unity of the polis.
the first moment of the practical reason, Pleasure and Necessity, con- sidered within the harmonic unity of the polis, is described by hegel as follows: "the individual who seeks the pleasure of enjoying his individual- ity, finds it in the family, and the necessity in which that pleasure passes away is his own self-consciousness as a citizen of his nation. " (PhSp, 276) if, however, the individual becomes aware of his pure freedom, he will no longer accept the self-consciousness of the human law and will resist it as a strange necessity. once again, the stability of the polis is threatened. to ward off this threat, the moment of Pleasure and Necessity is represented as an absolute relation in the first form of the spiritual work of art, namely, the Epic.
in the spiritual work of art, the representation of the pure self is no longer separated from the representation of its objective expression like in the living work of art. 14 in the spiritual work, the self is represented as the self expressing itself. therefore, speech is its medium: "the perfect element in which inwardness is just as external as externality is inward is once again speech . . . " (PhSp, 439) At the level of the Epic, however, the self that expresses the speech, the minstrel, is still distinguished from the self that is expressed in the speech. What is expressed is "mnemosyne, recollection and a gradually developed inwardness, the remembrance of essence that formerly was directly present" (PhSp, 441). here, hegel is making reference to homer's iliad. in this work, the expression of the self is still the result of the synthetic representation of the minstrel: "it
14 "in the Bacchic enthusiasm it is the self that is beside itself, but in corporeal beauty it is spiritual essence" (PhSp, 439).
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is no longer the actual practice of the Cult, but a practice that is raised, not yet indeed into the notion, but at first into picture-thinking, into the synthetic linking-together of self-consciousness and external existence. " (PhSp, 440)
in the epic, Pleasure is represented by human action, i. e. , the actions of the heroes. the actions of the heroes, however, are managed by the gods:
the universal powers have the form of individuality and hence the principle of action in them; what they effect appears, therefore, to proceed entirely from them and to be as free an action as that of men. Consequently, both gods and men have done one and the same thing. the earnestness of those divine powers is a ridiculous superfluity, since they are in fact the powers or strength of the individuality performing the action; while the exertions and labour of the latter is an equally useless effort, since it is rather the gods who manage everything. (PhSp, 441/2)
however, over the many gods hovers the universal self, the might of neces- sity. "they are the universal, and the positive, over against the individual self of mortals which cannot hold out against their might; but the uni- versal self, for that reason, hovers over them and over this whole world of picture-thinking to which the entire content belongs, as the irrational void of necessity . . . " (PhSp, 443)
As long as the universal self of necessity remains undetermined, it remains unclear how the unity of society can be concretized. therefore, the empty self of necessity has to be transformed into the determined law of society. We have already seen how the polis can exist as the harmonic unity of two laws, the human and the Divine. this harmony is guaranteed insofar as the Divine laws restricts itself to the underworld so that its action does not interfere with the action of the human law, i. e. , when "no deed has been committed. " in this case, all can accept the human law so that there is no need for "the law of the heart" to be revealed as "the frenzy of self-conceit. " the law of the heart can be understood as a constituting moment of the harmonic totality of the polis: "or, again, it is in knowing that the law of his own heart is the law of all hearts, in know- ing the consciousness of the self as the acknowledged universal order. " (PhSp, 276)
Principally, however, the deed is unavoidable because the pure self of the family and the real self of the polis do not immediately coincide. (their reciprocal relation has to be developed). this is exemplarily illus- trated by Creon's ban to entomb Polynices, who sacrificed the interest of the state for his own interest. the clash between the two laws is post- poned because in the Tragedy their ultimate harmony is represented as an absolute one.
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this appeal to the tragedy seems to be strange because hegel also describes the "deed" and the decline of the harmonic unity of the polis in terms of the Tragedy, in particular, Sophocles' Antigone. in the tragedy, however, the clash between the two laws is accompanied by a process that hegel calls the "depopulation of heaven. " (PhSp, 449) it is this pro- cess that, for the time being, can retain the appearance of harmony.
first, the "Chorus of the elders" representing the people praises a mul- titude of gods: "lacking the power of the negative, it is unable to hold together and so subdue the riches and varied abundance of the divine life, but lets it all go its own separate ways, and in its reverential hymns it extols each individual moment as an independent god, first one and then another. " (PhSp, 444) the clash between the two laws, however, is reflected in the religious representation:
if, then, the ethical substance, in virtue of its notion, split itself as regards it content into powers which were defined as divine and human law, or law of the nether and of the upper world--the one of the family, the other the State power, the first being the feminine and the second the masculine character--similarly, now, the previously multiform circle of gods with its fluctuating characteristics confines itself to these powers which are thereby brought closer to genuine individuality. (PhSp, 445)
Both characters--the actor of the human law and the actor of the divine law--are one-sided: they only know the content of their own law. there- fore, their consciousness is intrinsically connected with the side of not- knowing.
therefore, the two sides of consciousness which have in actuality no sepa- rate individuality peculiar to each receive, when pictorially represented, each its own particular shape: the one, that of the revelatory god, the other, that of the furies who keep themselves concealed. in part, both enjoy equal honour, but again, the shape assumed by the substance, Zeus, is the neces- sity of the relation of the two to each other. (PhSp, 447/8)
in the "deed," the one-sidedness of the ethical powers becomes manifest, resulting in the decay of these powers:
the action, in being carried out, demonstrates their unity in the natural15 downfall of both powers and both self-conscious characters. the reconcilia- tion of the opposition with itself is the lethe of the underworld in death; or the lethe of the upper world as absolution, not from guilt (for consciousness
15 'natural' is the translation of 'gegenseitig'. A better translation would have been 'reciprocal'.
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cannot deny its guilt, because it committed the act),16 but from the crime; and also the peace of mind following atonement for the crime. (PhSp, 448)
the downfall of the ethical powers is reflected in the completion of the depopulation of heaven.
the self-consciousness that is represented in the tragedy, knows and acknowledges, therefore, only one supreme power, and this Zeus only as the power of the state or of the heart, and in the antithesis belonging to knowing [of knower and known], only as the father of the particular that is taking shape in the knowing; and also as the Zeus of the oath and the furies, the Zeus of the universal, of the inner being dwelling in concealment. (PhSp, 449)
Self-consciousness, which has kept Zeus as its only god, has lost its spe- cific content. Zeus has become the representation of the pure form of self-consciousness. therefore, self-consciousness is no longer able to res- cue the ethical substance by sacrificing its self-conscious action. the pure self is explicitly separated from the contingent reality. the third moment of the practical reason, Virtue and the way of the world, ceases being a constituting moment of the reality of the polis. 17 Self-consciousness, "the simple certainty of self, is in fact the negative power, the unity of Zeus, of substantial being and of abstract necessity; it is the spiritual unity into which everything returns. " (PhSp, 449/50) this negative power of self- consciousness is represented in the Comedy: "the self-consciousness of the hero must step forth from his mask and present itself as knowing itself to be the fate both of the gods of the chorus and of the absolute powers themselves, and as being no longer separated from the chorus, from the universal consciousness" (PhSp, 450).
in contrast to the self of the gods, the self of self-consciousness is not imagined. moreover, the self of self-consciousness is not dependent on a substantial being: it is only involved in a substantial power insofar as it acts its part by putting on its mask. But the self "quickly breaks out again from this illusory character and stands forth in its own nakedness and ordinariness, which it shows to be not distinct from the genuine self, the actor, or from the spectator. " (PhSp, 450) this play between the self of the mask and the genuine self is the exhibition of "the ludicrous contrast
16 A better translation would have been 'deed'.
17 We have already seen how hegel characterized Virtue and the way of the world as a constituting moment of the polis: "it is virtue, which enjoys the fruits of sacrifice, what brings about what it sets out to do, viz. to bring forth the essence into the light of day, and its enjoyment is this universal life" (PhSp, 276).
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between [the self's] own opinion of itself and its immediate existence, between its necessity and contingency, its universality and its common- ness. " (PhSp, 451)
the self that has emancipated itself from the ethical substance is the free self with the capacity for reasonable thinking. 18 its gods are no longer coincidental individualities that reflect the divers powers in the ethical world. Reasonable thinking develops the individualities of the gods into the simple ideas of the Beautiful and the good in which return, at the highest level of abstraction, the divine and human laws. (in the Beautiful the individual gets a universal meaning and in the good the community encompasses the interests of the individuals). insofar as the gods have a natural side, "they are clouds,19 an evanescent mist, like those imaginative representations. " (PhSp, 451/2)
Because of their abstractness, the thoughts of the Beautiful and the good are empty so that any individual has the opportunity to give them his or her own meaning and make them the result of his or her coinciden- tal, contingent individuality.
therefore, the fate which up to this point has lacked consciousness and consists in an empty repose and oblivion, and is separated from self- consciousness, this fate is now united with self-consciousness. the individ- ual self is the negative power through which and in which the gods, as also their moments viz. existent nature and thoughts of their specific character vanish. At the same time, the individual self is not the emptiness of this disappearance but, on the contrary, preserves itself in this very nothingness, abides with itself and is the sole actuality. (PhSp, 452)
Conclusion
the religion of the work of art is the religion of freedom in its immediate form. it is the religion of the ancient greek people that has objectified the free self in the polis: the polis is the concrete totality of all moments of the free self. in the immediate form of the polis, however, freedom as such (i. e. , the free self in its pure form) is not objectified. the pure self is
18 J. heinrichs, Die Logik der 'Pha? nomenologie des Geistes', Bonn: Bouvier Verlag her- bert grundmann 1974. he thinks that the transition of the greek religion into reasonable thinking corresponds to the transition from Unhappy Consciousness to Reason, see p. 441. however, we have seen that reason is already represented by the living and the spiritual work of art.
19 here, of course, hegel is referring to Aristophanes' Comedy, The Clouds.
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the hidden presupposition of the polis. the reality of the polis is only a specific historical form of the polis that exists beside a multitude of other poleis. in the struggle between the poleis, each polis can become ruined. their decay appears as an external power, as the empty self of fate. in fact, the decay of the polis is caused by an internal power, i. e. , by the penetration of the ethical life of the polis by the pure self.
the development of the polis is the process in which the empty self of fate is recognized as the pure self of the real individual. the pure self will be understood as the fate of ethical life. in the end, the only reality is the reality of the contingent self that knows that in its part as persona, it is the master of this reality.
the development of the polis is an ongoing learning process that is performed by means of religious representations: all the constituting moments of the ethical life, the moments of the free self, are successively represented by a work of art. 20 this representation mediates a raising of the conscious, which results in the explication of the pure self as the pre- supposition of the polis. 21 At this point, the decay of the polis is over.
the religion of the work art first appears at the moment the pure self of the individual threatens to penetrate the public domain of the polis. the decay of the polis is warded off by representing the relation between individual and community as an absolute and harmonious relation: in the representation of the statue of the god and the temple. the statue and the temple, however, cannot repress the pure self because they only represent the objective appearance of individual and community, not the free activ- ity that is presupposed by them. therefore, the pure self is represented
20 Jaeschke, Vernunft in der Religion. he interprets the abstract, living and spiritual works of arts as historical stages of the religion of the work of art (see p. 208). Although within the development of the spiritual work of art there seems to be some chronological succession, the religious forms represent the moment of the polis which are real at the same time. therefore, it is not necessary that the logical development totally coincides with a chronological one.
21 R. Bubner, "Die ? Kunstreligion? als politisches Projekt der moderne" in A. Arndt e. a. (hg) Hegel Jahrbuch 2003, Glauben und Wissen. Erster Teil, p. 310: "Die generalformel einer entwicklung der Substanz zum Subjekt erzeugt in der spezifischen Anwendung auf das Religionskapitel, das wir diskutierten, die eigentu? mlichkeit, dass in der griechischen leb- ensform das Substantielle eingeu? bter, weitergereichter und durch tradition besta? tigter Sittlichkeit bereits durch a? sthetische transformation vom Ansichsein zum fu? rsichsein emporgehoben ist. " ("the general formula of the substance's development into Subject produces, as we discussed, in its specific use in the Religion Chapter the characteristic that in the greek form of life the substantial of the practiced, passed and by tradition affirmed ethical life is already sublated from being-in-itself into being-for-itself by aesthetic trans- formation. ")
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as an absolute being in the abstract work of art. the development of the abstract work of art results in the living work of art in which the represen- tation of the pure self is immediately united with its reality: in the athlete of the olympic games, the statue of god has become a living god.
in the athlete, however, the pure self remains embedded in natural relations. it is only at the level of the spiritual work of art that the self can be expressed as a spiritual one, i. e. , as a self that transcends the natural relations. in the Epic, Tragedy, and Comedy, the pure self is successively represented as the abstract self of fate, the self-conscious self of Zeus, who is the only one supreme power, and the pure self of the real indi- vidual that understands itself as the fate of the world.
Hegel's PHilosoPHy of Judaism Timo slootweg
1. introduction1
Hegel had a lifelong interest in Judaism. He wrote and lectured on the subject repeatedly and on many occasions. The early 'theological writings' (as they are called not quite correctly) are undeniably very critical about the Jewish faith. in the 1827 lectures, some 30 years later, the critique of Judaism is apparently almost muted. as Hodgson writes: "they carry further the favourable reassessment of Judaism begun in 1824. gone are all earlier references to 'the fear of the lord' that is 'the beginning of all wisdom' and to the 'execrations' of leviticus [. . . ]". 2 Careful analysis of the Jewish idea of god takes the place of the earlier critique, as well as a re-evaluation of the great contribution of israel to the history of religion: the spiritually subjective unity of god. Hodgson: "it [the subjective unity named 'god'] is in fact the highest philosophical concept; as such, god subsists without sensible shape, only for thought. "
in contrast to this somewhat apologetic reading of Hegel, i would like to insist here on not overestimating the differences in the development of Hegel's interpretations of the subject. Hodgson is certainly right that Hegel in his 1827 lectures mentions briefly 'certain limitations', only at the end of his overall quite 'sympathetic phenomenology of the Jewish repre- sentation of god'. However, as we shall see, the limitations that he notices in 1827 are broadly the same as the limitations he mentions and describes more extensively and critically in his early theological work. What then is it that indeed makes Hegel's later treatment of Judaism sound somewhat more sympathetic?
my explanation is quite simple and straightforward: it is mainly the dialectical structure of the lectures (which purpose is not to criticize but
1 i want to thank Rico sneller for his valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.
2 P. C. Hodgson, ? editorial introduction? in: g. W. f. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. The Lectures of 1827, one Volume edition, ed. P. C. Hodgson, oxford: oxford uP 2006, p. 55.
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strictly to develop logically the concept of religion) that indeed makes all the difference for the evaluation, not just of the determinate 'Religion of sublimity' (Judaism), but also for the other religious forms that precede the Consummate Religion of Christianity. in other words: it is primarily the progressively systematic and dialectical perspective of the mature Hegel that accounts for his notably sympathetic evaluation, in contrast to the relatively non dialectical, 'typological' and critical reflections of his early work on Judaism. it is in comparison to other determinate religions (especially the greek Religion, the Religion of Beauty), and in the context of the logical development Hegel perceives, that the Religion of sublimity is shown to be a necessary and rational stage and an indispensable pro- gression towards Christianity in which (eventually) the concept of religion becomes objective to itself.
in the following, i will demonstrate this reading by referring to other, later texts (taken from the Phenomenology en the Philosophy of Right) in which Judaism or one of its transformations (in Kant for instance, and in Pietism that share in the Jewish fate of Christianity) is at stake.
The impor- tance of this simple explanation for the present elaboration of Hegel's view on Judaism is that it makes us aware of (first) the relatively strong continuity in his writings on the subject, and (second) of the unmitigated relevancy of the extensive and very explicit earlier analyses. in fact, they might show us, not just the 'limitations' of Jewish religion in respect to the Hegelian perspective, but also some of the limitations of Hegel's own Philosophy of Religion, and (finally) the inherent danger involved in the Geist of his idealism.
This is why i would like to start here by referring to the brilliant essay 'der geist des Christentums und sein schicksal' (1799) that Hegel wrote when he was only twenty-nine years old. according to Wilhelm dilthey,3 the essay is one of the finest texts Hegel ever wrote in his entire life. Jacques derrida has called this essay, quite rightly, la matrice conceptuelle, 'the conceptual womb',4 of Hegel's mature system. Hegel's later dialectic schema is an abstraction of his contemplation of the nature of love as the spirit of Christianity, which is why it can serve as a excellent introduction to his later thoughts.
3 Wilhelm dilthey, Die Jugendgeschichte Hegels, gs Bd. iV, stuttgart/go? ttingen: Van den Hoeck & Ruprecht 1974, p. 68.
4 J. derrida, Glas. Que reste-t-il du savoir absolu? , Vol. i, Paris: deno? el / gonthier 1974, p. 78. J. derrida, Glas, english Transl. J. P. leavy and R. Rand, lincoln/london: university of Nebraska Press 1986, p. 55a.
? hegel's philosophy of judaism 127 2. The spirit of Judaism
Hegel's early work is essentially targeted at an evaluation of religion, the spirit of Judaism and Christianity, with respect to their disposition to produce unity and culture. like many of his friends at the Tu? binger Stift (schelling and Ho? lderlin) Hegel was very much infatuated by the greek civilization in which the humane and national religion of Beauty played an important role in the realization and unification of an integral and cohesive ethical life. But at the same time, notwithstanding this sincere admiration, he was already very much aware of the limitations of Helle- nism as a relevant example for his own time. already Plato had struggled in vain to safeguard the beautiful substantial unity of greek culture from the dangers of relativism (exemplified by the sophists). His solution, based on a philosophy of nature and theoria, eventually did not account for the emerging truth of subjectivity that eventually would have to destroy the naive happiness of the greek. This subjectivity and subjective freedom would necessarily have to develop further and further in history, in the context of Biblical Religion, through Reformation and enlightenment, up until the time of Kant and of Hegel himself.
it is against the pantheistic background of his nostalgic Hellenism of which he is already firmly convinced that, at least in its original form, it cannot and should not even return, that Hegel writes about the spirit of Christianity as it is born out of the theistic spirit of Judaism. Judaism (and Kantianism, because of its spiritual affinity to Judaism) is interpreted as representing a separation of god and nature; it represents a painful separation that is necessary with respect to the spiritual development of mankind. Christianity in turn, is interpreted as the healing introduc- tion of some remaining, viable aspects of the spirit of Hellenism (and its folk religion) into the estranged Biblical religion of the Jews. in short: the teachings of Christ are a synthesis of transcendent Jewish and immanent or this-worldly greek elements. "it is Hegel's thesis that Jesus teaches pan- theism of love which reconciles greek pantheism with Judaic and Kantian theism. "5
it is quite telling that Hegel develops his interpretation of love as the spirit of Christianity in flagrant contradiction to 'the loveless spirit of Judaism'. according to Hegel, Christianity arose out of the nothingness
5 Richard Kroner, 'Hegel's Philosophical development' in: g. W. f. Hegel, Early Theo- logical Writings, Knox and Kroner (eds. ), Philadelphia: university of Pennsylvania Press 1971, p. 10.
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and emptiness of the Jewish faith. although (indeed): "the fear of the lord is the beginning of all wisdom", and although it was as such a necessary stage in the development of the spirit (the spirit of unity and 'life'), the Jewish faith is the 'nullity' and the deserted barrenness that preceded the birth of Christianity; which is why Jesus, according to Hegel, had to start completely from scratch. according to Hegel, the Jews brought to mankind nothing but the ugly law and a senseless obedience without joy. Beauty, truth and goodness came from Christ only. These are, in essence, the same limitations that Hegel mentions some thirty years later, in his 1827 lectures on the philosophy of religion, although his formulations there sound somewhat more sympathetic. let us therefore follow care- fully his analyses of Judaism as he describes them in his extensive and thorough analysis of 1799.
in Jewish religion, spirit develops in extreme determination against nature and against the immediate unity with nature. it is only in rela- tion to this external and merely profane nature that a truthful reconcilia- tion can eventually be realized. as the result of this disenchantment (the Entgo? tterung of nature), people can be seen as individuals, not as divine incarnations. suns can be seen as suns, mountains as mountains; not as things with a soul and with a will of their own. in the earlier religious forms, the spiritual was still very much restricted by the natural. Neverthe- less, a terrible disaster must have ended this paradisiacal naivete? . accord- ing to Hegel, the faith of the old Testament was born from the experience of a terrible flood. This flood must have breached the original and secure mode of living in harmony with nature. The victims and witnesses (Noah) must have interpreted this flood as a cruel instrument of a strange god who used nature to punish mankind for its disobedience to him. Nature is merely an 'instrument' to this god. The god of the Jews does not 'partici- pate' in his creation, and nature has no intrinsic meaning to him. god is an absolute subject, not an object. This divine indifference towards being is mirrored in the way his people experience nature, their own personal nature as well as their neighbours' nature, as signifying absolutely noth- ing. and this already explains the characteristic urge of the Jewish people to independence, exclusiveness and disengagement.
The first act through which abraham became the progenitor of the nation was through a brutal act of disseverance (Trennung) that snapped the bonds of communal life and love. 6 indeed, god commanded him to
6 g. W. f. Hegel, 'The spirit of Christianity' in: Early Theological Writings, T. m. Knox/ R. Kroner, Philadelphia: university of Pennsylvania Press 1971, p. 185. The original text
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leave his land and his natural family (cf. gen. 12; 1). later on, this god demanded further proof of abraham's 'slavish' faith and obedience when he asked him to sacrifice his son. for this god abraham's natural, fatherly love for his son does not mean a thing. according to Hegel, the Jewish need of independence explains their contemporary wretchedness, which is the direct consequence of their stubborn rejection of the spirit of truth, beauty and reconciliation. Hegel compares the fate of the Jewish people with the fate of macbeth who divorced himself from nature by clinging to these strange and unnatural voices. it is because they brought their sufferings upon themselves, that Jewish history is not in the least com- parable to a greek tragedy. The Jews share the fate of macbeth who, in the service of alien 'beings' trampled and slaughtered others, as well as (finally) himself. 7
much of what Hegel says about the fate of Jewish faith comes down to the restrictions of the mosaic law in comparison and in contradis- tinction with the 'free', moral teaching of Christ in his sermon on the mount. 8 according to Hegel, the pure divine law is not our salvation but our prison. The rule of law represents a state particular to fallen man. The law is in fact the product of the destruction of the original, friendly unity of life. Through this destruction, life is transformed into an enemy that presents itself only in the form of a divine command. moreover, although this breach with nature is necessary, if we are not able to transcend this lifeless law, if we are not able to surrender our abstract juridical rights through love, grace and mercy, spiritual life is cursed and lost forever.
Through the promulgation of the divine law, justice is reduced to a formalistic righteousness in front of the law, that is, to simply doing what the law says must be done. in addition, although one can indeed try to be righteous in this way, one cannot possibly expect to be able to reconcile oneself with the law as law, with this strange, purely subjective god. in penal law for instance, the administration of punishment does not lead to an internal atonement and it cannot really mend the gap between the law and its subject; that is: between the universal and the individual. Pun- ishment only installs a feeling of impotence in the face of a lord with whom one has nothing in common and with whom one cannot possibly reconcile oneself. on the other hand, at the moment that the trespasser
in german: g. W. f. Hegel, 'der geist des Christentums' in Werke 1, frankfurt am main: suhrkamp 1986, p. 277.
7 Hegel, 'The spirit of Christianity', p. 205/297.
8 see for Hegel's interpretation of (what he sees as) the purely moral teachings of Christ: idem, pp. 205/297 ff.
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comes to understand that he has not simply broken the law (this alien being), but that he has in fact thereby disrupted his own (divine) life and integrity, this feeling will become a longing for what has been lost, and remorse and reconciliation with life can be set to work. only then the trespass reveals the totality and unity that it has injured, and shows what the trespasser himself is lacking now.
The Jewish law is universal, and only as such is it 'real'. it is nothing more than a mere duty (a Sollen) backed by fear and threat, which means that it is the downright contradiction of being (Sein). Christian love on the other hand is the fulfilment of the law. Without this love, law is just an unnatural and artificial command that comes from an external force with which one cannot reconcile oneself. Through love, law and duty (Pflicht) are potentially reconciled with our natural inclinations (Neigun- gen). Through this fulfilment, the abstract law, the law as law is in fact annihilated and made superfluous. The love of Christ liberates mankind from a 'jealous' and ruthless master who 'presents' himself only through the 'positivity' of his abstract-universal commandments. Through the rev- elation in the coming of Christ man is liberated from a purely transcen- dent god, a hidden god who keeps everything to himself and so only enslaves his people. Charity, the neighbourly love between people (friends and foes indiscriminately) is the true embodiment of the eternal love of god on a temporary scale, and it is in this incorporation that we can find the Kingdom of god.
it is not this strange and violent force that moves the individual towards eternity. instead, it is its own nature and destination. Through the love of Christ, at last one can learn to do good without being coerced; to conform freely and internally motivated, that is: instinctively and emphatically--to the law. Thus Christian love promises to restore man's dismembered life to (what looks like) its original (paradisiacal) integrity.
Because of their iconoclasm and their negative theology, the 'Jews' who stand witness to his message must (for ever) remain blind for its symbolic, eternal content. To the 'typical Jew' the grave is nothing but an empty grave and the message thereof cannot penetrate his hard heart and soul. The Jew turns everything to stone, petrifying and materializing spirit. To dry Jewish rationalism an individual is nothing more than just an individual, equal in value with every other individual. even family life is but dutiful fidelity. Judaism (and Kantianism) cannot understand the doctrine of incarnation. for the Jew the Word cannot become flesh and consequently, Jesus cannot have been the son of god, nor can anyone else ever be. according to Hegel, a Jew is not able to value empathy for his
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fellow man as a finite embodiment of the infinite. The spirit of the love of Christ cannot possibly be at home in the dungeon of the Jewish soul ('in dem Kerker einer Judenseele'),9 nor can it be at home in any 'subjective' philosophy that breathes an equally violent, Jewish atmosphere.
3. Kant
according to Hegel, Jesus delivered mankind from the positivity of the Jewish law by interpreting the relationship with god on the basis of the purity of the heart, the human will and its natural inclination to do the good. The universality of the law makes it strange and objective. it is a conceptual abstraction of the full life, which is where proper love resides. love refers to the unity of life in which we can recognize and affirm our duties as inner desires.
after the appearance of Christ (god's loving sacrifice) it is evil simply to continue to labour under the law. However, in the protestant philoso- phy of Kant especially, the ugliness of Jewish religion returns in a slightly different form. Kants abstract morality is a version of Judaism that pro- hibits the advent of ethical life. for Hegel Christian love cannot be com- manded; it is simply not in accordance with reason to think of a command to love one's neighbour as one loves oneself. To Hegel, this means that what sounds like a command is in reality not a proper command at all; it is a command only in respect to its grammatical form. 10 according to Hegel, already Kant must have seen the paradox within the command of neighbourly love. moreover, like Hegel Kant also sought a way to solve this problem. Nevertheless, the solution he found, his interpretation of the law as an aspect of religion within the bounds of reason, suffers from the same defect as the mosaic law. True love is freedom, and freedom is love. However, there is no truth in the commandments of the oT:
9 "How were they to recognize divinity in a man, poor things that they were, possessing only a consciousness of their misery, of the depth of their servitude, of their opposition to the divine, of an impassible gulf between the being of god and the being of men? spirit alone recognizes spirit. They saw in Jesus only the man, the Nazarene, the carpenter's son whose brothers and kinfolk lived among them; so much he was, and more he could not be, for he was only one like themselves, and they felt themselves to be nothing. The Jewish multitude was bound to wreck his attempt to give them the consciousness of something divine, for faith in something divine, something great, cannot make its home in a dunghill. The lion has no room in a nest, the infinite spirit none in the prison of a Jewish soul, the whole of life none in a withered leaf. " idem, p. 265/381.
10 idem, p. 212/324.
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Truth is something free, which we neither master nor are mastered by; hence the existence of god appears to the Jews not as a truth but as a com- mand. on god the Jews are dependent throughout, and that on which a man depends cannot have the form of a truth. Truth is beauty intellectu- ally represented; the negative character of truth is freedom. But how could they have an inkling of beauty who saw in everything only matter? How could they exercise reason and freedom who were only either mastered or masters? 11
To elaborate on the extensive sphere of influence of the Jewish spiritual- ity, Hegel refers to the 'Religion within the bounds of reason alone' (iV, 2, ? 3) where Kant says that there may be big differences between the sha- man and the european prelates, between the moguls and the Puritans, but that they all share the same principle of belief. They all obey to exter- nal commandments instead of the laws of their own reason, which is in fact what the Bible, with all its symbolism, asks from us. indeed, in the interpretation of Kant that brings love within the bounds of reason, the message of the commandment becomes very clear. We should obey to the categorical imperative as the ultimate commandment of reason: "act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. " love is a duty to which we obey in the freedom that wells up from the autonomy of our own will. moreover, i am not obliged to obey to a commandment of which i cannot recognize and affirm the practical rationality.
Nevertheless, for Hegel, Kant's internalization (Verinnerlichung) of the law does not take away its intrinsically 'Jewish', abstract and repressive character:
By this line of argument, however, positivity is only partially removed; and between the shaman of the Tungus, the european prelate who rules church and state, the Voguls, and the Puritans, on the one hand, and the man who listens to his own command of duty, on the other, the difference is not that the former make themselves slaves, while the latter is free, but that the former have their lord outside themselves, while the latter carries his lord in himself, yet at the same time is his own slave. for the particular-- impulses, inclinations, pathological love, sensuous experience, or whatever else it is called--the universal is necessarily and always something alien and objective. There remains a residuum of indestructible positivity which finally shocks us because the content which the universal command of duty acquires, a specific duty, contains the contradiction of being restricted and
11 idem, p. 196/288.
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universal at the same time and makes the most stubborn claims for its one- sidedness, i. e. , on the strength of possessing universality of form. Woe to the human relations which are not unquestionably found in the concept of duty; for this concept [. . . ] excludes or dominates all other relations. 12
in Kantian ethics, man is free and autonomous in the sense that he is liberated from the transcendent law of god; he is free to obey to the tran- scendental rules of his own autonomous reasoning. Kant's 'solution' is intrinsically contradictory, because in his theory the duty still refers to an opposition, while the will is thought to remove it. Kant manages only to distance himself from the heteronomy of a transcendent religion outside of the bounds of reason alone. instead of being enslaved to an external master, we are now enslaved to a master within. While love and truth in fact implicate the reconciliation of duty and inclination.
'love god above everything and thy neighbour as thyself ' was quite wrongly regarded by Kant as a 'command requiring respect for the law which com- mands love. ' and it is on this confusion of the utterly accidental kind of phraseology expressive of life with the moral imperative [. . . ] that there rests Kant's profound reduction of what he calls a command [. . . ] to his moral imperative. 13
The law as law destroys life. The Jew is dutifully subjected to the law; that is why he does not, and cannot love. love reconciles a man to his neighbour, and to himself. Jesus' command to love one's neighbour as one self, has a completely different meaning than the law of the Jews, and it is also not in the least in line with the Kantian imperative. Jesus' sermon on the mount considering the fulfilment of the law is in fact targeted at the negation of the law as law. The divine command compels us to a love that makes the law redundant; it appeals to an organic and natural affection towards the other.
This spirit of Jesus, a spirit raised above morality, is visible, directly attack- ing the laws, in the sermon on the mount, which is an attempt, elaborated in numerous examples, to strip the laws of legality, of their legal form. The sermon does not teach reverence for the laws; on the contrary, it exhibits that which fulfils the law but annuls it as law and so is something higher than obedience to law and makes law superfluous.
