Excerpts From:
Chapter 5 - The Prophetic Tradition (*)
for David Erdman
We will not get "Blake and Tradition" right until we see the tradition as the Prophetic Tradition, including Judaism, Christianity and
Islam; and heresies in Judaism, Christianity and
Islam.
To bring
Islam into the picture is a Copernican revolution; our Copernicus (University of Chicago!), still not sufficiently recognized, is Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of
Islam.(1)
It is a Copernican revolution in our notion of world history; not merely an (ecumenical) acquisition of tolerance or charity toward separated brethren in the Abrahamic (monotheistic) tradition; it is to recover the prophetic sense of the unity of world history, discredited by its association with Westernizing triumphalism, the idea of progress, and Hegelian teleology.
It is to recover in the twentieth century, spite of despondence, as Blake did in also dark days, the original prophetic realism and radicalism.
Prophecy is a critical response to the "urban revolution," that irreversible commitment of the human race to the city and civilization which spread outward from the "Nile to Oxus" heartland beginning around 3000 B.C.
Prophecy is the perception of the potentialities, both for "good" and for "evil," inherent in the new social structure.
The urban complex makes a process of world unification in one sense—commercial, technological— inevitable, and makes world unification in another sense—the peaceable Kingdom—ever more problematical.
The whole prophetic tradition is an attempt to give direction to the social structure precipitated by the urban revolution; to resolve its inherent contradictions; to put an end to the injustice, inequality, anomie, the state of war (within the city, between cities, between city and uncivilized) that has been its history from start to finish.(2)
Ecumenical prophetic history made "scientific" in the work of Marshall Hodgson—he is both a Quaker and, in some sense, a Marxist—differs toto caelo from Hegelian triumphalism.
World history is as much a story of failure as of success; including, especially including, the failures of the prophetic tradition. And human failure is not compensated by providential interference or the Cunning of Reason.
There is no providentially preordained pattern, no teleological structure, to the world-historical process;
Weltgeschichte is not
Weltgericht.
And modernization, the triumph of modern technology and capitalism, "the Great Western Transformation," represents no solution but rather, as a result of the destruction of traditional institutions, Islamic and Christian, an apocalyptic crisis.
In effect, with Marshall Hodgson we are moving out from under the schema of Christo-centric world history, stamped on the minds of orthodox Westerners including Hegel, into ampler, and more Islamic, air. The inscrutable will of Allah determines all outcomes:
It does not alter the human obligation to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. But there is no particular divine interference in the course of world history, establishing a pattern of B.C. as distinct from A.D., and giving assurance of salvation or any providentially determined outcome.
There is no world-historical drama of original sin and subsequent redemption. The human race needs Divine instruction and admonition; the human race like sheep is prone to stray and is brought back to the right path by another manifestation of the one true voice of prophecy. There is no progress in prophetic revelation, no New Testament to take the place of (or ''fulfill") the Old.
"The Islamic conception of history is one of a series of cycles of prophecy, each cycle followed by a gradual decay leading to a new cycle or phase.'' (3)
It is no accident that Hegel's meditations on world-spirit, world-history, and world-religion, yield only a caricature of
Islam. (4)
In the prophetic tradition, properly understood,
Islam must be perceived as a legitimate dialectical response to the failure of orthodox Christianity. Protestants should be able to see that the need for a Protestant Reformation was there already in the seventh century C.E., to be perceived by prophetic eyes.
Blakeans should be able to see that there is no way to accept "Again He speaks" in Blake unless we accept that again He speaks in the Koran.
It is time to discard the time-honored prejudice that treats Koranic theology as a confused echo of half-understood Jewish or Christian traditions, selected and polemically distorted to concoct a new-fangled monotheism to supply "backward" Arabs with a "cultural identity." (5)
New light is coming from two directions:
On the one hand the more ecumenical vision of world-history represented by Hodgson; on the other hand a profounder appreciation of Judaeo-Christian heresy, the alternatives eliminated by that triumph of orthodoxy which Hegel regards, as he regards all world-historical triumphs, as the triumph of God.
Victrix causa deis placuit sed victa Catoni.
Taking an ecumenical view, appreciating a little better the symbiotic rivalry between "first worlds" and "third worlds," and that "law of uneven development" which makes yesterday's "backward" tomorrow's challengers, we begin to see Arabia and Mecca in the seventh century C.E. as the dynamic frontier and link between, and refuge from, two superannuated empires, Roman and Sassanian.
We begin to see the Trans-Jordanian cultural matrix in which
Islam was born as a refuge for the preservation of a variety of saving remnants from the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
There were on the one hand Jewish (including Samaritan) and Jewish Christian (Ebionite) refugees from the destruction of Jerusalem and later persecutions; on the other hand "heretical" Christian deviations from counciliar orthodoxy and the Constantinian compromise: Monophysites, Nestorians, Jacobites; and more elusive, perhaps more pervasive, remnants of ''Gnostic" Christianity.
In the Transjordanian alembic these saving remnants of the Judaeo-Christian tradition interacted with bedouin resistance to imperialism to produce
Islam.
And not only the Judaeo-Christian tradition took refuge in the desert from the triumph of Caesaropapism—also another essential element in the subsequent dialogue between
Islam and Western Civilization: Greek philosophy.
"When Justinian, in the year 529, closed the schools of philosophy through anxiety for the Christian doctrine, he did not realize that if he had let them continue, the anti-Christian philosophy would not have been in the least dangerous, because it would have perished of itself, but being compelled to emigrate toward the Orient, it would, centuries afterwards, exercise an influence upon Christian thought more powerful than he had ever feared."(6)
The death of Justinian brings us to the birth of the Prophet (c. 570 C.E.).
In
Islam is fulfilled the prophecy of Matthew 21:42-43:
"The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner; this was from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof."
At this point a necessary and wonderful guide appears, to purify and elevate our understanding of the relation between
Islam and Christianity, and to break through the wall of orthodox prejudice that has blocked our understanding of the middle term, Gnostic Judaeo-Christian heresy, the stone which the builders rejected. Henri Corbin picks up Harnack's proposed definition of
Islam as "a transformation on Arab soil of a Jewish religion that had itself been transformed by Gnostic Judaeo-Christianity.''(7)
A special role was played by that "heresy" which struggled to avoid the catastrophic rupture between Christianity and Judaism, "Jewish Christianity" or "Ebionism." The authoritative expert on Jewish Christianity, H.-J. Schoeps, substantiates Harnack's judgment and draws out the world-historical implications:
The Arabian Christianity which Mohammed found at the beginning of his public activity was not the state religion of Byzantium but a schismatic Christianity characterized by Ebionite and Monophysite views. . . .
Thus we have a paradox of world-historical proportions, viz., the fact that Jewish Christianity indeed disappeared within the Christian church, but was preserved in Islam and thereby extended some of its basic ideas even to our own day.
According to Islamic doctrine, the Ebionite combination of Moses and Jesus found its fulfillment in Mohammed; the two elements, through the agency of Jewish Christianity, were, in Hegelian terms, "taken up" in Islam. (8)
Islam is to be envisaged as dialectical evolution, or evolutionary mutation, in the prophetic tradition, in response to the limitations built into the structure of orthodox Christianity by its historic compromise with Roman imperialism; by its commitment to scriptural canon, creedal orthodoxy, and episcopal hierarchy; and by its consequent scandalous history of schism and persecution (duly noted in the Koran).
To begin to envisage the prophetic tradition in truly world-historical terms, in which we can situate Blake—even as he situated himself—the following hazardous generalizations are offered as preliminary orientation.
Islam picks up and extends the notion, already present in Jewish (Ebionite) Christianity, of the unity of the prophetic spirit:
Christus aeternus, verus propheta ab initio mundi per saeculum currens; the one true prophet, from age to age, from the beginning of the world; Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad.
The later prophet comes to reiterate the Eternal and Everlasting Gospel—the "seim anew,"
Lex mosaica per Jesum prophetam reformata, the mosaic law reformed by Jesus the prophet. The tradition gets de-formed and has to be re-formed.
Thus "true Christianity" is identical with "true Judaism"; H.-J. Schoeps speaks of Ebionite "federal theology," according to which just as Moses was the teacher of the Jews, so Jesus was the teacher of the Gentiles.
Islam represents a return to the original Mosaic theocratic or theopolitical idea.(11)
The kingdom of God is a real kingdom on earth. The dualism between temporal and spiritual regimen is rejected; the concessions to Caesar (or Constantine) are abrogated.
Prophetic revelation has to replace Roman law with its own law:
"The Law, which is the constitution of the Community, cannot be other than the Will of God, revealed through the Prophet."(12)
The prophetic movement then has to be a political revolution: Muhammad is the prophet armed;
Islam is committed by the hegira and the takeover of Medina to the seizure of power.
At the same time the Mosaic theocratic idea is freed from its national (ethnic) limitations and given new and revolutionary content as a program for instituting theocratic world government.
The glorious idealism of Dante's De Monarchia, book I, is pure
Islam:
"Of all things ordained for our happiness, the greatest is universal peace";
"To achieve this state of universal well-being a single world-government is necessary'';
"Since any particular institution needs unity of direction, mankind as a whole must also need it";
"Human government is but a part of that single world-administration which has its unity in God'';
"Man is by nature in God's likeness and therefore should, like God, be one";
"At the root of what it means to be good is being one; thus we can see what sin is: it is to scorn unity and hence to proceed to multiplicity."(13)
But whereas Dante in Book II proceeds to declare that the Roman Empire existed by right, and in Book VI to differentiate papal and imperial power, Muhammad toward the end of his life called on the empires of the world to submit to the rule of God.(14)
Prophet against Empire: but Prophet Armed!
Notes
(*)
Published in
Studies on Romanticism, no. 21 (1982), 367-386. Reprinted by permission of the Trustees of Boston University.
This is a risky attempt to anticipate, for this occasion in honor of David Erdman, the results of a much larger undertaking.
I undertook in 1980 at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and in 1981 at Tufts University, a lecture series on "The Prophetic Tradition: The Challenge of
Islam."
The individual lecture titles were:
(1) Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent;
(2) Islam and Judaism;
(3) Islam and Christianity;
(4) The Book;
(5) The Succession (Sunni and Shiite);
(6) Revolutionary Islam; and
(7) Mystic Islam.
To condense this train of thought and focus it on the reinterpretation of Blake's theology naturally raises more questions than it answers.
(1)
Marshall G. S. Hodgson,
The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, 3 vols. ; Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974 ; Vol. i,
The Classical Age of Islam ; Vol. 2,
The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods ; and Vol. 3,
The Gunpowder Empires and Modern Times.
Cf. Edmund Burke, III, "Islamic History as World History: Marshall Hodgson, 'The Venture of Islam.'"
International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2 (May, 1979), pp. 241-264
(2)
Cf. J. Ellul,
The Meaning of the City (Grand Rapids, 1970); J. Ellul,
The Technological Society (New York, 1964); H. Schneidau,
Sacred Discontent: The Bible and Western Tradition (Baton Rouge, 1976).
(3)
S. H. Nasr,
Ideals and Realities of Islam (Boston, 1972), 33.
(4)
E. L. Fackenheim,
The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought (Bloomington, Ind., 1967), 154n.
(5)
The latest example illustrates in an ominous way the politics of Orientalism:
P. Crone and M. Cook,
Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (New York and Cambridge, 1977)
The Western tradition of urbane condescension has degenerated into aggressive, unscrupulous even, calumny; cf. the review by O. Grabar in
Speculum, Vol. 53, No. 4, Oct., 1978: 795-799.
Islam is barbarism armed with a travesty of Judaism; with a fundamentalist hostility to high civilization, Greco-Roman, Iranian, and the Western synthesis of all that's best.
The learned authors make no reference to Hodgson's work in any of its many forms; it is as if the secret animus in Crone and Cook is to counter Hodgson, to provide an alternative world-historical interpretation of
Islam.
They say that theirs is a book written by infidels for infidels; charity and hope are also lacking. Hodgson prefixes a quotation from John Woolman:
"To consider mankind otherwise than brethren, to think favours are peculiar to one nation and exclude others, plainly supposes a darkness in the understanding."
Hic Rhodus, hic salta.
(6)
J. W. Sweetman,
Islam and Christian Theology (London, 1945), 1:85. Cf. Schoeps,
Jewish Christianity (Philadelphia, 1969), 22-27.
(7)
H. Corbin,
Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi (Princeton, 1969); "Divine Epiphany and Spiritual Birth in Ismailian Gnosis,"
Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, vol. 5,
Man and Transformation, 69-160. The quotation is from "Divine Epiphany," 76.
(8)
Schoeps,
Jewish Christianity, 137, 140.
(11)
In these days when the word theocracy is being used in vulgar polemics to discredit Islamic revolutionaries, it is essential to realize that the entire prophetic tradition, in fact our entire political tradition, is inextricably linked with the idea of theocracy. Cf. B. Spinoza,
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, chapter 17; M. Buber,
Moses; E. Voegelin,
Israel and Revelation.
(12)
Santillana, quoted in H. A. R. Gibb,
Mohammedanism (Oxford, 1962), 99.
(13)
De Monarchia, trans. H. Schneider (New York, 1957), 7, 8, 9, 11, 10, 21 (quotes occur in the order of pages).
(14)
A. Guillaume, trans.,
The Life of Muhammad, A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Oxford, 1955), 653-659. The sceptical Western authorities underestimate the scope of the Prophet's vision. See Gibb,
Mohammedanism, 31.
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