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History as Apocalypse is a reenactment of the history of the Western consciousness from the Homeric and Biblica revolutions through Finnegans Wake. This occurs through a historical, literary, and theological analysis of the Christian epic tradition. While attention is focused primarily upon Dante, Milton, Blake, and Joyce, the Classical and Biblical foundations of the Christian epic are explored with the intention of discovering an organic unity in the evolution of the Western consciousness. Our primary epics are identified as revolutionary breakthroughs, not only as transformations of consciousness but also records of social revolutions. The Christian epic is both a consequence and a primary embodiment of the decisive historical revolutions, revolutions culminating with the ending of our historical evolution.
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History (Theology) , Revolutions--Religious aspects--Christianity, Epic literature--History and criticism.
publication date
:
1985
lcc
:
BR115.H5A428 1985eb
ddc
:
231.7/6
subject
:
History (Theology) , Revolutions--Religious aspects--Christianity, Epic literature--History and criticism.
SUNY Series in Religion Edited by Robert C. Neville
History as Apocalypse
Thomas J. J. Altizer
State University of New York Press Albany
The following publishers have generously given permission to use extended quotations from copyrighted works: from Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce: Copyright 1939 by James Joyce and renewed 1967 by George Joyce and Lucia Joyce. Reprinted be permission of Viking Penguin Inc. From Novitas Mundi: Perception of the History of Being by D. G. Leahy. Copyright 1980 by New York University. Reprinted by permission of New York University Press.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
1985 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, New York 12246
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Altizer, Thomas J. J. History as apocalypse. (SUNY series in religious studies) 1. History (Theology) 2. Revolution (Theology) 3. EPIC literatureHistory and criticism. II. Series. BR115.H5A4281985231.7'684-16289 ISBN 0-88706-013-7 ISBN 0-88706-014-5 (pbk.)
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For John Jackson and Katharine Blake Altizer
Contents
Preface
1
Prologue
7
One. The Birth of Vision
17
Two. Destiny, Deity, and Death
31
Three. Israel and the Birth of Scripture
49
Four. Paul and the Birth of Self-Consciousness
63
Five. Augustine and the Foundation of Western Christendom
79
Six. Dante and the Gothic Revolution
97
Seven. Milton and the English Revolution
137
Eight. Blake and the French Revolution
175
Nine. Joyce and the End of History
209
Index
255
Page 1
Preface
Apocalypse is at the center of attention today, and of world attention, a situation which is unique in history, but which is nevertheless a reenactment of the great fissures or turning points of our Christian and Western history. Christianity begins with apocalypse, with the proclamation and enactment of the advent of a new eon or new world which can only be the end of an old eon and old creation. Even if this original apocalyptic ground was eroded and reversed by the evolution of the Christian Church, it returned again and again at crucial moments in Western history, moments which were commonly experienced by their participants as being revolutionary breakthroughs to new worlds. For revolution and apocalypse have been twins in Western history; each when when it fully appears has been accompanied by the other, and so much so that it is impossible to dissociate apocalyptic and revolutionary thinking and vision. Such vision and thinking have revolved about the ending of an old world and the beginning of a new, and nowhere have they been more fully present than in the Christian epic tradition, a tradition that to this day has not yet been understood as an organic and historical whole. But neither Christian epic nor any other apocalyptic and revolutionary phenomenon can be understood as an organic whole so long as it is approached through a single discipline or mode of understanding. Therefore this study conjoins historical, literary, and theological perspectives in an attempt to draw forth or evoke the totality of epic vision and enactment.
Page 2
Some thirty-five years of work lie behind and beneath these pages, beginning with a master's thesis on nature and grace in the theology of St. Augustine, a premature attempt to attack and resolve the deepest theological division between Protestantism and Catholicism. This was followed by a movement into the then precarious and all too tiny discipline of the History of Religions, where my doctoral work was focused upon Mahayana Buddhist philosophy and classical Greek religion. Such oddities were possible in the innocent days of religious studies, and this odd conjunction did allow me to come to grips with a previously failed attempt to become a Greek scholar. But more importantly it provided an initial arena for exploring a persuasion that I then adopted and have never abandoned: the conviction that Christian theology can be reborn only by way of an immersion in Buddhism. Perhaps no principle offers a deeper way into our lost epic and theological tradition than does the Mahayana Buddhist dialectical identification of Nirvana and Samsara. Simply to translate this principle into Christian terms is to sense its possibilities, for then we apprehend the possibility of the dialectical identification or marriage of Christ and Satan, of sin and grace, of Heaven and Hell. It is not insignificant that the Western mind and imagination has been so powerfully attracted to Buddhism in the twentieth century, and particularly so in the late twentieth century, a truly apocalyptic time.
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1985