Jacob Taubes:

““Apocalypse From Below””

Joshua Robert Gold

But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both
they that have wives be as though they had none; And they that
weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they
rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; And
they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this
world passeth away.
1 Corinthians 7:29––31

To strive for such a passing away——even the passing away of those

stages of man that are nature——is the task of world politics, whose
method must be called nihilism.
Walter Benjamin, ““Political-Theological Fragment””

I have no spiritual investment in the world as it is.

Jacob Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul

Philosopher, rabbi, religious historian, Gnostic: who was Jacob Taubes

and what is at stake in his works? To begin answering this question, it is
useful to consider his writings in conjunction with those of Carl Schmitt,
with whom he shared an interest in the theological background of modern
politics. Although Taubes made the acquaintance of such thinkers as Ger-
shom Scholem, T. W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Jacques Derrida, this
complex history with Schmitt has been the best known and most notori-
ous of his relationships. Though never blind to the legal theorist’’s
political past, Taubes acknowledged his intellectual debt to Schmitt in

140
 JACOB TAUBES: ““APOCALYPSE FROM BELOW”” 141

several statements that he made towards the end of his life.1 Laying his
cards out on the table in a lecture given in 1985, he remarked: ““Carl
Schmitt spoke to me as an apocalypticist [Apocalyptiker] of counter-revo-
lution. As an apocalypticist I knew and know myself related to him. The
themes [pertaining to the relationship between theology and politics] are
common to us, even if we draw contrary conclusions.””2 In the same talk
he added, ““Carl Schmitt thinks apocalyptically, but top-down, from the
powers that be [von den Gewalten]; I think from below [von unten her].
But what is common to both of us is the experience of time and history as
a respite, as reprieve [als Frist, als Galgenfrist]. That too is originally a
Christian experience of history.””3 Slyly moving between differentiation
and identification, this last comment illustrates how Taubes, like Schmitt,
is a theorist of borders——though one concerned with complicating rather
than upholding them.4
Yet how is one to understand the expression ““apocalypse from
below””? A part of the answer is to be found in Jan Assmann’’s observa-
tion that political theology can investigate the relationship of theology
to hierarchy and order imposed from above; or it can consider the role
of religion in constituting the identity of a community.5 According to
this schema, something like Schmitt’’s preoccupation with the doctrine
of the katechon——described in The Nomos of the Earth as ““the restrainer

1. For autobiographical accounts of Taubes’’ relationship to Schmitt, see Taubes, The

Political Theology of Paul, ed. Aleida and Jan Assmann, trans. Dana Hollander (Stanford,
CA: Stanford UP, 2005), pp. 97––105. See also Taubes, ““Carl Schmitt: ein Apokalyptiker
der Gegenrevolution,”” in Ad Carl Schmitt: Gegenstrebige Fügung (Berlin: Merve Verlag,
1987), pp. 7––30. These volumes also include letters by Taubes to Armin Mohler as well as
to Schmitt himself and provide invaluable documentation pertaining to the history of this
encounter.
2. Taubes, ““Carl Schmitt,”” p. 16. All translations in the following pages are mine,
with the exception of The Political Theology of Paul and those articles that Taubes first
published in English. I would also like to thank Nils Schott of the Humanities Center at
Johns Hopkins University for his helpful comments.
3. Ibid., p. 22.
4. As Aleida and Jan Assmann and Wolf-Daniel Hartwich note of Taubes: ““In his
thinking the limit does not have the function of keeping two areas apart, but rather the
reverse: it plays them out against each other or blends them into one another.”” Taubes,
Vom Kult zur Kultur: Bausteine zu einer Kritik der historischen Vernunft, ed. Aleida und
Jan Assmann, Wolf-Daniel Hartwich, and Winfried Menninghaus (München: Wilhelm
Fink Verlag, 1996), p. 8 (my translation).
5. Jan Assmann, ““Einführung: ‘‘Politische Theologie’’: Redefinition eines Begriffs,””
in Herrschaft und Heil: Politische Theologie in Altägypten, Israel und Europa (Frankfurt
a. M.: Fischer Verlag, 2002), pp. 15––31. See also Wolf-Daniel Hartwich, Aleida Assmann,
and Jan Assmann, ““Afterword,”” in Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, pp. 138––42.
142 JOSHUA ROBERT GOLD

[who] holds back the end of the world””——would fall into the first
category.6 Exemplifying the alternate interpretation of political theology
would be Taubes’’ reading of Romans 9––11, which stresses Paul’’s identifi-
cation with Moses as the founder of a new nation and the representative of
a new law.7 From this perspective, ““apocalypse from below”” would be
consistent with Assmann’’s call to address the ““horizontal”” axis of polit-
ical theology along with its ““vertical”” one.
However, Assmann’’s remark, though perspicacious, brings into relief
only one aspect of Taubes’’ conception of apocalypse, albeit a crucial one.
Taking his philosophical relationship to Schmitt, Benjamin, and others as
points of reference, the following pages argue that Taubes transforms the
theological concept of apocalypse into a critical category, and that he does
so by thinking through the political and ethical implications of the claim
that there is an end to time. According to Taubes, this claim represents a
breakthrough in human thought by emancipating consciousness from its
subservience to the endless repetition of natural cycles. However, while
apocalypse takes humanity out of the realm of necessity and nature and
places it within the sphere of freedom and history, the apocalyptic quest
for total liberation courts potential cataclysm. Consequently, Taubes
argues that apocalypse must guard against its own destructive impulses
without relinquishing its antagonism towards profane authority. Therein
consists the reason for his concern with the passive aspect of the apoca-
lyptic comportment; therein too consists the reason for his account of
Gnosticism as a turning inward of apocalypse. Nonetheless, as his inter-
pretation of Paul shows, Taubes regards apocalyptic thought as a gesture
of protest against the law whose nihilism precludes any accommodation
to the prevailing political establishment. Thus, far from uncritically
embracing apocalypse as a gesture of revolt, Taubes’’ writings represent a
sustained effort to distinguish the oppositional elements contained in this
concept from its potentially regressive tendencies.

6. Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, trans. G. L. Ulmen (New York: Telos Press,
2003), pp. 59––60. Jürgen Ebach has elsewhere argued that there is a certain affinity
between the katechon and apocalypse. See ““Zeit als Frist: Zur Lektüre der Apocalypse-
Abschnitte in der Abendländische Eschatologie,”” in Abendländische Eschatologie: Ad
Jacob Taubes, ed. Richard Faber, Eveline Goodman-Thau, and Thomas Macho
(Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2001), pp. 85––86 (hereafter cited as Ad Jacob
Taubes).
7. See for example Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, pp. 39––40. For Assmann’’s
own remarks on the relevance of Taubes’’ exegesis of Romans to the ““horizontal”” axis of
political theology, see Herrschaft und Heil, p. 286n42.
 JACOB TAUBES: ““APOCALYPSE FROM BELOW”” 143

Taubes regards apocalypse as a turning point for human conscious-

ness because it coincides with the coming into being of history. ““The
question of the essence [Wesen] of history is being posed,”” begins his
study Abendländische Eschatologie (Occidental Eschatology). ““The ques-
tion of the essence of history does not concern individual historical
events——battles, victories, defeats, contracts, political occurrences, eco-
nomic integration, artistic and religious formations, the results of
scientific knowledge. This question turns away from all of this and looks
out on the only thing that matters: how is history possible in the first
place, what is the sufficient foundation [der zureichende Grund] on which
history as possibility rests?”” In summary he writes, ““occurrences
[Geschehnisse] must be disregarded and it must be asked: what makes a
happening into history [was macht ein Geschehen zur Geschichte]? What
is history itself?””8 As this passage indicates, history for Taubes does not
merely accumulate facts about the past; rather, it is an arena, a site of
agon, ““the place upon which the substance of time and the substance of
eternity, death and life cross paths.””9 Apocalypse is significant in the con-
text of this struggle because it testifies to the triumph of eternity and the
overcoming of time: it promises the passing away of transience.
According to Taubes, the notion that time is limited is fundamental to
history, for the alternative to apocalyptic temporality is the endless repeti-
tion that characterizes the realm of nature. Human beings, in thrall to
nature, remain unaware of their capacity to intervene in the course of
events; instead, they are entirely subservient to the predictable patterns of
natural cycles that confront them as alien, uncontrollable forces. It is for
this reason that Taubes, like Walter Benjamin, associates nature with the
mythic power of fate.10 For consciousness that remains entangled in the
web of myth, writes Taubes, ““everything occurs with that strange imper-
sonality and indifference of the dream.””11 Consciousness finds itself
trapped in ““the circle of life,”” ““the eternal recurrence of the same”” in

8. Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie (München: Matthes & Seitz Verlag, 1991), p. 3.

9. Ibid., p. 4.
10. For one of Benjamin’’s best-known and most forceful accounts of the mythic char-
acter of nature, see Goethe’’s Elective Affinities, trans. Stanley Corngold, in Benjamin,
Selected Writings, Volume 1: 1913––1926, ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings
(Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard UP, 1996), pp. 297––360. For a discussion of
Taubes’’ relationship to Benjamin that focuses on his exegesis of the ““Theological-Political
Fragment,”” see Günter Hartung, ““Jacob Taubes and Walter Benjamin,”” in Ad Jacob
Taubes, pp. 413––29.
11. Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie, p. 58.
144 JOSHUA ROBERT GOLD

which ““the same Whence and Whither coincide,”” thereby forming ““the
center of the mythic world.””12 In contrast to this condition, history puts an
end to humanity’’s subservience to nature, and not simply because it intro-
duces change where there was formerly repetition. More to the point,
Taubes links history to freedom, which ““first raises humanity out of the
circle of nature into the empire of history.””13 History and freedom are
intertwined because change results from the efforts of human beings to
transform their world——in other words, history is the domain of freedom
on account of the inherent negativity of human activity, which alters the
world instead of accepting it as is.14
Yet the revolutionary aspect of apocalypse for Taubes not only has to
do with the way that it breaks the hold of myth over humanity; by positing
an end to time, it also confers significance to the act of decision. Taubes
suggests as much in Abendländische Eschatologie when he writes: ““In the
order of eternity Being is sublated by time [als Zeit aufgehoben]. Endless
infinity characterizes indifferent happening [das gleich-gültige
Geschehen] that does not call for decision. History separates itself from
this indifferent happening by placing one into the decision for truth
[dadurch, daß sie in die Entscheidung um die Wahrheit stellt].””15 There
are therefore two ways in which the apocalyptic structure of history
makes the act of decision unavoidable. First, it confers upon decisions a

12. Ibid., p. 11. In a move that also recalls Benjamin, Taubes argues in later essays that
modernity has witnessed the resurgence of mythic repetition, and he takes Nietzsche’’s
notion of ““the eternal return of the same”” as well as Freud’’s notion of ““the return of the
repressed”” as evidence of the archaic tendencies within modernity. See Taubes, ““Religion
and the Future of Psychoanalysis,”” Psychoanalysis 4, no. 4/5 (1957): 136––42; Taubes,
““Religion und die Zukunft der Psychoanalyse,”” in Vom Kult zur Kultur, pp. 371––78; and
Taubes, ““Zur Konjunktur des Polytheismus,”” in Vom Kult zur Kultur, pp. 340––51. See also
Taubes’’ remarks on Nietzsche in Political Theology of Paul, pp. 76––88. One should hasten
to add that Taubes’’ relationship to both Nietzsche and Freud is far from mere dogmatic
rejection. In fact, Taubes sees in Nietzsche’’s critique of Christianity ““a deeply humane
impulse against the entanglement of guilt and atonement, on which the entire Pauline dialec-
tic——but even already that of the Old Testament——is based. This continually self-perpetuat-
ing cycle of guilt, sacrifice, and atonement needs to be broken in order finally to yield to an
innocence of becoming (this is Nietzsche’’s expression).”” Ibid., pp. 87––88. In addition, while
he views the return of the repressed as a modern manifestation of mythic thinking, Taubes
also argues that psychoanalysis is indebted to Christianity with regard to its emphasis on
guilt, and that Freud ultimately identifies himself with Paul. Ibid., pp. 88––95. For a discus-
sion of Taubes and Nietzsche, see Andreas Urs Sommer, ““Eschatologie oder Ewige
Widerkehr? Friedrich Nietzsche und Jacob Taubes,”” in Ad Jacob Taubes, pp. 341––54.
13. Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie, p. 5.
14. Ibid., pp. 14––15.
15. Ibid., p. 4.
 JACOB TAUBES: ““APOCALYPSE FROM BELOW”” 145

gravity that the realm of nature can afford to do without, owing to the
repetitive character of mythic temporality. For naturalized consciousness,
decision lacks all sense of urgency; for historical consciousness, however,
the inevitability of the end prohibits a casual approach to decision. As
Taubes noted of apocalypse in a 1987 interview, ““Whether one knows it
or not is entirely irrelevant, whether one takes it for fancy or sees it as
dangerous is all uninteresting in view of the intellectual breakthrough and
experience of time as respite [daß Zeit Frist heißt]. This has consequences
for the economy, actually for all life. There is no eternal return, time does
not enable nonchalance [Lässigkeit]; rather, it is distress [Bedrängnis].””16
Thus, the apocalypticist recognizes that all time is borrowed time. More-
over, if history constitutes a process that culminates in the revelation of
truth, then it is impossible to disregard how one stands vis-à-vis this pro-
cess; the end not only prohibits indifference towards decision, it also
prohibits indifference towards the meaning of history itself. This points
towards the implicitly paradoxical character of history for Taubes: it does
not allow the luxury to deliberate whether or not to opt for the truth——the
imperative to decide is forced upon us as historical subjects.
Taubes’’ claim that historical existence entails urgency or duress
points towards another parallel between his thinking and Benjamin’’s.17
The appropriate point of reference here is the latter’’s well-known remark
that ““‘‘the state of emergency’’ in which we live is not the exception but the
rule,”” a comment that resembles Taubes’’ observation in Abendländische
Eschatologie that apocalypse possesses ““knowledge [ein Wissen] of what
is crisis-like in time [ein Wissen um das Krisenhafte der Zeit]”” because
““apocalyptic chronology assumes that time is not a mere sequence

16. ““Jacob Taubes,”” in Denken, das an der Zeit ist, ed. Florian Rötzer (Frankfurt a. M.:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 1987), p. 317.
17. One might also take note of certain affinities between Taubes’’ preoccupation with
apocalypse and Heidegger’’s preoccupation with finitude——though Taubes himself situated
his concerns beyond individual Dasein. As he remarked apropos of Heidegger: ““He
indeed understands time in view of existential and individual experience, whereas I
believe that it is also about collective experiences.”” Nonetheless, Taubes also makes it
clear in the same interview that he regards Heidegger’’s work as something of a break-
through in philosophical thought: ““Already I regard the very title of Heidegger’’s Being
and Time, beyond its content, as a dramatic reversal of the classical philosophical tradi-
tion. In itself the layman or even the average philosopher associates Being with something
that is eternal, with something stable and eminent, yet there’’s nothing more fleeting than
time.”” ““Jacob Taubes,”” p. 317. For Taubes’’ attempt to relate Heidegger to Gnosticism, see
““Vom Adverb ‘‘nichts’’ zum Substantiv ‘‘das Nichts’’”” in Vom Kult zur Kultur, pp. 160––72.
146 JOSHUA ROBERT GOLD

[Nacheinander] but moves towards an end.””18 These two comments

deserve to be read in conjunction with one another, and not simply
because Benjamin’’s description of history as a ““state of emergency”” (Aus-
nahmezustand) bears witness to a common interest in Schmitt. Rather,
what is striking in both instances is Benjamin’’s and Taubes’’s respective
attempts to read history against the grain of historicism, which contents
itself with observing the unfolding of events through what Benjamin des-
ignates as ““homogenous, empty time.””19 In contrast, the understanding of
history as an ongoing crisis——““a pile of debris,”” ““one single catastrophe,
which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage,”” as Benjamin famously put
it——is an act of vigilance that disavows whatever consolation the idea of
progress has to offer.20 In contrast to official assurances that ““the situation
is improving,”” Benjamin and Taubes share the same militant pessimism
that recognizes in history a legacy of cataclysm.
For Taubes the crisis character of history means that the act of deci-
sion assumes an ethical character. To be sure, there is an ethical
dimension to Benjamin’’s claim that ““our task is to bring about a real state
of emergency”” in order to ““improve our position in the struggle against
fascism.””21 However, Taubes never draws upon the vocabulary that gives
““On the Concept of History”” its Marxist inflection (e.g., ““historical mate-
rialism,”” ““class struggle,”” ““proletariat,”” and so on). 22 Instead, his
immediate point of departure is Schmitt’’s observation that parliamentary
debate evades conflict and ““permit[s] the decision to be suspended for-
ever in an everlasting discussion.””23 Thus, shortly before his death,
Taubes noted that ““the problem of time is a moral problem, and deci-
sionism means saying that it’’s not going on indefinitely.”” It is precisely
because time is not inexhaustible that ““the parliamentary process must be
settled,”” and regardless of how much politicians talk, ““they converse in
time, and at some point they must act. And whoever denies that is

18. Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie, p. 33. See also Walter Benjamin, ““On the
Concept of History,”” in Selected Writings, Volume 4: 1938-1940, ed. Howard Eiland and
Michael W. Jennings, trans. Harry Zohn (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard UP,
2003), p. 392.
19. Benjamin, ““On the Concept of History,”” p. 395.
20. Ibid., p. 392.
21. Ibid.
22. This is not to say that Marx is absent from Taubes’’ concerns. See Taubes, Abendlän-
dische Eschatologie, pp. 163––91, as well as the essay ““Kultur und Ideologie,”” in Vom Kult
zur Kultur, pp. 283––304.
23. Schmitt makes this comment in the context of a discussion of the conservatism of
Donoso Cortés. See Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, p. 63.
 JACOB TAUBES: ““APOCALYPSE FROM BELOW”” 147

immoral, namely he does not understand the human situation, which is

finite, and because it is finite, one must separate——that is, one must decide
[scheiden muß, d. h., entscheiden muß].””24 These remarks are striking for
the way that they attempt to reveal the ethical implications of Schmitt’’s
position by transposing it into a discussion on temporality. From this per-
spective, to postpone decision is not simply a political failure arising from
the limitations of parliamentary democracy, but an existential one that
results from a refusal to acknowledge the claims of finitude upon our
identities as agents who must act in the world. In short, Taubes’’ account
of apocalypse involves a notion of responsibility that is based in historical
existence itself: once it is accepted that time is running out, the need to
decide acquires urgency.25 There is no choice but to choose, and any claim
to the contrary is merely an attempt to evade this condition.
At the same time that he argues that apocalypse reveals history as
crisis, Taubes also acknowledges that apocalyptic thought must guard
against its own destructive inclinations. For this reason his emphasis upon
the priority of decision never leads him to treat it as evidence for the supe-
riority of ““the power of real life”” over mere convention, as does Schmitt.26
True, Taubes describes apocalypse as ““revolutionary,”” and not because it
aims ““to replace an existing social order with a better one””; rather, it
strives ““to oppose to the totality [Totalität] of this world a new totality
that comprehensively founds anew in the way that it negates [verneint]——
namely, in terms of the basic foundations [Grundlagen].”” Yet observing
that apocalypse entails ““a form-destroying and a forming power,”” he
warns: ““If the demonic, destructive element is missing, the petrified order,
the prevailing positivity of the world cannot be overcome. But if the ‘‘new
covenant’’ does not shine through, the revolution inevitably sinks into
empty nothingness.””27 Lest this ““empty nothingness”” prevail over this
other, formative principle, the apocalypticist must assume ““a passive atti-
tude towards the happening of history.”” Taubes continues: ““All active
24. Taubes, ““Aus einem Streitgrespräch um Carl Schmitt”” [““From A Polemical Dis-
cussion on Carl Schmitt””], in Ad Carl Schmitt, p. 62.
25. As Maria Terpstra and Theo de Wit write: ““Basically Taubes opposes every form
of abstract normativism——a way of speaking that judges history instead of first seeing and
understanding what happens. Like Schmitt, he mistrusts every ‘‘pure’’ theory, every theory
that denies its connection to historical reality. And to deny historical and therefore finite
human reality is equivalent to overlooking how one must always decide within a particular
condition.”” ““‘‘No spiritual investment in the world as it is’’: Die negative politische Theolo-
gie Jacob Taubes,”” Etappe 13 (1997): 82 (my translation).
26. Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, p. 15.
27. Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie, p. 10.
148 JOSHUA ROBERT GOLD

behavior recedes. The fate of world history is determined from the outset,
and it is senseless to want to guard against it.”” This orientation also char-
acterizes apocalyptic writings, the style of which ““predominantly applies
the passive. In the apocalypses no one ‘‘acts,’’ rather everything ‘‘hap-
pens.’’””28 In short, regardless of how eagerly he awaits the passing away of
this world, the apocalypticist must eschew the temptation to force the
course of events.29 One example of the passive comportment that the
apocalypticist must assume in order to avoid the self-immolating flames
of eschatological intensity is the act of interpretation, which Taubes dis-
cusses in Abendländische Eschatologie. ““All apocalypse tells of the
triumph of eternity,”” he writes in the introduction. ““This telling is an inter-
cepting of the clues of eternity. What is complete is first glimpsed in the
first sign, and what is glimpsed is put into words in order to gesture ahead
of time towards that which is not yet fulfilled.””30 This is a noteworthy pas-
sage, for while it refers to the ““triumph of eternity,”” Taubes also suggests
here that the end of time is only accessible to the apocalypticist through
the mediating process of reading. ““Clues”” (Winke) and ““sign”” (Zeichen)
reveal the need for hermeneutic skill in addition to revolutionary fervor,
and the expression ““to put into words”” (ins Wort zu stellen) indicates that
the ability to communicate interpretations is equally indispensable. Taken
together, this vocabulary shows how the apocalypticist must give himself
over to a twofold process of reading and speaking. Not only does this
gradual movement counteract the demonic side of apocalypse; more cru-
cially, Taubes’’ claim that the apocalypticist gestures towards a turning
point ““ahead of time”” (voraus) ascribes a distinctly proleptic character to
his orientation. This condition of indefinite postponement stems back the
violence of apocalypse by interposing itself between the desire to termi-
nate time and the apocalyptic event itself. In short, this second,
hermeneutic moment must accompany the revolutionary impulse of apoc-
alypse in order to balance the blindness of enthusiasm with the lucidity of
reflection. As Taubes remarks in the conclusion of Abendländische
Eschatologie, this ““deficient”” (dürftig) time between ““the No-Longer of

28. Ibid., p. 33.

29. Consistent with this ideal of apocalyptic passivity, Taubes remarked how ““it is one
of my greatest sorrows that the resistance fighters of the Warsaw ghetto are singled out
while the millions who went to their death like sheep to be slaughtered . . . are viewed with
contempt because that isn’’t heroic. This new heroism that is coming into fashion, I for one
am not receptive to it, but am one of those who want to live and die with this mentality.””
Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, p. 27.
30. Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie, p. 4.
 JACOB TAUBES: ““APOCALYPSE FROM BELOW”” 149

what is past and the Not-Yet of what is coming”” requires ““holding one’’s
self open for the first signs [Zeichen] of the coming day”” and ““interpreting
[deuten] the clues [Winke] of what is coming.””31 Drawing upon the inter-
pretive act in this way, the language of apocalypse provides its own form
of demystification.32
Taubes’’ later works exhibit a similar concern with stemming the
demonic powers of apocalypse, though they focus on the phenomenon of
Gnosticism rather than the act of interpretation. The editors of the
anthology Vom Kult zur Kultur have pointed to Gnosticism as ““the red
thread”” running through Taubes’’ thinking insofar as the Gnostic emphasis
upon the absolute separation between the divine and the profane is consis-
tent with the motif of distinction that is discernible in his works.33 This
observation is true, but one hastens to add that the significance of this
Gnostic theme for Taubes’’ thinking also concerns the way that it implies a
radical devaluation of the world that recalls Nietzsche’’s notion of ““active
nihilism.”” Such a gesture admittedly characterizes the concept of apoca-

31. Ibid., pp. 192––93.

32. It is only appropriate to add here that Taubes inherits this theme as well as this
vocabulary from the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770––1843), whose works name a
similar need to offset eschatological urges with the sobriety of interpretation. Thus, the
term Zeichen plays a considerable role in his poetry: for example, in the eighth stanza of
the elegy ““Brod und Wein”” (““Bread and Wine””), the speaker of the poem notes that the
departed gods have left the sacrament ““as a sign that once again they have been down here
and once more would/Come”” (Ließ zum Zeichen, daß einst er da gewesen und wieder/
Käme). ““Clue”” recalls a famous gnome from the unfinished ode ““Rousseau””: ““clues are/
From time immemorial the language of gods”” (Winke sind/Von Alters her die Sprache der
Götter). The characterization of the present time as ““deficient”” (dürftig) evokes Hölder-
lin’’s famous question from ““Bread and Wine,”” ““to what end are poets in deficient times?””
(wozu Dichter in dürftiger Zeit?). Finally, the reference in the conclusion of Abendlän-
dische Eschatologie to ““the No-Longer of what is past and the Not-Yet of what is coming””
(Nicht-Mehr des Vergangenen, Noch-Nicht des Kommenden) is a direct citation of Heideg-
ger’’s essay ““Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry,”” which describes how Hölderlin was con-
demned to live ““in the No-Longer of departed gods and the Not-Yet of what is coming”” (im
Nichtmehr der entflohenen Götter und im Nochnicht des Kommenden). The foregoing
citations are modified versions of Michael Hamburger’’s translations in Hölderlin, Poems
and Fragments, 4th ed. (London: Anvil Press, 2004). See also Martin Heidegger, Elucida-
tions of Hölderlin’’s Poetry, trans. Keith Hoeller (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2000),
p. 64. Hölderlin’’s poetry names the perils incurred by those humans who, in their rush to
embrace the divine, disregard the necessary separation between the sacred and the pro-
fane. From this perspective, the process of reading serves as a means of counteracting the
potentially destructive consequences of this deluded identification with the gods. For a
different approach to the question of Taubes’’ relationship to Hölderlin, see Thomas
Schröder, ““Eschatologie oder Geschichtsphilosophie: Das Fehlen Friedrich Hölderlin in
den Texten Jacob Taubes,”” in Ad Jacob Taubes, pp. 289––300.
33. Assmann et al., ““Einleitung,”” in Taubes, Vom Kult zur Kultur, p. 8.
150 JOSHUA ROBERT GOLD

lypse in Abendländische Eschatologie, which uses the terms

““apocalyptic”” and ““Gnostic”” almost interchangeably.34 By the time of
Taubes’’ essay ““Noten zum Surrealismus”” (““Notes on Surrealism””), the
term ““Gnosticism”” has come to designate the religious system that holds
God to be ““the antithesis [Gegenprinzip] to the world,”” and which names
the divine according to ““negative principles””: ““unknowable, unnameable,
unspeakable, boundless, nonexistent.”” Such characteristics ““are to be
understood as negation of the world and polemically determine the oppo-
site of the transmundane God to the world.””35 What is crucial about this
characterization is that the radical and irreconcilable opposition between
God and the profane excludes the possibility of realizing the divine in the
here and now. Precisely because Gnosticism forecloses from the outset
any possibility that human activity can influence the end of history,
Taubes considers it insurance against apocalyptic excess.
Repudiating the world, Gnosticism repudiates history as well——
though it does not merely revert back to nature and fate. To be sure,
Taubes regards Gnosticism as a form of mythic expression, but one suited
to a form of consciousness that inhabits a world in which the divine com-
municates itself through revelation instead of manifesting itself
immanently in nature. In short, Gnosticism is the form that myth assumes
in a world that monotheism has disenchated. Another term for this way of
thinking is what Taubes calls allegory, a ““form of translation”” that appro-
priates the content of myth——its imagery, topoi, and motifs——and
transposes them into conceptual language.36 Mythology arising in the
aftermath of monotheism, Gnosticism takes as its focus neither nature (as
was the case in polytheism) nor history (as is the case in monotheism) but
““the interior of man: soul, spirit, pneuma.”” Turning inward, Gnosticism
addresses ““the path of the soul through the multiplicity and confusions of
worlds and eons, the toll stations of the archons that the soul has to endure
in order to succeed to the supra-mundane [überweltlichen], or more
34. Thus, Taubes claims that for apocalyptic thought the world is ““a totality [Totalität]
that marks itself off against the divine,”” ““the counter-divine”” (das Gegengöttliche), while
God is ““the counter-mundane”” (das Gegenweltliche). Consequently, ““To the extent that
God appears in the world, he is new to it. The ‘‘new God’’ is the unknown God, foreign to
the world. God is non-existent [nicht-seiend] in the world.”” See Taubes, Abendländische
Eschatologie, p. 9. Taubes’’ use of the terms ““apocalypse”” and ““Gnosticism”” in Abendlän-
dische Eschatologie has not gone unnoticed: see Ebach, ““Zeit als Frist,”” p. 83 and Carsten
Colpe, ““‘‘Das eschatologische Widerlager der Politik’’: Zu Jacob Taubes’’ Gnosisbild,”” in
Ad Jacob Taubes, pp. 119––29.
35. Taubes, ““Noten zum Surrealismus,”” in Vom Kult zur Kultur, p. 138.
36. Taubes, ““Der dogmatische Mythos der Gnosis,”” in Vom Kult zur Kultur, p. 100.
 JACOB TAUBES: ““APOCALYPSE FROM BELOW”” 151

exactly counter-mundane [gegenweltichen] God——to that unity that lies

before all division and fragmentation in worlds and eons.””37 This
emphasis upon the soul, as well as reliance upon allegory, accounts for the
modern, indeed untimely character of Gnosis.38
Needless to say, this concern with the soul places Gnosticism at odds
with apocalypse. Although Taubes himself summarized Gnosticism as a
response to a crisis in apocalyptic thinking (““when apocalypse fails””), it
would be an oversimplification to suggest that he reduces this phenom-
enon to mere disillusionment with thwarted promises of redemption.39
Rather, he sees in the Gnostic rejection of history and society a powerful
counterweight to the destructive aspects of apocalypse. Here it is instruc-
tive to recall the article ““The Price of Messianism,”” which calls into
question the traditional opposition established between Judaic law and
Christian belief. In a typical move that characterizes his style of reading,
Taubes undermines this static polarity by demonstrating how Christian
critique of the law arose out of a fissure within Judaism itself, between
rabbinic law on the one side and messianic antinomianism on the other.
However, among the noteworthy aspects of this essay is how cautiously
Taubes approaches this second, messianic tendency in his conclusion,
noting that the Messianic idea in Judaism must be ““interiorized”” if it is not
to ““turn the ‘‘landscape of redemption’’ into a blazing apocalypse.”” ““If one
is to enter irrevocably into history, it is imperative to beware of the illu-
sion that redemption (even the beginnings of redemption, athalta di
geula!) happens on the stage of history,”” he continues. ““For every attempt
to bring about redemption on the level of history without a transfiguration
of the Messianic idea leads straight into the abyss.””40 These remarks do
not name Gnosticism as such, but the inwardness that Taubes elsewhere
attributes to Gnostic thinking corresponds to the kind of interiorization

37. Ibid., p. 105.

38. For an example of how Taubes describes the ““modern”” traits of Gnosticism, see his
comparison between Gnosticism and Surrealism in ““Noten zum Surrealismus,”” pp. 138––40.
39. ““Das stahlerne Gehäuse und der Exodus daraus, oder Ein Streit um Marcion, eisnt
und jetzt,”” in Taubes, Vom Kult zur Kultur, p. 181. This formulation is Taubes’’ paraphrase
of Leo Festinger’’s description of apocalypse as the next step ““when prophecy fails.””
40. Taubes, ““The Price of Messianism,”” Journal of Jewish Studies 33, nos.1––2 (Spring––
Autumn 1972): 600; Taubes, ““Der Messianismus und sein Preis,”” in Vom Kult zur Kultur,
p. 49. In a different reading, Johannes Reipen argues that this citation must been seen in
the context of Taubes’’s critique of Schmitt. See Reipen, ““‘‘Gegenstrebige Fügung’’!? Jacob
Taubes ad Carl Schmitt,”” in Ad Jacob Taubes, pp. 509––29.
152 JOSHUA ROBERT GOLD

that that ““The Price of Messianism”” names as a necessary counterpoint to

uninhibited apocalyptic fervor.41
Yet Taubes’’ preoccupation with containing the destructive potential
of apocalypse never prevents him from recognizing in apocalyptic
thought an unwavering refusal to reconcile itself with the dominant polit-
ical and legal order. To the extent that it regards the profane sphere as
ephemeral and finite, apocalypse consigns this world to oblivion——or as
Taubes writes, it ““negates [verneint] the world in its fullness,”” ““brackets
the entire world negatively.””42 Inasmuch as the law is no exception to this
overall devaluation, such nihilism invariably places apocalypse in an
antagonistic relationship to profane powers.43 Describing this apocalyptic
antinomianism in Abendländische Eschatologie, Taubes argues that apoc-
alypse does not simply oppose the law but transvalues it. ““Law and
destiny are the foundations of the cosmos,”” he writes. ““But since antiquity
cosmos has always meant harmonious structure [harmonisches Gefüge].
But because order and law dominate in the cosmos, because fate is the
highest power in the cosmos, for this reason, concludes apocalypse in
monstrous reversal, the cosmos is an abundance of that which is bad.”” 44
According to this account, then, apocalypse undermined the prevailing
Hellenic-Roman values of harmony and order. Unmasking these ideas as

41. This is not to equate Gnosticism with quietism or acquiescence; on the contrary,
Gnosis preserves an anarchistic impulse at the same time that it directs messianic intensity
inward. Addressing a similar theme in his essay on Surrealism, Taubes describes how the
Gnostic, in detaching himself from the law and traditions of this world, arrives at ““a new
idea of freedom, which in terms of its mundane consequences leads to ethical [sittlichen]
anarchism and libertinage. Pneumatic man is a homo novus, for whom the law and wisdom
of the world are not binding.”” Taubes, ““Noten zum Surrealismus,”” p. 139. Thus, proceed-
ing from the assumption that the law confirms the worthlessness of the profane, the Gnos-
tic does not conclude by withdrawing from the world but by challenging the conventions
that govern moral life.
42. Taubes, Abendländsiche Eschatologie, p. 9.
43. Terpstra and de Wit do a noteworthy job of foregrounding this aspect of Taubes’’
works. Designating his position as that of ““negative political theology”” (negative poli-
tische Theologie), they note how his work aims to elaborate ““a theological delegitimation
of political power as a whole”” (eine theologische Deligitimierung sämtlicher politischer
Macht). Further on in their article they argue that ““a positive (or ‘‘right’’) political theol-
ogy”” (eine positive (oder ‘‘rechte’’) politische Theologie) provides ““a spiritual justification
of profane power”” (eine geistliche Rechtfertigung einer weltlichen Macht), while ““a nega-
tive (revolutionary, critical, or ‘‘left’’) political theology”” (eine negative (revolutionäre,
kritische oder ‘‘linke’’) politische Theologie) provides ““a spiritual justification of the under-
mining of profane power”” (eine geistliche Rechtfertigung der Unterminierung weltlicher
Macht). Terpstra and de Wit, ““No spiritual investment,”” pp. 77, 86 (my translation).
44. Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie, p. 9.
 JACOB TAUBES: ““APOCALYPSE FROM BELOW”” 153

further manifestations of a naturalized consciousness that harnesses life to

fate in the name of order, apocalypse revealed the hidden complicity of
law with myth.45
The thinker whom Taubes holds most responsible for this overcoming
of the law is Paul. Already in Abendländische Eschatologie he describes
how Paul’’s teachings break with the Roman order and envision a collec-
tive whose members ““have freed themselves from all natural, organic
attachments——from nature, art, cult, and state——and for whom emptiness
and alienation [Entfremdung] from the world, as well as the separation
[Entzweiung] with secularism, accordingly reached a high degree.””46
Rejecting all legal-political determinations of identity (state, law, etc.),
Paul sees a hitherto unknown spiritual nation coming into existence, one
based upon ““the pneumatic We.”” To cite Taubes once again: ““In contrast
to the old, fully-grown attachments, the Christian community [Gemeinde]
is an inorganic, subsequent, ‘‘pneumatic’’ togetherness [Zusammensein] of
individuals.””47 In short, Taubes interprets Paul’’s works as an attempt to
provide an alternate model of community that does not rely upon worldly
authorities as sources of legitimation.48
The Political Theology of Paul pursues this line of thought and elabo-
rates Paul’’s critique of the law by reading Romans 9––11 in the context of
the Jewish messianic tradition. Designating Pauline theology as a
““transvaluation of values,”” Taubes proclaims Paul to be an ““illiberal””
thinker opposed to the culture of consensus upheld by the Roman nomos.
As this last remark suggests, the relevant touchstone for this interpretation
is not only Nietzsche but Schmitt, since Paul rejects the imperial law as a

45. It is worth pointing out here that the hostility of apocalypse towards law illustrates
the way in which Taubes understands the difference between theology and philosophy on
the one side and jurisprudence on the other. For the jurist, unlike the theologian or the phi-
losopher, seeks ““to legitimate the world as it is””——a task that is ““part and parcel of the
whole education, the whole idea of the office of the jurist.”” Schmitt is no exception to this
tendency: as ““a clerk”” he ““understands his task to be not to establish the law but to inter-
pret it”” in order to insure ““that the party, that the chaos not rise to the top, that the state
remain. No matter what the price.”” See Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, p. 103.
46. Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie, p. 64.
47. Ibid.
48. For a discussion of the influences upon the reading of Paul in Abendländische
Eschatologie and the relationship of this reading to Taubes’’ other works, see Christoph
Schulte, ““PAULUS,”” in Ad Jacob Taubes, pp. 93––104; and Martin Treml, ““Die Figur des
Paulus in Jacob Taubes’’ Religionsphilosophie,”” in Torah-Nomos-Ius: Abendländischer
Antinomismus und der Traum vom herrschaftsfreien Raum, ed. Gesine Palmer, Christiane
Nasse, Renate Haffke, and Dorothee C. v. Tippelskirch (Berlin: Verlag Vorwerk 8, 1999),
pp. 164––84.
154 JOSHUA ROBERT GOLD

““compromise formula”” that guarantees the stability of the empire.49 ““All

of these different religious groups, especially the most difficult one, the
Jews . . . represented a threat to Roman rule,”” writes Taubes. ““But there
was an aura, a general Hellenistic aura, an apotheosis of nomos. One
could sing it to a Gentile tune, this apotheosis——I mean, to a Greek-Helle-
nistic tune, this apotheosis——one could sing it in Roman, and one could
sing it in a Jewish way. Everyone understood law as they wanted to.””50
Taubes’’ account therefore draws an implicit but direct parallel between
imperial law and liberal democracy: both represent forms of governance
that draw upon the language of pluralism in order to sidestep or neutralize
potential political antagonisms.51 In contrast, Paul is ““a fanatic,”” ““a zealot,
a Jewish zealot”” who ““clambers out of the consensus between Greek-
Jewish-Hellenistic mission-theology.””52 He does so, argues Taubes, by
proclaiming the crucified Christ to be the representative of a higher order
than that of the reigning political and religious institutions. Therein con-
sists the transvaluation that Paul’’s thought accomplishes: drawing upon
the ““messianic logic”” of the negative——or as Taubes also calls it, ““the
messianic concentration on the paradoxical””——the image of ““the son of
David hanging on the Cross”” brings about ““a total and monstrous inver-
sion of the values of Roman and Jewish thought.””53 ““It isn’’t nomos but
49. As the expression ““transvaluation of values”” implies, Taubes sees a certain resem-
blance between Paul and Nietzsche. In this regard, his study anticipates more recent work,
in particular Alain Badiou’’s book Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, which
argues that Paul’’s thinking is in certain respects identical to Nietzsche’’s. As Badiou writes:
““Nietzsche is Paul’’s rival far more than his opponent. Both share the same desire to initiate
a new epoch in human history, the same conviction that man can and must be overcome,
the same certainty that we must have done with guilt and law.”” See Saint Paul: The Foun-
dation of Universalism, trans. Ray Brassier (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2003), p. 72.
However, while Taubes does not hesitate to apply the term ““transvaluation”” to Paul’’s
works, his approach differs from Badiou’’s insofar as he sees Paul’’s influence upon
Nietzsche in purely negative terms——that is, Nietzsche understands his philosophy as an
attempt to reverse the ascent of Christianity and restore the dominance of antique values.
50. Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, p. 23.
51. Like Taubes, Badiou views Pauline theology as a challenge to the leveling effects
of pluralism; see the chapter ““Paul: Our Contemporary,”” in Saint Paul, pp. 4––15. Here it is
worth noting Giorgio Agamben’’s interpretation of Romans, which explicitly takes issue
with Badiou’’s description of Paul as a universalist. This is not to say that Agamben simply
falls back upon the language of pluralism; according to his reading, Paul’’s messianism is
radical because it introduces a fissure or ““cut”” into such collective identities as ““Jew”” and
““gentile.”” The result is an alternative model of community as a remainder or remnant. See
Giorgio Agamben, The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans,
trans. Patricia Dailey (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2005), pp. 52––53.
52. Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, p. 24.
53. Ibid., p. 10.
 JACOB TAUBES: ““APOCALYPSE FROM BELOW”” 155

rather the one who was nailed to the cross by nomos who is the imper-
ator!”” exclaims Taubes, describing Paul’’s revolt against the imperial
order. ““This is incredible, and compared to this all the little revolution-
aries are nothing. This transvaluation turns Jewish-Roman-Hellenistic
upper-class theology on its head, the whole mishmash of Hellenism.””54
Another conception of universalism arises under the sign of this murdered
God, ““one that signifies the election of Israel,”” to be sure, but a ““transfig-
ured”” Israel that has rendered more capacious the concept of the chosen
people.55 Instead of modeling itself along the lines of empire and nomos,
this inclusive ““pas Israel”” is open to all who obey but one commandment:
““Love your neighbor as yourself.””56
As Taubes notes, Paul claims that the triumph of Israel over empire
will come through the eschaton rather than by force of arms. This obser-
vation is consistent with Taubes’’ observation in Abendländische
Eschatologie that apocalypse considers the end of history to be ““not in an
indeterminate future, but entirely proximate.””57 Paul shows himself to be
no different in this regard when he assures his brethren that ““Salvation is
nearer to us now than when we became believers.”” As a consequence of
this conviction he never calls for open rebellion, and Taubes summarizes
Paul’’s advise as ““Demonstrate obedience to state authority, pay taxes,
don’’t do anything bad, don’’t get involved with conflicts,”” since ““under
this time pressure, if tomorrow the palaver, the entire swindle were going
to be over——in that case there’’s no point in any revolution!””58 The crucial
point here is that Taubes interprets this apparent acquiescence to
authority as an indication of Paul’’s radical nihilism: far from ascribing
endurance to the law, this call to obedience is indicative of Paul’’s under-
standing of Creation, which Taubes describes as ““decay . . . without
hope,”” a realm that ““groans [and] sighs under the burden of decay and

54. Ibid., p. 24.

55. Ibid., p. 25.
56. Here it is important to note an unexpected twist in Taubes’’ reading. Commenting
on Paul’’s remarks on love in Romans 13, he notes that this text must be interpreted as ““a
highly polemical text, polemical against Jesus,”” for whom the commandment ““love your
neighbor as yourself”” takes second place to ““You shall love your Lord with all your strength
and your soul and your might.”” According to Taubes, Paul, in describing love as ““the fulfill-
ing of the law,”” succeeds in condensing two commandments into one; consequently, ““it is the
love not of the Lord, but of the neighbor that is the focus here. No dual commandment, but
rather one commandment.”” See Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, pp. 52––53.
57. Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie, p. 10.
58. Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, p. 54.
156 JOSHUA ROBERT GOLD

futility.””59 From this perspective, the law is in decline, for like all profane
phenomena, terrestrial power is destined for oblivion, regardless of how
splendid its appearance.
The law is in decline: this is the secret knowledge promised by apoca-
lyptic thought that worldly authority would prefer to pass over in silence.
For Taubes, the fragility of the law could only come to light through the
passage from nature to history, which reveals the world in its ephemer-
ality. Yet he did not restrict himself entirely to analyzing the political
implications of transience; rather, there are moments when his writings
appear to open themselves up to another, uncanny condition that is best
illustrated by the following passage from Abendländische Eschatologie:
““Paul determines the time between the death of Jesus and the parousia of
Christ as the kairos, which is characterized by the crossing over of the still
natural and the already supernatural states of the world [das Ineinander
des noch natürlichen und des schon übernatürlichen Weltzustandes]. With
the death and resurrection of Jesus the change [Wende] has been met: the
fashion [Wesen] of this world passes away. But the fashion of this world is
the law.””60 Touching upon this moment of transition when one state is
fading away and another is coming into existence, these words ask us to
consider whether there is not a mode of temporality that is unique to the
political. To understand what constitutes such a temporality is among the
most formidable tasks that Taubes has left to posterity.

59. Ibid., 72, 73. Note that Taubes puts forth this description in discussing the influ-
ence of the Pauline understanding of nature on Benjamin’’s ““Theologico-Political Frag-
ment.”” See Taubes, Political Theology of Paul, pp. 70––76.
60. Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie, p. 67. In a similar vein, Agamben discusses
the uncanny quality of messianic time as an intermediary mode of temporality, ““the time
that remains between time and its end.”” Agamben, The Time That Remains, p. 62.